Slaven Bilic will never forget one conversation he had with a young Joao Pedro as he was starting to make an impact in English football.

Bilic had been in charge of Watford for a short time after being given the job in September 2022 but had already seen enough to know the then-21-year-old had huge potential.

“I remember telling him once that he could be the Michael Jordan of the team,” Bilic tells The Athletic. “‘Like Jordan with the Chicago Bulls, this is your team, you have to take more responsibility. It is not enough that you are playing well, you have to make the others play well too’. He embraced that. 

“I told him, ‘You have to think big, it will be a waste otherwise’. I remember we were in Spain during the 2022 World Cup, preparing for the season to restart. We went out for a meal, the whole team. Brazil were playing against Serbia when Richarlison scored a great bicycle kick. I turned to Joao and told him, ‘You have a quality to play for Brazil very soon’. He didn’t say, ‘Oh no, no no’. He was like, ‘Yes, yes, yes, that’s my ambition’. I was surprised in a positive way how assured, how focused he was.”

This is why Joao Pedro leading from the front at Chelsea has not taken Bilic, nor other personnel from his time at his first English club Watford, by surprise.

As the Brazilian prepares for his first FA Cup final at Wembley against Manchester City and attempts to help Chelsea win the trophy for the first time since 2018, it is clear from those who knew him back then that he was always destined to play on the biggest stage.

No one will dispute Joao Pedro looks the finished article.

His form has been one of the few positives for Chelsea in a difficult campaign. With 15 goals, he is the fourth-highest scorer in the Premier League behind Erling Haaland, Igor Thiago and Antoine Semenyo. Unlike those three, none of his strikes have come from the penalty spot.

He has broken the 20-goal barrier for all competitions and did so with one of the best goals of 2025-26, a spectacular overhead kick in a 3-1 defeat to Nottingham Forest this month. If Chelsea are to beat City on Saturday, you suspect he will be one of the key men.

He was named in Brazil’s provisional 55-man World Cup squad this week and, having won eight caps, he is expected to make the final cut.

It has been some rise since he first arrived as a raw teenager in England in January 2020, having agreed to join Watford, who were in the Premier League then, from Brazilian side Fluminense. The deal was put in place when he was still just 16 but, due to transfer regulations, he had to wait until he turned 18 to complete it.

Former Tottenham and Brazil goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes, who was part of a Watford side struggling to stay in the top flight when Joao Pedro joined, played an important role in him adapting to England.

Joao Pedro at Watford in 2022 (Athena Pictures/Getty Images)

“He could not speak any English,” Gomes tells The Athletic. “I found a place for him to live and I used to pick him up at his house to take him to training. I would talk to him on our journeys about football, but also where to buy Brazilian foods and the best Brazilian restaurants. I also helped translate for the coach (Nigel Pearson). I was very close to him, I saw him as a son.

“The only issue he had was he wanted to play from the first day. Sometimes the manager would leave him out of the squad (Pearson played him just four times before the end of the 2019-20 season). That was very hard for him. The club’s idea was to prepare him. He was well-liked, but physically he was light. The club wanted him to build more muscles. English football is very tough physically. But he felt he was ready to play from the first minute.

“I needed to calm him down sometimes. I had to tell him this was different football and the club had to see he was ready.

“The thing about Joao is, he is one of the few players I saw with a winning mentality from the start. Brazilians love to play football but sometimes we struggle with that part. But he was different. Not only did he have the quality — it was different class — but mentality-wise, he was prepared for the new challenge.”

A measure of how much Joao Pedro was already thinking ahead was how he grilled Gomes, who was part of Brazil’s 2010 World Cup squad, on what it was like to represent the national team. This was two years before Bilic spoke to him about it.

Dan Gosling, who is now part of Watford’s first-team coaching staff, joined the club from Bournemouth 12 months after Joao Pedro. He had already seen examples of what the youngster could do.

“When I started training, that is when I saw the best of him,” Gosling says. “Some of the stuff he would do, he was just on a different level to everyone, even at such a young age.

“He has this ability to get away from people and it is not because he is blisteringly quick. It is his game intelligence which sets him apart. He can find space, he knows when to take one touch and move the defender behind him or in front. He will sometimes just stop the ball and a defender will move and he goes the opposite way. That is what you see at Chelsea now, being the No 9 linking play. He is getting in the box, but also the way he drops deep is beautiful.

“He is not fazed. Playing in big games for Chelsea or leading the line for Brazil… it’s his natural habitat. He is a world-class player and he has proved it. He is only getting better and has another level to go. Some of the goals he has scored this season remind me of things he did in training at Watford. I think of the one at Newcastle, where he headed the ball to himself to run on to. Very few players have that intelligence or technical ability.”

Joao Pedro is in Brazil’s provisional World Cup squad (Rich Storry/Getty Images)

Not everything went smoothly at Watford. He played under 10 head coaches in three and a half years and suffered two relegations from the Premier League.

One of those was under former England head coach Roy Hodgson in 2022 (the first being under Pearson). He scored just one Premier League goal in 13 appearances under Hodgson. But despite his struggles, Hodgson never had any doubts over him.

“You could see the qualities which made him a star,” Hodgson says. “His awareness was very good, finding time and space. Technically, he showed his skills. It was obvious, if he continued to improve at the rate he was, it would not take him long for it to pay off and lift him to the level where he is today.

“He had not been in the country that long and was not as strong as he is now. He has had four more years of professional training and fitness work. At the time, he was probably more of a No 10. I didn’t really see him as an out-and-out No 9. But it’s a position that requires the talents he’s got.

“It was not easy for him to make his mark. Unfortunately, it did not give him the platform he needed. All the qualities he is showing today, he was showing then. To improve at the rate he has, he has needed to play with good players around him and a good environment.”

Watford’s struggles meant Joao Pedro spent two of his seasons with them in the Championship before Brighton and Hove Albion bought him for just under £30million in 2023. There was a stage under Bilic where it looked like he would end his period at Vicarage Road with a second promotion to England’s top division.

Joao Pedro joined Brighton in 2023 (Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

He scored seven goals in 17 appearances for Bilic, but two injuries restricted his availability. It speaks volumes that Bilic made him captain when he was available.

“He has leadership quality,” Bilic says. “You might think he would leave after Watford got relegated a second time, but he stayed. You can see at Chelsea, he never moans. I think the Championship helped him with that. There are so many tough games. It is not spectacular. He was never complaining, ‘We have to go to Preston’. He never looked for excuses.

“He did not talk a lot, but he has that attitude that, if you don’t know him well, you might think he is a bit arrogant. He comes across a bit like Zlatan Ibrahimovic… not saying he is the same player. In terms of his head being held high, chest out.

“Ibra told me he was more pleased with making assists than scoring goals. Joao, in the beginning, looked like that. But at Brighton (30 goals, 10 assists) and Chelsea (23 goals, nine assists) he is becoming a ruthless forward while not losing the other side of his game.

“Sometimes you can see when the ball is wide, you can see him jogging, he is not sprinting into the box. He is screening and reading the situation. But then he arrives at the right time and scores.

“He is not a striker like a Haaland, who can have three to four touches in a game. Joao loves the ball, he can keep the ball, beat a man one-v-one, he can hold it up. He is more than just a striker. He is a footballer.”

Joao Pedro has been a rare bright spark for Chelsea this season (Visionhaus/Getty Images)

Bilic took satisfaction from watching the way he played up against Arsenal’s centre-back pairing of Gabriel and William Saliba during Chelsea’s narrow 2-1 league defeat in March.

“There are a lot of skilful players who are not great in tackles, but he is,” Bilic says. “He is not running away, he loves them, he is asking for them. He can be nasty in a positive way, a little bit like Ibra, character and attitude-wise. And I love it. That can kill the opposition, mentally. They realise they can’t rattle him.

“I managed some great players in the Croatia national team and various football clubs. Joao is up there with them.”

That is some accolade, given Bilic has also coached players such as Luka Modric, Ivan Perisic, Mario Mandzukic, Dario Srna and Dmitri Payet.

Gomes, who now works as an agent and as an ambassador for Watford, has stayed in contact with Joao Pedro and messaged after Chelsea’s Club World Cup win.

So how will he be feeling ahead of the FA Cup final? “I can see him telling the others this is a chance to change the end of Chelsea’s season,” Gomes says. “I hope this is an opportunity to send him another message.”

Whatever happens, Joao Pedro has already sent a strong signal he belongs at the top.

There has been an increase in the number of European scouts attending games at the London Stadium to monitor a talent who is not expected to remain at West Ham United for much longer.

The player in question is 21-year-old midfielder Mateus Fernandes, who has been a consistent performer in the club’s quest for Premier League survival. Since joining from Southampton last summer in a deal worth £38million, Fernandes has registered five goals and four assists across 40 appearances this season. Most impressive was his long-range strike in the 3-1 victory against Sunderland in January.

It highlighted why the Portugal international is a sought-after talent. Nine months after his arrival, West Ham are already planning for life without him. Sources with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, say the club have conceded Fernandes will be sold to help fund their summer recruitment, irrespective of which league they will be in next season.

Fernandes, who signed a five-year deal with the option of a further year, does not have a release clause in his contract. But West Ham expect to significantly improve on the fee they paid last year, although Championship side Southampton negotiated a 15 per cent sell-on clause following his departure.

Although the midfielder could experience back-to-back relegations to the Championship, his ability and potential far exceeds that of a player fighting to ensure top-flight safety. At the end of the 2024-25 season, when Southampton finished bottom of the league, Fernandes was named the fans’ player of the season. He scored twice and registered four assists in 36 league appearances. Fernandes, who joined Southampton from Portuguese club Sporting CP in August 2024 for £15m, only made five league appearances for his boyhood club. He struggled to force his way into the team with fellow midfielders Matheus Nunes, Manuel Ugarte and Joao Palhinha ahead of him.

“What we lost is a very valuable young player who, in my opinion, has the characteristics to be a great player, but choices were made,” then Sporting CP manager Ruben Amorim told Portuguese outlet A Bola in 2024. “We do everything together, we sit down in a room and Mateus was a player who cost us a lot, but when they ask me if we can lose Goncalo (Inacio), I say no, if we can lose Morten (Hjulmand), I say no. We really wanted to keep Mateus and, honestly, I think he would have liked to stay, despite it being a big contract and a big league. It was a difficult moment for everyone, but I repeat, we have to make choices and in the end, as a coach, I also make them.”

Sporting’s lost jewel has been polished by Southampton and West Ham. Despite an initial slow start at the London Stadium, with head coach Nuno Espirito Santo favouring Lucas Paqueta as the main midfield attacking outlet, Fernandes has stepped up since Paqueta’s €41.25m (£35.8m) January departure to Brazilian side Flamengo.

(Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

Two of his four assists came in wins over Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley, he has formed a promising midfield partnership with Tomas Soucek and came close to scoring in last weekend’s 1-0 loss to Arsenal. Fernandes is capable of playing in a deeper midfield role, a winger and as a No 10. He is better suited in an attacking role and often gets licence to roam forward, with Soucek sitting deep. Paqueta mainly played further afield when he and Fernandes were in the starting XI.

It was former head coach Graham Potter who pushed for the club to sign Fernandes. He viewed the midfielder as a top transfer target and although West Ham’s opening offer of £30m including add-ons was rejected, Potter convinced the club to make a counter-offer. Fernandes was a parting gift to Nuno, who succeeded Potter in late September. In an interview with the club’s official website, the midfielder expressed appreciation to his fellow compatriot.

“Last season at Southampton, I was playing more forward, like a winger, but midfielder is my position,” said Fernandes in January. “When I spoke with the head coach (Nuno) he asked me about my favourite position. I told him, of course, I can play winger or defender if you want, but midfield is the best position (for me).

“I’m playing much better than when I arrived. Of course, the head coach helped me a lot. He gave me confidence to be free and to play what I feel. As I said before many times, the game against Leeds (in October) was the most important game for me because I went to the bench and I took some time to think about the things I was doing. It was time to learn about that moment. I think I’m a much better player now than I was before.”

The 2-1 loss to Leeds is the only league match Fernandes has not started under Nuno. His former academy coaches predicted he would play a starring role in the second half of the season. Fernandes has gained confidence from being an ever-present figure and in March received a senior call-up for the Portugal national team. The midfielder, who amassed 38 caps for the junior teams from under-18 to under-21 level, made his debut under manager Roberto Martinez in a friendly against the United States.

“What Mateus is doing now is incredible,” Martinez told a group of reporters at his press conference. “We all know his journey and what he did in the under-21s. It’s very important for us to see what he can do, his energy, his versatility. He deserves this call-up to the national team.”

At the start of the season, Fernandes wrote down a list of targets. Playing at the World Cup ranked high and, should he fulfil his target, an audience far greater than the London Stadium will see why he is considered such a highly-rated talent.

The penultimate round of the Fantasy Premier League season has arrived, with some big decisions for fantasy managers to make ahead of Gameweek 37.

This weekend (and a bit) sees the fixture calendar uniquely positioned, with half of the Premier League’s 20 clubs playing their final match of the campaign in their own stadium, which is significant.

So, with plenty of teams still having something tangible to play for, what are the key fixtures to target and who are the potential players to transfer in with home advantage in mind?

Arsenal (vs Burnley)

Arsenal will play their final home game of the season at the Emirates Stadium on Monday night.

Mikel Arteta’s league-leading title-chasers have won five of their past six top-flight games there, and Burnley are already relegated to the Championship. Any FPL manager not yet tripled up on Arsenal should make it their top priority for this match, with four of their assets sitting among the top five most-transferred-in players for Gameweek 37 at the time of writing.

Viktor Gyokeres (£9.0m), Bukayo Saka (£10.0m), William Saliba (£6.2m) and Declan Rice (£7.2m) had all been transferred in more than 40,000 times, with those numbers expected to continue to rise ahead of Friday’s 6.30pm UK time (1.30pm ET) deadline.

Saka and Gyokeres are both in the captaincy conversation, with most managers likely to own just one of them. They are both relative differentials, appearing in 11.4 per cent and 15.7 per cent of teams respectively.

Gyokeres was on the scoresheet in the reverse fixture in gameweek 10, and has a reputation for dominating against fragile defences — 11 of his 14 league goals this season have come against opposition in the bottom half of the table. The case for buying Saka is equally compelling, with the England winger picking up a goal and an assist in the 3-0 win against Fulham in their previous home league fixture a fortnight ago.

Arsenal kept their 18th clean sheet of the season last time out at West Ham, and have done so in three consecutive top-flight games, meaning a double-up on their defence is a viable strategy.

Centre-back Gabriel (£7.3m) scored 12 points in that 2-0 win away to Burnley in October, including an assist, a clean sheet and two bonus points. He’s also produced 25 fantasy points in the past four gameweeks. Somewhat surprisingly, it is goalkeeper David Raya (£6.1m) who is Arsenal’s highest-scoring player over that same period, with two save points and five bonus ones as the north Londoners continue to grind out results.

Bournemouth (vs Manchester City)

Second-placed City must win on Tuesday to take the title race to the season’s final set of fixtures next weekend but Andoni Iraola’s side will also be highly motivated going into their last home match.

It will be Iraola’s last game in charge, as he is stepping down after three seasons, with Bournemouth’s current position of sixth potentially enough to secure landmark Champions League football (for a club who haven’t played any kind of European football before) next season. They are unbeaten since losing 3-2 at home to Arsenal on January 3, recording eight wins and eight draws in that time, and this fixture ended in a 2-1 home victory last season.

Midfielder Rayan (£5.4m) is a differential, in just 1.5 per cent of sides following his January arrival from Brazil’s Vasco da Gama, but should not be overlooked. He has four goal involvements in as many games: scoring three times with one assist, while ranking fifth in the league over that span for shots (10).

Bournemouth winger Rayan has registered an attacking return in his last four games (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

Don’t rule out their assets at the back either, with Adrien Truffert (£4.7m) and Marcos Senesi (£5.2m) the highest-scoring defenders in the game over these same four gameweeks — Truffert is just 4.7 per cent owned.

Bournemouth have kept consecutive clean sheets, and these two players are never far from the two-point defensive contribution bonus, having both passed the threshold of 10 in the reverse fixture in gameweek 10.

Senesi has two assists in his past four matches, both coming at home, while also receiving three bonus points in a 3-0 win against Crystal Palace in Gameweek 35. Truffert has picked up six bonus points over the same period.

Brentford (vs Crystal Palace)

Brentford sit eighth in the table, just four points off sixth and a potential Champions League place, and their assets are worth a look this weekend.

On Sunday, they entertain Palace, who are on the beach in Premier League terms, with all their focus on the UEFA Conference League final, which comes in the midweek after the end of the top-flight season.

Striker Igor Thiago (£7.3m) is a key Brentford asset to consider, given his remarkable form this season, scoring 22 league goals, though he has only one in the past four gameweeks. It’s also worth noting 13 of the 22 have come on home turf, and that the Brazilian has scored four times in as many games at the Gtech Stadium.

Thiago has been outscored overall in these past four gameweeks by team-mates Mikkel Damsgaard (£5.6m) and Mathias Jensen (£4.9m), who have also scored a goal apiece in that period. The midfield duo are significant differentials, each sitting in less than one per cent of FPL sides. Damsgaard has had seven shots on goal in this span, including two big chances.

Manchester United (vs Nottingham Forest)

While United are playing for not much other than confirming third place (if that, depending on Friday’s result between fifth-placed Aston Villa and Liverpool, who are fourth on goal difference) when they take on Forest at Old Trafford in Sunday’s early kick-off, there are plenty of significant narratives filtering into this match.

Michael Carrick has been the most consistent manager or head coach in the Premier League since his appointment in January, taking 33 points from the possible 45, with just two defeats.

Bruno Fernandes (£10.4m) has shown incredible form in this spell, providing a goal involvement in every home appearance under Carrick, including five double-digit hauls.

He is one assist away from matching the Premier League record of 20 in a season, with this game on his own patch the perfect opportunity to equal or even surpass that mark. That makes Fernandes a popular captaincy pick for this fixture, and he’s leading the way for key passes (18) and big chances created (five) over the past four gameweeks — as he has all season.

Fellow midfielder Casemiro (£5.9m) has returned to training this week after not being in the matchday squad against Sunderland last weekend, so is likely to have an opportunity to say farewell to the Old Trafford crowd after four seasons with the club.

This campaign has been his most successful of the four by far in terms of personal stats, with the Brazilian scoring nine goals, including three in his past four home matches, and recording four assists. He’s another perfect homebody differential, as he was in only 5.4 per cent of FPL teams at time of writing.