Dilemmas of the Week - GW 25 (25/26)

Only the fairly uneventful League Cup Semi-Final Second Leg games have cluttered our midweek this time, so hopefully there should not have been too many more new injuries since the weekend. But doubtless there will have been some... And - oh damn! - that rescheduled Wolves v Arsenal game that's being brought forward from GW31 because Arsenal reached the League Cup Final.... is actually next week; (giving us an unwelcome early deadline for GW26): those two teams will play again on Tuesday evening, which might cause a bit of rotation uncertainty for Arsenal.

[Because I'm once again trying to do this roundup on Friday afternoon (my Friday afternoon; still early morning back in the UK), there is a chance that a lot of injury news won't have emerged yet. And we've got a Friday evening game deadline this week, ahead of the Leeds v Forest kick-off tonight. I'll try to add updates, if it transpires that there is more bad news in today's press conferences.]

I am trying to streamline these weekly round-ups a bit from last year, restricting myself for the most part to just the injuries etc. affecting players that are likely to have a major significance in FPL; and also, of course, only to new injuries - I figure everyone should be aware of players who've already been ruled out for some time!  

[For some years, I have found the 'Injuries & Bans' summary on Fantasy Football Scout the most reliable resource for this kind of information; although this site, Premier League Injuries, is a very good alternative (often a little quicker to update, I think - though it did go through a bit of a glitchy period for a while last year).  Go check these out for more comprehensive coverage. 

I see the Fantasy Premier League site has added an improved 'Player Availability' page this year (though hidden under 'The Scout' tab?!). That also seems to be reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date, but god knows how it's supposed to be 'organised' - maybe by 'date of injury'? Obviously, arranging it by club and alphabetical order would be more sensible; but the denizens of FPL Towers seem to have a deep aversion to the sensible.]

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 25?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Mikel Merino, who had to come off with a knock to the foot in the Manchester United match in Gameweek 23, was discovered to have fractured a bone and needed surgery on it this week; he's now expected to be out for at least 10-12 weeks. He's never looked like a regular starter, and so shouldn't have been in any FPL squads, but it does mean that Arsenal's midfield cover will be a little thinner if they incur any further injuries in that area. Rather more devastating for FPL  (although, owing to relatively muted returns so far this season, he was only in 12.5% of teams, a third or a quarter of what you'd usually expect), Bukayo Saka pulled out of last week's game after feeling a muscle problem during the warm-up; it's still unclear how serious that problem might be - which is a particular headache in FPL with Arsenal suddenly having a Double Gameweek next week, and Madueke having looked very impressive in deputising for Saka. If you have Saka, do you stick with him, hoping he might recover; or do you bring in Madueke as a third Arsenal pick now?? Martin Odegaard is also suffering with some kind of muscle issue; he was only used in the second-half last weekend, but felt some discomfort after the game, and was omitted in the League Cup tie against Chelsea on Tuesday as a result. (If this problem doesn't resolve quickly, Ebere Eze might suddenly become a tempting pick for the Double Gameweek...)

The recently impressive Yasin Ayari is going to be missing for Brighton this week, because of a minor shoulder injury.

Jamie Gittens, getting a rare start against West Ham last week, had to come off midway through the first-half with a hamstring problem - which now seems likely to sideline for him for 2-3 months. Estevao, who was absent last week because he'd had to fly back to Brazil owing to a family crisis, is apparently now back and could be available to play against Wolves. Pedro Neto also missed Tuesday's Cup game against Arsenal with a knock that leaves him still doubtful for the weekend. And Reece James is apparently struggling with a knock too.

Jean-Philippe Mateta was hoping to complete a deadline-day transfer to AC Milan, but failed his medical check owing to an ongoing knee niggle that's apparently been troubling him for some months. It has been reported that he might now undergo immediate surgery to try to fix the problem, so that he can pursue that move again in the summer.

Vitaly Mykolenko was absent last weekend because of a training knock.

Anton Stach is likely to be out this week and next because of a hip issue.

Rayan Cherki (knock) and Bernardo Silva (tight hamstring) were withdrawn early against Spurs last week, and missed the midweek Cup game against Newcastle - but might possibly be back in contention this weekend.

Lewis Miley has a knee problem, which kept him on the bench last weekend and out of the squad altogether in the League Cup on Wednesday. And Anthony Gordon had to retire early in Wednesday's cup tie with a tight hamstring.

Matz Sels came off at half-time last weekend with a groin injury. Since the impressive Stefan Ortega has just been transferred in from City, it seems likely he'll lose the start in the Forest goal even if he is fit again.

Djed Spence missed the City game last week with a calf-strain.

Ladislav Krejci was missing last weekend due to an illness, and no word yet on whether he's been able to rejoin training.

Do we have any players who are dropped, or not looking likely to get the starts we hoped for?

Kevin Schade is starting a three-match 'violent conduct' ban for his petulant poke of the foot into Matty Cash's midriff last week (one of those incidents that helps delineate the boundary of "Oh, come on - was that really violent???"). Jean-Clair Todibo is starting a three-match ban for throttling Joao Pedro at the end of last week's game, and seems set to have that extended to at least 5 games out. Amazingly, though, his teammates Adama Traore and Konstantinos Mavropanos, who were guilty of even more egregious offences in that messy affray, only received yellow cards from Anthony Taylor, and no retroactive disciplinary action against them seems to have been instituted.

Neco Williams has to miss a game for his goal-line 'Save of the Weekend' last week.

As I just mentioned above, Matz Sels (an injury doubt anyway, due to a groin strain which forced him to withdraw at half-time last week) seems very likely to lose his start at Forest to the newly-signed Stefan Ortega.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

I am losing confidence in Newcastle, alas: they barely even have 11 first-team players they can start any more, and have been looking very, very flakey. If Bruno Guimaraes is still unable to start for them, they don't look like they can win against anyone; and they could take an abolute battering against an improving Liverpool this week. Harvey Barnes is the only player there who's shown any really good form lately, anyway; and he can't be relied upon as an invariable starter. And I haven't had any confidence in Spurs for a long time now; but maybe, just maybe their second-half turnaround against City last week could prove to be the transitional moment of their season?? It's probably saved Thomas Frank's job for at least a couple more weeks; but I'm not at all optimistic about any general upswing in performance from them - they're still all avoid-like-the-plague picks for me.

Did anyone play so well, you have to consider bringing them in immediately?

Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz are looking very good at the moment; although I'd venture you probably only want to have one of them; and, for me, Ekitike's form looks the more robust (and there's less competition - virtually none at the moment! - for FPL selection among the forwards). Matheus Cunha is also looking very, very hot again - possibly now a better prospect even than Bruno Fernandes (impressively consistent this season, which he hasn't been, in FPL terms, for a good many years: his 'blanks' have been so few this year that you can safely treat him as a long-term hold) or Bryan Mbeumo (who looks the more natural, more regular goalscorer - but seems not to thrive when Cunha is on the pitch with him from the start).

I noted yesterday that a number of the midseason transfers might at least be worth keeping an eye on. Tammy Abraham at Villa and Jorgen Strand Larsen at Palace could have a valuable impact for those clubs; although they'll probably take a little time to settle in, and neither are bringing any strong recent form with them (and Abraham might not get many starts, if Ollie Watkins's thigh injury proves to be nothing serious). Angel Gomes at Wolves and Douglas Luiz returning to Villa are probably not going to be worth having in FPL themselves, but might be able to bolster their new clubs' midfields enough to slightly improve the points-potential of some of their teammates. Surely the two most intriguing prospects among the new arrivals, though, are Pascal Gross (who seems likely to get regular starts in an advanced central midfield role, where he could pick up quite a few attacking contributions - rather than as a holding player or as a makeshift right-back, as he so often was in the latter days of his previous spell at the club) and Stefan Ortega (so long as he immediately gets promoted to being Forest's first-choice keeper; I think he ought to be, but they've got two other strong options - and you never can tell about these things).

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (80)

 

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery!

  None but ourselves can free our mind."

Bob Marley - Redemption Song

Today is 'Bob Marley Day' - his birthday providing a happy pretext for a worldwide party in celebration of the life and legacy of the great reggae musician.

In addition to being a hopeless Plastic Paddy, I am also somewhat of a Replicant Rasta (mainly as a result of a couple of very formative visits to Jamaica in my young adult life), and I generally like to make this date in the calendar one of my (increasingly rare) days of indulgence. For St Patrick's, we can go wild on the whiskey and the Guinness and the colcannon and then more whiskey; whereas on Marley Day, we look to rum and Red Stripe (or nearest available equivalent) and jerk chicken, and then maybe some medicinal herb*.... But on both days, of course, it's mainly about the music: Bob and Shane MacGowan have shaped my life... almost more than Lao Tzu and Epictetus.

[* Well, the esteemed Dr W.H. McIntosh assured me that it could cure my asthma.]

Pick of the Transfers

Now that the mid-season transfer window is finally done with,.... have there been any deals done which might be particularly exciting for FPL?

NO, probably not, really.

The only 'big name' signings, both wrapped up very early, were City's poaching of Antoine Semenyo from Bournemouth and Marc Guehi from Palace. 

Now, many naive FPL managers assume that a good player moving to a better club automatically means that he's going to become an even better prospect in FPL. Sadly, this is not always the case.

Our great dilemma now is whether these two players, who had looked like very strong picks so far with their original clubs, will continue to be worth their place in an FPL team. I'm very dubious about that. They might be OK, maybe even somewhat better than OK; but they almost certainly won't be quite as productive as they were in the first half of the season. At Palace, Guehi, as the main 'progresser' in a back-three, often enjoyed the licence to push far upfield, and sometimes even join in with the attack; and this was why he'd shown such a burgeoning propensity for picking up the occasional goal over the last year or so. With City, as part of a more conventional centre-back pair (and particularly in a team who are struggling to stay tight at the back, and struggling to maintain their title ambitions), he's probably going to be pretty locked down as the last line of defence, hence not getting many, or any, of those goalscoring opportunities any more. And I seriously doubt if City, the way they look at the moment, will keep as many clean sheets from here on as Palace did during the opening third of the season.

Likewise, Semenyo was starting to thrive on being the main man at Bournemouth: not just their most consistent and threatening creative player, but increasingly their primary source of goals too. (Last season, he'd blown a bit hot and cold, was too often ceding the limelight to Kluivert, Tavernier, Ouattara, Evanilson; at the beginning of the new term, he looked like he'd really taken a step forward to accepting the responsibility to lead the side's attacking efforts week-in, week-out.) Now, he's just a bit-part player in a team that has lots of other stars, and lots of other sources of goals. He has looked very good in his first few games for City, and is relishing having an immediate regular start. But this might be somewhat fortuitous, as his arrival coincided with an injury to Jeremy Doku. I fear it's highly likely that, when everyone's fit, Semenyo will find himself in a three-way rotation with Doku and Cherki for the two wide attacking positions (and, indeed, there's a chance that other players like Marmoush or Foden or Ait-Nouri may also occasionally claim one of those spots); he might get more than his share of those starts, and he might often produce some nice points when he does start - but you can't really be taking a chance on a player for FPL if he's not a guaranteed starter. Folks have been encouraged to think that Semenyo will be, by his bright start at the club; but it is unlikely to be so.

At the moment, these two players are maintaining a high FPL ownership largely by inertia: folks who'd owned them already at their former clubs are mostly hanging on to them, on a wait-and-see basis. Anyone who brought them into an FPL squad because of their transfers to City was making a very speculative play - and, I would venture, probably ultimately an unwise one.

Amongst the rest of the recent moves, it was the return of Pascal Gross to Brighton that most caught my eye. He's an outstanding all-round midfielder, good at anchoring the central areas, but also often dangerous in pushing forward to support the attack. I expect him to do pretty well on 'defensive points', and he might pick up a few goals too (as he did quite a lot towards the end of his previous spell at the club); he's a solid penalty-taker as well, although I doubt if he'll immediately resume that duty for them. We're a bit spoiled for choice at the moment for dependable midfield dynamos to inexpensively fill 5th - and maybe even 4th - midfield slots; but if he's still as good as he was 18 months ago, I think Gross could perhaps get himself into that conversation as well. [I suppose some would fancy that Douglas Luiz going back to Villa could have a similar impact. But I fear Luiz's original departure from the club was less amicable than Gross's, which might cause some ongoing problems in fitting back in. And, good as he is, I can't see him being able to plug all the gaps left by Kamara and Tielemans and McGinn.]

The only other new signing I fancy could have a significant impact in FPL is Stefan Ortega, who's just joined Nottingham Forest. He is an outstanding keeper, who really deserved more minutes at City. And with Forest's former preferred starters between the sticks, Matz Sels and John Victor, both currently suffering from injury problems, he will surely start immediately (although I don't think you buy someone of his quality to be a back-up option anyway - well, not unless you're Pep!). Forest have a very solid defensive unit, and are starting to toughen up again after a horrifically wobbly first half of the season; Dyche is a dour and pragmatic manager who emphasises the old-school virtues of discipline, tenacity, and workrate - so, I imagine Forest will usually be fairly robust at the back from here on. And, apart from facing Liverpool and City in quick succession around the end of this month, their run-in to the end of the season doesn't look too daunting. The problem, alas, is that Ortega - and his struggling, bottom-of-the-table side - are too 'unproven' to be appealing for the first-choice goalkeeper pick; and he's really just a bit too expensive for a back-up. He started the season at a whopping 5.0 million, which was really ridiculous for a second-string keeper, even at a top club; presumably the FPL Gnomes were anticipating that he was about to graduate to a regular start, amid the rumours of Ederson's possible imminent departure (but, of course, Pep then promptly brought in Trafford and Donnarumma, to dump poor Ortega even further down the pecking-order). His price has since fallen to 4.7 million; but you can still buy the recently impressive Kelleher and Verbruggen for less than that - so, I can't see him getting into many FPL teams. But anyone who does gamble on him,.... might get lucky.

And Oscar Bobb, of course, is hugely talented, and you fancy that he could start producing big points if he got a run of starts somewhere - could Fulham give him that chance? But he's had his injury problems, of course; and so often being left out in the cold by Pep, even when he's fit, has likely dented his confidence some. Also, it's not as if Fulham are short of creative options in the wide positions, with Wilson, Chukwueze, and the young Brazilian Kevin all looking outstanding recently. What the club really needed in this window was a young centre-forward to help Raul out (I wonder if they went in for Strand Larsen?), not yet another winger. But we shall see; if Marco Silva does entrust him with a regular start, maybe we might get some fireworks from him.

I'm also very pleased to see Angel Gomes joining Wolves on loan. His career seems to have lost steam over the last 18 months or so, as he's suffered with a series of injuries; and he now appears to have somehow fallen out of favour at Marseille. He is a fantastically smart and versatile midfielder, and was the absolute standout of Lee Carsley's brief but exciting stewardship of the England team two years ago; I really feel he ought to be able to get himself back into the selection conversation for our World Cup squad (although we'd probably need to see Anderson, Rice and Mainoo pick up injuries - heaven forbid! - for that to happen...). I imagine he's likely to be deployed more in a holding role, and thus is unlikely to produce all that many FPL points himself. But he's the kind of player who could catalyse a significant improvement in the team around him - and that might elevate one or two other Wolves players into FPL contention over the closing months of the season.

Facundo Buonanotte's loan move to Leeds is also intriguing. Unfortunately - though not at all surprisingly - he couldn't get many minutes at Chelsea in the first half of the season; but he is a fantastic creative talent, and made quite an impact with Leicester last season (and he's only just turned 21!). If he gets a regular start and finds a vein of form, he could possibly merit attention as an occasional 5th-seat pick. But I fear he might not get that many starts at Leeds either: he's more of a No. 10 than a wide attacker, and Leeds don't really play with one of those at the moment; and in the wider positions, he'll face competition from the likes of Stach, Ampadu, Aaronson, Gnonto, and James. So, I think he's one worth keeping on the radar, but not someone we should really be expecting anything of.

Jørgen Strand Larsen shifting to Palace and Tammy Abraham going to Villa might perhaps develop into possible 3rd-forward options. But neither have been in great form lately; and, if Ollie Watkins's sore hamstring isn't too much of an issue, Abraham is only likely to be getting minutes off the bench, I fancy. 

I suppose Tyrique George's loan move to Everton, where he's presumably going to fill in for the injured Grealish on the left flank, could also be interesting; though I don't really fancy anyone at that club to become particularly prolific.

But overall, no - there have been no big splashes for FPL in what was, ultimately, a relatively quiet transfer window. [Check out the Fantasy Football Scout website's full rundown of the trades.]

Learn to 'make do'

I blame The Scout (in particular; there are many other sources of this psychopathy...). FPL's own anonymous 'pundit' regularly puts out a 'team of the week' set of recommendations - which is effectively a 'Wildcard' every time: unlimited transfers, taking no heed of what lineup he'd selected the week before, or of what he might want for the weeks immediately following.

Seeing so many FPL 'content creators' follow this pattern - maybe not producing a completely new team every week, but making multiple player suggestions every week.... as if anyone might be able to bring them all in - encourages many of the more naive and impulsive FPL managers to believe that they could and should do likewise, that multiple changes at any time are always acceptable and even necessary, a correct and proper way to play the game.

Of course, that is not a good way to play the game at all.

Transfers have an absolute points value. (FPL's own game designers, in setting the cost of an additional transfer, have rated it as 4 points. It might in practice be a little more or less, depending on the circumstances; but that's a good guideline figure. And that applies to 'Free Transfers' as well as to 'hits': if you're not making an immediate 4-point profit from a transfer,... you probably shouldn't be making it.)

Transfers can also have a more nebulous 'tactical value', encompassing all the more remote benefits of making one change rather than another, or making a change now rather than later.  (The 'tactical value' of deferred transfers is now hugely enhanced - and complicated - by last year's rule innovation allowing us to 'roll over' Free Transfers until we have a maximum stock of 5 at our disposal, effectively giving us the possibility of a number of additional 'mini-Wildcards' each season.)

Hence, every time we make a transfer, we should not only be considering how much value we may get from it immediately in the current gameweek, but how much more value we might possibly get from it by waiting to use it until a later gameweek.

Unless we have a really pressing reason to make an immediate change to our lineup, it is, these days, usually better to roll a transfer than to use one.

No squad, no starting eleven is ever likely to be completely satisfactory. We'll almost always have some players we're developing doubts about, some we're trying to 'rest' through a short injury or dip in form, or a little run of tough fixtures, some players we don't have yet but are starting to covet...  If we thought like The Scout,... yes, we'd make 4, 5, 6 changes almost every single week. But we CAN'T do that. This is not the game we play. 

FPL gives us only limited transfers, and we must be very careful how we use them. We have to learn to accept our inevitable dissatisfactions with our squad, and - most of the time - make do with what we have. We should strive to make as few transfers as possible; not to make any at all unless we feel we really have to. (Which is not at all to say that we should be afraid of making transfers, or should try to avoid ever taking 'hits' - spending the additional points for extra ones. Sometimes we do have to. Just not nearly as often as most people in this game seem to think!)

Cruel Fate - you have surpassed yourself!

 

My best buddy - and principal FPL antagonist - and I have long consoled ourselves with a humorous 'superstition' that there is a balance in the Cosmos: that ill fortune in one area of our lives will inevitably be soon balanced out by some unexpected good fortune in another.

Hence, if things go very ill for us in the current FPL Gameweek, we seek to cheer ourselves up with the reflection that we must be about due for something nice to happen to us in the real world. You know, we'll find some money in the street, or have a friend finally return that favourite book of ours they borrowed five years ago, or at least have an uncommonly pretty girl flash us an uncommonly flirty smile at the supermarket checkout on Thursday evening... One of those little things that make life worth living.

And vice versa: if the real world hasn't been terribly kind to us recently, we become robustly confident that we're about to experience our best Gameweek in months.

And it is uncanny how often this crackpot 'belief' seems to be borne out by events. (I suppose it's our old friend, the 'confirmation bias': we have a low threshold of proof for things we really want to believe in.)  The toilet springs a leak, but Patrick Kluivert scores a hattrick of penalties! I lose my phone, but my highest-scoring player of the week gets auto-subbed into the starting eleven because of a warm-up injury to Cole Palmer! Somebody steals $500 from my hotel room, but I get a ton-up weekly score... in a Single Gameweek, and without playing a chip!

I swear, these are things that have happened; this is my life.

But of course, this is not a reliable rule. I'd like to think it's more of a guideline - but in truth, it's not even that.

I've just had one of the worst months of my life (well, the worst three months or so, actually - but who's counting?), so.... I was kind of looking forward to a compensating upswing in my FPL fortunes.

But oh no, I just had one of my worst weeks of the season, one of my worst weeks ever. Even a modest success for a 'bold' captaincy punt on Nordi Mukiele in the final game couldn't drag me up to the minimum respectability of the 'global average'!!

And this was the first week in a long time - certainly the first one this season - in which I've suffered the triple whammy of losing three key players to injury in quick succession.

To be fair, though, I have quite often in the past suffered a quadruple- and even a quintuple-whammy of injuries - so maybe it's not really all that bad.

When Cosmic Justice breaks down as a consoling principle, at least we still have Perspective.

Another little curveball

 

As if we don't have enough uncertainties and obscurities to ponder and fret over in FPL-land already, it was just confirmed at the end of last week that one of this week's winning League Cup semi-finalists will have their league fixture from the weekend of the Final - Gameweek 31 - anteponed (brought forward) into Gameweek 26. (I really can't recall this ever happening in the past; if it did, it was incredibly uncommon. Last season, when most of the cancelled fixtures from the FA Semi-Final weekend were moved forwards rather than backwards, is the first instance of such a thing that I can remember.)

The victors in tomorrow's second-leg tie at The Emirates, either Arsenal or Chelsea, will thus be enjoying a 'surprise' and rather imminent Double Gameweek - the week after next; as will their scheduled league opponents from the weekend of the Final.

We will know by Wednesday morning if we're going to get a Double Gameweek 26 of:

Brentford v Arsenal        Forest v Wolves        Wolves v Arsenal

OR

Chelsea v Leeds        Everton v Bournemouth        Everton v Chelsea

Of course, Arsenal and Wolves or Chelsea and Everton will also have a Blank Gameweek in GW31 (as will City/Palace or Sunderland/Newcastle) - which is likely to be a much bigger deal; but at least we have a fair amount of time to get ready for that.

The teams in the other semi-final, on Wednesday, seem likely to be spared an anteponing like this because of the European schedule: Newcastle and Crystal Palace (Manchester City's GW31 opponent) have a pair of midweek play-off games in GWs 26 and 27. Hence, it seems likely that, if City or Newcastle reach the Final, their Blank on GW31 will be made up by a more typical postponement - probably to Gameweek 33.

Yes, it is a lot to keep track of....

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 24

A few unpleasant selection surprises again this week; although, at least, not too many new injury disasters to add to our FPL troubles.

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I'm aiming to keep them briefer from here on. [Didn't make much of a success of that last week, but let's try again...] 

[Aha! - the secret to greater brevity in these roundups may be... no 'Match of the Day'. For some unfathomable reason, the BBC iPlayer service today has only very attenuated highlights of individual games, not the complete matchday roundup programme - with its team lineups, extended replays, and post-game pundit discussion. Not the solution I would have wished for....

* MOTD did eventually show up. Perhaps it was just a case of the Beeb's minions having forgotten to add the right 'tags' to the upload to make it identifiable to the abysmal in-site search engine??]

Arsenal found the comfortable win their fans have been craving to settle their nerves after a minor 'winter wobble' has begun to undermine confidence in their title credentials just a little over the past month or so. Leeds may be much improved over the past two months, but they're still a struggling bottom-end side, and their defence was hopelessly outclassed here. Fate played a cruel trick on the roughly 17% of FPL managers who own Bukayo Saka, as he was a last-minute dropout after apparently "feeling something" in his leg during the warm-up (Madueke, taking his place, had another very lively game). Arteta added to those woes for a few by resting Odegaard in favour of just-back-from-injury Havertz (anyone who'd punted early on the German's return will have been glad to see him having such an impactful runout - but anxious that Arteta moved to withdraw him right on the hour; he only earned his full appearance points by a matter of seconds!). Leeds keeper Darlow notched an own-goal by getting himself impeded by a couple of his own players at the near-post (no Arsenal men anywhere near him on this occasion!) and so flapping clumsily at Madueke's wicked inswinging corner - to palm it into his own net. No refereeing cock-ups in this one?? (I watched it live last night, and don't remember any...)

Brighton v Everton was a mostly pretty drab game, although it livened up a little in the second half. It's nice at least to see Pascal Gross and Kaoru Mitoma looking dangerous again (Mitoma appeared to have got a decisive second goal, but the effort was rightly ruled out for Veltman having been offside and interfering with the goalkeeper's line of sight). Dewsbury-Hall was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet, with one shot deflected just wide, and another brilliantly saved by Verbruggen with an outstretched leg. David Moyes is over-the-moon about yet another last-gasp equaliser from Beto!! Garner comfortably earned his 'defensive points' again in this one; but Tarkowski, for once, came up well short of the threshold. 

Liam Rosenior thought he could get away with fielding a 'B team' against West Ham, resting Palmer, James, Cucurella, Neto, and Joao Pedro after Wednesday night's heroics in Naples (and then having to start Jamie Gittens [although he was rather brutally pulled off for Neto after just 25 minutes] on the right in place of Estevao, after the Brazilian youngster had to return home because of a family issue); boy, was he wrong! The visitors completely bossed the first half (although Bowen's early opener was extremely fortuitous; he whipped in a first-time inswinging cross on the turn from the far corner of the box, barely even looking where it was bound - and was as surprised as anyone to see it beat everybody and float into the top corner of the goal!), and might have gone into the break with a 3-0 or 4-0 lead, rather than just 2-0; the home side were booed off at the interval by their own fans. The new manager wasn't afraid to make drastic changes to try to reverse the tide of the game: Hato, Badiashile, and Garnacho were all sacrificed at half-time - and that seemed to work, as a much sharper Chelsea began to put their visitors under the cosh, and gradually clawed their way back on to terms (although, once they'd equalised, they lost momentum again for a while, and West Ham briefly looked more likely to nick a late winner). Unfortunately, the game was marred by an ugly scuffle around the corner flag in the last moments of added-on time; Traore took exception to Cucurella having accidentally-on-purpose put the ball out with his hand (though it made no material difference whether his team was going to receive a corner or a free-kick next to the corner-flag), and threw the Spanish defender bodily off the pitch, then violently shoved two other Chelsea players over the byline, and even lurched into the assistant referee at one point; as the ruckus rapidly spread, Mavropanos also got stuck in, slapping Palmer across the face. And then Todibo - perhaps 'taking one for the team', committing a particularly egregious offence to try to deflect attention from all of his other teammates who were trying to get themselves sent off?! - briefly tried to throttle Joao Pedro. Anthony Taylor did not handle this fracas well; after an interminable VAR delay, only Todibo was recommended for a red card, although Traore and Mavropanos should clearly also have received one (I suspect that they could still be subject to retrospective sanctions from the FA; and Todibo might well receive more than just the standard three-match 'violent conduct' ban).

Wolves started brightly against Bournemouth, and the irrepressible Mané appeared to have given them an early lead - but his supplier, Rodrigo Gomes, had been just offside when he broke in behind down the right flank. Another superb 20-yard strike from Kroupi gave the visitors the lead and settled them into the game. The overall balance of play was very even, the xG was similar for both teams, and Wolves actually had nearly twice as many goal attempts - but just couldn't put any of them away. Petrovic somehow recorded 7 'saves' in this game (few of them at all memorable), which looks likely to make him the week's top-scoring goalkeeper.

Although their talismanic captain Bruno Guimaraes was still unable to take part, and Eddie Howe felt the need to rest both Wissa and Woltemade (for the coming League Cup Semi-Final against City), Newcastle opened strongly at Anfield and were dominant for most of the first-half; Barnes had already cracked a curler against the inside of the post, before Gordon, filling in at centre-forward, finally grabbed a deserved lead (amazingly, his first league goal from open play in around a year!). However, as soon as that happened, Liverpool started to find their rhythm, and two quick goals from Ekitike just before half-time put them back in control (he somehow then squandered a much easier chance to complete his hattrick just after the break!). The second half thereafter was mostly much more even, and Alisson had to make one very good save from Barnes; but the home side ultimately powered through. Florian Wirtz is finally finding his feet at the club, which is great to see.

Villa are predictably starting to look a bit thin from their recent spate of injuries, and with Buendia and Rogers being rather too easily cut out of the game by Brentford's well-organised central pressing, they offered almost no attacking threat at all, even when the visitors had been reduced to 10 men by Schade's dismissal for a petulant foul on Cash (an inescapable decision; though Cash made a ridiculous meal of the minimal contact the forward's foot made with him). Douglas Luiz, newly arrived back at the club, had several moments of promise (including a delightful floated ball into the box - which unfortunately landed at the feet of Ezri Konsa rather than a forward!), but I doubt if he's going to be able to anchor that frail midfield on his own. And the other debutant, Tammy Abraham, was unfortunate to have a goal chalked off by VAR. (Again, I think this was an inescapable, correct decision - though an unusual circumstance, in that the ball was found to have gone out of play at the opposite end of the pitch, immediately before Villa's counter-attack,... a full 20 seconds before Abraham put the ball in the net. And I say 'correct', but I still have some doubts about the decision-making process here: although the verdict looked correct, the TV view used didn't really give an unequivocally clear view of the incident; and I don't think VAR should be getting involved in line calls; not just at the moment, anyway - that massively over-complicates their already highly contentious and excessive involvement in today's game. Also, it somehow took 5 bloody minutes to resolve this issue. As I said way back at the start of the season, if VAR can't reach decisions in a brisk 30-40 seconds maximum [and ideally no more than 15 seconds or so for more straightforward decisions!], they should just say, "We are unfortunately unable to resolve this issue; the original on-field decision must be respected." Are we ever going to see that happy day?) I've always felt that Villa have been weirdly managing to punch massively above their true weight so far this season; and I have a hunch that they'll now slip back down to 7th or 8th or so, which is probably a fairer measure of where they're at (even without the current injury crisis).

At Old Trafford, VAR was actually doing its job properly for once, overturning John Brooks's original award of a penalty against new Fulham centre-back Jorge Cuenca for a challenge on Cunha by correctly determining that the final tackle had been entirely fair and that an early tug at the sleeve had terminated just outside the penalty area. The only pity here was that both calls were so obvious, it was strange that Brooks had got them wrong in the first place, and unfathomable that it took the VAR team so long to rectify them. However, this long and stressful interruption did perhaps get in the visitors' heads a bit, as they completely forgot to defend the subsequent wide free-kick, and allowed Casemiro a free header at the far post to give United a scarcely deserved lead. Cunha's fierce near-post strike from an acute angle early in the second-half should have comfortably secured the points, but Fulham fought back bravely from that point. There was, however, another puzzling passage of VAR-ness, when Cuenca's apparent goal to initiate the recovery was ponderously ruled out for 'offside': Cuenca himself had been very clearly offside when the ball had first been played in, but that apparently didn't matter (was he 'played on' by the deflection off Lisandro Martinez's heel? I thought the rule these days was that only a deliberate intervention by a defending player re-set the offside line??); in fact, it was Chukwueze at the other end of the line who was called 'off', although the SAOT graphic entirely failed to demonstrate why: it seemed to come down to where the dreaded 'line' of demarcation (which, I suspect, at least in close calls like these, is still being designated manually - and hence, with massive inconsistency!) was drawn on his upper-arm - and surely he wasn't 'interfering with play' anyway: another headscratcher! The game might have slipped beyond reach straight after that when newly introduced Sesko crashed a glancing header against the foot of the post; but a cool penalty conversion from Raul and then a 20-yard banger from Kevin at the beginning of stoppage time seemed to have secured a well-earned draw. But a superb instant shot on the half-turn from Sesko nicked the win back for United right at the death (he must be staking a strong claim to play from the start!). Though Carrick will take consolation from the fact his team managed to push through for the victory despite not playing all that well, it must be a concern that this was not a shadow of the two previous weeks' performances against top-of-the-table opposition. (Was Dorgu 'the secret' to those stunning successes?? I suspect only indirectly so: I think it's possible that Cunha works better as a 'super-sub' - when he starts, he perhaps unbalances the side, and draws focus away from Mbeumo. Although Beardy Bryan clearly does not relish the No. 9 role anyway, and is far too short to play it effectively against a big central defensive pair. These are a couple of issues that I think Carrick is going to have to address fairly quickly, if he is to keep the 'renaissance' going.)

Palace dropped Mateta - in the throes of an expected move to AC Milan on deadline day - for their visit to Nottingham, which left them stretched so thin, they couldn't even muster a full bench. And Ismaila Sarr, handy as he is in his usual winger/support striker role, simply could not adapt to the idea of trying to be the centre-forward for the afternoon, and so left the visitors with nothing up-front at all for most of the game. He did at least salvage a draw by converting a penalty; although it was such a bad one - telegraphed, softly hit, straight down the middle - that I very much doubt if he'll be taking any more. One almost suspected that Dyche yanked Sels at half-time in a fit of pique at him having failed to save it; although it was later announced that the keeper was complaining of a groin problem. Hudson-Odoi was also withdrawn at the interval with a shoulder injury. Forest had to retreat into their shell a bit when Neco Williams unfortunately got himself sent off for punching a Lerma header off the goal-line (possibly the 'Save of the Gameweek' - although I was initially convinced he'd headed it away fairly,... and I think he probably could have got his head to it), but Palace were so toothless that their man-advantage made no difference to the flow of the match.

Spurs, so often City's 'bogey team' in recent years, just didn't show up in the first-half at all this time; and, given the way they were allowing their visitors to trot towards the penalty area with the ball at will, City probably ought to have been at least 5 or 6 up at half-time. Frank's half-time revamp, however, switching to a back-four and removing Cristian Romero (an odd and provocative choice of sacrifice; unless there was an injury issue there, one must suspect that this is further evidence of - or a likely cause for - some dressing-room discontent at the club) in favour of strengthening the midfield by the introduction of Pape Sarr, seemed to catch City off-guard, and the home side were able to dominate much of the second-half. Solanke's breakthrough goal, though, only 7 minutes into the half, will go down as one of the great VAR travesties of the season; he had looked offside, for a start (certainly a very tight call, for which we would have expected the reassurance of a thorough VAR inspection and an SAOT graphic), but that seemed to get overlooked as the protracted off-pitch review focused exclusively on whether the forward had committed a foul in getting his shot off. And he definitely had; arguably TWO, actually, as he initially clattered his knee into the first covering defender, Khusanov, throwing him off balance, and then, as Guehi came across to get in a last-second block, he very clearly kicked through the back of the defender's leg - causing Guehi to poke the ball beyond Donnarumma into the net. Now, it might, in the bizarre fantasy-world where most of our match officials seem to be living, be possible to judge that Solanke's contact on the back of Guehi's leg was too light to be consequential, culpable; but it had to then be a Guehi own-goal (as, in fact, most of the stats compilers other than Opta and the League seem to have classified it), not one for Solanke! [And although I an a huge admirer of Danny Murphy and Troy Deeney - in fact, I think they're much tbe best two match analysts on television, at least amongst the BBC's regular roster - I do think they sometimes fall victim to an old, tough player's misty-eyed nostalgia for a past where you could get away with a lot more argey-bargey in the game; and this distaste for the fact that these days we're so often seeing free-kicks and cards dished out for very minimal fouls can lead them into an over-compensatory celebration of a foul not being given - even when it very obviously is a foul. The boys were doing that about this call on Sunday's 'Match of the Day'. I don't think they were convincing many people, apart from Spurs fans.] Despite not quite managing to secure the longed-for victory (a victory that might, given the history between the two sides in recent years, have been 'expected'), the strength of the second-half fightback for a gutsy draw might just have saved Thomas Frank's job. While City, repeatedly failing to capitalise on Arsenal's slight 'wobbles' over the past month-and-a-half, now look to be falling out of the title race.

Sunderland, after a bit of a wobbly spell, seem to be getting into their stride again, with their returned African players Diarra and Talbi being particularly impressive in their comfortable Monday night destruction of Burnley - so good, in fact, that the still injured Granit Xhaka was not missed this time. Diarra seemed unlucky not to be credited with a brace, as his opener was not clearly 'off target' before deflecting off Tuanzebe's heel (hard to tell when a deflection comes so soon after the shot is hit, but it looked to me as if the initial effort was bound somewhere pretty near the far post - and I'd give the attacker a generous 'benefit of the doubt' in circumstances like this). The margin of victory might have been even greater (Dubravka made one particularly sharp low save from an effort from Brobbey), as the visiting side were really not in the match at all. I've been saying for a few months now that the drippy and ineffectual Scott Parker looks very much the most uninspiring manager in the league, and really needs to be replaced as soon as possible to give the club any faint chance of staying up; it's probably now already too late, but perhaps this dismal non-performance be will the camel's-back-breaker that finally triggers his exit.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' is another bizarro one, with Gabriel, Ekitike, and Joao Pedro (who only came on as a sub!) the only popular picks in it after Saturday's games, and only Ekitike remained in it by the end of Sunday; indeed, he and Wirtz were the only inclusions with any major FPL ownership. It was again looking rather set to be another miserably low gameweek average; although the final total somehow crept up to 55 points after the final game on Monday (a lot of people have Roefs and/or a Sunderland defender!). Amazingly, there didn't appear to be any really dubious refereeing calls in the first batch of games either (apart from Anthony Taylor's strange leniency towards a couple of the ringleaders of West Ham's injury-time riot!!). There was quite a bit more VAR sketchiness on Sunday, though, with a dubiously disallowed goal for Cuenca at Old Trafford, and a very clearly wrongly allowed one for Solanke against City (which may have 'decided' the title race, so a huge 'Luck-o-meter' swing for the Premier League as well as for Fantasy managers...). Also, Saka's last-minute withdrawal, and a lot of other unexpected rotations and early substitutions add further mayhem, to make it this time about a 6 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

ONE THING I'd like to change....

Of course, there are a lot of things we'd like to fix about FPL and about football in general. I grumble almost every week (usually in my 'Luck-o-Meter' summaries of each gameweek's action) about the maddening shortcomings of the current Laws of the Game on 'handball' and 'offside'.

But there is one such problem with the rules of the game that is becoming an increasing vexation to me, and which I think could be relatively easily - and immediately - 'fixed',... because it is not really a problem with the framing of the Law itself, but simply with a complete absence of any current attempt to enforce it. And that could be remedied with a simple declaration of policy (though I'm not sure if that would have to come from the League or the FA, or both in concert;... or whether the match officials' organisation, PGMOL, might be able to exercise some initiative over that on their own).

I refer, of course, to the fact that it is supposedly illegal for a goalkeeper to handle the ball outside the confines of his own penalty area. We see instances of this - sometimes quite flagrant ones - almost every week. But I really can't remember the last time I saw a keeper penalised for it.

Just last week, for example, Robert Sanchez - who might have a promising career ahead of him in comedy improv after he hangs up his gloves - came rushing out to the edge of his area with the ball in his hands, misjudged his speed and overstepped the line. He dug his heels in and managed to teeter backward within a fraction of a second, so it might have been slightly unclear how much of the ball had crossed the line and for how long - but it definitely looked as though an offence had occurred. Unfortunately, one of the Palace forwards behind him in the box (I think it was Ismaila Sarr?), seeing his difficulty, had the bright idea of trying to bump him from behind to make sure that he stepped well and truly over the line. He probably would have got himself penalised for this however discreetly he'd done it; but since he simply ran into the back of the opposing keeper at full speed, sending him sprawling to the ground, that was a very obvious foul - which distracted attention away from the fact that Sanchez had probably already just committed a foul of his own. [I somehow omitted to comment on this incident in my weekly review last time. There was such a lot going on last week!! It was definitely another fairly healthy slice of 'luck' for Chelsea.]

It feels to me as if, because of the utter lack of attention paid to this technical offence by referees at the moment, keepers are getting more and more bold or incautious about it, and running up to - or a little beyond - the edge of the area with the ball in their hands all the time. There are several incidents almost every week at least deserving of one of VAR's closer inspections; and usually at least one or two that are probably fouls; all currently going not merely unpunished, but apparently unnoticed!

An immediate announcement that the on-pitch officials and their back-up men in the VAR room are going to be giving close scrutiny to this offence should put a stop to it almost completely within a few weeks. We'll see a few keepers get caught out by it, while everyone's adjusting to the new 'rules regime'; but then, probably, everyone will adapt, and this silly little rule-bending phenomenon that we've all become so sadly used to will soon be forgotten. (Because free-kicks right on the edge of the box are really too close to the goal to provide a decent chance of a direct shot, we probably won't even see any goals resulting from the awkward 'transitional period' - unless there are a few really well-worked indirect attempts.)

What do you say, football authorities - any chance of this happening soon??

Oh, a man can dream.....

[Now, I said I didn't think this should require any revision of the current rules. But I'm honestly not sure exactly how they're formulated at the moment. I acknowledge that there may be TWO areas of difficulty, which would perhaps need some tightening up - well, simplifying and clarifying.

The first concerns the precise definition of 'handling outside the box' - does the whole of the ball have to be over the line, or only a part of it? And does the exact position of the goalkeeper's body, or a body part in contact with the ball also have a crucial bearing? In the interests of clarity and simplicity I would suggest that any part of the ball being over the line should render it, for this purpose, 'outside' the penalty area. Further, I would suggest that it is too complicated, impractical, to judge exactly where every point of contact between keeper and ball is in relation to the line, and so this should be treated as irrelevant. Keepers may often claim, for example, that they were straightening their fingers so that only their palms were really in contact with the ball - and hence, even though their fingertips were outside the area, they weren't touching the ball outside the area; this is impossible to judge, and thus, I suggest, should not be in consideration. So long as part of the ball is outside the area, and the keeper is definitely still touching it (wherever the points of contact may be in relation to the line) - he's handled the ball while it's 'outside the penalty area', and it should be a foul.

The second point of complexity is the issue of culpability - whether and when a keeper should be liable to receive a red or yellow card for this kind of incident. I don't see this as a huge problem. We only have two common categories of situation giving rise to this offence. The first is where a goalkeeper rushes out to claim the ball from an onrushing attacker. In these instances, not only is it perfectly clear that the goalkeeper is handling the ball deliberately, he is also clearly aware - or clearly ought to be aware - that he is handling the ball outside the area. Moreover, even if a referee felt he might be able to overlook the flagrancy of such an offence, a keeper is only ever likely to be doing that if he thinks there is no other way to prevent the nearest forward getting the ball; and that usually happens when the keeper is the 'last man', and there are no other defenders nearby who might yet have a chance to reclaim the ball or try to defend the goal - hence, it is also very clearly a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' and an automatic red card anyway. The second class of incidents may have more variety, and pose a little bit more of a challenge: when a keeper is simply carrying the ball around in the area, looking for an opportunity to release it into play again. Here, the offence is almost always 'accidental' - and thus should not usually be card-worthy. However, when, as often happens, the keeper falls on the ball and/or tries to scramble back inside the area to disguise the error he has just committed - well, that is an attempt to deceive the referee, a 'simulation' just as culpable as a forward diving over a defender's leg to try to win a penalty, and as such it should be a yellow card. Also, you sometimes see a keeper sneakily trying to gain an advantage by straying just outside the area, seeking to put an extra half-a-yard between himself and a pressing opponent and/or to give himself a slightly better angle to reach one of his own players with a throw, or just to give himself a bit more length on a throw by vigorously extending his arm in the execution of it. In cases like these, where there is a reasonable supposition of some nefarious intent on the keeper's part, I think a yellow card is appropriate.]

Dilemmas of the Week - GW 24 (25/26)

Midweek European games for 8 of our Premier League teams (most of them crucial to at least avoiding the hassle of an additional play-off round this month) have no doubt taken a toll, and even players who avoided any further injury worries may have earned a 'rest' this weekend. And although we've now got a two-week respite from European competition, there is a danger of some rotation at Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Newcastle ahead of the coming midweek League Cup Semi-Final Second Leg ties. There is yet again quite a nasty accumulation of doubts and niggles, but we do at least seem to have avoided any major catastrophes in these most recent games. [However, because I'm trying to do this roundup on Friday afternoon (my Friday afternoon; still early morning back in the UK), there is a chance that a lot of injury news won't have emerged yet. I'll try to add some updates tomorrow, if significant new information surfaces in today's managerial press conferences.]

I am trying to streamline these weekly round-ups a bit from last year, restricting myself for the most part to just the injuries etc. affecting players that are likely to have a major significance in FPL; and also, of course, only to new injuries - I figure everyone should be aware of players who've already been ruled out for some time!  

[For some years, I have found the 'Injuries & Bans' summary on Fantasy Football Scout the most reliable resource for this kind of information; although this site, Premier League Injuries, is a very good alternative (often a little quicker to update, I think - though it did go through a bit of a glitchy period for a while last year).  Go check these out for more comprehensive coverage. 

I see the Fantasy Premier League site has added an improved 'Player Availability' page this year (though hidden under 'The Scout' tab?!). That also seems to be reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date, but god knows how it's supposed to be 'organised' - maybe by 'date of injury'? Obviously, arranging it by club and alphabetical order would be more sensible; but the denizens of FPL Towers seem to have a deep aversion to the sensible.]

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 24?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

William Saliba and Jurrien Timber missed the Champions League tie against Kairat on Wednesday with 'niggles'; but they probably would have been rested anyway for this dead rubber against one of the weakest sides in the competition - no reason to suppose they won't be back in the fray against Leeds.

Youri Tielemans hobbled off against Newcastle last week with an ankle injury, and Emery has said he expects him to be absent for 8-10 weeks. With a similar timeline on John McGinn's knee problem, and Boubacar Kamara probably ruled out for the rest of the season, Villa are suddenly looking very thin in midfield. Fortunately, they have been able to get Douglas Luiz back from Juventus on a loan deal for the rest of the season. (If he were on penalties again, like before, he could quickly become quite an interesting 'cheap fifth' prospect in FPL!)  To make things even worse, Ollie Watkins came off early in Thursday's Europa League game, after "feeling something" in his hamstring; Emery hopes it's nothing serious, but he's a yellow-flag for the weekend at the moment.

Kristoffer Ajer (ankle) and Mikkel Damsgaard (knee) both had to come off against Forest last week. Keith Andrews says they're not too serious, but might be a doubt for this weekend.

Brajan Gruda missed the game against Fulham last week with a knock, but is expected to be able to make it back against Everton.

Young midfielder (and regular recent starter) Justin Devenny and back-up defender Borna Sosa have apparently joined Palace's lengthy injury roster this week with muscle problems.

Leeds's back-up striker Lukas Nmecha also has a hamstring problem - which is expected to keep him out of action this week, but maybe not much longer.

Joe Gomez suffered a heavy knock on the leg against Bournemouth last weekend, which seems likely to keep him out this week at least; and Jeremie Frimpong succumbed to a groin strain in the midweek match against Qarabag. So, it looks as if Dominik Szoboszlai is yet again going to have to fill in at right-back. Curtis Jones, meanwhile, missed the Champions League game due to an illness.

In the biggest FPL news of the week, Patrick Dorgu, the Manchester United full-back suddenly reinvented as a goalscoring left-winger (and recently surging to nearly 10% ownership in FPL) had to limp off near the end of last week's stirring win over Arsenal. Michael Carrick was initially hopeful it might have been just a cramp at the top of his leg, but it seems it might be some sort of hamstring issue. The Internet has been awash with rumours that he's going to be out for 10-12 weeks (which is the typical 'worst case' for a serious hamstring strain), but there seems to have been no official confirmation of this yet; and the only reasonably authoritative source cited for such a gloomy prognosis is UK football magazine The Athletic - which might just have been reporting the speculation, rather than offering a definitive statement on the severity of the injury. He seems certain to be out this week, though; and probably for at least another two or three (which conveniently leaves room for the suddenly hot-again Matheus Cunha to take over on the left wing).

Bruno Guimaraes has been back in light training this week, and joined the team for the trip to PSG on Wednesday; but it sounds as though he is very much touch-and-go to start a game again just yet.

Forest full-back Nicolo Savona (not likely to be a regular starter any more, now that Ola Aina's finally available again) has some sort of knee problem that's going to keep him out for a while.

Micky Van de Ven had to miss the midweek win over Frankfurt with a knock (although Frank is hopeful he might be OK for this weekend), while Pedro Porro has apparently now developed a hamstring problem which will sideline him until at least the end of February. Poor Spurs will be playing their youth team soon. (Is Archie Gray going to have to step in at centre-back again if Micky isn't fit?)

Do we have any players who are dropped, or not looking likely to get the starts we hoped for?

Adam Wharton has to serve a one-match ban after committing two yellow-card fouls against Chelsea last time out. Michael Keane, however, has now completed his three-match ban for hair-pulling (although, with Jarrad Branthwaite now fit again, he might be unlikely to get a start again for a while).

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

This is one of those quirky paradoxes of FPL, but.... Bruno Fernandes - who has been one of the midfielders of the season so far - might actually be squeezed out of many FPL squads by the return to goalscoring form of Mbeumo and Cunha. You don't really want more than one, and certainly not more than two players from the same club in the same position; and the latter two are starting to look like potentially slightly preferable points prospects now. (Although that threatens to become a classic 'shell-game': whichever one - or two! - you pick, it will probably be the other one who returns the big points in the coming week! You can't win...)

Did anyone play so well, you have to consider bringing them in immediately?

Bryan Mbeumo (one of the league's most consistent and dangerous-looking forwards this year, even when United were struggling earlier in the season) and Matheus Cunha (surely now likely to enjoy a regular start again, at least for a little while) are delighting in the United renaissance under Michael Carrick and look in absolutely banging form at the moment (though this creates some vexing selection dilemmas in FPL-land: see above).

West Ham's Matheus Fernandes is relishing the greater creative responsibility he's been asked to take on in the absence of Lucas Paqueta over the last month or so (which now looks likely to become a permanent state of affairs, as Paqueta is reportedly on the brink of signing for Flamengo), and looks like he might be going on a little spree of banging in long-range goals - he could become an intriguing new option for a 'cheap fifth' midfielder (although there's already strong competition there from the likes of James Garner, Brenden Aaronson, and Elliot Anderson [the former two I plugged as interesting options a couple of weeks back]).

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (79)

 

"What are days for? 

Days are where we live. 

They come, they wake us 

Time and time over. 

They are to be happy in."

Philip Larkin - 'Days'

Where do we go from here...?

Yes, I've been having a fair old tactics binge on Youtube over the past few weeks. After last week's pair of recommendations of videos on recent tactical evolutions in the game, I find myself doing a rapid follow-up with a couple more.

Following up closely on the topic of the first of last week's videos, this one from Football Made Simple looks particularly at how the rapid collapse over the past season or so of the 'positional play' approach developed by Pep Guardiola (due to the mass adoption of man-marking rather than zonal systems) has led to both Pep and Mikel Arteta having to radically modify their approaches to the game. This has involved developing far more versatility in the players (so that they can feel comfortable and be effective in just about any area of the pitch) and far more fluidity of rotation (so that they're tiring and discombobulating their markers by dragging them all over the pitch, shifting them miles away from where they're used to being). Despite some success for this new approach, the increasing impenetrability of the dense low-blocks employed against them for long periods by almost all their opponents is still starving them of scoring chances. One answer to that issue has been to look for players with more mercurial improvisatory talents, players with the close control and the imagination to carve an opening where none seems possible (such as Cherki and Doku now at City). An alternate approach - apparently more favoured by Snr Arteta, who has been presciently basing his squad-building around it for some years already now - is to assemble a corps of brick shithouses who can, when called upon, use their superior physicality to just power their way past, or through, defending players. Not that these options are at all mutually exclusive: Arsenal, after all, have acquired Eze to potentially amp up the guile supplied by Odegaard and Saka, while Haaland and Gvardiol and Semenyo are built like tanks quite as much as Gabriel and Timber and Rice and Havertz and Gyokeres. However, it still seems doubtful if either of these astute coaches has yet found anything like a complete answer to the new set of challenges being posed.

By coincidence, the same day I first saw that video I also happened upon a new post from The Different Knock reviewing Arsenal's tactics this season. (I have, in fact, been avoiding Alex Moneypenny's channel for the past few months, because he's such a diehard Arsenal fan, I had feared he might be getting a bit triumphalistic about their title-leading performance this season. To be fair, though, he does try to be very moderate and even-handed in his assessments, and resists getting too carried away....) It seems he's actually feeling a bit glum and anxious at the moment, recognising that Arsenal have once again been suffering one of their notorious 'midwinter wobbles', and that there is some foundation to the common criticisms currently being made of them: their predictability in attack (always down the right...), their excessive risk-aversion, their over-dependence on set-piece routines, and their woeful lack of threat from open play. [I've been saying all season - and was still sticking to the view, despite the first dawning of some doubts, when I did my second set of final position predictions around the beginning of December - that I just didn't feel they were quite good enough all-round to deserve the title this year, and could only win it by default, if all of the main challengers turned out to have poor seasons (which has been the case so far).]

And then, of course, my favourite video analyst, Adam Clery, just added a video about Arsenal's problems - a useful practical footnote to the above more abstract dissertations.

It's neither A SPRINT nor A MARATHON

 

You often find folks on the FPL online forums saying about this Fantasy game of ours: "It's a marathon, not a sprint."

And you can see what they mean: it's supposed to be dismissive of people who gloat unduly over a single week's success (or become too disheartened at a single week's disaster...), reminding them that things can change over a long season, and - most importantly - that you should focus on longer-term goals, longer-term planning than merely optimising for the coming gameweek.

It's just unfortunate that the phrase has become devalued by overuse, reduced to a glib cliché - whose true significance is rarely reflected upon fully.

And the thing is.... it's not a marathon either. 

The FPL season is actually more like a series of middle-distance races.

It breaks down into into roughly 5 or 6 blocks of fixtures (of about 6-8 games each; though, depending on circumstances, they might occasionally be a little longer, or - rarely - ever so slightly shorter). And you should really be planning your transfers around these blocks; trying to optimise your team not just for the next gameweek or two, but for the next six or so.

There are some 'macro' features of the season, the same every year (or most years), which affect this division into blocks: the chaos of the two transfer windows at the beginning and the mid-point of the football year; the insane fixture congestion of December/January, and the brutally cold weather throughout the winter months; the interruptions of the international breaks; the loss of players to the African Cup of Nations or the Asian Cup in mid-season every two or four years; the appearance of Blank and Double Gameweeks at the latter end of the season, and the growing distraction of other competitions for those teams who've reached the later rounds in Europe or the domestic Cups.

Then there are some more 'micro' features that may shift from year to year: some teams have more of a 'wobble' of form in the bleak midwinter than others; some struggle more with the demands of European football, due to unfamiliarity and/or a lack of squad depth and/or being particularly unlucky with injuries; the promoted sides usually take some time to adapt to the top league, and don't start to become even moderately competitive until a third, or a half, or two-thirds of the way through the season (but can throw quite a spanner in the works when they do); some clubs may suffer unwelcome upheaval, and/or get the benefit of a 'new manager bounce' from a change of manager; and so on. Most crucially, each season is shaped by patterns in the fixtures; there are usually a few major 'turns' in fixture-difficulty, where a number of teams shift from having mostly very difficult to mostly much easier fixtures at about the same, and these can be a cue for multiple changes to an FPL squad.

It makes no sense to 'plan' for the FPL season as a whole (except insofar as you should recognise its likely 'shape', based on the factors above, and thus be mentally prepared for the likely key moments of difficulty and opportunity spread throughout it). You need to break it up into more manageable chunks, and plan your squad-building around each of those.

Constantly telling yourself that "it's a marathon" may provide some solace when a gameweek goes badly for you; but it can also be a dangerous distraction. You need to be focusing on what you're going to do to prosper over the next month or so.

[I speak as someone who's been a keen runner their whole life, and who's had some experience at all kinds of distances.

I've always been tall for my age, and when I was in Primary School I was considered quite a devastating sprinter (though, of course, this was largely because we only ever ran about 20m or 30m, and most of my peers still had the coordination of newborn foals). In my teens I discovered that I was much better suited to the middle distances: I never quite had the stamina to push hard for a full mile, but was pretty quick over 800m and 1,000m. However, I was never very serious about competition, I was more concerned with the meditative aspect of running; and so I gradually transitioned into running slower and slower, over longer and longer distances. And as I entered my forties, I became interested in taking on the challenge of running marathons - and even a few ultra-marathons. So, I have a perspective on this topic, I feel I have a deeper understanding of the metaphor than most people.]

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 23

A few unpleasant selection surprises again this week; although, at least, not too many new injury disasters to add to our FPL troubles.

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I'm going to start trying to keep them briefer from here on. Let's see how that goes... [Um, not well, it would seem. I just can't help myself!!]

Perhaps I'm just unreasonably cranky this week for some reason, but I found the West Ham v Sunderland game unwatchably dull. West Ham, to be fair, are starting to show a marked improvement, but Sunderland - without the talismanic Xhaka, suddenly revealed to be suffering from an ankle injury - were miles below their best. Regis Le Bris made three changes at half-time, and the visitors looked much better after that, and the final result did rather flatter the home side. West Ham's opener was a good goal exploiting some poor defending, but the second was a fairly soft penalty award and Bowen slipped on his standing foot and was lucky not to scuff his effort wide or get a double-hit; while the third was a thirty-yard screamer out of nowhere from Matheus Fernandes just before half-time (and he almost did it again in the second-half when a similar effort smashed against the underside of the bar). There was really little incident of note apart from this, and for the most part it felt very much like a bad Championship game (I confess I gave up on watching it live half-way through the first-half!).

Burnley are continuing to show improvement, and came agonisingly close to their first win in months against Spurs - only to see a powerful diving header from Romero save a draw in the dying seconds of regulation time. Spurs showed flashes of promise with the energetic Solanke back leading their attack (Dubravka supposedly made 9 saves in the match, and was Burnley's 'best player' according to the BPS; but not many of them were significant enough to make it into the BBC highlights!), but their back line was pretty shambolic. I'd have a bet on Thomas Frank now losing the job this week. (The upcoming Champions League game against Frankfurt is really a bit of an irrelevance, since no-one expects Spurs to be able to win a knockout tie in that competition, whether it's the play-off or the Round of 16.)

Fulham v Brighton was a tight and thoroughly entertaining game (my favourite of the day: well, second only to Bournemouth v Liverpool - it can only have been scheduled last on on 'Match of the Day' because they are two such 'unfashionable' clubs), and included a pair of absolute bangers from Yasin Ayari and Harry Wilson. Even Marco Silva admitted that a draw would have been a fair result here. It was very harsh on Brighton that Wilson's free-kick would seal a late win, so soon after Danny Welbeck's excellent goal on the break had been ruled out by VAR for another of these ridiculously tight offsides (a matter of a fraction of an inch, entirely dependent on where you choose to draw 'the line' on his upper arm - and of course on whether you trust SAOT to be able to correctly determine the 'decisive moment' of ball release to within hundredths of a second).

Doku was injured (which allowed both Cherki and Semenyo to play; I doubt that will often happen), and Pep decided to rest the recently weary-looking Haaland and Foden (only bringing them on for the last 20 minutes), which gave Marmoush his first start since early in the season - an opportunity which he enthusiastically made the most of. New boys Guehi and Semenyo (who scored one, and might have had a second with a thunderous left-foot shot which clipped the far top corner of the woodwork) both had excellent games too. Wolves had a shakey start, but gradually toughened up and showed a lot of resilience and defiance after falling behind so early on; in the second-half, they even had a few chances to score themselves. Khusanov clumsily ran through the back of Mané on the edge of the box: it probably was just outside the area, but we should have had the reassurance of a VAR check to confirm exactly where the contact had occurred - and we didn't get that. City had a much stronger penalty claim when the ball caught Mosquera's outstretched arm just inside the elbow; but debutant referee Farai Hallam bravely stuck by his original decision not to make the award, rather than accepting the implicit suggestion from VAR that it had been a culpable handball - it's a pity we don't see that more often (it is shameful that he's been dropped from the roster for next gameweek, though; this looks very much like 'punishment' for going against his colleagues - even if it's not, that's what it looks like). Absolutely the right decision from the commonsense point of view: Marmoush had flicked the ball at him from very close range, perhaps deliberately looking for such a contact on the arm. The ball wasn't bound for the goal, or even for another City player; and the defender knew absolutely nothing about it. It is absurd to be giving handball penalties for incidents like this; and yet we do see them given almost every week! However, the ref's rationale that the arm had been "in a natural position" was possibly a bit dubious, as the arm was well out from the side (arguably for balance, as he lunged to attempt to block a cross; but such circumstances are usually - though possibly wrongly - judged 'handball' these days). But that whole section of the rule is a nonsense which regularly leads to confusion and inconsistency: unless the ball is goal-bound - in which case, I think, any contact on the arm should be 'strict liability', though 'position of the arm' would determine degree of culpability for a possible red card - the position of the arm should be irrelevant.  The major oddity of this match was that Donnarumma, despite being credited with only one save, got the second highest BPS total - WTF???

Ekitike was strangely left on the bench, and only came on for the last half-hour or so (Slot continues to  infuriate FPL managers by making changes just before the hour: this time Frimpong and Macallister were pulled off for Ekitike and Jones in the 58th minute, while Kerkez was switched with Roberston at half-time). Jimenez had looked well offside for Bournemouth's second goal, but SAOT eventually pronounced that he had been 'on' by the thickness of his shirtsleeve. (I'm happy enough to see a good goal stand, but... we really don't want to see decisions being made on such absurdly slim margins. And the frequent wide discrepancies between TV freeze-frames and the SAOT computer graphics of these incidents undermine viewer confidence in the system.) Liverpool are perhaps starting to pay a bit more attention to set-pieces, as they got back into the game with a near-post header by Van Dijk from a corner - although the ball looked as if it had come off Evanilson's shoulder and should have been an own-goal. Wirtz had a good cross-shot tipped just beyond the post by Petrovic near the end; and Liverpool are peeved that the ref wrongly awarded a goal-kick. But Bournemouth were coming at their visitors in waves for the last 15 minutes or so, and had been the better team in the match on balance overall - so their last-gasp winner from Adli in a goalmouth scramble felt deserved. Slot's position is looking more and more under threat; although my feeling is that he'll still be safe until the end of the season.

Forest finally seem to be recovering something of the composure behind the ball and the threat going forward which gave them such a good season last year; but they were helped in this game by a very flat performance from home side, Brentford. The opening strike should be a leading 'Goal of the Month' contender (although we've seen an awful lot of more eye-catching long-range bangers this month...), a neat move down the right covering the length of the pitch, mainly orchestrated by full-back Ola Aina, culminating in a sharp turn and half-volley by Igor Jesus.

Cole Palmer was another player whose injury problem had been played down during the week, but proved to be not even fit for the bench. Chelsea didn't do too badly without him, although Palace were very lacklustre opposition for them here, even playing in front of their home crowd. There was another odd VAR fiasco, where Darren England was eventually prompted to give a penalty against poor Jaydee Canvot by the backroom team (at least it was Chelsea's third goal, so can't be said to have had any impact on the match outcome). I really don't know what the Handball Law says any more; we seem to be discovering new bizarre wrinkles to it every week. The referee stressed that he considered the contact to be 'accidental' (that in itself is not a term that I've heard used in reference to a handball decsion.... for years), and gave that as his reason for only giving the Palace defender a yellow card (if there was 'no fault', why should there be any card at all???). However, because the ball had been goalbound, any contact on his 'arm' was deemed a strict liability offence requiring the award of a penalty. But it looked to me as if the ball hit him very high on the upper-arm, pretty much on the shoulder - which would have been an allowable contact even under the older version of the regulation, before the recent extension of the 'sleeve-line' to some nebulous point not quite half-way down the upper arm! Worst of all, the VAR playback - which the poor ref had to look at multiple times to try to get an idea of what had happened - initially only showed the worst possible view of the incident, where you really couldn't see the ball striking the defender's arm at all. Eventually, two further views were offered - which still didn't provide any very clear sight of the crucial moment of contact. We'd seen the incident from in front, from behind, and from Canvot's left side; but since it was his right arm in question, and since he'd started pulling it away from ball (and behind his body, not away from his side; he was obviously doing his best to get it out of the way of the ball) while simultaneously twisting his body in the same direction as the arm - in all of these views, his body blocked a view of the ball hitting his arm. But.... later on TV, we were shown a view of the incident from Canvot's right - where you could very clearly see that the ball had hit him up by the shoulder; WHY was this view not used for VAR???  We're seeing this kind of incompetence every week, and it undermines the whole system. And there was even more woe for Palace near the end as their crucial midfielder Adam Wharton get himself sent off for two slightly rash challenges within five minutes. At least they bundled in an injury-time consolation goal from a goalmouth scramble, but it was a pretty wretched day for Glasner's team.

Newcastle produced an uncharacteristically lifeless home performance against Villa, and were particularly flakey at times in defence - absolutely awful in allowing Watkins to ghost in at the far post for the second goal. Joelinton was perhaps a tad lucky not to receive a first-half red card for stamping on Onana's leg with an over-eager lunge of a challenge. Bruno Guimaraes, whose ankle 'knock' had initially been played down by Eddie Howe as seeming fairly trivial, but is apparently more serious, and he was sat up in the stands with his family for this one; this could be a major worry for Newcastle, as they've never managed to win a league game without him, since his arrival. Yet another banger from outside the box in this one, this time from Emi Buendia. And one absolutely outstanding save by Emi Martinez from a Miley header. And - remarkably - almost no sign of any dodgy refereeing at all!

Resurgent Manchester United finally managed to upset Arsenal's stately procession towards an increasingly inevitable-looking title, with a well-deserved win at The Emirates. It was a thrilling and open game, but the home side once again laboured to create any decent chances from open play, and looked very much second-best in almost every aspect of the game. I was disappointed that my boy Timber apparently didn't get his toe-end on Odegaard's mishit shot for the first goal (the Thai commentators I was stuck with evidently thought he had, saying his name over and over again with much delight; and none of the TV pictures seemed all that decisive that it was actually Lisandro Martinez's heel that had got the final deflection towards the goal). There were two other mild moments of controversy: Zubimendi - but, perhaps tellingly, absolutely no-one else - protested that Dorgu had controlled the ball with his left arm just before unleashing his thunderbolt from outside the box to take the lead 2-1; it looked to me as if the ball had got a trivial, non-consequential brush on the back of his arm at the same time it hit his midriff or hip; but VAR rather strangely, and worryingly, pronounced that it only found in the attacker's favour because the video evidence on this was "inconclusive" (we've seen a lot of incidents recently where the VAR team only seemed to be able to review a limited number of TV angles - and, conspicuously, not the best one that actually showed what happened!). Later, Harry Maguire deflected a low shot with his hand, but he had slipped and fallen as he lunged into an attempted block, so was only putting his hand out to the ground to break his fall; on that basis, he was certainly non-culpable, but... the shot looked goal-bound, and surely 'culpability' is not in issue there: if he prevented a likely goal, surely that should have been a penalty? Another banger of a goal from Cunha late on to clinch the points, Mbeumo's gift of an equaliser when Zubimendi played a sloppy square ball to him 30 yards out - and Arteta's decision to start with Jesus again instead of Gyokeres (although no-one really should have either of those players for FPL!) were the other rather unexpected, 'lucky' incidents in this one.

The Everton v Leeds game on Monday night was very much a 'game of two halves', with the visitors absolutely bossing the first period - they might well have taken an unassailable lead if Calvert-Lewin had been a little sharper in front of goal. Moyes, however, got his hairdryer out at half-time, and rushed just-back-from-injury Branthwaite and Dewsbury-Hall on for the second-half (at the expense of youngster Harrison Armstrong and no-longer-in-favour Dwight McNeil), which suitably re-energised his team. Relentless pressure produced a deserved equaliser from Barry, and they could have gone on to win, with their just-back-from AFCON pair both going close, Ndiaye bringing a flying save out of Darlow with an improvised prod with the outside of his right boot, and Idrissa Gueye smashing a drive against the crossbar. There seem to have been no refereeing upsets in this one either (maybe things are slowly improving with the officiating??).

The FPL 'Team of the Week' this time is actually one of the least strange we've had this season: well, none of the very 'big names' are on it, but at least everyone is a good enough player to warrant some level of FPL ownership, there's not the rash of 'complete unknowns' we've been seeing most weeks. However, it is looking likely to be yet another miserably low gameweek average, with the total being a dreadful 44 points. Apart from the 'shock' omissions of Haaland, Foden, Ekitike, and Xhaka (and the first two of these might have been reasonably anticipated; while the first three were apparently all 'leaked' in advance on social media - though only a matter of minutes before the FPL deadline!), there weren't too many selection upsets on Saturday; Sunday, though, also saw somewhat unexpected omissions (even from the bench!) for Palmer and Guimaraes. At least there have been few refereeing cock-ups (only a bad penalty award against Palace, a possibly wrongly attributed goal for Van Dijk, and a couple of very tight, rather dubious offside decisions: one goal allowed, one disallowed - both probably wrongly). West Ham's and Bournemouth's wins were rather unexpected, and Fulham's rather lucky; but the games have gone mostly as might have been expected. This is perhaps one of the least freaky gameweeks we've had this season, only a 4 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.