The NERVE!!

I was asking Google the other day how many people might have played their Triple Captain chip on Bruno Fernandes in Gameweek 2 (and, of course, it was taking a long time to admit it didn't know...).

And its bloody AI - which now hijacks every single search query, even if you haven't selected the 'AI' option - offered to 'help' me select my FPL team.

I was fretting before the start of the season that AI was probably going to ruin the game before long. It may already be happening. 

So many FPL managers seem to be incapable of - or at least unwilling to - select their own teams, and they're probably all leaning on AI suggestions to do the job for them now. Are there any 'real' players still out there, players relying on their own judgement - rather than cheating???

Not many, I fear; not many.

A little bit of Zen (110)

"An only life can take so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never..."

Philip Larkin - from his poem 'Aubade'

Yes, unfortunately a bad start can wreck your whole season. Many people just give up and quit the game when this happens. But, however wretchedly things may have gone in the opening couple of gameweeks, however hopeless your season's prospects may now be, it is possible to still find things to enjoy in the weekly challenge. As I always say, you will find more satisfaction in the game - and gradually improve at it - if you concentrate not on any arbitrary end-goal of points or rank finishes, but on the process - all the individual decisions you make, and how you reach them.

Pick of the crop - the most interesting new transfers this year

Gosh, well, things did get especially busy on Tuesday, the last day of this year's summer transfer window for the Premier League - with 30 further deals concluded on that day (many of them in the final hours, and not getting announced until Wednesday). It seems there were 155 moves in total in the window, edging out summer 2019 - narrowly - to set a new record. With some really stupidly eye-watering fees being paid, it must surely have set a new record for the amount of money changing hands as well!

However,... it's also been one of the least interesting transfer windows I can remember, at least in terms of FPL impact!! The majority of signings seem to have gone to the promoted sides, and/or to be mainly filling out 'squad depth' rather than providing likely new key starters.

Below are what I consider the likely highlights - for FPL - of this summer's business. Particularly noteworthy players are in bold; and the most promising FPL prospects are bold and underlined.

PSG winger Bradley Barcola going to Liverpool is the only really 'world class' talent to join the league; and he's arrived too late in the window to be in immediate contention. With Liverpool still struggling to get to grips with the Iraola system, it might be some weeks before we're considering him (or any Liverpool players!!) for our Fantasy squads.

To be fair, Johan Manzambi and Ayyoub Bouaddi can probably be called 'world class' too; but they're young and unproven at the top level; and the former is injured, and joining a Villa side who look set to struggle this season, while the latter is not guaranteed regular starts in an overstocked City midfield. Bouaddi is, in any case, a holding midfielder, and thus not likely to be of any interest in FPL. Manzambi, the Swiss winger who had such an impressive World Cup this summer, and Barcola are a pair of players that I covet in anticipation; but, remembering how badly Wirtz floundered at the start of last season, I won't be rushing to bring either of them in until they've proved some form.

Some of the most interesting moves have occurred amongst the goalkeepers: new arrivals Konstantinos Tzolakis (joining Hull from Olympiakos, and currently leading the keeper rankings - although you suspect the promoted side's bubble of early success must burst soon...?), Lukas Hornicek (coming to Newcastle from Braga, and also looking very impressive in his first few outings), and Zion Suzuki (the Japanese national keeper, coming from Parma to replace Emi Martinez at Villa), and perhaps Michele di Gregorio (joining Bournemouth from Juventus - although Petrovic has looked so good at the start of the season that he's surely in no imminent danger of losing his start) all look very tempting new options at only 4.5 or 5.0 million pounds. 

However, the biggest goalie move of the summer is probably Jamie Trafford going to Leeds (how City fans must be regretting that now, with the form Donnarumma has been showing in the last few weeks!): he is currently looking like not just the best 'budget' keeper option in FPL this season, but maybe the best overall.

Amongst the defenders, the two biggest moves were the asset-stripping of Crystal Palace, with Maxence Lacroix (a bit of a monster for the 'defensive contributions' last season) going to Chelsea (who, at the moment, seem to be having an internal competition to see if they can concede as many goals as they score) and Daniel Munoz joining Forest (a bit of a damning snub to Palace, as Forest finished so much lower in the league than them last season!). Munoz is again likely to be the most popular FPL asset, for his significant attacking threat (though I'll be sad to see Ola Aina, a player I really like, presumably being displaced as the Forest right-back). It's interesting to see Ainsley Maitland-Niles (joining Everton) and Aaron Wan-Bissaka (joining Villa) return to the Premier League - but will they get starts over Rohl and Cash (and Harwood-Bellis?)?? But the more intriguing new arrivals, I think, are the Bosnian right-back Amar Dedić (joined Newcastle from Benfica, and has looked outstanding so far - but will he keep his start once Livramento is fit again?), Hull's Senegalese left-back Nobel Mendy (I know, we might not want to keep Hull players for long - but he has looked very good in the opening two games), and England's own Taylor Harwood-Bellis moving from Southampton to Villa (playing more as a centre-back of late, although he's also looked good at full-back in the past; and I could see him possibly even playing on the wing; but given Konsa's departure, the centre-back slot is probably where they most need a replacement). Jérémy Jacquet has started well at Liverpool, and looks their most impressive defensive acquisition in quite a while; but, unfortunately, they are still all over the the place defensively, so I doubt if many people will be rushing in for him just yet. Luka Vuskovic, the 19-year-old Croatian centre-back Brighton signed from Spurs to replace Van Hecke, is a fantastic young prospect, and is looking set to be a regular starter alongside Dunk; but the game didn't price him very kindly at 5.0 million.

In midfield, Morgan Rogers could thrive in a more exuberant attacking side at Chelsea, and seems to particularly relish playing alongside his childhood friend, Cole Palmer. The early signs there are extremely promising (but... you probably only want one Chelsea midfielder; and, at the moment, that's looking like it should be Palmer). The young Ghanaian winger, Abdul Fatawu, who looked so dangerous when he was in the Premier League with Leicester a couple of years ago, and the very skillful Paraguayan Julio Enciso are both intriguing prospects at Ipswich; you wonder if they'll be able to have much long-term impact with such a weak side - but they're worth keeping an eye on for a possible short run of hot form. Arsenal's new Greek left-winger, Christos Tzolis, got their fans over-excited when he enjoyed a very lively run during the pre-season friendlies; that enthusiasm evaporated very quickly when he had a dog of a game against Villa on Monday night, picked up an early booking, and was pulled off at half-time. He continues to be a promising prospect; but at the moment, Martin Odegaard is the same price and in even better form.... (and you'd surely go for Saka over either of them, if you could find enough cash under the mattress!). Liverpool's Victor Munoz also shows promise; but, with Gakpo staying (for now) and Barcola probably getting a regular start on the right-wing, his minutes are likely to be limited; I suspect he'll make fairly regular bench appearances to replace one or the other of those other wide players, but will rarely get a start. And the swap of Brennan Johnson and Dwight McNeil between Crystal Palace and Everton is intriguing. Both lost their way rather last season (so dramatically that you worry there may have been some deep personal problem behind that, whether injury, illness, family issues, or general 'mental health' difficulties); but both are talented players who have been useful FPL assets in the past, and could be again - if they're trusted with regular starts once more. Many are hopeful that Leeds can offer Harry Wilson a slightly more stable platform to excel upon than floundering Fulham, but... I'm afraid I doubt if he can recreate that astonishing form he showed through the middle of last season. And with strong competition from the likes of Ampadu, Okafor, Aaronson, Gnonto, and James, I'm not even confident he'll hold on to a regular start with the Yorkshire club. But we can wait and see, and keep our fingers crossed.

Among the forwards, Taiwo Awoniyi moving from Forest to Coventry, to fill in for the crocked Haji Wright (who played such a big role in their title-winning success last season) and Zian Flemming (impressive with Burnley last season) going to Ipswich might be of interest for filling out the budget 3rd seat. And Nicolas Jackson - for whom Villa just paid Chelsea an astonishing 65-million pounds!! - might relish another chance to shine in the Premier League, after being rather unceremoniously let go by Maresca at the start of last year, just when he appeared to be getting his act together (although if he falters, he might soon be under pressure from young Brian Madjo, who looked white-hot in pre-season). However, the only really exciting addition in this position is Canadian striker Promise David at Brighton; if he gets regular starts and lives up to his potential - I think he could prove to be the best 6.0-million-pound forward in FPL this season.

Most of the transfers that have created the most noise this summer don't excite me very much. Many of them, I fear, might simply be destabilizing: buying in players who are too good for the bench may unsettle the players whose places they apparently threaten, or disrupt tactics and relationships within the squad if they are shoehorned in just to keep them happy - and ultimately this is likely to leave players and fans dissatisfied. I just don't see how Bruno Guimaraes and Ezri Konsa are going to get any starts at Arsenal, unless they suffer a bunch of injuries to established players. I don't see how Enzo Fernandez fits at City; he just threatens to delay Bouaddi's introduction as the regular second pivot, or to displace Foden/Cherki further forward - neither of which I see as desirable (and, from the online discussion over the past week or so, it seems that a lot of City fans don't either). Illiman Ndiaye is far too good to be left sitting on the bench until Doku or Semenyo pick up an injury; but that's surely what's going to happen to him (I do not understand players accepting moves to big clubs where they're not going to get any minutes; it's throwing their careers away). And all the fine players who've gone to Spurs - Senesi, Van Hecke, Tosin, Fernandes, Tonali, Savinho, Marmoush, Mudryk(?!) - are already looking doomed to suffer under that club's curse of being able to transform silk purses into sow's ears. Their start this season has been even worse than last year's; they need a dramatic turnaround very quickly, or they're going to be in the relegation fight all season again.

Two of the other most intriguing arrivals, in terms of skill and potential impact, are Valentin Barco and Marco Palestra - but neither of them are looking likely to get regular gametime with Chelsea so far.

The transfers with the biggest real-world impact are probably going to be those of top holding midfielders: Elliot Anderson going to City, Carlos Baleba to Manchester United, Nico Gonzalez to Newcastle, Mamadou Sangaré to Brentford, Joao Gomes to Villa, and Sasa Lukic to Ipswich. These are all moves that could be transformative for the receiving clubs - but are of absolutely zero interest in FPL, because 'defensive contributions' points, on their own, are not enough to merit inclusion in a Fantasy squad.

So, that's my rundown of the most interesting transfers: a number of 'ones to watch', but.... no immediate 'must-haves'.

'All over' already??

Well, it feels very much like it, doesn't it?

Nearly 5 million FPL managers owned Bruno Fernandes going into last weekend, and it seems around 1.8 million of them put the captain's armband on him. Although no official figure has been released yet, it seems likely that perhaps half of those played their Triple Captain chip on him.

So, those of us who didn't have Fernandes as our captain - or perhaps didn't own him at all - may have fallen behind the early leaders by as much as 50 or 60 points in a single gameweek, thanks to Bruno's improbably huge haul against Ipswich on Sunday.

And that is a massive, massive blow. Against good players, who are not making many blunders, and mostly achieving pretty consistent weekly returns, it will probably take us until the New Year to chip away at that kind of deficit (at least, in our normal week-by-week returns: if we could pull off a similarly huge coup with our Triple Captain play, or one of the other bonus chips - that would be a big help in getting back on terms rather more quickly). And we might not manage it even across the whole of the remainder of the season (amongst the handful of consistently strong managers I regularly compare myself against, there's often no more than 50 or so points between all of us through most of the season).

But this is a hard, cruel, frustrating game. We must accept that this is so - and keep trying to do the best we can with it, however much early setbacks may appear to have killed our hopes of achieving many of our original goals for the season.

I have two sources of consolation that may help. One is that one of my chief antagonists is wildly inconsistent, tends to start hot but... go walkabout in the second half of the season - and often contrives to piss away a 200 or even a 300-point lead in a matter of months. (He's not in a commanding position at the moment, and is probably not going to be my main threat this year. But at least this reassures me that weaker managers can allow you to make up even a very big gap on them.)  The second is that in the two mini-leagues I have the strongest personal investment in, only two managers own Bruno Fernandes (and they hadn't made him captain this week!). 

So, fortuitously enough, even though I might now struggle to finish in the top half million overall, my mini-league positions are still fine.

I recommend that everyone who has been wiped out by the Bruno Landslide should look for similar consolations. Even if the top spot in your most highly contested leagues looks out of sight at the moment,... it may not be. And, well, even if it is, there must be at least one key rival who shared your no-Bruno misery and is thus still within reach. 

Concentrate on the goals which still seem achievable, and forget - at least for now - about the ones that seem to have slipped away from you already.

Even a very good player... may not be worth AN EARLY-SEASON TRANSFER

At the start of the season, with no reliable information to go on about who's likely to be in the best form in the opening games, we're all betting blind on our initial squads. Hence, Gameweek 1 usually goes badly - sometimes very, very badly! - for the majority of FPL managers.

And that... tends to make many of them very impatient. They see the players who had a good Gameweek 1, and they want to buy them immediately. 

Now, quite apart from the fact that one game is no guide to anyone's form (well, hardly anyone's...) and so you really don't know who's worth transferring in this early in the season, it's a good idea anyway to hoard transfers like gold dust at the start of the year.

It's always been very valuable to 'roll' Free Transfers on to a later week, so that you could have the option to use 2 at once (for a long time, 2 was all you could hold at one time). Since they changed the rule a couple of years ago (a rare, perhaps unique example of a good rule change in the game) to allow us to hold up to 5 Free Transfers, we can now in theory build up to a mini-Wildcard every 5 gameweeks. In practice, that's very difficult - nearly impossible (and often self-harming even to attempt) - to achieve; but to have the ability to use even 3 or 4 Free Transfers at once, rather than 1 or 2, as in the past, is enormously valuable: it gives you so much more flexibility to reallocate budget - exchanging for a cheaper player in one position so that you can get a more expensive one in another (rather than just being stuck with like-for-like transfers at a similar price-point, if you're only using 1 transfer at a time).

So, even if you are confident of a player's outstanding form after only one or two games of the new season,... you should probably still hold off acquiring him for a further week or two - not only to confirm your judgement of his points-potential, but also to give you the facility to make other complementary changes and perhaps rejig the distribution of your squad budget across the position categories.

Also, of course, while the transfer window is still open, new arrivals - or departures - can have a tremendous knock-on effect on how well teams and individual players perform. So, it's best to defer any FPL purchase decisions until all the real-world transfer business is resolved.

Sometimes, it's better to wait a little for the things you covet....

A Bench Boost is best played OPPORTUNISTICALLY

I discussed last week how all the arguments commonly put forward in favour of chancing the first Bench Boost chip in Gameweek 1 of the season were utterly misguided.

I think that, in general, having too rigid a plan on when to use any of your chips is a bad idea - but perhaps particularly so with the bonus chips (and even more particularly so in the first-half of the season, when there are no 'special circumstances' like Blank or Double Gameweeks to skew our calculations of risk/reward for the chips).

Team (and individual) form can shift drastically in a short space of time: so, you just don't know much in advance when all of your 15 squad members are going to be looking particularly sharp, or when all - or most - of them are going to be facing especially appealing fixtures.

In general, for the Bench Boost, it is much better to wait until at least a few - ideally, in fact, probably several - weeks into the season, when teams have settled into some consistent form, as they've got used to changes in player and coaching personnel and new tactics. The first few gameweeks of the season are always erratic, wildly unpredictable; almost no-one shows much consistency, and few if any teams are yet anywhere near their peak performance.

Now, you can sometimes 'set up' ideally for a particularly promising set of fixtures by using the Wildcard shortly beforehand (ideally, in the gameweek immediately prior). But, if you're having to make that many changes from your normal squad, the chances are that this is not going to be an ideal set of players going forward; you're probably sacrificing some points in subsequent weeks, just to try to slightly improve your yield from the Bench Boost; and that's almost certainly not going to be worth it.

And there are so many 'moving parts' in  a successful Bench Boost - needing all 15 players to start, and nearly all of them to haul - that it hardly ever pays off that well; you almost always have something go wrong: one or two last-minute drop-outs, or one of the teams you have the strongest representation from having an unexpectedly awful game, etc.

Therefore, you almost certainly have a much better chance of achieving some success with a Bench Boost, if you keep a strong squad - with a strong bench - throughout the season,... so that you are able to consider playing the Bench Boost in almost any gameweek that suddenly seems opportune, with the way everyone's team and individual form is looking for the next set of fixtures.  [A really good set of fixtures, with everyone in your squad fit and in form, in a regular Single Gameweek is usually a better prospect than a Double Gameweek. The notion that you have to play Bench Boost - or Triple Captain - in a Double Gameweek in the second-half of the season is an entrenched FPL fallacy. Few double-fixtures are actually 'good' double-fixtures; and it's almost always a mistake to load up entirely on doubling players in such a gameweek.]

This is another of the reasons why you need your bench, and why it is foolhardy to go light on your substitute selections. Even at the start of the season, trying to conserve budget by choosing weak players, or non-starting players, for the bench positions is a self-harming false economy.

[Much the same applies to the Triple Captain chip. There are only a handful of players that are usually candidates for this, and only a handful of 'most likely' fixtures for its use. But still, there may be some surprising shifts in form that change those expectations, or add some additional options at short notice. It is unwise to decide at the very beginning of the season what Haaland's or Palmer's or Fernandes's 'best' fixture is going to be; you don't usually know until a week or two beforehand!]

Why all this WAITING?? (Monday Music Break - No. 1)

FPL always used to aim to confirm all match details (sometimes tweaking the BPS numbers or reallocating contested assists and whatnot) and finalize everyone's scores and league rankings within an hour or two of the gameweek's last match finishing.

But this year they've switched to to not confirming everything until 9am the following morning (UK time). And that might be only a guideline, a 'good intention', a hopeful target: last week, it appeared to be quite a bit later than that. (I wonder if the Lords of FPL Towers are just too tight-fisted to pay staff overtime for all-night working any more??)

This means that in my timezone (East Asia, currently UTC+6) we perhaps won't be getting the gameweek's details straight until quite late the following afternoon. It is a little bit of a pain-in-the-behind.

But it did remind me of this song....  Lonely Boy by Ohio indie rock duo, The Black Keys. I confess I had always thought it was called 'I got a love that keeps me waiting' - which is the more powerful hook.

I wouldn't necessarily call this a major favourite of mine. It sounds great, and the hook is enormous - but I feel it kind of fails to deliver on that promise: it's like a placeholder lyric that is never developed into anything. Though there's something intriguingly meta in a song about frustration being itself inherently frustrating! The video plays into that a bit as well: whoever thought of having a dance video that doesn't properly show the dancing (no feet?!)?? Ah, so often mere irritation is a key part of a song's earworm quality....

Coincidentally, this band is on tour in the UK at the moment - three more gigs over the next few days.

Music is one of the great passions of my life; an even greater one than football, in fact! And I have dropped a few favourite songs here on the blog before. I've been thinking for a while of making that more of a feature - so, this is the beginning of a projected regular series of musical pick-me-ups to start the week.

What's up, BBC??

It has for many years been one of the central comforting rituals of my life to catch up on Saturday's Premier League action over a good cup of coffee on a Sunday morning, with the BBC's iconic 'Match of the Day' highlights programme on the iPlayer.

But this weekend, Auntie Beeb was trying to spoil my Sunday pleasure. Saturday's 'Match of the Day' somehow did not exist. Well, it did, of course - but it was stubbornly invisible to the in-site search engine. And it didn't even appear on the programme's 'Series page', which is supposed to archive all the currently available episodes.

I had to find the daily archive of Saturday's programme schedule and scroll down to the bottom to find 'Match of the Day' in its usual late-night slot (typically starting at around 11pm, UK time). Such a bother!

It's an oversight in the 'indexing', it would appear: they've posted the programme without putting up any of the usual links to other parts of the site that let you know it's there. I wonder if this is just a piece of carelessness by some overworked drone at the Television Centre, or a transient technical glitch, or.... if the bastards are actually 'hiding' the programme deliberately,... perhaps to try to promote the new(ish) feature of making individual match highlights available. (These are, admittedly, quite handy if you're in a hurry - or if you just want to easily rewatch one particularly entertaining game - but they are just the game action; there's none of the post-match discussion and analysis, and you don't even get the team lineups at the start; so, they're a very poor substitute for the normal programme.)

I am now waiting trepidatiously to see if the Sunday edition will 'appear' as normal in the next hour or so....

Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 2

I'll try to continue with this series of weekly reviews for a while (although they are rather irksomely time-consuming), using the simpler format I developed in the second half of last season: a tabulation of the major types of 'lucky' incidents. 

I will try to resist any extended commentary (although I probably will still indulge in a few diatribes about any particularly egregious penalty or handball incidents).

Well, after a mostly rather drab and low-scoring opening weekend last week, it feels as though the season is finally getting properly under way in Gameweek 2 - with most teams starting to find their form a bit (at least - in attack or defence, but not usually both!): lots of goals and some absolutely cracking games.

Red cards awarded: 

Red cards not awarded:  

Penalties awarded: The penalty against Liverpool seemed slightly harsh: Alisson made very little contact with Neco Williams's foot - and his chip had already drifted wide of the goal, was very nearly out of play before he was brought down: one of those decisions that is technically 'correct', but is always going to feel otherwise to the side it goes against. We have sometimes seen these not given; and if Sam Barrott had not called it on the pitch, I doubt if VAR would have intervened to overrule that.

Although it is, in general, a good thing that VAR is being so much more brisk in most of its deliberations this season, and so much less interventionist, I fear that this comes at the cost of it not really doing anything at all most of the time. Jaden Bogle clearly stepped on Kevin Schade's instep inside the penalty area. So.... it might have been 'accidental', it might not have been that hard a contact? Are these the criteria we're using to adjudicate these incidents now? You can't pick your foot up if someone's treading on it, even lightly, even briefly - that's a foul. I suspect the only criteria VAR is following in situations like this is 'go along with the on-pitch referee, if he seemed to have a good view of it'.

United's penalty for the supposed foul by Greaves on Cunha was decidedly soft. The Ipswich defender was rash to be lunging in from so far back, but it was not clear on any of the TV slow-motion replays I saw that he'd actually made any significant contact; Cunha appeared to have just realised that he was sliding in alongside him, and threw himself to the ground. If the referee had not given that one, I wonder what the VAR team would have done?

Penalties not awarded:  James Hill was perhaps slightly fortunate to be let off when Dewsbury-Hall crashed to the ground after colliding with him. The Everton player probably was knowingly initiating the contact, but Hill had stepped across the line of his run - albeit inadvertently - at the last-minute, making that a very 50/50 call.

Malick Thiaw definitely made contact with Omar Marmoush's ankle as they both stretched for a high ball in the penalty area early in the second-half. It was a very slight contact, it was perhaps 'an accidental collision' as both players tried to play the ball at the same moment - and Marmoush did roll around pretending to be injured for a full minute in a blatant attempt to sway the decision. So, VAR's dismissal of the incident didn't feel 'unjust'; but it did raise further questions about exactly how this sort of contact is being adjudicated - in the past, this kind of thing has almost always been deemed to be a penalty.

Ian Maatsen had two decent penalty appeals in fairly quick succession late on in Monday night's game at Villa Park. For the first, it did look as if there had only been the lightest and briefest tug of his arm, and that contact had been broken before he entered the area. But the second, when he was barged to the ground by Declan Rice, was a much stronger claim; presumably it was adjudged to be a fair 'shoulder to shoulder' challenge, but Rice was leaning into and across him so heavily that he was not just impeded but flattened - and it is open to argument whether the Arsenal player was within the playing distance of the ball. That one, I think, might have been given; one of those where, in the present VAR climate, if the referee had given it, it would not have been overruled.

Tight/dubious offsides: Several Forest players looked offside when Sels first played the ball forward to set up Ndoye's opening goal, but had apparently all got back onside before anyone played the ball again (that must have been very tight...!); but there was another offside call later in the move which was apparently determined by a Liverpool defender having raised his lower leg to take a step backward at an inopportune moment. Similarly, I was happy to see Elanga's excellent opening goal allowed to stand; but the SAOT rendering of the offside call appeared to show a Spurs player playing Newcastle onside by the length of his shirt-sleeve - there is just no way that the system is accurate enough to reliably make judgements like these on margins that slim!! Liverpool may feel that nothing was going their way, as an excellent finish by Wirtz was ruled out - after a long VAR review - for Frimpong having been half a yard slow in getting back onside before providing the assist; again a very close call, and 'rough justice' - but this time clearly correct.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: It seems a particularly odd quirk of the rules that a handball is only regarded as a 'strict liability' offence if it is committed by the goalscorer. In commonsense terms, Maguire having the ball kicked into his arms from close range, when his arms were close against his chest, should simply not ever be considered handball; but if it can be so considered, why should he be exonerated purely because of the Greaves deflection? Maguire was still effectively the 'goalscorer', even if he wouldn't be credited with the goal; he was instrumental in creating the goal by taking the shot.... and he got the chance to take the shot by 'handling the ball'. The decision looked quite right; but the rules are cockeyed!! Well, that's what I thought when first watching the game last night. On second viewing, his arms weren't that close to his chest, and you could make the case that he anticipated the defender was going to try to kick the ball over him and was deliberately putting his arms up to try to block it. I'm not convinced by that argument - but it certainly should have been considered. And it looks as though it wasn't, it looks as though the VAR team got bogged down in the rules minutiae of whether the 'own goal' deflection would exonerate Maguire of a non-deliberate handball, and failed to consider at all the possibility that it was deliberate. For me, a bit of a 50/50; it didn't feel deliberate or culpable to me - but you see them given both ways.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Mateta and Sarr failed to appear for Palace on Friday night, although Pierre Sage claimed that this was because of injury issues rather than the transfer interest around them.

It was a bit of a surprise that Iraola chose to start Macallister rather than Gravenberch in central midfield; and perhaps also that new arrival Victor Munoz was given his first start, in preference to the recently lively youngster Rio Ngumoha (one of those changes worked out much better than the other!). The least expected Liverpool selection, however, was probably Gakpo retaining his start (though being switched to the right-wing, to accommodate Munoz on the left), despite the speculation about his imminent departure from the club (he was largely invisible, although he did provide the assist for Isak's equaliser).

There was still no start for Senesi at Spurs, or, even more surprisingly, for Mateus Fernandes (though he did get on as a substitute); and the newly arrived Savinho has picked up a muscle injury already, in his short outing in the League Cup against Charlton on Wednesday night (although there was a debut for Marmoush). Maddison was missing again, after hurting his shoulder against Brentford last week; but at least Kudus and Solanke are finally fit again.

Reece James and Moises Caicedo started on the bench for Chelsea, but were brought on for the last 20 minutes or so (Caicedo soon had to withdraw again with what looks like a recurring muscle injury).

Kobbie Mainoo and Marcus Rashford finally started, at the expense of Andrey Santos and Patrick Dorgu.

Arsenal's Christos Tzolis abruptly ceased to be 'flavour of the month' with the FPL Sheep when he had a poor first half at Villa, and was yanked off at half-time after picking up a booking.

Near misses:  Hull's Canadian winger, Liam Millar, was released on a surging forward run late in the game by Ollie McBurnie; however, his eventual low shot, through a defender's legs, from just outside the area had Rushworth well beaten but went inches wide of the post. (He was able to make amends for the miss with a clinical finish to a lone breakaway in behind a few minutes later.)

Big misses/big saves: Phil Foden was set up with an open goal in the first-half against Palace on Friday, but somehow sliced his effort high over the bar. Shortly afterwards, Cherki's cross from the right set him up for a headed chance only a few yards out, but he didn't get a proper contact on it (he did eventually provide assists for 2 of the 4 goals [although I'm not sure he really deserves one for being the last person to touch the ball before Cherki scores a ridiculous solo goal!!], but overall it may have been a shaky enough performance to dissuade FPL managers from selecting him at the moment). Shortly afterwards, Tyrick Mitchell headed Wharton's perfect cross wide of the post - when he had the entire goal to aim at (and at that point, Palace were still only 0-1 down).

Dan Ndoye ghosted in behind Frimpong early in the game to get a free header at the far post from a lovely cross by McAtee - but directed the effort right across the face of the goal and beyond the other post: a huge let-off for Liverpool, who were completely dominated in the first-half, and could easily have gone in at the interval 2 or 3 behind. Alisson kept Liverpool in the game on the stroke of half-time, when he pulled off a superb flying save to tip Igor Jesus's point-blank drive on to the underside of his crossbar.

Djordje Petrovic made possibly the 'Save of the Season', a flying reaction stop with his fingers somehow forcing Branthwaite's powerful glancing header from outside the near-post across the face of goal to safety, when it already seemed to be past him. Thierno Barry (suddenly the most coveted cheap forward in FPL - coveted, at least, by The Sheep - after scoring a hattrick in the Cup midweek... against Preston), squandered three excellent chances, blasting one close-range effort straight at Petrovic, then soon after lashing another into the side netting on the near-side, when he had lots to aim at on the other side of the goal, and again failing to get past Petrovic in a one-on-one in the second-half. Late on, Vitaliy Mykolenko made two superb blocks in quick succession to keep Everton in the game.

Hull full-back Nobel Mendy unleashed a fierce drive from more than 30 yards out, but Rushworth was just able to claw it away from his post.

Spurs created a few moments of danger early on, with Hornicek making a good save from Tel, and Porro having an effort deflected over the bar by a block from Hall.

Dan James was played in behind for a one-on-one with Kelleher, but couldn't ultimately put his effort to lob the Brentford keeper on target. Dominic Calvert-Lewin's late equaliser for Leeds would have been well offside if.... a knackered and soon-to-substituted Schade hadn't been loitering motionless near the touchline two or three yards behind his defensive line.

The 'in form' Joao Pedro spurned a chance to put Chelsea 3-0 up against Brighton, placing his shot wide of the post when he pretty much had an open goal before him, only the keeper to beat. Towards the end of the first-half, Diego Gomez had a golden chance to pull Brighton back to 3-2 down, but put his free header right across the face of the goal.

Granit Xhaka provided one of the best assists of the weekend - but Wilson Isidor slammed his shot against the foot of the post, when it should have been quite easy to beat the keeper and convert the chance (although he was able to make amends with a very similar chance created for him by Diarra a little later).

Julio Enciso's pace got him in behind the Manchester United defence on a long lone breakaway early on, but he couldn't put his shot past Lammens. While others this week were competing for 'Goal of the Season', poor Bryan Mbeumo probably wrapped up 'Miss of the Season' when he threw himself at a cross barely a yard from the goalline, but it spooned up off his thigh and ricocheted back off the underside of the crossbar; missing from that position genuinely looked impossible.

Outstanding goals: Rayan Cherki probably tied up 'Goal of the Month' - and maybe even 'Goal of the Season'!! - on Friday night when he received the ball from Foden on the edge of the box and proceeded to dribble around the entire Palace defence.

Anthony Elanga pulled off a very sharp turn to get his shot off for the opening goal at Spurs (although the offside call on the move was extremely tight!). Victor Munoz's late second equaliser for Liverpool was very similar - but perhaps even more emphatic a finish (although a slight deflection off Murillo's toe may have taken it away from Sels).

Cole Palmer actually had quite a subdued game against Brighton - but you give him one sight of goal and he says,"I want to be in 'Goal of the Month' too!"

Leif Davis's adroit first-time finish on Fatawu's perfect cross might also have been a 'Goal of the Month' contender in another month, but.... Cherki.

Emi Buendia had Raya beaten with a firm drive from just outside the box early on in Monday night's game at Villa Park, but his effort crashed against the underside of the crossbar. Later in that game, Odegaard's lovely curling free-kick from a similar distance drifted only inches wide.

Outstanding performances: Cherki - outrageous!!! Everybody's going to be buying him this week!!!  Alex Scott was also superb for Bournemouth; and it's great news for them that he's saying he wants to stay at the club. And then, yes, there was Bruno Fernandes - pulling off what might prove to be the biggest FPL points-haul of the entire season. (It will certainly be one of the top handfull.)

Big mistakes: Bernd Leno looked seriously at fault for Sunderland's late, decisive goal - opting to spread himself on the ground for a shot that wasn't yet coming, rather than trying to intercept Diarra's square-ball, and so letting it run through to Isidor lurking just beyond him.

Bad luck/good luck: Elliot Anderson had a flick at Pino going past him, but did not appear to make any contact. So, it was unjust that he received a yellow card for the non-existent foul, and even harsher that Pino then managed to convert the resulting free-kick from nearly 30 yards out. That was a terrific strike, but it was a big slice of good fortune that it crashed back off the underside of the crossbar and richocheted into the net off the back of the diving Donnarumma's shoulder!

Verbruggen was perhaps a little unfortunate to get tangled up with his defender, allowing the ball to bobble free to gift Chelsea an opening goal - though some would call that a goalkeeping error. Own goals are almost always a little unfortunate, but Joao Pedro's deflection of Pascal Gross's going-nowhere shot more so than most; and Jacob Greaves's similar diversion of a wildly off-target effort from Harry Maguire even more so. 

FPL weirdness: It is unfortunate that there's no 'qualtitative' element to the BPS tallying; and you sometimes doubt if even its 'quantitative' aspect is entirely reliable. It seems more than a little unjust that Djordje Petrovic's outstanding performance in the Bournemouth goal - in a low-scoring game - somehow only elevated him to 6th place in the BPS ranking for that match. It is doubly galling for his owners that he was only credited with 5 saves (I thought it had been more!), one shy of earning him a second 'saves' point.

Unexpected results:  Liverpool are all over the place at the moment; but even so, Nottingham Forest, who'd had a pretty flakey opening game themselves last week, would not have been expected to cause them too many difficulties at Anfield. Manchester United were not widely fancied to get a comfortable win over Ipswich, after their awful opening display against Hull; and indeed Ipswich were bossing the game for most of the first-half and things might have ended very differently; that disputed Maguire goal changed everything. And Villa would not have been expected to push Arsenal so hard, after their absolutely dire opening game.

The global average this week ended up at an astonishing 81 points. The FPL 'Team of the Week' was, for once, fairly well populated with well-owned players - although the Hull goalkeeper, both of Newcastle's full-backs, and Bournemouth's Alex Scott were probably not widely expected to feature in it. On Saturday there were only 3 mildly contentious (but probably 'correct') penalty decisions and a few very close (but probably 'correct') offsides, and it looked as if the gameweek might be remarkably free of error or controversy in the refereeing. But on Sunday, we saw Manchester United benefit in quick succession from an at least mildly controversial handball decision in favour of Harry Maguire for the equalising goal, and then from a very soft penalty award to Matheus Cunha; Schade should definitely have had a penalty at Leeds; and Maatsen had a fairly strong shout for one turned down at Villa on Monday night. Bruno Fernandes's super-massive points-haul, though not entirely unexpected against a promoted side, itself puts this gameweek somewhat outside of normal bounds. Thus, I think we've crept up to about a 4 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'!! 

Dilemmas of the Week - GW 2 (26/27)

Thankfully, we have not - so far - suffered the slew of training injuries that are usually so common early in the season. And it seems that even 2nd Round games in the League Cup and Brighton's Europa Conference League play-off return leg against Tromso have failed to produce any further casualties in midweek. So, it looks like there are only a few minor concerns this week.

To keep these posts more manageable, I'm 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. 

The Fantasy Premier League site itself now has a 'Player Availability' page (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.]

I've recently discovered this additional resource, the weekly Predicted Lineups from Fantasy Football Edits. My longtime standby for this sort of news, Fantasy Footall Scout, does usually provide some explanatory commentary on its predictions, even including reminders of the key injury concerns, and sometimes also some discussion of possible alternate selections; so, if you like a bit more detail with your 'probable lineups' for the week, that could still be the preferable roundup to look at. But because FPL Edits is so stripped-down, it's rather more straightforwardly accessible, easier to scan through quickly; and I think it's also perhaps a tad more reliable with its expected formations and lineups, and a little quicker to update.

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 2?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Brighton's Giorginho Rutter and Jack Hinshelwood both apparently picked up a 'knock' in training early in the week and had to miss yesterday's Conference League tie against Tromso. Hinshelwood has been one of the week's most popular acquisitions with 135,000 new owners piling in for him after his brace against Villa.

Liverpool's Federico Chiesa, very rarely a starter anyway, has picked up another muscle injury this week, once again ruling him out of contention altogether for a while.

Amad Diallo was a late omission against Hull last week because of a 'niggle'; no word yet on whether that continues to keep him out of the action.

Newcastle striker Will Osula suffered a foot injury in the Liverpool game last week, and could be out for a while.

James Maddison, only just back from his long ACL injury, hurt his shoulder against Brentford last week, and might be doubtful for this week's game against Newcastle.

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

Villa's new central midfielder Joao Gomes is starting a three-match ban after getting himself sent off for a retaliatory kick in his debut last weekend.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Robert Sanchez was so bad in goal for Chelsea on Monday night that there must be a serious risk of him being dropped (and who would really have wanted him in their Fantasy squads anyway?). Emi Martinez is said to be joining the club from Villa, but that might not get sorted in time for him to appear for them this weekend.

The Ollie Watkins transfer to Al Hillal is said to be very nearly finalized, so it seems he won't be turning out for them this weekend. But Villa and Spurs were both so awful in their opening games that all their FPL assets have surely become toxic for the time being anyway. With Ismaila Sarr, Jean-Philippe Mateta, Daniel Munoz, and Adam Wharton all said to be on the brink of departure, Crystal Palace are likely to be in severe disarray also, and are surely best avoided.

Savinho and Omar Marmoush could become more attractive prospects in FPL after their moves to Spurs from City (Marmoush only on loan; presumably he would be recalled the instant there's any sign of an injury problem for Haaland... or Semenyo); but they'll need time to settle in; and Spurs evidently need time to find their feet again under De Zerbi.

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

As I said yesterday, Cole Palmer was absolutely sensational against Fulham on Monday - and is perhaps the one player who might be worth using an early transfer on. Joao Pedro and Morgan Rogers were also very good in that game, but they were heavily owned by the start of the season already, and they surely weren't quite 'good enough' to convince anyone to revise their initial squad selections. Fulham's Josh King was also outstanding in that match, and could be worth keeping an eye on as cheap 5th-midfielder option. 

As I noted this morning, I think the sudden enthusiasm for Maxim De Cuyper and Mamadou Sangaré is excessive; De Cuyper might have been a smart pre-season pick, but doesn't justify using an early transfer on now, while Sangaré is still probably only the 5th or 6th most tempting pick.... from the Brentford mifield! I might have been tempted by Brighton's Jack Hinshelwood (well, I was tempted by him for my initial squad, but decided against him), but he's now struggling with a knock. 

Arsenal's new Greek left-winger, Christos Tzolis, is also looking a very lively prospect at just 6.5-million, but as with De Cuyper, is heavily owned already, and probably not worth using a transfer on this week; in any case, Martin Odegaard, also priced at only 6.5 this year, is currently looking even better (and Bukayo Saka better still - though it's really difficult to afford his 9.5 million asking price without giving up on Haaland and/or Fernandes!). The 'must-haves' from Arsenal for the start of the season, though, are looking like Riccardo Calafiori and/or Ben White.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

Sheep Picks (22) - the two biggest transfers of the week!

 

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are dangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

I've mentioned once or twice before in this series that the volume of transfers in for a player each gameweek (one of the filters you can select for viewing the player list on the FPL website's 'Statistics' page) is a pretty good guide to who the 'sheep picks' of the moment are. And while I wouldn't suggest that you should never consider buying the most popular transfer of the week,... that is a good general rule.

In the first week of the new season, there have been two massive frontrunners in the transfer traffic; and I wouldn't touch either of them with a bargepole.

Brighton left-back, Maxim De Cuyper, carries a lot of attacking threat, and with major injury problems for both of the club's usual starters at left-wing, Kaoru Mitoma and Yankuba Minteh, going into the season, it did seem almost certain that the young Belgian would be getting at least a few starts as an outright winger. And then Brighton had a storming opening game, against a lamentably awful Villa, and De Cuyper snagged a goal and an assist to wind up as the 'Player of the Week' with an enviable 17-point haul. So,... now everybody's piling in for him (well, 413,000 new owners this week, and counting), forcing his price to click up to 4.6 million. This is a classic case of chasing last week's points. That was almost certainly the biggest haul he'll get all season, and there is no particular reason to hope that he'll even manage double-digit returns again very often. They're away to Chelsea this week, who've started the season in terrifying form!

Now, admittedly, the two players who might displace him both seem to be in quite a bad way, and might be missing for another couple of months or so. But Brighton's sequence of fixtures in this period is extremely daunting: one of the toughest early runs for any team this season, in fact. They're an erratic, upper-mid-table side, who can struggle against anyone, they never have any reliably 'easy' fixtures; and certainly not the top four clubs, all of whom they face in the next 8 Gameweeks, three of them away. Brentford, Sunderland, and maybe Palace will also be tough tests for them; Leeds aren't at all the 'green fixture' opponent FPL's ludicrous 'Fixture Difficulty Rating' currently assesses them as, and Hull might not be either, given the impressive way they started their season last week against Manchester United. Brighton might not be keeping many - or any!! - clean sheets between now and the end of November. If De Cuyper can keep producing good attacking returns, maybe that won't matter so much; but one has to keep in mind that his points are likely to be undercut by games in which his side concede a lot of goals.

An attacking player classified in the game as a 'defender' is gold dust in FPL, and I think it would have been worth taking a chance on De Cuyper for that reason in the initial squad. However, paradoxical as it may seem, I just don't think he's worth a transfer to bring in at the moment. He's probably already produced his best gameweek of the season, and you missed out on it. His prospects over the next 8 or 9 fixtures look fairly poor. And after that, he's quite likely to be back to fighting Kadioglu for a start as a conventional left-back.

Brentford's new central defensive midfielder, Mamadou Sangaré, does indeed look a hell of a player; and I think he might be transformative for Brentford, lifting them to be more convincingly an upper-third side, and helping a number of his teammates to become rather stronger potential FPL assets. However, as with De Cuyper above, I think the 350,000-odd managers who've rushed in for him since his superb 14-point debut last weekend are greedily assuming that he'll produce double-digit hauls almost every week. And I see no case for that. Last week was clearly an absolute freak: Brentford just barely kept a clean sheet against an utterly woeful Spurs (Kelleher still had to make a few saves, despite a paucity of attacking threat from a poor opponent), while Sangaré only just barely crept up to the 'defcon' threshold to earn additional 'defensive points', and his 2 assists were both somewhat fortuitous (very low combined xA rating on the pair of them!), significantly helped by poor goalkeeping from Kinsky (prodding his low square-ball into the path of Lewis-Potter, and then parrying his weak-ish shot straight back at Janelt). I doubt if he's going to be any sort of regular - let alone prolific - producer of attacking contributions; and while he does look likely to produce 'defcon points' pretty well, they're extremely unreliable, and ultimately not worth getting excited about on their own. There's also a club quota issue to consider, with Kelleher a fairly popular cheaper goalkeeper, Thiago currently one of the most popular forwards, and Kayode a very promising 4.5-million prospect in defence; and then there are a number of other midfielders - Schade, Ouattara, Lewis-Potter, Damsgaard, and Janelt [or now, perhaps, Anthony as well] - who do definitely offer the prospect of probably much more regular attacking returns than Sangaré. This is a player who might just conceivably be worth considering as a cheap 5th-seat midfield pick if he were from a weak club; but at Brentford, he just doesn't get into the conversation.

[In Gameweek 2, Brighton - unsurprisingly - got absolutely battered by Chelsea, and De Cuyper ended up with 0 points for the week (lucky, really, that he didn't get into negative points; although many of his new owners might have patiently left him on the bench for this game). Sangaré again reached the 'defcon' points threshold, but only just, and didn't do much else in the game (registered a fairly low BPS tally - because it doesn't give much credit to defensive contributions); he returned 4 points, but was comfortably out-scored by his midfield teammates Lewis-Potter and Schade.]

A little bit of Zen (109)

 

"I need ammunition - not a ride."

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

The Ukrainian President's concise and stupendously badass response to Joe Biden's offer of sending American Special Forces to help safely extract him from the country in the hours after Putin's invasion began in February 2022 should be an inspiration to all of us - in FPL, as in other areas of life. So many FPL managers we see on the online forums are just looking for a safe way out, for a free ride - 'Please, tell me who to pick.'  They should be looking for ideas, information, perspectives: things that will help them develop their thinking about the game, and enable them to start making better decisions for themselves.  That is what I try to do when I respond to such online queries. 

I never want to tell people who they should pick; I want to try to help people understand how to make better picks. You need 'ammunition', not a ride.

'Form' in ONE DAY?

 

With a few of the most exceptional players - like Salah, like Haaland - we've seen many times how far their best level of performance is above that of the great majority of other players; and we've seen that they reach that level repeatedly, and that, when they attain it, they usually sustain it for extended stretches of the season.

Thus, although with 'normal' players, it really takes at least two or three strong games from them before we can start feeling confident that they've hit top form, with a player like this, one outstanding match is all it takes to reassure us that they're back to their best.

I believe that Cole Palmer is such a player. And his performance against Fulham on Monday night was superb in every aspect: he really looks as if he's rediscovered his best form.

And his best form - throughout the 23-24 season and in the first half of the 24-25 season - was some of the best we've ever seen in FPL!

I'm very glad that I gambled on Palmer as my premium midfield pick for the initial squad. If you didn't, I would suggest that he is the one player people need to consider bringing in as soon as possible.

Why that Bench Boost didn't go so well

That glass isn't even half full, not anywhere near 

Apparently, over 800,000 FPL managers risked their Bench Boost on the opening weekend of the season. Most of them were probably duped into it by the surprisingly large number of influential online 'content creators' who (perhaps 'influencing' each other??!!) all suddenly decided - on very spurious grounds - that it might be 'a good idea'.

Here are the reasons usually given for this bizarre choice; and the reasons why they're all completely bogus.

1)  It can give you an early lead.

Yes, it can. It probably did, for many people. But a very small early lead that will rapidly evaporate as other managers play their Bench Boost more sensibly later in the season and get better returns from it. 

To optimise your points returns over the season, you have to try to optimise your returns for every individual gameweek; and playing a chip just to get an early lead does not do that.  If you 'chase the lead' like this, you end up in a worse position overall at the end of the season.

2)  You can set up 'perfectly' for your Bench Boost attempt using the unlimited transfers available in pre-season.

Yes, you can in theory. But as I explained the other day, there are so many uncertainties at the start of the season around form, fitness, tactics, and selection that you really have no idea how well anyone's going to play, or even if they're going to play (you don't always have 15 starters in Gameweek 1; heck, you don't always have as many as 13!!). You're betting completely blind. 

You will almost certainly get a better return from this chip if you play it later in the season (even if you're not able to set up 'perfectly' for it!) - when form has settled down, and you can feel more confident about what the most promising sets of fixtures will be;... and more confident about actually having a full 15 starters.

3)  The fixtures looked really 'promising' this weekend.

You imagined they might be promising. No-one had any real idea which fixtures were going to be easy, and which not. There are almost always a lot of surprises and upsets in the opening gameweek.  

This year.... Manchester United were comprehensively outplayed by promoted Hull; Liverpool were outplayed by unfancied Newcastle, and only salvaged a point with a contentious penalty in the last kick of the match; and Manchester City were outplayed at home by Bournemouth, and barely scraped a late, narrow win; Villa got absolutely thrashed by Brighton; Spurs got absolutely thrashed by Brentford; Sunderland unexpectedly lost to promoted Ipswich; Forest lost at home to Leeds (that was always going to be a tight one; but a lot of people fancied the strong home advantage at the City Ground, and the 'magic touch' of Oliver Glasner); and Chelsea were nearly held to a draw at Fulham thanks to some horrible goalkeeping by Robert Sanchez. So, almost none of those supposedly 'easy' fixtures worked out at all as expected. Amongst the Top 50-odd FPL picks in the first gameweek, the only big returners were most of the Arsenal starters, Palmer, Joao Pedro, and Rogers from Chelsea, and Ndiaye from Everton. 23 of them blanked; another 10 didn't even play (not good for a Bench Boost!); and Matty Cash ended up with -1!! Nearly two-thirds of the most popular players came up with nothing this weekend; and that should not have been a surprise - it often happens. Gameweek 1 is always very unpredictable, and often very low-scoring.

4)  If you went without one or more of the 'super-premium' players, you could afford a 'stacked' bench (and then use an early Wildcard to switch to a much cheaper bench, and maybe bring the omitted big names back in fairly soon).

That one is actually somewhat tempting - apart from the aforementioned problem of not having any idea how most of the opening matches are going to turn out!! But I haven't seen many people following this tactic; almost everyone seems to have been hanging on to at least one of the super-premiums, and a very large number have insisted on having all three (and many of these followed the sheep to Bench Boost anyway, despite, in many cases, having 1 or 2 obvious non-starters on their bench).

The further problems here - in addition to having no real idea who to put on your bench, even if you are able to set aside more money for them - are, first, that it's always a huge risk to go without the big-name players: they're 'big names' for a reason - they often produce massive hauls,... and they often start out the season very hot; Haaland particularly so. (Some years ago, I took a chance on going without the two biggest players that season in my initial squad, and they both scored hattricks on opening day!)  Second, there is a 'cost' to the early use of chips: not only will you almost certainly be able to earn more proints from a later Bench Boost, but hanging on to your Wildcard until later in the season (when you might hit a major injury crisis, or find that there's a big shift in fixture-difficulty for several teams, or a sudden swing in form for some teams) can also be very valuable. Committing to using both of these enormously powerful chips early in the season - when you don't really know what's going on with anyone's form - is.... just silly.

5)  Well, at least this gets the chip 'out of the way'!

Um, what??? No, I can hardly believe I've seen that view expressed by normally sane and sensible members of the online community, but... Believe it or not, this has been quite a commonly expressed sentiment about the early - very early - use of the Bench Boost. Because having a second Bench Boost and Triple Captain to use in the first half of the season is a new feature of the game, only introduced at the start of the 25-26 season, many people are still confused, flummoxed, discombobulated by the fact. They don't see any real value in these additional chips, and are thus inclined to use them any old how, as if it really doesn't matter. And many of them seem genuinely worried that they might just 'forget about them', and then find themselves having to use a handful of chips one after another in December (there will be 6 or 7 gameweeks in December, so.... still not a problem).

This attitude, of course, is utterly fatuous. These chips are valuable, and you should make a careful decision about when you can use them that will give you the strongest possible chance of extracting good value from them. That is emphatically not in Gameweek 1.

Two factors are crucial to a successful Bench Boost, one 'internal' and one 'external'. The 'internal' one is that you need to have a strong squad who are all fit and starting regularly. The 'external' one is that you'd like to have all 15 squad members - or as many of them as possible, at any rate - facing weak opponents in the same gameweek.

In Gameweek 1, you simply cannot be confident that all 15 of your squad members are going to start, nor do you really know which the softest fixtures are likely to be.

The 'global average' score is a powerful indicator of how worthwhile a particular gameweek has been for using the Bench Boost in. A high average indicates that lots of players produced big hauls, and that obviously increases the chances that you might have had many big hauls among your 15 squad members. The 'global average' in this year's Gameweek 1 was a dismally low 48 points; therefore, it was a very poor week to have Bench Boost-ed in.

Now, a lot of people are claiming they did really well on their Bench Boost last week. But did they really??

Players like Sangaré, Kayode, Lewis-Potter and Janelt of Brentford, Hinshelwood and De Cuyper of Brighton, Stach and Bijol and Justin of Leeds, Dewsbury-Hall and Ndiaye of Everton, and Tzolakis of Hull did very well,... and are the type of the players that people might have left on their bench. But these players are all pretty low-owned, so it's unlikely that many people had more than one of them, and many will have had none at all. And it was entirely fortuitous that so many 'fringe' players like this happened to get really big scores in a week in which fairly few players actually returned well. 

Moreover, in most of the cases I've looked at where people have proudly shared their teams, it's pretty obvious that one of these guys should in fact have been starting. And anyway, I always maintain that, since the Bench Boost is a whole-squad achievement, you really ought only to count the 4 lowest-returning players as the true value of your points-lift from the chip, whether you'd left them on the bench or not. After all, if a player doesn't play at all, he gets shifted on to your bench; I think you ought to do the same if a player has a shit game - when evaluating your Bench Boost. Most of the Bench Boosters this week probably heavily backed Manchester United (no-one returned) and Liverpool (Van Dijk and Wirtz, two of the most popular picks, didn't return) and City (Haaland and O'Reilly, the two most popular, didn't return) - and so had a pretty dismal week in their first eleven. Getting a good bench score but a terrible score in your starting eleven.... means you made some bad choices about who to leave on your bench; and it was not ultimately a good return from your Bench Boost. 

You really need to check how high above the global average you were to assess how well your Bench Boost did. I reckon, if you're not at least 20 points above, you did quite poorly (because you'd hope to get at least 10 points above global average most weeks anyway, if you're any good at the game; and 10 points is the absolute minimum you should be making from the Bench Boost, properly counted).

Some people will undoubtedly have done quite well out of it (some people will get lucky with any Bench Boost selection in any Gameweek!!). But not many, I think. And a good outcome does not mean it was a 'good' decision. Good decisions are carefully thought-out and well-justified, and give the highest probability of success for the majority of people following a certain path. 

Playing the Bench Boost in GW1 was not that. It was a bunch of people succumbing to greedy impulse and hare-brained logic, or just unthinkingly following some online 'guru' or other. And the majority of them were punished for that. (They don't know yet just how badly they were punished; but they'll find out gradually over the next four months, as perhaps a good 60% or 70% of the other managers in the game earn substantially more from their Bench Boost chips.)

I don't think I've come across anyone who can claim to have got an effective points-lift from the Bench Boost this week of more than 10 points; most are much lower. It should be fairly easy to better that later on - once we know what's going on with everyone's form.

And - good grief! - many people were taking the same approach to the Triple Captain chip: "I don't know what to do with it, it's burning a hole in my pocket. Let's just dump it in Gameweek 1, even though I have no idea what any of the results are likely to be, or who's in form yet."

It's a kind of masochism: these people just don't want to do well in the game, they're trying to sabotage themselves. It is very sad.