How will England play?

Given the squad we now have, the formation and 'best lineup' seem fairly obvious, incontrovertible: the side picks itself. Pretty much everyone is expecting England to look something like the team above during this World Cup. 

But... Tuchel likes 'surprises'; and I think - I fear - he may have a few in store for us.

This wouldn't be a bad team, by any means. If it works, it should be well capable of progressing far into the tournament, maybe even winning it. It has good balance, good pace, and a fair amount of experience - despite the low average age.

Reece James can readily invert into a holding role in the middle, as he so often has for Chelsea this year (although Tuchel, in the past, has scoffed at the idea of him being a 'midfielder'; I hope he's been convinced otherwise now), which would allow Declan Rice to move further forward to support the attack. Harry Kane is likely to drop back into the '10' space, or even a bit deeper (though I doubt if he'll retreat all the way back to his defensive line, in the manner of the later Toni Kroos, as we've often seen from him at Bayern this year), allowing Jude Bellingham to play a little ahead of him as a 'false 9', or to roam freely wherever he will to pick up the ball and encouraging Rashford or Saka to drift into the central space. In theory, I think that could work very nicely.

However, Morgan Rogers is such a 'golden boy' of Tuchel's that I think he will be shoehorned into the starting eleven somehow. Letting him come in off the left-wing, in place of Rashford, would perhaps make the most sense, as that is how he's mostly played at Villa this season. But I think Tuchel may fancy him in the No. 10 slot, and keep Bellingham in reserve as a 'super-sub' (and I'm not sure how well he'll take to that; he does have a bit of an ego on him!). There is also a possibility that John Stones may be favoured over Ezri Konsa, for his experience. Again, I think that's non-ideal. Konsa has played well enough to have earned a regular start, and I feel we ought to be concentrating on building up his partnership with Guehi (they have played remarkably little together as yet). And I suppose there's an outside chance that Gordon might be preferred to Rashford on the left, though this seems very unlikely to me; Rashford's recent form should guarantee him the start (while Gordon's club form this year frankly makes his inclusion in the squad at all highly questionable).

There is one further possible variation, which I'd approve of, but which I fear Tuchel may consider 'too risky'. That would be to designate Kane openly as the 'No. 10' and play Ollie Watkins ahead of him as the central striker. I think that might work even better; although I'd be loathe to sacrifice Bellingham to facilitate this.

This is pretty much the formation and approach I would have favoured. I have been saying for a decade now that Harry Kane is really more of a 'No. 10' than he is a 'No. 9' (we are spoiled that he's so good in both roles), and that we need to play him deeper to get the most out of his exquisite passing. And I really like the idea of playing another forward ahead of him, to give him more freedom to wander around the pitch. And I'd like to try playing Bellingham deeper also, alongside the pivot (I'd happily sacrifice Declan Rice for that; great though he is for Arsenal, I think he's entirely expendable for England). Bellingham is a capo carismatico, an inspirational figure who lifts all those around him; and he has that magical ability to come up with a game-changing moment out of nothing. We need him on the pitch.

I would have fancied playing narrower wide attackers: Eze and Palmer flanking Bellingham or Kane. The amount of rotation and creative passing you could have got from that combination of front players might have been breathtaking. 

But I can see that this is a team built for Harry Kane. And the one asset our Harry has always lacked is pace; so, he needs to be supported by very quick wide players who can break down the flanks to try to produce crosses or cutbacks for him, or run through the middle on to the long through-balls he can play from deeper in the midfield.

This, I fear, may be the set-up's most dangerous weakness as well as its main strength. This system could work so well with Harry Kane; but I'm not sure how it will function without him. And we really need Harry at his best to get the most out of this. And there is a danger that, after such a long season with Bayern, he may be a bit rundown physically and mentally - a bit knackered. Harry, alas, has never really 'turned up' for us in a major tournament yet. (Yes, he's banged in a decent number of goals against very soft group opponents. But he's looked increasingly anonymous as the tournaments have progressed - often leading to calls in the press for him to be dropped. And this time.... we don't have a soft group.) If that happens again, if he's operating substantially below his peak - or he picks up an injury and isn't available at all - I don't know who else can step up and lead this team. I rather fear things might all unravel rather quickly if Big H isn't on top of his game. So,.... let's hope that he is.

Come on, England!

A little bit of Zen (97)

 

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

William Blake  -  'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"

The year's predictions - reviewed

                     1st  Arsenal         3rd    2nd 2nd +1

    2nd Manchester City         4th 1st 1st -1

    3rd Manchester United         14th 13th 3rd =

    4th Aston Villa         16th 9th 6th +2

    5th Liverpool         2nd 6th 5th =

    6th Bournemouth         7th 4th 8th +2

    7th Sunderland         17th 10th 10th +3

    8th Brighton         13th 8th 14th +6

    9th Brentford         12th 12th 7th -2

    10th Chelsea         1st 3rd 4th -6

    11th Fulham         15th 15th 11th =

    12th Newcastle         6th 7th 9th -3

    13th Everton         8th 16th 12th -1

    14th Leeds         20th 19th 15th +1

    15th Crystal Palace         10th 5th 13th -2

    16th Nottingham Forest         9th 14th 17th +1

    17th Tottenham Hotspur         5th 11th 16th -1

    18th West Ham         19th 18th 18th =

    19th Burnley         18th 17th 19th =

                           20th Wolves         11th 19th 20th  =

So, this is a summary of the predictions I made over the course of this season as to where everybody would end up. The first batch were made in mid-September, four weeks into the new season. My second attempt to see the future was made at the one-third point, just as we entered December. And the final version was undertaken at the two-thirds point, straight after Gameweek 26 in early February. [The final figure in red shows how far the actual final position differed from my last forecast in February.]

As you can see, by February, things had settled down somewhat, and it was becoming easier to see, in most cases, where teams were going to end up (despite the extreme closeness of the mid-table battle throughout most of the season - which meant that some teams could still have risen or fallen quite some distance even on the final weekend). The great majority of my predictions then were within 1 or 2 places of the team's actual league finish, and I got Manchester United, Liverpool, and - strangely - Fulham exactly right, as well as the bottom three. But of course, that didn't take much doing... My initial predictions at the start of the season, and even at the beginning of December were wildly off in many cases!

At the beginning of the year, I'd thought Manchester City might struggle with their 'rebuild' even more than Liverpool (and that looked quite prescient for a while, as they did get off to a pretty rocky start). But as they started to get their shit together around the middle of the season, and we started to see the potential of Doku and Cherki more regularly, I remained cautiously optimistic that they had the quality to overhaul Arsenal's significant points-lead on them. (I counselled at the turn of the year that it was likely to remain a very close race until the end of the season, and that it would be rash to assume that either of the two front-runners was a clear favourite [although, just five or six weeks later, I was forced to concede that Arsenal may have got decisively on top...]; ultimately, it was City faltering at the death rather than Arsenal finishing especially strongly [well, that, and the unfortunate VAR farce in the final minute at West Ham in GW36!] which clinched the championship.) I maintained that optimism - though with decreasing confidence! - until the last weeks, and ultimately proved to be wrong.

I had begun the year by anticipating that United, under the disastrous Ruben Amorim, could well finish down in the bottom third again; and I think that might well have been the case, if they'd stuck with that failing manager any longer. But the Carrick transformation in January was immediate and dramatic, and I'm pleased that I was so quick to appreciate that, and to start backing them for a much higher finish.

Liverpool, despite their 'rebuild' difficulties, I had expected to be almost as good as last year, and to probably be somewhere in the title conversation again; but I fairly quickly assessed their true level, as the season quickly unravelled for them. (Perspective is important: they had a terrible season, by their high standards - and still finished 5th!!)

I suppose Chelsea was my most embarrassing misjudgement. After their superb performance in last summer's Club World Cup, I was prepared to back them - admittedly somewhat optimistically - as possible title-winners. That fell apart immediately, with long-term injuries for Colwill and Palmer, and Maresca losing his way with his tactics in the Premier League. But there were signs of a possible resurgence initially under Liam Rosenior (remember when everyone was bringing Joao Pedro into their FPL squads around the turn of the year - and the likes of Enzo Fernandez, Cole Palmer, and Marc Cucurella too?); alas, that all fell apart very quickly as well, and Chelsea ended up having nearly as bad a season as Spurs. Now, Spurs were another team I got all wrong. I had quite liked some of their signings. I thought the strength of their backline was a solid foundation for a strong campaign. I thought Frank might suit them better than Postecoglou. I thought Maddison and Simons and Solanke and Richarlison might have big seasons. But everyone got injured - and Thomas Frank proved to be an utter disaster: they ended up doing even worse than last year, and only escaped relegation by the skin of their teeth. I had recognised how much trouble they were in by mid-season, but even in February, I didn't anticipate that they'd plunge right down into the relegation places.

Villa were the other team I got badly wrong at the start of the year: I thought they'd over-performed the previous season, and that without any major new signings over the summer, they were likely to have a big struggle this year. I wasn't entirely wrong; they did have some major fluctuations in form, and Ollie Watkins failed to find his scoring boots for most of the season; but Emery again proved shrewd at wringing the most out of his limited resources. Having rather harshly suggested at the start that Villa might plunge into the bottom third, I progressively revised my expectations for them upward - but even late on, I didn't anticipate them getting up into 4th place. Sunderland were the other team who most strongly out-performed my original expectations for them: I had thought they would struggle to escape relegation, but I soon saw that they were much the best of this year's promoted sides and would probably survive quite comfortably, even rising into the mid-table - though I never foresaw that they would claw their way as high as 7th by the end.

The Three B's, Bournemouth, Brentford, and Brighton, all had somewhat up-and-down seasons which made it particularly difficult for anyone to guess where they might end up - although my predictions homed in on them pretty well. Bournemouth ended up slightly over-performing my expectations, and Brentford slightly under-performing them. But Brighton had such a yo-yo year, they kept catching me out: they had looked so bad in mid-season, I was imagining a bottom-third finish - but they managed to rally again. The same went for Fulham and Newcastle and Everton: a lack of consistency made it impossible to pin down a confident final prediction for them, but I ended up not too far off. Fulham ended up doing rather better than I'd initially expected - mainly thanks to that superb run of form Harry Wilson went on from around the middle of the season. Everton failed to capitalise on their strong start, but ended up doing not too badly - largely thanks to another superb season from Jordan Pickford (who seems to be hogging all of this year's 'Most Spectacular Saves' roundups, again). And I kept thinking that Eddie Howe was going to pull off the mid-season rally that he'd managed with Newcastle the previous year, and that Anthony Gordon was finally going to rediscover his form of the previous year - but somehow, it just never quite happened: another one of my big misses in these predictions!

Leeds I had initially expected to be possibly the weakest of the promoted sides, and they didn't do much to dispel that assessment in the early part of the season; and indeed, their great revival didn't start until December, just after I'd made the second of these sets of predictions; however, by February, I could appreciate the difference in them and was feeling confident they'd now stay up fairly comfortably.

Palace and Forest and Wolves were three teams I'd expected much better from; not surprisingly, after the way they'd finished the previous season. Wolves seemed to have such a good rapport with Vitor Pereira that I thought they'd be strong again this year, despite having lost some big players (they're a selling club: they lose their best players every year, and they've always seemed to be able to bounce back); I couldn't understand quite how they'd unravelled so badly - but as soon as that unravelling became apparent, I accepted the inevitable, that the start of the season had been so bad, they were effectively relegated before Christmas. Forest were undone by a shortage of new signings last summer to help them with their European campaign, some unfortunate injury problems (notably the loss of their talismanic striker, Chris Wood), and of course their owner's perverse decision to sack the manager who'd done so well with them the year before.... and to replace him with the disastrous Postecoglou... and then to have to replace him as well. At least they rallied well again at the end of the season. Palace I'd fancied to be able to withstand the loss of Eze, and to be able to finish comfortably mid-table again; and indeed they started so brightly that. a few months in, I was starting to think they could even nip into the last Champions League spot; but, alas, things progressively fell apart for them after that, with a raft of injuries and the mid-season departure of Guehi to City. Again, I had the measure of them by the start of February.

Burnley I had pegged as plucky-but-doomed, right from the get-go. West Ham too: I felt they'd only luckily, undeservedly escaped relegation in the last few years, and hadn't done anything to strengthen their squad this time; surely, at least one of the promoted sides would this time be good enough to put them in jeopardy - and so it proved.

So, not perfect crystal ball work, by any means - but not too bad. I am reasonably happy with these pronouncements. Let's see if I can do even better next season!

[And sorry, I have no idea what's gone wrong with the formatting up above. It displays as all neatly aligned in Blogger's supposedly WYSIWYG 'compose' screen, but keeps on getting scrambled when posted. Aaarrgh....]

A little bit of Zen (96)

"It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play."

Dizzy Gillespie

"You can never know what are the 'best' decisions to make. You just have to try to avoid making too many of the most obvious mistakes."

GW

 

This year's champion

First-time FPL manager Erik Ibsen, a Dane who supports Everton, was crowned this year's global champion, with a final total of 2,582 points (nearly 230 points lower than last year's winner - despite everyone probably getting at least 150 free extra points this year from the new 'defensive contributions' rule!). Well done to him!

Many long-time players of the game are irked that a debutant should grab the title at the first attempt. But he's obviously a very smart young guy (a medical student), and a genuine football fan who follows the Premier League closely (unlike the vast majority of the global hordes dabbling in the game, who don't generally even seem to know what fixtures are up next, and seem to treat the game as a very abstract form of gambling...). And he does say that he put in a lot of time planning his transfer moves, even plotting out possible player exchanges around turns in fixture-difficulty using an Excel spreadsheet.

Glancing through his Gameweek history, I get the impression that he's probably one of the worthier winners we've seen in quite some years. Of course, he enjoyed a massive amount of good fortune too; but he was generally making quite shrewd and well-informed decisions all the way through.

And he's turned out to be a pretty good illustration of most of the points I made a couple of weeks back on what really makes the difference in our FPL performance.

Now, he very much did not get off to a good start - at least, not in Gameweek 1: he was outside the top 75% after returning an abysmal 35 points in the opening week. But... he bravely played his Wildcard straight away to start sorting things out; and, amazingly enough, he pulled off a seemingly impossible fightback and was up into the top million by the end of Gameweek 4 - nearly in the top 500,000 the following week, inside the top 250,000 the week after that. So, he did conform to my general view of what constitutes a 'good start' - a platform for a possible record-breaking season - despite having a particularly miserable first gameweek. And he also vindicated my frequent advice that an early use of the Wildcard is sometimes useful and indeed necessary, if you have a very bad start to the season. (Although I would suggest that he was perhaps a bit over-hasty, dropping it in GW2, since we really don't know how things are going to pan out after just one gameweek, and this year GW1 was especially awful for very nearly everyone... There was nothing terribly wrong with his GW1 squad, and his post-Wildcard squad wasn't conspicuously better. So... maybe this wasn't in fact one of his 'better plays' in principle - although the results seem to have turned out for him.)

Indeed, it was almost continuous upward progress for Erik, after that shaky start: he only suffered 5 very modest 'red arrow' position drops during the rest of the season! He'd cracked the top 10,000 by GW10, and the top 1,000 by GW15; he entered the top 100 after GW21, and never dropped out of it again - hitting the lead in GW29, and holding it right through to the end of the season (beating last year's champion's record streak of holding the lead for the final 8 gameweeks).

He most definitely did get very lucky with his captaincy choices, amassing a stunning total of 611 points from his captains (although he did have a very bad run of returns from Haaland around the turn of the year!). This was not quite the year's highest number for this, but well up there among the top handful. It's probably nearly double the 'average' return from armband picks, and perhaps 30%-40% more than a 'good score' would usually be. (So, if Erik only beat you by 150 or 200 points, it was probably almost entirely down to that!)

He also got astonishingly lucky with injuries - as evidenced by the fact that he was regularly able to roll his transfers for two or three weeks at a time, to make strategic multiple switches,.... and didn't have to take a 'hit' (spend points for an additional transfer) even once. Again, for most managers, using 'hits' occasionally to fill an injury gap (not just in the squad, but in the starting eleven) is unavoidable, and it is typical to have to resort to them at least 10-15 times per season. Not to have needed any is absolutely extraordinary!

I didn't notice any particular good fortune with buying players just ahead of short-lived hot streaks - although it was perhaps a little fortuitous to be on Caicedo at the start of the season, when he picked up a few (very untypical) goals; and to pick Anthony Gordon, for one week in GW31 (before 'dead-ending' into his Wildcard the following week), when he produced a 10-pointer (the last of his only 4 decent hauls of the season!); and to be on Alex Scott against Arsenal in GW32, when he returned 12 points.  And he did get on Guimaraes, Wirtz, and Wilson very promptly when they hit form, but he deserves some credit there.

And yes, his chips almost all worked out pretty well (probably a bit above average, but not outstanding): he got a 16-point haul for his first Triple Captain (Haaland against Burnley in GW6: a popular choice, but not by any means the unarguably optimal-looking one, as Burnley were playing fairly well at that point, and Leeds and West Ham were looking rather more tempting opponents to stick multiple goals past), and an 11-point return for his second (Haaland in GW36 against Brentford, again not the most obvious 'soft target' for him at the back end of the season...). He got an 18-point lift from his first Bench Boost in GW10; his second, however, in GW33 was a bit of a disaster, yielding only a 10-point lift (Joao Pedro missed the game, and Gabriel returned a rare nul-pointer), although he still had a very good week overall. His first Free Hit in GW13 was also fairly successful, yielding him 30 points above the global average - in a generally very low-scoring week; the second, in the big Blank Gameweek of GW34 was a much more limited success (poor points from his Liverpool players, and Bowen left on the bench!), but still a handy 16 points above the miserable global average that week.

It was a far from flawless performance: you see one or two 'stinkers' in his squad at most stages of the season; and he really left a lot of big hauls on his bench. And he bought Phil Foden just before Christmas - straight after his two-week hot streak had finished!! Yes, even the global champ suffers some bad decisions and rough breaks. Overall, though, he produced an uncannily steady performance throughout the season. It will be interesting to see where he finishes next year....

Makes you want to GIVE UP, doesn't it?

 

For the past four or five years, I've been running an experimental side-team, with a severe self-imposed budget cap. I started off at just 75 million, but a couple of years ago, upped it to 80 million. (At least, at the start of the season. I allow myself to take advantage of any growth in squad value, but always keep at least 20 million of my budget unspent.) In Cole Palmer's debut season for Chelsea - when it was actually possible to afford the best player in the game, even with this severe restriction - this team actually did modestly well overall, top 2 million or so. And every season, there are at least a few gameweeks where it does spectacularly well - putting my regular selection to shame.

And so too this year: my best score of the entire season, by far, came in Gameweek 33, with a 141-point total haul for this team - including a very handy 39 points coming from my subs with the Bench Boost (a total lift of 23 points, because, on this showing, Gross and Flemming really should have been playing; I only count my 4 lowest-scoring players in assessing the impact of the BB chip).

I find this exercise is a useful reminder that it is - to some extent - possible to get by pretty well without the big-name, top-priced players. (Only to an extent: while a super-low-budget team like this can have some extraordinarily good weeks, and occasionally even an extraordinarily good month, it's unlikely to climb out of the bottom third overall. Giving up that much budget is just too constraining!)  And also as a reminder that there is almost always some excellent value to be found among the cheaper options. Players like Lewis-Potter, Aaronson, Gross, and Flemming were well worth having in any team this year, for spells when they were in a good run of form. (You just wouldn't want all of them, all season,.... and no Fernandes or Haaland...)

It is a funny old game, indeed.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 38

 

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I've been aiming to keep them briefer recently. I made just about zero progress on that resolution for the first few weeks, but.... now I've hit upon a new 'format', which might help: 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).

Red cards awarded: 

Red cards not awarded:  

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded:  Everton shuld have had a penalty in the dying moments of the first-half, when Bentancur gratuitously barged Tarkowski in the back; VAR 'had a look' and somehow thought nothing of it?! Another astonishingly bad decision - and one that may have sealed West Ham's relegation.

Tight/dubious offsides: Jean-Philippe Mateta looked just offside for his late consolation goal - but apparently wasn't. Ollie Watkins was - belatedly - flagged offside for his second, but was eventually judged to have been played on by Ruben Dias's foot. And Phil Foden's effort was also ruled out - though the SAOT graphic appeared to show him onside (and if he was off, it can only have been by the thickness of the shorts on his bum!! it is ridiculous that the technology is seeking to make judgements on such ridiculously slim, invisible margins).

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: 

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Too many to enumerate! Arsenal - rather to my surprise - changed virtually their entire starting line-up! And Oliver Glasner fielded a back-three that included no centre-backs.... Nuno brought in Walker-Peters to replace Wan-Bissaka at right-back for West Ham. Pep also rotated almost everyone, with only Semenyo and Bernardo Silva surviving from his 'usual' eleven, and Haaland not involved at all. Brighton dropped Baleba and Minteh for Wieffer and Milner, while United brought in Mazraoui, Mount, and Dorgu for Dalot, Casemiro, and Cunha.

Alex Scott was about the only player to be left out this week owing to a late injury problem.

Near misses:  Gabriel Jesus hit an early effort against the post after just 4 minutes; he made amends with a slick finish to put the Gunners ahead 40 minutes later. 

Kevin thundered a free-kick against the woodwork from nearly 30 yards out, but a goal resulted for Fulham anyway as Diop was able to head home the rebound.

Mo Salah whipped a cheeky free-kick - which everyone had been expecting Szoboszlai to take - against the left-hand post early on.

Joao Palhinha headed firmly against the near-post - but the ball rebounded kindly straight back to him, and he was able to prod the ball back towards goal. Yet again, Spurs seemed to be guilty of excessive relief and premature celebration - a lead is not a win, as they were painfully reminded last week; this time they got away with it, just.

The absurdly talented Mateus Mané ended a solo run with a fierce curler that smacked against the far post. Later on, Burnley midfielder Florentino also crashed one against the post, although that looked as if it had been intended as a cross.

Big misses/big saves: Dango Ouattara got a free header on the edge of the six-yard box near the end at Anfield, but put it miles over the bar; that cost Brentford their chance of European football.

Matz Sels had to make a sharp save from one of Kroupi's trademark 18-yard curlers. And Amad Diallo almost claimed a fourth goal for United with a fierce drive from the edge of the box that was well parried by Verbruggen.

Lukas Nmecha set up Dominic Calvert-Lewin nicely in the first-half, but the centre-forward swept his effort straight at Hermansen. In the other relegation decider, Castellanos got through one-on-one in the box with the keeper, but lost his footing just as he was trying to get off the shot (if West Ham were to have survived, I thought he would have to be the man to supply a goal for them; and he did eventually give them their breakthrough with a header from a corner). Callum Wilson wasted a chance to put the Hammers 3-0, taking far too long to get his shot off - although Darlow did make a good save from his eventual effort; shortly afterwards, he made amends with a fine shot from 25 yards out. The most decisive action of the day was probably Kinsky's flying fingertip save from Tyrique George's fierce, dipping shot.

Outstanding goals: Tom Cairney clinched the win for Fulham with a screamer from 25 yards.

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: Cole Palmer finally got back on the scoresheet with a crisp low shot from just outside the box, but Robin Roefs will be disappointed that he couldn't get a stronger hand to it; this was a rare 'mistake' from one of the season's outstanding goalkeepers.

Bad luck/good luck: 

FPL weirdness:  Caoimhin Kelleher apparently notched 7 'saves' against Liverpool (I didn't see that many on 'Match of the Day'), which, in a dull game, was enough for 2 bonus points!!

Unexpected results:  Everton and Leeds, with nothing of their own to fight for, were really quite poor; this was not perhaps entirely unexpected, but it was not what most fans had been hoping for: Spurs and West Ham really should have struggled to win those games.

It was a particularly drab final day this year, with even the teams that 'had something to play for' still being mostly rather lacklustre: only Manchester United and Sunderland finished with a really good performance, and only Forest v Bournemouth produced a really good match. Bruno Fernandes, Ollie Watkins and Jarrod Bowen are the only widely-owned players making the FPL 'Team of the Week', and the global average was a wretchedly low 41 points. Apart from the highly consequential missed penalty award for Everton, and a few extremely close offside calls, there wasn't much in the way of contentious refereeing this week. But the huge number of unpredictable player rotations, and the generally low level of performance must, unfortunately, make this another 6 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.