Dilemmas of the Week - GW4 (26/27)

Remarkably, despite a heavy midweek schedule (Bournemouth, Palace, Sunderland, Hull, Newcastle, Chelsea and Leeds involved in League Cup ties; Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Aston Villa in the Champions League), we seem to have suffered hardly any new injuries this week - so this can be a very short roundup! [I'll try to update later, if there's an expected flood of bad news at today's press conferences!]

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 4?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The most consequential injury of the week is a thigh strain for Cody Gakpo, which kept him out of Wednesday's Champions League win over Atleti. Iraola hasn't been drawn yet on how serious it is, and the FPL injury flag so far rates him as having a '75% chance' of turning out against Fulham this weekend; but the rumours suggest he could be sidelined for at least 3-4 weeks. After his excellent start to the season (3 assists and a goal in the opening 3 games), over 600,000 people had transferred him in this week; since news of the injury broke, nearly 300,000 have transferred him out! Gakpo's absence facilitated an immediate start for Bradley Barcola on the left wing on Wednesday night (but he didn't exactly cover himself in glory - fluffing an excellent one-on-one chance; as, unfortunately, is his wont).

Ben White was limping at the end of Wednesday's Napoli game, but Arteta has claimed he has no ongoing problem. If he were unable to start against Sunderland, Hincapie might come into the centre allowing Konsa to move out to the right; or - preferable, I would think - Hincapie might play at left-back with Calafiori switching to the right. With Saliba still a long way off returning, Timber only just back in training, and Mosquera still limping with a muscle problem, Arsenal are stretched a bit thin at the back.

Matty Cash missed Villa's trip to Bruges on Tuesday with 'muscle soreness': doesn't sound too bad, but he's a slight doubt for this weekend.

Nathan Collins had to come off against Sunderland last week with a calf problem, and is expected to be out for a month. The young Austrian, Jannik Schuster, newly signed from RB Salzburg, is his likely replacement.

Nico O'Reilly was a late withdrawal from last week's game against Coventry (handing an 'unexpected' immediate start to Enzo Fernandez), complaining of a back problem in the warm-up. Maresca seems hopeful he could be available again this weekend; but a regular start for him must now be in doubt anyway, with the arrival of Fernandez and Bouaddi in central midfield, and Gvardiol looking likely to again become the favoured left-back.

Luke Shaw was rested in the Champions League in midweek, apparently suffering from a muscle problem of some sort.

Newcastle's impressive Bosnian right-back Amar Dedic felt a hamstring problem in Tuesday's League Cup tie against Milwall and was withdrawn at half-time. He was another player riding a wave of FPL popularity, with over 425,000 transfers in this week - but has now quickly seen 125,000 transfers out. With Tino Livramento only just back in training after a long lay-off, it seems likely Lewis Miley would have to fill in for Dedic if he's unable to start.

It's just been revealed that Sunderland's Romaine Mundle has recently had to undergo knee surgery, and will be out for some months.

Mykhailo Mudryk has picked up an ankle injury - but only around 7,000 people own him anyway (I'm surprised it's that many!!).

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

Villa's Joao Gomes is completing his three-match ban this week, and will be available again next weekend.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

There were signs of improvement from Coventry, Spurs, and Villa last week - but I still wouldn't consider going near any of them for FPL picks (with one possible exception: see below). I can't think of any individual players who were worryingly awful last week - but, as I just mentioned above, Nico O'Reilly seems likely to be squeezed out of a regular start at City now by a combination of Gvardiol, Fernandez, and Bouaddi; Phil Foden might be under similar rotation - or exclusion - pressure because of the form of Cherki, Ndiaye, and Semenyo.

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

There's been a bit of a reaction against Newcastle players in FPL this week, after their disappointing home performance against Bournemouth; but I think Anthony Elanga, Yoane Wissa, and Harvey Barnes are still looking very promising attacking options (pick one, not all three).

Alexander Isak was starting to look back to his best with two slick finishes last week - but both were set up by Cody Gakpo, who's now injured, so there might still be some doubts about how consistent his returns will be in this rebuilding Liverpool side.

Although Villa are still struggling a little bit, their new Japanese keeper Zion Suzuki has looked extremely impressive.

Despite the almost inevitable loss to Arsenal last week, Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, and Joao Pedro continue to look like consistent attacking threats (and again in Wednesday's League Cup thrashing of Leeds); but I'd go for just one, or at most two of these; many folks are rashly rushing in for all three!

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (111)

 

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."

Douglas Adams

Dear Douglas was one of the only people I've had a huge fanboy crush on (when I was a boy....), having grown up loving the original radio version of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was lucky enough to meet him a couple of times when I was a college student. An incredibly wise and funny man - gone far too soon.

Watching the world go by...

 

One of the nicest things about just watching the world go by.... is that sometimes... it doesn't go by.

I was back in Phnom Penh last week. It is a densely populated and tumultuous city. And yet, from time to time, everyone somehow disappears, and even busy streets right in the heart of town will seem strangely deserted for an hour or two. And my regular guesthouse has this tiny but comfortable little balcony, allowing me to look down on whatever is happening, or not happening, in the street below. One of my favourite spots in the world at the moment. 

A comfy chair, a refreshing drink, a book to read, and a restful view - what more does one need from life?

A better-than-blank from your FPL captain once in a while would be nice; but it's not an essential part of the 'good life'.

Another way of looking at it...

 

I always say that the only 'experts' I would look to for assistance with my Fantasy squad decisions are tactical analysts who talk about the real-world game of football, rather than just the nuances of FPL. And I compiled a list of my favourites last year.

I recently discovered another young analyst on Youtube, Lucas Sutherland, who looks as though he has some very worthwhile content. He approaches match analysis from a coaching perspective, and this latest video of his suggests a series of different lenses through which to approach trying to break down and understand key game incidents.

He has a website where you can also view all of his past videos, and sign up for a newsletter, and get a match analysis template.

A couple of his earliest videos provide a very nice basic introduction to developing some useful habits for closer in-game analysis, here and here (the second, longer one has some particularly interesting insights on how Chelsea managed to get the better of Manchester City in the 2021 Champions League Final).

He's also done an interesting review of what AI video analysis is now capable of.

When to play the Free Hit?

 

This topic comes to prominence this week because so many FPL managers somehow thought that last week - Gameweek 3 - was not merely a suitable, but a necessary, inevitable occasion for them to use the chip; and many more, it seems, are now succumbing to the same folly in Gameweek 4.

I covered the factors affecting the Free Hit decision in full detail last year, but... here's a quick recap.

For the second half of the season, you have to hang on to the Free Hit in the expectation that you will need it to dig you out of a hole in one of the blank gameweeks caused by the League Cup Final, and the FA Cup Semi-Finals and Final. And if, by some happy chance, you find you don't need it for that (occasionally it happens that few of the big teams are affected by the fixture clashes with these Cup games, and you might be able to dance around the inconvenience with some saved-up Free Transfers), it's quite fun to deploy it as a late-season 'smart-bomb' to help you through one of the final rounds of a mini-league cup competition.

For the first-half of the season, though, you have two choices: a) save it for a possible emergency; or b) use it opportunistically to potentially boost your points returns in a gameweek with an unusual set of fixtures.

a)  Emergencies

It is possible to be hit with multiple short-term injuries (and suspensions) all at once, particularly when fatigue and miserable weather combine with the absurd fixture congestion at the end of the year. You don't want to be wasting transfers moving short-term absentees out of your squad and back in again; and if there's a chance that most of them might only miss a single gameweek, it's nice to be able to use your Free Hit to see you through that short-term crisis - until you find out if you might have to spend some 'hits' on any remaining problems the following week. There is also a small - but non-negligible - risk of late postponements for freak reasons such as foul weather or terrorism or pandemic, which can also leave you wanting to make multiple changes for one week only. I think there's usually so little reliable value in using the Free Hit as a 'bonus chip' that you should certainly consider saving it until the latter part of December, to guard against such a possibility of unforeseen calamity.

b)  Opportunistic points boost

You can try this when most of your usual squad players are facing particularly challenging fixtures and/or most of the gameweek's apparently 'easy' fixtures are for teams you don't have much representation from (these two circumstances frequently coincide, but not invariably so; your regular players in an averagely-difficult fixture will probably outperform players from lesser teams even with a very easy fixture; so, you don't really want to consider this option for the chip unless both circumstances apply).

Having a single match in the gameweek where a lot of your players are involved on opposing sides doesn't really meet that threshold - even if, as in the recent Gameweek 3, it was two of the top teams, and many people may have had 5 or 6 players from them. There will almost certainly be some gameweeks over the next few months where there are two or three matches involving the top teams playing against each other.... and more promising fixtures for many of the lesser sides you don't usually have many - or any - players from (that really wasn't the case last weekend; and, as I've said recently about playing an early Bench Boost, there's no sense in playing any of the chips early in the season - because form hasn't settled down yet, performances are erratic, results are unpredictable; you just don't know who to pick, or what kind of returns you can expect.... until well into the second month of the season, usually).

You should, however, be able to tolerate having your players in 'non-ideal' fixtures occasionally (the best players can give you good returns against anyone; you might be pleasantly surprised). You should also have a strong enough bench that moving 2 or 3 or 4 players out of the starting lineup for a gameweek because they face a particularly daunting fixture should not be a problem. And if a fixture, or set of fixtures, looks likely to cause you more inconvenience than that, you should be able to plan ahead and save up Free Transfers, so that you can move the necessary players out of your squad short-term (it's a lot easier to carry out fairly major squad reshuffles since the rules were revised to allow us bank up 5 Free Transfers).

So, the threshold for wanting/needing to use a Free Hit to navigate an unusual set of fixtures should be set pretty high (as with a Wildcard!); unless there are at least 7 or 8 players you want to change, you should try to find another way of dealing with the situation.

Does it matter if I have players playing against each other?

NO.

Come on, be serious. You're going to have some of your Fantasy players facing each other in the same fixture almost every single gameweek.

It might be slightly non-ideal - but it's one of those things that you've just got to suck up.

Good attacking players can get a return against anyone, so you shouldn't fret too much if they're up against a good defence. And both sides in a game can get good attacking returns. So, having attacking players facing each other really shouldn't be any sort of problem at all. 

If you have an attacking player facing a defending player, that looks like a zero-sum situation, because a good return for the attacker is going to diminish the return from the defender. But even that's not the end of the world. You can't ever rely on clean sheets. However, even without a clean sheet, goalkeepers can still give you additional points for their saves; and now defenders can also earn extra points for 'defensive contributions'; and they might even pick up some bonus points too! The key thing with defensive players is that you don't want them to be likely to concede multiple goals, where they might end up returning nul points; conceding a goal or two is a regular occurrence, not at all an FPL disaster. And having a defending player facing an attacking player is at least a hedge: you can console yourself that at least one of them should have a good chance of a decent haul - in a match where the outcome is difficult to call. Also, we tend to pick defenders who have a high potential for providing attacking returns as well...

Now, it's certainly not ideal to have your defenders, especially your goalkeeper, facing Haaland, or one of the other most in-form strikers of the moment. But that's why you should have decent alternates on your bench, so you can take players out of that firing-line. With goalkeepers in particular, a good rotation pair - where you can avoid ever having to put one of them into action against the toughest opponents - can earn you more points than the top individual keeper picks like Raya and Pickford.

And yet... an awful lot of FPL managers were panicking last week about having 3 Chelsea players facing 3 Arsenal players, and thought that was sufficient excuse to be playing their Free Hit. Ridiculous!

First, this is a key reason why you should resist getting trebled up on anyone early in the season. In my initial squad, I was only even doubled up on Brentford, Leeds, and Man Utd. Going for three players from the same club this early is just asking for trouble. Doing it for two clubs - who face each other in Gameweek 3 - is a very avoidable foot-shooting.

Second, you ought to be able to park most of these players on your bench, if you really don't fancy their prospects against a tough opponent (that's what your bench is for!).

Third, these aren't the only 'elite' teams. You're going to have players from City, United, Liverpool as well; and Brentford and Bournemouth are looking very good at the moment too. You're likely to have some of your key players facing each other several times in each half of the season. And in some gameweeks, you're going to have more than one such clashing fixture.

Fourth, while you might not have fancied Arsenal for another clean sheet against what has been a very incisive Chelsea attack in the opening couple of games, you should fancy them to score fairly readily themselves - against the rather porous Chelsea defence. And the Arsenal full-backs, Calafiori and White, have looked a particularly potent attacking threat so far. If you had either or both of them in your squad, you should have fancied their chances of picking up a goal or an assist in that game, even if they didn't produce any defensive points. (And Calafiori was unlucky not to - sticking the ball in the net, but getting it chalked off for an offence by one of his teammates.)

So, having players from both Arsenal and Chelsea should really not have been a problem. And if you felt that it was, it was a 'problem' that could easily have been avoided with a little forethought. There will be other more needful occasions for using the Free Hit chip.

Be content with 'good enough'

It's impossible not to indulge in a little thrill of schadenfreude, not to gloat just a little bit over the (slightly more than) 1.6 million FPL managers who hazarded their Triple Captain chip on Erling Haaland against Coventry this weekend.

They were, no doubt, hoping for a high double-digit return; and he yielded only a solitary goal (though, in a low-scoring match, that was sufficient to net him all 3 bonus points as well: we must take our consolations where we may). It was particularly frustrating that City had such an off game all around, and that Coventry were suddenly so much better than they'd looked in their two previous outings; and that Haaland actually had some more decent chances, but failed to convert them - he was twice played in by immaculate through-balls from Cherki, but both times slammed his shot too close to the keeper, Carl Rushworth.

It's important to try to keep a sense of perspective in situations like this.

Almost no-one ever manages to average 5.5-6.0 points-per-game over the whole season, and very few players ever exceed a 7.5-8.0 ppg average over any extended run of games, even when they're in blistering form. Even Haaland gets a lot less than 9 points in at least two games out of every three. 

So, that haul was really pretty respectable, well above average. And it was a 'good' return for the Triple Captain chip (75% of the time, it returns little or nothing!!).

People are only disappointed, dissatisfied with this outcome because Bruno Fernandes just got a once-in-a-blue-moon 23-point haul in the previous gameweek (and a lot of people had been fortunate enough to play their Triple Captain on that). Their hopes and expectations were unreasonably inflated by that reminder of what is - very occasionally - possible with the chip; and they felt under pressure to try to make up that ground lost to so many rivals in Gameweek 2.

But you can't allow yourself to think like that. You have to be happy with whatever you get from the 'bonus chips'. Around half the time, your Triple Captain blanks! Not infrequently, he may even return a score of just 1 point or 0 points; cases have been known of a Triple Captain missing a penalty, getting sent off, etc, and actually returning triple negative points. So, you have to be grateful for any return at all; 4 or 5 points is a pretty fair return ('better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick'), and 8 or 9 points is actually quite good. Double-digit returns are a rare freak, and you should be happily surprised if you ever benefit from one; not greedily expecting it to happen.

The 'disappointment' of the Haaland TC-ers this week, though, does give some encouragement to those of us who held off playing that chip. There is a reasonable hope for us of getting a similar or better haul from our TC play, and so making up the ground that those 1.6-million gained on us this week. With Bruno's monster return last week,... we really just had to write that off as unrepeatable, uncatchable; we'll have to try to claw most of that deficit back through our ordinary weekly hauls. It can be done, but it will be a long hard road.

An irresistible bit of pep-me-up - Monday Music Break No. 2

Austrian keyboard-player and experimental composer Joe Zawinul was playing a kind of 'Fantasy Football' with musicians when he founded his electronic jazz-pop band Weather Report at the beginning of the 1970s, filling the constantly evolving lineup with a series of outrageous talents: saxophonist Wayne Shorter was a long-time mainstay, but at various times the group also included fantastic drummers like Chester Thompson, Alex Acuña and Omar Hakim, and the legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius - here plucking out the opening melody on his favourite fretless bass. This is their best-known piece, Birdland, the exuberant extended instrumental which opened their 1977 album 'Heavy Weather'. 

I once saw a cartoon strip that joked that it was simply impossible to remain depressed while listening to this piece of music. Unfortunately, I can't now track that down online; but I wholeheartedly agree. I discovered this band when I was at college during the 1980s, and this track soon became a regular go-to adrenalin jolt for me whenever I needed to shake myself out of the mood doldrums, or just get myself energised for an early start to the day after a heavy night-before.

The video above is a live performance from a 1978 concert at the Stadthalle Offenbach in Offenbach am Main, Germany (unfortunately, there is one annoying skip in it, near the end). The original album version - purportedly recorded (at least according to Jaco's later recollection) in a single take - can be found here.

If you like this, Youtube currently has a complete recording of the band's 1976 appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

If you've just had another wretched gameweek in FPL,.... this is just what you need to blow the cobwebs out of your head and send you into the new week in a more upbeat frame-of-mind.

A cruel game, indeed!

"Why you gotta be so mean...?"

A record number of FPL managers punted their first Triple Captain chip on Erling Haaland this weekend, anticipating a goal-fest against the previously dismal promoted team, Coventry City. But this week, Coventry were actually quite good, nearly got something out of the game; and the Lanky Viking failed to convert a few chances you'd usually expect him to put away with casual insolence. He might have had a hattrick - but instead returned only a relatively modest 9 points. Cherki set him up beautifully for his two best chances and might have had 2 assists in the game - but came away with nothing.

Calafiori had a goal disallowed for a teammate's offence, then lost his clean sheet bonus through an uncharacterisic lapse by David Raya,... and got booked: he might have reaped 14 or 15 points from the game, but only came away with 1 point! (Oh, no - apparently he wasn't booked, after all. Well, that's a relief: 2 points!!)

Saka and Palmer both played well without managing to register an attacking contribution and ended up with blanks.

Few teams managed to keep a clean sheet (apart from, improbably, the till now woefully awful Spurs and Villa!).

Yep, all the players that I owned had a misfiring week. I think I've got a pretty good squad; and they all played pretty well this weekend. But they returned a miserable 44 points for me. (Without that goal from Jaden Bogle, I would have been below the gameweek average - wretched thought! Oh god, in fact I was - well under!!!)

So it goes. This is a harsh, brutal, unfair, frustrating game. The only reason we play it, really, is to school our anger management...

Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 3

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).

Red cards awarded: 

Red cards not awarded:  

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Betancur was very lucky not to have a penalty given against him when he tangled clumsily with Igor Jesus while chasing him towards a cross in behind.

Tight/dubious offsides: Isak was denied his hattrick - with a nice assist from Wirtz - being adjudged offside by a kneecap.

Daichi Kamada's goal for Palace, converting a superlative chipped cross from Pino, was ruled out for another of those insanely tight, impractical margins - the toe of his right boot.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: Ballard's apparent opener against Brentford was eventually ruled out for Danso having been in an offside position ahead of him and interfering with Kelleher's line of sight to the ball. But Kelleher could still see the ball, and was too far in the middle of his goal to have been able to save a shot right inside his post; so,.... that call seemed very, very harsh.

Neco Williams definitely deserved a goal for his bravery in throwing himself at a bouncing ball on the goalline as Van de Ven swung his boot to clear it. While it does seem very possible that the defender kicked the ball against his arm rather than his face, none of the TV views clearly showed that, as all lines of sight to the actual point of contact were blocked by the bodies of Spurs defenders (nor, indeed, could we clearly see whether the ball might have already crossed the line from Gibbs-White's original deflected shot); so, I can't see on what basis VAR could intervene on this incident. Moreover, Williams looked genuinely mystified as to why the goal had been disallowed, and continued to plead afterwards, with all apparent sincerity, that the ball had not touched his arm.

The overruling of Calafiori's goal was a bitter blow for those of us that own him, but obviously quite correct: Konsa had been in an offside postion when he kicked the ball against the post, and the rebound then squirmed past Martinez to allow the Italian his chance to stab the ball home. I had thought initially that Konsa would be penalised for a foul on the keeper, since he did walk through the back of Martinez as he was floundering trying to recover the ball.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: On Friday night, Iraola started Araujo instead of Frimpong at right-back.

Giorginio Rutter was a late omission for Brighton, with an undisclosed injury problem; Kostoulas started up front in his place.

Foden was dropped, while Ndiaye, slightly surprisingly, was given an immediate start, only days after his arrival at City. Enzo Fernandez was not supposed to have started, but stepped in when Nico O'Reilly felt a problem in his back during the warm-up. (One wonders if this was all a piece of theatre designed to bamboozle the opposition? Although Coventry hardly seem worthy of such an elaborate ruse...)

FPL 'Flavour of the Month' Mamadou Sangaré (15% ownership really is ridiculous for a 'defcon'-only midfielder!!) was withdrawn at half-time.

Damiel Munoz - unsurprisingly - was not ready for a start for Forest. But the also newly arrived Liam Delap was given the nod over Igor Jesus. Oliver Glasner infuriated FPL fans by swapping out Ola Aina and Dan Ndoye seconds shy of the hour mark!

Tyrone Mings was reinstated to the Villa defence, in place of Pau Torres. (Probably no-one owns any Villa defenders at the moment; but this was a little bit of a surprise.)

Ezri Konsa got his first start for Arsenal, though perhaps only because of a 'minor injury' to Mosquera; and Lewis-Skelly again got the start in the pivot role, although Zubimendi came on for the last 25 minutes; and Guimaraes was finally fit for the bench but didn't get on. Meanwhile, Alonso brought Josh Acheampong in for Levi Colwill.

Near misses:  Enzo Le Fée let fly an absolute scorcher from just inside the box, but it smashed against the middle of the near post.

Bruno Fernandes hooked a thumping volley against Pickford's crossbar early on against Everton.

Joao Pedro missed by inches to slide in on to the end of Cole Palmer's delightful diagonal through-ball - which would have put Chelsea 2-0 up before half-time, and might have clinched the game for them. Pedro Neto also had a cracking left-foot shot rebound from the foot of the far post in the closing moments of the first-half that might have given them a 2-1 lead.

Big misses/big saves: Ipswich full-back Leif Davis really should have clawed his side back into the match when he pulled clear of Munoz at the far post, but ballooned his header miles over the top.

Evanilson squandered an early chance to put his team 2-0 up when Botman's sloppy square-ball fell straight to him on the edge of the box.

Pascal Gross had a late chance to claim a winner for Brighton, but lashed the effort over the top from 5 yards out.

Verbruggen made a fantastic save with an outstretched leg from Stach's close-range shot early in the second-half.

An offside Calvert-Lewin was played in behind by a careless back-pass, but after taking the ball round the keeper his feeble shot was easily cleared by Dunk.

Taiwo Awoniyi had a golden chance to put Coventry ahead in the opening minutes, intercepting a loose pass in midfield to steal in behind on a quick breakaway, but then rushing his shot from the edge of the box and putting it wide. Haaland had two good efforts - both set up by Cherki - well saved by Rushworth. Late on, Donnarumma had to make a very sharp full-length save when Tchaouna intercepted a mishit pass from Guehi. And in the closing minutes, Ellis Simms prodded a close-range shot straight into the face of the advancing Donnarumma.

Dean Henderson pulled off a sharp reaction save from Oscar Bobb to keep Palace in the game in the first-half.

Omar Marmoush, with only the keeper to beat, dragged his early chance against Forest well wide. And in the second-half, be blazed an effort miles over the bar - when Kudus was in acres of space on the far side of the box, just waiting for the lay-off that would present him with an open goal.

John McGinn was played in behind by Nicolas Jackson, but, with only the keeper to beat, spooned his chip way over the bar. A little later, young winger George Hemmings's cut-back teed up Buendia perfectly in the middle of the box, but he also skied his effort. Later, Belloumi lashed a curling, dipping shot against the face of the crossbar, with Suzuki beaten. In the dying minutes, substitute Cho lashed a crisp first-time volley from McBurnie's lay-off, but the effort flew straight at Suzuki. And moments later, McBurnie himself had a golden chance to secure a deserved win when Ryan Giles's perfect cross reached him unmarked in the middle of the box - but he misjudged the bounce and took a fresh-air shot.

Matheus Cunha had United's best chance of the first-half, but blazed it over from an unmarked position in the middle of the box. Shortly afterwards, Barry got on the end of Rohl's delicious curling cross to the far post, but couldn't control his header.

Emi Martinez made a good stop from fierce shots from Saka in each half (I own Saka too; it was not a good weekend for me...!). Raya's tipping over a fierce second-half curler from Estevao was even more impressive. The end-to-end Arsenal v Chelsea match could well have ended 3-3 or 4-4 (as I'd predicted...).

Outstanding goals: Alexander Isak produced two very smart finishes on Friday evening, both from superb through-balls from Gakpo - although for the first, Scherpen had left a huge gap at his near-post. Both of these highlights came within 10 minutes of kick-off, though; Liverpool quickly lost momentum after this bright start.

Harvey Barnes cutting inside to unleash a perfect curler from the corner of box would be a 'Goal of the Month' contender in any other month - but nobody's beating Cherki this month! Oh, wait: that was last month. So, Harvey will the be a frontrunner in the next one!

Vitaly Janelt's rasping half-volley to finally give Brentford the lead over Sunderland was the second best goal of the day.

Tyrick George's rasping near-post shot to put Everton level for the first time would have been the 'goal of the day', but for substitute Ainsley Maitland-Niles's precise 25-yard drive into the top corner to nick a point with the last kick of the game.

Odegaard's goal against Chelsea was also a beauty, though not quite as spectacular as those earlier ones.

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: Jordan Pickford wasn't looking at his sharpest on Sunday, and might have been slightly at fault for both of United's goals. He had a good view of Mbeumo's crisp curler, and it wasn't that far away from him; but the bounce just as it reached his hands seemed to deceive him. He looked even more unhappy with the second: Sesko's header was well directed downwards, but had little power on it, Pickford got a strong right hand to it... but wasn't able to turn it around the post.

Morgan Rogers's early goal was a decently-hit volley that went through a defender's legs, and was tucked right into the bottom corner; but he didn't really get any power on it, more just prodded it towards goal - and the normally impeccable Raya will probably be rather disappointed in himself that he wasn't able to get down to it more quickly. Kai Havertz's low shot for the equaliser was more crisply struck than Rogers's, but Martinez had a much better view of it, and was still too slow to get down to keep it out at his near-post.

Bad luck/good luck: Donnarumma, who's looking clumsier on the ball with every passing week, was extraordinarily lucky to get away with an early miscontrol, where he tried a little drag-back to give himself space to look for a pass to the other side, but had misjudged how close he was to his goalline: he was only a fraction of an inch from scoring one of the most embarrassing own-goals of all time!

Justin Kluivert was unfortunate that his blistering long-range shot cannoned back off the post.... and then didn't quite go in from the deflection off Hornicek's back either. In the scramble that followed, Scott's off-target follow-up shot took a huge deflection off Thiaw's boot to take it looping over a helpless keeper into the far top corner - quite the comedy of errors.

FPL weirdness: Kai Havertz's dummy on the edge of the box was more instrumental in setting up Odegaard's goal than Tzolis's pass; but of course, that gets no credit in the FPL scoring system - not even under the BPS.

Unexpected results: Although Bournemouth are a dangerous opponent, Newcastle's very sloppy home performance was a big surprise after their impressive showing in the first two games; but at least they showed commendable resolve in clawing their way back to a draw.

Coventry, looking much more cohesive than in their first two games, gave City a bit of a scare. They had a couple of good chances to go ahead early in the game, and came close to drawing level near the end. On balance, they probably deserved at least a draw - which no-one would have anticipated for them at The Etihad; certainly not the more than 1.6 million FPL managers who punted their Triple Captain chip on Haaland in this game!

Tyrick Mitchell, who very rarely scores, snaffled two goals in one game - that's a turn-up for the books!! And then his late replacement, Ben Chilwell, got the third with his first touch!! Strange days, indeed. Mind you, it was against Fulham - who are already looking fairly assured of relegation.

Brentford were far below their best: they were comprehensively outplayed by Sunderland in the first-half, and despite a stronger performance after the break, they were fortunate to come away with a point.

Spurs again played pretty poorly, and were extremely fortunate to come away with a point and a clean sheet against a vastly superior Nottingham Forest.

Villa were also fortunate to share the points against a Hull side who continue to look very impressive.

With quite a few shakey performances and some very low-scoring games (an awful lot of wasted chances this week!), the global average remained a miserably low 36 points; it appeared not to move on Sunday, which ought not to be possible, so, I wonder if FPL Towers is being painfully slow to update the site again....? Ah, yes.... this week's global average actually appears to be 51 points (still pitiful); but the site wasn't updated until mid-afternoon on Monday, UK time!! The 'Team of the Week' did at least end up with a not wildly unexpected selection of attacking players; though fairly few people owned any of the defensive unit - Suzuki, Mitchell (a defender who never scores bagging a brace to become 'Player of the Week'??), Vuskovic, Bogle. The record-breaking number of managers who punted their Triple Captain chip on Erling Haaland (just over 1.6 million of them, apparently), anticipating that City would run riot againt Coventry, will have ended up relieved that he scored something. Although the refereeing continues to look a lot more solid than last year, we saw 1 penalty questionably turned down this weekend, 2 goals very harshly disallowed, and a couple of very good goals ruled offside by distances so small that they must be well inside the SAOT system's margin of error. Therefore, I think we can say this is 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Dilemmas of the Week - GW3 (26/27)

 

Only a few new injury issues this week, it seems. We have been remarkably fortunate so far - compared to most recent seasons. (There have been two or three occasions when I've been forced to use my Wildcard only a few weeks in because I'd lost so many players to early injuries!!) 

The closing of the transfer window throws us a few additional curveballs this week - which of the new arrivals might start, which incumbents might get displaced? And with the Champions League proper kicking off this week (City and Villa playing on Tuesday), there is a possibility of rotations or restricted minutes for some top players from the clubs involved.

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 3?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Brentford's Matthias Jensen missed the game against Leeds last week because of a minor knock picked up in training, and still seems to be a doubt. Ditto Yasin Ayari of Brighton.

Jean-Philippe Mateta has injured a hamstring, and is set to be out for at least a month.

Joe Rodon had to come off against Brentford with a hamstring problem which appears to be quite serious and could sideline him for 2-3 months (probably meaning that new signing Nico Elvedi will get an immediate start).

Sunderland's Habib Diarra became yet another hamstring victim against Fulham last week, and it's projected he will miss 6-8 weeks.

Spurs's new signing Savinho made a brief appearance for them in the League Cup win over Charlton last week, but was then unable to feature against Newcastle at the weekend because of 'muscle soreness'; didn't sound too bad, so he might be available again to face Forest this weekend.

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

Villa's Joao Gomes is serving the second part of a three-match 'violent conduct' ban for getting himself sent off in the opening game.

It seems unlikely that very late signings who've changed clubs this week - most notably, perhaps, Illiman Ndiaye and Daniel Munoz - will get an immediate start; although I suspect that Jack Grealish and Enzo Fernandez might.

I did a rundown yesterday of the most interesting moves in this year's transfer window.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Spurs are looking an absolute shit-show, and all of their players have to be avoided until further notice.

Coventry, Fulham, and Palace aren't much better at the moment (although at least Palace managed to hang on to Adam Wharton, so perhaps their prospects this season won't be that grim).

The Christos Tzolis 'bubble' has dramatically burst this week, after his disappointing Monday night performance and half-time benching against Villa. Nearly 475,000 managers have baled on him this week. That seems a harsh overreaction to me. I never thought he was worth having in the first place (he's the same price as Odegaard, for heaven's sake!); but if you did, you shouldn't lose faith in him after one game!

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

Bruno Fernandes, of course, produced what might be the biggest FPL haul of the entire season last week against unlucky Ipswich; but that sort of outcome is always a one-off freak kind of event, and we shouldn't be expecting him to repeat returns like that very often - perhaps ever. Interestingly, he's only enjoyed a fairly small net rise in ownership this week; a remarkable 265,000 FPL managers have transferred him out! Probably most of them had decided to do that beforehand, after United's dismal opening display against Hull, and were just waiting until they got a second transfer so that they could redistribute the money from his sale more effectively; it is even possible that many of them went ahead with the transfer as soon as the gameweek deadline passed, before Bruno played his game on Sunday - and might now be suffering some seller's remorse. I said before the season started that I thought it would be impossible for Bruno to justify his price-tag this year, however well he played: there's no way he can score 1.5x as many points as the next best midfielder, or 2x as many as the best cheap midfield options. However, it is very hard to walk away from a player who's just delivered 23 points!!

Cole Palmer had a fairly subdued game against Brighton, but still managed to pop up for another outstanding goal. Joao Pedro and Morgan Rogers are looking in very dangerous form, and are attracting a lot of transfer attention (well, Pedro not so much - because everyone owns him already!). Some might hesitate to bring any of these in this week, though, since they're facing Arsenal.

Rayan Cherki has become the week's most transferred-in player, by some distance, after scoring what will probably become the 'Goal of the Season' against Palace. It is unfortunate that this 'most popular transfer' distinction almost invariably dooms a player to a poor return in the next gameweek! Moreover, there were already doubts about whether Cherki might share minutes with Phil Foden; and the arrival of Enzo Fernandez might now create further competition for that slot in the lineup.

Alex Scott of Bournemouth also had an absolutely outstanding game against Everton, and has attracted 47,000 new owners so far this week as a result; but, good as he is, he's not really the profile of midfielder to be very attractive for FPL; Rayan and Tavernier (and maybe Kluivert?) surely remain the likelier midfield picks from that club.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

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?? 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 I think he's also looked good at full-back in the past; 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!]