Dilemmas of the Week - GW 31 (25/26)

Arsenal, Manchester City, Wolves and Crystal Palace, of course, have a Blank Gameweek this week - because their League games have been rescheduled to allow Arsenal and City to face each other in the League Cup Final on Sunday. At least, we don't have to worry this week about possibly unexpected rotations ahead of another important European clash - since there aren't any more of those until the beginning of April; indeed, there isn't even any more Premier League until April 10th! However, the teams who played in Europe this week, particularly those who had big games on Thursday - Villa, Forest, and Palace - are likely to be showing signs of weariness from that. And I'd imagine some of the Champions League participants too, probably Newcastle in particular after their emotionally draining double-header against Barcelona, will be a bit depleted by those games, even though they happened on Tuesday. At least there don't seem to have been too many new injuries over the past week; so, hopefully, this can be a fairly brief round-up.

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

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

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

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 31?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Jurrien Timber was pulled off just before half-time against Everton last week after suffering a heavy knock, and he wasn't able to take part against Leverkusen on Tuesday. Apparently an ankle problem, though not too serious: Arteta claims to be hopeful that he might be available for the League Cup on Sunday. That might just be the usual 'smoke-and-mirrors', but.... it doesn't seem like a problem that we should be still need to be worrying about for Gameweek 32 in the second week of April.

A fair old injury crisis at the back for poor Chelsea this week: Trevoh Chalobah was stretchered off against PSG on Tuesday with an ankle injury; not as bad as first feared, but could sideline for six weeks or so (enough to put his World Cup chances in jeopardy). Reece James finally pinged his infamous hamstring again towards the end of last week's Newcastle game; still being assessed, but his previous history with this sort of injury doesn't inspire optimism that he'll be playing much further part this season. And Malo Gusto and Benoit Badiashile were both wiped out by illness this week (there's something going around...). Goalie Filip Jorgensen also missed out against Newcastle with a sudden groin issue; and that, apparently has required surgery, which means he's likely to be unavailable for most of the rest of the season (good news, at least, for Robert Sanchez - and anyone who still owns him in FPL).

James Tarkowski was an unexpected absentee last week against Arsenal, having allegedly picked up a late knock in training. Moyes has been oddly enigmatic in failing to give any details at all on what the problem is or how long he might be out for; but if you need to ditch a player to make room for one of your blankers on the bench this week, he's suddenly looking like a prime candidate. (And, given that he's the third highest scoring defender in the game this year, after only the gobsmacking Arsenal pair of Gabriel and Timber, how was he owned by only 11.5% of FPL managers??)

Emile Smith Rowe was another surprise omission last week, having suddenly complained of feeling a muscle problem in training shortly before the game.

Mo Salah is another doubt this weekend, having asked to come off with a quarter of an hour left against Galatasary on Tuesday after feeling stiffness in his leg.

Noussair Mazraoui is another who's been down with illness this week, though Michael Carrick is bullish about him being OK again this weekend (though not a regular starter, anyway!).

Sandro Tonali had to come off with a muscle problem (groin and/or hip??) against Barcelona this week, and looks very doubtful for this weekend.

Sunderland defensive stalwart Dan Ballard (owned by nearly 4.0% in FPL) had to come off against Brighton last week with a tight hamstring; seems not too serious, but makes him a doubt for the derby game. Robin Roefs, however, might be back - at least on the bench - this week.

Yet more injury woes for Spurs: Yves Bissouma (although he hasn't been getting regular gametime this year) missed out at Liverpool last week because of a muscle injury. And Dominic Solanke was unable to take part against Atleti on Tuesday because of a hip problem - although Tudor seems hopeful that he'll have shaken it off in time to face Forest on Sunday.

Wolves - remarkably - have NO PLAYERS listed as injured this week.

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

Leeds's Gabriel Gudmundsson, sent off for two yellow cards against Palace last weekend, is the only suspension this week. Wow!

Tyrique George is a loanee from Chelsea, so can't play for Everton against them this week.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

A lot of people have been turning against Haaland for his patchy returns in the past couple of months or so. But that's always a high-risk strategy: even if he hasn't scored much recently, he is still the best forward in the league, and playing for the best creative team in the league (well, OK, Manchester United are making a fight of that at the moment; but one of the best creative teams....).

I observed ruefully last week that Spurs players had been looking like poison for a while,... and Liverpool players were suddenly not so very far behind them in the under-performing stakes. But Spurs were immeasurably better at Anfield last Sunday; and Liverpool weren't. But perhaps Liverpool have now turned their form around with a much better performance in the Champions League? (Although, that was only against Galatasaray; and they had a very poor game....)  I'd still treat Fantasy selections from both teams with extreme caution; especially Spurs! But in the last few months, it is Florian Wirtz who's been making Liverpool tick; and now that he's back from injury, we're seeing immediate results. (Having Szoboszlai released from the right full-back role helps enormously too! Although Frimpong still doesn't look at all convincing there, especially defensively.)

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

Cole Palmer, despite still only looking at around 85% or 90% of full fitness, came very, very close to a 20-point game against Newcastle. And I'm still banging the drum for Marcus Tavernier too; he put on another superb display for Bournemouth - without actually being rewarded with any FPL points (he is now very much due). Dwight McNeil, suddenly back in David Moyes's good books after being in limbo for most of the season, is starting to look pretty tasty too.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

Free Hit? Just say 'NO'!!

 

Damn, an awful lot of folks seem to be playing their Free Hit for this Gameweek. An awful lot!

I mentioned yesterday, as one of my 'Signs that an FPL manager isn't much good', that doing so was suggestive of simply having not thought ahead. We've known that the League Cup finalists were going to have a Blank Gameweek in the league programme this week since before the start of the season; we've known who those finalists were going to be for just over six weeks now; and we could have made a pretty good guess as to who they were going to be at least a month before that. This blip in the schedule should not be taking anyone by surprise.

What's more, the other two clubs blanking this weekend, their scheduled league opponents, Crystal Palace and Wolves, are not really clubs that anyone should have any FPL players from at the moment. There's not even that much reason to be trebled-up on either Arsenal or City right now. Arsenal's attacking players haven't been scoring enough goals, or even getting regular enough starts, to be in serious contention this season; even the great Bukayo Saka has faded into FPL irrelevance. For most of the season, Gabriel, Timber, and Rice have been incontestably the three Arsenal players to have; but Timber just picked up an injury, and Rice has had a bit of a lull in productivity recently - so, you could easily drop either of them, if you hadn't already. Even from City, there's been no overshwhelming case for a third pick for a while, after Haaland and Semenyo. And Haaland's returns have sputtered since the turn of the year; a lot of managers have already started deserting him. Nico O'Reilly has recently been about the most popular third pick from the club, but he too has just picked up an injury.

So, really, most smart FPL managers should not have found themselves with more than 4 or 5 players blanking this week; and it should be pretty easy to move a couple of them on to the bench for the week, and offload any others - even if it might cost one or two 'hits'.

If you did have exceptionally high exposure to this Blank Gameweek, you should have started offloading a few surplus players a few weeks back - and/or started trying to save up a few extra transfers even further back - to deal with this problem.

Yes, if you are still trebled-up on both Arsenal and City, and you somehow have one or two or three Palace and Wolves players too, and have maybe picked up one or two additional injury worries as well,.... then you could be in Free Hit territory.

But that was a situation you should have been able to anticipate the approach of, and taken earlier action to avoid. And even if that is where you find yourself,.... you might still be better off spending as many 'hits' as you need to in order to fill all the holes in your starting eleven; or compromising a little and accepting that you may just have to field a side one or two men short this week.

Because.... in Gameweek 34, the FA Cup Semi-Finals are going to wipe out four games from the league programme that weekend, not just two. The line-up probably wasn't quite as easy to predict as it was with the League Cup finalists. And the qualifiers were confirmed with only a little more advance warning; in fact, quite a lot less effective warning, very little time to save up any extra free transfers - because there are now no further Premier League gameweeks for the next three weeks. On that weekend at the end of April, we'll be missing City and Arsenal again, but also Chelsea and Liverpool, and West Ham and Leeds. Now, as it happens, probably no-one in FPL owns any West Ham or Leeds players at the moment, and not very many from Chelsea or Liverpool. But still, it's likely to be a significantly worse disruption than this week - and it might have been even worse.

Moreover, so close to the end of the season, and with the likelihood of Double Gameweeks in close proximity - probably, hopefully shortly afterwards - you really don't want to be messing your squad up with a lot of short-term changes at that point. You might be able to avoid the catastrophic impact of so  many missing players in that Gameweek with saved transfers and 'hits', but.... you're probably going to want most or all of those players back in immediately - which is going to cost even more transfers.

However difficult this looming Blank Gameweek may be to survive without the Free Hit, you should try to do so,... because Gameweek 34 is assuredly gong to be way worse, for at least 95% of us.

A little bit of Zen (86)

"Only dead fish swim with the stream."

Malcolm Muggeridge

This quotation, or sometimes a slight variation of it, seems to get attributed to all sorts of people online, including.... Ernest Hemingway (I'm not sure he was ever that funny; not often, anyway). But it seems to be most commonly and convincingly credited to Muggeridge. He was a journalist, essayist, and satirist of some repute in his middle years, but by the '70s and '80s (the time of my childhood), in his dotage, he had declined into an endlessly parodiable - and possibly, to some extent, consciously self-parodying - bombastic social commentator on late-night discussion programmes on the television, a cantankerous grouch-for-hire.

Rediscovering this old gem of a line has got me wondering if I should rename my 'Sheep Picks' series on here (lampooning the foolishness that the 'herd instinct' in FPL so often leads people into),... or at least start illustrating it occasionally with some dead fish photos.

Signs an FPL manager doesn't know what they're doing

I pointed out last week that it is misguided - morally reprensible, and usually unhelpful anyway! - to copy selection ideas from the teams of FPL managers who appear to be doing well. Even a genuinely smart manager rarely has his squad exactly the way he'd like it. And a squad that's been successful in recent weeks, or even for the whole season thus far,... really has no more chance (or not very much more) of doing well in the upcoming gameweeks than a randomly chosen selection. Things change constantly in FPL; and no-one can foresee the future. So - looking at what other people have done in the past is really of very little help.   Don't do it!

In fact, you can probably derive more benefit from critiquing the teams/squads of recently successful managers (because, as I said in that post last week, just about nobody's squad is ever 'perfect'). You may even find it consoling when you start to recognise that most of the people doing really well (particularly in the global league; but really, in any of the very big leagues, for clubs, countries, broadcasters, etc.) aren't really all that insightful, after all; they've just been very lucky with a lot of their picks;... but they're also usually making an awful lot of basic errors, which might eventually cost them their present eminence in the rankings (though, in a league of hundreds of thousands or of millions, there will inevitably be quite large numbers of people who manage to continue to be unreasonably lucky for most of the season...).

Here, then, are my....

Top Ten 'Red Flags' that show an FPL Manager isn't really much good

1)  Having David Raya in goal

This isn't a criticism of David Raya; he just happens to be the most conspicuous recent example of a more general phenomenon (Raya is, for the second season running, the most popular keeper in FPL - despite not actually being the highest points-scoring one...). People want the 'security' of going for a very consistent keeper with a high-performing club who'll keep a lot of clean sheets. But there are all sorts of reasons why this is almost never a good idea (I went into the David Raya example in much more detail here). It's not just Raya: it's any keeper from a top club - there's no good reason for choosing Alisson or Donnarumma either. Goalkeepers at top clubs tend to be expensive; but there isn't that much of a spread of points returns across keepers, so even the very best of them won't usually give you many more points than the second or third or fourth best - and one of those is likely to be much cheaper. Keepers at the best defensive sides rarely end up being amongst the top-returning FPL keepers anyway, because you earn better returns from saves and bonus points than from clean sheets. [OK, Raya is actually in first place at the moment; but mainly because he's played at least one more game than everyone else. There are a number of others who are running him pretty close ovreall, and have done better than him over runs of games.] Even if a keeper like Raya (or Donnarumma, etc.) does end up being the top returning keeper by some margin, you could almost certainly still have got even more points from a pair of cheaper keepers with good fixture-difficulty rotation. But the most powerful argument of all is that of 'club differential' advantage: in a club with a lot of good players, the keeper isn't likely to give you as much of a points-lift over his near rivals (even if he is the No. 1 overall) as some of his defenders or attacking players will. This season, Gabriel, Timber and Rice have all been much more valuable picks from Arsenal than Raya.

2)  Not having a decent back-up keeper

Even Raya (or Alisson or Donnarumma, etc.) won't be a good bet for a clean sheet against every opponent. And every keeper may pick up a knock for a week or two, or suffer a token rotation once or twice at the latter end of the season. You really need a decent second keeper that you can utilise as necessary. And, as I just explained above, in most years you're much better off going with two decent mid-priced keepers who enjoy convenitent rotation around the most challenging opponents.

3)  Carrying 'dead wood' on the bench

Even at the start of the season, when budget is tight,... it is a dangerous false economy to have non-players on your bench; they'll quickly land you in hot water if you get a few injuries/suspensions, and no longer have any extra men spare to bring in to cover an unexpected rotation. And they tend to deplete your squad value, rather than grow it. Having a full and strong bench becomes even more important as the season goes on - particularly in the bleak midwinter months when we're often hit by multiple last-minute injuries and surprise rotations almost every week, and often need to call on automatic substitutions to fill out our starting eleven. There are occasions when you may wish to - or have to - carry a player on the bench for a week, maybe even a few weeks (a top player, a player who's increased a lot in value since you first acquired him, may simply lose you too much squad value through the dreaded 'transfer tax'; if you sell him, you might not be able to afford to buy him back); but in general, an injured player (or a player who's no longer getting regular starts, or is clearly in very poor form) is a liability - and you need to get them out of your squad straight away. FPL managers who frequently have an injured player (or two, or three!) on their bench, often a player who's been out for a week or two already, and isn't expected back any time soon,.... don't know what they're doing.

4)  Being too 'template'

Now, I dislike the notion of the 'template'; I think that, like many of FPL's irksome buzzwords, it is ill-defined and over-used. People seem to develop the exaggerated notion that there is, at any given time, a single 'best eleven' - that almost everybody owns. In fact, of course, selection decisions are never that clearcut: there's usually a pool of at least 30 or 40 most popular players who form the bulk - but almost never quite all - of most people's squads. And the thing is, popularity does not equate perfectly to quality; with many picks, there's a kind of collective hysteria, a mass stupidity behind them (the 'sheep pick' phenomenon I so often criticise on here). Many of the 'most popular' players are actually quite misguided selections, poor picks. And emerging talents, less well-known players who are just starting to hit useful form, will, at first, generally only be recognised by relatively small numbers of more astute football-watchers. Any FPL manager whose squad consists entirely of the obviously most popular players of the moment... is probably not really all that good.

5)  Having too many long-term holds

The essence of the game is that you have to rotate constantly, to try to find the players in the very best form for a short run of games at a time. Getting a player like Salah last year or Palmer the year before, who'll return high points again and again with remarkable consistency across the entire season,... is a freakishly rare event. There are rarely more than two or three players a year who come anywhere near to justifying long-term inclusion; in many seasons, there will be none. Any team/squad that's had a large number of its players unchanged for a long period.... probably isn't much good.

6)  Having a weak midfield

The midfield is where most of the points come from. Midfielders get more points for a goal than forwards, can more easily earn the new 'defensive points' than either defenders or forwards (although fairly few are actually the right profile of player to do so regularly), get a free extra point for a team 'clean sheet', and tend to be more likely to register assists and pick up bonus points as well. And a good many of them are really 'forwards' generously misclassified by the game as 'midfielders' (Semenyo, Mbeumo, Cunha, Trossard, Saka, Gordon), or at least fairly free-scoring advanced midfielders who might be expected to score nearly as often as a good centre-forward. Even in this untypically low-scoring season, this awful, awful season in which so many of the usual big producers in midfield have disappointed,.... 12 out of the top 24 FPL points-returners are midfielders. There is no excuse for going light in the mdfield, even - especially! - in the 'fifth seat'. The fourth and fifth midfield slots, in fact, are potentially the most valuable in the entire squad, and the ones you should be concentrating on rotating the most often - to get the most points from them.

7)  Having too many (any) safe-and-steady picks

With few attacking midfielders producing really well this year, while many defensive midfielders have had their points returns buoyed by the new 'defensive points' (but also by their scoring rather more goals than usual this season...), there has been a temptation for a lot of FPL managers to go for more seemingly 'dependable' options - like Declan Rice, Elliot Anderson, or James Garner. And indeed, players like these (and Enzo Fernandez and Casemiro and Ryan Gravenberch too) are in the Top 20 midfield points-producers at the moment. But.... only Rice is in the Top 5. And while there is something very reassuring about a player like this who'll give you a fairly steady drip-drip-drip of points, rather than many big gameweek hauls,... you really need to be chasing those big hauls! You really need to be looking to earn a minimum of around 6 points per game from every member of your starting eleven; and since it's almost impossible to get that from your keeper and defenders, even with hyper-efficient rotation, and since (as just mentioned in the previous point in this post) midfield is where most of the points come from, you really ought to be aspiring to more like 7 points per game from all 5 of your midfield slots; almost no single player ever achieves those sorts of numbers over a season - you have to rotate through the most in-form players. Those central defensive midfielders are only yielding 4.0-4.5 points per game; even the oustanding Rice is only producing about 5.5 points per game; that's just not enough to justify having even one of them in the squad as a season-long hold. Yet this year, many managers can be found with two or three of them; they don't know what they're doing. Almost every week you have one of these players in your squad, you're losing 1 or 2 or 3 points to someone who's making better use of rotations in these positions. [It doesn't only happen with more defensive midfielders; they just happen to be the obvious example this season. Last year many people were impressed with Morgan Rogers's excellent debut season with Villa; they bought him at the start of the year, because he was cheap, and held on to him all the way through, because he was mostly delivering decent points with a fair amount of consistency. But he only managed a season total of about 160 points: not anywhere near enough for a season-long hold!!]

8)  Too often starting four or five defenders

Related to the two points above about the paramountcy of optimising points returns from the midfield, a further sign of weakness in this area is the number of FPL managers who are regularly starting four or even five defenders. Yes, defenders have got a very useful little lift to their returns this year from the new 'defensive points'; and midfielders and forwards have, on the whole, been slightly disappointing. But still, we only see 2 defenders (both from Arsenal, of course) in the current Top 10 FPL points producers - and only another 7 in the next 20. And it's actually even worse than this; because defenders tend to start nearly every game (as long as they're fit); and, as I just observed in the previous point about defensive midfielders, they tend to be relatively slow and steady in their returns. They might constitute one-in-three of the best points-returners over the season, but they probably quite rarely manage to be one-in-four or one-in-five of the top points producers over any short run of games. There will certainly be occasions when especially favourable fixtures for your defenders and/or form or injury issues affecting some of your more advanced players may make it a smart choice to start four, or sometimes even five defenders. But such occasions will be fairly rare - the exception rather than the rule. FPL managers who are doing it every week (even this season, when the usual massive differential between defenders and more advanced players has been considerably eroded) are just pissing away points.

9)  Having too many double-ups and treble-ups

Taking too many players from the same club fails to spread risk: it leaves you dangerously over-exposed to negative impacts from an unexpectedly bad performance from that club - or to that club having a blank gameweek. And, frankly, there aren't usually many clubs who are good enough all around to justify taking three players from them. If your squad isn't drawn from at least 7 clubs, ideally 8 or 9 or 10, you're probably storing up trouble for yourself.

10)  Having obviously 'sentimental' picks

Being swayed by one's emotions and personal preferences is one of the greatest dangers in the game of FPL. Whenever you see a manager who has three players from a club who aren't in very good form at the moment (looking at you, Liverpool), you can be fairly confident that this manager is a fan of the club - and is making selections with his heart, not his brain. Such emotional biases can relate to individual players, and/or to previous experience in FPL, as well as to real-world club loyalties. People who have Salah in their squads this year are obviously idolaters who can't get over their admiration and gratitude for all the points he's delivered over the last several years. Sometimes, too, these emotional influences can work in a purely negative way: anyone who doesn't have any Arsenal defenders in their squad, despite their massive dominance this year, is obviously prejudiced against the club - and that prejudice is harming their FPL choices.

And  a couple more quick 'bonus' ones to finish with....  

You usually have to go digging around in a manager's history a bit to discover this (unless they happen to have played a chip in the current week you're looking at), but how they've used their chips can be very instructive. If they've played a Bench Boost in a week when some of their players had quite tough fixtures, and one or two were even doubtful starters, then they're not very good. If they often use their Wildcards quite early in the window, and sometimes to make only three or four changes with them, then they're not very good.

And of course,.... it's A VERY BAD SIGN if you find that a manager obviously hasn't thought ahead about a major hazard in the game. At the moment, for instance, top sides Arsenal and Manchester City have a Blank Gameweek this weekend, because they're playing each other in the League Cup Final (and their scheduled league opponents, Wolves and Crystal Palace, are also missing a fixture). This has been known for some weeks now; but many FPL managers are behaving as though they are completely blindsided by it. There is no very good reason for being trebled-up on either Arsenal or City at the moment (though many, it seems, are trebled-up on both); and even less reason to have any Palace or Wolves players (though a few might still have Dean Henderson, or one of his defenders, from the period earlier in the season when they were returning good points; and perhaps some might still have one or two Wolves players that they brought in for their Double Gameweek a few weeks back). But if you had high exposure to this Blank, you should have been moving out surplus players already, or at leat saving up transfers, so that you could move out as many players as necessary this week (and, hopefully, bring them back, if you want to, as soon as possible thereafter). People who are being panicked into using their Free Hit this week (which will surely be far more needful for most people in the bigger Blank Gameweek caused by the FA Cup Semi-Finals in Gameweek 34), or find themselves having to burn lots of 'hits' in order to put out a full starting eleven,.... just didn't think ahead. And that's BAD FPL management.

All of these points should be pretty clearcut and uncontentious. Yet, somehow, many FPL managers seem to ignore them, or even to be in stubborn denial about them - even the supposedly 'good' managers.

Go on, take a careful look at the teams of any of the online FPL 'gurus' or 'experts'; or at those of any of the top 5,000 or 10,000 or whatever in the current global rankings. I guarantee you that almost every one of them will betray some of these telltales of fundamental incompetence in the game.

Going with the flow

Here's a funny thing: although I have a great fondness for the late Shane MacGowan and his songwriting,.... most of my favourite Pogues songs are in fact written by other members of the band. This one, a rather beautiful love song by banjo-player Jem Finer, is actually from their later era in the '90s, after the band had finally been worn out by Shane's looney escapades and had to sack him.

The Pogues have a special place in my heart because they rose to prominence - indeed they were, somehow, one of the biggest bands in the world for a while back then! - during the 1980s, the period when I was transitioning from high school to university, and then from university to 'the world of work' (ha!), that age when we tend to listen to music most, and be most affected by it.

Although this song was released on their penultimate album, Waiting For Herb, in the mid-90s, I always associate it with a rather earlier moment in my life (funny how the mind works!). Back at the end of the '80s, I was doing a teacher-training course in the north of England, and was attempting a long-distance relationship for the first time, with a devastatingly beautiful young woman I'd just met who was at art college in London. (I always seem to fall for creative types: actresses, dancers, writers, musicians...) And although she never stood me up at a bus station, as in the scenario of the song, there were a number of  times when hoped-for visits were cancelled, or when we had awkward conversations from a payphone at a bus station (one of the most readily available to me at the time, since I was living in a small village some way outside of my university town, and having to take a bus home almost every evening). Because of these associations, several years later, this became for me, retroactively, 'our song'.

The song is notable musically for being an instance of the use of 'Infinite Guitar' - a feedback effect that allows a note to be sustained indefinitely at constant volume, here producing a melancholy and haunting background. The device was apparently invented by a Canadian guitarist called Michael Brook in the 1980s, but it is most associated with his countryman, Daniel Lanois, who did a lot to develop, or at least 'popularise' the innovation. Also a talented musician and songwriter, Lanois became best-known as a producer, particularly for his work on a number of U2's most successful albums. He introduced the 'infinite guitar' gizmo to The Edge, who was quite besotted with it for a while, and used it most memorably on the hit single With Or Without You - which probably creates some additional resonance with this song. (I'd never been much of a fan of U2 or The Edge, but I got to meet him and hear him perform at a private music biz party in the '90s, and found myself very impressed: he is a rather cool dude, and a much better player than I'd realised.)

I particularly like the opening lines, repeated as chorus:

Listen to me, baby: Once upon a time....

My heart, it was an ocean,

But you swam against the tide.

It's a song about acceptance, about moving on - without enmity or regret. How many of those are there?? It might be unique.

It's a good lesson, for life - and for FPL. Sometimes - often, most of the time - things don't work out the way we want them to. We have to try to understand how these setbacks happen, without apportioning blame - to ourselves or others. And we have to learn to bear these disappointments with good grace - and summon the will to keep moving forward.

And yet, of course, I can't escape the conviction on occasions that the girl was wrong, that life is often wrong; that the tide of my feelings was 'right', and that the girl - and the world - would have done better to have gone along with my flow, rather than opposing it.

Yes, EVERYTHING can become a metaphor for me.  Life is a metaphor for FPL, FPL is a metaphor for life.... Life is FPL....

Forgive these idle musings. I am making rapid progress into a bottle of Tullamore Dew this slow Tuesday evening....

Facebook - a further rant

 

A couple of months back, I griped about Facebook having randomly locked me out of my account around Christmas time - this time, seemingly permanently. I am still locked out, and now fear this latest 'interruption of service' is going to prove irreversible. 

Hance, this blog's companion Facebook page remains inactive - and, indeed, it is 'blocked' from view altogether (I have no idea why...).  I don't suppose anyone's going to miss it, but.... My apologies, anyway.

I still remember my last password; but it is only intermittently 'recognised' and accepted by the site. And whether I am able to log in with the password or not, I am always required to go through additional 'authentication' steps.

I am usually challenged to retrieve a verfication code from my linked email account. Fair enough. You'd think that would be sufficient to confirm my identity and restore access to the Facebook account. But NO: I've done this countless times now, but further steps are also demanded.

I'm usually asked to try logging in from another device. But when I tried that, they still weren't satisfied, and demanded again that I log in from another device,... and another.... and another. I suspect they in fact mean 'another device recognised as having been previously used to log in to this account' - but they don't say so. I've only ever used one other device - an old, now rarely used 'back-up' laptop - to access the account; but that didn't work. Then I wondered if perhaps they meant a mobile device (smartphone, tablet....?), since that's what most people use for accessing Facebook these days. But I tried borrowing a friend's phone to retreive the additional verification codes and that didn't work either.

Then they started telling me they would send a verification code to my Whatsapp number. Even though I don't have one!

Only after much floundering around through various obstructive screens in the log-in process did I finally manage to stumble upon an option to send an additional verification code to my phone by SMS. Unfortunately, the phone number I have linked to the account is an old Cambodian one, which I now rarely use, and which I only top up intermittently to avoid having the number deleted; it isn't actually 'active' most of the time. I topped it up again to reactivate it, but.... for some reason SMS often fails to work on SMART Cambodia's roaming service (this is why I've actually switched my contact phone number to my Lao one for my bank accounts in Cambodia and Vietnam). However, I did try this again recently, and this time was able to receive the SMS verification code. Facebook still wouldn't accept it, still wanted to insist on yet further verification steps - that were impossible. What is this INSANITY?!

So, to recap,... Facebook doesn't want to recognise my password; it won't recognise the only two devices I have ever used to log into my account; and it won't recognise verification codes sent to my linked email or my linked phone number. And there is no other recourse available, no means of contacting them to complain or appeal against the suspension of access.

Why does anyone bother with this awful, awful, stupid, obstructive, perverse, evil service???   I am really quite glad to be rid of it.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 30

In the middle of the European 'Round of 16' ties, we've inevitably seen a few surprising and inconvenient rotations this weekend; and, yet again, some up-and-down performances from the big teams.

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: Gabriel Gudmundsson's sending-off for a second yellow seemed a bit harsh, as the incident looked like an accidental coming-together rather than a rash challenge. And the referee, Thomas Bramall, who'd evidently forgotten he'd carded the player earlier, would surely have been likely to take a more lenient view if he'd realised it was a sending-off decision. (Leeds will also complain about a lack of consistency in the refereein, in that Brennan Johnson also committed a mild but bookable offence shortly afterwards, and was spared a second yellow card.)

Red cards not awarded: Yankuba Minteh was very fortunate not to get a second yellow card against Sunderland (and Hurseler immediately subbed him off, to avoid the near-certainty of his dismissal for any further infraction). His second foul was a fairly mild contact, and might have been seen as an 'accidental' coming-together - but it was the sort of contact we usually see cards given for. Hannibal was even luckier to get only a yellow card for his wild, overreaching lunge which cuaght Truffert above the ankle; the VAR team were again, unfathomably, sitting on their hands (it was a bad enough foul that the referee should at least have taken a second look at it).

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Michael Keane plainly clipped Havertz's heels not once but twice, bringing him down in the penalty area in the first-half at The Emirates; VAR's silence on the incident is utterly baffling. 

Cole Palmer was clipped on the edge of the foot by Woltemade's rash challenge: the contact was very slight, but it was clearly there - and it was enough for a penalty to be awarded. [Along with two good efforts on goal, one saved, one just wide, Palmer, despite looking still at only about 85% of his full capacity, was not far off a 20-point game, but came away with only 2 points. So it goes....]

Richarlison should have had a penalty at Anfield at the start of the second-half when Van Dijk was clearly holding him back; the referee didn't have a clear view of the offence, VAR did - but VAR didn't want to 'overrule' their on-pitch colleague. This is getting ridiculous.

Brentford surely should have had a penalty on Monday, when Andre wrestled Kevin Schade to the floor at a corner. It seems that adjudicating all this goalmouth grappling is becoming such an insuperable challenge for the officials that they're just throwing up their hands in despair and refusing to give any decision on these incidents now. Something's got to change, and soon.

Tight/dubious offsides: The offside against Brennan Johnson was very, very tight; the one against Dan Ndoye was just plain wrong.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: Sunderland are unhappy about Brighton's goal, as Diarra had been shoved to the ground on the preceding corner-kick; but that contact might not have been violent enough for a foul, and Diarra appeared to be rolling around on the ground to try to perusade the referee to reconsider his decision on that, rather than because he was actually hurt; he certainly didn't have a head injury, so there was no reason to halt the play.

There was a bit of a question-mark over Ross Barkley's goal for Villa, as Onana, in an offside position, bad been standing directly on the line of the shot (and it might actually have touched him); he probably wasn't impeding Lammens' view of the ball, but the fact that it might have touched him was surely 'distraction' enough (again, perhaps the rule is not framed that way; but it should be!).

Dan Ndoye appeared to have scored a deserved winner for Forest against Fulham. To the naked eye, he had looked comfortably onside; but SAOT reckoned his heel had been 'off' by a matter of millimetres - a severely unconvincing contention; and the technology should not be attempting to adjudicate such unreasonably tiny margins anyway.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries:  Viktor Gyokeres was rested in favour of Kai Havertz (although anyone who'd been rash enough to include the Swedish striker were rewarded with a gaol from him when he came on from the bench). Jurrien Timber picked up an injury, and was subbed off just before half-time. Tarkowski and Branthwaite failed to appear for Everton (and there's no excuse of European football there, so presumably there are undisclosed injury issues of some sort?).

Alex Jimenez, who's been almost an ever-present for Bournemouth this season, was dropped in favour of Adam Smith - although he did get decent minutes off the bench.

Sandro Tonali was a last-minute absentee for Newcastle, after suffering with an illness this week. Robert Sanchez got a somewhat surprising recall in the Chelsea goal, though apparently this was down to Jorgensen having picked up a slight groin-strain rather than Rosenior having had a change of heart about him.

Dean Henderson was missing in goal for Crystal Palace, because of an illness. Dominic Calvert-Lewin, however, was a surprise starter, despite missing most training over this past week with a niggly knee problem.

Benjamin Sesko, despite excellent recent form, was moved back to the United bench, with Mbeumo moving into the centre-forward role and Diallo returning on the right wing.

Perhaps with an eye on the challenging return leg against Galatasaray in the Champions League on Wednesday, Arne Slot rested both Mo Salah and Hugo Ekitike from the start against Spurs.

Raul Jimenez surprisingly did start for Fulham, despite having lost his father just a few days prior. Harry Wilson was also able to play despite having been suffering with an ankle problem all week, but Emile Smith Rowe unexpectedly gave way to young Josh King, after reporting an issue in training shortly before the game.

Near misses:  Everton nearly embarrassed title-chasing Arsenal when McNeil's long-range curler had Raya well-beaten, but slammed against the post - and Ndiaye got to the rebound first, but put it wide. Only moments before, a close-range drive from McNeil had been somewhat fortuitously blocked by Calafiori's hopefully flailing leg, as he lay sprawled on the ground. Reece James's 30-yard free-kick late in the game clipped the outside of the foot of the post, with Ramsdale struggling to get across to it.

Ola Aina, played in by a delightful through-ball from Murillo, smashed a half-volley against the bar from just outside the box. Taiwo Awoniyi, breaking clear one-on-one with Leno late on, but dragged his shot wide (though it looked as though he might have been 'offside' by a toecap...).

On Monday night, Igor Thiago looped a header past Sa on to the angle of crossbar and upright - very, very close to putting Brentford into an unassailable 3-goal lead. Adam Armstrong also hit the post for Wolves at the end of a quick breakaway early in the second-half. Then, near the end of the game, Arokodare smashed a header against the crossbar. In the dying moments, Brentford then had another chance to take the win, with substitute Reiss Nelson ghosting in behind for a free header, but taking his eye off the ball and having it come off his shoulder - and go just wide of the post.

Big misses/big saves: Erling Haaland had a pretty quiet game, but did square the ball to set up Semenyo for what should have been a decsive opportunity - but the usually impeccable forward side-footed the shot just wide of the post. It wasn't a terrible mis, but it's looking very much as if might be a decisive one in the title race. Palmer had a great early chance against Newcastle, but lashed the shot just wide. Robert Sanchez pulled off a very good flying save from Gordon's fierce long-range curler. A little later, Liam Delap blazed the best chance of the game way over the bar. Ellborg's reaction save with his foot to deny Hinshelwood's point-blank shot will probably be the 'save of the weekend'. Evanilson rounded the keeper early on, but his effort was blocked at the near-post by Bashir Humphreys. Jadon Anthony absolutely smashed one against the underside of the crossbar; the best chance of a fairly dour game against Bournemouth. A little later, Marcus Tavernier's crisp left-foot shot clipped the outside of the post.

Calvert-Lewin produced one of the best penalty misses we've seen this season. Most of them have been tame efforts, scuffed straight at the keeper; but Domnic hit his cleanly, with power, just.... a bit outside the post!

Spurs looked much improved against Liverpool (who didn't...), and Alisson was forced to make a good save from a long-range shot from their new teenage Brazilian left-back Souza. Vicario might have been a little at fault for letting Szoboszlai's free-kick go in despite apparently getting a good hand on it, but a little later he redeemed himself by fingertipping Gakpo's fierce low shot from the edge of the box on to the foot of his post.

Outstanding goals: 

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: Jose Sa was allowed to pick up a back-pass without punishment from referee Stuart Attwell. That would have been a good scoring chance for Brentford - that might have put the game completely out of Wolves's reach. Not only that, but Wolves immediately broke down the other end to get a goal back; so, the home side might feel doubly aggrieved: that one decision almost certainly cost them the win.

Bad luck/good luck: Bernardo Silva's inch-perfect chip was... pretty obviously a mishit cross. Mineth's goal from a tight angle against Sunderland was also a fortuitous mishit, as he lost he feet and sliced his shot.

FPL weirdness: 

Unexpected results: Although denied an obvious penalty, Arsenal were fairly lucky to come away with a win, as Everton looked much the better side for most of the match. City then failing to get a win against battling West Ham has probably cost them the title. Newcastle managed to get a win away from home, against an oddly lacklustre Chelsea. In a battle of the under-performers at Anfield on Sunday, Spurs showed much greater improvement than Liverpool, and were very unlucky not to come away with a win. And... credit to Wolves for a spirited performance, but Brentford were so on top of them in the first-half, they really should have won by a landslide.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' includes almost no-one that anyone owns - apart William Saliba (and even he's a much less popular choice from the Arsenal defence than Gabriel or Timber; or, recently, Hincapie!), Bruno Fernandes and Dominik Szoboszlai. Once more, we've seen a bunch of low-scoring games, and no hauls from any of the week's more fancied prospects: Semenyo, Haaland, Mbeumo, Joao Pedro, Palmer, Ekitike, Wirtz all giving no joy. The global average is a miserable 43 points (driven mostly by clean sheets). With a few surprise last-minute omissions and some unexpected results, two or three missed red cards (and one rather harshly given), a couple of goals denied for ridiculously tight offside calls, and three pretty clearcut penalties not given, and a missed award of an indirect free-kick on the edge of the six-yard box for Brentford on Monday night that might have decided the course of the game, this is lookiing like an 8 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Dilemmas of the Week - GW 30 (25/26)

 

Although it was a dismal week in Europe for the English clubs, at least we seem to have come through the ordeal with no new injuries. And last weekend's FA Cup ties were mercifully free of casualties too. And some teams who'd exited the Cup early and aren't involved in Europe were able to take brief warm-weather breaks this past week. Touch wood, despite the ongoing dismal weather in England, it looks as though the peak of the inevitable midwinter injury crisis may now be passing. Although, with 9 teams facing difficult return legs in the European competitions this coming midweek, there is an extremely high risk of rotations this weekend - and, with that, probably an increased likelihood of some eccentric results.

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

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

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

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 30?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Leandro Trossard came off early in the Cup game against Mansfield with a muscle problem, and wasn't involved against Leverkusen midweek.

Matty Cash had to come off at half-time against Chelsea in GW29 with a calf problem, but it looks as though he should be available again this weekend.

Rico Henry, only recently reintroduced after a long lay-off, has picked up a serious hamstring strain which looks as though it might keep him out for the rest of the season.

Kaoru Mitoma came off at half-time against Arsenal in GW29 with an ankle problem. Scans reveal nothing serious, but he has been struggling with pain and hasn't trained much since.

Daniel Munoz had to come off against Spurs in GW29 with a shoulder injury, and is still looking doubtful to return this week.

Leeds are suddenly missing their two preferred forward options, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin suffering with a knee problem and Noah Okafor missing training this week with a hip issue. Presumably Lukas Nmecha, and perhaps also Joel Piroe, will get more of a chance while they're out.

Alisson missed the trip to Galatasary this week after feeling a muscle problem in training; Slot is hopeful he might be back this weekend.

Forest winger Dan Ndoye missed the European game on Thursday because of a training knock.

Cristian Romero and Joao Palhinha suffered a clash of heads in Tuesday's game against Atletico Madrid, and will both have to miss this week. Conor Gallagher is also a doubt, having missed training with an illness this week.

Recently in-form winger Crysencio Summerville suffered a calf-strain in Monday night's Cup win over Brentford, and looks likely to miss out this weekend.

Jose Sa has been troubled by a persistent ankle injury, which led to him being omitted in the FA Cup game against Liverpool last weekend.

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

Pedro Neto is still suspended, having received an additional one-match bna from the FA for failing to leave the pitch promptly after being sent off for a second yellow-card offence against Arsenal at the start of the month.

Micky Van de Ven is suspended this week after being sent off for a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' against Palace in GW29.

Jadon Sancho is, remarkably, still a Manchester United player, and is thus ineligible to play against them for Villa this week.

Raul Jimenez will be missing for Fulham as his father has recently died.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Spurs, of course, have been FPL poison for months; but I rather fear Liverpool are getting there as well - they have been absolutely awful in the last few league games. Villa have also been in a very bad run - but at least Onana is back to give them a bit more steel in the middle of the park, McGinn should be close to a return, and Ollie Watkins managed to get on the scoresheet against Lille on Thursday, so... maybe things are about to turn around for them? (Just as Morgan Rogers became the week's most transferred-out player.....)

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

Marcus Tavernier - not Joao Pedro! - produced the 'Performance of the Gameweek' last time: he was absolutely magnificent, and very, very unlucky not to come away with a 20-point haul. This was a classic example of how the FPL points returns are often no guide at all to how well someone has played. Against Burnley this time, I'd seriously fancy him as a captaincy option. James Tarkowski and Marcos Senesi also recommended themselves as top defensive options - but they've actually been decent picks for most of the season, and many managers will have kept them since Gameweek 1.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (85)

“May you get all your wishes but one, so you always have something to strive for.”

Irish blessing

"And may the head on your Guinness be tight and creamy..."

GW  (Though he probably won't be expressing himself that coherently over the coming few days, what with being a Plastic Paddy and all....)

One can't help a little snigger

 

I am English; and thus I inevitably feel a certain sentimental attachment towards English football clubs, and hope for them to do well in the continental competitions. But that's all it is: a weak impulse of sentiment. I have absolutely no time for blind nationalism, and in fact tend to react against any suggestion of it. Ultimately, I love good football more than anything else, and will always celebrate a deserved victory, even when it goes against the team I was at least somewhat rooting for. I won't be obstinately braying for English success at any price in the World Cup this summer; I'll quite happily accept it if - when - we get eliminated by a better team; and, ultimately, I'll probably be investing as much or more hope in the team playing the most attractive game during the tournament, and that's quite likely to be Spain or France or Brazil.

And hence.... while many of my countrymen are dismayed and despondent at this week's results in the First Leg ties of the Chamipions League 'Round of 16', I can't resist a little chortle. The 'junior' European competitions have been so diluted as to become a bit of joke, really - easily dominated even by bottom-of-the-table Premier League sides. But this year, the Champions League has seemed to be going the same way, with the usually major European powers mostly looking well below their best (only Bayern still giving cause for concern...) in the league phase. Even misfiring Liverpool had been able to look fairly dominant in Europe so far; even stuttering Newcastle and increasingy abysmal Spurs had qualified through the first phase with relative ease. It was starting to feel as though we'd surely be guaranteed two or three of the semi-final berths. But, oh boy, did things just change quickly!!

Admittedly, only Newcastle were playing at home in this first batch of games. And our boys did get the rough end of the draw, with opponents of the status of Real, Barca, PSG, and Atleti being pitched against us so early in the knockout phase. (Though at least we were spared Bayern! And, frankly, on these performances, I'm not sure any of our teams would have fared that much better against Bodø/Glimt, Sporting, or Atalanta...)  But three of our six contenders were not just beaten but absolutely spanked, while Liverpool went down to the not-that-daunting Galatasaray, and even the mighty Arsenal barely scraped a draw against Leverkusen (and that only because they were the late beneficiaries of probably the worst penalty decision we've seen in the competition this season!). That is surely one of the worst nights for English football in Europe ever!!

But I am accepting this dreadful set of results calmly, stoically. I actually welcome them as a deserved corrective, a useful rebuke to incipient hubris. It can really do no harm to our clubs, or to the national game, or to English football fans in general.... to be brought back down to earth, to be shocked out of the arrogance and complacency that were starting to grow in us in regard to the European competitions.

And all is not yet lost. I'd still fancy Liverpool and Arsenal, and perhaps Newastle too to be able to pull off a win over two legs. And if anyone can pull back back a three-goal deficit against a team as big as Real Madrid,.... it's probably Pep's City.

It ain't over, as they say, until the Fat Lady sings....

Picks of the Week (9)

DISCLAIMER: I always refuse to identify myself as any sort of FPL 'guru' or 'mentor' or 'expert'. And I have previously on this blog expressed my reluctance to share many details of my own selections, or to make very specific player recommendations.

However, in addition to occasionally critiquing common 'sheep picks' of the moment (not all necessarily outright bad, but ridiculously over-popular selections), I will occasionally try to highlight one or two players who seem not yet to be very widely owned but are starting to look very tempting prospects.

I will generally try to come up with at least 2 options per week - so that it doesn't look like I'm making a sole recommendation. And these suggestions are intended to be simply 'worth thinking about', not at all 'must-haves'. And some weeks, most weeks, I'll have nothing..... In practice, I generally only come up with one of these posts once every month or two.

And yes, indeed, it has been a couple of months since I last did one of these, so - to counterbalance yesterday's dissing of some of the currently most popular picks - I felt I should come up with a few suggestions for Gameweek 30.

Now, this I find ODD.... The standout performance of Gameweek 29 did not come from Ismaila Sarr or Adam Wharton or Bruno Fernandes or Jurrien Timber or James Tarkowski, or even from hattrick-scoring Joao Pedro; no, the best league performance of last week, by a mile, was produced by Bournemouth's Marcus Tavernier. And yet he is thus far being completely overlooked. The transfer market is being dominated by people catching up on players they should have had already; while Marcus, despite his stellar form in the last two games, since his return from injury, is only the 50th most transferred-in player so far this gameweek (putting him behind Viktor Gyokeres, for heaven's sake! why on earth would anyone be buying him, just before Arsenal face a blank gameweek??), with barely 20,000 new managers coming in for him. This is surely further evidence that most FPL managers don't watch games (or don't watch them with any insight and appreciation, anyway); they must be thinking, "How can you say he had a good game when he didn't score any points?" Well, he smashed the woodwork twice, put a delicious curler only inches wide, set up teammates with a few good chances too, and should really have been awarded a penalty; sometimes, the breaks just don't go your way. But the thing with form/quality of play is that while it does not guarantee you will score any FPL points, it does make it more likely that you will. (Whereas having scored a lot of FPL points is not necessarily reflective of someone's overall quality of play; often players can pick up points - even quite a big haul - rather fortuitously, without really playing all that well. This is why you need to watch the games, to understand what's really happening.) With Semenyo and Ouattara having departed, and Kluivert missing most of the season with injury, Tavernier has become Bournemouth's key creative player - and one of their likeliest goalscorers. And the team seem to be on the up again at last, after a serious slump through the middle part of the season. Admittedly, they still have Manchester United, Arsenal, and Manchester City to face in their run-in, but... the rest of their remaining opponents are all pretty beatable. And Tavernier, remarkably, only costs 5.3 million at the moment - making him one of the most tempting midfield prospects under 6 million.

Now, I'm probably a little bit late on this one.... Crysencio Summerville has come into sensational form for West Ham over the past several weeks, and he's already grown his ownership from a negligible 11,500 when he faced Spurs in mid-January to over 370,000 now. Yes, you read that right: he's still owned by less than 3% of FPL managers - despite being the 4th highest scoring mdifielder over the past 8 gameweeks (1 point ahead of Antoine Semenyo!), and costing only 5.7 million pounds. West Ham are the most dramatically improved of the bottom-of-the-table clubs since the turn of the year, and are now looking favourites to save themselves from the drop (very possibly at the expensie of Spurs!). They still have to face City and Arsenal (though at least both at home), but the rest of their run-in doesn't look too daunting. Alas, Summerville has just picked up a knock in Monday's FA Cup win over Brentford; but if that turns out not to be anything serious, Summerville should definitely be in contention for a change-up in that crucial 4th/5th FPL midfield slot.

And here's a slightly left-field suggestion... United's veteran pivot Casemiro is actually one of the most 'in form' midfielders since mid-January, with 2 goals in the last 6 games (and fairly frequent 'defensive points' too). Yet he still costs only 5.6 million pounds in FPL, and is owned by only just over 2.5% of managers. If you're looking to switch up your 'fifth seat', you could do a lot worse. I confess, I had written off the aging Brazilian long ago. He's had a miserable time the last few seasons, with both Ten Hag and Amorim tending to leave enormous gaps in midfield, while failing to find him an effective double-pivot partner - thus leaving far too much ground for his aging legs to cover, and repeatedly making him look like one of the side's weakest links. But now that we have a more sensible and effective tactical system under Carrick, and the youthful Mainoo reinstated alongside him to help with the covering, he's not having to run himself into the ground by half-time every week,.... and his undoubted class has been able to reassert itself. He really has been looking superb over the last few months. The problem, of course, is that you can't take too many players from United, and most people want to have Bruno Fernandes and/or Bryan Mbeumo in their sides even more. But... if you find you can't quite afford both of the Brazilian's more prolific teammates, he's looking a very tempting pick - especially if you're just looking for a short-term replacement for Declan Rice when he faces a blank gameweek soon.

I still rather fancy the recent form of Brenden Aaronson and Harvey Barnes too, but I already gave them a boost back in January. And Everton's suddenly hot again Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall might be worth a thought as well - if they didn't have Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester City coming up in their next six games!!

Sheep Picks (20)

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

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

And so, as we approach Gameweek 30, I'm going to go out on a limb rather, and query the current popularity (perhaps over-popularity...) of a few admittedly rather good players. I can see the arguments in favour of these guys; and they might work out. But I have serious doubts about whether they'll work out as well as their new adopters fondly hope.

So, first up, then, we have Chelsea's Brazilian forward, Joao Pedro. Now, sure, he's the most 'in form' striker of the moment, has looked superb over the past month or so. My objection here is primarily that anyone buying him now is woefully late-to-the-party. And indeed, I fear there is a chance that the 'party' may shortly be winding down. If you fancied that Chelsea might benefit from a 'new manager bounce' when Liam Rosenior came onboard in January, and/or were optimistic that the long-awaited return of Cole Palmer might soon have a transformative effect for the team, or were just encouraged by an approaching run of fairly 'soft' fixtures - then that would have been a very smart gamble: the optimum time to bring JP in would have been around Gameweek 22 or Gameweek 23.  The nearly 300,000 FPL managers who've acquired him since last week have been sleeping on his hot streak! And while I do acknowledge he is looking supremely confident at the moment, finishing superbly, playing again with some of that swagger we saw in his debut appearances in the Club World Cup last summer,... his numbers have also been a little flattering - partly because of a lack of competition among the forwards (almost everyone else, Haaland especially, has had a bit of a quiet spell over the last two months), and partly because quite a few things have broken kindly for him (he's gained a few assists for 'winning' rather soft penalty awards; and he was teed up for his hattrick last week by Garnacho selflessly squaring the ball to him rather than shooting himself - when does that ever happen??). Also, he has been exploiting a series of exceptionally inviting fixtures: apart from the recent visits to Arsenal (where, of course, he blanked) and Villa (who looked formidable up until the end of last year, but whose form has now crashed), they've been playing all the bottom-of-the-table clubs since late January. Their next four opponents - pacey Newcastle (though at least they don't 'travel' well, and will probably be preoccupied with the looming second leg of their Barcelona tie), defensively stolid Everton, and utterly terrifying City and United - could prove much tougher. And anyone who piles in for a player who's just scored a hattrick usually ends up disappointed; he's very, very unlikely to get a haul like that again in the next few weeks - maybe not all season. 

Even worse, a lot of his recent buyers have been ditching Haaland to make way for him. Yes, the big Viking has had a few injury worries and has been misfiring lately, and Joao Pedro has been much the best FPL forward over the past month or more; but he is NOT a better prospect than Haaland for the remainder of the season.

Just as there's a heavy element of just chasing last week's points with the renewed rush for Joao Pedro, so too there's been a surge of interest in Ismaila Sarr, after an eye-catching display last time out (he was unlucky not to get a hattrick; although one of his brace was a not particularly well-taken penalty...) - just as there was at this time last year. The surge has been a bit more muted than it might have been (barely 50,000 new purchasers so far, though we're still over three days out from the new gameweek deadline), probably because Palace are facing an imminent Blank Gameweek (and most FPL managers are stretched enough figuring out what to do with all of their City and Arsenal players). I like Sarr, he shows a lot of promise; but he's never been a consistent producer in FPL - has a little hot streak here and there, but never gives regular returns over any extended period. He's provided next-to-nothing so far this season. I think he's likely to be rather less involved in the attack than he often was last year, now that they have players like Strand Larsen (in particular), Nketiah and Pino to call upon. And Palace are struggling at the moment, sliding into the mayhem of the relegation zone. Their closing run of fixtures isn't great either: fellow relegation battlers Leeds and West Ham in two of their next three games, and City, Liverpool, and Arsenal still to be faced before the end of the season. Acquiring Sarr now seems a very, very odd choice.

And finally, I risk the wrath of THE MANY, I'm sure, because although he's had - by his usual standards - an absolute dog of a season, Virgil Van Dijk still enjoys an idolatrous following. People are presumably getting excited about the fact he's nabbed 3 goals in the last 7 games; but with defenders, that sort of 'form' is almost invariably just a flash-in-the-pan rather than an emerging trend. And even with those, he's been extraordinarily lucky: many goals/assists have been very dubiously awarded this season, and Virgil has probably been the prime beneficiary of this - his 'winner' against Sunderland, in particular, was clearly an own-goal off Diarra! And while he's still occasionally showing glimpses of his old imperious ways, his performance level has fallen off a cliff this year: he has aged out very quickly and is now looking conspicuously too slow for the Premier League. Even on the new 'defensive points', where you'd expect him to be a fairly reliable returner, his tallies have yo-yo'ed up-and-down widly from week to week: he has earned the extra points a respectable 11 or 12 times, but in rather more weeks he has come nowhere near reaching the threshold for doing so. And 9 clean sheets is nothing to get very excited over. It is only these highly fortuitous recent goals that have briefly lifted him back into the top five FPL defenders; but only just, and he isn't likely to stay there. With Liverpool's struggling season and his own patchy form, he just hasn't come anywhere near justifying his price-tag this year, even in his better runs of form. And Liverpool, at the moment, are looking as bad as they've been all season. Even in that West Ham game, which they somehow managed to win quite comfortably, they were all over the place defensively, and outplayed for much of the game. Yes, Liverpool's run-in doesn't look too bad; they might experience a sharp upturn in performance again as soon as they get Wirtz back (he'd really been starting to make them tick in the last couple of months); and they have currently calamitous Spurs up next. But none of that is really sufficient reason to waste transfers on acquiring an expensive and severely under-performing defender. Over 70,000 people already this week have let sentiment for the old warhorse (or contempt for unravelling Spurs?!) get the better of their judgement.