Have a go!

Conor McAinsh's Football Meta channel did this interesting piece last week on the increasing trend for taking shots from outside the box. (He concentrates particularly on the strong upward blip in the numbers in the early part of this season, but it feels to me like we were starting to see it last season as well, and certainly in the World Cup. [He does mention that the percentage of the tournament's goals coming from long-distance shots was twice as high this summer as in the Qatar tournament.])

He suggests that it appears to be essentially a response to the increasing prevalence of the low-block (shooting from outside the box may be the only way to pierce a compact defence) and also probably a consequence of ever more vigorous high pressing (high turnovers may briefly encounter enticing gaps to take a shot, and/or to shoot through, as players back-pedal to recover their defensive formation after losing the ball in their own back third).

He also notes that the phenomenon is not quite universal (a few leading teams actually seem to be seeing a downturn in their long-range shooting: Arsenal are currently finding it difficult to manufacture scoring chances in any area of the pitch, and Manchester City, naturally enough, prefer to concentrate on trying to create chances in the box for Haaland), and there's also a high variance in the success rate different teams have been achieving with the tactic (some teams seem to have been shooting from distance in desperation, and have not been getting anything out of it [Manchester United and Spurs come to mind!], while others [notably Brighton and Villa] have been making a successful speciality out of it so far). It's also worth keeping in mind that the total number of successful shots-from-distance is still relatively small, and we're still very early in the season - so, the current figures might well be distorted by statistical anomaly.

Although Conor doesn't touch on this, I suspect that there's a potential for strong secondary opportunities from long-range shots, which may ultimately produce more goals than the shots directly. Fiercely hit shots from a long way out are difficult for the goalkeeper to hold or may quite often come back off the woodwork - hence potentially creating moments of chaos in the penalty box when the ball rebounds unpredictably in a dangerous area. This, however, is the kind of thing that stats often fail to track (or that you have to dig very deep to find any useful data on...).

I think this issue also raises a problem with xG statistics. It seems probable that because of the greater focus on attempting shots from outside the box now, all teams will ultimately get better at them (and the most effective teams in this approach are better at them already), and their success rate will improve substantially. And I'm not convinced that shots from distance have ever deserved the niggardly xG ratings of between 0.1 and 0.01 that they have typically been assigned. But... does this mean that xG algorithms will be adjusted, to take account of this shifting reality? And if so, when? It's a bit of a Catch-22 for the stats companies, because their data needs to have a consistency of methodology behind it to give it cross-compatibility with previous seasons; but changes surely have to be made from time to time, otherwise metrics like 'expected goals' could become wildly untethered from the real world, and suffer from a diminishing reliability or relevance. It's a metric I've always felt is of very dubious 'accuracy'; but there is a danger that its usefulness could be further undermined by changes in shooting habits and finishing efficiency in the game.

"Many a mickle...."

An important corollary to my earlier post this morning on why the fear of losing a newly transferred-in player to a midweek injury is unduly exaggerated... is that  many FPL managers seem oblivious to the usefulness of building squad value.

The motivation for moving early to transfer in a player is to avoid a possible price-rise on that player (and/or a possible price-drop on the player you're moving out to make room for him).

The sceptics always object that there is no cause to be worried about losing a puny 100,000 pounds. But of course, if you delay too long, you might suffer two price changes on a player in the same week; it's rare, but it can happen. It's fairly common that you might suffer a rise on a player you covet and a fall on a player you're looking to offload on the same day.

So, we're often talking about not just a 100k loss from waiting to make a transfer, but 200k - occasionally even 300k or 400k!

The sceptics still pooh-pooh that, still claim it's a trivial sum that should have no impact on your thinking about the game.

But the thing is..... these 'trivial' gains or losses very quickly accumulate into bigger sums. Even if you're only avoiding such a price-shift on 1 transfer in every 3 or 4 you make - by regularly moving early on players rather than waiting to the end of the gameweek - within a few months, those small gains can add up to a million pounds or so of extra squad budget. And that does make a big difference.

Don't fear The Reaper

I noticed a lot of people on the FPL forums this last week or so exhibiting an absolute terror of making a transfer early in the gameweek. (This came up particularly in the context of people worrying about whether to replace Joao Pedro, who was owned by just about everyone but seemed set to be crocked until at least the next international break.)

Their concern always seems to be the conviction that there is an unacceptably high chance of a player you transfer in early getting crocked in a midweek game before the next EPL/FPL fixture.

And that fear is massively overrated.

Of course, the possibility/likelihood of injuries is different for different players and at different stages of the season; some are fortunate enough to escape any serious injury problems at all and often manage to remain ever-present for an entire season; others regularly seem to pick up two or three long-term injury absences each year. But I reckon that on average most players can expect to pick up only 3-4 injury absences in a season, most of them only short to short-medium-term in duration.

Across your whole squad, then, you might expect to pick up 1-1.5 injuries per gameweek. In practice that means that, while you'll probably have quite a few gameweeks where you'll suffer multiple injuries at once - perhaps even occasionally 4 or 5 or 6 in quick succession in a really bad week - most of the time you'll only get 1 injury per week; and quite often you'll get ZERO.

So, the chances of any particular player picking up an injury in any given gameweek - a player that you've just transferred in, for instance - is no more than about 10- or 15-to-1. And I think that's a perfectly acceptable risk to take.

But it's not even as bad as that. The great majority of injuries occur during the preceding gameweek's action, and so are already known at the beginning of the interim between the two FPL gameweeks; the number of injuries occurring in that interim is even smaller - you probably have not much worse than a 30-1 chance of a player you buy in on a Monday getting injured before the following Saturday.

Moreover, a midweek game does not significantly increase the chance of that happening. If anything, it may slightly decrease it - because domestic Cups and European competitions are usually played at a much lower intensity and level of physical combativeness than the majority of Premier League games, and so impact injuries or muscle pops are far less common in these types of matches. The majority of between-gameweek injuries arise in training incidents; so, there may in fact be an argument that having a midweek game diminishes the risk of a player acquiring an injury because they will be spending much less time in the highly intensive club training that normally takes place between EPL games.

In 10 years of playing this Fantasy Football game, I can only recall 3 'early transfers' - out of 100s!! - who got injured before the following game. And only 1 of those was injured in a midweek game; the other 2 were training injuries (that happened too late in the gameweek for me to have escaped them anyway; the injuries hadn't happened, or were not announced prior to the deadline, so I would have been just as likely to buy them on the Friday as on the Monday...).

The bugbear of a likely injury that would render a player unavailable to play in the upcoming gameweek is in fact so vanishingly rare as to be really not worth worrying about.

And there is, of course, often an obvious advantage to moving early for a player you want to acquire - an advantage that the scaredy-cats perversely undervalue.

[I should acknowledge, though, that there is a risk in making early transfers. While the possibility that the player you bring in will be injured immediately is fairly negligibly small, it is highly likely that you will lose another member of your squad late in the week; and if that happens to be one of your leading players, you may then wish that you'd saved your Free Transfer for that rather than punting it on that early acquisition. That is the significant counter-argument you should be seeking to evaluate when you opt for an early transfer - not this silly paranoia that your new purchase is bound to get injured in a midweek game.]

The unluckiest player in the EPL?

 

I am a huge fan of Cole Palmer. And I have him in my FPL team... perhaps more often than most folks. Sometimes, indeed, when I probably shouldn't; when I'm being a bit over-optimistic about a coming 'turn' in fixtures or an end to a mini goal-drought being the possible catalyst for a big upturn in form.

But I've been frustrated in his returns this season; yes, disappointed in him. So have many other FPL managers.

A lot of this 'disappointment', though, is probably inappropriate, unfair. It arises from the inflated expectations we have of the lad. We know what he's capable of at his best; and it's so, so, so much more than what he's given us so far this year. We remember his debut season with Chelsea, when he was the FPL 'Player of the Year'; and we want that - or even better! - every year.

Palmer's still the 6th highest-returning midfielder this year (and but for that unfortunate sending-off last week, would be much higher). Apart from the extraordinary run of form that Gross and Tavernier have been on, he's way up towards the top of the leading pack. He's started every game, and has returned 5 times in the 9 fixtures so far - including a nice double-digit haul in the season opener against Fulham. Indeed, despite a couple of big sell-off weeks, he's still owned by over 3 million Fantasy managers - more than treble his initial ownership: enough to have raised his value in the game by 300,000 pounds. So,... he's not doing at all badly.

But it's becoming frustrating to own him because.... well, damn, he is being astonishingly unlucky! Almost every week he's had at least one cracking effort on goal - often more - whistle just wide, rattle the woodwork, or draw a sharp save from the keeper. Most weeks Chelsea have had at least one decent shout for a penalty (which he would take, and almost assuredly despatch) bafflingly turned down by the officials. And just about every single week he's created at least one absolute peach of a chance for one of his illustrious colleagues - Morgan Rogers, Joao Pedro, or Pedro Neto - only to see them shin it into the stands or something. He could very easily have about twice as many FPL points as he currently does!

The current Gameweek 9 has given us a particularly egregious example. Estevao was clearly tripped in the box by Dalot - an absolutely stone-cold penalty that wasn't given. Palmer converted a later penalty that the referee couldn't ignore, but... missed out on a share of at least the last bonus point with fellow goalscorer Morgan Rogers by just a single BPS credit (how often does one of the goalscorers - in a low-scoring game - fail to get any bonus points?!). And this because defenders Acheampong and Fofana had somehow achieved massive BPS numbers!! I really don't know how: there's clearly no qualitative element to this, or no adequate reflection of certain types of error - Fofana, in particular, had a dog of a game, he was getting done for pace again and again by Amad Diallo, and was only being spared the opprobrium of being the reason for Chelsea's defeat because the Ivorian winger's finishing was so sloppy every single time he got in behind him for a chance to shoot.

And to add insult to injury, Palmer had a very busy all-around game and ended up with 11 credited 'defensive contributions' - just one short of what he needed to be awarded 2 extra points!! (I absolutely hate that we never have any idea who's done well on 'defcon' in a match, or how; it's all a complete bloody mystery! And it seems innately random, arbitrary, unjust.)

So, yep, he got a very creditable 8 points this gameweek. But it really feels as if it should have been 18 points!!!

If Palmer is not currently the unluckiest man in FPL, he's certainly very close. Or perhaps we, his long-suffering owners, are the unluckiest people in FPL....

[On the other hand, it's always useful to maintain a sense of perspective. Cole was a bit lucky even to be playing this Saturday, as either of his yellow-card fouls against Spurs last week could have been a straight red; and the first one certainly should have been called as a 'violent conduct' offence, resulting in a three-match ban. (The second one I feel was not red card-worthy; in fact, it probably shouldn't even have been a yellow card. Although he did step on Conor Gallagher's ankle, the contact was only light and fleeting, not a crunching stomp; and it really wasn't his fault - Gallagher had slid in dangerously under him, slipping his leg under Palmer's just as he was about to finish his step and so making it impossible to avoid treading on him. So, some folks would argue that it was unlucky - unjust - that he got sent off at all. I'm not one of them; I'm just pointing out that there is a case to be made for that. He might have been either unjustly allowed to stay on the pitch after the first foul, or unjustly sent off after the second one. Both can be true - and how do you reconcile those competing what-fis?!)

Moreover, in this week's game, the penalty that he did get was one of the worst he's ever taken: telegraphed, nowhere near the post, and lifted just enough to make it more invitingly saveable for the keeper. Lammens, having got hands to it, really should have kept it out.]

Strange loop - Monday Music Break No. 10

Simon Jeffes' Penguin Cafe Orchestra was a thing of pure joy. I've always found this quirky, zestful quasi-classical 'fusion' music to be utterly irresistible. This is one of my favourite pieces, the playfully demented Music for a Found Harmonium.  (You might not recognise Jeffes' name or the name of his group, but you'll almost certainly recognise the music. It has thoroughly insinuated its way into popular culture over the past 40-odd years, probably gaining more frequent inclusion in film soundtracks than just about any other contemporary composition.)

Fate sundered me from all of my PCO albums on vinyl long since, and for the past 25 or 30 years my only ready access to this music has been through a CD of 'Still Life' at The Penguin Cafe (a 1988 short ballet suite, adapted by Jeffes from several of his most popular pieces), played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Because I've listened to this so many times over the years, it has 'the comfort of the familiar' about it now and has become my preferred version.

Sadly, Simon Jeffes died in 1997 of a brain tumour, at only 48 years of age. He'd given an awful lot of pleasure to the world in such a comparatively short time.

Some years later, his son Arthur gathered together some of the musicians his father had worked with over the years on PCO recordings, re-forming the project as Penguin Cafe, originally, I think, just to keep Simon's music alive; but they soon began to record new pieces in a similar style. This is an interesting interview & performance segment with them from BBC Breakfast News sometime back in the Noughties. [And here are some clips of the concerts they were probably promoting in this, at the Royal Albert Hall - interspersed with some entertaining bits of chat from Arthur Jeffes. Several years later, they did one of NPR's 'Tiny Desk concerts'.]

And if you're starting to get into this stuff,.... here are three more short pieces from a 1984 appearance (still led by Simon) on the wonderful BBC2 programme The Old Grey Whistle Test (and if you don't know about that, go and look it up; simply the best music show on television ever, an absolute treasure-chest of astonishing live performances).

And more treats too: a complete performance of the 1988 ballet 'Still Life' at the Penguin Cafe; a half-hour 'Live at the BBC' concert from 1989; and, best of all, an entire episode (50 minutes) of 1980s ITV arts programme The South Bank Show devoted to Simon Jeffes and the group.

Damn, that was quite a rabbit-hole I just fell down. I fear the poor Algorithm is going to be unable to think of anything but Simon and Arthur Jeffes to recommend to me for weeks now!

Halloween Music Break

 

I've never had much time for Halloween parties and such. (It's just not a thing in England; or at least, it wasn't in the time of my childhood...) But over the past several years I have become a big fan of the zestful Spanish cover band Broken Peach (as soon as you see them, you think they're a band you'd like to hire for a private party!). And they've made it a tradition over the past dozen or so years to put out a special video every Halloween, in which they all don the kind of ghoulish skeletal costume and make-up associated with the Mexican Día de los Muertos (two days after Halloween, on Monday), and perform eerily frenetic and jerky dance routines while playing a classic song (I suspect there must be a little bit of video trickery involved in enhancing this effect, because it just doesn't seem humanly possible to do such rapid and such precise twitches!). This year they've finally got around to producing a hard rock version of Michael Jackson's Thriller. But the one above from a few years ago, a wonderfully manic and snarly rendition of Soft Cell's Tainted Love (with a little bit of a mash-up with Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This by The Eurythmics near the end!) is my favourite of the lot.

If you check out their Youtube channel, you can find a full playlist of all their Halloween songs, and also a 'live' anthology concert of them, and an excellent half-hour - continuous one-take - concert of some of their own material.

I confess, I grew to love Soft Cell's version (although I'm glad I only ever listened to it, rather than having to endlessly endure the rather cringey video that accompanied it). You sort of had to, back in the early '80s, resistance was futile: it was the most massive hit of my college years, remaining the most played song on the jukebox in my college beer cellar for five straight years. Here's a great live version with Jools Holland's Rhythm & Blues Orchestra on the Hootenanny six years ago (a long-running New Year's Eve special of Later with Jools Holland.... the best music show on the BBC, and quite probably in the entire world). And, in my usual spirit of completeness, here's where it all started, the 1964 Motown recording from Gloria Jones.

Administrative note

 

My usual Luck-o-Meter commentary on the weekend's most improbable - and FPL-distorting - events may be late in appearing this week.

And/or severely truncated.  Or perhaps just absent altogether.

I am in the midst of a spell of travelling, and am expecting to be 'busy' and/or 'on the road' for most of the upcoming Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Thus, I might not even be catching up on the latest gameweek action until the middle of next week. Such is my life.

This might be an opportunity to rethink the Luck-o-Meter format, or perhaps retire it altogether. I've kept up these detailed reviews fairly consistently for over a year now, and have adequately proved the point  -  that shit happens, every goddamn week, in far greater amounts than most people notice or care to acknowledge, and that all of this randomness and weirdness actually has more of an impact on FPL outcomes than the expected/predicted points returns of the major players. 

And lately, I fear, these reviews have been becoming just too darned time-consuming to maintain in their current form.

I have been pondering some alternate approaches to exploring the impact of luck in our game, different metrics I might evaluate each week - which hopefully might prove just as insightful, but require less effort to compile. Watch this space.

Dilemmas of the Week - GW9 (26/27)

Mercifully, there haven't been many new injuries in the League Cup ties this midweek. However - although at least there's no extra-time in these games - there is a danger of some psychological exhaustion for the teams who went through penalty shootouts (Liverpool and City), and even more so for those who lost in penalty shootouts (Brighton, Chelsea, and Arsenal!). And the 9 clubs who'd already been eliminated before this week's 'Round of 16' (Leeds, Everton, Newcastle, Manchester United. Nottingham Forest, Spurs, Hull, Ipswich, Coventry) might enjoy a slight advantage from having had a full week of uninterrupted training without a match to worry about.

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 9?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Riccardo Calafiori was suffering with a niggle at the end of last week's game against Everton (reportedly a hip issue), but has been back in training this week, and seems likely to be OK to start. Likewise, Declan Rice came off last weekend with a tight hamstring, but has also returned to training. Noni Madueke, who has picked up an ankle injury, might be more of a problem. And young Max Dowman (though never a regular starter anyway) has got himself banned.

Johan Manzambi and Nicolas Jackson were left out of the Cup game against Bournemouth and were not spotted in training; Emery has hinted darkly that there were reasons other than just 'rest' for their midweek omission.

Rico Henry has been revealed to have been suffering with a thigh-muscle problem - although the poor chap never seems to have got anywhere near a start anywhere over the past year or more.

Chema Andres and Ferdi Kadioglu have both been struggling with hip issues, but Hurzeler seems optimistic that they will be available to start this weekend.

Maxence Lacroix picked up a hamstring injury in Wednesday's Cup defeat by Liverpool and will be out for a few weeks. Moises Caicedo and Malo Gusto also had muscle problems in that game, but it seems they're looking probably OK again for the weekend. Jorrel Hato has been ruled out for an unspecified issue - so Marco Palestra might finally get a start at left wing-back.

Jarrad Branthwaite was still missing the midweek Cup win over Newcastle under concussion protocols, after his collision with Emi Martinez two weeks ago. He should be in the clear for this weekend, but after such a long break from training, it seems doubtful he'll come straight back in, and Michael Keane will probably keep the start for at least one more week.

Matias Fernandez-Pardo missed last week's match against Palace and the midweek Cup defeat to Everton with an illness. He probably wouldn't have been expected to start over Will Osula, but the other forward is also now a doubt after coming off with an ankle knock in the Cup Game. Lewis Miley has also been missing for the past week with a muscle problem.

Dan Ndoye is a doubt for Forest because of a tight hamstring.

Nordi Mukiele had to come off last week against Leeds after taking a blow to the throat; doesn't seem that serious, but he's still a doubt....

James Maddison came off early in the second-half against Chelsea last week with a groin strain; but De Zerbi insists he's recovered. (Given the poor lad's injury record, I wouldn't be taking any chances on him with a muscle injury...)

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

Max Dowman is starting a 3-match 'violent conduct' ban for getting involved in a bit of argey-bargey towards the end of the Cup tie with Fleetwood.

Yegor Yarmolyuk, Ryan Sessegnon, and Rodrigo Bentancur are serving the last part of their 3-match bans this weekend.

Jack Grealish is in trouble with David Moyes for missing a training session this week (and you wonder if there's a story behind this; been out on the lash again, perhaps?), and so may face being dropped as a wrist-slap.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Spurs are suddenly becoming popular again in FPL, as they are showing clear signs of improvement now under De Zerbi, and they have some supposedly 'better' fixtures ahead. In fact, they have fairly 'soft' opponents in their next three home games, but the rest of their fixtures through till the end of the year are fairly daunting; and although their overall play is much better, they're still struggling to score goals. I would be avoiding them for a while longer yet. Manchester United seem to be careening from bad to worse, and poor Michael Carrick seems increasingly certain to get the chop fairly soon - so, I wouldn't be going near any of their players either.

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

Cody Gakpo looks back to his best - although there may be some doubts about minutes-sharing when Munoz is available again, and he's not at his best if deployed off the right side. Johan Manzambi and Nicolas Jackson have been looking must-have for a few weeks now; the FPL hordes are finally arriving late to the party, with nearly 300,000 coming in for Manzambi this week (the enthusiasm perhaps dimmed somewhat by a slight injury concern) and 1.7 million acquiring Jackson (thereby bestowing on him the curse of being the week's 'Most Transferred-In' player - an almost infallible guarantee that he'll draw a blank this week!), comfortably beating out Alexander Isak as the most preferred replacement for short-term absentee Joao Pedro.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A place of peace

I had somehow missed out on the Khone Pa Soy Falls on previous visits to southern Lao. Off the eastern shore of Don Khone, the large island in the middle of the Mekong near the Cambodian border, they are much less grand than the Somphamit Falls on the other side of the island, but somehow - to me, anyway - far more charming, perhaps because so much more accessible. You can follow obscure paths off into the underbrush to find tiny hidden beaches that locals use to wade out into the torrent to set fish-traps; so, you can get right up to the water's edge, and even step into it at some points - whereas the larger falls you have to admire from a safe and respectful distance. 

I have been back here a few times this week (it's about an hour-and-a-half's walk from where I'm staying). And meditating; trying to fix the scene in my mind, so that I'll always be able to recall it when I need a soothing image to cheer or calm me.

A little bit of Zen (118)

 

"The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."

Emily Dickinson

This has been one of my ecstatic experiences this week.

Not just a football 'genius'??

I recently enjoyed this little profile of Ayyoub Bouaddi on the Daily Dose of Football Youtube channel. Manchester City's new midfield signing - only just turned 19 years old! - caught my eye with his performances for Morocco in the World Cup this summer, but I hadn't known much else about him. So, this introduction was most welcome.

It turns out that he appears to be not only a lovely lad, but extraordinarily bright as well: not just an outstanding 'football intelligence', but a formidable all-around intellect. (He shuns social media, and is more likely to spend his downtime reading books, listening to classical music, or playing chess. It's reassuring to learn that there are still some teenagers who follow such a path.)

Alas, I have serious doubts as to whether City was the right move for him. Daily Dose's creator Lucas Ribeiro suggests here that he might be becoming a first team mainstay in three or four years; but I don't see a ready path to achieving that when more experienced players like Elliot Anderson and Enzo Fernandez are standing in his way. And that's too long for him to wait; he's good enough to be a regular starter straight away. I hope they'll let him go out on loan so he can continue to get regular gametime.

Look on the bright side!

 

Things can always be worse.

At least you didn't play your Triple Captain on Palmer this week!

Well, that's about the only comfort I've got to cling to, after one of the most wretched gameweeks in FPL history! 

[At the end of my regular 'Luck-o-Meter' commentary on the gameweek action yesterday, I catalogued how of the 15 highest-owned players, only Haaland, Raya, and [thus far, somewhat disappointing] Gabriel had produced anything; and only Calvert-Lewin and Verbruggen, down at the bottom end of that 'popularity list', had managed even 2 points. Two players hadn't even played, two more had returned nul points despite playing, and five contributed only a single point; while Palmer, of course, returned -1 point! It was very possible - in fact, relatively common - to have a net zero points return from your entire midfield this week!!]

Well, that - and the perennial schadenfreude consolation that an awful lot of people managed to do even worse than me.

Heck, it seems that something in excess of 2,000 people may have made Palmer their Triple Captain this week (at least, if Google is to be believed; these days, alas, it usually isn't...). Around 29% of managers owned him going into this gameweek, and against recent whipping-boys Tottenham, surely everyone will have played him. Probably around a third of his owners had the captaincy on him; and a good many more of them (possibly nearly all - again, according to Google's somewhat unconvincing roundup of the gameweek stats) may have had him inherit the armband as vice-captain after Joao Pedro failed to appear. Nearly 300,000 FPL managers had transferred him in expressly for this fixture.

So, if your FPL weekend suffered from Palmer's uncharacteristic rush-of-blood on Saturday (as did mine), there were a lot of people in the same boat - some of them in an even leakier boat. 

And even if you suffered the worst-case scenario of having made Palmer vice-captain while playing your Triple Captain on Joao Pedro, well - although, yes, you wasted your triple-points chip, at least you only wound up with a -3; it has been known for heavily captained players to produce much bigger negative scores.

And at least Palmer didn't get a straight red card, and a three-match suspension. I think he certainly should have for the first foul, that petulant barge into Matheus Fernandes, which was pure retaliation for his wild challenge on Caicedo moments earlier. 

And arguably the second one - stepping on Gallagher's ankle late in the game - should have been a red card too: if it was a culpable action by Palmer, deserving of the yellow card Chris Kavanagh awarded (to produce the double-yellow sending-off), then the nature of the contact was serious enough to have possibly caused injury and must have been flying close to the threshold for a straight red. I don't think it was culpable: Gallagher slid in dangerously on Palmer, inserting his leg under Palmer's foot as he was about to put it down: the contact was brief, not heavy (Palmer actually pulled out of the step and picked his foot up again very quickly), and looked entirely accidental - he could not avoid treading on Gallagher in that moment, and it was Gallagher's fault. So, some Palmer owners will no doubt be wallowing in the injustice of that decision and claiming he shouldn't have been sent off at all - but he clearly should have been for the earlier foul.

Anyhow, he's only picked up a one-game ban for the double yellow card; and, thanks to the quirk that Premier League bans can be served in the League Cup, Palmer will be suspended for the Round of 16 tie at Anfield this Wednesday, and he won't miss any EPL/FPL time at all!  So, things could have been very much worse.

Of course, there is the slight problem that a lot of ignorant Premier League managers don't realise Palmer isn't banned next weekend (or they suddenly think he's become 'no good',... or they're vengeful because he 'let them down' so badly this past week...), and there's a big sell-off under way - which may force his price down. Alas, we just have to accept that with so many people in the game now, and so many of them being so dumb and so impulsive, the transfer market is extremely volatile - and we are occasionally going to suffer a loss of value in one of our key players for no good reason.

Drip, drip, drop... - Monday Music Break No. 9

Chopin was my 'gateway drug' into classical music. The majority of my parents' extensive music collection - the stuff I first started listening to on vinyl when I was about four or five years old - was very middle-of-the-road pop singles from the '50s and early '60s (the early days of their marriage, before I came along to spoil things); and most of the LP records they owned were the soundtracks of the big musicals (I am more deeply familiar with the Rogers & Hammerstein songbook than I care to admit...). But my mum had a sneaking soft spot for classical music too, and the first example of this among her records that I discovered and fell in love with was an anthology of some of Chopin's most popular short piano pieces - The Chopin I Love - played by the incomparable Artur Rubinstein. Dear Artur had such a light touch with the Polish maestro, and he naturally became my favourite exponent of his work. And yet I somehow never came across a performance by him of the Preludes - not until many years later, anyway. The first record of that piece I owned and came to love was a wonderful Deutsche Grammophon recording by Maurizio Pollini.

But then, relatively late in life (18!!) I discovered Vladimir Horowitz - one of those rare performers who've actually given me the shivers. The only other one in the classical field who hit me this hard was the violinist Jascha Heifetz (I find it difficult to listen to anyone else playing the Tchaikovsky concerto - his rendition is definitive for me). With most performances I find myself admiring many different aspects, but still perhaps being aware of one or two things that don't quite chime with me; these guys.... they somehow seem to play it exactly like I think it should sound. That happens very, very rarely; but it is a scary-wonderful feeling when it does.

As so often in my musical history, I remember the serendipitous moment of first discovery quite clearly. My first week or so at college, a secondhand record sale at the student union, turning up a Horowitz album in one of the bins and immediately feeling an eerie, compelling must-have fascination with it. I'd heard the name, obviously, had probably heard some performances of his on Radio 3 (the BBC's classical music station, which had been a mainstay of my teenage years; I definitely leaned more towards the classics than to pop and rock in those days), but he still felt like a stranger to me. Not for long. Schumann's Kreisleriana - mesmerising. When the second side ended, I just sat there dumbstruck for quite a long while, thinking, "Jeez - what was that?" Then I flipped the record back on to Side 1 and played the whole thing again.

Over the next few years, of course, I picked up quite a lot more of his recordings and started to read up on his life story. So, when in 1986 Gorbachev's 'thaw' in the Soviet Union finally allowed him to revisit the country of his birth - for the first time since he'd fled the post-Revolution strife in Russia as a young man just over 60 years earlier - it was a major international event, and one of the most moving memories of my student days. His triumphant return concert in the Moscow Conservatory was televised live on the BBC; of course, I watched it, in rapture. For me, that was a more transcendent, a more indelible moment in my young life than Nelson Mandela's release from prison a few years later. [Luckily, the complete concert is now available on Youtube. I've only just discovered this. I'm not sure I'll be able to watch it one sitting; I'm sure it will make me cry buckets.]

It only just occurred to me that this, Chopin's 'Raindrop' Prelude (Op. 25, No. 15) played by Vladimir Horowitz, might be an apposite selection for this week's 'Music Break' - because we've been having a particularly heavy and protracted finale to the rainy season here in South-East Asia this year, and I've spent far more time than I would have liked over the last several weeks stuck indoors, listening to the rain....

[I first thought of making this addition my musical series a few weeks ago, when the rains were at their height. But I already had a post sorted for the coming Monday, and on the following week I wanted to do something linked to my imminent birthday; so, this piece devoted to Horowitz and the 'Raindrop' Prelude is slightly delayed. 

And it is starting to feel as though 'the season' may just have ended. In Cambodia, at least, the pattern of the summer months is that, after a gentle and intermittent build-up from late March or early April through mostly still dry-and-hot April/May, June and July are the peak months of the soggy onslaught. There's usually a little bit of a lull from around the last week of July: sometimes just a week or so, sometimes maybe a few weeks of much lighter rains, perhaps little or no rain at all. And then we get a second phase of rains through August/September, generally rather lighter than the early blast, and often threatening to peter out altogether through September. But then.... there is a last volcanic spasm starting towards the end of September, and reaching its drenching peak in the first week or two of October - a deluge so intense that, although the worst of the rains usually last barely half the month, October generally ranks as one of the rainiest months in the entire year. 

But when that last spasm of the rainy season finishes, it often does so very abruptly: there might have been a week or two of lighter rain, gradually diminishing in frequency, duration, and intensity; or there might have been one last big shower, and then.... suddenly nothing. Either way,.... well, there may be an element of romanticization, of imaginative exaggeration going on in this, but... many people say that there's a feeling you recognise on the first days after the rains have stopped: it's impossible to point to any definitive indicator in that day's weather, or in the pattern of weather in the preceding week, but there's suddenly this blissful sense that this one perfect sunny day is not just an isolated blip in an ongoing pattern of heavy rains but a harbinger of many more such days to come - a long, almost uninterrupted stream of them stretching all across the winter months (and with very slightly cooler temperatures in December/January - it's all relative; it's still generally warmer overnight on a typical January night in Cambodia than it is at noon on a summer's day in the south of England, but it can feel quite 'refreshing' after months and months of 35C daily peaks). 

That is a lovely feeling; and I was feeling it yesterday. Although the day had started quite overcast, and there had evidently been a brief but heavy shower at some point in the early hours of the morning, as soon as things had started clearing up by 9am or so, it was feeling like one of those perfect days that heralds the end of the rains. 

Alas, I'm not in Cambodia just at the moment. I'm about 150 miles to the north-east, having had to skip across the border into southern Lao for a while on a 'visa run'. There are some local variations in the patterns of the rainy season; but I think, on the whole, Lao, Cambodia, and Thailand tend to be very, very similar. I'm hoping I'm in for a sunny-and-mild (and dry) week while I'm in Don Det; and more of the same when I head back to Siem Reap.]

Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 8

I'm continuing 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: Palmer's late sending-off for a second yellow was actually a bit harsh: he stepped on Gallagher's ankle, but it looked like a light contact, and entirely accidental, as the Spurs man slid in to take the ball away from him. Overall, Chelsea can't complain too much, as Palmer clearly should have been sent off earlier, but.... yet another dodgy decision from referee Attwell, who's been starting to look one of the league's flakiest in recent games.

Red cards not awarded: Issa Diop was hugely lucky not to be sent off for cynically wiping out James McAtee when he was racing towards goal 25 yards out. Referee Thomas Bramall did not cover himself with glory on this one - at first unfathomably signalling 'no foul', and then, when directed to the pitchside monitor by VAR, declaring that McAtee had been 'playing away from the goal'. He was 8 or 9 yards outside the near-post and heading in a straight line towards the byline. Bramall seems to have just invented a 'rule' that DOGSO fouls can only be awarded between the sidelines of the six-yard box! There might have been a case that McAtee had lost control of the ball (although his heavy touch was prompted by his anticipation of the dangerous lunge from Diop, so - in commonsense terms - that doesn't feel like it should be a defence), or that the pace of Davis quickly catching up presented the opportunity of additional cover (though I don't think something as subjective as speculation on the possible impacts of players' relative abilities should be allowed to decide incidents like this) - but not that McAtee simply wasn't 'near enough' to the goal; at the instant of the collision, he was barely more than 20 yardss from the byline and 12 yards from the centre-line of the goalmouth - and there was no-one nearer to the keeper than him.

The hapless Marc Guehi had a bit of a lucky escape when his clumsy challenge brought Nico Jackson's break in behind to a halt near the end of the first-half. It was only a yard or so short of the edge of the box; and it only narrowly escaped being a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' red card because Ruben Dias was racing across to try to provide additional cover.

Matheus Fernandes should have received a straight red for his wild and late sliding challenge on Caicedo. And so should Palmer, his hotheaded retaliation a few seconds later, running into the Portuguese to barge him over as he was rising to his knees as clear a piece 'violent conduct' as you can see. Chris Kavanagh did a terrible job in this game.

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Josko Gvardiol bundled over Johan Manzambi in the penalty area in the first-half. He would claim that he was just legitimately stretching out his arm across the Swiss forward's chest and stepping slightly across him to block his run - but some people might have called it a body-check. It at least deserved a bit of rumination from VAR - which it didn't seem to get.

Brandon Thomas-Asante might have been a tad fortunate to get away with a clear tug on Calvin Bassey's shirt at a corner, but he was recovering from Bassey's having just wrestled him aside with a powerful tug on the arm - so, fair enough.

Manchester United may have been slightly unlucky not to get anything when Tyler Adams bumped into Bryan Mbeumo and sent him sprawling. VAR did not seem to have much of a look at the incident - if any at all.

Hull couldn't catch a break from Rob Jones (or his VAR team), having two strong penalty shouts from Regan Slater perfunctorily turned down - one in the first-half when he was barged over by Van den Berg, and another late in the game when he was impeded by a tug on the arm from Jensen.

Tight/dubious offsides:  It was a great shame that Joe Willock's 'goal' - possibly the best of the weekend - was invalidated by his having been offside by a shoulder and a toe. The call looked correct; but it is, I think, wrong-headed to be trying to determine these incidents by such trivial margins.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: Villa had some right to feel aggrieved about Haaland's equaliser: the big Norwegian was leaning very heavily on Victor Lindelof, resting both arms on his shoulders to prevent him even attempting a jump. VAR didn't even seem to check that??

This is rather an unusual case: not the goal itself, but the situation which created the chance being controversial. Carrick can be just annoyed with Jarred Gillett about Bournemouth's opener, since the free-kick which produced Rayan's far-post tap-in had been awarded for a non-foul by Ayden Heaven: the young defender had made an untidy sliding lunge for the ball with both feet raised off the ground, but... he gained possession of the ball cleanly enough, and Evanilson had been safely half-a-yard away from him. You really can't award a yellow card or a free-kick for play that is merely inelegant, but not actually dangerous.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Cherki starting over Foden was an unpleasant surprise to some, who'd been nurturing optimism about Foden getting back to a regular start after his impressive midweek display in the Champions League (albeit against a very weak opponent); they may have been partly consoled by his appearance in place of Cherki at half-time. Rico Lewis also came on then to replace Guehi, with Khusanov dropping into central defence; neither change really seemed to be called for by performance or tactics, so perhaps they were pre-planned rotations to manage minutes - which would be even more worrying, for FPL purposes!

Mikel Arteta threw up a few unpleasant surprises, with Merino being given a rare start in midfield in preference to Guimaraes (or the now mysteriously forgotten Zubimendi), Lewis-Skelly starting at left-back rather than Calafiori, and Gyokeres replacing Havertz up-front. Jack Grealish was a late dropout with illness - allowing Tyrique George a - long overdue - return to the starting lineup.

Coventry's Bobby Thomas (still nearly 10%-owned in FPL, though probably rarely a starter for anyone) was withdrawn with an injury only seconds shy of the hour mark.

The biggest FPL blow of the weekend was the last-minute dropout of Joao Pedro (75% ownership!!) with a training injury. 19-year-old Guinean right-winger Geovany Quenda had to come in for him - starting off 'inverted' on the left flank, while Morgan Rogers tried to operate as a '9' or a 'false 9' - where he had absolutely zero impact. De Zerbi showed a ruthless streak, dropping the out-of-form Solanke for Mathys Tel - although the young Frenchman operated down the left, with Marmoush taking over as the central striker (Marmoush didn't impress much in that role either, and Solanke came on to replace him for the last 25 minutes). Then, James Maddison, who had been lively in the first period, pulled up only 5 minutes into the second-half.

Michael Carrick did indeed drop Bruno Fernandes after his skipper's indelicate remarks in the wake of Wednesday's drubbing by Como - though he disingenuously protested that there were 'footballing reasons' for the omission. It was an odd-looking United side, with Heaven starting in central defence instead of De Ligt or Martinez, Yoro coming back in to displace Mazraoui at full-back, Baleba and Santos attempting to give more steel in midfield, and Tielemans and Mount playing in the trident along with Amad Diallo. Only a fool would still have had any United players after the way things have been going for them over the last couple of months; but FPL is full of fools! Cunha replaced Tielemans at half-time; but Carrick would probably have needed to make half a dozen more changes to have had any chance of getting back into this match.

Matthias Jaissle conducted quite a cull, replacing Thiaw and Botman with the experience of Schar and Burn at the back, while bringing in Willock and the just-back-from-injury Osula instead of the recently unimpressive Wissa and Fernandez-Pardo up-front.

With Janelt and Yarmolyuk both suspended and Damsgaard only just back in training after ankle problems, Keith Andrews was forced to cobble together a makeshift 'engine-room' of Mamadou Sangaré and Aaron Hickey - which led to a less than impressive Brentford display at Hull.

Jaka Bijol was reinstated in the Leeds back-line because of an illness for Nico Elvedi, while Harry Wilson and Brenden Aaronson got rare starts because of injury worries for Anton Stach and Noah Okafor.

Near misses: James Garner provided a fine outswinging cross late in the game which exposed Arsenal's defence, but Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall's glancing header flashed agonisingly just wide of the far post.

Fulham made a lively start away at Coventry, with Josh King smashing an effort against the angle of near-post and cross-bar, and then Iwobi's follow-up effort on the far side flying just over the bar. A little later, a flying header from Thomas-Asante at the edge of the six-yard box looped just over Leno's bar.

Jaidon Anthony, a lively substitute for the last half-hour, cracked a thumping 22-yard drive only just wide of the post.

Big misses/big saves: Jair Cunha in the first-half at Ipswich and Murillo in the second both fired off powerful volleys from the edge of the box, which Christian Walton did well to parry away.

Illiman Ndiaye's crisp curler from the edge of the box had to be well palmed away by the impressive Suzuki. A little later, Cherki's low first-time shot from a Doku cut-back demanded an even sharper stop from the Japanese keeper. And then another curler from Ndiaye had him beaten, but glanced off the outside of the far post. Suzuki also made good saves from Khusanov's fizzing long-range shot along the ground in the first-half, and Gvardiol's fierce rising drive at the near-post in the second; he was also alert to block a point-blank prod from Gvardiol when the ball broke to him 8 yards out. And in the dying minutes a Haaland header looked as if it might be beating him but Maatsen was on station at the post to head clear.

Cole Palmer had a fierce curler early in the game that had to be well tipped away by Kinsky. A bit later he made a good low stop from Henderson's firm low drive from just outside the box (which saved his blushes, as he'd gifted Chelsea the opening by carelessly passing the ball directly to Pedro Neto 25 yards out). Kinsky made another good stop from a Neto drive early in the second-half.

Lukas Hornicek did well to push the ball away after a messy and protracted goalmouth scramble early in the game at Selhurst Park.

Gross set up Ayari for an early chance in the middle of the box, but he blazed over the bar. In the middle of the first-half, Cody Gakpo had a fierce cross-shot saved at full-length by Verbruggen. Yasin Ayari lashed a 20-yard effort against the base of the post, after a loose pass from Alisson had given away possession. Moments later, a savage shot from a tight angle by the fast-breaking Ronald Araujo brought another excellent save out of Verbruggen.

Late substitute Sean Longstaff had the best chance of a pretty dull game at Sunderland, when his long-range drive had to be tipped around the foot of the post by Roefs at full stretch. Trafford, though, earlier made 3 pretty good stops to keep Leeds in the game.

Outstanding goals:  If there were an 'Assist of the Month' prize, Daniel Munoz would be a frontrunner for his superb cross to set up Neco Williams for the opener at Ipswich on Friday night.

Nico Jackson's stunning opener against City will probably be in the 'Goal of the Month' lineup.

Oscar Bobb produced an impish solo goal to break the deadlock at Coventry (but he really shouldn't have been able to take apart a defence that easily; Lampard's team still look woeful at the back).

Mathys Tel's late break down the left-wing, culminating in a shot from just outside the box, was eye-catching - but the effort probably should have been kept out by Penders.

Outstanding performances: Zion Suzuki and Nico Jackson will - deservedly - be among the most transferred-in players this week; both absolutely magnificent against City.

Big mistakes: Nikola Milenkovic's mishit back-pass gifted Enciso an equaliser that the home side hadn't really earned on the balance of play.

Marc Guehi's run of dodgy form continued as a clumsy miscontrol in the opening minutes gifted the ball to McGinn who instantly played in Jackson to claim the opener. Donnarumma had Jackson's second goal covered, but somehow let the shot squeeze under his body - not something a "world-class keeper" should do, and the pained expression in his eyes afterward showed that he recognised that.

A careless back-header from Ben White fell straight to Thierno Barry, but he couldn't respond quickly enough, and Raya rushed out to smother his weak prodded effort. Twenty minutes from the end, the normally immaculate Everton defence entirely failed to defend Ben White's cross from the right of the box - allowing Gabriel a free header at the far post to put the game out of reach (his first goal of the season; pretty nearly his first attempt).

Mike Penders produced what might be one of the most bizarre screw-ups of the entire season when his mistimed attempt to punch clear a corner caused the ball to bounce off the back of his hand and loop into his own goal - to gift Spurs a win they had come nowhere near deserving.

Boscagli smashed an attempted clearance straight into Barcola, allowing him to break clear down the right flank and set up Isak for the second goal - which took the game away from Brighton.

John Egan, who's been so outstanding for Hull this season, made a dreadful mess of an attempted clearance - to hand Brentford an equaliser.

Leny Yoro's slipping over gifted Bournemouth a decisive lead just before half-time - although he had been looking like he might get his pocket picked by Truffert anyway as he dithered with the ball on the edge of the box. There was a double screw-up early in the second-half when Heaven's clumsy pass gifted possession to Bournemouth 25 yards out, but then Rayan broke in on goal and shot tamely straight at the keeper.

Bad luck/good luck: Arsenal finally got a goal from a melee set-piece (their first of this season!!). And it was against the usually defensively very sound Everton. And it was Everton who caused the 'melee', cramming far more defensive bodies in the six-yard-box than they really needed to and impeding their own keeper! And it fell to Ezri Konsa, of all people, to prod the ball in at the far post in the ensuing messy scramble: a first - and possibly last... - Arsenal goal for him, which is a huge windfall for the nearly 19% of FPL managers that own him. The miserable wet and windy conditions all across the UK bamboozled even the usually immaculate David Raya: he completely missed a near-post punch from a corner, and the ball fell through his legs, and for what seemed like several seconds every player in the six-yard box seemed to have lost track of where it was - until finally Gabriel was the first to react and kick it off the goal-line.

Liverpool's first goal was a huge slice of good fortune for them and for Florian Wirtz, whose hasty shot had been miles off target; it was a huge piece of bad luck for Pascal Gross, who could not avoid the fiercely driven ball and so became the victim of an especially undeserved own-goal, and for Bart Verbruggen, who was really left with no chance to keep out the massive deflection.

FPL weirdness: James McAtee apparently notched an astounding 22 'defensive contributions' in Friday night's match at Ipswich, making him one of only three players (all midfielders) to earn defensive points in that game. It was not apparent from the BBC highlights how he had managed this remarkable feat!

It is unfathomable that Antonin Kinsky ends up with more points than Zion Suzuki this week - purely because that dodgy goal from Haaland robbed the outstanding Villa keeper of his clean sheet!

Unexpected results: Forest were once again made to rue their lack of incisive finishing on Friday night at Ipswich: they had more than enough chances to win the game comfortably - racking up nearly 5x as much xG as their hosts, but being held to a 1-1 draw. Although Villa have become a bit of a bogey team for City in recent years, and have improved sharply in the last few games (after their dreadful start to the season), probably no-one would have expected them to be so comfortably superior in this match. Fulham, although slowly improving recently, were not widely expected to produce a dominating performance away at Coventry; even if the home side's defence is often dreadfully weak, they usually create a lot of attacking threat - but they just couldn't get in the game this time. Spurs had more of a chance than they might have expected against Chelsea (who always beat them at Stamford Bridge) with Joao Pedro's unexpected absence from the lineup facing them; but in a fairly drab game, it took a bizarre goalkeeping error from Penders to hand them a win they hadn't earned. A lot of folks had been anticipating another win for 'in-form' Brighton, but away at Anfield that was a very naive hope. United's abject capitulation to Bournemouth was probably not 'unexpected', given how things have been going recently - especially with the apparent falling-out now between Carrick and Bruno Fernandes.

The 'Team of the Week'  is one the 'least unexpected' we've seen so far this season - at least, half-way through the weekend: although there probably won't be 3 Fulham players in it by the end of the gameweek; and Kinsky is a goalkeeper who's been popular in FPL because he's cheap, rather than because he's good. Indeed, ultimately Kinsky was displaced by Trafford, and Bobb was the only Fulham player to survive. But only Tavernier and the trio of Arsenal defenders have any significant level of ownership. While having 2 or 3 Arsenal defenders among the week's best performers was a commonplace last season, this year it's a bit of a turn-up! The global average after Saturday was only a fairly modest 27 points. (And it is - thus far - unchanged on Sunday; which, of course, isn't possible. Usually the 'average points' updates continuously during the gameweek, but it would seem that this is now one of the stats that FPL only gets around to adjusting at the official end of the gameweek - this year, many hours later, on the day after the last matches have been played.) Eventually, the final global average for the gameweek was published as 45 points - utterly wretched!! (And apparently not finalised until 2 or 3 hours after the 9am, UK time, that is supposedly the 'new deadline'!)  After a run of moderately 'good' refereeing over the past few weeks, this one has been a return to some of the erratic officiating that ruined much of last season: Tony Harrington at Arsenal and Chris Kavanagh at Chelsea had thoroughly awful games. The crappy weather has probably taken its toll as well, contributing to a number of the uncharacteristic errors and somewhat unexpected results we've seen. 

Sunday didn't produce much incident that was out-of-the-ordinary. But overall, this was an epically miserable gameweek in FPL because of the number of disappointing returns we saw from almost all the most popular players. Joao Pedro (72% ownership), a late dropout because of a previously undisclosed training injury,... 0 points; Calafiori (53% ownership), unexpectedly rested (but did get token minutes off the bench, to thwart even the possibility of a good auto-substitution),... 1 point; Rogers (50% ownership), played out of position, completely anonymous and picked up a booking - 1 point; Gross (47% ownership), unlucky own-goal,... 0 points; De Cuyper 43% ownership), utterly anonymous game, well beaten, no clean sheet, 2 goals conceded,... 1 point: Cherki (39% ownership), booked and withdrawn at half-time,... 0 points; Palmer (29% ownership), sent off (!!),... -1 point (but there are still consolations..; such as him only picking up a 1-game ban, and being able to serve that in the League Cup this Wednesday); Gvardiol (28% ownership), well beaten, 2 goals conceded,... 1 point; Bruno Fernandes (still, amazingly, at nearly 27% ownership before the gameweek), left on the bench,... 0 points; Verbruggen (now the 2nd most popular keeper, after Raya, with nearly 23% ownership), 3 saves but 2 goals conceded,... 2 points; Mbeumo (22% ownership), utterly anonymous performance,... 2 points; Calvert-Lewin (22% ownership), utterly anonymous performance,... 2 points. Of the top 15 most popular players this week, only Haaland, Raya, and Gabriel produced a return; 2 didn't play at all, 2 played but still produced nul points, and one delivered a negative score. You expect at least 1 or 2 disasters like that in every gameweek, but this time.... almost everyone had 5 or 6; some might have had 8 or 10 or more. That level of weirdness alone, regardless of all the bad refereeing and other strange events on the pitch, elevates this to a 9 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Dance of the Hours

Damn - it's that time of year, again.

The clocks in the UK go back again this weekend, ending the idyll of 'British Summer Time'. Over there, it suddenly starts getting dark really early. Over here (South-East Asia, my adopted home of the last several years), Premier League start-times are now 7 hours behind England rather than 6 hours - which puts all of the later kick-offs completely out of reach of a live watch. Bugger.

Just to make things even more discombulating for us poor folks on 'foreign soil',... the changeover happens in the early hours of Sunday morning back in the UK: so, today's games are at their 'normal' time, but... tomorrow's are an hour later. (All around my manor, there will be chaps turning up to sports bars at 8pm this Sunday and being bemused to find nothing happening.)

Winter - I do not like it, for so many, many reasons; but this is one of them.

Dilemmas of the Week - GW8 (26/27)

Not that many new injuries this week, thank heavens - but a couple of BIG ONES!!

I'll try to update this evening, if any further news of note emerges in Friday'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 8?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The big news of the week, of course, is that Bukayo Saka (17% owned) went down with a quad injury just 10 minutes into Wednesday's clash with Bayern Munich.

Johan Manzambi came off 20 minutes from the end against Newcastle last week after suffering a knock (although some reports later described his problem as a calf-strain), and he missed the midweek game against Viking; but Emery has since been making light of the issue, implying that he could be available again this weekend. Aaron Wan-Bissaka also had to come off against Newcastle with an apparent hamstring problem, which might keep him out for the next 3 or 4 weeks.

Emi Martinez had to come off last weekend after a heavy collision with Branthwaite, which would probably have kept him out for a week or two under concussion protocols; but apparently he's needed surgery on a fractured jaw, so could be missing for a month or so. Presumably the Belgian Mike Penders will deputise for him.

Jorgen Strand Larsen went off in yesterday's Europa League match against Besiktas with an Achilles problem. Luckily Jean-Philippe Mateta came back from injury at last with a goal against Besiktas on Thursday; hopefully his fitness will be good enough to survive two starts in succession. However, he was pulled off on the hour in the European game; and Nketiah is still doubtful after only just returning to training. Quinten Timber picked up a hamstring problem in training earlier in the week, leaving the team a bit thinly stretched at the back too.

Hull's French forward Robinio Vaz had to come off with an Achilles problem at the end of the Fulham game last Saturday, though apparently scans showed no serious damage, and he has returned to training late this week.

Jeremie Frimpong came on for the second-half against Brentford last week, but lasted barely 5 minutes before going down with what looked like a pretty serious hamstring issue. Victor Munoz also had to come off after taking a heavy knock, and was subsequently missing from the midweek Champions League game against Villareal. A third casualty in that game was Dominik Szoboszlai, troubled again by his sore hamstring; Iraola has been giving slightly mixed signals on that, suggesting that it is "not serious" but needs to be "dealt with patiently".

Leeds's usual front three are all apparently in doubt: Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Anton Stach have been suffering with knocks and Noah Okafor has a muscle issue.

The other major new absentee is Antoine Semenyo, (15% owned at the start of the week, but there's already been a big sell-off), who had to be withdrawn near the end of last week's Ipswich game, after coming on as a late substitute, with what appeared to be a thigh-strain - although subsequent reports have suggested it may be a problem with his knee. Maresca has said he expects him to be missing for about 2 months. Matheus Nunes, Nico O'Reilly, and Mateo Kovacic all missed Tuesday's game in Athens after apparently picking up problems in that Ipswich game.

Marcus Rashford missed the midweek debacle in Como with a hip issue.

Lukas Bergvall missed Monday's game against Coventry with a knee problem picked up the previous week, and Savio was a last-minute dropout with a muscle injury which is expected to sideline him for some weeks.

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

Vitaly Janelt is banned this week after receiving 2 yellow cards against Liverpool, while teammate Yegor Yarmolyuk is starting a 3-match ban for committing a "headbutt motion" (rather than an actual headbutt) on Jeremy Jacquet.

Sunderland's Kevin Danso is also serving a 1-match ban for his clumsy 'denial of a goalscoring' opportunity offence early on against Bournemouth.

Ryan Sessegnon begins a 3-match ban for his sending-off for a high challenge on Vaz last week.

Rodrigo Bentancur is serving the second leg of his 3-match 'violent conduct' ban.

There may also be some doubt about Bruno Fernandes getting dropped after he caused a bit of a ruckus in his post-match interview in Como on Wednesday night. It seems to me as though his remarks were quite measured and reasonable, and inflammatory pundits in search of clickbait have been blowing it out of all proportion; but... it is probably inappropriate for the club captain to suggest that there may have been problems with the coach's tactical decisions, and if Carrick is feeling prickly, he might get sent to the 'naughty seat' for a match. I suspect, though, that he's too important to be dropped, and that he and his manager will probably just kiss-and-make-up behind closed doors. The bigger worry than possible 'disciplinary action' would be if he's got so disillusioned with the coaching staff and the team's performances that he's starting to feel demoralized and demotivated; that does seem a serious possibility. I said before the start of the season that Bruno couldn't possibly reproduce his massive returns of last year, and that, even if he could come somwhere close, that still wouldn't be enough to justify his ludicrously excessive price-tag this time. And since the one-off freak of that monster-haul against Ipswich in Gameweek 2, he's done absolutely nothing; it is remarkable - and inappropriate - that anyone at all still owns him.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Sunderland and Nottingham Forest are in a dangerous slump at the moment, and Fulham and Spurs, despite somewhat fortuitous wins last week, aren't yet showing any real signs of recovery. Crystal Palace are also in the mire, not helped by a spiralling injury crisis. I wouldn't be touching any of these bottom-end teams. Bournemouth and Coventry, though, are both much better than their current position suggests, posing a lot of attacking threat - even when their defences let them down; so I might consider one or two options from them; but not from the rest of the current bottom-of-the-table crowd.

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

Um, NO - it was a thoroughly drab set of games last week! The only new prospect that does intrigue me a bit is Jack Hinshelwood, back from injury at last: he scored in a 20-minute cameo off the bench last week - but, of course, it remains to be seen if he'll get a regular start again (with Gomez, Ayari, De Cuyper, and Rutter - and soon, perhaps, Mitoma and Minteh again too - all competing for spots in the creative trident behind the striker)

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!