The hugely long lay-off from regular Premier League football that we've just endured rather throws everything up in the air now. Although we've seen some of the teams in action during the past week in the FA Cup and/or in Europe, we really have no idea what anyone's league form is going to be this week. Arsenal and City haven't played a league game in nearly a month!
These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I've been aiming to keep them briefer recently. I made just about zero progress on that resolution for the first few weeks, but.... now I've hit upon a new 'format', which might help: a tabulation of the major types of 'lucky' incidents.
I will try to resist any extended commentary (although I probably will still indulge in a few diatribes about any particularly egregious penalty or handball incidents).
Red cards awarded:
Red cards not awarded: Brian Brobbey clearly should have received a second yellow for his cheeky shove in the back on Cristian Romero, which sent him stumbling into a dangerous collision with his out-rushing keeper; but, of course, VAR cannot currently comment on decisions about yellow cards, even when they would be de facto reds. This may have been an especially consequential moment in the match, because Romero was hurt in the incident and had to go off (and Kinsky probably should have done, if 'concussion protocols' were being properly applied - as he had taken a very violent knee in the side of the head from his defender).
Penalties awarded: Arsenal's penalty was - under the current ludicrous rules - perhaps 'correctly' awarded, but it was soft, and, in commonsense terms, very, very unjust (and resulted in points for Gabriel for the 'assist', and Gyokeres for the conversion - neither of whom did much else in the game, and did not really deserve any FPL return). Cook's hand may have been 'raised', but often that is a perfectly 'natural position' (you have to move your arms away from your sides and upward in order to twist your torso); and Gabriel fired the ball at him from such close range that he could do absolutely nothing about it. Clearly, the contact was not in any way 'deliberate'; in fact, he was making every effort to get his arm out of the way. I hate to see penalties like this given.
On the initial coverage, we couldn't see any clear foul by Sven Botman for the crucial penalty award in the dying moments at Palace. A behind-the-goal view did eventually reveal a very slight tug of the opponent's shirt; but the referee couldn't see that, and was simply being conned by Lerma's exaggerated dive. This is a curious case where VAR, if only considering the view the referee had had of the incident, or only using a similar TV camera angle, might reasonably have overruled the initial decision; but they were in a position to judge that the ref had in fact made the right call - if for the wrong reason. And actually, I'm still not convinced that there was quite enough in it to justify the award of the spot-kick; that was very rough luck for Newcastle.
Penalties not awarded: Cole Palmer (of all people!) stuck out a leg to block Jeremy Doku and quite clearly made contact with the Belgian's leg, to send him sprawling: an absolutely clearcut penalty - that didn't even seem to get reviewed by VAR?!
Referee Rob Jones initially awarded a penalty to Pape Sarr, after he collided with two Sunderland defenders - but VAR told him to take a second look. The Spurs man did indeed appear to have been already going down before there was any contact; and the contacts, when they came, didn't look culpable to me. So - for once - the general feeling is that VAR made a justified intervention on this occasion. However, it was a tricky incident to unravel; and you can feel a certain sympathy for Spurs fans who feel that they just can't catch a break at the moment.
Tight/dubious offsides: Jaidon Anthony appeared to have grabbed the opening goal for Burnley, but was denied by an SAOT offside call - one of those that was so ridiculously tight, it gave us no confidence in its being correct: as so often recently, Anthony appeared slightly further forward in the computer graphic than he had to the naked eye, but still only his leading arm was 'offside', and so the decision rested entirely on where on the upper arm the decisive line was drawn.... to within a matter of fractions of an inch. In the second-half, Burnley were cruelly denied again, when Bashir Humphreys got in behind to lash home a free-kick floated in from wide on the left; this time, the justificatory SAOT graphic purported to show that half an inch of the edge of the defender's knee was offside (if you were very generous about where you drew the decisive line on the upper arm of the rearmost Brighton defender!!) - but that was just wildly, impossibly wrong: to the naked eye he had looked miles onside, comfortably played on by three or four Brighton defenders. WTF???
Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed:
Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Rob Edwards left Mateus Mané out, in favour of Angel Gomes - a strange decision, which might have contributed to Wolves's lack of threat. Timber still hadn't recovered from the knock that's been troubling him for the past month, and Calafiori was a late - unannounced - addition to the injury roster, so Ben White and Myles Lewis-Skelly (only his second start this season!) were unexpectedly the starting full-backs for Arsenal. Saka and Odegaard were also unfit to take part; and Eze wasn't trusted with a start. Havertz, Madueke, and Martinelli were pulled off barely 8 minutes into the second-half. Emi Martinez felt a calf-strain in the warm-up, so Marco Bizot made an unexpected appearance in the Villa goal on Sunday. Kobbie Mainoo was a surprise omission for United on Monday evening, having apparently suffered a training-ground knock. (The inclusion of the hopelessly out-of-his-depth Ugarte instead may have been decisive in the woeful performance that followed.) Mbeumo and Dalot were also unexpectedly 'rested', in favour of Sesko and Mazraoui.
Near misses: On Friday night, Angel Gomes cracked a ferocious free-kick against the corner of crossbar and upright, with Hermansen beaten. West Ham immediately broke quickly, and Summerville attempted to shoot past Jose Sa, stranded outside his area, from nearly 40 yards out, but put the effort just wide. Jarrod Bowen also crashed a superb left-foot shot against a post, in a game packed with incident.
Nathan Collins crashed a thunderous header from Schade's cross on to the top of the crossbar - a chance that could have given Brentford a probably narrowly deserved win.
Harry Wilson, breaking forward powerfully in the first-half, went for one of his trademark curlers - had Mamardashvili beaten, but looped the effort on to the roof of the net. That was when the game was still goalless; if he'd managed to get that shot 6" lower, it might have turned the result of the match.
Morgan Rogers's neat shot on the half-turn glanced off the top of the bar, with Sels well beaten.
Jefferson Lerma's running header from Pino's cross hit the bar so hard, it nearly broke it!!
Big misses/big saves: Kelleher made a great double-save in the first-half; but the second one was discounted (presumably) because Beto was flagged as offside. That call looked wrong on the TV playback, but since no goal was scored, the decision would not be reviewed. Yet another example of the ways in which mistakes in the onfield decision-making can impact FPL outcomes - it's not just the big calls like penalties, but often offsides, corners, etc. as well that may turn match results and points returns. Both Pickford and Kelleher had outstanding games in this entertaining mid-table clash - yet both were accorded shockingly low numbers of 'saves' in the official game stats, 3 or 4 lower than I would have expected. Like the 'bonus points' and the new 'defensive points', 'saves' points often seem to produce very erratic, unfair, and baffling results because of the perverse lack of transparency in their calculation. There was a further example on Sunday when Matz Sels made a great block from Ollie Watkins - which was presumably not credited as a 'save' (which would have earned him his 2nd point for 'saves' in the game) because Watkins was bizarrely flagged offside.... although he'd be onside by about a yard!
Alex Jimenez, excellent throughout, saved the match for Bournemouth with a superb last-ditch challenge on Gabriel (of all people!) when he was suddenly put through clear through in the middle of the box with only the keeper to beat in the dying minutes of the game.
Bart Verbruggen made an outstanding block with his legs from Zian Flemming's low cross-shot. Moments later, he fingertipped a similar effort - from rather further out - beyond his far post.
Emile Smith Rowe had an excellent late chance to put Fulham back in the game at Anfield, or at least give them a deserved consolation; but with two-thirds of the goal to aim at, he prodded his effort just wide of the far post.
The great Erling Haaland was found in the box by Doku, in a little bit of space; when he's bang on it, you would have bet on him to convert 9 times out of 10; but this time, he miscontrolled the ball and eventually lashed his effort well off target.
Both Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins blazed good chances over the bar in the closing minutes against Forest.
The just-returned Robin Roefs got vital fingertips to a thunderous drive from Pedro Porro, to tip it just over the bar in the closing minutes.
Tanaka almost managed to dribble the ball all the way into the United net, but was denied by a superb sliding challenge from Lisandro Martinez barely a yard out! (Most unfortunate that the Argentinian shortly afterwards got himself - rightly - sent off for having a cheeky tug on Calvert-Lewin's ponytail; though this wasn't really a consequential setback for the home team, since Leeds were already comfortably on top of the game.)
Outstanding goals: Rio Ngumoha's perfect curler from 16 yards out is an early frontrunner for April's 'Goal of the Month'. And it gave Liverpool some momentum in a match where they'd been failing to make much of an impact for the first 35 minutes. Neco Williams's fierce low drive from the edge of the box, flashing just inside the foot of the post, will also be a contender - and was an untypical, unexpected contribution from that player.
Outstanding performances:
Big mistakes: Moises Caicedo (of all people!) got caught in possession, and gave away the ball cheaply just outside his own box - to gift Doku City's third goal (though it was, of course, a 'hospital pass' from the disaster-on-a-stick Robert Sanchez that put him in an impossible position).
Bad luck/good luck: David Raya (of all people!) nearly gave away an embarassing goal; receiving a hasty back-pass from Gabriel, he sliced his panicked clearance straight at the nearby Evanilson - but it came to the Bournemouth striker just too quickly for him to react, and deflected harmlessly away off the outside of his ankle. But that very nearly made a bad day for Arsenal into an absolutely terrible one.
Igor Thiago was a little lucky with his second goal, happening to get just the lightest of glancing touches off his hip (and only just barely onside??) as he ran across the line Michael Kayode's already goal-bound shot.
Will Osula mistimed his slide to reach Lewis Miley's deft low ball into the six-yard box and ended up with the ball stuck between his thighs as he lay full length on the ground. He did well to recover - letting the ball run clear so that he could awakwardly prod it home with his left foot; but was a very messy goal.
Nordi Mukiele's shot from outside the box needed a massive deflection to get past Kinsky; and indeed, he looked fortunate even to be credited with the goal, as the initial line of the shot was probably off target.
FPL weirdness: The counting of 'saves' for a number of keepers seems to have been massively off this week! (Perhaps it is every week, and I'm somehow just noticing it more this time?)
And Bournemouth full-back Alex Jimenez, who was probably the 'Man of the Match' at The Emirates, somehow failed to make any impression under the obscure 'defensive points' or BPS ratings, and came away with a paltry 2 FPL points from a game in which he was absolutely superb. Ain't no justice. (If there were any 'fairness' in our game's scoring system, he really ought to have got about 10 points for that match-saving last-ditch tackle on Gabriel alone....)
In general, I approve of the considerably more generous approach being taken to 'assists' this year (in recent seasons, we've seen far too many good final balls fail to be rewarded because of an inconsequential touch from a defender), but I feel the new principle was being taken rather too far with Jarrod Bowen's third 'assist' on Friday. Actually, I don't think players should be getting 'assists' just for taking corners anyway (most of the time, these days, there's a complete melee in the penalty area, and the quality of the initial delivery isn't always very relevant to the ultimate outcome of the passage of play), or not at the full rate of 3 points, anyway. But when the corner is cut out at the near-post and half-cleared,... that is a consequential intervention by another player. Just about all other stats compilers - including the FA themselves! - did not categorise this as an 'assist'; only FPL did!
Unexpected results: West Ham - though only playing the weakest team in the league - were almost unrecognisable from earlier in the season, or even just a month or so ago; they somehow came up with their best performance of the season to run out with a thumping Friday night win. Arsenal have been widely expected to start 'choking' with nerves on the title run-in; and Bournemouth were never going to be a pushover; but probably no-one was really expecting the league leaders to be so comprehensively outplayed at home, by a mid-table side who hadn't managed to win a league game in two months! Liverpool may have steadied their nerves with a decent home win against Fulham; but they really weren't good enough to have prevailed with any comfort - the scoreline severely flattered their performance. Brighton were miles off their game, and really didn't deserve any more than a point against a Burnley side who were well in the match, and were cruelly treated by being denied a pair of goals for non-existent 'offsides'. And Manchester United suffered a major dip in their recent form to allow Leeds to claim a first away win against them since the start of the 1980s!!
The FPL 'Team of the Week' again (as in just about every Gameweek this season!) includes almost no-one that anyone owns so far. Van Dijk was lucky to come away with a clean sheet in a game that Liverpool didn't really dominate; Thiago's been consistently impressive all season (pretty nearly the only player, certainly the only forward, who has been!), and Verbruggen has been a fairly popular recent acquisition because of next week's Double Gameweek - but no-one else in the 'best 11' has any sort of ownership at all; and even those two were displaced from the selection on Sunday.... by only-just-back-from-injury Robin Roefs and Jean-Philippe Mateta! Nobody could reasonably have been expecting even Taty Castellanos, and certainly not Mavropanos or Wieffer (nominally playing as a makeshift right-back) to get even 1 goal, let alone a brace!
The global average ended up at a modest 46 points. There haven't been that many poor refereeing decisions, at least; although a rather unjust penalty for Arsenal, a very clearcut penalty not given to City, and 2 absolutely baffling offside decisions against poor Burnley were pretty egregious errors. With several goals from unexpected sources, and many more very near misses, as well as some moderately eccentric game outcomes (a bad defeat for Arsenal, an unexpectedly comfortable home win for West Ham, rather undeserved wins for Liverpool and Brighton, very narrow wins for Sunderland and Palace, and a most unexpected win for Leeds...), this one is looking like a 6 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.
