One of the biggest BLIND SPOTS for statisticians

 

I've been a fan of The Purist Football on Youtube for quite a while. He used to produce rather dense video essays, which would only drop very irregularly, perhaps only two or three times a year; but this season he has moved into more frequent positing: still a bit irregular, but usually something - something worthwhile - every few weeks or so.

His latest piece called attention to another of the shortcomings of statistical analysis. This is a topic I've been meaning to do a substantial post of my own on for some time, but I confess I am a bit daunted by the scope of the challenge: there are so many things to be said, few of them good. 

And I confess I hadn't really taken note before of the point The Purist makes here: Most football statistics focus only on 'active contributions', on touches of the ball; they completely overlook the substantial elements of the game which are merely 'passive contributions', off-the-ball work.

Blocking, marking, recovering defensive shape, making decoy runs - these are all vital parts of the game... which stats compilers fail to capture.

This video highlights the particularly pertinent example of Barcelona's Dani Olmo, who is an absolute maestro of the dummy. - an attribute that no conventional statistic even records, let alone attempts to evaulate the potential game impact of. (Often, a great dummy ought to count as an 'assist' - but, of course, it doesn't, because the dummying player avoids making contact with the ball.)

My general attitude to using statistics for FPL purposes is that it should only be done in moderation, and only if you always manage to remain duly mindful of what the statistics are not showing you.

Very few FPL managers, alas, are capable of this. For the majority, it would probably be better to steer clear of statistics altogether.

A little bit of Zen (84)

 

"I didn't want to write history. I wanted to give 90 minutes of joy to people. And I wanted that joy to come not from winning but from being entertained, from witnessing something special. I did all this out of passion."

Arrigo Sacchi

This, for me, is the true essence of football; an essence that Pep and Mikel and their ilk often seem to miss. Sacchi, of course, didn't achieve the sustained success that many of these more modern managers have; but for a few years back around the end of the 1980s, his AC Milan was one of the most beautiful teams ever to play the game, a team that people still swoon to recall nearly four decades later.

I came upon this quotation in 'Inverting the Pyramid', Jonathon Wilson's diverting history of the evolution of football tactics - which I re-read while on holiday in Vietnam this time last year.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 28

 

Again, we've seen a fair number unpleasant selection surprises this week; and 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: Jacpn Ramsey's second yellow card for 'simulation' when he went down in the penalty area was a ridiculous decision from Peter Bankes; the player pretty obvious just slipped over. At the moment VAR has no jurisidction over second yellow card decisions (although, thankfully, that is going to change for the World Cup). Fortunately, his removal actually seemed to galvanise Newcastle, and may have saved the game for the home team rather than costing them a defeat.

Red cards not awarded: 

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Andoni Iraola was convinced Bournemouth should have had a penalty, when Tavernier lost his footing in the act of shooting. It did appear that Kayode might have caught his Achilles, but the contact was so fleeting (and not clearly visible on any of the TV camera-angles) that I think you can forgive the officials 'missing' this one.

Leeds were aggieved that Luke O'Nien had briefly had both his arms around Struijk's neck at a first-half corner, but the Dutch defender went down very easily, and there wasn't really much in it - a 50/50 sort of call. (Leeds were also unhappy with the penalty awarded against Ampadu, but that one looked straightforward enough: the first contact on his arm was slight and unavoidable, but he did then appear to make a deliberate second movement towards the ball, prodding it away with his elbow.) They might have had another shout at the end, when a corner fell against Dan Ballard's arm; he was in the middle of a ruck of players, and knew nothing about it - but with the mess the Handball Law is in at the moment, we often see these given.

Haaland went down after a collision with Matz Sels. He was 'looking for it', but the goakeeper's challenge was rash, culpable. The only reason referee Darren England didn't give it must be because of Haaland's reputation as a bit of a con artist in these situations; the only reason VAR didn't intervene must be because of their excessive timidity about challenging on-pitch decisions this season, especially for penalties.

At least VAR was doing its job, for once, at Fulham, directing referee Matt Donohue to take a second look, after he'd initially awarded the home side a penalty when Tom Cairney went down in the act of shooting; Castellanos had indeed been innocently in the way of the Fulham player's kick, not making any kind of challenge himself. These days, alas, the VAR team almost never has the courage to question an onfield penalty decision like this.

Tight/dubious offsides: Ollie Watkins appeared to have given Villa the lead for a second time when he supplied an emphatic finish to a lightning quick breakaway - but SAOT ultimately determined that his shoulder had been inifinitesimally closer to the goal-line than the last defender's. This was another instance where there are questions about the reliability of the timing of the SAOT freezeframe, because to the naked eye he had looked well onside - and this was a call that might have turned the course of the match.

Ismaila Sarr might have had a hattrick on Thursday night against Spurs: his opening effort, a solo  breakaway, was eventually ruled out for offside by one of those deeply unconvincing SAOT graphics; everyone in the stadium thought he had looked 'on' by about a foot, but the computerised decision system apparently reckoned his forehead had been 'off'. (But, dear me, that guy should not be on penalties.)

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed:  

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries:  Robin Roefs has strained a thigh-muscle doing the splits to make a save at the weekend, so was a late omission against Leeds on Tuesday, replaced by his new understudy, January signing Melker Ellborg. Granit Xhaka, only recently back from injury, was also rested - though he came on for the last 35 minutes.

Saliba was suffering with a knock, so Mosquera started in his place; while Brighton were without their defensive stalwart Lewis Dunk.

Liam Rosenior made multiple changes to his Chelsea line-up for the visit to Villa, the most momentous being his dropping of Sanchez in goal (the third most popular pick - after the stupidly over-popular Raya and Dubravka - with an ownership of nearly 14%) in favour of Jorgensen, but Reece James was also switched into midfield, making room for Gusto to get a start at right-back, Fofana came back into defence in place of Tosin, and Garnacho, who had seemed to have fallen from favour, came back in on the wing in place of the suspended Neto.

Eddie Howe was also moved to drop a keeper in apparently dodgy form, replacing Pope (only 4.5% owned in FPL; though that's not an insignificant figure) with Ramsdale for the visit of Manchester United. Woltemade was also missing, the latest victim of a virus doing the rounds. And Carrick replaced Dalot with Mazraoui - presumably just a 'rest'.

Harry Wilson hadn't recovered from the sore ankle he suffered at the weekend, so young Josh King got another chance.

Near misses:  Marcus Tavernier might have had a hattrick against an out-of-sorts Brentford: first, he put a curler just wide early on, then rounded off an incisive break by beating Kelleher with a great sliding effort only to see it hit the foot of the post (and might have won a penalty in this moment too), and late on unleashed an absolute scorcher that smashed against the near-post. Later still, his super cut-back was drilled just wide of the far-post by Kroupi... Nothing broke for the poor guy in that game.

Idrissa Gana Gueye nearly added a late third goal against Burnley on Tuesday night when his fierce dipper from the edge of the box smashed against the crossbar.

City really should have beaten Forest much more comfortably: Semenyo unlieashed a fierce shot inches outside the near-post in the opening minutes, and Haaland had a good deflected effort loop on to the roof of the net early in the second-half.

Kieran Trippier saw his floated cross beat everyone - and come back off the inside of the far post.

Big misses/big saves: Sunderland's stand-in keeper Ellborg made a very good save at the foot of his post from Stach's low free-kick.

Jose Sa probably produced the save of the gameweek on Tuesday night, Rio Ngumoha's cross-shot on to the post; athough Jordan Pickford was running him very close with another worldie, an amazing reaction save in the dying seconds to thwart Lyle Foster's close-range flicked volley.

Ryan Yates got a free header at the near-post from a late corner that could have nicked all three points for Forest against title-chasers City, but he blasted the chance wide of the post.

Raya made a rare boo-boo, passing the ball straight to a Brighton player from the edge of his box after just two minutes; fortunately for him, Gabriel quickly dropped in behind him and was fairly comfortably able to head clear Baleba's feeble attempt at a lob.

The Villa v Chelsea game might well have been even more high-scoring: Martinez managed to block a point-black header from Joao Pedro early on, and short afterwards Jorgensen made a great one-armed stop to deny a fierce drive from Watkins. Garnacho had a great late chance to grab a fifth goal for Chelsea, after being set up by Palmer and Cucurella, but shot tamely at Martinez's legs. And then Tammy Abraham looped a header against the crossbar in the dying moments.

Anthony Gordon snuck in round the back at a corner routine to get an unmarked chance at the far post, but skewed his effort wide. A little later, Aaron Ramsdale pulled off a very good flying save from a fierce dipping shot from Zirkzee that was bound for the top right corner.

Hermansen had to make a good save with his leg from a Josh King effort.

Outstanding goals: Elliot Anderson, of all people, coming up with a pinger from well outside the box.... to hand the title to Arsenal (possibly...)!

Will Osula, only on the field from the 86th minute, nicked a late winner for Newcastle with a delicious curler from just inside the box. Amazingly, he is owned by around 25,000 FPL managers; but I rather doubt if any of them started him.

Outstanding performances: Joao Pedro and Marcus Tavernier both had stupdendous games. But Tavernier, in fact, played the better of the two - yet came away with only 2 FPL points, against Pedro's 19!! Ain't no justice in this game of ours....

Big mistakes: Habib Diarra took an absolutely dreadful penalty for Sunderland on Tuesday night - but Karl Darlow made an even worse mess of saving it. Sometimes, it's just your night....

A dreadful blunder from Leno gifted Summerville the chance to claim all three points late in the game. Alisson had likewise handed Wolves their late win the night before.

Bad luck/good luck: Andre's last-gasp winner against Liverpool needed a huge deflection off a defender to wrong-foot Alisson (and it might be doubted if his initial shot was even on-target, although he has been credited with the goal).

Saka's shot from wide on the right shouldn't have been a problem, but it took a wicked glancing deflection off Baleba; Verbruggen was still behind it, but off-balance - and couldn't stop bouncing into the goal off his heel.

Ezri Konsa nearly put a mishit clearance into his own net in the first-half, and was hugely relieved to see his shinner loop millimentres over the bar. And a rare moment of unselfishness from Garnacho - squaring the ball to Joao Pedro to complete his hattrick, when he might have shot himself - had rather a big impact on the FPL points from the game; if he'd finished the move himself, Palmer would have got the assist, and quite possibly the third bonus point also.... On such small decisions and tiny margins do all our FPL fortunes hang!

FPL weirdness: The usual doubts about the counting of 'saves', 'defensive contributions', etc.... And how on earth did Marcus Tavernier, 'man of the match' by a mile, not even get close to earning 1 bonus ponit??? Something going wrong 'round here....

Unexpected results: Bournemouth v Brentford really should not have ended goalless. Liverpool getting beaten by bottom-of-the-table Wolves might look like a bit of a surprise, but given how ropey their form has been recently, it's not that much of a shock. City being held to a draw by Forest, Chelsea winning so comfortably away from home, 10-man Newcastle squeaking a win against United to end Michael Carrick's winning streak, and Arsenal sneaking another narrow win in a game in which they were largely outplayed.... were all rather more surprising.

Apart from Ellborg (who??) and Andre, the FPL 'Team of the Week' actually looks pretty reasonable, for once. And, after the utter shit-show of the weekend's refereeing, the decision-making has been mostly pretty good - although there have still been a couple of highly dubious offside calls, and a few missed penalty awards,... and a fair old welter of other 'lucky' incidents of various kinds, and a lot of injury absences/rest rotations. The global average is an almost-healthy 54 points (a big jump up after the final game; probably not because a lot of people were on Spurs or Palace players, but because almost everyone had at least one or two auto-subs promoted into their starting line-ups at the end of the gameweek!).  Overall, this one's ended up looking a fairly average 7 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Dilemmas of the Week - GW 29 (25/26)

Not too many new injury doubts emerging at the weekend - but the ones we have seen all happen to be to very highly-owned players, so many FPL managers are facing a little bit of a crisis for this vexed Midweek Gameweek.

And with many of the managerial press conferences not happening until Tuesday, we won't have a clear picture of availability and likely line-ups until fairly shortly before the deadline. And, with evening kick-offs, late-breaking news on likely starting elevens - and the FPL deadline itself - will only happen after half the world has gone to bed.

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 29?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Declan Rice came off with a knock 15 minutes before the end against Chelsea on Sunday. Martin Odegaard was also missing (again) for that game, with a knee problem.

Bournemouth striker Evanilson suffered a dead leg against Sunderland on Saturday and has been struggling since.

Vitaly Janelt was a late omission against Burnley, and apparently has a metatarsal injury which will now keep him out for a while. Reiss Nelson, supposedly back from his long injury woes, also missed that match with a calf-strain, and remains doubtful.

Winger Marcus Edwards had to miss Burnley's last match after a training knock.

Joachim Andersen was an unexpected absentee for Fulham at the weekend because of illness; it's not clear if he's yet recovered.

Harry Wilson limped off 20 minutes before the end against Spurs after suffering a knock to his ankle, but Marco Silva seems hopeful he might be OK again for the West Ham game on Wednesday night. 

Joe Rodon, only recently back from injury, felt tightness in his hamstring against City at the week, but scans seem to be all clear, so Daniel Farke is hopeful he will be able to play this midweek.James Justin is also a doubt, after suffering a gashed leg in the weekend game.

The BIGGIE of this gameweek (of the season...) is that Erling Haaland missed the weekend's game against Leeds because of a late training knock, and Pep was initially hesitant to say when he might be back; but now, apparently, things are looking much more promising on that. Still, a yellow-flag is a yellow-flag....

Luke Shaw and Harry Maguire came off early on Sunday against Palace, suffering with a bug. (Just about nobody owns either of them at the moment; but it is worrying that other Manchester United players might suddenly drop out, if there's something going around.)

Jacob Ramsey was also pulled off at half-time against Everton because he was suffering with an illness. He is now reportedly over that problem, though it's not clear how much of training he's been able to attend since the weekend. Nick Woltemade has now been laid low (with the same bug?); and there may be concerns about something running through the Newcastle camp.

Stefan Ortega was another late omission at the weekend, having picked up a calf problem in the European game against Fenerbahce a few days before; not too serious, but he's likely to miss the game against City as well.

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

Maxence Lacroix has to serve a one-match ban for a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' offence at the weekend. Pedro Neto also has to miss a game after earning two yellow cards against Arsenal.

Cristian Romero and Freddie Potts are serving the last games of their long bans this gameweek.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

I haven't had any Newcastle or Palace players for a while, but I am worried that they are now joining Spurs in pariah territory.

And although Liverpool were ultimately able to come away with a high-scoring win against West Ham last Saturday, they were absolutely bloody awful (especially in the first-half, especially in defence) and scarcely deserved even a point from the game.

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

Jordan Pickford!!! (I have tended to feel all season that he's a bit too expensive, and that Everton's form isn't quite solid enough to justify him being an FPL goalkeeper pick, but.... he is the best keeper in the league. And he should have got 20 extra points for that save!)

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

Even more of A LOTTERY than usual?

 

As I have frequently observed in my regular 'Luck-o-Meter' gameweek reviews, this season is shaping up to be one of the lowest-scoring - perhaps even the lowest-scoring - in Fantasy Premier League's 24-year history.

It is also seeing unusually large points spreads within a single gameweek rather often: a significant number of managers being able to attain very high scores despite there being a very low global average.

And it is seeing some remarkable reversals in fortune from week to week (more than in a 'typical' season? it's impossible to check data on that, but it feels as though it might be so...), with many people following a huge high-score with a dismal low.... or vice versa.

All of this is making the game feel MORE RANDOM than usual this year, even more than usual determined by PURE LUCK.

And, for many people, this is making the game seem less satisfying, less FUN this year.

But is this really so??

Well, YES, I rather fear that it is. But what are the factors contributing to this phenomenon?

1)  The opacity of the new 'defensive points'

While there have been a few players who've established an impressive reputation for earning these new points almost every week (far more often, in fact, than we would have thought possible, based on the limited sample data FPL had released on the new metrics from last season), for most players, their 'defensive contributions' tally yo-yo's wildly from one week to the next. It is effectively impossible for the casual watcher to try to check these tallies (since we haven't even been given any detailed definitions or examples of how the various eligible game actions are recognised); and I, for one, have very little confidence in the accuracy or consistency of how this is being done by the official stats-provider. While there are a few dependable 'high defcon' players, and we may be surprised/disappointed when Anderson or Garner or Gabriel or Tarkowski don't return defensive points, for the great majority of players, it is entirely unpredictable whether they will earn - or whether they have earned! - these additional points in any given gameweek. As I pointed out in my criticisms of this unnecessary rule-change at the start of the season, it suffers from the same problems as the vexed Bonus Points System - its allocations are impossible to verify independently, and the results will often seem erratic or unfair; it is essentially just another randomizing element in the game (and we'd like fewer of those, not more).

2) Defences being 'on top'

It is an especially unfortunate coincidence that at the same time as this major adjustment to the scoring system, we also happen to be seeing one of the biggest shifts in tactics in the Premier League in over a decade, with a new emphasis on man-marking proving remarkably successful at stifling most of the forms of attacking play that teams have most relied on in recent years. This has led to far fewer chances from open play for almost every team, and hence greatly reduced points from 'attacking contributions' in FPL. So, not only do we have new less predictable points to factor into our game calculations, we also have far fewer of the traditional, mostly rather more predictable points to balance against them.

3)  Set-piece roulette (or 'WrestleMania'....)

With the suffocating of open attacking play, more and more teams are being forced to follow Arsenal's example and place increasing emphasis on set-piece routines to try to nab crucial goals. While some of these set plays are impressively intricate and clever (and I'm actually quite pleased to see the return of the long-throw this year!), unfortunately, many of them rely excessively on grappling with opponents in the penalty area and trying to mob the keeper on his goal-line. Not only does this make our lovely game unbearably ugly, it adds to the sense of randomness and injustice in the game - both in real-world results and in the FPL points outcomes - because so much now depends on whether the referee and the VAR officials choose to take notice or not of egregious holding offences and other such 'personal fouls' within the penalty area at corners and free-kicks. [We just witnessed a particularly frustrating example this past weekend, when Chelsea should, by rights, have been awarded at least two penalties against Arsenal - but didn't get any.]

4)  The sad absence of many big attacking contributions from midfield

Kevin DeBruyne and Son Hueng-Min, two of the giants of FPL over the past decade, both transferred out of the Premier League at the end of last season. Diogo Jota tragically died at the start of the new season. James Maddison was eliminated by a season-long injury. Mo Salah has suddenly proven largely ineffectual at a painfully rebuilding Liverpool. Florian Wirtz, probably the most exciting of the season's new arrivals, took four months to start finding his form. Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha also had problems settling in at Amorim's floundering Manchester United. Ebere Eze didn't get regular starts after moving to Arsenal. And almost all the other usual top points producers in the midfield category - Palmer, Saka, Odegaard, Foden, Mitoma, Kluivert, Gakpo, Gordon - have missed big chunks of the season through injury and/or just haven't been able to reproduce their best form of recent years. Despite many midfielders being able to pick up substantial additional points for their 'defensive contributions', only Semenyo, Fernandes, Rice, and Wilson have got anywhere near the kind of points totals (70% of the way through the season) we'd usually be hoping to see from at least 6 or 8 players in most previous years. It is far more difficult to predict returns from players who are less consistent in their productivity - but that's what we've often been having to rely on this year.

5)  The sad absence of many big attacking contributions from full-backs

Again, as with midfielders, Trent Alexander-Arnold transferred out of the league, Ben White has mysteriously fallen out of favour at Arsenal, Josko Gvardiol switched back to being more of a central defender than an attacking full-back,... and then picked up a season-ending injury; Matty Cash and Diogo Dalot and Marc Cucurella have so far struggled to make as much of an impact as they did in the previous year or two; Daniel Munoz has also suffered a lengthy spell out, and three of the other most promising attacking full-backs of last year, Antonee Robinson, Rayan Ait-Nouri, and Ola Aina, have missed most of the season. Really, Matheus Nunes and Nico O'Reilly at City and Jurrien Timber at Arsenal (although his contributions have mostly been coming from involvement in set-piece melees rather than through wing play) are the only full-backs to have had much of an impact this year. A top attacking full-back might hope to pick up an 'assist' once in every 3 or 4 games; even an aerial monster like Gabriel isn't likely to nab a goal (or an 'assist') at a set-play more than once every 5 games - and it's much harder to anticipate when those contributions might occur, since they're often happening in messy goalmouth scrambles (where there may often be doubts about the attribution of both goals and assists, as the ball pings around between multiple players; Virgil Van Dijk, in particular, has been extraordinarily lucky to have 2 or 3 goals credited to him which looked more like own-goals off an opposing defender). The pre-eminence of aerially dominant central defenders in the FPL points returns this season (unique, in my memory of the game) again makes it slightly harder to anticipate when and where points are going to come from.

6)  A new overcautiousness in the VAR room

It seems to me that teams of VAR officials have become much more timid about overruling their on-pitch colleague this year - which has been resulting in more, not fewer, egregious errors being made over crucial decisions, and even more uncertainty about whether VAR will intervene and to what effect - a further randomizing factor in our game

7)  And a ton of injuries....

Now, I don't think this season has been worse than some recent ones (certainly not for me, personally; I suffered 55 major injuries in one season a few years back!). I just noted yesterday that, although there has been quite a high number of injuries overall, we had been spared - so far - suffering a cluster of injuries to leading players all within a week or two. But, yes, there have been a lot of injuries (and drop-offs in form) this season. It has been very difficult to keep a settled FPL squad for long, or to save up 'rolled' transfers for a tactical 'mini-Wildcard' rebuild.

So, yes, for this bizarre combination of reasons, it has been a particularly WEIRD FPL season.

I generally say that the game feels like about it's about 70%-80% down to 'luck'; but this year it has often seemed to be more like about 95% 'luck'!!

And that is a bit frustrating.

But we should play the game for engagement rather than 'success'. We should hope to find insight in it, but not justice.

Tomorrow's not an accident, it's AN AMBUSH

 

Compared to a few recent seasons, we have been remarkably fortunate with injuries so far this time. While there have been a lot of injuries cumulatively, and a particularly heavy density of them recently during the gruelling winter months, not many of the most popular FPL selections have been badly affected, and we haven't had multiple players wiped out in the same week.

Well, not until this last week.... Sunderland right-back Nordi Mukiele, one of the most popular 'cheap fifth' defender picks in the game, had already gone missing with a calf injury the previous weekend (immediately after I'd opted to leave him in my Wildcard selection...); and Florian Wirtz, whose ownership had soared since he started to discover better form around mid-December, had reported a back problem in the GW27 warm-up. Then, Erling Haaland - the most popular player in the game by far, with around two-thirds ownership - suddenly failed to show up this last weekend, having apparently suffered a knock late in training. Another popular cheaper defender, Joachim Andersen, went missing with an unspecified 'illness'. And other super-popular picks like Harry Wilson, Declan Rice, and Nico O'Reilly came out of this weekend's games limping, and are now stigmatised by the dreaded maybe-they'll-play-maybe-they-won't  'yellow flag'.

Many FPL managers will own at least three of those players; some 'unlucky' ones might own six or seven.

And to make matters even worse, this heaviest cluster of injuries-to-top-players we've experienced all season happens to come the week before the 5th Round of the FA Cup; this means that the next batch of Premier League fixtures is shunted forward into midweek - giving these injury-doubt players almost no time to shake off their problem. Most of these issues are probably so slight, you wouldn't expect them to affect fitness to play a full week later; but only two or three days later, I fear they are unlikely to be risked... And there's not much time for any more accurate and detailed information on these injury situations to emerge.

We're all flying blind into Gameweek 29, fearing that we might be without some of our key players,.... perhaps several of them.

But most of us will probably just keep our fingers crossed, and hope we don't end up with only 8 or 9 men on the park. There is a fair chance that at least some of these players will be able to turn out after all (Declan Rice is made of titanium, and will happily play through almost any injury short of a broken leg). Because of the FA Cup, these players will then have a further 10 days to recover before the next Premier League fixtures - so, almost certainly will miss no more than one gameweek. They're not players we'd want to let go of, unless we really have to. And, since they've probably increased in price quite nicely while we've had them, we'd take quite a heavy hit in squad value if we went for a quick sell-and-buy-back on any of them. So..... we sit tight, and hope for the best.

But this is WHY it's undesirable - an unacceptable RISK - to use your second Wildcard EARLY. It is not all that uncommon to suffer 5, 6, 7 long-term injuries within one or two gameweeks; if something like that happens, the Wildcard can help to dig you out of the hole.

This 'injury crisis' - potentially damaging though it is - is not Wildcard-worthy. (It's not even transfer-worthy!!)

We always have to be on our guard against possible sudden disasters like this. BAD THINGS do not happen all the time; but they do happen often enough that we need to be constantly vigilant, constantly prepared.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE! AND DON'T FORGET THAT TUESDAY EVENING DEADLINE!!!

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 28

 

Again, we've seen a fair number unpleasant selection surprises this week; and 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: 

Red cards not awarded: Tyler Adams's clumsy challenge on Granit Xhaka, catching his standing leg above the ankle, was very, very close to being a straight red card.

Penalties awarded: Maxence Lacroix was a bit unlucky to concede a penalty to Manchester United, since he did appear to have started holding back Cunha some way outside the box, and to have released him as he entered it. But it was a foul, and a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' (that latter determination might be something of a 'grey area' call, since there were other defenders more or less in line, and Cunha was quite far wide of the goal; but he's a pacey player, and good on his left foot, so you would have fancied him to get a shot off with only the keeper to beat; for another player, it might not have been such a promising goalscoring opportunity).

Penalties not awarded: Alex Jimenez clearly shoved Enzo La Fée firmly in the back, sending him sprawling to the ground in the penalty area; neither the referee nor VAR thought there was 'that much' in it???

Oh, OK, the BIG ONE(s) came in the top-of-the-table clash. First, Rice was clearly holding on to Hato at a corner with both arms (and not only pinning him down, but trying to hurl him to one side), and then very blatantly hit the incoming ball with his arm (nearly sending into his own net!). The officials seemed to feel that the first incident somehow excused the second (Rice wasn't 'in control' of himself, because he was so busy wrestling another player??) - and neither were penalty offences?! UTTER NONSENSE. But the one in the second-half was even worse, when Raya almost laid Joao Pedro out cold by thumping him in the side of the head (getting something on the ball is not an absolute defence, even for a keeper, when you make such a dangerous contact with an opponent); again, the officials were so preoccupied with (I would say, wrongly) exonerating Raya that they seemed to completely overlook that Saliba had had the Chelsea forward in a bearhug throughout the incident. So, that's TWO utterly clearcut penalties denied to Chelsea (and, ahem, to Cole Palmer owners in FPL!). Utlimately, such egregious injustice actually works to Arsenal's disfavour as well; because these two outrageous refereeing cock-ups determined the result of this crucial game, unless they now win the title by a wide margin, nobody will feel they really deserved it (not even their own fans).

Tight/dubious offsides: Heartbreaking for Burnley that Flemming's apparent goal to give them a 4-3 lead over visitors Brentford was ruled out (after an intolerable 3-minute delay) for crosser Jaidon Anthony's shoulder having allegedly been an inch too far forward (to the naked eye, he had looked well on; and decisions really shouldn't be made on such unfeasible wafer-thin margins, anyway - this lunacy has to stop).

.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed:  More galling injustice for poor Burnley when Ashley Barnes's last-gasp equaliser was ruled out (after 4.5 minutes of deliberation by the VAR team) for a supposed handball. If there had been any contact with Barnes's lower-arm, it was so incredibly slight as to be completely inconsequential; but none of the TV pictures gave a clearcut view of this, so a decision was impossible, and VAR had no business to interfere with the referee's on-pitch award of the goal.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries:  Tyrone Mings was a late omission from the Friday night game, having picked up a problem in training.

Brentford keeper Caoimhin Kelleher was missing because his wife had just given birth to twins. (This is the kind of 'personal information' which is almost never generally available ahead of time, and can catch out even the best prepared FPL manager.)

Erling Haaland (owned by two-thirds of FPL managers) was a surprise last-minute omission, after allegedly picking up a knock in training late in the week. [Even worse: an awful lot of people - including my personal FPL nemesis - had made him their captain, but high-scoring Hugo Ekitike their vice-captain,... which turned out extremely fortuitously for them. A lot of others had Bruno Fernandes, who also ended up with a big week, as their back-up choice. There just ain't no justice! These folks will protest that they deserve some credit for making a strong vice-captaincy pick; but the fact is that, in this gameweek, either of these two should have been far preferable to Haaland as captain; so, they actually made a really dumb choice - and got away with it through sheer luck. And that is very, very, very galling for everybody else.]

Eddue Howe, not happy with the way things were going in the first-half at St James's, withdrew Ramsey at half-time, and Elanga and Woltemade only 10 minutes into the second-half.

Joachim Andersen was missing for Fulham, due to illness.

Igor Tudor also made a raft of substitutions before the hour mark - but nobody owns any Spurs players any more, so that's of no concern for FPL managers.

In the wake of Lacroix's sending-off, Oliver Glasner withdrew Jorgen Strand Larsen and Brennan Johnson just shy of the hour.

Stefan Ortega was troubled with a calf-strain after Thursday night's game against Fenerbahce, and so Matz Sels was suddenly back in goal for Forest.

Trossard was pulled off for Martinelli after just 55 minutes.

Near misses:  

Big misses/big saves: Dominic Calvert-Lewin was played in behind the City defence by a superb cross from Aaronson, but, with only the keeper to beat, put his effort wide. A little later, Nico O'Reilly was defied by a double-save from Karl Darlow.

Alisson carelessly played the ball to Jarrod Bowen just a few yards out, but the West Ham attacker wasn't able to control the ball and it rebounded off him straight back to the grateful keeper. In the second-half, Gakpo was unmarked as the ball came through to him at the back post, but blazed wide. Alisson pulled off the 'save of the day' to tip over a fierce near-post drive from Crysencio Summerville.

Beto broke away one-on-one with Pope, but smashed his effort against the crossbar (although there was an issue as to whether the ball had gone out of play at the side of the pitch when he first picked it up; I thought not, but this was another instance where, if he had scored, VAR would probably have purported to make this call on a margin of millimetres, when they really had no definite evidence for doing so). And Jordan Pickford produced possibly the 'Save of the Season' to deny Tonali's ferocious 20-yard volley in the dying seconds.

Forest sub Taiwo Awoniyi had a great chance late in the game when ghosting in behind to get on the end of Elliot Anderson's perfectly floated cross...., but, with the whole goal to aim at, he directed his header miles wide.

Outstanding goals: Morgan Gibbs-White produced the pick of the weekend, with an absolute screamer from nearly 25 yards out. Although Alex Iwobi's fizzing side-foot half-volley against Spurs was a very close runner-up.

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: There really wasn't enough power on Ekitike's first strike at goal to have troubled Mads Hermansen at his near-post, but the West Ham keeper somehow completely misread the shot.

Nick Pope fumbled a fairly gentle curler from Dwight McNeil, and then took a long time to recover - allowing Beto to nip in to steal the lead for the visiting team for the second time.

Bad luck/good luck: Thierno Barry got a shove in the back from Lewis Hall as he raced to meet a cross and tumbled to the ground - the ball deflecting into the goal off the back of his thighs as he rolled forwards, entirely without his knowledge: one of the flukiest goals we've seen this season.

Robert Sanchez made one of his all too predictable errors early on against Arsenal, nearly giving the ball away on the edge of his own box - but was just able to make a recovery tackle to wrest the ball back from Gyokeres. Shortly afterwards, Eze very nearly lobbed him from inside his own half - and Sanchez, scrambling back to recover the ball falling just wide of his post, clearly failed to keep it in play, but the assistant was too far away to see the error and failed to award the corner.

FPL weirdness: Antoine Semenyo somehow didn't get close to earning even 1 bonus point - despite scoring the only goal of the game; I've never seen that before.

Cody Gakpo was lucky to be credited with a goal, since his effort looked well off-target, until ricocheting off two West Ham defenders.

The attribution of the first Arsenal goal to Saliba was a little generous; it looked as if his glancing header was going just wide until it hit Hato's shoulder.

Unexpected results: Wolves have been improving in their attacking play under Rob Edwards, but few people would be betting on them to keep a clean sheet - even against a Villa side whose form is starting to nosedive. Bournemouth were lucky to salvage a point against Sunderland, when they should have conceded a penalty early on, and might have been reduced to 10 men. Burnley were absolutely robbed by a couple of atrocious VAR calls going against them. City were incredibly fortunate to claim all the points, and a clean sheet, against a Leeds side who outplayed them for much of the game. Liverpool's result against West Ham flattered them enormously: they were all over the place defensively, and outplayed by their visitors for long stretches of the game. Arsenal's win over Chelsea was hard-won, but felt somewhat unjust, in that it depended so heavily on a couple of appalling missed penalty awards for the visitors.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' after Saturday yet again included no-one that anybody owns, except Ekitike; Bruno Fernandes, Harry Wilson, and William Saliba pushed their way into the selection on Sunday, but it was still fairly light on high-owned players. Although there were quite a large number of goals this week, the global average only just crept up to a still relatively modest 53 points. - which is 'good' by the standards of this miserable season, but still fairly low, really. There was also an unusually large points spread this gameweek, with plenty of managers benefitting from good hauls from Fernandes, Wilson, Ekitike, Van Dijk,... and the entire Arsenal defence; but others suffering disproportionately from being without one or two of that handful of big returners. 

Because Erling Haaland has such a massive ownership in FPL, his unexpected absence alone would have given this week a pretty high 'luck' score; and the impact of his being missing was greatly compounded by two of the most popular vice-captain picks, Ekitike and Fernandes, happening to have very big gameweeks. There were some more enjoyable 'freak events' too: a few spectacular goals, and what will probably be the 'Save of the Season' from Jordan Pickford. All of that, and a string of flakey - at least somewhat unexpected - results would combine to get this gameweek close to a maximum '10' score. And then the atrocious decisions against Burnley and Chelsea would also, on their own, get us to a '10' score!!  So, I'm afraid this is one of the worst Gameweeks we've ever seen; it really ought to be more than a 10 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Dilemmas of the Week - GW 28 (25/26)

 

Not too many major new injuries this week, it seems, but.... a fair few minor 'niggles' and uncertainties.

And of course, press conferences on Friday morning (in the UK) won't get widely reported (or at least not written up on the main FPL reference sites like Fantasy Football Scout) until mid- or late afternoon,... which is the middle of the night for folks like me, in East Asia. And dammit, Wolves v Villa is a Friday evening kick-off, so people in my timezone will be struggling to get fully up-to-date... before the extremely inconvenient FPL deadline. If I catch any late-breaking news this evening, I'll endeavour to update here (but, to be honest, I'm more likely to be down the pub!).

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 28?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Bukayo Saka is one of the biggest worries this week, having come off early with a 'knock' in the trouncing of Spurs last week. At least his absence would make room for the impressive Madueke to get more gametime. (And Kai Havertz and Max Dowman are thought to be nearly ready to rejoin the action too. They might also get a look-in on the right side of the forward trio.) Ben White missed last weekend's game owing to an unspecified niggling injury - but he seems to have fallen out of favour as a starter anyway.

Bournemouth's midfield stalwart Lewis Cook felt a problem in his hamstring in trainiing the day before last weekend's game; Iraola hopes it isn't too serious, but it's likely to keep him out this week as well.

Brentford appear to have lost two of their full-back options in quick succession: Michael Kayode missed last week's game with a late training injury, and Aaron HIckey had to come off with a knock in the first-half against Brighton. This might mean that Keane Lewis-Potter, lately more dangerous as an attacker, might have to go back to being a wing-back/full-back.

Carlos Alcaraz was unavailable to face Manchester United on Monday because of a training injury.

Fulham's young Brazilian winger Kevin had to come off with a knock in last week's game against Sunderland, and might be missing for a little while. Antonee Robinson was also a surprise absentee in that game, having apparently suffered an ankle injury late in the previous week's training.

The biggest uncertainty of the week is Florian Wirtz, who's really come into form over the past couple of months or so, and is now owned by 8.5% of managers. He missed last Sunday's game against Forest after straining his back in the warm-up, and remains a doubt; nearly 130,000 have already offloaded him this week.

Lisandro Martinez missed the Monday night trip to Everton with a calf issue, and is expected to be out for at least a couple of weeks. Bryan Mbeumo limped off near the end in that match, but it appears to have been just some cramp, and he's apparently been training again this week.

Jacob Ramsey dropped out of the squad to play Qarabag on Tuesday with a tight hamstring, but apparently scans have revealed nothing seriously amiss, so he might be available again for this weekend.

Sunderland are really in the wars: Nordi Mukiele limped off after just 10 minutes against Fulham last week with a calf-strain, and forwards Romaine Mundle (hamstring) and Brian Brobbey (groin strain) had to withdraw before the end. The little used Dennis Cirkin had also been unavailable because of an injury just before that match.

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

Wesley Fofana is serving a one-match ban for a second yellow card last week (and is lucky it wasn't more, as his clumsy lunge on James Ward-Prowse was worthy of a straight red).

Ladislav Krejci is also facing a one-match ban for picking up two yellow cards last week (he's rather unlucky, since he appeared to be just clearing the ball upfield because he hadn't heard the referee's whistle, when he earned his second). 

Cristian Romero is now serving the third instalment of a four-game ban (he's had an extra game added on automatically, because his clogging of Casemiro a couple of weeks back was his second red card of the season).

And West Ham's Freddie Potts is serving the second part of a three-game ban.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Pep's midfield rotations are getting more and more worrying: last week, Cherki, Foden, and Reijnders were all left on the bench. It makes you wonder how 'safe' any City picks are. Even Semenyo, I fear, might find himself in a three-way rotation with Cherki and Doku, once the latter is fully fit again.

And I'm afraid all Spurs players are avoid-like-the-plague options at the moment, as any 'new manager bounce' with Igor Tudor seems unliekly to be able to slow their death-spiral into the relegation zone.

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

Bournemouth's 19-year-old Brazilian winger, Rayan, is in sensational form at the moment; but, given his tender years, I doubt if he'll continue to start every week, now that Marcus Tavernier appears to be fit again.

Although he hasn't come up with a return in the last two games, Dango Ouattara is relishing finally getting a regular start at Brentford, and has come into some useful form in the past month or so (although I'd still probably incline towards Kevin Schade, if taking a second attacking asset from Brentford).

Benjamin Sesko and Martin Gyokeres finally seem to have found their scoring boots - although neither can be relied upon as an invariable starter (Gyokeres, perhaps, is very nearly so; although he might face some competition once Havertz is fully fit again; but, unfortunately, Arsenal are notoriously creating very few open-play chances this year, so even their most promising attacking players aren't as attractive for FPL as all that - if people are still sceptical of Saka, Gyokeres shouldn't be getting anywhere near consideration).

And young Nico O'Reilly, of course, produced the performance of the week last time with a fine brace of goals against Newcastle, and now bears the curse of being the gameweek's most transferred-in player (well, nearly - he is, somehow, being narrowly beaten by Virgil Van Dijk at the moment; they're both closing in on half a million new owners). But, as I just noted above, you really can't trust Pep to field any of his midfielders every week, no matter how well they play.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (83)

 

"Think little about yourself, think deeply about the world."

Miyamoto Musashi

A nomad once more....

I've just endured a rather unpleasantly fraught few weeks (in the real world, rather than the relatively benign realm of FPL), after my batty landlady decided she wasn't going to extend my lease after all (though, of course, one generally assumes that this should be a mere formality; and we did appear to have reached an agreement in principle to go ahead on much the same terms as the past year, back in the middle of January), but dawdled about telling me, and - really - didn't give me any proper notice at all.

Suddenly faced with unexpected homelessness in a little over two weeks, I have had to scramble rather to.... sort out the next phase of my life.

And, since I didn't feel I had enough time to both househunt and pack,... I took this unpleasant surprise as a cue to revamp my life rather dramatically. Instead of packing up my life into boxes and finding another house to rent, I have.... sold (or given away) everything I own, and laid plans to hit the road. As of tomorrow, I shall be a vagabond again.

If I have one greater love in my life than football, it is music. My parents had quite an extensive and diverse collection of records (though mostly rather middle-of-the-road), and a wonderful old 'gramophone' in a walnut chest with which to play them. During my early childhood, I would sit cross-legged on the floor in front of this marvellous device, in utter rapture, for hours at a time. And one of my great favourites from those early listening sessions was this mid-60s hit by the country singer Roger Miller: King of the Road, a defiant celebration of the hobo life - humorous, and oddly inspiring. I often wonder if my love for this song hasn't led me astray in life. Not only am I unafraid of having no fixed abode, no steady income, and few personal possessions; I actually tend to view such a situation as a desirable ideal.

Famous name, obscure origin

Although I have been a lifelong admirer of Pelé, I confess I don't think I had ever known where the celebrated monicker came from. Now we have an answer, in this little biographical summary from the almost always diverting Tifo (a sub-channel of The Athletic magazine's Youtube presence, but far more entertaining and wothwhile than the great majority of their regular content).

For me, those 'greatest of all time' debates never get off the ground. If you were lucky enough to see Pelé in his prime (or even past his prime: I recall some absolutely stunning moments from his time with the New York Cosmos team in the mid-70s), there is no debate: he did everything that the later greats did, but did it more consistently, with more zest, with more athleticism. Everyone since has been inspired by Pelé, everyone has tried to emulate him; a few have come very close, but no-one has surpassed him.

What he did in the 1970 World Cup - and I was a tiny boy at the time, watching on a grainy old black-and-white TV - was other-worldly. I can't think of any other player who has become so celebrated, so beloved for a goal he didn't score - let alone three of them: that magnificent downward header that was somehow spooned around the foot of the post in a 'Save of the Century' from Gordon Banks, the outrageous dummy around the Uruguayan keeper on the edge of the box, and the attempt to lob the Czech keeper from a few yards inside his own half (perfect length on the shot, but it drifted just inches wide of the post). And these were just the stupendous highlights. In every match, just about every time he got on the ball, you held your breath, expecting something magical, something impossible to happen - and very often it did. Watching these performances, I began to understand why he called football the beautiful game; it stopped being merely a sport and transformed into an art.

Nobody's team is ever PERFECT

 

We all want to feel good about ourselves. And we all want to feel good about our FPL team: we want it to be as good as it can be. And - much of the time - we persuade ourselves that it is.

But... as good as it can be is not perfect. And if you delude yourself into believing that it is, that can lead into a dangerous complacency.

How often, really, does any of us get to roll a transfer? Usually no more than a handful of times a season. And even then, we're usually saving them up for 'tactical' reasons, not because we really don't feel our team could use any changes at all; we'd like to use a transfer straight away, but we have judged that being able to make multiple transfers a week or two further on may be even more valuable to us.

Almost always we have a few players who seem to have lost a bit of form, or are stuck in teams whose form has suddenly - and often quite mysteriously - deserted them, or who face a few unpromising fixtures in the coming run of games. And almost always there are other players who've caught our eye with a one or two big performances (though we're probably not yet quite sure if this is really emerging form or just a flash-in-the-pan), players we are starting to covet as possibly better alternatives to some of our current selections. 

And, if we played the game like FPL's dim (probably AI??) 'pundit' The Scout, blithely making unlimited transfers every week, we'd 'fix' all of those potential problems, chase all of those dreams. But that is not the game. We play the game properly: we know that transfers have a 'cost', and that it is very difficult to make back that cost by switching out a decent player who still has a regular start - certainly not within a single gameweek. We use our transfers cautiously, parsimoniously: and almost all of them have to be used to deal with injuries.

And because of that,... not only do we almost invariably have at least a few players, sometimes even four or five or six, who are looking slightly sub-par, players that in an ideal world we'd probably swap out; some of those players might have been clogging up our team for weeks - because we've always had more urgent changes to make with our limited transfers.

So, in practice, because of the harsh realities of this Fantasy game of ours, it is extremely unlikely that any of us will truly get to enjoy the satisfaction of having our team just the way we want it. (Even when we play a Wildcard, we usually get one or two players who immediately suffer an injury or a crash in form. That always seems to happen to me, anyway...)

But even when that rare combination of circumstances does align for us, those happy few times each season when we do seem to have our team just the way we want it,.... that's never going to be 'perfect', is it? 'Perfection' is an impossible ideal. You can drive yourself crazy chasing that phantom. Make do with as good as it can be.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 27

 

A few unpleasant selection surprises again this week; although, at least, not too many new injury disasters to add to our FPL troubles.

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: Ladislav Krejci's second yellow card was a bit unjust: he clearly thought - rightly - that the ball was still in play, and was trying to clear it upfield (as Strand Larsen closed him down to try and block), and perhaps had not heard (or couldn't believe) that the referee had just blown his whistle because the linesman had wrongly flagged for a throw-in.

Red cards not awarded: Ruben Dias was perhaps slightly lucky to get only a yellow card for hauling back Anthony Gordon's first-half breakaway. Yes, it was way out on the left touchline, but Gordon's got a lot of pace, and there was no-one else between him and the goal.

Fofana's second yellow card might well have been a straight red: his wild lunge caught Ward-Prowse on the instep rather than the shin, but it was violent and out-of-control and could have done some serious damage. Chelsea were very lucky not to get a second defender sent off when Tosin appeared to run across the back of Flemming - briefly grabbing his arm, pushing him in the back, and probably tripping him too (all three contacts might have been too slight on their own to justify punishment, but the combination demonstrated a determined intent to bring the attacker to a halt) - knocking him over when he was clean through on goal.

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Palmer was unfortunate not to get a penalty when flattened from behind by Joe Worrall. The Burnley defender had got a toe to the ball to clear it first, but he was sliding in from a long way back, out of control, and his follow-through into Palmer's Achilles was dangerous, regardless of whether he'd made contact with the ball.

Tight/dubious offsides: Dan Burn had a goal ruled out for a narrow offside: that looked correct, but it was still a bit harsh as he'd been shoved into that position by Ruben Dias.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed:  Randal Kolo Muani's second equaliser for Spurs might have dramatically altered the complexion of the north London derby; and Gabriel's extravagant dive when he felt the slightest touch of the forward's hand on his back was one of the most egregious pieces of 'conning the referee' we've seen in quite a while. This is the kind of incident where VAR is invariably too timid to intervene; but, in the interests of justice, they really ought to.

Macallister's last-gasp winner surely should have been disallowed. Both he and, even more so, Van Dijk (who got in the first header) looked well offside as Szoboszlai curled in his cross; but the SAOT graphic eventually indicated that one of them (not clear which) was supposedly being kept on by the edge of a defender's boot. I simply do not believe that: there is something gravely amiss with this technology - Van Dijk looked 'off' by about a yard.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Foden, Cherki, and Reijnders (all still modestly high-owned in FPL) were all omitted by Pep against Newcastle; Cherki at least came on for half an hour or so, but Foden only got a token few minutes at the end, and Reijnders wasn't used at all.

Brentford's Michael Kayode was a late omission, due to a training knock. And Fabian Hurzeler rested/dropped Baleba and Veltman.

Michael Kayode was a surprise omission, having apparently picked up an injury in training late in the week. Mikkel Damsgaard was surprisingly rested against Brighton, only came on for the last 25 minutes.

Antonee Robinson was missing for Fulham, having complained of an ankle problem in training during the week. Nordi Mukiele limped off after barely 10 minutes, apparently with a calf-strain.

Timber was replaced by Mosquera at Spurs after just 55 minutes.

Lisandro Martinez, troubled with a calf problem, was a late dropout for Manchester United on Monday evening. David Moyes surprisingly preferred Branthwaite to Mykolenko at left-back for that game. And Amad Diallo was subbed off for Sesko a few minutes shy of the hour.

Near misses:  Emi Buendia smashed a post with a curler from the edge of the box.

Ferdi Kadioglu's 25-yard effort crashed against the crossbar - but set up the opener for Diego Gomez with a kind rebound.

Bournemouth's new prodigy, 19-year-old Brazilian winger Rayan, crashed a 20-yard effort against the outside of the post - narrowly missing out on becoming the youngest player ever to register an attacking return in his first four Premier League appearances.

Milenkovic fired a bullet-header inches wide of the post; that might have claimed a win for Forest against a dreadfully lacklustre Liverpool. Later, a mishit cross from Aina dipped on to the roof of the net.

Big misses/big saves: A pair of fantastic stops near the end of the City v Newcastle clash, Pope, with his foot, blocking a fierce Foden drive, and Donnarumma just getting fingertips to a long-range volley from Barnes.

Cole Palmer had a great solo breakaway opportunity, but shot fairly tamely, from too far out.

Djordje Petrovic made a great reaction save from Callum Wilson's near-post flick in the closing minutes to save a point for Bournemouth.

Joel Veltman nearly deflected a ball into his own net in the dying minutes at Brentford, but Bart Verbruggen brilliantly clawed it off his goalline.

Richarlison's cheeky back-heel sneaked through David Raya's legs, but the keeper somehow recovered to claw the ball back off the line. Probably not a turning-point of the match, because Arsenal were already 3-1 up by that point, and completely dominating; but it was a big moment in FPL.

Mosquera's loose pass presented Yeremy Pino with a fairly straightforward chance to lob a stranded Jose Sa, but he put the effort well wide.

One has to wonder why on earth Tolo Arokodare was on penalties in the first place. Presumably he won't be again, after that absolutely dreadful one - that gifted 'penalty save' points to Dean Henderson (who, of course, I'd just transferred out....).

Romaine Mundle was put in one-one-one against Bernd Leno, but blazed wide from 10 yards out.

Outstanding goals: Anton Stach conjured a thumper of a free-kick to give Leeds the lead at Villa (although Emi Martinez left him far too inviting a gap in the right half of the goal!).

And Benjamin Sesko combined with Cunha and Mbeumo on Monday night to finish off one of the most incisive breakaway goals we'll see this season.

Outstanding performances: Nico O'Reilly, playing a full 90 minutes, playing in an advanced midfield role,... and snagging two great goals - is likely to be the performance of the week.

Big mistakes: A bizarre mistake from Nathan Collins gifted a decisive goal to Danny Welbeck.

Bad luck: Forest really didn't deserve to lose against Liverpool, and certainly not from Aina's clearance rebounding into the net off an oblivious Macallister. Fortunately, this goal was ruled out when VAR noticed that the ball had bounced into the net off the back of his upper-arm.

FPL weirdness: 

Unexpected results: Burnley holding Chelsea to a draw, and indeed very nearly beating them, was a bit of a turn-up. Villa fans will probably feel that dropping points at home to lowly Leeds was an unpleasant surprise; but given the way their team's form has been swinging over the last few weeks, and how strong Leeds have become since the start of December, it really wasn't. Brighton's very comfortable win at Brentford was also quite a surprise: it was their best performance for some weeks, and one of Brentford's weakest in a long time. Brighton, Bournemouth and West Ham being the only teams to keep a clean sheet on Saturday was also a mite unexpected. Liverpool were probably expected to win at the City Ground, but they were so dreadful on the day, they didn't really deserve even a draw; and their last-gasp winner looked a mile offside.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' after Saturday included absolutely no-one that anybody owns (apart from Nico O'Reilly, who's only in just over 5% of FPL teams); although eventually some moderately popular picks - Henderson, Van Dijk, Eze, Iwobi, Gyokeres - found their way in. It's looking set to be yet another wretchedly low-scoring gameweek, with a global average of just 45 points, and nothing much coming from any of the most popular players. Saturday was uncommonly free of refereeing cock-ups, but Sunday saw two fairly horrendous ones, with a Kolo Muani goal being unjustly disallowed while Macallister's miles-offside last-gasp winner was unfathomably allowed. Thus, it's getting up to about a 7 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.