More 'new beginnings'

 

Today is the eve of the Buddhist New Year across the countries of South-East Asia, where I have been enjoying an idyllic 'semi-retirement' for the most of the last dozen years.

A few years ago, the Lao Brewery Company produced commemorative cans for its flagship Beer Lao brand reminding us all of the number of the new year in the Buddhist chronology; but they haven't repeated that useful notice again since. If Google is to be believed (which it generally isn't these days, on almost anything; just a few days ago, it was trying to persuade me that Arsenal were knocked out of the FA Cup in the 4th Round this year [by Wigan??!!] - and that was just the good old fashioned regular search function, not the demented new 'AI' version....), we are about to enter the year 2,570.

I'm in the Lao capital of Vientiane at the moment. I'm hoping it will be the quietest place to ride out the festivities. The water-fighting in the streets, a custom, I gather, only fairly recently exported from Thailand to neighbouring Lao and Cambodia, gets more protracted and boisterous each year, and quickly gets a bit tiresome if you're any older than 25; but the major hazard of this period - especially in this country - is the maudlin all-night drinking parties, usually with interludes of caterwauling karaoke at ear-shredding volumes, that break out everywhere over the next few days, and can make sleep (at least at regular hours) all but impossible. The good thing about the bigger cities in this part of the world is that almost no-one's really from there, they've just migrated from other parts of the country for work or study; and for big holidays like this, they all return to their original home for a few days or a week Thus, the big cities empty out, and can often be relatively tranquil at such times at least, compared to most of the rest of the country during this frenzy of batshit-crazy celebration. I'm hoping that will be the case again. (Although the last time I spent the holiday here, we were still under the shadow of Covid, so that may not have been fully representative. The festival does seem to have become hugely more raucous across the region in the last two or three years!)

Anyhow, Sabaidee Pi Mai - as they say around here.

Or, in the local script,....  ສະບາຍດີປີໃໝ່

Or in Thai,  Sawasdee Pi Him  -  สวัสดีปีใหม่

And in Khmer,  Rikreay Chhnam Thmei  -  រីករាយឆ្នាំថ្មី

Now,.... I must sort out my earplugs and my rain poncho before braving the 150-metre dash to the nearest convenience store to pick up a couple of beers... It might be the last time I dare to go outside for the next three or four days.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 32

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: 

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.

Penalties not awarded: 

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.

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 Garner'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.

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.

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.

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.

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: 

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.

FPL weirdness: The counting of 'saves' for a number of keepers seems to have been massively off this week!

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.

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'.

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 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! 

At the midway point of the gameweek the global average is a pitiful 20 points. There haven't been many poor refereeing decisions, at least; though a rather unjust penalty for Arsenal and 2 absolutely baffling offside decisions against poor Burnley are pretty egregious. 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), this is looking like at least a 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Dilemmas of the Week - GW 32 (25/26)

After nearly three weeks without any Premier League games (four weeks, for Arsenal, Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Wolves!), anticipating relative 'form' is going to be even more of a crapshoot than usual going into this Gameweek. But at least there haven't been too many new injuries since GW31,... and quite a few welcome recoveries.

Despite the relative dearth of new injury concerns, this is a prime moment to consider major changes leading into the league campaign's final run-in - and, in particular, to gear up for the imminent Double Gameweek in GW33 and the subsequent Blank Gameweek (because of the FA Cup Semi-Finals) in GW34. Indeed, if exceptional need - or foolish impatience - haven't prompted you to use the (largely superfluous) 2nd Wildcard yet, this is inevitably the optimal gameweek in which to do so. (And very nearly 500,000 managers have indeed done so. But that does beg the question,..... what the heck are the other 12 million up to???)

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

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

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

I've recently discovered this additional resource, the weekly Predicted Lineups from Fantasy Football Edits. My longtime standby for this sort of news, Fantasy Footall Scout, does usually provide some explanatory commentary on its predictions, even including reminders of the key injury concerns, and sometimes also some discussion of possible alternate selections; so, if you like a bit more detail with your 'probable lineups' for the week, that could still be the preferable roundup to look at. But because FPL Edits is so stripped-down, it's rather more straightforwardly accessible, easier to scan through quickly; and I think it's also perhaps a tad more reliable with its expected formations and lineups, and a little quicker to update.

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 32?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Unwelcome uncertainties for Arsenal on their title run-in, as the recently impressive Piero Hincapie has apparently picked up quite a serious leg-muscle issue while playing for Ecuador, while Bukayo Saka, who was withdrawn from availability for the internationals for unspecified reasons (which were widely assumed to be exaggerated or entirely fake), is apparently still unfit to rejoin the playing squad. Moreover, Jurrien Timber, who suffered a heavy knock on the ankle against Everton in their last league game (four weeks ago!) is still a doubt, and Martin Odegaard - who has been almost constantly troubled by injury this season - had a fairly lacklustre game against Sporting in midweek and appeared to be limping when he was pulled off before the end. And now Riccardo Calafiori is also a doubt, after suddenly going missing from training on Friday. At least Ebere Eze appears to be over whatever phantom niggle was keeping him home from international duty....

Jadon Sancho suffered a heavy fall in a club friendly two weeks ago, and has a damaged shoulder which may continue to make him a doubt for a little while (although he's never really established himself as a regular starting prospect for Unai Emery).

Burnley's Hannibal Mejbri is going to be out for a while, after pulling a hamstring against Fulham last time out.

Palace winger Evann Guessand suffered a knee injury in Thursday night's game against Fiorentina, the severity still being assessed.

Leeds are suffering a tide of injuries in their back-line at a very inopportune moment: both Joe Rodon and Anton Stach had to come off in the FA Cup win over West Ham, after rolling their ankles badly. while Jaka Bijol (training knock) and Gabriel Gudmundsson (minor groin strain) were unavailable for that game, and might still be doubts this weekend.

Alisson was a late withdrawal from Liverpool's last league game, the defeat against Brighton, after suffering another leg-muscle issue - which now seems likely to keep him out until 'near the end of the season'. At least his new understudy Giorgi Mamardashvili was looking pretty sharp in Wednesday's game against PSG - but looking their talismanic long-time goalkeeper is further unwelcome disruption at a time when the club are starting to look in serious disarray.

Ruben Dias missed out on the League Cup Final three weeks ago because of a hamstring issue, and has since suffered a further setback which probably makes his return date still at least a week or two off (although you wonder if Abdudokir Khusanov hasn't been playing well enough to keep him out of the team now....). And John Stones withdrew from the England squad with a sore calf-muscle (although - who can remember the last time he was fit for a decent run of games??).

Sven Botman suffered a facial fracture in the north-east derby three weeks ago, but recent reports say that he is being fitted with a protective mask and that there is a chance he can be considered for selection against Palace (presumably at the expense of Malick Thiaw, who has had a few struggles in recent games). Fabian Schar was thought to be close to a return from his serious ankle injury three months ago, but has apparently suffered from an infection in the foot which may keep him out for some more weeks. Even more worryingly for Newcastle, Bruno Guimaraes was just about ready to return from his hamstring layoff, but went down with the mumps last week - which can be a particularly debilitating virus, one that can have a lingering impact on physical fitness for several weeks afterwards; so, I'd be betting that we won't now see Bruno again until the end of the season, if at all.

Just to make things even worse for Spurs, it's been announced that Mohammed Kudus has suffered a serious setback in his rehabilitation from a hamstring injury and may now require surgery (although, when things get as bad as this at a club, you can't help but wonder if some players are exaggerating injuries to just avoid being involved in the ongoing shitstorm any more....). Mathys Tel had to come off with a knock in the last league game against Forest, and Pape Sarr picked up a shoulder injury while playing for Senegal, while first-choice keeper Guglielmo Vicario had to have surgery on a groin hernia at the start of the break and is likely to be missing for at least another week or so. On the bright side, at least the club's first-choice back-four appears to be available again.... for practically the first time this season.

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

Harry Maguire is suspended this week, after getting sent off for a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' against Bournemouth last time. Meanwhile, Brighton's Lewis Dunk and Wolves's Yerson Mosquera are starting a two-match ban for having reached the threshold of 10 yellow cards for the season. 

After this weekend, we have an amnesty on suspensions for accumulated yellow cards till the end of the season. These are the players who stand on the precipice: unsurprisingly, it is mostly the defensive midfielders who've got themselves into jeopardy with their 'taking one for the team' fouls - Caicedo, Casemiro, Bernardo Silva, Joelinton, and Wolves's Andre and Joao Gomes, as well as Bournemouth full-back Alex Jimenez and Brighton winger Diego Gomez are all just one more card away from a 2-game ban, and so will have to tread very carefully this weekend; they might indeed be 'rested' to keep them out of harm's way.

Enzo Fernandez has been suspended by Chelsea for this gameweek (and for last week's FA Cup tie against Port Vale) for imprudently mentioning his eagerness to live - and play? - in Madrid during an interview he gave over the international break. Sounds like storm-in-a-teacup stuff, and I wouldn't expect it to impact his selection or performance for the remainder of the season (unless Real or Atleti have already made approaches about buying him this summer....?).

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

I'm not betting on a De Zerbi Miracle at Spurs just yet. Neither is anyone else, it seems: the North London club are now the favourites to join Wolves and Burnley in the drop, with some bookmakers trimming the odds on them going down to as little as 13/10.

Recently, Liverpool are starting to look very nearly as toxic, and it's now looking very much as if - without a dramatic turnaround in the league (I think we can write off the chances of a comeback against PSG in the Champions League) - Arne Slot will be sacked at the end of the season.

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

Three weeks after the last batch of games, 'form' back then is scarcely relevant. Although.... Harry Wilson had another absolute banger there, and it is astonishing that fewer than 25% of FPL managers owned him then. (That might be a strong indication of how many people remain 'active' within the game!)

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (89)

 

“By three methods may we learn wisdom:

First, by reflection which is the noblest;

Second, by imitation, which is the easiest;

Third, by experience, which is the bitterest.”

Kong Qiu ('Confucius')

παθήματα μαθήματα:  'Pathemata, mathemata' - "Learning, suffering - same thing."  

(Ancient Greek proverb)

Avid readers (if there be any; traffic stats seem to suggest I have a few regular lurkers, at any rate) may have noticed that my main purpose on this blog is to try to promote the first of Confucius's paths to wisdom - while also celebrating the third, but strongly discouraging the second (which is, unfortunately, by far the most common approach among the FPL hordes...).

What's up with ANYONE??

 

I reflected yesterday on the great uncertainty surrounding Erling Haaland's prospects for the remainder of the season.

But in fact, as we go into this fraught final stretch - with a Double Gameweek coming up next week, and a big Blank Gameweek the week after that (and the chance of a further small Blank/Double as well, due to the FA Cup Final now being held before the end of the league programme) - we really have bugger-all idea what anyone's prospects are,.... because it's now very nearly three full weeks since we last saw anyone playing league football (four weeks since City and Arsenal saw league action!).

Such a long hiatus in the league programme is unprecedented - and highly undesirable. It is a uniquely weird time of year to be starting over like this.

Some teams may have reaped huge benefits from the unaccustomed bit of rest, and perhaps even more from some intensive tactical training over the last week or so. Others may have gone to seed, lost their fluency and focus as a result of the long lay-off (especially if they weren't even involved in this past week's FA Cup or European ties...).

Thus, this gameweek is, alas, just about the worst possible time to play a Wildcard.

Unfortunately, it also, this season, the more-or-less inescapable time to play the Wildcard: the final run-in getting under way, only 7 gameweeks left (and, for most people, all the bonus chips still to play in that cramped period!), and relatively big Double and Blank Gameweeks coming up in the weeks immediately after this one. Unless you hang on to it to 'smart-bomb' a late round of one of your mini-league cup competitions, there really is nothing useful you can use the Wildcard for after this week - there is no alternative.

But that's hard to do when we really don't know what we're going to get from any team this weekend: 'form' is pretty much out of the window. At the very least, we're almost sure to see a few big surprises...

And hence all of those Wildcard selections we make this week are even riskier than usual, a huge shot in the dark!

GOOD LUCK, EVERYONE!!!

What's up with Erling?

 

I like The Athletic's print content, but their video output on Youtube has often been a bit all-over-the-place. Their flagship 'The Week in Football' programme has degenerated this season into a self-indulgently podcasty ramble around half a dozen or more different topics that takes far too long,... and often says little of any real insight. Their best shows were always the more in-depth analyses from JJ Bull and Jon MacKenzie, especially when hosted by the amusing Joe Devine (who now seems to be fully occupied in doing the voiceover for their Tifo sub-channel, the one reliably entertaining bit of their output at the moment), but those seem to have become more and more rare.

However, at the start of the long break in Premier League football we've just suffered, the weekly ramble did return to something like its previous, more focused format, with a single topic - the alarming decline in Erling Haaland's goal output since December - and close analysis from Mackenzie and Alex Barker.

While the discussion does highlight how dramatic the fall-off in The Viking's effectiveness has been in the last few months, I think overall there is much to take comfort from. Haaland doesn't actually seem to have any serious underlying injury issue, or to have some problem of 'confidence' or attitude; he's still working hard for the team, getting into lots of good positions, looking monstrously hungry for goals. The problem has chiefly been that City's current style of play hasn't been suiting him so well. And that shift has largely been necessitated by a number of key injuries, particularly to the wingers. Now that Doku appears to be back to his best, and Savinho may soon be back too, and Semenyo and even Cherki have recently demonstrated that they can also be dangerous in a wider attacking role down the right side, I think we could see the service to Haaland start to pick up again.

In the FPL context, with so few premium players this year, and so few regular big producers in midfield at any price, there's really no pressure on budget at the moment. So, there's really no motive to drop Haaland to try to 'upgrade' in multiple other positions (most people already have pretty much exactly the squad they want, as well as Haaland - without having had to make any great economies). So, the only reason to drop Haaland would be because you think there are at least three other forwards with better points-prospects than him over the run-in. And, frankly, nobody else has been in consistently impressive form lately: in fact, the only forward scraping into the Top 20 points producers over the last handful of games is Beto!!! And I don't see anyone dropping Haaland for Beto....

So,.... scary and potentially disappointing as it is, I think we probably have to stick with Haaland,... and hope that he's going to assume a central role in a brave City charge for the title over this next six weeks. 

The essence of FPL is assessing the potential of players. Haaland's potential is always far higher than just about anyone else's - he is a 'generational talent', one of the greatest goalscorers the game's ever seen; and he plays for one of of the highest-performing, most consistently creative and dangerous sides in world football. His potential is enormous; but, unfortunately, for multiple, complex reasons,... he doesn't always fulfill his potential.

I still think he's worth having a bet on for the last 7 gameweeks.

It doesn't make (all that) much difference WHO you pick!

 

Now, of course, it makes some difference. But not, perhaps, as much as we might wish. We fondly imagine that Fantasy Premier League is primarily a test of how good a judge of a player we are, but... I am inclined to think that this ability often doesn't make a great deal of difference.

Of course, there are always certain players who show such strong and sustained FPL points-scoring form that they become must-have for everyone: Salah and Haaland every year (until now...), Cole Palmer two years ago, Gabriel and Antoine Semenyo and Bruno Fernandes this year.

But outside that very narrow gilded circle of players whose returns are so far outside the normal range that their value is obvious and incontrovertible to everyone, there is no restrictive 'template' of obviously best picks (that is one of the most bizarre delusions in FPL-land!): there's always a pool of at least 20 or 30, sometimes 40 or 50 or more, plausible, sensible potential picks from whom you'll build the rest of your squad. And, very often, there is little or nothing to choose between these players.

I have tried running a second team a few times - making wildly different picks from my 'main team'; and at season's end, their points totals would be uncannily close. There's usually very little to choose between me and my old college buddy, my main antagonist in the game, although we rarely have many picks in common. Most of the other people I gauge my performance against, in most years, finish within a spread of only 50 or 100 points of each other - and of me. And I rather think that most of that difference can be attributed to other factors than player selection, to other fluctuations of luck.

Raya and Pickford have pulled a little ahead of the field in the goalkeeper rankings at the moment; but there are several others not too far behind - and that chasing pack is separated by just 15 points. (And a lot of the points-spread is accounted for by some keepers having missed matches; apart from Ellborg and Benitez, who've only just come into their sides, the top eleven - including Raya and Pickford -  are separated by less than 0.5 points per game.)       

Gabriel and Timber are well out in front of the other defenders, but the best-of-the-rest, the next eight top returners in that position category, are separated by just 11 points.

Things are even tighter among the midfielders, with only 2 points separating 5th and 10th spot in the rankings. [Things might have changed a bit now. I wrote this before the Gameweek 31 matches had been played.]

You're mostly only getting players in for a run of 5-8 games at a time. And any decent player will usually manage one good haul in that time. If some of your picks do a little better than that, and some do a little worse, it usually balances out over the season as a whole - to a quite remarkable degree.

Now, some FPL managers make a lot of obviously bad picks - they stick with old favourites out of sentiment, they favour the club they support too much, they ignore players from certain other clubs because of personal enmities, or they're just not very sharp at recognising emerging form. But amongst reasonably smart and engaged managers who are making consistently sensible player selections,... it doesn't generally matter that much which particular players they pick alongside the few must-haves. 

There are probably only a few hundred thousand such managers, certainly less than a million. And there would usually be very, very little to choose between them - not much more than 100 points at most, often far,  far less - on their player returns alone. I am convinced that it is luck with all the bonuses in the game - the captaincy selection and the chips - that has a far bigger impact on points totals and rankings. I'll have rather more to say on that shortly; I fear it is too large a topic to fit nicely within this 'Adages' thread.

Do these 'good' managers, the ones who make consistently well-informed and self-aware selections, always prosper in the game, do they regularly fill out the top 1,000,000 places in the global rankings? Alas, NO. Many of them will fall outside the top million; if they've been really unlucky - with multiple injuries, perhaps - they might occasionally drop outside the top 3 or 4 million. Again, it is other factors, factors mostly of 'luck', that determine your rank finish - not your basic sagacity in understanding the game and picking good players.

The EMPTINESS goes on

 

Still nothing happening in the English Premier League till Friday. Damn, this has been a long break in the schedule!

At least we've got the first leg matches of the Champions League Quarter-Finals to distract us tomorrow. But I am missing my regular dose of domestic football.

A little bit of Zen (88)

 

"Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think."

Niels Bohr

A VOID in our lives

 

Warm-up friendlies for the World Cup are all very well, but - damn, I am already starting to miss my regular fix of proper competitive football. And we're barely half-way through this insane three-week intermission in the Premier League schedule....

So, here's another little bit of fun to distract ourselves with for a moment: Bored, a song that first achieved popularity during the opening year of the Covid pandemic, when it resonated with many people who felt their spirits worn down by being stuck indoors during the extended lockdowns.

[Yes, I am a fan of Tessa Violet! And I'm not even Russian. But I am a middle-aged heterosexual man with a fondness for smart pop music - so, I am easy prey. Although I defy anyone - of any age, gender, or sexual orientation - not to be beguiled by her in this video.]

A-spurning we will go!

 

I had thought that the England squad in the run-up to this summer's World Cup couldn't hold many - any?! - surprises. Thomas Tuchel and I seemed to be on pretty much exactly the same page in relation to the general approach and the particular selections. Heck, it had started to seem that, for once, maybe the whole country was on pretty much the same page: it looked as though the squad was essentially going to pick itself.

But where would be the fun in being the manager of England if you couldn't mess with people's heads just a little bit, stir up a bit of a kerfuffle among the punditry with a few.... surprising (baffling, irritating) choices of player??  And he's certainly done that with the current squad for the two warm-up friendlies against Uruguay and Japan over the next few days - effectively a 'long list' of 35 players, which will be whittled down into the 26 to go forward to the USA this summer. A few big names have been mercilessly spurned; while a few others have been given a slightly unexpected lifeline.

Nothing really too earth-shattering, but deserving of some brief comment, nevertheless.

And this is somewhat of a specialist topic of mine. Spurning, that is. Last month, atter being turned out of my current home with barely two-and-a-half weeks' notice by a bonkers landlady, I was left desperately scrabbling to find a new roof over my head in a matter of days. And the first four places I set my heart on... all spurned me. The nicest of them, in fact, initially accepted me; only 24 hours later was I sheepishly informed that the husband of the lady I'd spoken with had supposedly let the place to someone else behind her back on the same morning I'd gone for my viewing... With employment, it's become even worse: I have been turned down for every single job I've applied for in the last five years - must be several dozens of them now. At the end of last year, I somehow managed to get turned down for a trio of jobs in Myanmar; and, you know, it can't be easy to find folks who are willing to work in Myanmar at the moment, let alone who are able to relocate there at a moment's notice from a neighbouring country. (In fact, it's even worse than that: four quickfire spurnings for Myanmar jobs!! One of those employers actually invited me to reapply, and then blew me off again...)  And, my oh my, I've lost count of the number of women over the years who've told me something like, "Oh, I wish you'd asked me out sooner - but I've just started seeing someone else."

So,.... the spurned and I have... an affinity.

Here, then, a quick review of Herr Tuchel's latest spurnings (and non-spurnings)....

Goalkeepers

Unexpected inclusions: Aaron Ramsdale, Jason Steele

Obviously the three for the actual World Cup squad does 'pick itself' in this position: Jordan Pickford is an unassailable first choice, Dean Henderson is by some margin the 'best of the rest', and Jamie Trafford is the promising young pretender. I have no gripe with these additional two per se. In fact, I'm really pleased to see Steele getting some recognition at last (there is talk that he's being lined up to go to America as a member of the coaching staff or practice partner on the goalkeeping team, rather than a member of the playing squad); he's a player I've long admired; but, you know, he hasn't really been a regular first team starter in a dozen years or so! And Ramsdale, for me, is a nearly-not-quite kind of player: many excellent qualities, but somehow seems to lack the 'star power' to make that final step up in rank; and, given that he has only very recently - and perhaps temporarily - displaced Nick Pope as the starter at Newcastle, he's not bringing a lot of top-flight experience with him. I would have preferred to give a vote of confidence to Pope, or to give a first taste of senior squad involvement to one of the young up-and-comers like Matthew Young or James Beadle.

Unexpected spurnings:  Nich Pope

He has had a number of injury problems over the past few years. And he had made a few bad mistakes in recent games. But I suspect there's some other issue going on behind the scenes at St James's, some deeper injury issue or perhaps some kind of personal problem, because his performance level really didn't seem problematic enough to warrant dropping him - on the eve of a penultimate World Cup training camp. And Tuchel has included plenty of other players who are not current starters; so, that can't be the only reason poor Pepe didn't make the cut here. On ability and past experience, I feel Pepe deserved to remain a part of our squad - if only as a fringe selection who's never likely to get near a start (nor, with the rise of Trafford, even to make the final squad, in all probability); I fear there must be some other factor behind his exclusion.

Defenders

Unexpected inclusions: Harry Maguire, John Stones, Fikayo Tomori, Jarrell Quansah,... and Ben White!

I wouldn't dispute Maguire's inclusion on simple merit: he has been a giant of the England team for several years now; and he finally seems to be rediscovering something like his best form with Carrick's suddenly rejuvenated Manchester United. However,... I feel his time with England is past. Guehi and Konsa are now clearly, rightly, our default starting pair in central defence. And, after so many years of being the 'main man', I can't see Harry adapting to a peripheral 'cheerleader' role in the dressing room, in the manner of the extraordinarily selfless Conor Coady. Maybe it can be useful to have him involved at this training and preparation stage; and maybe it's a smart idea to keep him sweet, to keep him onboard, just in case we might need him as a starter in America because of injuries elsewhere. But I really can't see taking Maguire to the World Cup.... 

Similar qualms might apply to John Stones. But I'd be happier taking him along in the summer, because of his versatility as an all-around 'utility player', able to fill in at full-back or even as a holding midfield player, if we get hit by some awkward injuries. Moreover, I don't think he's such a 'big personality' in the dressing-room as Maguire, and after being on the sidelines so much at City in recent years, he's more likely to be able to accept a peripheral role in the squad with quiet good grace, and even perhaps with gratitude. It's just a pity that he's had so few first-team minutes this season.

It's nice to see Quansah and Tomori getting a look-in; proof that going to play on the continent, although it might remove you from the consciousness of the English sporting press and the public, need not exclude you from the England manager's thoughts (although Tomori hasn't got much of a look-in since he moved to Milan five years ago...). Quansah, in particular; I've always felt that he showed a lot of promise; and I think Slot's abrupt rejection of him may prove to have been one of his biggest blunders (along with spurning Harvey Elltiott, and pissing Mo Salah off; and buying Isak straight after buying Ekitike; and buying Frimpong and Kerkez when there was no obvious place for them in the squad or the style of play; and...); it's been great to see him blossoming since his move to Leverkusen this year. However, you suspect they might only be getting this chance because of the recent injuries to Reece James and Trevoh Chalobah; and probably neither will actually go to the World Cup. [And poor Quansah has apprently been denied his chance now, owing to a thigh-strain.]

I'm glad to see Ben White involved again at last - even if it is only after a long list of injury withdrwals. After such a long, self-imposed exile, it may be impossible for him to fully integrate himself again and regain the trust of teammates and fans. But, frankly. if Reece James isn't fit, he'd be starting for me! Diminiutive, injury-prone Livramento doesn't yet quite have the experience for the biggest stage, I don't think; Djed Spence neither; and we're short of other options in that position.

Justified spurning: Trent Alexander-Arnold

I went into some detail around 18 months ago why I felt Trent was not enough of an all-round player to fit in most teams, including the England one. Unfortunately, my view still hasn't changed. And a difficult first season at Real Madrid hasn't been the best platform to recommend himself to Tuchel. This is the decision which is going to most inflame the punditry, no doubt; but I think our manager is spot on. Not all great players have a place in the national team; they need to be a good tactical fit with the rest of the talents around them - and I don't think Trent can be that.

Unfortunate spurnings: Jarrad Branthwaite, Myles Lewis-Skelly

Branthwaite, I suppose, just hasn't had many minutes so far this season. But unless he's actually got a current injury problem, I would have included him here. He is the most promising young left-sided centre-back in the country (the best, really; since Guehi isn't naturally left-sided, has just fashioned himself a quirky niche role playing in that position off his wrong foot), and so needs to be developed as a potential starter, regular first-back up in that position. Lewis-Skelly just hasn't been given any minutes by Arteta this season; but he made such a promising start to his England career last year, I think there should be a case for keeping him involved as much as possible - even if he's doubtful for inclusion in the final squad.

Midfielders

Unexpected inclusions: Jordan Henderson, Phil Foden, Anthony Gordon

Henderson, I suppose, is still useful to have around as an elder statesman, involved for his experience and leadership presence, in this expanded, 'training camp' squad; but it would be a bit of a travesty if he went to the World Cup as well, when he clearly seems to be incapable of playing regular top-level football in closely back-to-back games any more.

I suppose I'm glad enough to see some loyalty being shown to Foden and Gordon, despite their thus-far very underwhelming seasons. However, I do worry that there is some serious underlying problem with Foden that causes Pep to keep dropping him; and, if there isn't, I fear this lack of confidence from his manager may have broken him. He has consistently failed to make an impact on the international stage for some years; and I can't see him deserving another chance now, in a World Cup, when he's obviously not likely to get near a start ahead of Palmer and Bellingham and Eze. Although I like Gordon's pace and attitude, he's had such a lacklustre season so far that he probably ought to lose out to Madueke, and even perhaps his clubmate Harvey Barnes, in the final squad - unless he finishes really hot over the remaining seven games.

Unfortunate spurnings:  Alex Scott, Rico Lewis, Lewis Miley

I'm glad, at least, to see Adam Wharton get another call-up - although I rather fear that he'll be cut from the final 26-man squad. However, I think Alex Scott has been playing more than well enough for Bournemouth to merit inclusion again as well (he acquitted himself well enough in November's squad). Miley and Lewis, I suppose, haven't been getting enough first-team football with their clubs this year; but they are such outstanding talents that I would have liked to see them included in an expanded squad like this, to encourage their development for the future. If they can find a manager who will play them regularly, they should be in contention for the 2028 Euros, both terrific young players.

Culpable omission:  Morgan Gibbs-White

OK, this is the one selection in this super-sized squad that really gets my blood boiling. There is a strong case that Gibbs-White should be the first back-up to Palmer in the No. 10 role for us - ahead of Morgan Rogers or Phil Foden. He certainly deserves to be given the chance to make that case in this squad.

Forwards

Unexpected inclusions: Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Dominic Solanke, Marcus Rashford

Solanke I can see: I like his pace, workrate, and versatility. Even though he's only just back from a long injury, and is having a torrid time with Championship-bound Spurs,... I think he is a profile of player we probably need in the squad. And I suppose it's again nice to show some loyalty to Marcus Rashford, after good service to England over a number of years. But, after a promising start at Barca, things seem to have slowed down for him rather; and he really hasn't been scoring many goals for them. And for me, I'm afraid, he's always going to fall uncomfortably between two stools: he has many of the elements of a great winger and of a great centre-forward... without actually being either one. Calvert-Lewin I just don't get; yes, he's probably having his best season ever - but it's still not quite good enough: he's inconsitent, injury-prone, and just not 'international class'.

Unfortunate spurnings: Ollie Watkins, Danny Welbeck

These two very nearly earned the 'culpable' tag as well! I think the omission of these two - in favour of the far less impressive Dominics - could prove costly to our World Cup campaign. Watkins has had a very subdued season; but I think that's been mainly down to Villa's patchy form and lack of regular service to him. He's still been working hard for the team, and looking sharp on the rare occasions when  a decent chance has presented itself. He's a better complement to Harry Kane as a back-up option than any of the other contenders, I think; and he has a very promising rapport with Morgan Rogers, which could make the pair of them a dangerous substitution option in games where we're struggling to find a breakthrough. Welbeck has had a terrible injury record through the years, and, yes, he's getting a bit long in the tooth for international football now; but he's always been an outstanding striker, and he is having one of the best seasons of his career - he certainly deserved a chance here, over the perennially flakey Calvert-Lewin... or, probably, Rashford too.

So, not a terrible squad, by any means: very solid, and overall much as expected. But there are just a few rather dodgy choices - decisions that fill me with a slight unease about what might happen when it comes to naming the final World Cup squad.

A little bit of Zen (87)

"Where is the wisdom that we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

T.S. Eliot

“Where is the insight to be found in endless statistics?”

GW

Which is not to say that there is nothing useful to be found in statistics. But you have to be smart about where you look.

Clear as MUD

 

I have long been vexed and perplexed by the lack of clarity about the definitions of key game actinos used in compiling football statistics in the modern game. FPL's own website offers no help on this at all.

Then, a little while ago, I finally turned up this page on the Stats Perform website (the parent company of Opta, the dominant player in the football stats industry now, responsible for most of the figures FPL uses to determine its points allocations). And guess what - that's really of very little help either. The supposed 'definitions' are very short, often very vague - and offer no illustrative examples of how they're applied to actual game situations.

One of the biggest problems with football statistics (one of many...) is that we don't really know exactly what they're counting most of the time. And, even worse, it appears that the stats compilers themselves don't have a very clear idea about it. This is why you should approach all statistics with extreme caution.

Evil genius??

The estimable Adam Clery quickly produced a video explaining exactly how Pep Guardiola managed to control Arsenal so thoroughly in Sunday's League Cup Final, and win the game so comfortably.

Watching that, it occurred to me that, if the great man had indeed figured out such an insuperable masterplan for thwarting his closest English rivals,.... had he not perhaps revealed it too early??  The League Cup is a nothing trophy; this kind of tactical dominance would have been far more valuable if deployed as a deadly surpriise in the crucial Premier League clash between the two clubs looming on the 19th of April. These tactics aren't likely to work so well - or at all - a second time, particularly as Arsenal have four weeks to work out a response.

But then I thought.... perhaps the wily old fox also knows how Arteta is likely to respond, and he already has a second, even more cunning masterplan worked out for that crunch game at The Etihad??

I wouldn't put it past him.

But then again, perhaps the great advantage of deploying this masterstroke now was showing everyone else how to beat Arsenal? If Arteta can't work out good solutions quickly, a lot of the games he faces in the league run-in period could suddenly be a lot more challenging than he'd anticipated.

Or perhaps...., well, perhaps Pep's major concern was not with any of this, but purely with the potential psychological impact of achieving such a dominant win over his arch-rival two months from the end of the season. Even if the manner of this victory is probably going to be unrepeatable, for City or anyone else, it will have spooked the shit out of Arsenal - and maybe that's enough. They had been starting to look dauntingly self-confident; that self-belief has now been dented.

We've always known that Pep is on a higher plane than most in his perception of the game, and his ability to mould revisions in tactics for particular games, particular opponents. But does that mental acuity also extend to the longer term, to being able to plan out a succession of matches, the course of an entire league campaign??  We may be about to find out.

Most people these days use the terms 'tactics' and 'strategy' completely interchangeably; but in the military context, there is a clear and important distinction. I recall an old college buddy of mine, who rose to quite a senior rank in the British Army, once summed it up like this: "Tactics is how you lose a battle. Strategy is how you lose a war."

Has our Pep just revealed himself to be not merely a tactical genius but a strategic one also?? And if this grand ploy truly is strategic - will it end in failure or success? Time will tell. There's still a fair bit of life in this title race.

A LONG 'vacation'

 

Good gracious, what is this??

Thanks to the odd scheduling quirk that we have an international break this week, followed by the Quarter-Finals of the FA Cup on the first weekend of April, we're now faced with nearly three weeks without any Premier League football!

Since the quarter-finals of the European competitions don't kick off until 7th/9th April (and only 5 of our 9 participating clubs are still involved there, after a disastrous 'Round of 16' in the Champions League), I imagine the 14 Premier League sides no longer in the FA Cup will be taking a nice warm weather break somewhere around the Mediterranean as soon as everyone's back from the internationals. (Spurs and Newcastle, out of Europe and the Cup, can take a proper holiday....)

I can't recall such a long interruption to the League schedule ever happening before. It's really a bit too long of a break, I fear - too disruptive of regular fitness and tactical preparation routines, likely to lead to some odd hiccups in form when the League resumes. But... time enough to worry about all of that next month!

After the relentless FPL onslaught of the last few months - often two games a week since early December, and endless injury problems as a result - it will be NICE to have a little bit of a rest from it all.

I feel like a song to celebrate this welcome 'time off'. Here's an old favourite from my childhood, Bing Crosby and the cast performing 'Busy Doing Nothing' from the charming 1949 film adaptation of 'A Connecticut Yankee At King Arthur's Court'. This upload to Youtube has combined the song with a montage of clips from classic comedy duo Laurel & Hardy.

That's better. I feel quite jolly now!

And, darn it, that chorus punchline might be the most Zen thing I've ever posted on here:

We'd like to be unhappy,

But we simply don't have the time.

Keeping oneself occupied is the secret to a contented and fulfilled life. That might be just that little bit harder for the next two-and-a-half weeks...

TOO MUCH of a bad thing?

 

My favourite Geordie football analyst, Adam Clery, dropped a new video last week, examining whether and why the Premier League is proving a very dull watch this year. (Yes, it is, but....)

Although he highlights a number of problems - injuries, fatigue, and the increased use of rotations and substitutions to try to deal with this; and widespread stalemate in the tactical landscape at the moment - he also offers the useful corrective observation that... this is not completely new. Our football has always had a lot of shit elements: 'dark arts' in running down the clock, stifling defensive tactics, dour tactical struggles resulting in sterile, low-scoring games - these have always been with us. Adam reminds us that Arsenal's last title-winning side. the celebrated 'Invincibles' of 22 years ago, while they pulled off a few thrilling wins, sometimes against their biggest rivals, well, they also ground out an awful lot of bore-draws in that long unbeaten run.

This video suggests that, although this is indeed a rather disappointing season in many ways, there's also a major issue of perspective at play - making it seem much worse than it is. These days, it's possible to see every Premier League game in full - if you have the time and the financial resources available to you. It's certainly become quite accessible for big fans to watch every minute of every one of their club's matches - an experience that in the not-too-distant past was available only to the relatively small numbers of supporters who were able to attend every single match, home and away, in person. There's also a lot more discussion and punditry available now, not only on the initial satellite and terrestrial TV coverage, but on the many analytical Youtube shows like Adam's. And then, of course, there's our modern digital environment, where reactions to matches are instantly - and endlessly - shared through social media platforms; and, alas, it is very much the essence of this media environment to fixate upon the negative more than the positive.

So,.... maybe modern football wouldn't seem so bad if we watched a bit less of it??

I'm not convinced about that. But we'll have a little chance to put that proposition to the test during the three-week hiatus in the Premier League schedule that now yawns before us.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 31

 

The disruption of four teams suffering a Blank Gameweek was the major curveball for FPL this week (and, of course, that wasn't - or shouldn't have been - at all unexpected; it should have been planned for weeks out). And there was a fair bit of fatigue evident, after a week of hugely consequential midweek games in the European competitions for 6 of the 16 sides playing this weekend.

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: 

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Manchester United have a good case that Amad Diallo had been briefly held back in the area and should have received their second penalty of the evening from referee Stuart Attwell. The oversight was compounded by the fact that Bournemouth immediately broke down the other end and won a penalty of their own (which also resulted, rightly enough, in the sending-off of Harry Maguire) to tie the score again. So, this decision turned the result of the game. To be fair, all three penalty shouts in the game were rather similar, and all kind of 50/50: a hand placed on the upper arm or shoulder of the attacker, only briefly and without much force (well, the Jimenez foul was straightforward, and extended tug on the shirt, but the other two were both brief hand-on events, which can be very hard to judge), the victim seeming to exaggerate their reaction, twistng violently off-balance and going down. If the referee happens not to have noticed the fleeting illegal contact, he might suppose that the attacker is merely 'simulating'. However, the TV pictures gave a much clearer view, so it is a mystery why VAR did not intervene here.

It really looked as if Danny Welbeck should have had a penalty too, when a stumbling Konate clearly through his arm out across the forward's midriff to prevent him reaching the ball. VAR does not seem to want to have anything to do with penalty decisions these days.

Tight/dubious offsides: Welbeck looked just off for his second goal, but it was allowed - and we never saw an SAOT picture to justify the call. We don't like to see goals ruled out on super-thin margins; but, unfortunately, the whole decision process in inspiring zero confidence at the moment.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: 

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries:  Alisson and Mo Salah were missing for Liverpool, after picking up muscle problems in the Champions League game on Tuesday. Romeo Lavia was subbed off just short of the hour (probably no-one owns him in FPL, but it's a worrying sign that Rosenior may be prone to early substitutions). Xavi Simons was left on the bench by Igor Tudor.  

Malick Thiaw was unexpectedly omitted from the starting lineup in favour of Sven Botman - but came on for the last half-hour or so; time enough to concede two goals and return a nul-pointer. That had a big impact for FPL, since he was already a fairly popular defender pick, but had more than 500,000 new managers come in for him this week as a short-term replacement for blanking players like Gabriel, Timber, O'Reilly and Guehi.

Near misses:  Igor Jesus nearly scored an own-goal early on, when an attempted back-headed clearance looped on to the crossbar. Mathys Tel let fly a dipping drive from distance that was brilliantly tipped on to the crossbar by a flying Matz Sels. In the second-half, just-returned-injury Lucas Bergvall managed to race in unmarked on to a square-ball to the back-post - but was unable to put his shot on target.

Newcastle started brightly, and Elnnga had a great chance for them in the opening minutes, blasting a powerful header only inches over the bar. A little later, a long-range curler from Chemsdine Talbi was only just finger-tipped away from the top corner by Ramsdale at full stretch, one of the saves of the weekend.

Big misses/big saves: Mathys Tel let fly a dipping drive from distance that was brilliantly tipped on to the crossbar by a flying Matz Sels. And the Forest keeper made another good stop near the end, from a strong Solanke drive from the edge of the area. But apart from that, Spurs were barely in the game: indeed, the BBC highlights made it look as though they might easily have lost 5-0 or 6-0 - they are starting to look like Dead Men Walking.

Konstantinos Mavropanos headed clear from under his own crossbar twice - to keep West Ham in the game against Villa. And a screaming 30-yard drive from Ross Barkley had to be fingertipped over the top by Mads Hermansen.

Outstanding goals: John McGinn's deft 20-yard curler was the 'Goal of the Week'; although Harry Wilson's was a close second, and we also saw very nice finishes from Danny Welbeck, Zian Flemming, and Beto.

Outstanding performances: Harry Wilson once again had a bit of a stormer.

Big mistakes: The usually dependable Lewis Dunk gifted Liverpool an equaliser with a ridiculous back-header that played in Kerkez behind him for an easy goal.

Bad luck/good luck: Hugo Ekitike had to go off after just a few minutes, apparently with a dead-leg (although it did not appear that there had been muvh if any contact made with the Brighton player; I wondered if perhaps he'd jarred ot twisted his knee in spinning away from the challenge).

FPL weirdness: I usually restrict these weekly roundups to what's happened on the pitch (and the FPL points allocations related to that), but.... this week there do seem to have been a lot of problems elsewhere - with the FPL website. I've seen numerous complaints in the last few days about Free Hit changes having failed to be acknowledged in the gameweek summary (annoying; but probably to the victims' ultimate advantage, since playing the chip this week was almost certainly a huge mistake), or once or twice about a Free Hit having apparently been shown as activated when the manager had not chosen that (seems unlikely, but.... who knows? The FPL Gnomes are endlesssly inventive in contriving new ways to screw up our beloved game....). And one of my best friends - who I suppose I must believe - insists that his weekly team selection was 'forgotten': not such a disaster as it might have been, since he'd already made the necessary transfers to ensure he had bench cover for his blanking players (and they would all be subbed in automatically, even if FPL had ignored his chosen starting order); but he'd wanted the captain's armband on Wilson rather than Palmer, so that cost him a valuable 7 points. If this was indeed a ccmmon type of glitch this week, many managers will no doubt have suffered even more heavily from it (although I would think that a majority were probably banking on Bruno Fernandes as captain, last week and this). 

I have encountered this exact glitch quite often in the past myself, a team selection being initially acknowledged, but then somehow 'erased' again at the start of the gameweek; but I haven't suffered it for some years now. I believed that it was the result of the FPL servers getting overtaxed in the last hour or so before deadline, so started avoiding last-minute team selection - seeing it as an essential precaution. (Of course, that might just be a superstition of mine. I don't suppose FPL would ever let on if this were a known problem; so there's really no way we can ever know for sure.)

I'm afraid we must accept that, in addition to all the randomness regularly inflicted on us by team coaches and the members of PGMOL, there are times when we can't even rely on the game itself to reliably record our teams for us.

Unexpected results: Liverpool losing is not really a 'surprise' any more; but Chelsea getting such a thorough spanking from Everton was a bit of a turn-up. A derby game is always tough to call; and, given Newcastle's yo-yo form this season, their tendency to be lacklustre after a big European game, and their poor record over the past decade against Sunderland, a defeat for them, even at home, was not really unexpected either; although the extent of their capitulation - after a promising start - was perhaps a bit of a surprise.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' at least includes Bruno Fernandes and Harry Wilson this time; and in a gameweek with so many forced squad changes for everyone, probably quite a lot of people would have been starting Kelleher, Welbeck, and Keane as well; although the latter was eventually edged out of the lineup by 'randoms' like Pinnock and Bijol, and it's still a pretty oddball collection overall. Moreover, these 'non-random' stars of the week were in a lot of squads anyway (especially Fernandes, Wilson, and Kelleher), so it's difficult to see how anyone will have gained much advantage from playing the Free Hit or Wildcard - unless they got very lucky with some of those less expected big returners! Thanks to a good haul for the popular captaincy pick, Bruno Fernandes, and excellent defensive returns for Everton, Brentford, Leeds, and Villa, the global average isn't nearly as bad as it might have been, but still a pretty meagre 38 points. I see from scanning the mid-sized leagues I'm in that the points distribution this week is particularly skewed: the great majority of managers are around or somewhat below the global average; and quite a lot are way down in the teens or single-digits. However, there is a very long thin tail, with some people having picked up a number of those unpredictable good hauls, just from having brought in new players fairly randomly for short-term cover in the blank gameweek; quite a few people seem to have managed something in the 50s or lower 60s, and that looks like a very good score this week; but a fortunate few somehow managed to get up into the 70s and 80s, and a handful even scraped above the 100-point threshold (though not by much...).

Of course, there is an increased likelihood of this kind of thing happening in a gameweek in which everyone is being forced to make multiple changes, but this unusually high number of completely unforeseeable good returns has made this an even more chaotic gameweek than most of us anticipated. And then, on top of all those wildly unpredictable hauls, we also seem to have seen a large number of FPL website glitches possibly robbing some people of some of their selections for the week; I don't know that there's any way to verify this, or to estimate the scale of it - but I've seen so much griping about it online, I'm fairly sure it has been occurring at a significant level this week. Even if we did know for sure how many people had been affected by problems like this, it's still difficult to quantify its impact in terms of the 'luck' factor I usually try to address in these posts - since I've thus far focused them exclusively on incidents in the game action. However, I do feel that if there has been a significant amount of FPL letting its managers down through 'losing' their team changes, that probably ought to be worth at least another 1 or 2 points added to the weekly 'Luck-o-Meter' total; but since we don't really know if it happened or not (I'll keep my eyes peeled for further reports, and possible conclusive evidence - or even an admission of fault from FPL?!). 

The large number of good returns from random players (in a week in which their ownership was likely to be - randomly! - higher than usual) probably ought to be worth a couple of extra 'Luck-o-Meter' points too; but again, since I haven't previously thought about how to quantify and incorporate this sort of factor into these weekly roundups, I'll refrain from making any adjustment for that either. Not much terrible refereeing, at least, so perhaps only a 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'. But it really feels as though, in practical terms, it ought to be a lot more - especially if there really have been a lot of screw-ups with the FPL website this week!!