Be not disheartened!

 

I pointed out a few days ago that The Game - in terms of attaining an ultimate high-ranking finish - was already over for anyone who'd had a 'bad day' on the opening Gameweek. For many of us, that got worse when Valentin Barco, who had looked to be the most promising 4.0-million-pound player this year, was sent off to Spain on loan; and even worse, when Jarrell Quansah precipitately dropped in price - making him now unsellable (there's really no-one cheaper to sell him for; and you can no longer afford anyone he was formerly the same price as...).

And then, for very nearly half of us, things got worse again yesterday when the lanky Viking picked up his first hattrick of the season (and many of that other half who'd bet on Haaland had not only made him their captain, but their Triple Captain - ugh!).

But this kind of thing always happens. The opening few weeks are particularly RANDOM; some players and teams start hot... others disastrously misfire.... others oscillate weirdly between the two poles, for no fathomable reason. Because there's so much uncertainty about which players are going to be available, which are going to be picked, who's going to be in form, and what tactics their manager is going to ask them to play this year... the whole thing is a huge LOTTERY.

There were at least 100 or so justifiable player picks going into the start of the season; and no-one could possibly know which of them were going to work out best over the opening weeks. In the last third or quarter of the season, the pool of reasonable picks will probably have shrunk to only 50 or 60, perhaps even a bit less, and it's likely that 3 or 4 or 5 players may have established themselves as unquestionable must-haves.... so, the differentiation between squads is a fair bit narrower (though it never disappears).

Also, as I touched upon in the first of my summaries of how far LUCK has affected each of the Gameweeks, there are likely to be more refereeing cock-ups early in the season (ring-rust, nerves, naivety... problems of rules interpretation or 'bad habits' that can, hopefully, be fairly quickly ironed out), which can add enormously to the randomness of results and FPL points returns.

Moreover, a lot of FPL managers are playing in a very short-sighted, short-term kind of way - either out of perverse greed and impatience, or just colossal naivety.... or, in some cases, because they're pursuing very limited objectives: some are participating in rogue leagues for side-games like pursuing a 'weekly win', no matter the cost in transfers; others, even if not formally in competition, set that as a goal for themselves; others again are just hungry to establish an early lead over their mini-league rivals. 

Managers like these were happy to blow a 'bonus chip' in the opening Gameweek! Many others opted to use their first Wildcard already in GW2! Those folks are really going to regret not having those chips available later in the season.  Even those who just played their 'Triple Captain' chip on Haaland against Ipswich, which worked out pretty nicely for them.... might come to regret the decision slightly if Mr Robot produces one or two even bigger hauls later in the season, which he probably will. And it is highly likely that some of the high-scoring midfielders (who, because the game loves them, get more points than a forward for the same attacking returns...) - Salah, Jota, Diaz, Palmer, Son, Saka; maybe Bowen or Eze or Mbeumo as well - will produce a few better hauls over the season. Haaland's 17 points on Saturday was an excellent return for the Triple Captain chip; but it almost certainly won't be the biggest of the season (maybe even for him), and if it ends up not even making the Top 5 or Top 10 hauls of the year.... 'grass is greener' remorse will assail those who are currently gloating so obnoxiously.

Over time, for most people (not everyone - but let's not bother ourselves too much about that), the operation of LUCK in this game tends to even itself out. People might start off being very lucky in the opening Gameweek; they might even be able to continue their good fortune for the next two or three weekends - but then things will start to swing against them.

The top of the global rankings are currently dominated by people who used their chips early and/or just got lucky on a couple of BIG selection guesses - this early success won't last for most of them.

TRUE MERIT only begins to assert itself in the FPL tables after 10-15 Gameweeks. Console yourselves with that, for now.