Luck-o-Meter (2)

After a fairly chaotic opening week, with far more than its fair share of refereeing howlers and inexplicable VAR screw-ups, GW2 was a much quieter affair - thank heavens.

I would say the major hiccup in 'expectability' or 'deservedness' this time around was the margin of City's victory over Ipswich. Now, Haaland fans will of course object that he's started the season in fine form, and, at home, against a promoted side, you should always fancy him to have a good chance of scoring a hattrick. Well, a chance, yes; but it was by no means a certainty. City aren't fully in their stride yet, so early in the season; they're trying to assimilate some new tactical ideas from Pep, while missing Rodri, and also, this week, Foden. And Ipswich are probably the strongest of the three promoted sides, were able to mount a very spirited resistance against Liverpool last week. So, I wouldn't have rated this one of the 4 or 5 fixtures where Haaland was likeliest to manage a hattrick this season. I would say City's expected range of goals for this one should have been 1 to 5, with the likeliest being 2 or 3; and Haaland's personal haul could have fallen from 0 to 3, with the likeliest being only 1 or 2. And he did need a very soft penalty award to get him going (more on that in a minute...). As I observed yesterday, Ipswich did a pretty good job of frustrating City for most of the 90 minutes; it was just one unfortunate 5-minute spell where they completely fell apart - mainly due to a succession of howlers by their keeper.

Because so many FPL managers had played their Triple Captain chip on Haaland this week, the impact of this succession of unfortunate and unexpected events was very much compounded. Those who took that decision were taking a wild punt - and didn't deserve to have it pay off quite this handsomely. They should be very, very grateful that the Fantasy Gods chose to smile on them this time....

But yes, that 'penalty'....  Yes, we've seen them given often enough before, as the saying has it. Davis reached out his foot to make a challenge, pulled back, but brought the foot down sharply right next to Savinho's. It looked like there was some contact. That's a risky thing for a defender to do in the box, sure. But my main gripe is with the VAR intervention here. The ref didn't give it. VAR told him to take a second look; and as I observed last week, the bar is set so high for that kind of instruction - even higher this season than last, supposedly - that it tends to carry the unfortunate import of, "Well, it's still your decision to make.... but we think you got it wrong first time."  THAT needs to change, that burdening of the referee with the heavy expectation that he ought to change his mind.  But even worse here, the incident didn't seem to be anywhere near that supposedly high threshold: the ref looked at the replays in perplexity for a long, long time - because neither of the two camera angles available gave a clear view of the incident: the 'point of contact', if indeed there was any contact at all, was concealed in one by the ball, and in the other by the defender's trailing leg. It looked as if the Ipswich man, Leif Davis, had made some sort of contact, with the edge of his boot or the side of his leg against Savinho's lower leg or foot, but you couldn't see exactly. So, whatever else this incident might have been, it manifestly was NOT a 'clear and obvious error' by the referee in the first place. My inclination - on first, and all subsequent viewings - was that there probably had been some contact, but not enough to cause the fall, too trivial to warrant a penalty.

And then the same two players were involved in a much more clearcut penalty shout up the other end a few minutes later, which the ref again waved away without a second thought. And this time - because it was City, at home - VAR didn't dare to utter a peep of protest. THAT too has got to change: the very well-known and obvious predisposition of referees to be lenient to the 'big clubs', especially in front of their own crowds.

And then, really Muric might have been awarded a foul when bundled over by Savinho in the build-up to the second goal. That would have been a bit of a soft one, and City might have felt a little aggrieved about it. But again, we've seen them given, very, very often: keepers tangling with an attacking player, going to ground easily, and getting a generous decision from the ref is an almost weekly event. Just not when it's the opposing keeper at The Etihad??  But I think, of all Muric's many egregious faults this Saturday, one of the worst may have been failing to appeal for it. He might have got something, if he'd made a bit more of a meal out of it.

Ipswich really were desperately unlucky in that game. And everyone who'd taken the very sensible decision to keep their TripleCap chip for another day were made to feel that Fate hates them.... Such is life.

We fervently hoped that would be it for the dodgy refereeing this weekend, but no, we got a couple of even more outrageous cock-ups right at the end of the Bournemouth v Newcastle game (and Bournemouth are evidently too small a club to benefit from any 'home advantage' with referees!). First, Ouattara's last-minute winner should not have been disallowed. And the decision was doubly baffling, because first of all the VAR official took the decision away from the ref, overruling him without giving him the option to review it himself; and second, it wasn't even a close call: there are some incidents like that where you can't very clearly see where a curved ball makes contact with the also somewhat curved upper arm, and the exact delineation between the acceptable and unacceptable parts of the arm are inevitably a tad vague anyway - but this wasn't one of those cases. The ball very clearly came off his shoulder; and that's allowed. You know that when even Alan Shearer acknowledges that his beloved Newcastle didn't deserve that decision, it was very, very, very WRONG.

The ref - and VAR - then added insult to injury when Joelinton, trying to delay the restart, grabbed the Bournemouth keeper around the throat from behind and threw him to the ground. That's a red card all day long. How did both officials (and the linesman, and VAR) somehow turn a blind eye to that??? WTF???

The result, or at least the scoreline, in this match, and also the Villa-Arsenal one, might also have been very different but for a couple of really outstanding saves each from Neto and Raya. Great shots, and great stops also factor in the 'luck' equation each week.

And under this heading, Eze was once again very unlucky not to get on the scoresheet, when he thumped a long-range drive against the crossbar.

The final instance of 'bad luck' I'd like to cite this week actually arises from the FPL game mechanics, rather than the on-pitch action or the officiating. It is unbelievably perverse of the game's 'Bonus Points System' not to give Cole Palmer maximum bonus points. He set up Madueke for all of his three goals. scored one himself - much the best of Chelsea's 6 - and was involved in the other two as well ('pre-assists' ought to be a recognised category of achievement: I find it particularly galling when a pass or cross or knockdown ceases to be credited as an 'assist' because of the slightest - non-decisive, irrelevant - deflection off a defender; I remember Kaoru Mitoma and Luis Diaz had a particularly bad run of losing points through this early last season... You'd think 'pre-assists' would at least get some BPS credit as a 'key pass' - but, it seems not; or not always?!). Madueke, you can have the match ball; but Palmer was clearly, head-and-shoulders above you for 'Man of the Match'.

Still, the big names all came through this week, so Madueke is the only 'unexpected' name in the 'Team of the Week' this time.

So, once again, plenty to feel baffled and aggrieved about. But things are getting slightly better....  Slow progress, but some. Let's hope it continues. Perhaps only an 8 out of 10 rather than a 9 this week....