Luck-o-Meter (4)

 

I feel a superstitious hesitancy to say this, but..... the refereeing/VAR checks are perhaps slowly getting a bit better.

This, at least, is the first week of the season so far where there haven't been any egregiously bad decisions that skewed the results of games. Stephens's red card against Man Utd, and Coady's clumsy trip on Ismaila Sarr to gift Palace a penalty were both pretty uncontentious decisions. There was perhaps some doubt about Southampton's penalty, since Dalot had begun his reckless slide when both the ball and Dibling were still a little outside the penalty area - but it was an extended contact (perhaps two or three separate contacts between the players in fact), and it looked as though even the earliest part of this occurred right above the line at the side of the box, and the final, decisive element of the trip was well inside. For this one, I think it would have seemed very harsh if the penalty had not been given; and it was surely too tight a call for the VAR team to feel they had any reason to question the referee's initial award. Archer made a pig's ear of the spot-kick, so it didn't matter anyway.

And there was also the unfortunate spectacle of Anthony Taylor - usually one of the league's best referees - losing the plot rather in the Bournemouth v Chelsea game, and handing out a record-breaking 14 yellow cards... in a match that wasn't even all that physical, let alone dirty?! Aberrations like that can also have a big impact on FPL points tallies - and not just in the immediate gameweek, because many of those unluckily carded players will reach suspension thresholds earlier, perhaps miss crucial games, and so miss out on further points for us at a later date.

The only possible refereeing/VAR goof of the week, I think, was the failure to award a penalty for Max Kilman's bumbling into the back of Adama Traore. Certainly the contact was very light, and Traore did go down 'easily' (whenever I see the big guy hit the deck like that, I am reminded of the moment a few years back when Patrick Bamford was caught on camera plainly mouthing to the referee: "Oh, come on! He's built like a brick shithouse - how did I bring him down??"). But there was definitely some contact on the back of his left leg. And when an attacking player loses his balance in tbe box because of a contact on his leg from behind - that's always a penalty.  The worry here is that, yet again, the VAR team declined to do anything about the incident. In general, I think the lack of VAR interventions this year has been a great improvement on the welter of unnecessary interruptions and delays we suffered last year; but the pendulum has clearly swung too far the other way - the VAR team now seems so fearful to intervene about anything that they might as well not be there at all. We're still struggling to find an ideal balance on the use of this review facility.

Well, except for correcting the occasional 'offside' mistake, perhaps...There was a surprising amount of doubt and dismay expressed by the punditry about the offside call against Mateta's opening goal being overturned by VAR, but it looked pretty obvious to me: the defender on the near-side (Justin, I think?) was clearly a bit further back than the guys in the middle, and as he stretched out a foot to try to block Mitchell's cross, he was in effect moving the 'line' a yard or so further towards the goal than most people - including the linesman on the far side - realised it should have been. The only problem here was the 'decision photo' apparently released by the VAR team subsequently was taken from a ridiculous angle, far behind the line of play (and with deep shadows across everything!), such that you couldn't clearly see anyone's relative position in regard to the bye-line. There had been an angle, initially shown on TV highlights, which, although not completely in line with play, was close enough to give you a fairly convincing picture of Mateta's having been onside.

The unstoppable Erling Haaland continues to score for fun. I think this was his best performance of the season so far, and he was actually UN-lucky not to claim a history-making third successive hattrick: he pulled a good save out of Flekken, crashed a shot against the near post, and had another effort blocked by Collins... could easily have had 4 or 5. (I expect Arteta to bring on his best 'Frustrating Pep' gameplan and grind out a dour goalless draw next week; but after that, the lanky Viking will probably be back to sticking 2 or 3 in the net almost every week....);

Like last week, goalkeepers, on balance, came out on top, with Muric, Vicario, Johnsone, Pope, and - especially - Raya also producing some outstanding saves. And of course, it's quite a rare event to see even one penalty save, so to have two in the same week was a real freak occurrence, and a major stroke of good luck for owners of Onana or Sanchez. (Rather more so in the case of Sanchez, I would say; since we know that Onana is an outstanding shot-stopper, and was one of the top performers for 'saves' points last season. Sanchez, on the other hand, really hasn't looked very convincing in the Chelsea goal until now; and, with the flakiness of their defence so far, there's really very little reason for anyone to have had him as their starting FPL keeper.)  

Likewise, a goal by a defender is quite a rarity these days; yet this week, Gabriel, Schar, and De Ligt all got on the scoresheet - making them the major FPL differentiators of the gameweek.

The number of goals from distance this weekend was also extraordinary. Jhon Duran produced an early contender for 'Goal of the Month' - and indeed, perhaps for 'Goal of the Season' - with his 25-yard screamer. But we also saw great goals from just outside the penalty area from Harvey Barnes, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Dwight McNeil.... and even Marcus Rashford.

And there might have been even more goals this week, with an astonishing number of good efforts clattering the woodwork or whistling just wide.  Diaz, Gordon, Strand Larsen, Delap, Calvert-Lewin, and perhaps especially Marcus Tavernier - and their owners - can feel particularly hard done-by.

The disruption caused by the international break (luckily not too many injuries; but a certain amount of fatigue for several players - and a loss of momentum inevitable from having a two-week break from club training), compounded by it coming this time directly before the first main round of games in the European competitions, led to a few unexpected team selections, and a lot or early withdrawals. Pep Guardiola and Eddie Howe made double tactical switches at half-time; while Slot and a few others swapped out players just shy of the hour mark, robbing some FPL managers of precious extra points for a 'full appearance'. One of the most bizarre points quirks of the weekend was that Luis Diaz, withdrawn from play at the same time as Diogo Jota, wound up with 3 points to Jota's 1 just because he walked off the pitch slightly more slowly - a difference of 10 seconds or so in stepping over the touchline to complete the substitution resulted in three times as many points. [Mr Slot seems to have a penchant for making his first substitutions around 58 or 59 minutes; this might become a reason to avoid having too many Liverpool players....]

And we had a few unexpected results, with Liverpool in particular turning in a pretty dreadful performance; but Chelsea, Newcastle, Spurs and Brighton were also well below their best.

Looking at the 'Team of the Week', again it's one where few people will have had more than half of these players. Indeed, outside of the forward line (Haaland, Watkins, and Mateta are clearly three of the best four or five strikers available this season), and Gabriel... and maybe Dalot at the back, most of this eleven are extremely low-owned.

So, even though there wasn't much bad refereeing to mess up the points returns this week (thank heavens), there were rather a lot of exceptional events that have quite a distorting effect on FPL outcomes: outstanding goals, outstanding saves, amazing near-misses, early substitutions, missed penalties, etc., etc.  Perhaps only a 4 or 5 out of 10 on the Luck-o-Meter... rather than at least 8 for each of the opening three gameweeks. At least that's some sort of progress....