Luck-o-Meter (16)

Credit to Everton for frustraing Arsenal so effectively. Pickford played an especially crucial role (in denying those of us who'd given Saka the captain's armband for this one our expected points bonanza...), pulling off one especially smart save from Saka at the foot of his near post, and then, minutes later, cutting out a fierce square ball across the six-yard box from him that was destined to be a tap-in for Havertz. And oh my god, what was that penalty decision near the end?? Partey gets clattered by two Everton players, Mykolenko both tripping him with his extended front leg, and dangerously flattening his standing leg with the knee of his trailing leg as he dives in from recklessly far away, and then as Partey is starting to fall, Doucoure runs into the back of him - which should have been a foul in itself, even if the first challenge wasn't. Presumably, the referee and the VAR official felt that Mykolenko 'got something on the ball' - well, maybe (very, very doubtful in the initial challenge; he toe-poked it away after flattening Partey, in a separate movement, so that obviously can't count), but that's not an absolute defence if you completely take out an opponent's legs. That is one of the most obvious and unarguable penalties I've seen all season. (And I don't say that merely because my boy Saka would obviously have converted the kick, and earned 7 or 8 more points for the match, doubled.... Athough, damn, YES, that rankles.)

Credit to Fulham too, for - yet again - having the organisation and the desire to upset one of the 'big boys' (strange, though, that they're often so much less impressive against their mid-table peers...), but.... Andy Robertson should not have been sent off. And, as far as we could tell, VAR didn't even consider the referee's decision on the foul, only whether the whole passage of play might have been rendered moot by a possible offside against Antonee Robinson when the ball was initially released to him down the right flank. That was yet another of those that was decided on a ridiculously narrow margin, and the screen resolution on the still frames shared on TV just wasn't good enough to confirm a gap of an inch or two (as with so many of these calls we've seen this year, it was so close that the issue of the timing of the ball being played would be crucial; and it's highly doubtful whether the correct still frame had been chosen, or indeed whether any single frame could have been definitive). To the naked eye, he certainly looked offside; and it was impossible to see why the decision 'lines' had been drawn where they were. I strongly suspect that this one might have been swayed by an optical illusion, by a mere assumption that Virgil Van Dijk's toe was further back than it actually was - as you expect the defender's foot to be pointing towards the byline, but Virgil's foot was actually turned inwards quite a lot, so it was almost parallel to the byline. Anyhow, the decision on the foul was ridiculous: the ball was running away from Harry Wilson, he was chasing it towards the middle of the pitch, not directly towards the goal, and there was another defender in the middle who could have put in a challenge or a block if he had recovered it to have an attempt at goal himself; but the ball did break to Raul Jimenez, and the ref played an 'advantage' to allow him to try to score (and he really should have done) - so, clearly there was no question of a 'denial of a goal-scoring opportunity'. (And I'm really not sure of the rules on this any more, but doesn't an offence like that have to be 'deliberate'?? I honestly thought Robertson's 'challenge' looked accidental, as if he just ran into Wilson.)  So, yet another huge refereeing cock-up, which might well have turned the course of the game - and maybe even the championship. (Not that I have much sympathy for Liverpool: they've definitely enjoyed the 'rub of the green' so far this season, with a lot of dodgy decisions going their way; this really felt like a fair evening out of their luck.)

After a bright start to Van Nistelrooy's stewardship at Leicester, they're back to their old selves again, defending like a gaggle of old washerwomen...  It didn't help that they lost their outstanding goalkeeper Hermansen (to a groin strain, apparently) at half-time. Newcastle were somewhere near their best again, especially Anthony Gordon (another BPS travesty that he somehow missed out on any bonus points here) - although the absence of Pope will be a worry, since their form did drop off while they had Dubravka in goal last season. And although the BBC pundits were strangely criticising Bruno Guimaraes for a supposed 'dive' in the penalty area, I thought Westergaard clearly ran into the back of him - more than enough contact for a penalty.

Wolves did well to get themselves back into the game against Ipswich in the second half, but they should never have let a visiting team - particularly a fellow bottom-end struggler - get so on top at the beginning of the game. And they yet again got caught out at a set piece to throw away the hard-earned point at the death. Ugly scenes after the end of the game saw the ridiculously over-popular Ait-Nouri (still somehow at 14% ownership, despite just 4pts in 3 straight defeats prior to this match) receive a second yellow card after the final whistle for getting involved in a scuffle on the touchline (with whom? not sure!); and I suspect he might end up with more than a one-game ban for that. His teammate Cunha also piled in to some argey-bargey with one of the Ipswich staff and was lucky to escape a card - a red card. TV cameras clearly show him slapping the guy across the back of the head with his forearm, then shoving him in the face and ripping his glasses off; I think that will probably land him with a lengthy ban too. At least all of this isn't likely to be Gary O'Neill's problem much longer.

More controversy - and bad refereeing - at the City Ground in the late match. First off, we had Morgan Rogers's penalty appeal being rejected. That, I thought, was fair enough, on balance: the contact - the defender grabbing his wrist to pull him back - had started well outside the area; and Rogers should already have been penalised for grabbing handfuls of the opponent's shirt just before this. But the VAR determination of the incident on the basis that the holding 'did not affect play' was ridiculous: it clearly stopped Rogers reaching the ball. Villa fans are also probably a bit miffed - although, strangely, none of the players seemed to complain about it at the time - that Anderson had bundled over Cash to win the ball at the start of the move that produced Milenkovic's late winner. The referee was unsighted; but VAR is supposed to review potential fouls in the build-up to a goal, and conspicuously failed to do so here. That was a bit of an odd goal too, in that Martinez was perhaps a bit lucky not to have it credited against him as an 'own goal', since he caught it... and then dropped it over his goal-line. We don't like to see those taken away from the attacking player, and it was an awkward one to handle, a firm header directed into his midriff - perhaps never fully under his control as he fell backwards trying to gather it more securely; but we have sometimes seen those called an 'own goal'. Still, the away fans will probably pardon this rare bit of clumsiness from the Argentinian because he had earlier pulled off a truly remarkable instinctive save to claw a ball back from behind his goal-line. But good grief, yet another of those ridiculously tight - and unconvincing - offside decisions against Elanga to deny Chris Wood a goal! It's not just the technical shortcomings of VAR at fault here; we really need a radical rule change to make these incidents more effectively police-able - including the recognition that you simply can't make accurate determinations to a matter of inches, and shouldn't try.

Brighton, facing their 'derby' rivals, Palace, produced a strangely flat performance - and some more dreadful defending - to allow the visitors to get well on top. But for Munoz having a goal ruled out (surely correctly) for Sarr having pushed over a Brighton defender in supplying the assist for it (and what a surprising 'Man of the Match' he was!!) and Nketiah fluffing a late one-on-one,... and Guehi suffering a really unlucky ricochet to gift the home side a late consolation own-goal, this might have been a real landslde. Although Brighton did mount more pressure in the second-half, with Enciso being their main inspiration - and Henderson had to pull off a string of sharp saves to preserve the clean sheet for most of the game. Palace are finally starting to build some positive momentum, with the back three, in particular, now looking very robust. A knock for Eze could be a bit of a worry, though.

The only real excitement from the City v United clash came in the pre-match news, with Garnacho and Rasfhford being omitted from the squad (a chatter-inducing 'statement' from Amorim, though scarcely a 'surprise', as these were obviously the two players who least fitted his preferred system of play, and hence the two likeliest to be sold or loaned out next month; this development was certainly not as much of a shock as the abrupt falling-out with Dan Ashworth at the start of the week), and Ederson being suddenly restored to the City goal, apparently without a word of explanation from Pep. The game itself was a bit stale, an uninspiring clash of struggling 'mid-table' sides! United should surely have had an earlier penalty when Dias hung his leg out across Hojlund without getting anywhere near the ball; it was a weird challenge, more of an attempt to block the attacker's path than a trip; and Hojlund made it look as if 'he went down easily' - but there was definitely contact, and you can't fling your leg across a player like that and escape consequences. It didn't make any difference to the ultimate result; but a lot of FPL managers who were on Bruno this week can feel a little aggrieved that he only registered 1 goal rather than 2 (although perhaps the match's most surprising moment was him squandering a golden chance to grab the equaliser from open play when he was put clean through by a delightfully weighted reverse pass from Hojlund). Well, there was also, of course, a huge slice of luck in Gvardiol's opening goal, since DeBruyne's cross took a massive deflection (how does Kevin still get the assist for this?!) off Diallo's attempt to block it, and looped rather fortuiitously straight on to his head - even Pep looked dismayed, embarrassed rather than celebratory at getting the breakthrough this way. And then a superb late winner from Diallo!!! Lots of surprises here. And yes, there is a strong case that Walker should have been sent off in the first half: one yellow card for the petulant, violent shove on Hojlund, and another for then pretending that the Dane had headbutted him in response. It's a pity that kind of shameful play-acting can't earn a straight red; but a double-yellow here would have been quite justified.

Chelsea perhaps weren't quite at their best in the evening kick-off, but still dominated Brentford - and could have won more comfortably if Jackson hadn't muffed a sitter in the first-half. But Carvalho nearly got Brentford back in the game when he smashed a close-range effort against the underside of the crossbar. However, Chelsea should probably have had at least one penalty before that; there were a number of instances of heavy 'wrestling' going on in the Brentford box at set-pieces, one with Colwill being pushed to the floor (by Lewis-Potter, I think?) that looked a stone-cold penalty - but VAR, taking the weekend off, apparently didn't even glance at any of them. Cucurella getting himself a second yellow for an altercation with some Brentford players after the final whistle was a bitter pill for those who - like me! - have recently brought him into their squads. Palmer once again played a fantastic game, without picking up any FPL points for himself; this will no doubt precipitate another mass sell-off by 'the sheep' (I hope they will be duly punished by another huge haul from him against Everton next week!!). It was also a bit of a disappointment for many that Mbeumo was able to steal a consolation goal with a late breakaway - and so wipe out what had looked a certain Chelsea clean sheet (many managers now have Palmer and Enzo - or perhaps Madueke - and one of the defenders or Sanchez; so, that one little lapse by the Blues was a 6-point hit for them!!).

Spurs were not immediately missing their preferred central defensive pairing against largely toothless Southampton, and indeed felt able to field a 'B Team' for their visit to the south coast, with youngsters Bergvall, Gray, and particularly Djed Spence all having impressive games; and inspirational captain Son able to be taken off for a rest at half-time, with the result already safely beyond question. Southampton did rally slightly in the second half, managing to prevent any more leaks, and actually creating a few decent chances of their own through Tyler Dibling. But after this embarrassing demolition, it was no surprise that Russell Martin's departure was confirmed shortly after the game. No, the big surprise for me is that BBC's match report fan poll only ranks the outstanding James Maddison as Spurs' thirteenth best player on the night! WTF???  I wonder if some of the fanbase have turned against him, after his occasional benchings over recent weeks? He was clearly, by any conventional measure, the 'Man of the Match', scorer of two absolutely stunning goals, and involved in the creation of the others. This massive win made it a good week in FPL for Spurs fans (who often loyally hang on to the full quota of three of their players, regardless of the team's form or fixtures!). This was obviously a fixture that presented an excellent opportunity for some huge hauls; but the essence of 'Spursiness' is to constantly confound expectations, to surprisingly outplay better teams while often floundering against weaker ones. And their performances have been so flakey over the last few weeks, almost no-one other than diehard fans wanted to take a chance on their players this week - a reluctance we now regret!

A sharp performance from Lukas Fabianski in goal seems to have kept West Ham in the game at Bournemouth on Monday night (although match reports all seem to indicate slightly fewer than the '8 saves' he was credited with by FPL; and the highlights I just watched showed only 3!); however, Bournemouth's finishing was again poor, with a huge number of attempts on goal but most well off target. Apart from one neat curler from Bowen that hit the top of the crossbar, West Ham didn't generate much of an attacking threat, and their late penalty seemed unjust on the balance of play, as well as for the decision itself; the TV replays I saw did not even clearly show that the ball had touched Tyler Adams's hand; but the cross was fired at him from such close range, there wasn't much he could have done to get his hand out of the way. (And how does Wann-Bissaka earn an assist for that? That doesn't seem right, either! If a defender deliberately 'saves' a goal-bound shot, you deserve an assist for shooting, sure; but when you just play a hopeful ball into the box and it happens to hit someone's arm??) Fortunately for Bournemouth, they managed to win a free-kick a few minutes later, and Enes Unal managed to convert it from nearly 30 yards out, and bang in the middle of the goal.

Another poor week for refereeing, with the the denial of Partey's penalty one of the worst decisions of the season so far - but two or three other strong shouts ignored in other games as well; and the ridiculous sending-off of Andy Robertson changing the course of the Liverpool v Fulham game, while a couple of other red cards probably should have been shown elsewhere, but weren't; the penalty against Bournemouth probably shouldn't have been given, Forest's second goal should have been disallowed - but their earlier effort from Wood had been ruled out for a non-existent offside.....  Ugh!  Just a mess of really bad decisions.

There were some goalkeeping heroics from Martinez, Pickford, Henderson, and Fabianski - and also an almighty goalkeeping cock-up from Martinez. And some fantastic goals from Diallo, Cucurella, Maddison...

Everton's and Fulham's draws against the title front-runners, and also probably Palace's win over Brighton count as pretty major upset results this week.... and TWO post-game red cards (and a retroactive third certain for Cunha)... a very weird week. The three most fancied captains, Salah, Palmer, and Saka, all failed to produce very much. And the 'Team of the Week' was once again just ridiculous, with Ismaila Sarr becoming the expected-by-nobody 'Player of the Week', and among the rest, probably only Isak and perhaps Son featuring in more than a handful of sensible FPL selections at the moment.

Thus, I have to give Gameweek 16 another very strong 8 out of 10 on my Luck-o-Meter.