Luck-o-Meter (21)

It's still difficult to discern any strong evidence of a City revival. Apart from two good finishes from Foden, they never really looked the better side at Brentford, and were often being cut open at will by the home team - and thus it was no big surprise that they gave up 2 goals inside the last 10 minutes to end up dropping points again (and might very nearly have lost all 3 points to Mbeumo's last-gasp effort).

Nico Jackson - though there's little love for him in the FPL community at the moment - had an impressive game against Bournemouth: playing in Palmer for the opener, thumping a 20-yard drive against the foot of the left-hand post, and having several more good attempts (all well saved or blocked, rather than being fluffed). But Chelsea's abysmal fortune with the referees continues: David Brooks hauling Cucurella to the ground by his hair - when he was running at full tilt! - is somehow not considered 'violent conduct'?? Is hair-pulling a 'grey area' in the interpretation guidelines?? (And VAR apparently only had one TV camera on the incident, which was at extreme range - but even so, it was pretty damn clear, and that can't be used as an excuse for 'uncertainty' about the nature of the offence.) And then Rob Jones added to insult to injury by coming up with yet another way of denying Chelsea a penalty for Jackson's being hauled to the ground by his shirt inside the box: awarding a free-kick for a separate - near-simultaneous but much less serious - offence just outside the box?! At least Reece James got the last-gasp equaliser from that kick, so justice was done on the overall result - but it was still a terrible decision. (I thought the penalty decision against Caicedo to get Bournemouth back in the game was a bit soft too: hardly any contact, and both players running into each other...)

West Ham produced... well, I hate to say the most undeserved, but certainly the most unexpected result of the Gameweek, somehow pulling off a 3-2 win against Fulham, despite being mostly fairly dreadful, and still wide open at the back. They needed an untypical stinker of a game from Leno in goal to hand them the chance, and a bit of sloppy finishing, and some poor luck (Harry Wilson and Raul Jimenez both crashed efforts against the crossbar in the first half), from Fulham to seal the narrow win, in a game the visiting side had completely dominated.

Amadou Onana was very fortunate not to be sent off for two clumsy fouls on Tuesday night. And Tielemans hauling Calvert-Lewin to the ground by his neck when waiting for a corner - the most egregious bit of wrestling at set-pieces in this match, but not the only one - was an obvious penalty, but somehow ignored by VAR. Overall, though, this one was a pretty drab affair: both sides looked like mid-table mediocrities.

Forest appeared to completely dominate Liverpool in the first half, but weren't able to capitalise on their early lead, and the visitors gradually came back into the game more and more strongly in the second half, particularly after Jota's introduction 20 minutes after the break - he immediately nicked a barely deserved equaliser in Arsenal fashion from a corner! Sels, however, was in defiant form in the Forest goal. Trent was a bit lucky to escape punishment for 'accidentally' punching a Forest player (he shouldn't have been punching the ball away either; a reckless and unnecessary gesture - I can't recall ever seeing a player do that before!), but the refereeing otherwise looked fine in this one. No surprise, really, that between two of the best defences in the league, it was a hard-fought, cagey, low-scoring game. The major head-scratching injustice in FPL terms was that Sels, despite notching 5 saves and being most people's 'Man of the Match', didn't get anywhere near earning even 1 bonus point under the game's absurd BPS ratings.

Arsenal deserved their win on the balance of play over a poor Spurs, but their crucial equalising goal (yet again from Gabriel attacking a corner!) should not have happened, since Porro had clearly played the ball out off Trossard's leg: the strongest example I think we've yet seen this season of wrong decisions other than penalties and red cards also having the potential to swing games. Spurs's new keeper, Antonin Kinsky, didn't exactly cover himself in glory; a few very shakey moments on the ball, and he really should not have let Trossard's shot get past him from that range. It was rough on Solanke to be penalised for an 'own goal'; but even rougher on Gabriel - who had done all the work for it! - to be denied the 'assist' on it. Apparently, the ball was deemed to have flicked off two Spurs players before it entered the net. I didn't see that! But so what, anyway? A player is still credited with a goal no matter how many bodies it ricochets off on its path to the net, so long as the ball was deemed to be goalbound at the instant he played it. Why should it be any different with an assist??? (In fact, the FA has stated that this season 'assists' are going to be credited if the ball reaches the place it appeared to be intended for, despite intervening deflections. And so far, we've seen usually an over-generous interpretation of this - with 'assists' being given for crosses or square balls that took huge deflections, and clearly fell to a different teammate than the one intended. There is still some inconsistency here!)

Leicester v Palace might well have been the worst game of the season so far. Even Oliver Glasner admitted they didn't really deserve to win the game on their general level of performance. On this evidence, Leicester might spare Southampton the ignominy of finishing dead last. But Palace don't look likely to drag themselves far out of the bottom-of-the-table scrap. There wasn't even enough action in the game to give the officials a chance to screw up a big decision!

The luck definitely wasn't with Wolves on their visit to Newcastle: Strand Larsen glanced an effort off the outside of one post in the first half, and had a fierce shot palmed against the face of the other late in the second; Cunha, only appearing as a second-half substitute, also had a good effort go very narrowly wide, and Dubravka was ultimately credited with a remarkable 7 saves; and I couldn't see anything wrong with the alleged 'handball' for which Santiago Bueno's late consolation goal was disallowed. Newcastle, however, were much the better side, and well worth the win - just not perhaps the clean-sheet bonuses!

Joao Pedro should have been red carded, but mysteriously got left off with a yellow, when he recklessly charged into Ipswich goalkeeper Christian Walton, shoulder-charging him in the face. And the VAR chaps once more just sat on their hands - disgraceful decision! That appears to have been the only point of interest in a fairly sterile encounter; although some online commentators mention an exceptional amount of wrestling in the box at corners, from both sides. Brighton were somewhat improved over recent flakey performances, but still hardly impressive; Ipswich disappointingly lacklustre. And the BPS was up to its funny business again, somehow concluding that Estupinan was more deserving of extra points than either of the goalscorers!

I feel embarrassed by my (rare!) good fortune in having had my captain's armband on Amad Diallo last night: precisely similar emotions, I imagine, to Ruben Amorim, who was spared an ignominious home defeat at the hands of bottom club Southampton by the youngster's late, late hattrick. Southampton had overpowered a lacklustre United for most of the game, with Dibling in particular looking very dangerous; and Andre Onana had to make a string of smart stops to keep the game within reach. However, it does look as if United should have had a penalty when Walker-Peters handled the ball in the box early on. (I've only seen stills of it, but it does look pretty egregious - arm way above the shoulder, and obviously moving towards the ball. I think there's some suggestion that he might have been off-balanced by a gentle shove in the back from Diallo - but, unless you're going to call a foul against the United player, that shouldn't make any difference. And, yet again, this appears to be a case where VAR was simply unwilling to overrule the referee, however obvious the error.)

Another pretty terrible week for the refereeing decisions: at least 3 clearcut penalties turned down, 3 players escaping deserved red cards, a dubiously disallowed goal by Wolves - and that misawarded corner-kick leading to an Arsenal goal...  Not the worst we've seen, but pretty damn bad. Diallo coming up with three goals right at the death is a rare turn-up too. And there did seem to be an above-average incidence of shots against the woodwork and high-class saves this week. But no surprise results, except perhaps for Bournemouth holding a faltering Chelsea to a draw at Stamford Bridge; oh, and of course, West Ham's out-of-nowhere, completely against the run-of-the-game win over Fulham. Hence, the 'Team of the Week' isn't wildly unexpected - although few perhaps would have bet on Martin Dubravka notching 7 saves and 2 bonus points to end up as top keeper for the week, or on Marc Guehi to pick up a goal (and a very good one at that!), or on Tyrone Mings, Ezri Konsa, and Pervis Estupinan to be so extravagantly blessed by the BPS Fairy; up front, the usual suspects all came good, with Isak, Wood, Watkins, and even Haaland getting on the scoresheet; but midfield stalwarts Salah, Mbeumo, and Palmer were edged out of the list this time by Diallo, Iwobi, Semenyo, Foden, and Mitoma (all justifiable picks; but it's pretty unlikely that anyone has more than one of them!). Overall, then, despite the dreadful VAR performance, I think this gameweek is only a weak 7 out of 10 on the Luck-o-Meter.

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