Luck-o-Meter (24)

 

Dear, oh dear - it's obviously going to be Liverpool's title this year, isn't it? I like Slot's side; but it does annoy me when I see them getting results from games which they really don't deserve, when they have to rely on everything breaking against the opponents and the referee making every single call in their favour. This gives me an uncomfortable presntiment that this is going to be a particularly atrocious week for the quality of officiating.

Nottingham Forest bounced back in style from last week's surprise defeat at Bournemouth, handing out a drubbing themselves to a lacklustre Brighton. They might easily have had a lot more than their final tally of 7, with Wood in particular missing some excellent chances early on, appearing to shy away from rather than stretch towards a fizzed ball across the goalmouth from Elanga after a quarter of an hour, and having the ball nicked off his toe by a great recovery tackle from Minteh moments later, when the goal had seemed about to be at his mercy. There were a number of other near-misses too, with Neco Williams especially unlucky to see his fierce low shot from distance scud off the outside of the post. Wood's hattrick is a hard blow to all of those who sacrificed him in FPL this week to bring in Gakpo - or Ndiaye - for the Double Gameweek. It added insult to injury for Hurzeler and his team that goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen somehow passed the ball straight to Forest substitute Jota Silva, gifting him a seventh goal at the start of added-on time.

It's hard to divine just why Brighton are so bad at the moment, but.... they're heading towards the bottom end of the table fast. To be fair, though, Brighton did have a number of good chances themselves in the first half, and perhaps the game might have developed differently if one or two of those had worked out; Welbeck was very unlucky that his 'Geoff Hurst goal' crashed off the underside of the bar and bounced back into play having only crossed 80% or 90% of the goal-line - though Sels's very slight fingertip touch on the effort was probably just enough to divert it on to the crossbar rather than going straight in (presumably one of the 6 saves he was credited with in the game). The only bothersome piece of officiating in this one was the inordinate amount of time it took to adjudicate a 'possible offside' on Wood's first goal - though he was actually well on, by nearly half a yard, which was fairly evident to the naked eye... but VAR has to go through its whole rigmarole for every decision, and it seems there was some kind of technical hold-up with 'drawing the lines' in this instance?? Oh dear. Well, Hurzeler seemed to think Brighton deserved a penalty when the back of Welbeck's head clashed with Milenkovic's face inside the box during the later part of the first-half, but he was the only person in the ground to believe that (well, apart from Sky's commentator??); it was quite obviously an accidental collision - if anything, the contact was initiated by Welbeck himself, backing into the defender. Brighton had much more of a case to object to Forest's sixth goal, when Neco Williams lashed the loose ball home from 8 yards out, after it had briefly touched both of Sangare's arms as he'd fallen on top of it. This is what I would call a 'victory for common sense', as the Forest player was clearly trying to pull his arms out of the way of the ball, and the contacts were very light and fleeting and had absolutely no material impact at all; the 'handball' was not deliberate and had no effect on the play. However, under the current rules, it plainly was a 'handball' - in the lead-up to a goal, no leeway is supposed to be allowed to such factors; so, Brighton can feel a bit aggrieved about that one. (They're probably a bit miffed about the penalty decision against Lamptey too - but you really can't wrap both of your arms around a player to try to restrict his movement prior to a corner.)  The Brighton manager got himself booked for his excessive protestations about the Welbeck clash of heads, but at least he was decent enough not to whinge about any of these incidents in his press interviews afterwards.

Bournemouth were desperately unlucky not to get at least a draw out of their home clash against League leaders Liverpool: they were much the better side for most of the match. Alisson had to make a number of sharp saves in the game, including a superb reaction stop to keep out a near-post deflection off one of his own defenders in the dying minutes. Antoine Semenyo smashed a ferocious early effort against the crossbar. Then David Brooks's superb half-volley finish that would have equalised before half-time was - after another interminable VAR delay - ruled out for Kerkez having apparently been 'offside' by about half a boot when he broke down the flank to supply the cutback (a very harsh call: one of those that is too close to adjudicate with the naked eye, and which, when done with video playback, depends inordinately on exactly which freeze-frame you choose to look at.... and how much motion-blur there is on it; I've said many times before that offside decisions should not be made on such tight margins - it's completely unrealistic to expect that they can be accurate and authoritiative, with the current state of technology available). Alexander-Arnold - who once again had a bit of a dog of a game - was very lucky to get away with stretching out his arm in an apparent attempt to control Ouattara's overhit cross midway through the second-half; but the ref and VAR apparently thought it was impossible to tell if he had played the ball off his chest or the inside of his upper arm and declined to award a penalty. Shortly afterwards, substitute Marcus Tavernier unleashed a savage curling shot against the upright.... and the recently immaculate Justin Kluivert somehow contrived to blaze wide of an open goal as he pounced on the rebound. Really, I can't readily recall a game in which so many things went against the home side, where the final result appeared so unjust.

Moreover, Liverpool should really have had two players sent off: Macallister for a wild whiff at a high ball which ended up just kicking Brooks high on the inner thigh (no, there wasn't ultimately much contact; but it was a reckless challenge, which might have endangered the oppponent, and he got nowhere near the ball; there was so little reason for the attempt that it really looked as if it might just have been a deliberate, petulant assault, and therefore well worthy of a straight red card - let alone the second yellow it should inevitably have been), and shortly afterwards the great Virgil Van Dijk, betraying how rattled he was getting by the home side's relentless attacks, committed a most uncharacteristic piece of thuggery in shoulder-charging Ouattara in the back of the head; again, for any other player that would have been an obvious straight red card, but Virgil has become so revered in our game that he gets cut a lot of slack on incidents like this (it really is impossible to see how that wasn't at least a yellow card). Liverpool's penalty for the opening goal was extremely soft too: I've looked at all the replays dozens of times, and I still can't see any clear contact by Lewis Cook on Gakpo's heels as he runs across behind him; you can, however, clearly see that Gakpo's feet tapped each other, causing him to lose balance. Now, there might have been some contact by Cook, but it must have been very, very slight, and it was not clearly visible (the only thing that makes me suspect some culpability on the Bournemouth defender's part is his lack of protest about the decision; but VAR and the referee are not supposed to take such secondary indicators into consideration); and, especially when the attacking player has clearly tripped himself up, we more often see penalty shouts of this type not given. I do not see how this reached the threshold of being a 'clear and obvious error' by the referee that VAR could feel justified in overruling; and I don't know why VAR was able to just make this decision itself, rather than referring it back to the referee for a second look - the protocols on how these decisions get made are still very unclear, seemingly inconsistent. Yes, Salah's second was a wondergoal, but.... Liverpool really didn't play well enough to deserve anything out of this game - and they needed all the decisions to go in their favour.  [An awful lot of FPL managers punted their Triple Captain chip on the Egyptian King this week. It didn't look a very sensible choice, given how tough both of Liverpool's fixtures looked; and they really didn't deserve to get this fortunate with their gamble, Super-Mo notching a massive 16-point haul in the first of his two games. However, the alternate strategy of playing Bench Boost on a bunch of Everton substitutes - my own preference this week - looks set to return far more points. And Salah, I think, is still likely to return even bigger points at least a few more times this season - possibly even in the next Gameweek, if that also turns out to be a double.]

You might have thought that Leicester's confidence might be buoyed by their win over Spurs last week; and by the return of their first-choice keeper Hermansen; and Vardy can always be dangerous, given half a chance. While Everton have shown absolutely zero awareness of the whereabouts of the opposition goal for most of this season. So, this was a game that you felt might well have gone either way, but was most likely to end in a sterile low-scoring or goalless draw. But the visitors at Goodison fell apart immediately - demoralised by Pickford's long ball over the top putting Doucoure clean in on goal after barely 10 seconds (the fourth quickest goal in Premier League history, apparently!). From then on, the home side appeared to be able to score almost at will. In fact, they might well have had even more; should, in fact, have had a penalty when another piece of dubious refereeing - and the usual cowardly refusal to intervene by VAR - denied them the decision when Westergaard clumsily clattered into Beto and sent him sprawling. [Pickford and Doucoure were two of the players I recently tipped as possiby worth acquiring for this double gameweek. Oh, and Ndiaye too! It's not often my recommendations are so swiftly and so spectacularly vindicated!]

Kieran McKenna really has the restoration of Ari Muric in goal to blame for Ipswich letting more vital points slip away from them at Portman Road, to bottom-of-the-table Southampton. This change was apparently forced by Christian Walton breaking down with a groin injury this week; but the Kosovan keeper had looked so shakey when he was starting earlier in the season that there surely must have been a strong case for giving a chance to the No. 3, Cieran Slicker. Joe Aribo's early opener, though a well-struck volley, went straight through the hapless Muric. Ipswich settled themselves well after this unwelcome setback, and it was pretty much one-way traffic towards the Southampton end thereafter - although the hosts couldn't create many clearcut chances, and were only able to convert one of those they did. Then in the closing minutes, Southampton managed to mount another attack, and Sugawara's firm shot from the edge of the area was tamely parried by Muric straight into the path of the lurking centre-forward Onuacho to hand the visitors the game.

Fulham did well to weather the early storm at Newcastle; the game could easily have been out of their reach after 20 miutes or so. But they reorganised and re-energised themselves at the break, and the home side became strangely sloppy and open in the second half, inviting the visitors to hope for redemption. If Tonali's screamer of a 30-yard half-volley had gone into the corner rather than crashing against the angle of post and bar, or if Livramento's good cross-shot hadn't been kept out by Leno making a superb save with his oustretched foot, there surely would have been no way back for Fulham. And Newcastle should really have taken the lead a second time even in that weaker second half when Willock somehow missed a sitter, taking a fresh-air shot at Isak's perfect square ball in to the near-post. They had a further chance a few minutes later, when Isak seemed to be allowed all day to size up a curling effort of his own - but then smacked it against exactly the same corner of the woodwork as Tonali had done. At least the refereeing seemed sound in this one; the sole major injustice of the game being Anthony Gordon's somehow not being credited with his assist for the first goal (yes, it deflected off a defender, but not substantially - it still made it to a teammate much as intended; we've generally seen such deflections ignored under a more generous approach to awarding 'assists' this year). Jacob Murphy might also be considered a little lucky not to have an own-goal registered against him; it wasn't clear that Raul's original shot for the equaliser had been on target until it cannoned off Murphy's legs.

It has become depressingly predictable that Villa are going to look a yard-and-a-half off-the-pace every time they have to play in the League following a midweek European game. A much improved Wolves were stoked by Bellegarde's superb early breakthrough, and after that, looked like their swift counter-attacks could cut through the visitors at will. Villa made four changes at half-time, which enabled them to assert themselves much more, but Wolves also proved able to defend staunchly. It was not until added-on time that Cunha managed to put the result beyond doubt with a swaggering culmination to his solo breakaway. However, Villa may be rightly unhappy that half-time substitute Donyell Malen's apparent equaliser was ruled out for an 'offside'  by a player who was not in any way 'interfering with play' - and it's not clear if VAR intervened to confirm that decision, or simply sat on its hands and played dumb. (Just a few minutes later, Malen had a fierce shot well parried by Sa, but the play was again stopped by the linesman's flag - again for a very narrow offside against a player who was not remotely involved in the play. What gives??)

Spurs took a valuable step forward in performance level, at long last: they still didn't look very creative or dangerous moving forwards, but played with much more energy and determination, and more cohesion at the back. Nevertheless, to say that the result flattered them would be a huge understatement: Brentford were much the better side overall, and completely dominated the second-half, but somehow just couldn't quite find a goal: Kinsky made a sharp save from Norgaard's crisp volley, the recently impeccable Wissa somehow flicked a header off the top of the bar when he had the whole goal at his mercy, and substitute Carvalho's ambitious overhead effort was scrambled to safety out of the goalmouth by Spence in the last few minutes. Roerslev's sudden departure for the Bundesliga further weakens an already very thinly-stretched defensive roster at Brentford; and having to put in second-choice keeper Valdimarsson probably further unsettled things at the back. Spurs' early breakthrough was a bizarre mix-up, with the Icelandic goalie - perhaps dazzled by the low sun - somehow blocked from getting to a fairly innocuous near-post corner by his own players, and seeing the ball deflect into the net off Janelt's back. And the clincher - a late breakaway finished off by Pape Sarr, of all people - didn't come until deep into added-on time. However, on the other side of the equation, Spurs really should have had a penalty for Collins's cheeky little shove in the back of Mikey Moore - an incident which VAR appeared to give no proper consideration to.

I worry that Amorim's constant experimentation at United is just becoming tiresome and self-harming. For this one, he was again giving Yoro a run-out in the back-three (who's still looking really a bit out of his depth at this level, and surely can't be preferred to De Ligt, unless there's some fitness issue with him we don't know about), playing Mazraoui at wing-back instead of in the back-three (where he really looks better) and putting him on the right and Dalot on the left (when, to me, they look better the other way around), dropping Fernandes back into deep midfield (obviously not his best position), and - most bizarrely - spurning both Zirkzee and Hojlund up front in favour of trying out Kobbie Mainoo as a 'false 9' (that really didn't work at all). One or two of those changes might have been worth a try while keeping the overall structure and selection as intact as possible; but introducing mutliple - non-ideal! - changes at one time was asking for trouble. If he carries on like this, I think the 'dead pool' betting on whether Amorim can survive the season will be hotting up. To be fair, this attacking set-up did have its moments: Diallo (invariably their best player these days) setting up Mainoo to drive a shot against the post early on, and efforts from Fernandes and Ugarte drawing good saves from Henderson. But United regularly looked wide open through the middle, and suffered more and more from Palace's quick attacks as the game went on; Mateta enjoyed several chances through the game, and it was no big surprise when he eventually managed to convert a couple. And Harry Maguire was perhaps just a little lucky to escape being given two yellow cards for committing two silly fouls on Mateta within a few seconds of each other - and then complaining so vociferously about being given one!

City's complete collapse in the second half at The Emirates was hardly a big surprise; I wrote a couple of weeks ago that any talk of a Pep Renaissance was premature, misguided. There were additional problems here to add to their woes: Dias missing again, Ortega having to come in for Ederson (supposedly a minor training-ground injury problem - but one naturally suspects that in fact he's the subject of transfer discussions, or has perhaps just had some kind of falling-out with Pep) probably disrupts the communication and cohesion among the back players, Stones is being rushed back into action before being fully match-sharp again... and De Bruyne was apparently only fit enough to provide a token cameo at the end, when it was too late to save the game. City had their moments: Raya had to make a couple of very sharp reaction saves in the first half from a Gvardiol header and a Savinho shot deflected between a defender's legs; Marmoush was providing some excellent service from corners (but Arsenal are rarely vulnerable from corners...); and they put together a very slick move to grab an equaliser barely 10 minutes into the second half, when Savinho found himself some space in the box, and chipped a high cross towards the far post, where Haaland had, for once, gone up against Saliba rather than Gabriel (who pretty much kept him in his pocket the whole game), and the Frenchman had - most uncharacteristically - taken a nap and allowed the big Norwegian to step in front of him, and thus be allowed a free header. Moreover, Havertz blazing wide of an open goal when he had the chance to put the Gunners two up early in the game had looked as if it might be a confidence-sapping turning point for the home side (curiously, Pep looked even more dismayed by Havertz'z blunder than Mikel!). But City's sniff of a chance to get something from the game evaporated immediately when Partey's deflected drive from outside the box took the lead back in under a minute after the Haaland goal... and then just 5 minutes later an excellent shot from teenage full-back Lewis-Skelly put the match pretty much out of reach. After that, City fell apart, and looked as if they might concede on every counter-attack - which has become a familiar story over the last three months or more. An enjoyable game (if you're not a City fan, at least); and - for once - no contentious refereeing decisions!

On Monday night, Chelsea managed to muscle their way back into 4th place in the League with an expected win over West Ham, but they made heavy weather of it, and there wasn't really a lot to take encouragement from in their performance. The victory might have been, should have been a lot more comfortable - if Madueke hadn't put his shot just beyond the far post when played in behind by Jackson early in the game, or if Areola hadn't been able to fly across his goal to fingertip Palmer's perfect curling free-kick away to safety.... or if Levi Colwill had not gifted West Ham a first-half lead by playing a square pass across the back directly into the path of a grateful Jarrod Bowen. Owners of Robert Sanchez will no doubt be gutted that Maresca has finally seen fit to drop him in favour of Filip Jorgensen (but that's been on the cards for a while, shouldn't be any big surprise; I've been predicting this change, lobbying for it, for two or three months, at least); and anyone who still owns Nicolas Jackson (I have to plead guilty on that...) might be alarmed that he was withdrawn in favour of Marc Guiu short of the hour. There was yet another VAR controversy here, when they took a huge amount of time to check the first Chelsea goal from Neto - but apparently only bothered to rule out a possible interference by the offside Guiu, and overlooked the fact that Colwill had clearly barged Bowen to the ground earlier in the build-up. And I really don't see how Palmer's winner is deemed an own-goal; the touch off Wan-Bissaka's shin as he attempted to block was almost immediate - so, it really is impossible to judge accurately what the path of the ball might otherwise have been; but damn, Palmer was surely shooting for the far post, and Palmer doesn't often miss - it is very, very harsh to deny an attacking player a goal in circumstances like this (and I hope the FA might yet revisit the decision).

'Form' is a funny thing: at the start of the season, Spurs beating Brentford wouldn't have been at all surprising, but now it very much is; while United and City getting beaten is, sadly, not at all unexpected any more. Liverpool's win over Bournemouth was undeserved. And the victories by Southampton, Wolves, and - especially - Fulham were extremely unexpected. And while wins for Forest and Everton against inferior opposition might have been predicted, the massive margins of victory clearly couldn't have been. So, this gameweek's results have really caused a lot of mayhem for FPL managers. Although by the end of the gameweek (in 10 days' time!) the 'Team of the Week' will presumably be heavily populated with Liverpool and Everton players after they've played twice (and anyone who may have a huge performance in the Chelsea v West Ham game tonight!), at the moment only Pickford, Salah, and Wood would have been among the predicted highest returners: names like Munoz, Richards, and Neco Williams, Wolves's Bellegarde, even Palace's Mateta (in what should have been a much tougher game for them) could not really have been expected to feature.

There has been an abundance of dubious refereeing this week, with other games throwing up wrongly allowed or disallowed goals, missed red cards, and at least two penalties that obviously should have been given. But, honestly, there were so many bad decisions - and instances of general 'outrageous fortune' for the home side! - in the Bournemouth game alone that I think this week merits at least a  9 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'. 

And DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  That damned new chip is in play now. So, I urge you all to quit the game in protest as soon as possible; or at least commit to refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip, and criticise and complain about it online as much as possible.

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip