Luck-o-Meter (26)

 

Well, Friday night's weekend-opener went much as expected, with Brentford eventually coming out comfortable winners against doomed Leicester. The visitors might well have had even more goals, with a few near misses, a header against the post, another kept out by a spectacular flying save from the defiant Hermansen, and Kevin Schade blazing the best chance of the game wide. But Leicester weren't utterly hopeless: they do seem to be developing a bit more defensive cohesion and determination (alas, too late), and I thought Faes had a pretty good game here. In fact, Vardy gave Brentford a few scares, particularly with one early breakaway which might have given his side the lead - only to be thwarted by excellent tracking from Pinnock and Collins and a solid block from Flekken. As far as one could see from brief online highlights, there were no refereeing screw-ups in this one. Thank the lord! Of course, that can't last long.....

"They think it's all over...." for Arsenal. And it probably is, as far as the title goes, with all three points dropped to Graham Potter's West Ham, just as Liverpool had been starting to show signs of a 'wobble'. They were desperately flat and unimaginative in this one, rarely carving out any sort of chance against the visitors' packed defence, but repeatedly looking vulnerable to their quick counter-attacks (Bowen might well have had a couple more). It has been 'fashionable' for years to deride Aaron Wan-Bissaka's qualities as an attacking full-back, but over the past couple of months he has started to look like a significant threat. Arsenal fans probably feel a bit hard done-by about substitute Lewis-Skelly's quick sending-off: a trip on the half-way line isn't usually a 'denial of a goal-scoring chance' - but, with all outfield players in the opposition half, and David Raya 40 yards out of his goal, it is. It didn't really make any difference, as Arsenal actually rallied themselves to make a last-ditch effort in the closing phase of the game - and Gabriel and Ben White both spurned good chances to nick a draw their side hadn't really deserved.

Bournemouth may feel that Zabarnyi's sending-off after 30 minutes took the game away from them, but, to be frank, they hadn't looked at the races prior to that. It was perhaps inevitable that they'd run out of steam at some point after their recent run of superb form and just have an 'off day', and this was certainly that. The Zabarnyi decision was very harsh, though: his foot rolled over the top of the ball, and thus caught Ait-Nouri above the ankle; but there was no force in the contact, and it was obviously a pure accident rather than a reckless or malicious challenge. The referee had initially considered it only a yellow-card offence (barely even that!), but VAR once more saw fit to intervene (as with the penalty controversy at Goodison, this was far from a 'clear and obvious error' in the initial on-pitch decision; and, although we weren't told this time what Stuart Attwell's words from the VAR room were, we must suspect that his comments were highly prejudicial to the outcome; and even if they weren't, the way VAR is operating at the moment, the mere fact of the referee being directed to take a second look is massively prejudicial: we're almost never seeing a ref have the courage to stand by his original call in such an instance.)

Everton are left ruing the fact that they couldn't make more of their easy dominance in the first half, when they could have gone 4 or 5 goals ahead of an utterly ineffectual Manchester United. The visitors, I suppose, deserve some credit for dragging themselves back into the game, although both of the goals came somewhat out of nowhere (and both, arguably, were somewhat Pickford's fault - in that he was caught needlessly moving in the wrong direction, leaving himself off-balance and unable to make any response to shots that should have been fairly comfortably saveable for him). The VAR official Matt Donohue (one of the least experienced EPL referees, having only made his debut at the very end of last season) had a spectacularly awful game: first, taking three-and-a-half minutes to attempt to adjudicate if there were any fouls or offsides in the penalty-area melee preceding Beto's opening goal (ultimately, it seemed to hinge on whether Lindstrom might have got a slight touch to help the ball on to his forward; but it should have been immediately evident that the TV pictures simply weren't sharp enough to give any definitive answer on that; and it was surely irrelevant, as it appeared to me that Beto would have been still onside anyway; we really need to impose a time-limit on VAR deliberations - if they can't produce a verdict in under 60 seconds, they should just give up; we can't have matches being held up for minutes on end like this), and then - according to the information relayed by the Sky commentator - prejudicing Andy Madley into reversing his penalty decision against Harry Maguire in the closing minutes, by apparently instructing him that the only issue to consider was whether Maguire's tug with his left hand was sufficient to "make Young go down as he did." Yes, the veteran full-back certainly did make a meal of the incident, and his rather over-emphatic dive ultimately cost him; but an attacking player making a meal of something is not supposed to be an issue in the referee's decision: if there was unfair contact, it's a penalty - however elaborately the victim jumps to the ground. In fact, there were multiple errors in how this review was handled: the supposed 'clear and obvious error' threshold for a VAR intervention was simply not met; Donohue's instructions, as well as being flagrantly prejudicial (we really need to get some lawyers involved in redrafting the game's Laws and the officiating guidelines), ignored the fact that Young was in fact the possible victim of multiple fouls by two players (a prolonged haul on his shirt by De Ligt, a possible shorter shirt-pluck thereafter by De Ligt and/or Maguire, the Maguire tug on his hip, and possibly some contact on his trailing leg by Maguire too as he started to go down); and then Madley was only shown one view of the incident on the pitchside monitor, a view which obscured the shirt-tugging which had been the more unequivocal offence. Just a complete clusterfuck.

Fulham's flakey form of recent months continues: the brilliance of last week's performance against Forest had utterly evaporated. Marco Silva did not endear himself to the FPL faithful by pulling Smith Rowe and Berge shy of the hour. (OK, nobody owns those players; but it's the principle, Marco.)  And Mateta was denied a fantastic goal (from an outrageous back-heel assist by an exuberant Eze) for another of those offsides that is too tight for any sensible decision to be made on it, other than - as in the good old days - giving the attacking team 'the benefit of the doubt'. (And this was another occasion when the VAR team didn't seem to be able to draw their magic 'lines' on the screen; or were not willing to share them with the public, anyway.)

Spurs might finally be on their way back, with Son, Kulusevski, and the just-returned-from-injury Johnson and Udogie all looking sharp again. Ipswich gave them some early scares, particularly through Delap, briefly thought they'd got an equaliser just before half-time (Woolfenden's effort rightly ruled out for offside), and they were still just about in the game... until Djed Spence's deflected shot put Spurs two-up again with just over 12 minutes left. But alas, Ipswich's defence is still absolutely dreadful; and relegation is now looking fairly inevitable.

A predictably straightfoward win too for Brighton at Southampton: indeed, the margin might have been even greater - if Minteh had not lost control of the ball after leaving goalkeeper and defender on the floor to present himself with an open goal!

Villa got very lucky against Chelsea: it was one-way traffic from the visitors, but they just couldn't convert their chances. (Playing Nkunku on the left to replace the out-of-favour Sancho, and putting Neto up front, seemed like an eccentric tactical choice - but it looks as though it could work out OK.) Villa only started getting into the game in the last 25 minutes or so, energised by a lively Marcus Rashford (pity his fitness doesn't seem to be up to playing more than half a game as yet.....). I feel a bit embarrassed about having tipped two-goal hero Marco Asensio as a possible acquisition a couple of days ago: he really didn't do much in this game, and was incredibly fortunate to get a two-yard tap-in,.... and then have his hopeful but fairly innocuous volley fumbled over the line by a hapless Jorgensen in the final seconds of regular time. To be fair, though, Villa should clearly have had a penalty for Cucurella's extended hauling on Bogarde's arm at a set-piece.

Dear, oh dear, what was going on at St James's Park? Talk about a game of two halves! Despite uncharacteristic howlers from Livramento and Pope combining to gift visitors Forest an early lead, Newcastle remained impressively unfazed, and soon began turning the screw on their opponents; by the end of the first half, a cricket score in their favour was really starting to look possible. But in the second they almost immediately began looking tired, tentative, and anxious, and Forest were soon dominating as emphatically they had done earlier - one of the most bizarre turnarounds I can remember seeing in a very long time. A very entertaining game for the spectator, but one that must have both managers chewing the carpet in frustration. And no refereeing clangers in this one? Hurrah.

City suffered one of the most overwhelming 2-0 defeats I can remember. Amazingly, they enjoyed the bulk of the possession, but could do nothing with it; Doku on the left could turn a hapless Alexander-Arnold inside-out at will, but was never able to capitalise on this huge defensive weakness in the visitors. As I'd expected, Nico Gonzalez is strugging to fill Rodri's boots, and Marmoush without Haaland is fairly ineffectual (he was well offside for his apparent equaliser); it was scarcely evident that DeBruyne or Foden were on the field. Liverpool were unfortunate to have a third from Curits Jones chalked off for a very, very narrow - but probably correct - offside against supplier, Dominik Szoboszlai; and they were cutting City apart so easily through the middle that they really looked as if they might be able to cruise to a 4-0 or 5-0 win. I suppose some credit is due to the makeshift City defence, who actually did a pretty good job of keeping them at bay; and Ederson made one absolutely oustanding save from a fierce curling drive by Luis Diaz. Khusanov, in particular, should grow in confidence as a result of this performance: his superb last-ditch sliding block on Szoboszlai saved his team from conceding a third late in the game. But City, on this form, could struggle to secure any sort of European qualification this season.

Mr Donohue's dreadful VAR performance at Everton might almost have been worth 5 or 6 of my 'luck' points on its own. Saturday's games also saw an unfair sending-off for Zabarnyi, a missed penalty call against Cucurella, and a harshly (I think, wrongly) disallowed goal for Mateta; the two big games on Sunday, though, were pretty much error-free - so, overall this was one of the better weeks we've had for the officiating. And the results mostly went with the form book: although the ridiculous ding-dong between Newcastle and Forest kept everybody guessing until the end, West Ham and Wolves pulled off major upsets against Arsenal and Bournemouth, while Villa's narrow win over Chelsea and United's fightback draw against Everton felt scarcely deserved, very much against the run of play. The 'Team of the Week' wasn't all that eccentric this time either, with 'usual suspects' Salah, Mbeumo, and Isak all producing handily; however, few would have expected Jose Sa to keep a clean sheet and be the top keeper for the week; and Wan-Bissake, Asensio, Johnson, Szoboszlai and Joao Pedro were also somewhat unexpected entries into the list. But no particularly outrageous pieces of individual skill or wild swings of fortune this week, nor even much suspect refereeing - outside of that Everton game - so, I think this week ultimately only merits a 6 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  The dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip is in play now. I took the high road by quitting playing the game for the rest of the season. [I worry that, if people don't do this, the new chip may become a permanent feature of the game - and it will completely ruin it.]  If you don't feel like joining me in such an emphatic gesture, please at least think about refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip.

Please also criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip