A cruel, CRUEL game indeed

This is not me (I've quit playing, in protest at the obnoxious and pointless 'Assistant Manager' chip); it is a rival in one of my mini-leagues over the past few years, who generally seems pretty shrewd in his choices - and usually runs me pretty close!

I just noticed that he had a particularly horrific Gameweek 29, with what looks in fact like a perfectly decent squad. OK, giving the armband to Rayan Ait-Nouri was a risky punt - but not completely crazy, given how many attacking returns he picks up in games where his side dominates, and how near-certain of at least a clean sheet Wolves appeared to be in facing hopeless Southampton. Being caught out by Palmer's unexpected injury absence (in a week where the Blank Gameweek had left him without bench cover) was a misfortune shared by many. As was the failure to anticipate that Elanga and Fernandes would be the big haulers of the week (Fernandes was a stronger bet for such success; but even so, it was reasonable to conclude, with United's dreadful recent form and daunting run of fixtures ahead, that it was not worth taking a hit to bring him in for probably one week only....). Ange deciding not to start Brennan Johnson was a harsh blow on top of that. Only Arsenal coming away with a clean sheet?! Milenkovic rather than Aina picking up the attacking return for the week amongst Forest's defenders was further salting of the wounds! And having Wood, Joao Pedro, Mitoma, and Kluivert ALL fail to contribute anything - in matches their sides absolutely dominated - was, well, downright WEIRD, positively freakish. And bookings for Pedro, Mitoma, and Gabriel too??  The Fantasy Gods were having a laugh with this one....

It just goes to show: this game of ours is overwhelmingly dominated by LUCK. And the weekly twists and turns of fortune can be strange, unexpected, cruel, UNJUST. You can often swing from a wildly successful haul to a wildly unsuccessful one in consecutive weeks, with exactly the same squad. There is no accounting for it, no way to predict what's going to work out for the best.

You just have to roll with the punches, suck up this sort of punishment, and hope for something better a little further down the line. This looks like a pretty good squad to me: fairly close to what mine would have been at this point, if I'd hadn't quit playing six weeks ago. Maybe his luck will even itself out a bit over the next few weeks. (But very often... it doesn't....)