Luck-o-Meter (28)

Forest v City was a predictably cagey affair. The visiting side looked much better in defence than they have recently, but toothless and unimaginative going forward - though Forest's organised and determined defence can claim a lot of the credit for that. A goalless draw was looking the likeliest result throughout; though, for me, Callum Hudson-Odoi's brilliant solo goal (with a possible 'Assist of the Season' from Morgan Gibbs-White!) claimed a narrow win that was just about deserved on the balance of play. And as Forest visibly tired over the last 25 minutes or so, they had to dig deep to survive a final wave of pressure. And maybe things would have gone differently if Nico Rodriguez's stunning early drive had sneaked in, rather than clipping the outside of the post; or if Mateo Kovacic's snap volley effort in the dying minutes hadn't corkscrewed just beyond the top right corner of the woodwork... (And it is an absolute travesty that the outstanding Ola Aina got no love at all from the BPS ratings in this one!!)

Brighton looked terribly sluggish and disjointed in the first half, and conceded the lead to a brilliant breakaway from Iwobi and Raul. But apart from that, visitors Fulham barely asserted themselves in the match, and looked very flakey in defence. The second half was one-way traffic for Brighton, and although they left it very, very late to claim the winner from the penalty spot, it seemed entirely deserved - after they'd had two earlier efforts ruled out because their young wingers, Minteh and Adringra, can't always time their runs down the flanks properly... and an incident in which Estupinan appeared to have been bundled over in the box was dismissed by VAR in oddly cursory fashion (again, that might have been the right decision; but there's no consistency about how VAR is operating, how much time it's giving to decisions, and - most crucially - how it's communicating those decisions to the on-pitch referee or to the public; and that is undermining everyone's confidence in the reliability of officiating in the EPL).

Liverpool, not unexpectedly, after their heroic exertions against PSG a few days ago, looked a bit jaded and conservative in the first half - and not having their manager in the dugout to bark instructions at them probably didn't help either. But, yet again, Arne Slot impressed with his in-game management, making three half-time changes to inject fresh legs and more aggression, and re-energizing the whole team with a stern pep talk at the interval. While it's always nice to see an underdog get a break and (briefly) threaten an upset, Southampton's opening goal was rather fortunate: to me, Alisson appeared to have been impeded by the Southampton player falling to the ground next to him - his legs got entangled around the Liverpool keeper's right calf, effectively 'tripping' him and holding him back for a fraction of a second as he struggled to recover the loose ball. In general, I feel that keepers are 'over-protected' in this sort of situation; and it would have been very hard on Southampton to rule the goal out for this; however, there was certainly a question to be answered there, and it was yet again a failing on the part of VAR that this was seemingly not even looked at. There was no question about either of the Liverpool penalties, though. But Mo Salah fans will be miffed that their man didn't claim a hattrick, as Luis Diaz squared the ball to him in the middle of the six-yard box, but it came to him awkwardly high, and he sliced the volleyed attempt well wide of the gaping net.

Ismaila Sarr's late winner seemed just about deserved, although, without their talismanic forward Mateta for the week, Palace looked mostly quite lethargic and disconnected, barely creating a chance - apart from two, remarkably similar, fluke attempts from Eze, where hopeful shots from the edge of the box were half-blocked and looped high in the air towards the far corner: the first drifting just wide, the second finger-tipped to safety by Alex Palmer. Apart from that, their biggest chance came when Palmer - mostly excellent again - smashed a clearance straight into the lurking Nketiah a few yards away, but the ball ricocheted safely wide instead of into the gaping goal. Ipswich actually had rather more of the ball, and generated nearly all the game's best moves: Henderson had to make sharp saves from Philogene, Enciso, and Delap. If they can keep on playing like this, they might yet have a slim chance of scrabbling above Wolves to save themselves from the drop; but that does look to be the only issue still in doubt in the relegation struggle this year. (On the other hand, Jacob Greaves did seem extraordinarily lucky to escape a straight red card for his tug on Sarr just before half-time: the contact was pretty minimal, but once it's been adjudged a foul.... how is it not a 'denial of a goal-scoring opportunity' when the opponent is 20 yards from goal with no other defender anywhere near him??)

Usually, Villa look dead on their feet after playing in Europe; but this time it was the home side, Brentford, who looked out-of-gas, despite not having the excuse of having played midweek. Bryan Mbeumo, majestic for so much of this season, was literally invisible on the BBC highlights, not getting namechecked, or even entering shot even once; their other attacking lynchpins Wissa and Damsgaard only just got themselves noticed, and Christian Norgaard was shuffling around like a zombie, surely carrying some sort of injury. Villa were able to completely dominate the first half, without playing well. Brentford roused themselves to make a bit more of an effort after the break, and were desperately unlucky not to get something out of the match: with Lewis-Potter smashing an effort against the foot of the post, and Schade twice having stone-cold penalty shouts ignored by the ref and the VAR (the first one, you could at least see an argument that two Villa players had collided with each other, and then one of them had fallen into the Brentford man 'by accident' as a result of this - but that shouldn't actually make any difference, when you knock a player off his feet; and the second push was absolutely clearcut). The ref just seemed to have it in for Schade, as he also refused to see an obvious foul against him which gave Villa their best chance of the match with a late breakaway for Watkins, although he then completely muffed his attempt to chip the keeper. Watkins's - and Villa's - luck was a bit of a mixed bag in this one: his opening - ultimately only - goal in the match was a bit of a fluke, skidding off Collins's shin and straight through Flekken's legs, where it should have been quite easily saved on any other trajectory; but then less than a minute later, his flying breakaway to set up Morgan Rogers with a second (a much better move, and a 'goal' that would have been more worthy of deciding the points) was ruled offside by a toe or a kneecap - 'correct', but not the kind of decision we like to see given. And then perhaps Nathan Collins was lucky to escape a straight red card for his wild two-footed challenge in the dying moments of the game; he did get something of the ball and not too much of the man, but, even so, 'scissoring' a player's standing leg, from behind, is not good - and if the ref had pulled out the red card, no-one could have had much complaint about it.

Wolves and Everton were two more teams far below their best yesterday. Everton had most of the ball in the first half, but didn't manufacture many chances. In the second, both sides roused themselves to produce more of a tit-for-tat ding-dong struggle, but still without many high-quality opportunities. Harrison's opener needed a double deflection off the blocking defenders to get beyond Sa, and Pickford will probably feel disappointed that he wasn't able to fall on Munetsi's fairly gentle side-foot finish (although it was a lovely assist from Bellegarde that played him in behind). The recently infallible Beto failing to  convert two good chances in the game, one in each half, is perhaps the biggest surprise - and FPL disappointment! - in a fairly drab encounter.

Cole Palmer 'missed' a penalty??!!  With his record from the spot so far, that's probably worth 2 of my 'luck' points on its own (these in the negative direction, for the 57% or so of FPL managers that owned Cole)! To be fair, it was hardly a 'miss': he hit it cleanly, firm and low - just not as close to the post as he usually does, and the keeper happened to guess right and get down very smartly to it to pull off an excellent save. Although... whenever a keeper gets across that quickly to a pen, you have to wonder if he actually moved too early. And my initial impression here was that Hermansen moved way early; and on the replays, it looked as if he had both feet clearly in the air when Palmer struck the ball. This is yet another instance when VAR should certainly have taken a long hard look at the incident, but we were not informed that they'd given the matter any thought at all. And good grief, poor Palmer had already had a pretty clearcut penalty somehow denied in the opening minutes. Maybe he went down a bit too dramatically, but the defender plainly clipped him from behind, and in fact drove his knee into the back of Palmer's thigh, which is apt to cause a dead-leg. Enzo had another penalty shout in the second-half as well, which again didn't seem to really be considered by the VAR boys: the non-argument here was apparently that he'd tripped himself and was already falling before the contact, but how is that relevant?  The defender flung a leg out and clipped his shin - penalty! It is utterly ridiculous the number of strong - or often downright undeniable - penalties that Chelsea are not being awarded this season.

After a weekend of incredibly drab, listless games, Spurs v Bournemouth was finally a burst of excitement. It is baffling how Spurs somehow salvaged a point from a game in which they were so comprehensively outclassed: Bournemouth hit a post, brought a string of agile saves out of Vicario, and had a superb breakaway goal ruled out - correctly, but rather ponderously - for offside: their 2-0 advantage probably should have been at least twice that before.... Pape Sarr produced a worldie from distance out of nothing, and then Son won a rather soft penalty from Kepa's challenge late in the game. Yes, the goalie did make some contact; but it was very, very slight, and he was trying to pull out of it, while the Korean was obviously looking to hang his legs into the sliding keeper's torso... and the ball was long gone; Son's scoring chance had evaporated, and he was only thinking about the penalty. It was certainly a justifiable decision, but.... if the referee had not given it, I don't see how VAR could have overruled him; it was the kind of call we regularly see going either way.

The Manchester United v Arsenal clash was also actually quite a blast - though perhaps more for the subtle tactical battle than end-to-end thrills. The main points of controversy were Anthony Taylor forcing the Arsenal wall a long way back for the free-kick from which Bruno scored the opener (you expect there to be a few percent plus or minus in these things, but this error was obvious to the naked eye; even with the Arsenal players furtively shuffling a bit over the foam-spray line, there were still a whopping 12% or so further back than they should have been); however, I think most of the blame is still on Raya, who (despite being admittedly unsighted by some clever shenanigans in front of him) was always way too far over in his starting position, and (never mind that he only saw it very late) way too slow in trying to get across (he did make some fantastic saves later in the game, though, really kept Arsenal in the match; again, it is a travesty that the BPS didn't give him more recognition); Bruno hit it pretty sweetly, but it was nowhere near the top corner - really should have been kept out. The other headscratcher moment was United's young debutant defender Ayden Heaven getting away with a handball claim: yes, the ball flew from head to hand quite quickly, but.... not with power; and it was his own header, cushioning the ball downwards in front of him; and he did somehow manage to touch the ball THREE TIMES with his lower arms, with the end result that he brought the ball nicely under control at his feet. These calls are always going to be very subjective, but that was a penalty all day long for me.

The Monday night game at West Ham ended up being a nail-biter; despite visiting Newcastle having pretty much dominated (apart from that bizarre moment when Soucek slashed one over the bar in the opening minute), they weren't able to convert their superiority into goals - mainly thanks to a very sharp display from Areola (who was somehow only credited with 3 saves, and didn't manage even 1 bonus point - WTF??). There was a slight controversy aronnd the Guimaraes goal, with West Ham fans feeling that Kilman had been pushed to the floor by Isak - but the contact was extremely minimal, and Kilman looked to be guilty of making a meal of it to try to con the ref. But yes, again, we've seen decisions like this given.

With two or three penalties and (arguably) a couple of sendings-off not given on Saturday, that was already looking a bit of a rocky week for VAR. So, I provisionally rated this gameweek a 5 out of 10. But goddamn, after a Palmer penalty 'miss' (and two other good penalty shouts for Chelsea turned down; and one for Arsenal...), I think this is up to another 9 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'. Really, you only have to look at how silly the 'Team of the Week' is, with Salah being the only member who's owned by more than about 2% of FPL managers.

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