Luck-o-Meter (30)

 

It's always hard to know what's going to have happened with form and fitness and general team cohesion after a long break from Premier League football, Evening fixtures also often throw people out of their usual stride a little. And late-stage knockout games, like this recent batch of FA quarter-finals, can be particularly gruelling - mentally even more than physically; so, we can expect extreme fatigue to play a part for many teams as well. This gameweek looks like it's going to be a particularly weird one, with a few topsy-turvy results - and a slew of new injuries!

Arsenal laboured to see off a visibly weary Fulham - and would have been held, probably fairly, to a draw, if Muniz hadn't headed wide of an open goal. The BIG stroke of 'FPL Luck' here was Saka being brought on for the last 25 minutes, and coming up with the goal to make his side safe(r) in the game (with his head?! when was the last time that happened, has it ever???). And both Merino's and Muniz's goals were a bit flukey, coming from massive deflections. Perhaps even more momentous for Arsenal and FPL than the Second Coming of Saka, though, may be Gabriel's limping off in the first half with an apparent hamstring problem; that could be grim news for the 31% of managers who've been relying so far on the game's most-owned defender.

United battled hard, but yet again lacked incisiveness up front. They'll perhaps feel they deserved something from the game, after bringing several saves out of Sels and having Murillo clear a Mount effort off the line in the dying seconds; but really it was another comfortable, methodical Forest performance. They weren't at their best, tired after the marathon game and shootout at the weekend, and lacking usual mainstays Wood and Hudson-Odoi, but were still plenty good enough. And Elanga's 60-yard carry for a solo goal will probably be a contender for 'Goal of the Season'. But damn, Ola Aina - the second most-owned defender in FPL - also limped off in the first half, with a calf-muscle strain. Injuries this week are starting to look brutal.

Wolves did enough to get their win against West Ham, who had some good chances but didn't really play well. (I'm not convinced Potter was a good choice for them. But with relegation not likely to be an issue, I expect he'll be given one full season to try to prove himself.)  Again, no refereeing cock-ups in this one? Remarkable.

I've always felt Ipswich were the best (least worst?) of this year's promoted sides, and might have a chance of staying up - but they've probably left it too late now. And they needed a very below-par performance from Bournmeouth - presumably physically and emotionally depleted from the disappointment of their FA Cup quarter-final defeat on Sunday - to sneak a narrow win here. At least the refereeing seemed unobjectionable, for once. Yet more FPL woe, though, for the one-third of managers who own Justin Kluivert - and found him withdrawn on the eve of the game with a muscle problem.

Villa's 3-0 win away at Brighton was perhaps the most unlikely 'walloping'; they weren't really in the game at all until the final 20 minutes, and should have been very grateful to squeak a draw out of the encounter. Fate and the officials were clearly not favouring the home side, as Mitoma was deemed to have handled the ball before setting up Adingra (and, from the TV coverage, this appeared to be a decision that VAR had somehow taken on itself, rather than sending the ref to take another look on the monitor - WTF? Where it's that tight a call, and a goal's at stake, surely it has to be down to the referee??): for me, it was very hard to see exactly where the ball touched his arm, but it appeared to be kind of in the middle of the upper arm, and with the new more generous interpretation of where the 'sleeve-line' may be, I think that ought to be OK; this one felt as if he were being penalised for the intentionality of the contact rather than anything else. Insult was added to injury a little later when Villa were allowed to get away with one of the most blatant handballs I've seen this season (I couldn't identify the defending player running back towards his goal, though; Konsa, presumably?); definitely made a deliberate movement towards the ball, definitely hit his lower arm, definitely controlled the ball.... no way that's not a penalty. Although, to be fair, Hinshelwood was also a little fortunate not to have conceded a penalty for tripping Ramsey in the first half. All in all, a pretty awful refereeing performance in this one; Simon Atwell's had a few stinkers this season, and it might be time to take him out of the firing-line for a few weeks. The biggest surprise of all in this one, though, was that Rashford started in the No. 9 position - and didn't suck! Villa's January-window business has compensated a good deal for their lack of squad-building last summer: all three of their new boys, Rashford, Asensio, and Malen, are looking really good.

City ground out an inevitable win against woeful Leicester - without doing very much to convince anyone that they deserve to qualify for the Champions League this year. Marmoush had a lively game up front; but the only reason the week's most transferred-in player got any FPL points here was that poor Mads Hermansen, who has heretofore usually been Leicester's strongest asset, somehow fumbled the ball right at his feet to gift him a goal. Marmoush owners, therefore, should count themselves very lucky.

Brentford, strangely, didn't show up at all in the first half at Newcastle, but came on strongly in the latter part of the second. The overall result, therefore, felt just about fair; but there was a lot of questionable refereeing in this one. Damsgaard got flattened in the box by Guimaraes twice, and really both looked stone-cold penalties. The first, the Dane certainly collapsed a bit easily, but there's no question that Bruno ran into the back of him and gave him a little shove. The second, in the dying moments of added-on time, Thomas Frank was inclined to take a generous view of - an 'accidental' follow-through/ collision, after Bruno had got to the ball first; but he absolutely wiped Damsgaard out as he fell into him - that's a penalty all day long as well. The big worry here is that VAR is apparently too timid to venture any kind of opinion on many incidents of this kind now, and thus the referee's initial - often incorrect - instincts are going unchecked. (I also felt Barnes actually looked onside, just, for the first disallowed goal; but there didn't appear to be any VAR check on that??)

Like Bournemouth, Palace were clearly a bit flat after the exertions of the FA Cup at the weekend, but still looked plenty good enough to see off - an admittedly much improved of late - Southampton; but somehow, they just couldn't find the back of the net during regular time. Mateta was unfortunate not to get on the scoresheet - crashing a long-range effort off the underside of the bar after just over a minute, and later bringing an excellent low one-handed save out of Ramsdale.

David Moyes complained vociferously about Liverpool's lone goal not being disallowed for offside, but he didn't seem to have a leg to stand on. While Everton deserved more from the game, having been very unfortunate to have a good early goal from Beto ruled out for the slimmest of offsides, and then have him smash another effort against the foot of the post when through one-on-one with Kelleher; but they were also very, very lucky not to have lost Tarkowski in the opening minutes for his horrendous challenge on Macallister (won the ball, yes; but the out-of-control, two-footed follow-through was in 'leg-breaker' territory), and perhaps also Pickford in the second half (the whistle having just gone for an earlier foul shouldn't absolve him if he was culpable; but although the incident looked eerily similar to his notorious foul a few years back on Van Dijk that put the Liverpool skipper out for half a season, I think with this one that any blame might be split more evenly between him and Nunez, and it was essentially just an accidental collision - although one that would certainly have resulted in a penalty, if the ball had still been live). Perhaps the major upset here for FPL managers - apart from the (not entirely unexpected) low scoreline, and Salah recording a rare 'blank' - was the last-minute revelation that Alisson was not, contrary to initial reports, OK to play after getting a bang on the head playing for Brazil last week.

Chelsea look revitalized by the return of Nicolas Jackson (who nearly scored in the opening minute, and terrorised a ragged Spurs defence throughout), and those who offloaded Palmer in the last few weeks look likely to be soon suffering regrets. Spurs might feel they did well to stay in the game, and nearly salvaged something with a late effort from Son, blocked on the line by Sanchez; but really, they were pretty dreadful, and this was one of the most one-sided 1-0s you'll ever see. Caicedo and Sarr both had stunning strikes ruled out, one for an offside against Colwill in the build-up and one for an earlier foul; both probably correct calls, if naturally irksome to fans - and they took an inordinately long time for VAR to adjudicate.

My main gripe with the officiating this season continues to be that there seems to be no consistency or transparency about how VAR is intervening. We've reached a point where this actually feels like quite a good week for the refereeing, since there were several games that apparently lacked any controversial decisions. But we've still had a pretty egregious red card missed, 3 penalties not given, 1 goal harshly disallowed, and a bunch of very tight offside calls eliminating further goals. Almost every week, we're having more game outcomes swinging on what the referees have - wrongly - decided than on individual moments of brilliance from players; and that's not right.

A rash of injuries to popular picks could be a particularly hard blow to the many managers who've punted their Wildcard in the last week or two. I counselled that this was a severely non-ideal time to play it, for a variety of reasons, the risk of multiple injuries - particularly to players you want for the upcoming Double Gameweeks - being a major one. Now, a lot of folks are looking at red or yellow flags against Wood, Isak, Kluivert, Gabriel, White, Timber, Trippier, Alisson, Aina.... Ouch.

This gameweek was also notable for the ridiculous amount of time added on at the end of matches. Several games dragged on for 10 minutes or more after the regulation 90 were up, despite there having been no major injury hold-ups; the match at Stamford Bridge last night almost reached the quarter-hour mark! And this seems to be very largely down to protracted VAR deliberations - this has got to change.

This was another very low-scoring week in FPL, with a global average of only 44 points - and again, for the second gameweek running, with a heavy skew towards the low side of that: a few lucky souls did very well, but the great majority managed only something close to or even a little below that dismal average. There were upset defeats for Brighton and Bournemouth, and very nearly for Palace; while everyone else was held to a narrow win, and only three sides managed a clean sheet. Of the 'big names', only Isak, Mbeumo, Marmoush, and Palmer came up with anything; the 'Team of the Week' contains no-one - apart from Sels and Ait-Nouri - owned by more than a handful of managers.

I think I'll give this gameweek another 7 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