Luck-o-Meter (37)

 

The rate of injuries has slowed somewhat in recent weeks, but a greater incidence of fatigue, nerves, perhaps occasional complacency or dipping in motivation, and a preoccupation, for some, with the final rounds of the European competitions, has meant that already over the past few gameweeks we've seen more and more bizarre swings in form and unexpected results. The tail-end of the season becomes even more of a lottery than usual - especially in this penultimate gameweek, when the unfortunate circumstance of the FA Cup Final and the Europa League Final clashing with the Premier League schedule this year means that we have a mini fixture logjam around this weekend; two fixtures have been moved forward to Friday night, and two moved back to Tuesday night, spreading this batch of games out over 5 days....

Spurs and Manchester United weren't nearly as bad as expected on Friday night, and frustrated their hosts for long periods. United actually put out a full-strength team, to try to get themselves in a competitive mindset for the upcoming Europa League Final. They made some good chances, but their finishing was poor; although they were unlucky that a Maguire header that appeared to have given them the lead was ruled out for the narrowest of offsides (I really don't like to see these decisions given for a matter of centimetres - particularly when it's the upper arm!); and late in the game Amad's crisp near-post shot demanded a sharp save of Sanchez. Reece James grazed the post with a long-range effort, and Madueke and Enzo Fernandez squandered decent chances, but Chelsea were making heavy weather of it until Cucurella's header gave them a late breakthrough. At least VAR was doing its job properly for once, directing referee Craig Pawson to have another look after he'd adjudged Andre Onana to have brought down Tyrick George in the box: TV camera angles clearly showed that the keeper had fairly got a hand to the ball, and hadn't touched the forward (it was a straight-up dive, for which George should have been booked - but wasn't).

Villa were similarly unconvincing against Spurs; they had far more of the ball, but weren't doing much with it, and Spurs created some of the better chances (two spurned by a slightly rusty-looking Son); the best, an early break down the left from Odobert, squaring neatly to Tel, whose cheeky back-heel angled across the goal forced Martinez into a fine reaction save with his legs. Kinsky ultimately looked Spurs's best player, though, being credited with 5 saves in  the match, including two crucial fingertips to deny Rogers and Watkins; and Watkins might perhaps have had a penalty for the challenge on him by Ben Davies as he got that shot off - but VAR saw nothing in it. Villa eventually won comfortably, but not emphatically, with their goals coming from unexpected sources: an instinctive prod home from the edge of the six-yard box, a fine poacher's goal for centreback Ezri Konsa, and then a hopeful shot from just inside the penalty area from central defensive midfielder Kamara.

Iliman Ndiaye, who's threatened to become a major goal-threat all season but rarely fulfilled that promise, came up with two slick finishes to secure an easy win for Everton in their farewell game at the iconic Goodison Park. Southampton were dogged rather than impressive in their resistance, the defensive cohesion they'd somehow attained against City last week largely evaporating again.

West Ham v Forest proved to be the brightest game of the weekend, with both keepers needing to be at their sharpest to keep the scoreline down - Sels having to make a superb stop from an unmarked Soucek header in the opening minute. It was unfortunate for Areola that, after making some great early stops. he gave away the lead with a careless pass to the predatory Gibbs-White (yet another victim of the playing-out-from-the-back malaise). Forest increased their advantage with a somewhat fortuitous 'header' from Milenkovic helping in Elanga's free-kick (it came off the back of his neck, and he didn't appear to know much about it!). But we then suffered the farce of a 5-minute VAR delay (apparently the new offside-decision technology was malfunctioning, but that's really no excuse; we have to put a time-limit on this process) to adjudicate a possible offside by an obviously non-involved player. The irrepressible Jarrod Bowen's superb volley got West Ham back in the game with 5 minutes left. Or what should have been 5 minutes left, but thanks to the VAR cock-ups and various other delays, we ended up with a staggering amount of added-on time: West Ham won a corner in the 113th minute, and the Forest defence, perhaps distracted by the arrival of Areola in their box, allowed Fullkrug to get on the end of it with a powerful header... which Sels had to desperately parry away to cling on to the 3 points - and the mathematical chance of still qualifying for the Champions League. Sels, weirdly, was only credited with 4 saves in the match; I think I counted at least 6 in the highlights, and a number of them were so crucial - especially the ones in the opening and closing minutes! - that he should have been up near the top of the bonus points as well,... instead of nowhere to be seen??!!  (BPS is broken.)

Jamie Vardy - inevitably - found a 200th competitive goal for Leicester, in his emotional farewell at his home stadium; although it had started to look as if it might not be his day, after two promising early chances had just got away from him; but then a surging run through the middle by full-back James Justin slipped him in behind for one of his classically casual finishes. Leif Davis, back from suspension, was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet for the visitors - thundering a left-foot shot against the post early on, and then having an excellent late volley ruled out by VAR (one of those offsides that's far too close to call with the naked eye.... and thus, for me, shouldn't be called at all).

More FPL woe at Brentford, where 47%-owned Bryan Mbeumo should have come away with at least 15 points for the game, but ended up with just 5, thanks to an uncharacteristic penalty miss (Leno pulled off a fine stop, but Mbeumo had telegraphed where he was going to put it, and didn't hit it that hard: a very straight run-up like that is always a bad sign...). Overall, though, justice was probably served there, since Andersen's fleeting touch on the inside of Schade's elbow was surely not strong enough to substantially impede him, and the striker's subsequent going-to-ground was a blatant dive (yet again, extremely unsatisfying that VAR isn't willing to intervene very often to question the on-pitch official's call on things like this). Fulham then somehow nicked the win, with a 25-yard banger from Harry Wilson. Flekken again didn't exactly cover himself in glory here: he probably could have done more with all three Fulham goals, especially the first one - Raul's header was low and well-directed, but not powerful, yet somehow slipped under the keeper's dive. Also, very odd that Wissa was credited with Brentford's second goal, since the ball was surely already over the line from Norgaard's shot (the credit for that could yet be reassigned before the end of the gameweek, I suppose; if it was Wissa's, it can't have been by more than an inch or so!). Brentford, remarkably, had more than 3x as many xG as Fulham, yet still lost - largely thanks to a 'Man of the Match' performance from Bernd Leno in the Fulham goal,.... again, strangely undercounted by the BPS, which barely acknowledged his presence on the field: bizarre, and very, very wrong.

Arsenal prevailed narrowly in a close-fought match against Newcastle. The visitors failed to make The Gunners pay for a sluggish start to the game, but kept their much livelier second-half performance well-contained - apart from Rice smashing home another banger from the edge of the box. 'Man of the Match', though, was David Raya, with a string of superb saves. The big upset for FPL managers (56.5% of them, anyway!) was the last-minute omission of Alexander Isak with a groin problem. And the second biggest upset might be the half-time withdrawal of William Saliba (the second most popular defender in the game, with 30.5% ownership), apparently with a hamstring strain - that will probably keep him out of the closing weekend. Raya, officially credited with 5 saves, just scraped into the last bonus point slot, but surely deserved at least 2 extra points for his heroic performance. The BPS is very down on keepers lately.

An away trip to the south coast on a Monday night can always bring out the worst in a team, but giving the night off to two of your most crucial players of the campaign, Van Dijk and Diaz, pretty much ensures trouble, and Liverpool got plenty of that, being put under constant pressure by a lively Brighton, twice losing a lead, and then conceding a late winner five minutes from the end. Lots of other FPL frustration here, in addition to the starting selections (which we must accept are going to get a bit wayward at this time of year): a fabulous Danny Welbeck being kept off the scoresheet by three massive saves from Alisson, Szoboszlai restoring the lead on the stroke of half-time with a pinger from the edge of the box.... which might well have been a misshit cross, and mighty Mo Salah missing a sitter (Gakpo squared the ball to him at pace, and he tried to hit it first time with the inside of his left foot as it went across him; but with half the goal to aim at, you'd usually expect him to bury the chance... rather than steering it just wide!). Brighton also had a penalty shout late in the second half when the always dangerous Gruda went down under a challenge from Tsimikas; the contact was light, and the Greek full-back may just about have got a toe on the ball, but he was trying to reach it from behind the attacking player, which is asking for trouble; probably the right call from VAR, but one that could have gone either way. Hinshelwood's late winner was reinstated by VAR, after the linesman had mystifyingly ruled it offside at first - it was nowhere near! (A rare 'success' for the new 'semi-automated' technology; mostly, so far, it's just been ruling out good goals on insanely thin - and unconvincing - margins.)

After Saturday's heroics, it was inevitable that Palace would rest some players for Tuesday night's game against Wolves: Wharton and Guehi were ruled out by injuries picked up in the Cup Final, while Eze, Mateta, Mitchell, and Kamada were dropped to the bench. Nevertheless, they still managed to win fairly comfortably against a very out-of-sorts Wolves - whose magnificent form of the last three months has suddenly evaporated. Keeper Jose Sa was mysteriously omitted from the squad, and his understudy Dan Bentley didn't have a great game. And star Matheus Cunha, nearly 15%-owned in FPL, was left on the bench - amid mounting rumours that he's signed a deal to move to Manchester United over the summer (so, that's his career over, then....); he got on for a token 20-odd minutes at the end, but wasn't able to make much impact. The remarkable Ebere Eze, though, picked up yet another goal in a very brief run-out at the end; his owners - also around 15% - are no doubt a bit disappointed with just a 6-point haul from hum,.... but it's 6 points more than they had any right to expect! This game also saw goals from defenders Agbadou and Chilwell; and a brace from rarely-starts Nketiah.

Manchester City have the squad depth to be able to make multiple changes to their lineup without significantly weakening it - but rotations were not as many as might have been expected; and Kevin De Bruyne's 14% ownership will have been relieved that he was able to start again just three days after the Cup Final, and last a bit beyond the hour-mark - although he failed to register any FPL contribution, and actually missed a sitter, lashing a shot against the cross-bar when presented with an open goal by Marmoush (it did bobble a bit just as he hit it...). Marmoush had opened the scoring with a 30-yard screamer that might well be a 'Goal of the Season' contender - yet that somehow wasn't quite enough to secure him the maximum bonus points. Evanilson hit a post shortly afterwards, and the game might have developed very differently if he'd been able to level the score then. And there were two sendings-off in the game: Kovacic for pulling back Evanilson when clean-through just beyond the half-way line - a fairly clearcut 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' offence; and shortly afterwards, Lewis Cook was dismissed for a heavy challenge on Nico Gonzalez (not clear from the highlights I've seen that the tackle was bad enough for a straight red; more a clumsy shin-on-shin contact than a reckless driving-through-with-the-studs one).

The fixture rescheduling caused by the FA Cup Final and the upcoming Europa League Final added to uncertainties about selections and performance this week, exacerbating the problems of end-of-season form being generally erratic anyway. And so we ended up with a particularly weird 'Team of the Week': Ezri Konsa was the highest-scoring player, and the lineup also included James Justin, Declan Rice, Bernardo Silva, Harvey Elliott, Iliman Ndiaye, and Eddie Nketiah! But absolutely none of the most popular FPL picks.... And hence a wretchedly low 'global average' score of just 39 points.

Thus, it's looking a 7 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'; the refereeing mostly not too bad this time (apart from that very soft penalty award to Brentford), but VAR being painfully slow, and a few goals disallowed for paper-thin supposed 'offsides'. However, injuries, last-minute omissions and 'rest rotations' for some key players have contributed quite a bit to the FPL 'luck' factor this week, as have oustanding individual player performances - with a few banging goals, and even more extraordinary saves,... and a lot of goals from unexpected quarters! Moreover, the bonus point allocations have been really, really dodgy this week.

DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  Most people will have played the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip by now; and indeed, if you haven't, it might not be available to activate any more (the rules never addressed this point). I took the high road by quitting playing the game for the rest of the season when it was introduced in GW23. [I worry that, if people don't protest vociferously about it, the new chip may become a permanent feature of the game - and it will completely ruin it.]  If you didn't feel able to join me in such an emphatic gesture, I hope you at least thought about refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip.

And even if you have played the new chip this time, please do 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!).

I worry that the fight on this is only just now really beginning: we'll have to push hard for the next few weeks to try to ensure that this silly, game-distorting innovation does not become a permanent feature of FPL from next season.

#DownWithTheNewChip