Luck-o-Meter - 25-26 Gameweek 1

The new season got off to a fairly smooth start, with Anthony Taylor having a mostly pretty solid game at Anfield on Friday night. Well, apart from the bizarre incident where Marcos Senesi committed a very obvious and deliberate handball to interrupt a Liverpool breakaway just inside his own half, which surely should have been a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' red card (and quite early in the game), but both Taylor and VAR somehow seemed to feel that it was 'accidental'. There were no big surprises in the starting selections. Arne Slot, however, has earned the enmity of large numbers of FPL enthusiasts by committing the cardinal sin of replacing both of his exciting new wing-backs, Frimpong and Kerkez, just shy of the hour - not only robbing them of full appearance points, but also of the clean-sheet bonus they were sitting on at that point. Boo!! If there is any danger of this being a regular tactic, we may immediately have to rethink whether we want to take a chance on having either of these two players. Kerkez had picked up a fairly soft yellow card, so wound up with nul points, despite having a very good game - ain't no justice! Gakpo and Ekitike had superb games, but Wirtz and Salah made fairly little impression, and Liverpool as a whole were a little disjointed, lacking the composure and solidity they usually showed last year - an inevitable consequence, no doubt, of changing so many personnel all at once. Bournemouth often looked well in the game, and after tieing the scoreline with a brace of breakaway goals from Semenyo just after the hour, might for a while have become favourites to steal an upset win. But the home side reasserted themselves and grabbed two more very late goals. The nearly 60% of FPL managers who'd trusted their captaincy to Salah must have been mightily relieved when he finally broke his duck after nearly 94 minutes!! The other 40% were gutted....

Villa are a team I seem to rate much lower than most; I think they've massively over-performed for the last three seasons under Emery, but I see that momentum now fizzling out. Even with the huge lift they get from their vocal home supporters, and the pleasant last-minute bonus of the talismanic Morgan Rogers being deemed fit to start, after missing training all week with a sore ankle (though one worries that perhaps he was rushed back into service before he was quite ready), they were fairly abysmal in the lunchtime kick-off against Newcastle: they couldn't muster an effort on goal in the first half, and didn't produce a good one in the entire game. The visitors completely dominated, even before Konsa's sending-off (in the common paradox, the 10-man side actually proved more compact and effective in defence), but predictably lacked something of a cutting-edge, without Isak - and hence we got a fairly drab scoreless bore-draw.

Brighton v Fulham, though, probably took the prize as the day's dullest game. Both these clubs have managed to punch massively above their weight in recent seasons, but I suspect this time neither of them will have the class or the consistency to stay out of the bottom third. The visitors probably just about deserved a draw on the balance of play, although they left it very, very late, with substitute Muniz bundling home a corner with the last kick of the game, nearly six minutes into added-on time. In the last moments of regular time, there had been near-misses at either end, with Brajan Gruda and Kenny Tete spurning gilt-edged chances in quick succession - so, the match really might have gone either way (although Brighton really need to do something about their unfortunate habit of not being able to hang on to a lead, if they don't want to get sucked into the relegation struggle). Fulham felt hard done-by, as they'd had two half-decent penalty shouts rejected by VAR. The first, with Iwobi being toppled by Baleba, was rather similar to Porro's indiscretion against Burnley; although here, Iwobi definitely went down much too easily, and there was more of a suggestion of the two players running into each other, rather than the defender being the sole initiator. They had more of a claim on the second incident, where Ayari clipped King's heel as he cleared a ball; but it was a case of the Fulham forward interposing his leg/foot at the last second, when Ayari had already begun his kicking action; in some cases, that can be a deliberate fishing-for-a-foul (or even, occasionally, a foul itself), and in almost all, I think, it can be fairly dismissed as an 'accidental coming together'; one of those where we've seen them given, but it would have seemed a very harsh call.

Spurs might have been expected to be a bit 'leggy' after their physically and psychologically gruelling defeat by PSG in the UEFA Super Cup in midweek, but miraculously there seemed to be no signs of such, and they were again sharp, eager, and confident - and plenty good enough to breeze past a Burnley side who are already looking very likely to finish dead last. Richarlison and Kudus, in particular, were very impressive; the Brazilian notching an excellent brace, the second being an early 'Goal of the Month' contender. The one moment of controversy in the game came when Porro sent Burnley forward Jaidon Anthony sprawling with an unnecessary nudge in the back at the end of a fast break by the visiting side; the move had broken down with an overhit square pass beyond Anthony, so there was no possible reason for Porro to charge him in the back - other than cheeky petulance: it was a relatively 'light' contact, perhaps, but blatant and clearly deliberate, the weekend's only clearcut missed penalty award (so far); yet again, VAR seemingly didn't even 'look' at it. It's also a bit of a mystery as to how Spurs keeper Vicario, who really didn't have that much to do in the game, was given 2 bonus points. WTF???  The BPS is so broken.....

Sunderland got off to a dream start in front of a jumping home crowd, and might already be confirming my hunch that they will probably prove to be the best of this year's three promoted sides (after some very canny summer transfer business to bolster their squad: Adingra and Xhaka are looking like they could be major difference-makers down at the bottom end of the table). But they were only playing West Ham, who, after a moderately lively start and few dangerous moments from Bowen early on, were really pretty abject. (Their utterly superfluous new goalkeeper signing, Mads Hermansen, was arguably slightly at fault for all three goals.) I think I will (in a few weeks, after the transfer window has closed) venture a set of projections on how each club's season seems likely to pan out, and where they'll finish. West Ham, I feel, are very likely to be relegated; and Graham Potter has to be a strong favourite for the first managerial sacking of the year (heck, I was saying that even before the end of last season....).

City cruised to the top of the table with a fairly comfortable first win away to Wolves. But the scoreline flattered them: Wolves had their moments, often looking hungrier for the ball in the middle of the park, and occasionally embarrassing their illustrious visitors on the break. They weren't too far behind City on stats like goal attempts, corners won, and touches in the final third; and they could - should - in fact have been a couple of goals up inside the first 25 minutes, if only their Marshall Munetsi had bothered to learn the offside rule. City benefitted chiefly from three excellent finishes, with their final tally of 4 goals far exceeding their xG figure for this game. And even Pep gloomily observed that they looked quite poor in the second half. There were a couple of standout performances from Reijnders and Lewis - but everybody else looked pretty pedestrian; and you wonder if players like Doku, Bobb, and Gonzalez will get many more starts. The major upset in FPL terms was that unsettled keeper Ederson was a last-minute omission due to an alleged 'illness' (probably a 'headache' from having to read such a lot of contract offers from foreign clubs), and that new arrival Jamie Trafford suddenly got the nod to replace him, rather than long-time back-up Stefan Ortega. Anyone who'd punted on Trafford for the start of the season got an undeserved points windfall here! (Although, at 5.0 million, I still doubt if he'd be a great goalkeeper pick for FPL.) It was also a bit of a headscratcher as to why Marmoush didn't start...  And as to how Rayan Ait-Nouri was deemed to have done so well on the new 'defensive contributions' metric. His improbably huge tally on that meant that he edged the excellent Reijnders - every neutrals' choice for 'Man of the Match', by a country mile - out of the bonus points places. I say again, the BPS is broken. The Moroccan certainly put in a very decent shift; but Wolves weren't attacking much down his side of the pitch, you didn't 'notice'such a huge welter of blocks and tackles happening.... [It would be nice if the League would soothe FPL enthusiasts' ire and anxiety about this rule-change by putting out a few example highlights reels 'counting' some top players' 'defensive contributions' tally for the gameweek - to give us a clearer understanding of what counts as what, and to reassure us that the counts are being done carefully, accurately, consistently. At the moment, I have zero confidence on that.]

Another opening match, another superb free-kick goal from Ebere Eze denied in bizarre circumstances! That really is a most unfortunate habit to fall into...  This one was at least ultimately fairly uncontroversial (though it did seem to take rather a long time for VAR to adjudicate on it); but nevertheless baffling to just about everyone watching it. We learn that there is a rule that an attacking player may not be within 1 yard of the defensive wall (if more than 2 defending players in the wall); there is apparently no clarification as to whether this means 1 yard in any direction, or only laterally... It's apparently been on the books for 6 years; but I don't recall there being any fanfare about its introduction (perhaps it just got eclipsed by the rather bigger news of Covid starting to unfold half-way through that season); and I'm pretty sure I've never seen it invoked before (although it continues to be pretty common practice for attacking teams to try to put a man in the wall, and this is never penalised; so, I rather suspect that the League and/or PGMOL happens to have just put out a memo 'reminding' officials of this super-obscure, never-enforced rule for the start of the new season...).  That was the only real point of excitement in a thoroughly lacklustre match. Crystal Palace - especially their admirably compact defensive unit - deserve a lot of credit for completely stifling the Chelsea attack: the home side had most of the ball, and created a lot of half-chances, but didn't really have a decent attempt on goal all game (the recently superlative Joao Pedro was so ineffectual in this one that I actually had to check a match report to discover if he'd even been playing); players were getting impatient, trying potshots from distance, or snatching at a chance straight away, before there was really an opening in front of them. The best of these chances fell to holding midfielder Andrey Santos near the end, but, receiving the ball in tons of space near the edge of the box, and with only the keeper to beat, he anxiously tried to turn the ball towards goal straight away and only succeeded in scooping it harmlessly into Row Z. There was also another potential penalty decision when Sanchez appeared to miss an attempt to punch the ball clear and thumped Guehi across the back of the head instead; he was very close to getting the ball, and TV replays perhaps weren't absolutely definitive as to whether he had or not (so, perhaps VAR was giving him the benefit of the doubt?); but this was another incident where there was enough in it to deserve a long hard look from VAR - which it didn't seem to receive.

Many of us had feared that this might happen to Chelsea, that their summer renascence might prove to have shallow roots, and that they might easily revert to the dreadful form they showed for most of the second half of the last league season. At the moment, it's just one poor performance, and we can try to blame it on fatigue or limited preparation after their rather truncated pre-season. But if they're this lacking in threat in the final third again next week, there's likely to be a huge FPL sell-off on all initially fancied Chelsea 'assets'.

Nottingham Forest did the exact opposite of Chelsea, While their pre-season performances had been severely unconvincing, and they'd struggled to score a goal against anyone, they suddenly seemed to start getting their mojo back against Brentford, with Gibbs-White absolutely on fire for them. They took their foot off the gas a bit in the second half, allowing the visitors to see a bit more of the ball and create a few chances; but it took a rather fortunate late penalty to give Thiago the chance to claw back a consolattion goal. Brentford have a number of new signings waiting to be integrated, and perhaps a few more in prospect before the closing of the window; but on that performance, they unfortunately look like favourites for relegation.

Arsenal nicked a goal from a set-piece early on at Old Trafford (surprise, surprise), but were barely in the game after that. United, however, although they frequently broke forward at pace, looked completely disjointed and rarely threatened any real danger. Sesko wasn't deemed ready to start, only coming on for the last 25 minutes (during which he made no impression at all), Cunha (rather than the much more physical Mbeumo) was nominally given the central striker role - which he never likes, and, on this occasion, never really inhabited, constantly drifting into his preferred left channel instead; Mount, nominally the left-sided 10, at least added some bite to the press, but didn't link up with the two new forwards at all; in fact, none of them linked up with each other. It wasn't very clear what Amorim's instructions for the game had been; or indeed, if there had been any, they seemed not to have been well understood or implemented. This looked to me like a classic example of a team who haven't yet spent enough time together, and were thus all playing as individuals instead of as a unit: players broke forward on their own, head down, advancing as quickly as possible - not knowing or trusting which of their teammates might be busting a lung to join them; then, by the time they got to within 25 or 20 yards of the goal, they'd finally look up quickly, and still not sensing anyone in the same shirt nearby to give them options, they'd have a hopeful punt from distance (Chelsea had been very guilty of this too, in their dreadful bore-draw with Palace).... which all ended up tamely in Row G. United fans and pundits have been taking a lot of encouragement that at least the 'Attack, attack, attack!' mentality seemed to be returning - and that they managed to make Arsenal look so ordinary - but, for me, it was really still a pretty dire performance; this match gave me no optimism that United, without some very big improvements, can finish in the Top Ten this year.

The goal had a slight whiff of controversy about it. Saliba pushed his marker, Mount, out of the way, and then leant into Bayindir, bundling him off-balance so that he stumbled back into his net and flapped ineffectually at Rice's corner. The general consensus is - reasonably enough - that the keeper (and Mount, and the other United defenders) should have been able to stand up more strongly against this fairly routine argey-bargey. However, Saliba did give the United keeper a shove in the ribs at the crucial moment, and that is probably straying over the line, I think; certainly enough of a potential infraction, in a moment of such huge import for the match, that VAR should have given it rather more than the very cursory review it appeared to receive. Saliba, in fact, was pushing his luck all match, committing several fouls which risked a yellow card, but were all overlooked or pardoned. The worst was when Cunha fired off a low cross-shot from an acute angle - forcing Raya to divert it past the far-post with a fingertip save; the best chance of the match - and the quality of the goal attempt probably got the Arsenal defender out of jail: Cunha was aggrieved that he'd been off-balance, overstretched as he got the shot off because Saliba had handfuls of his shirt. But the VAR attitude these days seems to be "If the attacker was able to take a shot, any interference with him cannot amount to a penalty foul" (I don't think that has any basis in the rules; it just seems to be the prevailing interpretational prejudice being applied by the game's officials). Calafiori was also a bit fortunate to be credited with the goal, since he was rather needlessly helping home a ball that the keeper had inadvertently diverted into his own net; and he didn't appear to get his head on it until it was already at least half or three-quarters of the way over the goal-line (the goal-line technology really ought to be invoked in such instances, to verify if the attacker's 'finish' has been applied before the ball has crossed the line; but it did not appear to have been here - and I don't think that is yet enshrined as the standard practice). Rice was also lucky to get the assist; last year, he surely would not have done - he appears to be the first player this season to benefit from the new more lenient approach to ascribing 'assists' (allowing them, even if the ball has been substantially diverted by a defender's touch).

Mikel Arteta joined Arne Slot in the opprobrium of FPL managers by yanking off Gyokeres and Martinelli seconds shy of the hour mark. We must hope that such early substitutions are just a fleeting aberration early in the season, necessitated by the less-than-100% match fitness still affecting many players. But if this is going to be a common trend in the Premier League this season, we'll have to radically reassess many of our selections. Amorim put some noses out of joint as well, in failing to start Sesko or Amad Diallo (who had been widely expected to be the nailed preference at right wing-back this season, but was initially displaced by Diogo Dalot on this occasion). The beginning of the season can be a real horror show when it comes to anticipating selections and form.....

And then, oh dear, Everton are playing out a turgid Monday evening draw away at Leeds (like a lot of clubs this weekend, they seemed to be mostly dominating possession, but failing to conjure any decent openings), when referee Chris Kavanagh made what might well be one of the worst penalty awards we'll see all season. Poor James Tarkowski had his arm in a perfectly 'natural position' (pretty much nailed to his side; in fact, it had been well away from his side as the ball was struck towards him, and he clearly moved it away from the ball); it wasn't easy to see on the TV replays, but it looked very much as if the shot had struck his ribcage - or ribs-and-arm, at least - rather than just his arm anyway. There was NO WAY that was a penalty; though, yet again, VAR seemed reluctant to appear 'critical' of the referee and devoted very little time to their reconsideration of the incident. And then Pickford guessed right and very nearly stopped the spot-kick... But promoted Leeds walked away with an undeserved win. (And in FPL-land, the greater significance was the impact on Tarkowski's points, and the fact that Pickford too, and other Everton players [Ndiaye and Grealish also quite popular early picks] were thus unjustly denied a clean-sheet bonus).

There were 5 or 6 other potential penalties, before the Tarkowski fiasco on Monday; all of those were perhaps fairly 50/50 incidents - but I feel VAR should have been giving them a careful review, and that didn't seem to happen. I would have awarded spot-kicks against Porro for his gratuitous shoulder-charge in Anthony's back, and Saliba for shirt-grabbing on Cunha as he was shaping to shoot. And Senesi should surely have been sent off for an egregiously deliberate handball on Friday night. By the atrocious refereeing standards we've suffered over the past couple of seasons, that would actually have counted as a pretty good gameweek - though still a long way off ideal. But the Tarkowski decision was just ludicrously AWFUL. On top of these game-turning potential errors, we've had a lot of the typical early season curve-balls of unexpected selections, early substitutions, and teams/players just not playing very well. And the tallying of 'defensive contributions' for potential extra points this year is adding to the sense of confusion and injustice we almost invariably feel about the bonus point allocations. A pretty random 'Team of the Week' this time as well, with very few of the most fancied players gaining inclusion (and who, really, would have picked Semenyo or Riley or Lewis or Calafiori or Ballard, or even Raya for the opening week??). I was originally inclined to rate this gameweek only a 4 (very nearly a 5!) for the 'LUCK' factor, but if David Moyes protests that it was generally "a bad weekend for referees", then who am I disagree? The Tarkowski incident unfortunately bumps it up to a 7 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.