Luck-o-Meter - 25-26 Gameweek 2

 

We got off to the worst possible start this week, with Cole Palmer, the most owned player in the game (slightly above Salah and Joao Pedro at 55%), being a last-minute omission, after feeling discomfort in his groin during the warm-up. If anything, Chelsea seemed to benefit from the enforced change - which allowed Joao Pedro a freer role in the No. 10 space, while the combative Delap came into the side to take on the central striker's role of giving the West Ham defence a rough ride. Things nearly went amiss early on, though, with a Paqueta drive from 20-odd yards somehow beating Sanchez (the keeper had a clear view of it all the way, and wasn't far from the ball, but seemed to completely misread the flight of it); and then a little later, Fullkrug appeared to have given the home side the lead for a second time - but his effort was ultimately ruled out for a very tight offside in the build-up (which again seemed to take an inordinately long time for VAR to rule on). But after those two early scares, Chelsea took control and powered through to a comfortable win; they could, in fact, have scored more than the 5 they eventually notched (Enzo Fernandez, in particular, spurned a fantastic chance to nab what would have been his second and Chelsea's fourth early in the second half). Graham Potter brought on Callum Wilson for Fullkrug at half-time; not clear if this was for tactical or fitness reasons, but either way, it's not likely to endear him to the player - or perhaps to the fans, who were rushing for the exits very early on, as their team collapsed for the second week running. The unfortunate Potter is now a hot favourite to become the first managerial sacking of the new season. (William Hill are currently quoting 9/4 on that - which is well worth having!)

Manchester City, still worryingly toothless in the midfield duels, were fairly comprehensively outplayed by Thomas Frank's well-organised Spurs (the home side might have had nearly two-thirds of the possession, but they were unable to do very much with it). No major controversies here, although Spurs were a bit hard done-by to have two bad fouls on Porro and Kudus, on the very edge of the opposition penalty area, ignored by the referee within a minute or so of each other: a free-kick in a dangerous position, and an early yellow card for goalkeeper Trafford, might have had a significant impact in the game. It was also a bit mystifying as to how the ref came to add on a further 5 or 6 minutes at the end of the first half, over and above the 7 minutes that had already been calculated. And a fair chunk of that additional time was occasioned by a painfully protracted VAR delay in adjudicating Spurs's first goal (if the 'semi-automated' decision technology was in use for determining offsides, it was not shared on live television; and it was a terrible initial call by the linesman - Richarlison was comfortably onside, and it should really not have taken more than a few seconds to confirm that fact). Richarlison owners are probably a little aggrieved that he was denied a second assist, when Trafford pushed the ball away from his feet - straight to a grateful Palhinha; if the City keeper had parried a shot to another attacker, the assist would have been awarded - I can't see how or why this should be any different. There was yet another FPL injury blow in this one, with 23%-owned Ait-Nouri limping off in the first half with a sprained ankle. (Hopefully not too serious; but one wonders why anyone would want City defenders at the moment....)

Wolves were looking occasionally dangerous, and were still in the game at Bournemouth - until Toti's unfortunate sending-off. That again was a slightly questionable decision, very, very soft: a defender chasing a forward on a breakaway shouldn't take a chance by placing a hand on him - but I think that's all Toti did: he placed his hand on Evanilson's back for a fraction of a second, but it didn't look like any kind of a push. I'd like to see those claims denied a bit more often - to discourage forwards from collapsing like a deckchair as soon as they feel the slightest contact on them. It seemed a bit odd, too, in this instance that the referee took such a very long time before reaching for the red card (it wasn't clear if perhaps VAR was whispering in his ear about the incident, and recommending the card).

Brentford are starting to get their act together, after a worryingly shambolic opening performance last week. They looked like they could have won much more comfortably against a lacklustre Aston Villa, whose star men, Rogers and Watkins, were so anonymous here that they may have played themselves out of an England call-up from the watching Thomas Tuchel. There was another very questionable disallowed goal in this one, with Mikkel Damsgaard lashing a volley into the roof of the net, only for the referee to declare that Emi Martinez had been 'impeded' by Nathan Collins; sure, Collins was trying to get in the way, but that's a legitimate aim for a defender in the opposition box; Martinez ran into him, rather than vice a versa - and should have been strong enough not to be unbalanced by the collision anyway (he was desperately play-acting, feigning an injury from the incident to try to gain sympathy - or forgiveness for an error that appeared to have cost his side a second goal).

For the first half hour, Sunderland looked well on top in their 'relegation six-pointer' away to Burnley, but failed to convert a couple of excellent chances - and then faded out of the game.The loss of last week's goal hero Dan Ballard to an early injury may have been a psychological blow that took some of the wind out of their sails. Burnley utlimately looked well worth the win (although their lead was precarious until Jaidon Anthony's late breakaway). The only slight refereeing controversy here was the disallowing of an initial goal for Burnley's Lyle Foster for a very soft 'foul' on a defender.

Arsenal cruised to a predictably comfortable win against promoted Leeds, but injuries to White before the game, and Odegaard and Saka during it, may be a major setback (although, on the other hand, this might present an excellent opportunity to immediately integrate Eze in the starting line-up, which might not otherwise have happened). Timber, coming in for White at right-back, managed to bundle in a couple of scrappy goals from Declan Rice corners, making him probably the highest-returning FPL player of the week (anyone who had him in their side was astonishingly lucky, as he really wasn't fancied to get more than token minutes off the bench). Arsenal fans will also be relieved that new striker Gyokeres is off and running (it may have been particularly valuable to settle his nerves after an horrendous early miss, when Leeds were caught out in building from the back, and the ball broke perfectly to the Swede, on his own 8 yards out with only the keeper to beat,... and he rushed his effort, screwing it miles wide). Max Dowman, 15-year-old wonderkid, also made an impressive debut for the last 25 minutes, fizzing a left-foot volley just wide, and later winning a penalty to let Gyokeres claim the home sids's fifth goal.

Palace v Forest was a tight game, with no standout incidents. The major disappointment for FPL managers in this one was that two of the stoutest defences in the league, facing each other, both narrowly failed to keep a clean sheet. Forest had rather the better of it in the second half, and might have nicked the win late on when new signing Igor Jesus smashed a shot against the post (that would have been assist for centre-back Murillo; I really fancy him to come up with a few attacking contributions over the season). For the second week running, industrious midfield lynchpin Elliot Anderson appeared to be slightly screwed by the 'defensive points' assessment; he was initially credited with 13 eligible 'contributions' in this game, but that was subsequently downgraded to only 11, without explanation, so he again just missed out on the extra points. (We really could do with a proper explanation from FPL of how this new points system is supposed to be working.)

Oh dear, this just wasn't Brighton's day, was it? They looked the better side for long spells, and had plenty of chances to secure an away win at Everton: Mitoma's superb volley in the opening minutes scudding off the top of the crossbar, Welbeck somehow missing an open goal from four yards out, Van Hecke's deflected shot from distance beating Pickford burt crashing against the post, O'Riley fumbling the chance to convert a suicidal back-pass from Tarkowski,...; and then, in the second half, Welbeck fluffing an unjustly awarded penalty to hand Pickford a fairly easy save. It's a bit strange that Welbeck was even taking it, after O'Riley had despatched such a good one last week. But the decision against Dewsbury-Hall was very, very harsh (I'd be OK with a 'strict liability' rule that a penalty automatically results if a contact with the arm deflects a goal-bound shot; but I don't think that is the case at the moment. If a shot is fired at a defender from close range, and he's turning away from it, trying to keep his hands close to his chest.... under the current framing of the rule, that shouldn't be a penalty.) Poor Fabian Hurzeler must have been tearing his hair out. A good first win for Everton at their new stadium, with excellent performances from Grealish and Ndiaye - but they certainly rode their luck a bit.

Fulham again redeemed themselves through their substitutions (though it makes you wonder if some of these players should be starting....). United, apart from a few lively moments from Cunha, really showed nothing - and I suspect the odds on Amorim getting the chop will soon be shortening; their expensive summer signings haven't really done anything to rectify the problems the team had last year, and another bottom-half finish is looking dangerously likely. Another really awful VAR decision here, with the backroom team, after long deliberation, deciding to direct the unfortunate Chris Kavanagh (who's now made two of the worst penalty awards imaginable within the space of six days!) to take a second look at some grappling in the box at a corner. Yes, it did look rather as if the burly Calvin Bassey had executed a neat judo throw on the much more slight Mason Mount - but Mount had been holding him, indeed still had a handful of his shirt even after he'd hit the floor (and another United player next to him was clearly guilty of a blatant holding offence too); and he really just tripped over, as Bassey violently shifted his weight to unbalance him - nowhere near a penalty! Bassey himself was whingeing that United's goal should have been ruled out for a foul on him, but I was less in sympathy there: Yoro placed hands on his back, but there appeared to be absolutely no force in the 'push' at all - the defender just felt contact, and immediately sat down to try to get the foul. The further FPL wrinkle in that opening goal was that it was orginally awarded to Yoro, and the assist thus was given to Mbeumo's corner - though the United defender's weak header was clearly miles off target, and had fotuitously deflected into the goal off Muniz's back. The incident was correctly re-classified as an 'own goal' some time after the end of the game; but it's a bit rough on Mbeumo or Yoro owners (OK, Mbeumo owners - why would anyone own Yoro?) to have FPL points awarded to them and then taken away again. Owners of Bruno Fernandes (who is, bafflingly, the 20th most popular player, with an ownership of over 21%) were dismayed to see him waste the unjustly awarded penalty with one of the worst spot-kicks he has ever taken. (Bizarrely, he allowed himself to be put off by an accidental collision with the referee, who he bumped into as he was backing away from the ball during his pre-kick routine. He probably made things worse for himself by getting into an exasperated exchange with Kavanagh about it, and then taking a long time to re-spot the ball and begin his routine all over again. And then.... all the warning signs were there: completely straight-on initial position, still very straight-on approach position after shuffling a couple of paces to his left, very short run-up, not looking where he meant to place the ball.....  Everyone in the stadium knew he was going to miss a second or two before he struck the ball.)

And oh, dear me, the Monday night game turned out to be the game of the weekend, and of the season so far,... and might well be a leading contender for the overall 'Game of the Season'. Liverpool were once again full of quality, but also full of frailty, and were really astonishingly lucky to win this one: Newcastle were well on top for most of the game, even when reduced to 10 men for slightly more than half of it, and only a couple of very much against-the-run-of-play goals (great strikes from just outside the box from Gravenberch and Ekitike, the first of which, a scudding effort that took a bit of a deflection off a defender and just sneaked inside the post - Pope didn't even appear to see) had given them a lead in the first place. And then, after Newcastle had bravely battled back into the match, they got hit on the counter-attack by teenage substitute Rio Ngumoha, with pretty much the last kick of the game - after some 10 minutes of added-on time (why so much??  does Slot have some 'compromat' on PGMOL???). Even the straight-red sending-off of Anthony Gordon just before half-time wasn't entirely straightforward. He certainly came rushing at Van Dijk from a long way off, and clattered him from behind - but it looked as if he was pulling out of the contact at the last moment, had his studs down, foot on the floor, just smacking the big defender's heel (Van Dijk himself didn't seem that perturbed by it afterwards). The referee apparently saw it that way too at first, just issuing a yellow card - but he was eventually told to go and have another look by VAR, and, of course, that invariably prejudices the referee into thinking that he has only one possible decision. Though the challenge was reckless in its closing speed, there didn't seem to be anything too extreme in the contact itself - although the VAR playback (at least as far as I've been able to see on highlights so far) weirdly didn't seem to show the moment of contact at all. There may be a case that Gordon only got his foot down at the last instant (Van Dijk stepped across him slightly as he closed in, and leaned backwards to try to shield the ball; Gordon, rushing in with his foot initially raised, thinking he could reach the ball, put his foot down very late), and, in doing so, may have raked the back of Van Dijk's leg. Some post-match stills appear to show stud-marks on the Dutchman's calf (but they look very 'Photo-shopped'; and there was no glimpse of that on the original TV coverage). In any case, that might be deemed an unfortunate, 'accidental' contact - and certainly a long way short of the kind of potential 'leg-breaker' we usually expect for a straight red card offence. When a foul divides opinion as sharply as this one did, it's probably a bit of a 50/50; and I'm concerned that the video playback didn't seem to offer a definitive view. For the second week running, Liverpool were riding their luck in this game; but, in the EPL as in FPL, you need to be lucky as well as good to win the title!

It's been a relatively unremarkable week on the officiating, with no really outrageosly awful decisions - although quite a few questionable ones: 2 goals ruled out for non-existent, or very, very soft 'fouls', and a perhaps slightly harsh sending-off on Saturday; a couple of dubious-looking penalty awards (both, remarkably, missed!) on Sunday; a further red card on Monday, and a few suspiciously 'generous' rations of added-on time! The large number of injuries to popular picks is also a major contributor to the 'LUCK' equation, with the late dropping-out of Ben White, the last-second exclusion of Cole Palmer, and the in-game injuries to Rayan Ait-Nouri, Martin Odegaard, and Bukayo Saka all rather eye-watering for some FPL managers. The tallying of 'defensive contributions' for potential extra points this year will probably continue to add to the sense of confusion and injustice we almost invariably feel about the bonus point allocations; though there don't appear to have been any such surprising outcomes from that as we saw in the opening gameweek (though Elliot Anderson may have been slightly shafted...). And I'm still concerned about often awkwardly long delays in deciding offside calls, and an ongoing general lack of transparency about how VAR is operating. And heck, the fact that Jurrien Timber (who wasn't expected to start) produced the most massive haul of the week is worth at least one more 'LUCK' point all on its own! Apart from Joao Pedro and Viktor Gyokeres up front, the 'Team of the Week' is yet again composed entirely of players that just about nobody would have owned. So, it's looking like a fairly average 6 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter' this week (though perhaps very nearly a 7!!).