Cruel Fate!

As I mentioned yesterday, it's been an exceptionally low-scoring season so far - with Gameweek 10 just past being one of the only ones so far to produce a decent 'Global Average' (remarkably, 4 gameweeks so far have produced average scores in the low 40s!).

It's also been just a particularly weird season - with none of the usually most fancied players (apart from Haaland) among the forwards or attacking midfielders yet producing very much, and an unusually large number of huge hauls from complete randoms almost every week, with defenders and defensive midfielders strangely being among the most regular goalscorers so far. And on top of that, few teams have yet produced any consistent form: title hopefuls Liverpool and Manchester City have been quite poor so far, leaving Arsenal starting to look set to win the crown only by default - possibly smashing all known records for the number of clean sheets, but perhaps not scoring that many goals either.

It is, in fact the oddest season in FPL that I can remember - utterly, maddeningly unpredictable.

Amid so many bizarre and unusual events, the impact of LUCK is probably even greater than usual. And this latest - reasonably 'good' for most people - gameweek is a prime example of that.

People who bet the captaincy on Haaland this past week were richly rewarded (some even hazarded their Triple Captaincy on it, though that really wasn't 'smart'); anyone who didn't was harshly penalised. But really, why would you fancy Haaland to have an especially big game against Bournemouth, one of the best defences in the league?? Fancying other options - particularly one of the 'forward-in-disguise' midfielders like Saka or Mbeumo, or perhaps Newcastle's recently sharp-looking Jacob Murphy - with this week's fixtures made perfect sense. Similarly, it was perfectly reasonable to choose Woltemade rather than Mateta on recent form (though the Palace forward has started banging in some nice goals lately, his chance-conversion rate is still shockingly poor); but the big German was oddly out-of-sorts this week (possibly struggling with injury or illness?) and was withdrawn at half-time, while Mateta did again come up with a goal. And it's perfectly reasonable to have taken another Arsenal defender instead of Gabriel (Timber and Calafiori regularly look more likely to pick up goals or assists; it just hasn't quite been happening for them in recent games...); but the big Brazilian continued his absurdly hot streak (surely unsustainable much longer???) by coming up with yet another assist.... on the one occasion when Burnley forgot how to defend a corner.

Here's a guy I found in one of my mini-leagues - a pretty smart player, I think: usually runs me fairly close,... sometimes beats me! He's having a particularly rotten time of it just lately. And in this Gameweek - oh, my good lord, the poor chap somehow found himself down in the bottom 10% for the week??!! Yet there really isn't that much wrong with this team; it was just one of those weeks where almost everyone - especially his captain choice - somehow failed to come through for him. It can happen to any of us!

Unlucky Alf - one of the week's worst performances

Kudus has been disappointing for a while; but perhaps there have been other priorities to fix in the team in recent weeks. And it might be 'bold' to stick with any Liverpool players through their recent rough patch; but Szoboszlai has actually looked the best of them. Tarkowski has regularly been a monster on the 'defensive contributions', and until recently was earning a fair few clean sheets as well. If you'd gone for Calafiori (or Timber) early in the season, it would be reasonable enough to stick with them, rather than joining the late rush for Gabriel (who isn't likely to maintain his recent ridiculously high rate of returns for an extended spell). Thiago and/or Woltemade might prove to be better picks than Mateta over the coming weeks. He's got a pretty decent bench too.

I hope he stays strong, and doesn't get panicked into making a lot of changes (as most FPL managers do, when they have a really awful week like this). It really was just rank bad luck for him this week. The team, the squad is basically pretty sound. There is a strong - almost overwhelming - case for getting Gabriel in as a second Arsenal defender (though he's getting rather expensive now; and should be about due for a 'slump' in productivity!). Kudus and maybe Szoboszlai probably need to go; perhaps Saka too, if he doesn't start producing soon. But this is actually a very solid squad: it didn't 'deserve' to take such a battering from the Fantasy Gods this week! It is, alas, a notoriously cruel game; a cruel, cruel, cruel game.

[Sure enough, the following week he completely turned things around, achieving a weekly rank near the top 20,000. This is actually a really good squad. But even a really good squad can sometimes have a really awful week. The important thing, when something like that happens, is to take the misfortune calmly - and not let yourself be rushed into panicky, unnecessary changes.]