Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 10

The two most transferred-out FPL forwards this week, Joao Pedro and Viktor Gyokeres, both found their scoring boots again. But their most popular replacement, Jean-Philippe Mateta, was also on the scoresheet, so that ended up being a net-zero transfer for most people. And this has been - yet another! - of those gameweeks where somehow almost all of the most fancied players disappoint: Mbeumo, Cunha, Bruno Fernandes, Ismaila Sarr, Saka, Gakpo, Szoboszlai, Salah, Enzo Fernandez, Mo Kudus, Ndiaye and Grealish all came up with little or nothing. How can this keep on happening, week after week after week?? This is shaping up to be one of the lowest-scoring FPL seasons we've ever seen.

Brighton finally seem to be getting into a bit of a groove, with new additions Gomez and Wieffer in particular starting to become very influential for them, along with last season's emerging stars, Rutter, Ayari, and Minteh. But for a couple of outstanding stops from keeper Lucas Perri, Brighton might really have romped away with a cricket score here. Leeds have always looked to me like the weakest of this year's promoted sides, and this performance amply confirmed that. The big FPL headscratcher here is that Minteh was somehow credited with a second assist for a goal that was actually set up by Rutter - WTF??

Burnley's Turf Moor somehow didn't generate the intimidating atmosphere it usually does (only Liverpool have managed to win there in the last year-and-a-bit) for the visit of the league leaders: both the team and the crowd were a bit subdued, apparently expecting and accepting the inevitability of defeat before the game had even kicked off. If they'd been bold enough to be a little more proactive, they might have got something out of this game. Arsenal were drably efficient rather than outstanding, and, but for a couple of shambolic pieces of defending early on (failing to mark anyone effectively at Arsenal's first corner of the game!!), the home side contained their threat fairly comfortably.

Crystal Palace won comfortably at home against a sub-par Brentford, and should have had a more comfortable margin of victory. Popular FPL signing Ismaila Sarr shot tamely against the post when played in behind by a sloppy ball from Nathan Collins.

Wolves and Vitor Pereira just can't catch a break at the moment - going down badly in another 'relegation 6-pointer' after a contentious early sending-off for their centre-back, Emmanuel Agbadou. First, we rarely see a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' decision given when the attacking player is so far wide of the goal (here, around the corner of the penalty area - though at least angling his run slightly towards the goal, rather than further away from it); and second, Josh King had clearly controlled the ball with his arm before the foul, but was somehow let off that by VAR (in the good old days, when only the shoulder, above the armpit, could legitimately be used to control the ball, this would have been a very easy decision to make; but with the rather ambiguous extension of the permitted zone of contact to somewhere half, or slightly-more-than-half-way down the upper arm, there are lots of highly ambiguous incidents like this where officials feel inclined to give a 'benefit of the doubt' to a player - where previously no doubt at all would have existed). But Wolves completely fell apart after this, and a dejected Pereira said afterwards it was "the worst performace" he'd ever seen from his team.

Casemiro was one of the weekend's most unlikely - and unjust - goalscorers when he headed United in front at the City Ground, from a corner that should obviously not have been awarded (utterly baffling call by the referee, as the ball was nowhere near to having fully crossed the line; I really would like to see VAR enabled to correct game-changing gaffes like this); although Forest must still accept responsibility for awful defending on this. The home side did well to fight back so resolutely from that setback, and were looking well on top for a long period and got themselves ahead (although they did suffer one major scare when Bruno Fernandes hit a low scudding effort from distance which somehow deceived Sels, sneaking past the keeper to strike the base of the post). But then they suffered another bizarre injustice, when Amad Diallo clearly handled a falling ball in his penalty area but the referee somehow deemed the contact non-culpable. The momentum swung decisively back in United's favour from that moment, and Amad himself grabbed the equaliser shortly afterwards with a superb hooked volley from just outside the box. The young wingback had his best game of the season, with 3 other outstanding shots in the game, the last of which would have claimed an undeserved winner in the dying minutes but for a superb goal-line block from Murillo.

Spurs produced their most dismal performance of the season against Chelsea, and will ultimately be grateful to have come away with a narrow loss in a game in which they were completely dominated. Joao Pedro may now be regaining his confidence in front of goal, after being gifted the game-winning chance early on by a bizarre succession of Spurs defensive errors; he might in fact have ended up with 3 or 4, but for some smart saves from Vicario. And poor Jamie Gittens squandered the best chance of the game, scooping his effort miles over the bar when played in by Joao Pedro. Moreover, Spurs were quite fortunate not to have been reduced to 10 men at the start of the second-half. when Rodrigo Betancur was let off for a very high, very clumsy challenge on Reece James. You can understand the officials' rationale that there wasn't 'excessive force' behind it, but it was a potential ankle-breaker, and we sometimes - quite often, perhaps even usually - see offences like that result in a straight red.

Arne Slot acknowledged that his Liverpool side had needed a little bit of good luck (Martinez passing the ball to Salah just inside the edge of his penalty area, a deflection off two defenders to take Gravenberch's 20-yard drive beyond the keeper) to end their EPL losing streak, but Villa were really not doing themselves any favours: sluggish build-up, dreadful distribution from Martinez, and Ollie Watkins still strangely anonymous. Villa had lively spells, especially early in the game; and both Rogers and Cash smashed good efforts against a post. But ultimately this felt like a fairly comfortable, if lacklustre, win for the home side. It is some measure of how muted the visitors' attacking play was that only Konate reached the threshold for earning 'defensive points' here - no-one else was anywhere near (and usually Villa are a team who demand the highest rate of defensive action from their opponents). Amadou Onana was very lucky not to be given a red card for shoving Macallister in the throat during a bit of goal-line argy-bargy near the end of the game; or a second yellow, when he unwisely continued the wrestling, committing at least two further fouls (one of them involving an elbow thrown towards the side of the Liverpool defender's neck; and Macallister was cannily making the most of their huge discrepancy in size to appear the victim in the exchanges, although he was plainly initiating them). And it was Unai Emery this week who earned the special wrath of FPL fans by making his first substitutions shy of the hour.

West Ham might easily have won even more comfortably against a woefully out-of-sorts Newcastle. Bowen smashed a long-range effort against the post in the opening minute - and looked absolutely gutted that not only had he been denied by such a fine margin (one of many, many, many woolwork-battering goal attempts this weekend; it really does seem to become far more common this season!), but that the visitors almost immediately broke down the other end to score through Jacob Murphy. The lift from that unexpected early lead soon dissipated, though, and West Ham were able to assert control for most of the game. They suffered a second psychological setback when a chance to equalise from the spot was withdrawn after a painfully long VAR deliberation eventually directed Rob Jones to take the dreaded 'second look' at his initial decision. (It felt like this was ultimately the correct call; Thiaw did appear to have got his toe-end on the ball; and, even more importantly, he appeared to have made no actual contact with Bowen [not a 'dive'; the West Ham striker was taking legitimate evasive action in anticipation of an imminent - and possibly heavy - contact from the defender, and may even have believed that he'd felt some such contact; but in fact he seemed to have corkscrewed completely over the outstretched leg]. But there were a number of concerning things about the process. It took nearly 3 minutes - when all that was needed was not a definitive determination of the issue, but a simple judgement on whether was a case to be considered; and that should have taken only about 4 seconds. And the pictures shown on TV - again; this has been happening a lot this season - were a bizarre and confusing jumble of slow-motion and freeze-frame views. I've said before that only full-speed replays - from all the most useful angles - should be played initially; slow-mo and still pictures tend to give an incomplete, distorted, often downright misleading impression. Here, the still-frame most often chosen seemed to be of the fraction-of-a-second prior to Thiaw's presumed touch on the ball; so it was actually showing him not touching it, and the referee was being left to guess whether he had in fact done so. For instances like this, where the touch is so slight tha no TV picture is likely to capture a definitive view of the foot on the ball, you have to make the decision based on whether the direction or speed - or even the spin - of the ball has apparently changed; all information which is concealed by a freeze-frame view. But of course, it's not clear that the pictures being shown on TV are the same as the ones being reviewed by VAR; they obviously ought to be - but we never get any explanaion to that effect.) And in the second-half, they had another goal - for impressive young debut midfielder Freddie Potts - chalked off for an offside against Soucek, after another long VAR hold-up. (And we weren't finally shown the decisive graphic rendering until several minutes later. When we were, it appeared to show that the margin of the decision was less than an inch. As I've said often before, the technology cannot possibly be precise enough to render reliable decisions on such tiny margins; and even if it were, we really do not want to see good goals disallowed for the thickness of the toecap on an attacking player's boot....!) Forunately for the Hammers, Paqueta soon got them back in the game - with a pinger from 23 yards out. 

It turned out to be a miserable day for Nick Pope and his 1.5 million Fantasy owners: he may have been slightly unsighted on the first goal, as Paqueta was using Guimaraes as a screen, but he'll probably still feel that he shouldn't have been beaten at his near post from that distance; for the second, he was scrambling across his goal just a tad prematurely, not anticipating that someone - such as his own hapless defender, Sven Botman - might get a touch on Wan-Bissaka's cross in the near-post area; and the third, when West Ham finally made the game safe with a late breakaway, was an unfortunate fumble, when he allowed Bowen's initial effort to squirm through his legs to leave a grateful Soucek with a tap-in (although Bowen had looked decidedly offside) . Eddie Howe was so concerned about his side's tepid performance that - to the great dismay of FPL fans - he withdrew Woltemade, Gordon, and Krafth (a last-minute stand-in for virus-stricken Trippier) at half-time. I wouldn't get too excited about a West Ham revival just yet; they won't often be fortunate enough to face an opponent this bad; but they were showing significant improvements on their dreadful early-season performances.

City had an early scare when David Brooks set up Eli Kroupi for a tap-in inside the first minute - but the teenage striker had strayed well offside. Bournemouth actually looked the better side for long spells, indeed almost more like the home side; but City had had cannily set up to invite them on and then hit them with quick breaks, and they were repeatedly cut open far too easily through the middle. Haaland claimed 2 early goals with surging solo breaks, rather against the general run-of-play, and might well have completed a first-half hattrick - but the third time he was put through, Petrovic stood up and pulled off a good save. Pep was unhappy about the Bournemouth equaliser, Tyler Adams hooking in a close-range volley after Donnarumma managed only a weak punch on Scott's corner; it was claimed the big keeper had been 'held', but this was not apparent on the TV pictures; David Brooks had given him a cheeky - and pretty ineffectual - nudge in the back in the initial jostling, but this hadn't affected his jump at all; he appeared to have simply misjudged the flight of the ball. Since the vast majority of FPL managers were backing Haaland with the captaincy this week (and most of those who weren't had punted on Gabriel instead!), anyone who'd gone with another option - Mbeumo, Saka, Caicedo, Gakpo, Murphy or Woltemade would all have been reasonable options - was seriously abused by Fate here.

The Monday night clash between Sunderland and Everton looked quite lively, quite hard-fought, but didn't produce that much action in the final thirds - apart from a goal each (one a brilliant individual goal from Ndiaye, the equaliser a first goal for Xhaka, though his low drive probably wouldn't have bothered Pickford if Tarkowski hadn't flung out a foot to try to block - and sliced it into the roof of his own net), and one nervous little goalmouth scramble that Sunderland somehow failed to profit from.. There may have been a slight question-mark over Ndiaye's goal, as Sadiki felt he'd been fouled by Barry at the start of the move - although there really didn't look to be anything much in that complaint. There was also a shout for a handball penalty against Michael Keane near the end, but the ball was fired at him from such close range that it would have been a very harsh award.

Unexpectedly dreadful peformances from Spurs, Newcastle, Brentford, Leeds and Villa (and Wolves were awful again too; although, unfortunately, it's no longer a surprise with them), Onana and Betancur being generously spared red cards, while Wolves's Agbadou suffered a slightly harsh one, Forest being royally screwed twice over by a mistaken award of a corner and a baffling denial of a penalty, and an utterly bizarre misattribution of an assist (rewarding Minteh rather than Rutter?!),... and, as so often this season, a fair old spate of efforts battering the woodwork - all of this makes Gameweek 10 look one of the worst so far this season on the Luck-o-Meter. The FPL 'Team of the Week' is usually one of the strongest indicators of the fluctuating 'luck factor': and once more we look like having a selection that includes almost no-one that anybody actually owns (only Gabriel and Mateta, after Saturday's games,... displaced by he inevitable Haaland and the more unexpected Joao Pedro)! That alone again could justify an 8 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter' this week.