Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 27

 

A few unpleasant selection surprises again this week; although, at least, not too many new injury disasters to add to our FPL troubles.

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I've been aiming to keep them briefer recently. I made just about zero progress on that resolution for the first few weeks, but.... now I've hit upon a new 'format', which might help: a tabulation of the major types of 'lucky' incidents. 

I will try to resist any extended commentary (although I probably will still indulge in a few diatribes about any particularly egregious penalty or handball incidents).

Red cards awarded: 

Red cards not awarded: Ruben Dias was perhaps slightly lucky to get only a yellow card for hauling back Anthony Gordon's first-half breakaway. Yes, it was way out on the left touchline, but Gordon's got a lot of pace, and there was no-one else between him and the goal.

Chelsea were very lucky not to get a second defender sent off when Tosin appeared to run across the back of Flemming - briefly grabbing his arm, pushing him in the back, and probably tripping him too (all three contacts might have been too slight on their own to justify punishment, but the combination demonstrated a determined intent to bring the attacker to a halt) - knocking him over when he was clean through on goal.

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Palmer was unfortunate not to get a penalty when flattened from behind by Joe Worrall. The Burnley defender had got a toe to the ball to clear it first, but he was sliding in from a long way back, out of control, and his follow-through into Palmer's Achilles was dangerous, regardless of whether he'd made contact with the ball.

Tight/dubious offsides: Dan Burn had a goal ruled out for a narrow offside: that looked correct, but it was still a bit harsh as he'd been shoved into that position by Ruben Dias.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed:  

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Foden, Cherki, and Reijnders (all still modestly high-owned in FPL) were all omitted by Pep against Newcastle; Cherki at least came on for half an hour or so, but Foden only got a token few minutes at the end, and Reijnders wasn't used at all.

Brentford's Michael Kayode was a late omission, due to a training knock. And Fabian Hurzeler rested/dropped Baleba and Veltman.

Mikkel Damsgaard was surprisingly rested against Brighton, only came on for the last 25 minutes.

Near misses:  Emi Buendia smashed a post with a curler from the edge of the box.

Ferdi Kadioglu's 25-yard effort crashed against the crossbar - but set up the opener for Diego Gomez with a kind rebound.

Bournemouth's new prodigy, 19-year-old Brazilian winger Rayan, crashed a 20-yard effort against the outside of the post - narrowly missing out on becoming the youngest player ever to register an attacking return in his first four Premier League appearances.

Big misses/big saves: A pair of fantastic stops near the end of the City v Newcastle clash, Pope, with his foot, blocking a fierce Foden drive, and Donnarumma just getting fingertips to a long-range volley from Barnes.

Cole Palmer had a great solo breakaway opportunity, but shot fairly tamely, from too far out.

Joel Veltman nearly deflected a ball into his own net in the dying minutes at Brentford, but Bart Verbruggen brilliantly clawed it off his goalline.

Outstanding goals: Anton Stach conjured a thumper of a free-kick to give Leeds the lead at Villa (although Emi Martinez left him far too inviting a gap in the right half of the goal!).

Outstanding performances: Nico O'Reilly, playing a full 90 minutes, playing in an advanced midfield role,... and snagging two great goals - is likely to be the performance of the week.

Big mistakes: A bizarre mistake from Nathan Collins gifted a decisive goal to Danny Welbeck.

Bad luck: 

FPL weirdness: 

Unexpected results: Burnley holding Chelsea to a draw, and indeed very nearly beating them, was a bit of a turn-up. Villa fans will probably feel that dropping points at home to lowly Leeds was an unpleasant surprise; but given the way their team's form has been swinging over the last few weeks, and how strong Leeds have become since the start of December, it really wasn't. Brighton's very comfortable win at Brentford was also quite a surprise: it was their best performance for some weeks, and one of Brentford's weakest in a long time. Brighton, Bournemouth and West Ham being the only teams to keep a clean sheet on Saturday was also a mite unexpected.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' so far includes absolutely no-one that anybody owns (apart from Nico O'Reilly, who's only in just over 5% of FPL teams). It's looking set to be yet another wretchedly low-scoring gameweek, with a global average so far of just 21 points, and nothing much coming from any of the most popular players (although, with Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United still to play, that could yet change substnantially). At least there haven't been any major flukes or refereeing cock-ups so far, and so it's only looking like a 2 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.