Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 1

  

I'll try to continue with this series of weekly reviews for a while (although they are rather irksomely time-consuming), using the simpler format I developed in the second half of last season: 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).

Damn, the usual Gameweek 1 shit - with some teams starting unexpectedly hot, and others very decidedly not; all kinds of bizarre results.

Red cards awarded: 

Red cards not awarded:  

Penalties awarded: The very, very late award against Lewis Hall to give Liverpool a draw they hadn't deserved smarted more because of its timing (why hadn't the referee blown the final whistle already?) than because of the 'injustice' of the call. It was a bit of a 'soft' one, might easily have been dismissed as an accidental collision, but there definitely was contact to bring Munoz down, so it's hard to call it a definitely incorrect decision. Newcastle has spurned two or three chances to put the game to bed, so have only themselves to blame.

Penalties not awarded:  Nathan Collins very obviously got pulled to the ground in the penalty area at one point. VAR apparently decided to let it go on the basis that Collins is a cheating bastard who's always trying to initiate and/or make the most of that sort of contact! I sympathise with that verdict on his character; but in this instance it was not fair - that clearly was a penalty.

Tight/dubious offsides: 

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: 

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: It might have been a surprise to some that Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice were considered fit enough to start on Friday night (and were back to their best!); and also perhaps that Myles Lewis-Skelly is still being preferred to Martin Zubimendi (although Zubi did come on for the last half-hour, so presumably that's just a fitness issue), and that Havertz appears to have become the preferred central forward, over Gyokeres.

Diogo Dalot was mysteriously left out by Carrick, in favour of Mazraoui (but then, of course, he was brought on for the last 10 minutes - to give me a useless single point!). Then Patrick Dorgu was yanked off at half-time, to give Marcus Rashford a chance.... to do absolutely nothing. Every Manchester United player had an absolutely terrible game; they all really looked as if they were 'still on the beach'.

For Spurs, Pedro Porro and and Matheus Fernandes were apparently unfit to start, and after the game De Zerbi called out the fitness levels of Senesi, Van Hecke, and Tonali on the pitch as well - though even having most of your team 'not fit' doesn't really explain how catastrophically awful Spurs were.

Pierre Sage pulled Daniel Munoz and Eddie Nketiah off shy of the hour mark. Nobody has Nketiah in FPL; but Munoz is the 16th most popular defender, with an ownership of nearly 10%.

Ollie Watkins was omitted, apparently due to an imminent transfer to the Saudi League. And with no other fit forwards, Villa were forced to play Emi Buendia up front.

Xabi Alonso left Caicedo and Palestra out of Monday night's squad at the last minute, apparently being 'cautious' about 'minor fitness issues'.

Near misses:  The one bright spot for Coventry on Friday evening was Tchaouna's impetuously improvised over-the-shoulder volleyed lob from just outside the box (Raya probably just about had it covered, as it looped on to the roof of the net).

Igor Thiago crashed his penalty against the foot of the left post, with a floundering Kinsky having gone to the other side.

Milenkovic headed a corner against the far post, with Trafford, for once, well beaten. 

Joao Pedro flashed a volley just wide of the post from a superb cut-back from Palmer; that would have been an even better goal than his stunning opener if he'd managed to get it on target. 

Big misses/big saves: Pickford managed to tip Nketiah's fierce close-range drive on to the inside of his post to keep the game level early on - the best save of the day on Saturday. Shortly afterwards, Mateta spurned an open goal, guiding his shot against the foot of the post, when it seemed easier to score than to miss.

Sels pulled off a great flying save against Muharemovic, the second best stop of the day. A little later, Murillo played in Chris Wood - who came on for the last half-hour - but, with only Trafford to beat, the big striker uncharacteristically pulled his shot tamely wide.

Haaland whiffed untypically at a good cross from O'Reilly, and Guehi somehow managed to head wide with two-thirds of the goal to aim at. So, City really should not have been still desperately chasing the game in the dying minutes....

Fulham's best unconverted chance against Chelsea fell to Antonee Robinson when he was played in behind by Cuenca but went for a lob from just outside the box and mishit it badly.

Outstanding goals:  Very nice free-kick from Nelson Angulo to get Sunderland back into the game (although the keeper probably should have got to it...). Anton Stach's late winner at Forest was even better!

Dewsbury-Hall's fierce left-foot drive gave Everton the lead out of nowhere just before half-time; up until then, Palace had looked on top in the game, but the momentum swung against them from that moment.

Outstanding performances: Arsenal fans are perhaps getting a bit over-excited about the lively form of their new Greek winger, Christos Tzolis: he did have a good game on Friday night, but Saka and Odegaard (and Calafiori and White) were even better - so, it's hard to see how you justify using one slot in the three-man club quota on a newcomer to the league.

Brentford's new midfield linchpin Mamadou Sangaré was given an immediate start, and absolutely bossed the game. But he was withdrawn with a quarter of an hour left. And this dominant performance came against an utterly hapless Spurs. And it looks as though his assists in this game were probably a bit fortuitous and untypical, and he's mainly likely to be a source of 'defcon' points only. I'd still rather go for Schade or Lewis-Potter, or maybe Damsgaard when he's fit again, from the Brentford midfield.

Cole Palmer is back. He had the vital 'pre-assist' for Roger's goal, as well as an actual assist for his neat flick-on to set up Joao Pedro with the opener after barely 30 seconds, and created a couple of other good chances too, as well as putting one of his trademark curlers inches beyond the post and having another similar effort deflect just wide off a defender's bum. And oh, he did actually score a goal as well. But it was one of those games where he was absolutely majestic, and could easily have claimed a hattrick of goals and a hattrick of assists.

Big mistakes: Antonin Kinsky had a bit of a horror-show in the Spurs goal, tamely parrying the ball straight back to opponents for two of the goals.

Robert Sanchez looked at fault for Josh King's goal on Monday night. The skidding near-post effort bounced up a little awkwardly for him, but it wasn't that powerful and well within his reach - really not one that should have got past him. And, if we're being really harsh (his critics are), he probably shouldn't have parried Castagne's late shot straight back at the lurking Gonzalo Garcia. Chelsea's almost surrendering 2 points in a game they mostly dominated, and should have won comfortably, can be almost entirely laid at the door of their perennially dodgy goalkeeper.

Bad luck/good luck: OK, Odegaard had a great game on Friday, but his goal was an horrendous miskick!

FPL weirdness: 

Unexpected results:  Nobody expected Hull or Ipswich to start so impressively (or, perhaps, Coventry to be quite so lame; they had looked much the best of these three sides in the Championship last year). And while a lot of big clubs can be a little slow out of the blocks, Spurs and Manchester United and Aston Villa were just unbelievably bad this weekend - looking like relegation candidates rather than top-of-the-table hopefuls.

For a long time, Kai Havertz was looking like he might be the only forward to score a goal in the opening gameweek, but eventually Thierno Barry and Joao Pedro joined him; still not a great collective return from the strikers! And until Monday night, the 'Team of the Week' contained only Odegaard, Kayode, and Gakpo who had any kind of ownership at all (even Odegaard, much the most popular, is barely in the current 'Top 50' picks, and below 10% overall ownership!); although eventually the rather more popular Joao Pedro and Palmer would force their way in. Despite a lot of people having rashly played their Bench Boost chip, the global average was a dismally low 48 points. Apart from a few unexpected selections, and the abysmal performances of Manchester United and Spurs (the latter probably not that consequential in FPL, but United have 4 players in the Top 20 'most selected' for Gameweek 1!) and Villa, and Robert Sanchez, there weren't really so many 'surprises' this week (remarkably few for an opening gameweek!). And apart from Brentford being unfairly denied a penalty against Spurs, there weren't any egregious refereeing mistakes either, so it's looking like a refreshingly low 2 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.