Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 5

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).

This week we seem to be suffering a 'Curse of the International Break' Blues, with numerous teams and players oddly lacking in focus and turning in dreadful displays - almost nothing but 'unexpected' results this weekend! And it is shaping up to be one of the worst FPL gameweeks in recent memory.

Red cards awarded: 

Red cards not awarded:  Declan Rice really should have been sent off for his petulant little kick at Yalcouyé late on; doesn't matter that it "wasn't very hard" - it was not a challenge, the ball was nowhere nearby, it was just a straight-up assault.

Penalties awarded: The penalty against Sorba Thomas was incredibly soft, unjust. It looked as though he had been fouled by Miley, and although he was making a meal of it by going down, the contact his arm made on the side of Jacob Murphy's foot was accidental, and utterly trivial - really not enough to unbalance him, let alone bring him down. Justice was done when Wissa's soft, telegraphed penalty was comfortably pushed around the foot of the post by Tzolakis.

Penalties not awarded: Gabriel's lunging block which appeared to catch Kostoulas's ankle and trip him up surely should have been a penalty. Darren England must have been feeling sorry for Arsenal!

Tight/dubious offsides: Kevin Schade looked to be very slightly offside at the start of his break for the second goal on Friday night, but was adjudged not to be - although we never saw the SAOT picture to explain that.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: 

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Joao Pedro was not able to take part after all on Friday night, not even on the bench (although Alonso had earlier suggested that he might); thus, Danny Welbeck got his first league start for Chelsea.

Brighton captain Lewis Dunk was a late injury drop-out, suffering from a 'stiff neck', replaced by Pascal Struijk; and the recently excellent Malick Yalcouyé was dropped in favour of the slightly more defensive-oriented Chema Andrés (presumably thus a 'tactical' change?). Meanwhile Arteta gave a first league start to Bruno Guimaraes instead of Lewis-Skelly in the holding role - which might have been the beginning of Arsenal's problems.

Tino Livramento broke down in training on Friday, so Lewis Miley had to deputise at right-back.

Jair Cunha was fit to start again in the back-three, displacing Ola Aina who had deputised for him for one week.

Near misses: Jaidon Anthony looped a strong header onto the crossbar (flagged offside - but wasn't).

Tim Iroegbunam nearly salvaged a point for Hull in the closing minutes when he prodded a close-range volley inches beyond the far top corner.

Big misses/big saves: Kelleher made a good early stop from Neto's fierce left-foot volley on Friday night; but a lacklustre Chelsea made few other chances in the rest of the game.

Arsenal's one decent chance of the game came late on when substitute Gyokeres hooked a long ball on first time releasing Havertz in behind - but he shot straight at Verbruggen.

Bobby Thomas preserved his side's frail lead with a superb overhead clearance off his goal-line.

Thierno Barry got a free header at the far post, but directed his stooping effort the wrong side of the post. A little later, Leif Davis ghosted in to the edge of the six-yard box, but with an open goal in front of him completely muffed the shot. At the start of the second-half, Pickford made a sharp save at his near-post from an Enciso shot.

Outstanding goals:  Emi Buendia probably claims the pick of the crop of this weekend's goals with his savage dipper from long-range. We appear to have established a 25-yard minimum requirement for 'Goal of the Month' contenders!

Gross's opener was cleanly struck from just over 20 yards, but not particularly powerful (no back-lift!), and it was perhaps a little fortunate to ping in off both posts (or very nearly so...). And it was remarkably similar to Morgan Rogers's effort a fortnight ago - which also managed to sneak past Raya at his near-post! Kostoulas's strike just before half-time was a little further out, and more crisply struck, but.... again, you wouldn't usually have expected it to beat Raya.

Brennan Johnson might have claimed the 'Goal of the Day', if not of the month, with an exquisite touch to set up a chance just inside the edge of the box - but he struck his shot inches wide of the post.

Mohamed-Ali Cho's consolation goal for Hull was extremely well-taken - one of the best finishes inside the box we've seen for a while! Although Jay Da Silva's first goal of Coventry's campaign was perhaps even better, not least for the early ball into the wide channel from goalkeeper Rushworth to play him in.

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: Lukas Hornicek tried some clever footwork on his byline just outside the goal and was nearly dispossessed by the lurking Belloumi. He did well to seize the ball back - but that was nearly the most embarrassing moment of the weekend.

Bad luck/good luck: 

FPL weirdness: 

Unexpected results:  Almost all of them! Chelsea continue to be all-over-the-place at the back (and you wonder if Robert Sanchez might be about to reclaim his place from Martinez), but without Joao Pedro to lead the line were also toothless going forward; nobody should have expected an evening game away at Brentford to be an easy assignment, but it turned out to be a cakewalk for the home side. While many were fancying lively Brighton to perhaps give Arsenal a bit of a game, no-one can have had any reason to expect that the champions and league leaders would so completely fail to show up for this game - an absolutely abysmal performance that made them look more like relegation candidates (the home fans' taunting chants of 'Are you Tottenham in disguise?' were all too apt!).  Newcastle are usually a bit of a handful at home, but few were probably expecting them to bounce back so strongly from their humiliating demolition by Leeds on Monday night; and even so, they were a bit fortunate to plunder 2 goals in the opening six-and-a-half minutes,... and then to hang on, just, as Hull increasingly dominated the second-half and repeatedly threatened an equaliser. Coventry made a huge step forward to achieve a deserved win against a lacklustre Forest.

With Chelsea and Arsenal having absolute horror-shows (many of the more naive FPL managers have recently chosen to treble-up on one or both of these!!), and recently fancied Hull and Forest also going down to slightly unexpected defeats, there is much lamentation in FPL-land this week. The 'Team of the Week', contains none of the star names as yet; among its members, probably only Tarkowski and Gross have an ownership even above 1%, let alone 10%! And the global average is so far an utterly abysmal 18 points. With so many inexplicably bad performances from leading teams, this is shaping up to be one of the worst FPL gameweeks ever!!  But apart from Darren England's rather generously letting Arsenal off a penalty and a sending-off, and one slightly questionable offside in Brentford's favour, there haven't been any more officiating disasters so far: thus, only 4 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.