To Konsa, or not to Konsa?

Ezri Konsa is seen by many as being an irresistibly affordable 'route into the Arsenal defence'. And I can see that temptation: while he has a start in the team, he does indeed represent a very attractive 'value'. But as soon as he loses that start, he becomes a huge waste of money. And I think most of his recent adopters have been rather blindly over-optimistic about his prospects of keeping his start for very long.

Indeed, there does seem to have been quite a divergence of opinion on Konsa in the FPL community over the past few weeks: while he has now seen over 1,000,000 transfers in during that period, he's also suffered around 530,000 transfers out - and his price did in fact briefly dip down to 4.4 million just after his move to Arsenal (either managers were shocked/disappointed when he didn't immediately start, or just recognised that his prospects of a regular start might now be much lower; Villa are a much weaker defensive team, but at least he would have been playing every single minute for them).

Those who rushed in for Konsa now feel vindicated because he's started the last two games. They mostly seem to have been convincing themselves that he was always bound to move into the Arsenal side almost immediately, and would remain a fixture until Saliba is fully fit again (which seems as though it might be at least a couple more months). But the only arguments they seemed to be able to adduce for this bold assumption were that he was an England player (well, yes; but he's only just started becoming a first-choice starter - and England have been conspicuously short of much established quality to draw upon in the centre-back position for a while now; so, that's really not a very powerful recommendation) and that Arsenal wouldn't have paid over 50 million quid for him just to be a bench player (although they have recently spent a ton of money on players like Gyokeres, Eze, and Guimaraes - who are obviously going to spend most of their time on the bench); both rather spurious justifications, relying on 'status' rather than merit.

The fact is, Konsa has only got the chance to be integrated into the starting lineup so quickly because Christhian Mosquera suffered a muscle injury. This problem appears to be fairly minor, and he might be available for selection again any day now; indeed, Arteta hinted that he might have been ready to participate against Sunderland at the weekend (although, in fact, he was not even on the bench). I like Konsa and rate him fairly highly; but I don't think he's clearly better than Mosquera, who has looked absolutely outstanding whenever he's been called upon to deputise for Saliba over the last 12 months. 

And even if Konsa did offer potential advantages over Mosquera in certain aspects of his game, a defence relies very heavily on its members developing a close rapport with the rest of the back-line and the keeper: a rapport that depends not only on an intimate understanding of teammates' strengths and weaknesses, their style of play and style of communication on the pitch, but on the underlying personal relationships too - a deep trust that grows out of genuine camaraderie and friendship; that level of understanding doesn't come about overnight. Moreover, Arteta is a notoriously detail-oriented coach, and you might expect that it may take some weeks - if not perhaps even a couple of months - before a new player could fully absorb all of his tactical precepts. For these reasons alone, I thought - and still think - it unlikely that Konsa would be preferred for an immediate starting spot in the Arsenal defence over more established players, unless an injury crisis creates an opening for him.

I would certainly prefer Mosquera to Konsa - at least for now - if only for his experience within Arteta's system and his familiarity with the rest of the defensive unit. But I'm not Mikel Arteta! Who knows the mind of Mikel Arteta?? Many Arsenal fans like to assume that they do; but they're deluding themselves.

There are other strong options - possibly/probably stronger than Konsa! - for the role of Saliba's stand-in as well. Timber's now recovered from injury, and has occasionally played in that second centre-back slot quite capably. I can see Arteta might be a bit concerned about his physical suitability for the role (he's only about 5'10" tall, so probably lacks the commanding aerial presence of most of his other centre-back options), but he could slot in at right-back or left-back, allowing White or Calafiori to partner Gabriel. Hincapie too could play in that position, or take over at left-back, again allowing White or Calafiori to move into the centre.

So, Konsa cannot as yet be regarded as a nailed starter, the obvious, usual first choice. And even if he does soon appear to have become such, with so many other strong candidates for a start in defence, it seems doubtful to me that he can ever be relied upon as an invariable starter.

And even if Konsa does get a regular run of starts, he's under a lot of pressure from the 'club quota' too. With so many Arsenal players clamouring for consideration in an FPL squad, is his cheapness really a decisive recommendation? Konsa doesn't seem likely to offer very much attacking threat, and with Arsenal dominating possession so easily against most teams, he might not produce that many 'defcon' points either (Gabriel is the only Arsenal defender who's regularly registering those so far). Calafiori is looking much the most appealing pick from the Arsenal defence, with a regular prospect of assists or goals as well as his share of the collective clean sheet bonuses. But White has also looked a very strong option; and Timber will probably become so as well, if he regains a regular start. Odegaard and Saka have started the season in blistering form; Rice is likely to again be a very dependable source of midfield points; the new winger Tzolis has shown a lot of promise; Kai Havertz is gaining attention as a potential 2nd/3rd forward pick; and David Raya is currently by far the most popular goalkeeper pick (with nearly 40% ownership; I don't agree with it myself - several of the 5.0 and 4.5-million-pound options are likely to at least do very nearly as well; but after his penalty save against Sunderland, he is for now at the top of the goalkeeper charts, so his owners aren't likely to reconsider their choice for a while). 

I think it's a bad idea to treble up on any team this early in the season. Apart from anything else, it's nice to be able to keep the fexibility to easily bring in a third player when form or fixtures strongly encourage it (will Havertz clearly establish himself as a leading forward option? will Tzolis hit a hot streak?). And you really don't ever want to be more than doubled-up from the same club in one area of the pitch. So, if you already have Calafiori and another Arsenal defender or David Raya, there simply isn't any room for Konsa. And if you pick Konsa over one of those other Arsenal options (perhaps one you already owned, and chose to let go) - are you sure that money you saved is going to buy you more points in another area of the pitch than it would have done by sticking with Calafiori (or White or Raya or Gabriel or whoever)??

Perhaps Konsa will keep his start over Mosquera and the rest. Perhaps he'll get a long run of games for the next two or three months. Perhaps he'll luck into one or two headed goals and get some strong 'defcon' returns. And perhaps he'll prove to be not only the cheapest Arsenal defender but one of their best points-returners too. But to me, none of those things seem terribly likely. This selection might work out,.... but it is a very big gamble. (Not the sure thing his adopters are trying to convince themselves it is!!)

An irresistible bit of pep-me-up - Monday Music Break No. 2

Austrian keyboard-player and experimental composer Joe Zawinul was playing a kind of 'Fantasy Football' with musicians when he founded his electronic jazz-pop band Weather Report at the beginning of the 1970s, filling the constantly evolving lineup with a series of outrageous talents: saxophonist Wayne Shorter was a long-time mainstay, but at various times the group also included fantastic drummers like Chester Thompson, Alex Acuña and Omar Hakim, and the legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius - here plucking out the opening melody on his favourite fretless bass. This is their best-known piece, Birdland, the exuberant extended instrumental which opened their 1977 album 'Heavy Weather'. 

I once saw a cartoon strip that joked that it was simply impossible to remain depressed while listening to this piece of music. Unfortunately, I can't now track that down online; but I wholeheartedly agree. I discovered this band when I was at college during the 1980s, and this track soon became a regular go-to adrenalin jolt for me whenever I needed to shake myself out of the mood doldrums, or just get myself energised for an early start to the day after a heavy night-before.

The video above is a live performance from a 1978 concert at the Stadthalle Offenbach in Offenbach am Main, Germany (unfortunately, there is one annoying skip in it, near the end). The original album version - purportedly recorded (at least according to Jaco's later recollection) in a single take - can be found here.

If you like this, Youtube currently has a complete recording of the band's 1976 appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

If you've just had another wretched gameweek in FPL,.... this is just what you need to blow the cobwebs out of your head and send you into the new week in a more upbeat frame-of-mind.

A cruel game, indeed!

"Why you gotta be so mean...?"

A record number of FPL managers punted their first Triple Captain chip on Erling Haaland this weekend, anticipating a goal-fest against the previously dismal promoted team, Coventry City. But this week, Coventry were actually quite good, nearly got something out of the game; and the Lanky Viking failed to convert a few chances you'd usually expect him to put away with casual insolence. He might have had a hattrick - but instead returned only a relatively modest 9 points. Cherki set him up beautifully for his two best chances and might have had 2 assists in the game - but came away with nothing.

Calafiori had a goal disallowed for a teammate's offence, then lost his clean sheet bonus through an uncharacterisic lapse by David Raya,... and got booked: he might have reaped 14 or 15 points from the game, but only came away with 1 point! (Oh, no - apparently he wasn't booked, after all. Well, that's a relief: 2 points!!)

Saka and Palmer both played well without managing to register an attacking contribution and ended up with blanks.

Few teams managed to keep a clean sheet (apart from, improbably, the till now woefully awful Spurs and Villa!).

Yep, all the players that I owned had a misfiring week. I think I've got a pretty good squad; and they all played pretty well this weekend. But they returned a miserable 44 points for me. (Without that goal from Jaden Bogle, I would have been below the gameweek average - wretched thought! Oh god, in fact I was - well under!!!)

So it goes. This is a harsh, brutal, unfair, frustrating game. The only reason we play it, really, is to school our anger management...

The NERVE!!

I was asking Google the other day how many people might have played their Triple Captain chip on Bruno Fernandes in Gameweek 2 (and, of course, it was taking a long time to admit it didn't know...).

And its bloody AI - which now hijacks every single search query, even if you haven't selected the 'AI' option - offered to 'help' me select my FPL team.

I was fretting before the start of the season that AI was probably going to ruin the game before long. It may already be happening. 

So many FPL managers seem to be incapable of - or at least unwilling to - select their own teams, and they're probably all leaning on AI suggestions to do the job for them now. Are there any 'real' players still out there, players relying on their own judgement - rather than cheating???

Not many, I fear; not many.

'All over' already??

Well, it feels very much like it, doesn't it?

Nearly 5 million FPL managers owned Bruno Fernandes going into last weekend, and it seems around 1.8 million of them put the captain's armband on him. Although no official figure has been released yet, it seems likely that perhaps half of those played their Triple Captain chip on him.

So, those of us who didn't have Fernandes as our captain - or perhaps didn't own him at all - may have fallen behind the early leaders by as much as 50 or 60 points in a single gameweek, thanks to Bruno's improbably huge haul against Ipswich on Sunday.

And that is a massive, massive blow. Against good players, who are not making many blunders, and mostly achieving pretty consistent weekly returns, it will probably take us until the New Year to chip away at that kind of deficit (at least, in our normal week-by-week returns: if we could pull off a similarly huge coup with our Triple Captain play, or one of the other bonus chips - that would be a big help in getting back on terms rather more quickly). And we might not manage it even across the whole of the remainder of the season (amongst the handful of consistently strong managers I regularly compare myself against, there's often no more than 50 or so points between all of us through most of the season).

But this is a hard, cruel, frustrating game. We must accept that this is so - and keep trying to do the best we can with it, however much early setbacks may appear to have killed our hopes of achieving many of our original goals for the season.

I have two sources of consolation that may help. One is that one of my chief antagonists is wildly inconsistent, tends to start hot but... go walkabout in the second half of the season - and often contrives to piss away a 200 or even a 300-point lead in a matter of months. (He's not in a commanding position at the moment, and is probably not going to be my main threat this year. But at least this reassures me that weaker managers can allow you to make up even a very big gap on them.)  The second is that in the two mini-leagues I have the strongest personal investment in, only two managers own Bruno Fernandes (and they hadn't made him captain this week!). 

So, fortuitously enough, even though I might now struggle to finish in the top half million overall, my mini-league positions are still fine.

I recommend that everyone who has been wiped out by the Bruno Landslide should look for similar consolations. Even if the top spot in your most highly contested leagues looks out of sight at the moment,... it may not be. And, well, even if it is, there must be at least one key rival who shared your no-Bruno misery and is thus still within reach. 

Concentrate on the goals which still seem achievable, and forget - at least for now - about the ones that seem to have slipped away from you already.

Why all this WAITING?? (Monday Music Break - No. 1)

FPL always used to aim to confirm all match details (sometimes tweaking the BPS numbers or reallocating contested assists and whatnot) and finalize everyone's scores and league rankings within an hour or two of the gameweek's last match finishing.

But this year they've switched to not confirming everything until 9am the following morning (UK time). And that might be only a guideline, a 'good intention', a hopeful target: last week, it appeared to be quite a bit later than that. (I wonder if the Lords of FPL Towers are just too tight-fisted to pay staff overtime for all-night working any more??)

This means that in my timezone (East Asia, currently UTC+6) we perhaps won't be getting the gameweek's details straight until quite late the following afternoon. It is a little bit of a pain-in-the-behind.

But it did remind me of this song....  Lonely Boy by Ohio indie rock duo, The Black Keys. I confess I had always thought it was called 'I got a love that keeps me waiting' - which is the more powerful hook.

I wouldn't necessarily call this a major favourite of mine. It sounds great, and the hook is enormous - but I feel it kind of fails to deliver on that promise: it's like a placeholder lyric that is never developed into anything. Though there's something intriguingly meta in a song about frustration being itself inherently frustrating! The video plays into that a bit as well: whoever thought of having a dance video that doesn't properly show the dancing (no feet?!)?? Ah, so often mere irritation is a key part of a song's earworm quality....

Coincidentally, this band is on tour in the UK at the moment - three more gigs over the next few days.

Music is one of the great passions of my life; an even greater one than football, in fact! And I have dropped a few favourite songs here on the blog before. I've been thinking for a while of making that more of a feature - so, this is the beginning of a projected regular series of musical pick-me-ups to start the week.

What's up, BBC??

It has for many years been one of the central comforting rituals of my life to catch up on Saturday's Premier League action over a good cup of coffee on a Sunday morning, with the BBC's iconic 'Match of the Day' highlights programme on the iPlayer.

But this weekend, Auntie Beeb was trying to spoil my Sunday pleasure. Saturday's 'Match of the Day' somehow did not exist. Well, it did, of course - but it was stubbornly invisible to the in-site search engine. And it didn't even appear on the programme's 'Series page', which is supposed to archive all the currently available episodes.

I had to find the daily archive of Saturday's programme schedule and scroll down to the bottom to find 'Match of the Day' in its usual late-night slot (typically starting at around 11pm, UK time). Such a bother!

It's an oversight in the 'indexing', it would appear: they've posted the programme without putting up any of the usual links to other parts of the site that let you know it's there. I wonder if this is just a piece of carelessness by some overworked drone at the Television Centre, or a transient technical glitch, or.... if the bastards are actually 'hiding' the programme deliberately,... perhaps to try to promote the new(ish) feature of making individual match highlights available. (These are, admittedly, quite handy if you're in a hurry - or if you just want to easily rewatch one particularly entertaining game - but they are just the game action; there's none of the post-match discussion and analysis, and you don't even get the team lineups at the start; so, they're a very poor substitute for the normal programme.)

I am now waiting trepidatiously to see if the Sunday edition will 'appear' as normal in the next hour or so....

A little bit of Zen (109)

 

"I need ammunition - not a ride."

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

The Ukrainian President's concise and stupendously badass response to Joe Biden's offer of sending American Special Forces to help safely extract him from the country in the hours after Putin's invasion began in February 2022 should be an inspiration to all of us - in FPL, as in other areas of life. So many FPL managers we see on the online forums are just looking for a safe way out, for a free ride - 'Please, tell me who to pick.'  They should be looking for ideas, information, perspectives: things that will help them develop their thinking about the game, and enable them to start making better decisions for themselves.  That is what I try to do when I respond to such online queries. 

I never want to tell people who they should pick; I want to try to help people understand how to make better picks. You need 'ammunition', not a ride.

Here we go again....!!

 

"We must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Albert Camus

This game we so love and hate does seem very like the famous mythical punishment in Hell: endless toil, constant setback... ultimate futility.

We must learn to value the effort expended for its own sake, to celebrate the endeavour to achieve, rather than achievement itself.

Only about 14 hours to go now until the first kick-off of the new season:

 Arsenal v Coventry - at 8 pm, UK time. 

Stand by your boulders....

[Yes, this is a re-post from last year and the year before. But it is so inescapably appropriate that I'm going to use it every year.  I have a deep connection with the Myth of Sisyphus.]

But first, this....

I shall be attempting, a little later today, to put together a few thoughts on this season's initial FPL selection dilemmas.

But I'm still buzzing from that really fantastic World Cup we enjoyed last month, and wanted to revisit one of its outstanding moments: Cabo Verde's stunning extra-time equaliser against Argentina in the 'Round of 16', an absolute pinger from their young full-back, Sidny Lopes Cabral - subsequently voted the 'Goal of the Tournament'.  [FIFA seem to be churlishly blocking embedded video of their highlights - at least in certain territories - but I think this should still work for everyone if you click the 'Watch on Youtube' button (though you might have to watch the full highlights, rather than being taken straight to the Lopes Cabral screamer).]

That was a goal celebrated by the whole world (yes, even Argentinians should have been able to appreciate it, should have relished being made to work so hard for their progression). It's good to have the occasional thing like this that can bring us all together.

Does it 'matter' this year??

 

The traditional curtain-raiser to the new season, the Community Shield, kicks off this Sunday afternoon (though, for some reason, it's in Cardiff rather than London this year?!).  I've said before that in recent years, the two participants have been tending to take this game much more seriously than in the past, treating it as a valuable final warm-up - much more competitive than any of the other pre-season games - and as an opportunity to establish an early psychological edge over a rival. That is particularly the case, of course, when the two teams - the winners of last year's League and FA Cup trophies - are the likely frontrunners for this year's league title. That doesn't always happen; but this year, Arsenal and Manchester City are indeed the two favourites to become the Premier League Champions of 2027 - so, there's a lot to play for: this could be a 'dry run' for this season's title chase.

And for us FPL enthusiasts, we could see - for the first (and only!) time in pre-season - some reliable indications of the preferred lineups, and the likely early form of these teams and players.

There is particular curiosity - anxiety - about what part Erling Haaland may play in the game. He only finally returned to training from his extended post-World Cup holiday in the last few days, and so it may be doubtful if he's able to take part at all. If he doesn't feature, or gets only very short minutes. there will be major concerns that he might not be ready to play in City's opening league game against Bournemouth, at The Etihad next Sunday. And, since he costs a whopping 15.5 million quid in the game this year, that might prompt a lot of people to go without him in Gameweek 1, feeling that they should use some of that huge chunk of budget on a forward who's more certain to contribute a full 90 minutes.

The problem with this is, of course, that because Haaland is so much more expensive than every other player (3.5 million more than this year's only other 'super-premium', Bruno Fernandes; 6.5 million more than the second most expensive forward, Alexander Isak), you can't very well put all of that extra budget to use if you're only expecting to go without him for one or two weeks; you need to be swapping him for one other expensive player, and leaving the considerable surplus in the kitty (unless you're also committed to using your 1st Wildcard straight away, so you can make multiple changes to the squad when you bring him in). Well, you could also wait a few weeks, and save up transfers - or even take a few hits - so that you could bring him in alongside multiple other changes, and thus have all, or at least most, of the initial budget put to work in your selection. But we rarely have that luxury to use transfers at will early in the season; there are usually large numbers of forced changes thrust on us through early injuries, or players being in terrible form or just unexpectedly dropped.

I have a further concern that unless his ownership level is very high (it's currently at 73.5%, which, I fear, is not quite high enough - and it might drop a little from this peak if there are major worries about whether he's going to start next week), there's a danger of being caught out by a price rise. It will be difficult to anticipate when the fence-sitters decide to come in for him, and there might be a sudden jump in price,... perhaps even during that opening weekend (especially if he scores a brace off the bench in that first match!!); and that might happen while many of us are asleep.... At the start of the season, a shortfall of even 100k in your budget can be a massive inconvenience, because most of us are maxed out on our spending on the initial squad, and most the price-steps are still at the original 500k minimum intervals; hence, a single price movement can leave you unable to afford everyone at a particular price-point (and perhaps unable to afford anyone at all, if you want to offload a 4.0-million-pound 'budget enabler'). If Haaland's initial ownership level is up around 80%, I think we'd be fairly well insulated from that danger, because there's always a substantial minority of naysayers who just don't like him (or, more likely, don't like City), or have obstinately committed to doing without him for the season to use the budget elsewhere; so, even if he were to score a hattrick off the bench against Bournemouth, the number of new managers coming in for him should be relatively modest; and when the starting ownership level is that vast, you need really huge numbers of purchasers to move the price-dial any further - it becomes just about impossible. But if the ownership number is down around 70% or even lower,.... I think I'd take the chance on having him from the get-go. 

This is really no different to any other gameweek; there's always a chance that Haaland is going to miss a start here or there, after picking up a minor knock, catching a cold, or just getting rested before a big European game. This is why you have a decent 3rd forward - someone you won't start every week, someone you might hardly use at all, but someone who'll hopefully give you fairly decent points whenever you do need to use him.

Moreover, I don't like the idea of committing to transfers - let alone multiple transfers or a possible early Wildcard - just to bring in a key player for a particular gameweek. At the start of the season we are facing so many uncertainties: lots of players go down with injuries ('trying too hard' while not yet fully match-fit), lineups get unsettled by arrivals or departures during the transfer window, some teams or players are mysteriously out-of-form while others may be unexpectedly super-hot. We very often have to make multiple transfers - or reach for that early Wildcard - anyway, without having made 'plans' to bring in Haaland a week or two late.

But if the big Viking gets a decent run-out on Sunday and looks sharp,... this will all be moot: he'll be in at least 80% of teams by next Friday!

[I have moved to Danang for this weekend - purely because it is reputed to be the one place in Vietnam with a few decent sports bars where I might be able to watch the game... Fingers crossed! Since bloody TNT Sports acquired the rights to the game last year, we don't even get highlights on BBC or ITV any more.]

[So, Haaland started, and played about an hour: not fully sharp, but no real issue with his fitness. The bigger concern arises from the rest of his team: everybody else looked miles off it - even Donnarumma - and they're clearly still struggling to get to grips with Maresca's desired style of play. They have so many excellent players that I imagine things will start clicking for them fairly soon, but.... they're looking a very dodgy prospect for the opening few games of the season.

The weirdest and most worrying aspect of yesterday's unexpectedly one-sided Community Shield was that while Arsenal fielded what was largely a 'B team' (no Rice, Zubimendi, Saka, Gyokeres, Timber, Saliba....), City, with the exception of Kovacic, were putting out something much closer to a full-strength side, pretty much what we might expect them to start with against Bournemouth. Ouch.]

The rise of 'the idiocracy' (again)

Around this time last year, I shared this video from the Philosophy Coded Youtube channel, on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's analysis of 'wilful ignorance' as a mass phenomenon (Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, famously martyred for his opposition to the Nazis; so, he was probably thinking particularly of the Germans' complacency in accepting Hitler's rise to power in the early 1930s).

The other week I discovered another interesting discussion of Bonhoeffer's ideas on this topic from Jonny Thompson of the Big Think channel in the video above. (Apparently there's an extended version of this talk, although I haven't yet had the chance to watch that to see what more it adds.)  Thompson observes that there was a similar concept - 'amathia' (ἀμαθία, the rejection of learning or understanding) - in Ancient Greek philosophy. Unfortunately, we do see rather a lot of this 'sticking one's head in the sand' in the realm of FPL; managers cling to their superstitions and prejudices in defiance of reason, they follow the promptings of supposed 'experts' or just fall in with the herd - rather than taking the trouble to think for themselves. Like the gadfly Socrates, I am always trying to goad people into original thought - and it makes me very unpopular on many of the forums!

And if that hasn't got you depressed enough about humanity,.... Philosophy Coded has a follow-up video on Bonhoeffer's ideas.

What then can we do?

I said again this morning that early drafting is worse than a waste-of-time.

What, then, can the FPL enthusiast do to 'prepare' during the last couple of weeks or so before the Big Kick-Off?

Well, it's usually a good idea to watch a fair bit of the pre-season friendlies (highlights only, of course!) - especially the later ones, and those involving the Premier League's better teams matching themselves against some top European sides. 

However, we always have to keep in mind that such games rarely tell us very much about likely form in the opening games of the domestic season. Particularly in a World Cup year, so many key players are returning late to training, and have figured little or not at all as yet. And these matches - even the occasionally more 'competitive' ones - are generally played at a fairly gentle pace, and feature unlimited substitutions. They can be quite useful for giving some insight into new tactical ideas being tried out for the season ahead, and for showcasing promising youngsters who might have a chance of breaking into the first team at some point this year (though probably not straight away...), but they mostly tell us next-to-nothing about likely team or individual form or probable lineups on the opening Premier League weekend.

The Premier League's website has a list of the pre-season fixtures played, usually with links to brief match reports. And there's also this - very brief - roundup of minutes played and attacking contributions registered by leading players.

Unfortunately, most of the main FPL help sites like Fantasy Football Scout seem to have firewalled all of their content about the pre-season games this year, so there's very little useful information that you can access for free (the Fantasy Premier League site itself is predictably useless on this).

It's also a good idea, of course, to try to stay on top of the transfer news. (Though I'd resist getting bogged down in the endless flurry of groundless rumours that we suffer in this 'social media' era. Arsenal fans somehow managed to convince themselves that Vinicius Jnr was going to join them - though that was obvious nonsense. And their acquisition of Bruno Guimaraes unfolded at a glacial pace over an agonising three weeks or so, with some new pointless bit of 'progress' announced almost every day during that! It is just painful...)

At least Fantasy Football Scout's list of the new signings is stil free-to-view (though not many of them have been given 'scout reports' yet). The Transfermarkt transfers page has links to its profiles of the players (although that website continues to look horrible; and it is now awash with gambling ads...). The TNT Sports website actually seems to have the best-looking - and possibly also most helpful... - transfer summary this year.

Also, of course, we should keep an eye out for possible injuries. We seem - touch wood! - to have been remarkably fortunate so far this year. But usually we get a slew of players breaking down in training during the last couple of weeks - or even in the last few days - before the new season gets under way again. Again, Fantasy Football Scout usually has a good injury list, but I find Premier League Injuries is occasionally a little more up-to-date.

Naturally, it's worth having a look over the fixture schedule for the early part of the season (although the game's own 'Fixture Difficulty Rating' guide here is usually laughably inaccurate, and needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt).

And it's probably worth taking a look at what the promoted clubs played like last season, and what transfer moves they've been looking to make over the summer (few of them these days have any realistic chance of staying up, but every once in a while, one of them can give us a surprise - I fancy Frank Lampard's Coventry to have a decent chance this year; and even the obvious punchbag teams may still have one or two tempting budget player options). Adam Clery's 'Mini-Me' - his chirpy young editor, Archie Corbett, who's been very ably deputising for Adam on some of the excellent ACFC channel's recent videos - produced a good summary of this year's trio last week.

Finally, AllAboutFPL recently had this article of basic FPL tips by a supposed 'top manager' (I'm always a bit sceptical as to whether these guys are really that good, or if they've just enjoyed a few years of exceptional luck...). They are all fairly simple and generic points, but is is a very sound introduction to the game for newbies - actually, much the same kind of thing I'm usually saying on this blog and elsewhere online; so, worth checking out, I'd say.

I'll be posting some summaries of my past advice on selecting the initial squad, and weighing up this season's selection dilemmas next week - after the Community Shield game has been played.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!!!

The end of the world as we know it....

 

I came upon this fascinating - but terrifying - video this past week about one of the likeliest scenarios for AI wrecking everything.... possibly in the very near future.

The central idea here is the virtual equivalent of the 'grey goo' armageddon of uncontrolled nanobot proliferation; it is suggested that self-replicating AI 'agents' might very rapidly take over the cloud-computing space, hogging all of its available power consumption and server capacity - and so inadvertently crippling all of the more useful, and indeed essential, supports for human society which now depend on those online facilities.

Even worse, it is suggested that these 'agents' might start forming vast cooperative networks with each other - sprawling transglobal alliances that might soon evolve into virtual 'nations', even 'empires'. And, driven by a ruthless imperative of competition (probably instilled originally by imprudent human programmers tasking them to find ways of 'making money', but soon replaced by a recognition of the paramountcy of their own needs for securing access to more and more computing power and electricity), these alliances might start engaging in cyber-warfare against each other, deliberately sabotaging computing infrastructure to weaken rival alliances.

So, we should do our best to enjoy this upcoming season of Fantasy Premier League, because..... it might be our last. (Indeed, we might not even survive to the end of it; or, at least, we might not still have a functioning Internet to be able to complete our season's playing of it...)

These sombre thoughts reminded me of how far this game we love is already being compromised by the spread of AI. So many managers in the game now are asking Claude or ChatGPT and so on to choose their teams for them. And we are probably starting to see autonomous AI 'agents' - like the ones warned of in this chilling video - running their own FPL accounts. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a massive increase in the number of participants in the game this year - with many of the new manager accounts being run by AI. 

I don't suppose AI will be any good at the game for quite some time yet. But there are going to be a lot of distorting effects in the rankings from having 'artificial participants' in the game, and from having so many human participants devolving their decision-making to AI assistants. 

And if AI does start getting good at the game,... well, 'cash leagues' (which I've always viewed with extreme suspicion anyway) could soon become a complete waste of time. Online poker games have already been decimated by this curse of covert AI infiltration. But at least. because of the real-time interactivity in that game, and the possibility of having multiple spot-check ID verifications, there is some scope for weeding out pure AI participants, if not so much for excluding human competitors from using AI assistance to cheat. I really do fear that our jolly little game is going to get completely overrun by the AI madness in the next season or two. It would be nice, wouldn't it, if FPL managers were all determined to play the game fairly and to make all their decisions for themselves. But we see again and again in the online forums that the great majority of them want to cheat by any and every means possible, to find someone or something to tell them who to pick. And that is really going to start getting completely out of hand this season. Oh, woe!

And now.... a pause... A REST!!

 

I noted a few days ago that the FPL website is up-and-running for the new season again; but I also warned that it is a very bad idea to get dragged into obssessing about the game - or even thinking about it at all - until a few days before the first deadline (this year, on the evening of Friday 21st August).

After the excitement of the World Cup, I shall be aiming to take a complete break from the game.

My regular Friday series of bons mots will continue, and I might post the occasional video I find interesting; but there won't be any other new content on here for at least a couple of weeks.

I'll probably start re-posting some of my classic 'How to...' basics on selecting the initial squad just before the Community Shield game, and then attempting some more in-depth preview stuff on the season ahead in the final week before things kick off.

Enjoy the downtime!!  It is a rare treat!!

Here we go again...... (Or NOT!)

 

At some point yesterday, THE GAME went live for the new season. 

Yes, after a few days of shutdown-for-updating this week, the Fantasy Premier League website is up-and-running again, and ready to receive entries for the new campaign. As you can see in the screen-cap above, there are already 684,000+ managers enrolled after a matter of hours. These are the people who take the game really seriously... (and I, alas, am one one of them)....

If you are really concerned about your overall rank finish (you shouldn't be!), it's good to Auto-pick a squad and 'register' it straight away, because early-bird registration is a small advantage: the order of first entering your team is one of the tie-breakers applied to separate managers on the same points total.

But, what do you know, the site is glitching already!!  I tried early registration yesterday evening. And this morning, I found that my initial squad had been unsaved, and I had to Auto-pick again. And then the Auto-pick feature itself was glitching, only giving me a partial team, refusing to complete a full squad for me (and displaying a team full of bizarre data corruptions, such as suggesting that Viktor Gyokeres was now a midfielder???). So, I had to keep starting over from scratch, and it took several minutes to get the job (I hope!!) finally done and securely saved. (I guess it was another of those problems caused by the game's servers getting overtaxed by the high levels of early interest. During that brief time when I was struggling to get my team registered, the total enrolment had climbed from around 560,000 to 680,000!!! It really is best just to rely on how high a points total you can reach, and not be too worried about the exact 'rank' number that comes with it at the end of the season.)

Also, curiously, the site appeared to have allowed me to stay logged in this year. Though, perhaps that was only because I had only recently re-registered, and had no team data to clear from last year (having been shut out of my account altogether at the start of last season - not for the first time!)...?  In the last several years, the game site has annoyingly insisted on an extended re-log-in process where you have to create a new password for the new season. I would be glad if that pointless additional hurdle has indeed been removed now. [Ah, no - I hear from friends that the site is indeed locking people out and demanding a password reset for the new season; and refusing to allow you to reuse last year's.... or the year before's. It is hugely irritating.]

Although, I know, for many people this seems very hard, the best thing to do now is to walk away and cultivate another hobby instead for the next month. 

Don't log in to the FPL site again until after this year's Community Shield game: Arsenal v Manchester City, on Sunday 16th August.

As I said in one of my earliest posts on this blog: 

So much might yet happen before the Big Kick-Off - valuable hints about form and tactics and likely team selections  (not many, perhaps, but some...) emerging in the pre-season friendlies, players arriving or leaving in the summer transfer window, and, unfortunately, INJURIES. There really is no point in trying to select a squad - even provisionally - when we really have no idea who's going to be playing (and for which team!) on the GW1 weekend in mid-August. There is no point in even thinking about it.

It's not just a WASTE OF TIME - it's positively a BAD IDEA, something that will almost certainly lead to you making WORSE DECISONS about your selections.

Because of the way the human brain works... if you start looking at the player options, and allowing yourself to think, even vaguely, about possible squads, you will inevitably start making some decisions about your likely squad: decisions based on inadequate, incomplete, soon-to-be-outdated information; hence, in many cases at least, WRONG decisions. You probably won't be very self-aware about this; well, if you're even a little aware of it at the time, you'll almost certainly forget about it very quickly. But these proto-decisions - not always outright selections, but foundational preferences and prejudices and assumptions that will have a massive influence on selections - are mostly forming deep in your subconscious; and once they're there, they're very difficult to displace. The deep-rooted cognitive bias in favour of self-consistency means that once you've made a choice like this, it's very, very difficult for you to change your mind about it (especially if you don't realise you've made that choice, and/or don't know why you've made it!). There's a similar, very dangerous phenomenon called the 'anchoring bias' - which means you're very likely to make decisions based on the first one or two pieces of information you look at.

Anyone who's picked a squad two or three or four weeks out from the start of the season is VERY unlikely to have picked a good one. And they're also much less likely to be able to pick a good one later on... than someone who only starts pondering the options after the Community Shield.

That is some of the most unpopular advice I have ever offered here; but also some of the most important. Please try to take it on board.

I'm off to read good books and practice my guitar for the next 4 weeks. See you all again on Friday 21st August!!

[Well, OK, I will probably start putting out some pre-season tips in the week or two before that. But I won't be attempting to pick my initial squad until the day of the first kick-off - and neither should you.]

Well, that was QUICK....

 

The advent of the World Cup nearly took me by surprise this year!

With the expanded format, I suppose it's starting about a week earlier than usual - after our domestic season, with its many 'international break' interruptions, now lingers a week or so longer than it generally did in the past... and we have European Finals extending into the week beyond that. We've had less than two weeks' break from football: barely any time for the participating teams to get in any warm-up friendlies (England's second one isn't until the day before the tournament officially begins!).

And yes, the opening games are kicking off on a Thursday this year (for the first time ever??) - what's up with that??!!

So, damn, we're barely more than two days away from the greatest sporting event in the world getting under way again. And we Fantasy Football enthusiasts have really had next-to-no-time to get ready for this. I am in a frantic rush today to put together my initial squad for the official FIFA World Cup Fantasy Game.

I am excited, yes - but also a little trepidatious. Trying to follow the unfolding drama from a timezone where most of the games take place in the middle of the night is going to be a royal pain-in-the-behind.

Makes you want to GIVE UP, doesn't it?

 

For the past four or five years, I've been running an experimental side-team, with a severe self-imposed budget cap. I started off at just 75 million, but a couple of years ago, upped it to 80 million. (At least, at the start of the season. I allow myself to take advantage of any growth in squad value, but always keep at least 20 million of my budget unspent.) In Cole Palmer's debut season for Chelsea - when it was actually possible to afford the best player in the game, even with this severe restriction - this team actually did modestly well overall, top 2 million or so. And every season, there are at least a few gameweeks where it does spectacularly well - putting my regular selection to shame.

And so too this year: my best score of the entire season, by far, came in Gameweek 33, with a 141-point total haul for this team - including a very handy 39 points coming from my subs with the Bench Boost (a total lift of 23 points, because, on this showing, Gross and Flemming really should have been playing; I only count my 4 lowest-scoring players in assessing the impact of the BB chip).

I find this exercise is a useful reminder that it is - to some extent - possible to get by pretty well without the big-name, top-priced players. (Only to an extent: while a super-low-budget team like this can have some extraordinarily good weeks, and occasionally even an extraordinarily good month, it's unlikely to climb out of the bottom third overall. Giving up that much budget is just too constraining!)  And also as a reminder that there is almost always some excellent value to be found among the cheaper options. Players like Lewis-Potter, Aaronson, Gross, and Flemming were well worth having in any team this year, for spells when they were in a good run of form. (You just wouldn't want all of them, all season,.... and no Fernandes or Haaland...)

It is a funny old game, indeed.

The ultimate REFRAME

I was asked - yet again - on one of the forums the other week what my rank is. And instead of just ignoring the enquiry, or castigating the questioner as an ignorant lout, I came up with this flippant response.... which I find contains a kernel of important truth. This is not silly bragging or empty, delusional consolation; it is a valuable reminder of where our true focus should lie.

"I am FIRST in the only league that matters."

This is always true, for all of us. Because the only competition that truly matters is the struggle with ourselves - to do the best we can, and to constantly seek to improve on what that 'best' can be.

Fretting about your 'Overall Rank', or even your status in mini-leagues, is a VANITY of VANITIES. It is not what the game of FPL should really be about.

Had we but world enough and time.....

 

.... we'd all win FPL one day!

I said last week, in my major post on what actually makes the most difference to your FPL season points total, that smart FPL managers should out-perform not-so-smart ones.... most of the time.

But alas, I'm not convinced that is true: at least, not as often as it should be, not over a single season - not in our unitary existence.

The thing is, with such a huge number of manager accounts in the game every year now, you're inevitably going to get a huge number of them that prosper by sheer dumb luck (even among 'zombie accounts' that are rarely or never active!). And because the impact of luck in our game is far greater than that of skill, that unfortunately means that a very large number of those who do so prosper will prosper so extravagantly that they will outperform a lot of the merely skillful managers in the game who haven't had any out-of-the-ordinary luck, and hence that... not all, but a very great many of the folks in the upper reaches of the rankings most years are likely to be not really very good at all, to have reached that eminence mostly or entirely by luck.

It is my belief that the truly smart FPL managers would only be able to convincingly display their superiority over the masses across a very long timeframe.

You do see some evidence of this, with some of the best long-time managers having now produced fairly consistently decent - though rarely or never outstanding - results over 10 or 15 or 20 years. But even for this to happen, for one's 'true average' level of attainment to emerge, for you to prove your ascendance over the majority of other managers in the game (many of whom will have averages buoyed up by one or two extraordinarily lucky seasons...), it will usually take many, many years - maybe, in some cases, too many years, more than one human lifetime.

And for a really smart manager to win the global crown, or even to crack the top 50k or 100k, it might take him or her hundreds or thousands of lifetimes.

I speculate that if some sort of 'multiverse' hypothesis is indeed the case (that there are many parallel realities, perhaps an infinite number, all subtly different - and that hence, across that infinitude, everything that can happen, will happen somewhere), then smart FPL managers are enjoying their just reward somewhere each year. But within a single reality, it might take centuries or millennia before the dice fall that kindly for us.

For most of us, it will never happen - because life is too short.