This time, IT MATTERS

 

My scorn for the League Cup knows no bounds. 

I have always - always; ever since I was a child - felt that a second domestic cup competition is otiose, and ridiculous. I am rarely even aware of the earlier rounds being played, and I seldom bother to watch the Final (except in that one glorious year, back in the 1980s, when second-tier Oxford United managed to win it - one of the great small-club triumphs in English football history; just a pity it wasn't in the proper cup...). 

The tournament's flimsy credibility hasn't been helped by having a succession of unlikely sponsors insist on splashing their name on the trophy - a somewhat contemptible one in the gambling company Littlewoods, along with simply ludicrous ones like its current backer - the energy drink that isn't Red Bull; and, back in the day, the Milk Marketing Board supported it for a long while: calling it the 'Milk Cup' made it sound like some sort of confectionary...). 

My feeling is that the competition could become more useful and relevant - and less of a strain on an already dangerously overstuffed top-flight schedule - if it were restricted to clubs outside the Premier League.

However, we do have an unusually significant match-up in this Sunday's Final: Arsenal and Manchester City, the two teams vying for this year's Premier League title. And the game happens to come at a particularly crucial moment in that title race, as City's challenge seems to be evaporating after they tamely dropped points in their last two games - to allow the leaders to pull out a rather daunting 9-point gap.

I have an inkling, therefore, that this year's League Cup might actually decide the League title as well. City, I think, really, really, really need to win this game - to lay down a marker that they're not giving up the challenge yet, to try to put a bit of a dent in Arsenal's growing self-confidence. They still have a game in hand over their rivals, and they are slated to play them at home in Gameweek 33. If they could win both of those, Arsenal would be facing a very nervy run-in.

But if Arsenal can beat them on Sunday, they'll go to The Etihad in a month's time with no fear - and they'll probably win again there. City NEED to win this game - not for the worthless 'consolation prize' trophy, but to keep the title-chase alive.

So,... I might actually watch the game this year!  [Well, I'll try. Since the UK coverage is on the dreaded ITVX, I very much doubt if I'll be able to get a viable stream.]

Going with the flow

Here's a funny thing: although I have a great fondness for the late Shane MacGowan and his songwriting,.... most of my favourite Pogues songs are in fact written by other members of the band. This one, a rather beautiful love song by banjo-player Jem Finer, is actually from their later era in the '90s, after the band had finally been worn out by Shane's looney escapades and had to sack him.

The Pogues have a special place in my heart because they rose to prominence - indeed they were, somehow, one of the biggest bands in the world for a while back then! - during the 1980s, the period when I was transitioning from high school to university, and then from university to 'the world of work' (ha!), that age when we tend to listen to music most, and be most affected by it.

Although this song was released on their penultimate album, Waiting For Herb, in the mid-90s, I always associate it with a rather earlier moment in my life (funny how the mind works!). Back at the end of the '80s, I was doing a teacher-training course in the north of England, and was attempting a long-distance relationship for the first time, with a devastatingly beautiful young woman I'd just met who was at art college in London. (I always seem to fall for creative types: actresses, dancers, writers, musicians...) And although she never stood me up at a bus station, as in the scenario of the song, there were a number of  times when hoped-for visits were cancelled, or when we had awkward conversations from a payphone at a bus station (one of the most readily available to me at the time, since I was living in a small village some way outside of my university town, and having to take a bus home almost every evening). Because of these associations, several years later, this became for me, retroactively, 'our song'.

The song is notable musically for being an instance of the use of 'Infinite Guitar' - a feedback effect that allows a note to be sustained indefinitely at constant volume, here producing a melancholy and haunting background. The device was apparently invented by a Canadian guitarist called Michael Brook in the 1980s, but it is most associated with his countryman, Daniel Lanois, who did a lot to develop, or at least 'popularise' the innovation. Also a talented musician and songwriter, Lanois became best-known as a producer, particularly for his work on a number of U2's most successful albums. He introduced the 'infinite guitar' gizmo to The Edge, who was quite besotted with it for a while, and used it most memorably on the hit single With Or Without You - which probably creates some additional resonance with this song. (I'd never been much of a fan of U2 or The Edge, but I got to meet him and hear him perform at a private music biz party in the '90s, and found myself very impressed: he is a rather cool dude, and a much better player than I'd realised.)

I particularly like the opening lines, repeated as chorus:

Listen to me, baby: Once upon a time....

My heart, it was an ocean,

But you swam against the tide.

It's a song about acceptance, about moving on - without enmity or regret. How many of those are there?? It might be unique.

It's a good lesson, for life - and for FPL. Sometimes - often, most of the time - things don't work out the way we want them to. We have to try to understand how these setbacks happen, without apportioning blame - to ourselves or others. And we have to learn to bear these disappointments with good grace - and summon the will to keep moving forward.

And yet, of course, I can't escape the conviction on occasions that the girl was wrong, that life is often wrong; that the tide of my feelings was 'right', and that the girl - and the world - would have done better to have gone along with my flow, rather than opposing it.

Yes, EVERYTHING can become a metaphor for me.  Life is a metaphor for FPL, FPL is a metaphor for life.... Life is FPL....

Forgive these idle musings. I am making rapid progress into a bottle of Tullamore Dew this slow Tuesday evening....

A little bit of Zen (85)

“May you get all your wishes but one, so you always have something to strive for.”

Irish blessing

"And may the head on your Guinness be tight and creamy..."

GW  (Though he probably won't be expressing himself that coherently over the coming few days, what with being a Plastic Paddy and all....)

One can't help a little snigger

 

I am English; and thus I inevitably feel a certain sentimental attachment towards English football clubs, and hope for them to do well in the continental competitions. But that's all it is: a weak impulse of sentiment. I have absolutely no time for blind nationalism, and in fact tend to react against any suggestion of it. Ultimately, I love good football more than anything else, and will always celebrate a deserved victory, even when it goes against the team I was at least somewhat rooting for. I won't be obstinately braying for English success at any price in the World Cup this summer; I'll quite happily accept it if - when - we get eliminated by a better team; and, ultimately, I'll probably be investing as much or more hope in the team playing the most attractive game during the tournament, and that's quite likely to be Spain or France or Brazil.

And hence.... while many of my countrymen are dismayed and despondent at this week's results in the First Leg ties of the Chamipions League 'Round of 16', I can't resist a little chortle. The 'junior' European competitions have been so diluted as to become a bit of joke, really - easily dominated even by bottom-of-the-table Premier League sides. But this year, the Champions League has seemed to be going the same way, with the usually major European powers mostly looking well below their best (only Bayern still giving cause for concern...) in the league phase. Even misfiring Liverpool had been able to look fairly dominant in Europe so far; even stuttering Newcastle and increasingy abysmal Spurs had qualified through the first phase with relative ease. It was starting to feel as though we'd surely be guaranteed two or three of the semi-final berths. But, oh boy, did things just change quickly!!

Admittedly, only Newcastle were playing at home in this first batch of games. And our boys did get the rough end of the draw, with opponents of the status of Real, Barca, PSG, and Atleti being pitched against us so early in the knockout phase. (Though at least we were spared Bayern! And, frankly, on these performances, I'm not sure any of our teams would have fared that much better against Bodø/Glimt, Sporting, or Atalanta...)  But three of our six contenders were not just beaten but absolutely spanked, while Liverpool went down to the not-that-daunting Galatasaray, and even the mighty Arsenal barely scraped a draw against Leverkusen (and that only because they were the late beneficiaries of probably the worst penalty decision we've seen in the competition this season!). That is surely one of the worst nights for English football in Europe ever!!

But I am accepting this dreadful set of results calmly, stoically. I actually welcome them as a deserved corrective, a useful rebuke to incipient hubris. It can really do no harm to our clubs, or to the national game, or to English football fans in general.... to be brought back down to earth, to be shocked out of the arrogance and complacency that were starting to grow in us in regard to the European competitions.

And all is not yet lost. I'd still fancy Liverpool and Arsenal, and perhaps Newastle too to be able to pull off a win over two legs. And if anyone can pull back back a three-goal deficit against a team as big as Real Madrid,.... it's probably Pep's City.

It ain't over, as they say, until the Fat Lady sings....

Not AS BAD as all that....?

I analysed last week why this FPL season seems to have been even more random than usual. And, although I have a few gripes about tinkering with the scoring system by introducing the maddeningly opaque new 'defensive points', most of the reasons for this lie outside the Fantasy game, in the real world of football: VAR decisions getting even worse (largely because the backroom team are now too timid about questioning their on-pitch colleague's original call), the SAOT system foisting more and more hair's-breadth - and increasingly unconvincing - offside calls on us, new defensive systems stifling a lot of creative attacking play, and the new paramountcy of set-piece scoring opportunities leading to all this unseemly wrestling in the penalty area.

And while these shifts have clearly been to the detriment of the game of football, I would say that they haven't necessarily spoiled the game of Fantasy Premier League.

The game has always been vexing, frustrating because of the huge amount of randomness and unpredictability in it. But we have to base our gameplay on identifying the areas where there is some reliable predictability.

Even though there seems to be even more randomness than usual this year, we can still strive to find the rare shoals of predictability occasionally visible amid this sea of chaos.

That has always been the challenge of Fantasy Football. This season... the game just became even more challenging. We should do our best to enjoy that.

Even more of A LOTTERY than usual?

 

As I have frequently observed in my regular 'Luck-o-Meter' gameweek reviews, this season is shaping up to be one of the lowest-scoring - perhaps even the lowest-scoring - in Fantasy Premier League's 24-year history.

It is also seeing unusually large points spreads within a single gameweek rather often: a significant number of managers being able to attain very high scores despite there being a very low global average.

And it is seeing some remarkable reversals in fortune from week to week (more than in a 'typical' season? it's impossible to check data on that, but it feels as though it might be so...), with many people following a huge high-score with a dismal low.... or vice versa.

All of this is making the game feel MORE RANDOM than usual this year, even more than usual determined by PURE LUCK.

And, for many people, this is making the game seem less satisfying, less FUN this year.

But is this really so??

Well, YES, I rather fear that it is.   [Though I observed a little later that while I fear Premier League football has become rather less attractive this year, these shifts in the game can - to an extent - be seen as intriguing new challenges for FPL managers.]

But what are the factors contributing to this phenomenon?

1)  The opacity of the new 'defensive points'

While there have been a few players who've established an impressive reputation for earning these new points almost every week (far more often, in fact, than we would have thought possible, based on the limited sample data FPL had released on the new metrics from last season), for most players, their 'defensive contributions' tally yo-yo's wildly from one week to the next. It is effectively impossible for the casual watcher to try to check these tallies (since we haven't even been given any detailed definitions or examples of how the various eligible game actions are recognised); and I, for one, have very little confidence in the accuracy or consistency of how this is being done by the official stats-provider. While there are a few dependable 'high defcon' players, and we may be surprised/disappointed when Anderson or Garner or Gabriel or Tarkowski don't return defensive points, for the great majority of players, it is entirely unpredictable whether they will earn - or whether they have earned! - these additional points in any given gameweek. As I pointed out in my criticisms of this unnecessary rule-change at the start of the season, it suffers from the same problems as the vexed Bonus Points System - its allocations are impossible to verify independently, and the results will often seem erratic or unfair; it is essentially just another randomizing element in the game (and we'd like fewer of those, not more).

2) Defences being 'on top'

It is an especially unfortunate coincidence that at the same time as this major adjustment to the scoring system, we also happen to be seeing one of the biggest shifts in tactics in the Premier League in over a decade, with a new emphasis on man-marking proving remarkably successful at stifling most of the forms of attacking play that teams have most relied on in recent years. This has led to far fewer chances from open play for almost every team, and hence greatly reduced points from 'attacking contributions' in FPL. So, not only do we have new less predictable points to factor into our game calculations, we also have far fewer of the traditional, mostly rather more predictable points to balance against them.

3)  Set-piece roulette (or 'WrestleMania'....)

With the suffocating of open attacking play, more and more teams are being forced to follow Arsenal's example and place increasing emphasis on set-piece routines to try to nab crucial goals. While some of these set plays are impressively intricate and clever (and I'm actually quite pleased to see the return of the long-throw this year!), unfortunately, many of them rely excessively on grappling with opponents in the penalty area and trying to mob the keeper on his goal-line. Not only does this make our lovely game unbearably ugly, it adds to the sense of randomness and injustice in the game - both in real-world results and in the FPL points outcomes - because so much now depends on whether the referee and the VAR officials choose to take notice or not of egregious holding offences and other such 'personal fouls' within the penalty area at corners and free-kicks. [We just witnessed a particularly frustrating example this past weekend, when Chelsea should, by rights, have been awarded at least two penalties against Arsenal - but didn't get any.]

4)  The sad absence of many big attacking contributions from midfield

Kevin DeBruyne and Son Hueng-Min, two of the giants of FPL over the past decade, both transferred out of the Premier League at the end of last season. Diogo Jota tragically died at the start of the new season. James Maddison was eliminated by a season-long injury. Mo Salah has suddenly proven largely ineffectual at a painfully rebuilding Liverpool. Florian Wirtz, probably the most exciting of the season's new arrivals, took four months to start finding his form. Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha also had problems settling in at Amorim's floundering Manchester United. Ebere Eze didn't get regular starts after moving to Arsenal. And almost all the other usual top points producers in the midfield category - Palmer, Saka, Odegaard, Foden, Mitoma, Kluivert, Gakpo, Gordon - have missed big chunks of the season through injury and/or just haven't been able to reproduce their best form of recent years. Despite many midfielders being able to pick up substantial additional points for their 'defensive contributions', only Semenyo, Fernandes, Rice, and Wilson have got anywhere near the kind of points totals (70% of the way through the season) we'd usually be hoping to see from at least 6 or 8 players in most previous years. It is far more difficult to predict returns from players who are less consistent in their productivity - but that's what we've often been having to rely on this year.

5)  The sad absence of many big attacking contributions from full-backs

Again, as with midfielders, Trent Alexander-Arnold transferred out of the league, Ben White has mysteriously fallen out of favour at Arsenal, Josko Gvardiol switched back to being more of a central defender than an attacking full-back,... and then picked up a season-ending injury; Matty Cash and Diogo Dalot and Marc Cucurella have so far struggled to make as much of an impact as they did in the previous year or two; Daniel Munoz has also suffered a lengthy spell out, and three of the other most promising attacking full-backs of last year, Antonee Robinson, Rayan Ait-Nouri, and Ola Aina, have missed most of the season. Really, Matheus Nunes and Nico O'Reilly at City and Jurrien Timber at Arsenal (although his contributions have mostly been coming from involvement in set-piece melees rather than through wing play) are the only full-backs to have had much of an impact this year. A top attacking full-back might hope to pick up an 'assist' once in every 3 or 4 games; even an aerial monster like Gabriel isn't likely to nab a goal (or an 'assist') at a set-play more than once every 5 games - and it's much harder to anticipate when those contributions might occur, since they're often happening in messy goalmouth scrambles (where there may often be doubts about the attribution of both goals and assists, as the ball pings around between multiple players; Virgil Van Dijk, in particular, has been extraordinarily lucky to have 2 or 3 goals credited to him which looked more like own-goals off an opposing defender). The pre-eminence of aerially dominant central defenders in the FPL points returns this season (unique, in my memory of the game) again makes it slightly harder to anticipate when and where points are going to come from.

6)  A new overcautiousness in the VAR room

It seems to me that teams of VAR officials have become much more timid about overruling their on-pitch colleague this year - which has been resulting in more, not fewer, egregious errors being made over crucial decisions, and even more uncertainty about whether VAR will intervene and to what effect - a further randomizing factor in our game

7)  And a ton of injuries....

Now, I don't think this season has been worse than some recent ones (certainly not for me, personally; I suffered 55 major injuries in one season a few years back!). I just noted yesterday that, although there has been quite a high number of injuries overall, we had been spared - so far - suffering a cluster of injuries to leading players all within a week or two. But, yes, there have been a lot of injuries (and drop-offs in form) this season. It has been very difficult to keep a settled FPL squad for long, or to save up 'rolled' transfers for a tactical 'mini-Wildcard' rebuild.

So, yes, for this bizarre combination of reasons, it has been a particularly WEIRD FPL season.

I generally say that the game feels like about it's about 70%-80% down to 'luck'; but this year it has often seemed to be more like about 95% 'luck'!!

And that is a bit frustrating.

But we should play the game for engagement rather than 'success'. We should hope to find insight in it, but not justice.

A nomad once more....

I've just endured a rather unpleasantly fraught few weeks (in the real world, rather than the relatively benign realm of FPL), after my batty landlady decided she wasn't going to extend my lease after all (though, of course, one generally assumes that this should be a mere formality; and we did appear to have reached an agreement in principle to go ahead on much the same terms as the past year, back in the middle of January), but dawdled about telling me, and - really - didn't give me any proper notice at all.

Suddenly faced with unexpected homelessness in a little over two weeks, I have had to scramble rather to.... sort out the next phase of my life.

And, since I didn't feel I had enough time to both househunt and pack,... I took this unpleasant surprise as a cue to revamp my life rather dramatically. Instead of packing up my life into boxes and finding another house to rent, I have.... sold (or given away) everything I own, and laid plans to hit the road. As of tomorrow, I shall be a vagabond again.

If I have one greater love in my life than football, it is music. My parents had quite an extensive and diverse collection of records (though mostly rather middle-of-the-road), and a wonderful old 'gramophone' in a walnut chest with which to play them. During my early childhood, I would sit cross-legged on the floor in front of this marvellous device, in utter rapture, for hours at a time. And one of my great favourites from those early listening sessions was this mid-60s hit by the country singer Roger Miller: King of the Road, a defiant celebration of the hobo life - humorous, and oddly inspiring. I often wonder if my love for this song hasn't led me astray in life. Not only am I unafraid of having no fixed abode, no steady income, and few personal possessions; I actually tend to view such a situation as a desirable ideal.

Famous name, obscure origin

Although I have been a lifelong admirer of Pelé, I confess I don't think I had ever known where the celebrated monicker came from. Now we have an answer, in this little biographical summary from the almost always diverting Tifo (a sub-channel of The Athletic magazine's Youtube presence, but far more entertaining and worthwhile than the great majority of their regular content).

For me, those 'greatest of all time' debates never get off the ground. If you were lucky enough to see Pelé in his prime (or even past his prime: I recall some absolutely stunning moments from his time with the New York Cosmos team in the mid-70s), there is no debate: he did everything that the later greats did, but did it more consistently, with more zest, with more athleticism. Everyone since has been inspired by Pelé, everyone has tried to emulate him; a few have come very close, but no-one has surpassed him.

What he did in the 1970 World Cup - and I was a tiny boy at the time, watching on a grainy old black-and-white TV - was other-worldly. I can't think of any other player who has become so celebrated, so beloved for a goal he didn't score - let alone three of them: that magnificent downward header that was somehow spooned around the foot of the post in a 'Save of the Century' from Gordon Banks, the outrageous dummy around the Uruguayan keeper on the edge of the box, and the attempt to lob the Czech keeper from a few yards inside his own half (perfect length on the shot, but it drifted just inches wide of the post). And these were just the stupendous highlights. In every match, just about every time he got on the ball, you held your breath, expecting something magical, something impossible to happen - and very often it did. Watching these performances, I began to understand why he called football the beautiful game; it stopped being merely a sport and transformed into an art.

Ha-haa!

Arsenal get an 'early' double gameweek, against middling and weak opponents,... and get held to a draw by both,.... pissing away a two-goal lead against bottom-of-the-table Wolves!

The vaunted Arsenal defence returned very little in FPL from the double-fixture (apart from the unexpected Piero Hincapie, who wasn't even a shoo-in for a start, but ended up playing almost the whole of both games, and coming up with a goal against Wolves); the much transferred-in Martin Zubimendi and Viktor Gyokeres returned bugger-all.

Oh, schadenfreude, we do love you.

Is it SLOP??

 

I came upon this video the other day, and found it quite interesting. It reminded me of a post I wrote on here nearly a year ago in response to this video on The Athletic's Tifo sub-channel, discussing why football is such an exceptionally complex game (almost uniquely so), and why this imposes severe limits on the extent to which data analysis can be helpful in 'understanding' it. This new video is a far more superficial discussion of the topic than the earlier Tifo one, focusing mainly on why football ('soccer') is so much more 'unpredictable' than the major American team sports. Unsurprisingly, it's because it's a low-scoring game (so, a single error leading to a goal can more often have a decisive impact on the final result), and because a draw being included among the possible game outcomes heavily impacts both the game's tactics and the predictability of results. The one major piece of data analysis in the video suggests that from 2005-2025 barely half of Premier League games were actually won by the 'favourite' (although that begs the question of how the 'favourite' is assessed; many fixtures are so tight that there is no clear favourite - certainly not when other factors like recent form and home advantage are taken into consideration along with league standing and/or general 'status' of the two clubs; it also omits to consider how many of the 'upset' results were only draws rather than losses, which obstructs direct comparability with the American team sports).

While I quite liked this video, I do feel rather hesitant about sharing it. Youtube is awash with AI SLOP these days, and I'm not completely confident that this isn't another example. It does seem to be free of any of the usual tell-tales - the heavy-handed rhetorical antitheses, the frequent repetition of content, or occasional obvious glitches in the voiceover (AI-generated narration tends to have the odd clunking mispronunciation or bizarre bit of phrasing or intonation now and then, or sometimes just an obvious break in the continuity mid-line - which completely gives it away). And the content appears to be all accurate and true (I haven't checked that central statistical claim, though....). But it is a bit glib and shallow. And they are churning out an awful lot of content in a very short time: over two dozen videos in barely two months since the channel launched. Alas, I think I smell a rat. But I'll probably check out a few more of their videos to try to find some persuasive evidence for my hunch on this.

Happy East Asian New Year!!

 

Today is New Year's Eve for many people in my part of the world (so, neighbourhood karaoke parties and midnight fireworks will make an early night impossible....). It's commonly thought of as the Chinese New Year, but in fact the Vietnamese Tet and Korean Seollal holidays also celebrate this 'lunar new year', and there are similar events in Tibet and Mongolia as well, not to mention in all the extensive Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese diaspora communities elsewhere across South-East Asia - and around the world.

We have a particularly cool zodiac animal this year, The Horse (my nieces will be thrilled; both huge horse-lovers). And not just any old horse, but a 'Fire Horse'. (Each of the 12 Zodiac animals is also associated with one of the 五行, the 'Five Elements' - Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. The East Asian Zodiac rotates through each animal for each element, meaning that a full cycle takes 60 years.)

So, if this is a holiday for you - or if, like me, you just enjoy any excuse for a party and embrace everyone else's holidays too - a Happy New Year to you!!!

Or...  Chúc mừng năm mới!

새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Шинэ оны мэнд хүргэе!

ལོ་གསར་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས།!

新年快乐!

Missing the 'linchpin'....?

 

We all use the term 'linchpin' all the time, often, perhaps, without fully appreciating its original meaning. In the physical world, rather than the realm of metaphor, it is the simplest form of mechanical fastening - usually securing a wheel to its axle. So, yes - it is the thing without which the wheels fall off...

In the football context, it is most often applied to the industrious, combative central midfielder who tends to sit fairly deep and fulfill a mostly defensive role (providing cover in front of the back-line to stop or disrupt or at least slow down counter-attacks, and trying to get back to provide an extra body in the box if such a break does slip past him), but also often being mainly responsible for setting the tempo of the game (knowing when to move the ball on quickly, and when to pause for a few seconds to allow teammates to recover their positions or catch their breath; knowing when to go for a progressive pass, and knowing when it's more sensible to opt for a low-risk, time-buying layoff sideways or backwards...), as well as being a crucial steadying, confidence-building influence in the team (Pep memorably said earlier this season, of Rodri, that his players would be far less nervous when protecting a narrow lead in the closing phase of the game if they knew the Spaniard was there to receive the ball from them - with absolutely no chance that he would give it up to the other side cheaply),... and also, perhaps, just tending to set the psychological tone of a game (establishing the level of competitiveness, the intensity of energy and desire - and sometimes just making it clear how much it's going to hurt opponents to try to get past your team or to take the ball off your team...).

I have always felt that players like this are key to the success of any top side. Rodri, or Vieira or Keane back in the Noughties, or (going right back to my childhood) guys like Graeme Souness and John McGovern and Billy Bremner.... were not the most attractive ball-players or the most idolised members of their teams; but those teams would not, I think, have enjoyed much or any of the success they did without them.

Few people - other than particularly astute Villa fans - would probably have appreciated that Boubacar Kamara was one of their 'most important' players now. But I fancy his loss is likely to be more keenly felt than that of Tielemans or McGinn (also ruled out recently), or even than the absence of one of their main creative players - Rogers, Buendia, Watkins - would be. Similarly, we have seen a number of times that Chelsea usually struggle to assert themselves in games when Moises Caicedo is injured or suspended. And I recently learned the astonishing statistic that, since the Brazilian joined the club four years ago, Newcastle have never yet managed to win a league game without him!

This is the importance of the central defensive midfielder for FPL; you won't often want them in your squad for their points potential (because, even with the handy lift of the additional 'defensive points' this season, as well as a few untypical little sprees of goalscoring from some of them, which have significantly elevated the totals of players like James Garner, Elliot Anderson, and Moises Caicedo, a primarily defensive player is rarely going to be anywhere near as much of a points-producer as a regular goalscorer classified by the game as a 'midfielder'*). However, you should be very alert to the impact that their fitness, and their level of performance, can have on those around them. [I commented last week on how Pascal Gross, Angel Gomes, and perhaps Douglas Luiz, were for me the most 'interesting' of this year's mid-season transfers-in, precisely because of this potential knock-on effect they might have, which could boost the FPL value of certain of their teammates.]

And this is now my only major worry for Arsenal as they seek to realise the potential for a multi-trophy season. Declan Rice, fabulous and versatile player though he is, has repeatedly shown that he was not able to fulfill a holding midfield role for them, when Partey was missing (at least, not on his own; he can contribute usefully to this task when paired with someone whose natural strengths are more suited to it). Meanwhile, Martin Zubimendi, good though he is, is not yet, I think, quite as impressive in this niche as Thomas Partey was at his best. And they don't have any cover for him...

People always focus on the more obviously influential players at the club, and fret how an injury to Raya or Gabriel or Rice or Saka might upset their title charge. But if they lose Zubimendi to a serious injury,..... I think they might be f@*ed!

*  Yes, I know Rice and Guimaraes and Enzo Fernandez are up near the head of the FPL midfielder rankings at the moment; but they are players who do provide a well-above-average goal threat, as well as being a major source of potential assists from set-pieces. And yes, even the less obviously 'box-to-box' Garner, Anderson, and Gravenberch are quite well placed too, having climbed above 100 points for the season. But the big difference in the game this year is not the supposed impact of the new 'defensive points' (nice to have, but you wouldn't, shouldn't be putting any player in your starting eleven purely for this), but the fact that - for a wide variety of reasons - almost all of the 'usual suspects' we'd usually look to among the goalscoring midfielders to be our major points-returners for the season... have failed to come up with much. There have been a few (Antoine Semenyo, Bruno Fernandes, Harry Wilson, Morgan Rogers) who've done pretty well; and there are some more we can still have hopes for (Wirtz, Cherki, Palmer, Saka..., maybe even Mo Salah??). But, compared to most recent years, the 'midfielder' category is almost devoid of any significant returns this year: Garner, Guimaraes, et al are not up near the top of the tree because they've been outstanding; even with a fat boost from 'defensive points', their current totals would be nothing to get excited about in any other year.

WHAT?? Early Deadline warning!!

 

Darn it - I had thought we were due for a nice little rest from the incessant demands-for-attention of Fantasy Football, since next weekend is given over to the 4th Round of the FA Cup... Alas, it had slipped my attention on this occasion that, in order to fit all the League matches within our too-short number of available weeks, we have to cram in another midweek gameweek this week.

There's a raft of games tomorrow, Tuesday evening (early hours of Wednesday in my timezone - making it impossible to wait until close to the deadline to make squad changes...); the next FPL deadline is 6pm (UK time) on the Tuesday 10th of February.

Never a moment's peace....

And don't forget, this is now a Double Gameweek for Wolves and Arsenal, as their Gameweek 31 match (when Arsenal will be playing City in the League Cup Final) has been moved forward to Wednesday the 18th of February - and, although that's a full 6 days after the last of the originally scheduled GW26 games and obviously far more adjacent to the following weekend's fixtures,.... it's been declared to be part of Gameweek 26, rather than Gameweek 27.... for reasons known only to the League's mysterious scheduling minions.

I'll try to put out one of my usual updates on injury news and such this afternoon (but I might not manage it!).

Just once a year - watching A FUNNY-SHAPED BALL

I noted at this time last year that, while I do not think it remotely bears comparison with the grace and artistry of real football, I do nevertheless have a longstanding soft spot for the American gridiron game. And I confess this weakness has become bound up with my other great moral frailty - an occasional fondness for drinking heavily at breakfast time (usually only on this one occasion each year, I promise!). I look forward to the Super Bowl every year because, when living in East Asia, the game gets under way for me at around 6.30 or 7am - and this is just such an exquisite time of day to crack open one's first beer. (With any luck, one of these - since I've finally tracked down a store that fairly regularly seems to have it in cans.)

Super Bowl LX (and I do love that they're doing their bit to keep Roman numerals alive!) is between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks tomorrow morning (in my part of the world). I have not the slightest shred of attachment to either team (and have hardly seen anything of the games this season!), so.... I will pledge my allegiance according to the time-honoured principles of random sentiment and playful rancour. I spent a very pleasant few days in Seattle back in the 1990s (although, true to the city's reputation, it did piss with rain most of the time), and I've had a bit of a soft spot for it ever since (though I've never previously taken an interest in any of their sports teams). Extra bonus points to the place for being the setting of Frasier!! And one of my old drinking buddies from my Beijing days is a diehard Pats fan - so, it will be fun to root against him during the game. (If I had the money, I'd flit off to join him for the event. He's going to be watching it in a beach bar in Thailand - lucky sod! Only a few hundred miles away; but in my current state of penury, it might as well be 10,000 miles....)

Cruel Fate - you have surpassed yourself!

 

My best buddy - and principal FPL antagonist - and I have long consoled ourselves with a humorous 'superstition' that there is a balance in the Cosmos: that ill fortune in one area of our lives will inevitably be soon balanced out by some unexpected good fortune in another.

Hence, if things go very ill for us in the current FPL Gameweek, we seek to cheer ourselves up with the reflection that we must be about due for something nice to happen to us in the real world. You know, we'll find some money in the street, or have a friend finally return that favourite book of ours they borrowed five years ago, or at least have an uncommonly pretty girl flash us an uncommonly flirty smile at the supermarket checkout on Thursday evening... One of those little things that make life worth living.

And vice versa: if the real world hasn't been terribly kind to us recently, we become robustly confident that we're about to experience our best Gameweek in months.

And it is uncanny how often this crackpot 'belief' seems to be borne out by events. (I suppose it's our old friend, the 'confirmation bias': we have a low threshold of proof for things we really want to believe in.)  The toilet springs a leak, but Patrick Kluivert scores a hattrick of penalties! I lose my phone, but my highest-scoring player of the week gets auto-subbed into the starting eleven because of a warm-up injury to Cole Palmer! Somebody steals $500 from my hotel room, but I get a ton-up weekly score... in a Single Gameweek, and without playing a chip!

I swear, these are things that have happened; this is my life.

But of course, this is not a reliable rule. I'd like to think it's more of a guideline - but in truth, it's not even that.

I've just had one of the worst months of my life (well, the worst three months or so, actually - but who's counting?), so.... I was kind of looking forward to a compensating upswing in my FPL fortunes.

But oh no, I just had one of my worst weeks of the season, one of my worst weeks ever. Even a modest success for a 'bold' captaincy punt on Nordi Mukiele in the final game couldn't drag me up to the minimum respectability of the 'global average'!!

And this was the first week in a long time - certainly the first one this season - in which I've suffered the triple whammy of losing three key players to injury in quick succession.

To be fair, though, I have quite often in the past suffered a quadruple- and even a quintuple-whammy of injuries - so maybe it's not really all that bad.

When Cosmic Justice breaks down as a consoling principle, at least we still have Perspective.

Another little curveball

 

As if we don't have enough uncertainties and obscurities to ponder and fret over in FPL-land already, it was just confirmed at the end of last week that one of this week's winning League Cup semi-finalists will have their league fixture from the weekend of the Final - Gameweek 31 - anteponed (brought forward) into Gameweek 26. (I really can't recall this ever happening in the past; if it did, it was incredibly uncommon. Last season, when most of the cancelled fixtures from the FA Semi-Final weekend were moved forwards rather than backwards, is the first instance of such a thing that I can remember.)

The victors in tomorrow's second-leg tie at The Emirates, either Arsenal or Chelsea, will thus be enjoying a 'surprise' and rather imminent Double Gameweek - the week after next; as will their scheduled league opponents from the weekend of the Final.

We will know by Wednesday morning if we're going to get a Double Gameweek 26 of:

Brentford v Arsenal        Forest v Wolves        Wolves v Arsenal

OR

Chelsea v Leeds        Everton v Bournemouth        Everton v Chelsea

Of course, Arsenal and Wolves or Chelsea and Everton will also have a Blank Gameweek in GW31 (as will City/Palace or Sunderland/Newcastle) - which is likely to be a much bigger deal; but at least we have a fair amount of time to get ready for that.

The teams in the other semi-final, on Wednesday, seem likely to be spared an anteponing like this because of the European schedule: Newcastle and Crystal Palace (Manchester City's GW31 opponent) have a pair of midweek play-off games in GWs 26 and 27. Hence, it seems likely that, if City or Newcastle reach the Final, their Blank on GW31 will be made up by a more typical postponement - probably to Gameweek 33.

Yes, it is a lot to keep track of....

Facebook page (An Administrative Note)

When I launched this blog nearly 18 months ago, I set up a parallel Zen and the Art of FPL Facebook page.

If you've never visited it, you haven't really missed anything. I only used it as a platform to share links to posts here on the blog, and it didn't really include any 'original content' (except that in providing short introductory summaries to each linked post, I would occasionally frame its topic or purpose in a slightly different form of words than I had used in the original piece...). I was only using the Facebook page to try to gain a slightly wider exposure - to try to increase the blog's prominence in search-engine results, and perhaps to make it easier for folks to share any piece of mine that they happened to like.

I'd only just remembered to put a link to the Facebook page in the sidebar here a month or so ago....

And almost immediately I'd done that, I got shut out of my Facebook account... again.

Now, this has been happening more and more frequently over the last year. Indeed, just lately, I seem to have been getting 'locked out' once or twice a month! Most of these exclusions are rescinded within a day or two, sometimes after just a few hours; but more often I'm cut off for a full week; and, in the worst cases, once or twice for a month or so.

This latest interruption of service looks like being a particularly bad one - so, I've given up, for now, even trying to get back in; I'm expecting that I won't be able to regain access until at least the end of January.

Hence, there have been no posts on the Facebook page since just before Christmas. Indeed, at the moment, it doesn't appear to be visible any more - which may be an escalation over Zuck the Schmuck's previous persecutions of me.

Now, the loss of this rarely-visited-by-anyone page does not grieve me all that much. But I also maintained an FPL info page for my country of residence - which I saw as being a useful public service, and which put me in touch with a small community of fellow enthusiasts for the game. (That page still appears to be visible; but it's effectively now 'dead' since all posting rights seem to have been suspended.)  The loss of that second FB page galls me considerably.

The loss of access to every other Facebook page, however, and to my account details, my list of contacts, the messaging service - that is little short of a disaster.

In East Asia (and in many other parts of the 'developing world', I shouldn't wonder), Facebook is enormously popular. Most small businesses can't be bothered to set up and maintain their own website, so rely on a Facebook page instead; thus you can't readily keep abreast of openings and closings of local restaurants etc., special offers and promotions, special events like concerts and parties and such, without Facebook. The dratted site has also become the default option for setting up mutual support forums for various interest groups, especially among the expat community; so, you can't access 'buy & sell' groups, property rental listings, or general advice on how to deal with health issues, noisy neighbours, or whatever... without Facebook. And, worst of all for me, Facebook Messenger has become the preferred means of communication for just about everyone out here (I imagine there are alternative messaging services in the local languages of the region, but these perhaps don't support the use of English; so, anyone who wants to communicate with anyone else in English uses FB - not SMS, not even Whatsapp,.... Facebook!!); hence, when I'm shut out of my account, I can't contact my landlady or my visa agent or my doctor... or the handful of friends I have out here....  

Being cut off from all of that is not just an enormous hassle, it is potentially life-threatening. It is downright irresponsible of Facebook to shut people out of their accounts (without warning or explanation; and without providing any avenues for seeking redress!).

I hate you, Mark Zuckerberg, and all your incompetent minions! And most of all I hate your botlets of Artificial Stupidity which repeatedly judge me (oh, the irony!) to be potentially 'not a real person' - which is why I keep getting locked out.

At last, a little bit of REST....

It's all been a bit too much over the past month or so, hasn't it? Especially over this last fortnight since Christmas...

Although we should, of course, be paying attention to what goes on in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup this weekend, at least we don't have any more Premier League/FPL to worry about for a whole 8 days - until the lunchtime Manchester derby on Saturday, 17th January.

Make the most (or the least...) of the TIME OFF!

Feeling overwhelmed...?

 

For no particularly good reason (only the TV companies' remorseless appetite for airtime-filler...), the opening match of the Gameweek 21 schedule, West Ham v Nottingham Forest, is kicking off tonight - Tuesday evening, 8pm, UK time.

These midweek gameweeks are a huge hassle for everyone in FPL, because almost everybody has less time to attend to these things during the working week: certainly less time during the day to check up on the latest team news, but also probably less opportunity to watch games live - or perhaps even to catch up on highlights (promptly, or at all...).

But it's even worse for folks like me living in Asia - well, anywhere east of the Arabian Gulf or the Caspian Sea, really. For us, evening games are starting at midnight or later, much too late for most of us to even think of watching them live; much too late, in fact, or most of us to even be staying up until the FPL deadline to try to catch late-breaking team news before finalizing our squads.

And when the games are staggered across multiple days, that hassle is greatly increased; especially when having an 'early' game or two, a day ahead of the majority of the gameweek fixtures, compresses the gap with the preceding gameweek such that we'll have no real opportunity to learn about new injury problems,... or, really, to ponder our FPL squads at all! It is a right pain-in-the-arse, frankly. 

At least, if the Gameweek started on Wednesday, we'd have a full two-day breather after GW20, and some chance for press conference updates to filter through to us on the far side of the world. Thanks to this bloody West Ham game, we're essentially flying blind into this one...

All of which is to say.... no, I don't really have time to do my usual detailed preview for Gameweek 21; sorry.

The main NEW INJURY PROBLEMS I'm aware of are:

Wesley Fofana (illness) and Robert Sanchez (muscle strain) missed the last game for Chelsea.

Jefferson Lerma (concussion) Nathaniel Clyne (groin strain) both had to come off with knocks in the weekend game against Newcastle at the weekend. That leaves Palace stretched very thin in defence.

Leeds right-back Jayden Bogle missed the weekend's game against Manchester United with a calf problem.

Hugo Ekitike was missing at the weekend with a slight hamstring strain.

The big news of the gameweek though, is that Josko Gvardiol had to come off early in the second-half against Chelsea with a leg injury, and has since needed surgery on a cracked tibia - so, he's likely to be out for several weeks at least (a major blow to the 10% or so of Fantasy managers who own him). Even worse for Pep, Ruben Dias also had to come off shortly before the end of the game with a leg-muscle problem. I wonder if they might have to recall Manuel Akanji from his loan to Inter.

Jacob Murphy had to come off before the end against Palace, complaining of a tight hamstring.

Callum Hudson-Odoi missed the Villa game with a sore Achilles tendon, and goalkeeper John Victor had to come off in the second-half with a pulled muscle behind his knee.

Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor was also missing at the weekend, apparently because of a training-ground knock.

Mo Kudus had to come off against Sunderland with a thigh strain.

Lucas Paqueta missed the Wolves game with a back problem.

Joao Gomes and Hwang Hee-Chan both had to come off in the West Ham game with muscle soreness, Gomes suffering in the groin and Hwang in the calf.

At least there ae no new suspensions to worry about for this game. And Xavi Simons, Moises Caicedo and Ethan Ampadu are available again after serving their bans.

Oh, and Ruben Amorim's been sacked at last (about 8 months too late, but better late than never...). Youth team coach Darren Fletcher is expected to take over as an interim manager, but I wonder if the ownership made the move now because they think they can land the suddenly available Maresca. A change like this is always disruptive, but Amorim has been such an embarrassment of flailing disaster (and a source of constant uncertainty for his players as he messes with the line-up every single week!) that I would expect the 'new manager bounce' at United could be huge - even if only short-lived.

The video clip at the top is of course from the seminal campus comedy National Lampoon's 'Animal House': the classic little scene where the boys go shopping at a local supermarket to get food for an upcoming toga party at their fraternity house, and geeky freshman Kent Dorfman (Fraternity name: 'Flounder'), played by the late Stephen Furst, for a while manifests unexpected dexterity in catching the avalanche of food items tossed his way by his mischievous frat brothers. It is, I think, one of the great bits of improvised physical comedy in cinema. (I saw this film during my first week at university; and I like to say that I have never looked forward since...)

New Year's Resolutions

1)   I will not use my 2nd Wildcard at once.

I wouldn't actually be tempted to this year anyway. But, just as the Wildcard can be a too-ready 'comfort blanket' if you have a really bad start to the season, so too it can seem like an easy quick fix if you've suddenly taken a battering from all the seasonal injuries in this miserably cold December. But I generally feel that even if you are feeling thus battered, it's almost always better to take a hit or two to repair the damage, and/or soldier on for a while with one or two holes on your bench. An even worse injury crisis might well pop up later. And, if it doesn't, the Wildcard can be very useful at the end of the season for dodging around a Blank Gameweek, and/or optimising your squad for a Bench Boost play in a Double Gameweek. Or just for adapting to a major 'turn' in fixture-difficulty for a lot of teams. Having a few gaps in your squad at the start of the second half of the season is not a sufficient reason to give up such an important chip.

2)  I will not buy Dominic Calvert-Lewin. (Yet...)

Arguably, we're already a little bit 'late' to be considering that. It might have been nice to get him 2 or 3 gameweeks back, when it was becoming apparent that Leeds had taken a major step forward in their performance level, and that big Dom had settled into a scoring groove again - rather than just enjoying a one-off (or two-off, or three-off...) stroke of untypical good fortune. But 6-in-a-row is an exceptional scoring streak for anyone, and it must be due for a break now. And Dom, bless him, has rarely managed to stay fit for this long in the last several seasons. Moreover, that run of good results for Leeds in December came from a big slice of good fortune with the fixtures: they met Liverpool, Chelsea, Palace and Sunderland when they were woefully out of form. They are still at the bottom end of the table for a reason, and have few if any 'easy' fixtures; in the next couple of months, they might struggle to pick up points from anyone except Everton and Forest. Admittedly, Calvert-Lewin could be a handy 'budget enabler', if you were to decide you wanted to bring in Ollie Watkins or Hugo Ekitike. But I would imagine that most people are currently content with Thiago and Woltemade, who have generally been in excellent form, and have very nice runs of fixtures coming up.

3)  I will not buy Cole Palmer. (Yet. Or, probably, ever. Not this season, that is.)

Now, I am a huge fan of Cole Palmer. I think he's the best advanced playmaker we have in the Premier League. Only Foden and Odegaard come anywhere close; but Foden's much less consistent, and Odegaard far less of a goal threat - so, not that close. But Chelsea are a mess at the moment: no balance in the side, no consistency. And Joao Pedro and Liam Delap have not provided the answer to their scoring problem; they probably now regret letting Nicolas Jackson go! Now, 'Ice' Cole is capable of carrying a team on his own, and he might yet go off on a scoring streak, once he's fully regained his fitness. But it feels like that might still be some way off. With Chelsea's current form, his prospects don't look strong enough to be bringing him into your squad on spec.

4)  I will not bet on either Arsenal or City to win the title.

It's a two-horse race this year, and, at the moment, too close to call. I've long had a hunch that City will edge it - largely because they're so much more free-scoring: they'll rarely or never drop any points just from conceding a single goal; Arsenal probably will. But I think it would be rash to put money on that hunch. The outcome could well turn on significant injuries for one or other contender; losing Haaland would surely be catastrophic for City; but so might losing Saka or Saliba or Raya for Arsenal. Let's hope they both keep their full rosters intact, and give us a thrilling title battle right through to the end of the season.

5)  I will not laugh at Manchester United.

Well, you've got to have at least one that you know you're going to break almost immediately, and you're happy to allow yourself that. Even with some 'better' performances finally emerging (and a long overdue departure from the unbalanced, ineffective 3-4-3 system to which Amorim had been so stubbornly wedded for the whole of his first year), I still don't have much confidence for their season. They'll still almost certainly be the year's most risible under-performers - a club with pretensions to being European champions again who struggle to finish mid-table in their domestic league... And they accomplish this non-achievement with such an inventive array of foot-shooting every year, they have been a reliable source of mirth ever since Fergie retired. [Ha! - well, it looks like I'll be able to adhere to this one after all. With the United ownership finally putting an end to the Amorim fiasco just a few days into the New Year, we were suddenly able to start seeing again what such a talented group of players is really capable of. With the remarkably impressive start they've made under Michael Carrick's tenure as manager, they're starting to look as if they might even have a slight chance of getting into the title conversation! It's nice to have one of the tradtional 'Big Six' getting back to those sorts of levels. Competition at the top of the league feels a bit thin this year, with Liverpool and Chelsea still floundering rather - and Spurs again flirting with relegation.]

Now, of course, the 'resolutions' above about player choices or chip play might seem to be purely hypothetical for me, as some will remember that I got excluded from the game this year by a maddening FPL glitch at the start of the season. However, I am still 'playing along' on my own. And I empathise with all those who are still in the fray, still battling for mini-league glory.... So, I hope these observations may prove of some use.