Players of the Year

 

Following on from my survey last week of how the 2024-25 season panned out in FPL, here is a rundown of the most valuable player picks in the game this year.

Jordan Pickford was obviously a strong choice between the sticks for the season, given his propensity for pulling off large numbers of saves when his team are getting pummelled, but with his defence being solid enough to help him keep a fair few clean sheets as well; and given the fact that he ended last season well out in front in the FPL goalkeeper rankings. However, with his being priced at 5.0 million, one might have preferred to go for two 4.5 options instead (at least at first, to save a bit of money in the initial squad) - or to have switched to that, when Everton started the season so poorly. Apart from huge hauls against Newcastle (of course!) and West Ham, he only really started hitting form around a third of the way through the season. Matz Sels and Dean Henderson were always the better bets for me (though Henderson and Palace became significantly stronger in the second half of the season); and indeed, Sels was only edged out of top spot by Pickford in the final week, so I would still go for the Nottingham Forest man as the keeper of the season - more consistent in his returns than Pickford, and more keenly priced.

Kepa and Areola and Sanchez also looked promising in spells, but you don't really want to be swapping keepers around too much. Raya never quite convinced for me; he never got higher than 3rd in the goalie rankings, I don't think, and was often outside the Top 5. Brentford's Mark Flekken - somewhat surprisingly! - managed to be in overall contention as well, just creeping into the Top 5 goalkeepers in the latter part of the season; largely down to the huge number of saves his defensively frail side needed him to make, which made up for a rather paltry total of just 7 clean sheets. I'm always wary of taking a keeper from a defensively weak team, though: that saves-for-clean-sheets trade-off is extremely risky! And Flekken is fundamentally not a very good keeper; although significantly improved this year (he doesn't have a massive negative 'delta' on his GC/xGC, a surplus of goals conceded over the 'expected' figure, as he did the previous year; but it's still not a positive number, which is what you're looking for from a good keeper), he's still been at fault, I think, for a lot of the goals Brentford have let in.

Trent Alexander-Arnold missed a spell with injury, and was rotated with Conor Bradley a few times over the closing month or so; both entirely predictable dents in his season total, and factors which had always argued against him being an ironclad season-long hold. Early in the season, it had looked as if he might just about justify his outrageous 7.0-million starting price-tag; but he was only ever just on the cusp of doing so, never absolutely nailing it; Slot just wasn't using him in the advanced overlapping role he'd need to get close to the double-digit assists he'd recorded in a few of his highest-scoring seasons. As it was, he came up just shy of 150 points for the season, which would barely justify a 6.0-million asking price, let alone 7.0 million. As with Haaland, though, Trent fans may have benefitted from a hot start (41 points from the first 7 games); if they'd switched to other premium options after that, they would have had an advantage over the season.

Josko Gvardiol ended up in top spot among the defenders (apparently confounding my eve-of-season view that he was over-hyped). However, he only snuck into 1st place in the final weeks of the season, after claiming 6 clean sheets in his last 9 games - somewhat fortuitously, I felt, since City still looked very shakey at the back in these games, despite facing mostly quite weak opponents. He only managed just over 150 points, which is not a great return for 6.0-million-pound defender (and not very much ahead of a bunch of 4.5 options); and he only edged Trent Alexander-Arnold and Gabriel out of the lead because he was almost ever-present throughout the season (which cannot have been expected at the start of the year, since Pep tends to rotate heavily among his defenders), while his two leading rivals both missed a lot of games. I maintain he was a risky and unpromising pick - at that price-point - at the beginning of the season, but was probably worth getting in from around the mid-point onwards, once City started to rally from their slump a little (he got 89 points in the last 20 games - which is value for the price-tag). 

The much fancied Pedro Porro (nearly 30% ownership at the start of the season, and it soared even higher in the following few weeks after he got off to a flyer by claiming a goal in the opening match against Leicester) ultimately disappointed the most among the initially popular defensive picks. He missed several games with injuries, so a haul of 2 goals and 6 assists was pretty good from a limited number of starts; but his owners had greedily - unrealistically - been expecting a lot more from him. And of course, despite quite a good attacking return from him, Spurs's defensive form completely fell apart, and he came up shy of a ton for the season.

My observation from back in October that we didn't seem likely to see any really big returns from defenders this year proved accurate. The tweak in the BPS, penalising defenders and keepers more heavily for goals conceded, makes it significantly harder for them to win bonus points. Arsenal's defensive form of last season was a bit of a freak; neither they nor anyone else could get anywhere near that number of clean sheets again. And there has been a sharp shift in EPL game tactics away from the type of full-back who pushes far foward all the time, linking up with the wide forward to create overlaps, pushing to the byline to provide crosses or cutbacks; we just don't see that level of attacking contribution from anyone at the moment. And that means that it must be rather questionable whether premium defenders are worth it any more. You really want to get something like 160 points from a 6.0-million-pound defender, at least 170 or 180 from one who costs any more than that - and this season, no-one got close to that. (At least, in recent times, that has been the calculus. We might have to revise our expectations downwards, if this trend persists. At least there was NO BUDGET PRESSURE this season, once the Haaland issue was closed, so we could afford to pay a little over-the-odds for the top-scoring defenders, even though they weren't giving great value-for-money.)

For me, Gabriel was the outstanding defensive pick of the year, until that hamstring injury unfortunately wiped him out for the last 9 games (he was well ahead of Gvardiol at that point). Of course, his Arsenal central defensive partner Wiliam Saliba wasn't too far behind (although he was looking a little less imperious, a little more fallible than in the previous two seasons); but Gabriel enjoyed a clear edge by virtue of being the main aerial target-man at set-pieces, which are such a key source of goals for the club. Ben White and Jurrien Timber might have out-performed either of them, if injuries and rotations hadn't so limited their minutes; next season, they might perhaps be the more tempting choices from the Arsenal defence.

Nottingham Forest's excellent defensive form was the revelation of the season. Their towering Serbian centre-back Nikola Milenkovic, ended up being the most popular FPL selection from them, with ownership up around 20% for a while. As with Gabriel, his aerial threat at set-pieces gave him a slight edge over his colleagues, and he produced 5 goals over the season. However, Murillo and Ola Aina also produced very good points, despite a few short injury absences; and Neco Williams also shows strong potential (although it's hard to be confident who will start at left-back, with Alex Moreno and Harry Toffolo offering some stiff competition for the place).

Daniel Munoz, Milos Kerkez, Antonee Robinson, and Rayan Ait-Nouri are the only full-backs who do still offer good prospects of attacking returns, but the latter two had fairly disappointing seasons: Robinson's output dropped off a cliff from January, while Ait-Nouri's only intermittently began to improve after the mid-season change of manager at Wolves. Hall and Livramento at Newcastle also showed some promise, as did Mykolenko at Everton, and in the latter part of the season, Wan-Bissaka at West Ham. However, none of these began to approach the kind of points totals we've seen in the recent past from Kieran Trippier, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joao Cancelo - or even Ben White last year.

In the absence of much attacking output from defenders this year, the dependable Virgil Van Dijk was once again among the top performers - finishing narrowly ahead of Munoz and Kerkez. However, for most of the season, his partner Ibrahima Konate was offering the same points for less money - so, I don't think Virgil was ever an ideal, much less 'essential' pick.

Bournemouth's Dean Huijsen was the 'pleasant surprise' of the season: one of the oustanding young defensive talents to emerge in recent years. He only attained a regular start when Marcos Senesi got injured at the start of December, but made an immediate impression, and racked up a fairly impressive (for a defender...) average of 4 points per start for the rest of the season, despite Bournemouth's indifferent form in the latter stages. His ownership in FPL eventually climbed above 5% - despite Kerkez (and Zabarnyi and Kepa) claiming most people's attention as a prime defensive pick from his club. It's such a pity that he's been poached by Real Madrid already; but perhaps we'll see him return to the Premier League one day.

Mo Salah, of course, is a no-contest for the 'most valuable player' of the year, in any position; despite his advancing years, and the uncertainties of bedding in a new manager at Liverpool, he smashed his own record for the most FPL points in a season, and pulled out a lead of more than 100 over the next best. Bryan Mbeumo was a gallant runner-up, amply confirming and building upon the promise he'd shown in the previous two seasons. He did suffer one mini-blip from around the start of November, when Brentford dropped 8 points in 5 games, and Mbeumo recorded only 1 assist, and did suddenly look strangely out of sorts (it seemed possible that he was not adapting well to sharing goalscoring duties with just-back-from-injury Yoane Wissa - but, if that was ever the case, they soon developed a good understanding and were both producing alongside each other throughout the second half of the season); I - like many others - was prompted to cut him loose for a while, as he was facing a tricky turn in the fixtures as well; but, of course, he then found his scoring boots again and notched goals against Newcastle, Chelsea, and Arsenal in December. However, these were about the only two midfielders that you could 'set-and-forget' this year.

Jarrod Bowen was arguably the third, producing one of his best and most consistent seasons (apart from a four-game spell he missed with a cracked bone in his foot, he never 'blanked' more than once or twice in a row all season, and ended up with 6 double-digit hauls) - despite the handicap of playing for a relegation-worthy West Ham side. However, all the other most fancied midfield prospects frustrated and disappointed to some extent. 

Cole Palmer, increasingly vilified by the FPL hordes later in the season, had started off the new campaign just as devastatingly as he'd played most of the previous year; he was in fact running the great Mo Salah very close through the early months of the campaign (slightly ahead of him at the end of Gameweek 6!!), and was looking on course for a 300-point season. And if Chelsea had been awarded something like the same number of penalties as last year, rather than fewer than half as many (and they really were shockingly unlucky in this, especially early in the season: in almost every game, they seemed to be having one or two very strong shouts for a spot-kick inexplicaby ignored by both the referee and VAR), he would probably still have equalled his last year's total of 244, despite the dramatic fall-off in the second half of his season. I maintained that he was still playing extremely well, but without the steel of Lavia in the middle, and with no fit forwards to spearhead their attack, Chelsea began to look increasingly clueless from early December onwards. Despite the huge drop-off in his returns from that point on, Palmer was still the 3rd biggest FPL points-scorer of the season. So, he was certainly worth having - indeed, essential, I would have said - from the start of the season; and arguably, perhaps, as a season-long hold, since with players of that rare calibre, there's always a chance they'll come up with a big haul from time to time, however badly their team is playing. Despite Chelsea's faltering form, Palmer recorded goals against Fulham, Palace, and Bournemouth around the turn of the year. With the benefit of hindsight, you can say that it would have been best to jettison him soon after Gameweek 20; but it was difficult - it would indeed have been over-hasty and rash - to make such a call at the time.

As so often, when an exceptional player has his FPL productivity start to dry up, it's very difficult to judge when to let them go. There was an odd combination of circumstances - Palmer occasionally still producing an outstanding individual performance that rekindled hope in faithful owners, Chelsea occasionally showing hints of a general improvement, so many of the likely alternatives to Palmer getting injured (Saka, Amad, Bowen, Son), a promising turn in the club's fixtures just ahead, etc. - that encouraged me to stick with him longer than I probably should have. But as I said, a player like him can come good again at any moment; unless there's a really compelling alternative pick you can swap him out for, you might as well just continue gambling on him. This time, that gamble ultimately didn't pay off; but in another season - perhaps with Palmer, perhaps with another top player - it might.

None of the other top prospects quite came up with the goods this year, not with sufficient consistency, or over any extended period, anyway. Bukayo Saka looked as if he might have an extraordinary season, bringing up his ton in just 14 games (one of which he'd had to sit out with a slight knock); but soon afterwards, he was wiped out for much of the season with a serious hamstring tear. Although he surprised us by getting fit again in time for the last two months of the campaign, he got very rationed minutes in that comeback spell and, apart from a fairytale goal in his return appearance, failed to have any further FPL impact.

Ebere Eze managed to stay fit for most of the year, and almost invariably looked Palace's best player - but didn't have much to show for that for long stretches of the season. That unjustly disallowed goal that he put straight in from a free-kick at the start of the season really set the tone; he seemed to be having near-misses - battering a post, drifting a delicate curler inches wide, pulling a top-drawer save out of the keeper - in very nearly every game: if even one of those had gone in, it might have galvanized him into a 200-point season. I'm sure he's got that in him. This time, though, you probably didn't want to think of bringing him in until the last couple of months of the season.

Kaoru Mitoma is another player who strikes me as particularly 'unlucky' - the kind of player who's always setting up potential assists that his teammates then squander, or who has actual assists denied him because a lunging defender got a toe-end on his deft cutback before it reached the Brighton forward. And of course, it doesn't help that his Brighton team were exhibiting even more yo-yo form than usual this year. However, he still managed 10 goals in all, including the 'Goal of the Season' - so, not too shabby. Unfortunately, he just never managed a consistent enough run of form to make him a really attractive FPL acquisition this year. If you happened to be on him when he managed 4 big hauls in 6 games in January/February, you were very fortunate.

The (mis)fortunes of Luis Diaz also regularly break my heart. I think he's been Liverpool's best player, after Salah, over the past few years; but the cruellest combinations of circumstances always contrive to deny him the FPL points that would fully reflect that. This year, he didn't start 10 games, was often subbed off with 15 or 20 minutes left in those he did start (and once, shy of the hour mark!), and was most often played through the middle rather than in his preferred left-flank role. Yet he still managed 13 goals and 7 assists over the season, and was neck-and-neck with Bowen for the 4th best midfielder slot!! Imagine what he could achieve if Slot started him every week, in his best position.

Diogo Jota is arguably even more ill-starred. He made quite a promising start with Liverpool this time, racking up 34 points in in the first 7 games (effectively only 5 games, as he had to come off early against Forest, and then missed the following match against Bournemouth). However, he then - inevitably - picked up a medium-term injury, and when he came back was mostly used as a sub, or withdrawn quite early when he did start.

Antoine Semenyo is a rather surprising appearance at 7th position in the midfield rankings; but a huge haul for his brace against Leicester on the last day catapulted him several places up the chart. It's also a measure of how disappointing the output from the midfield position was in FPL overall this season: ordinarily, you'd expect perhaps 10 or 12 players to be scoring in the 170-190 kind of range, but this season only 3 did.  I'd fancied Semenyo's prospects before the season kicked off, as he'd looked very lively at the end of the previous campaign, and it did seem he might inherit Solanke's mantle as Bournemouth's main goalscorer. However, it soon became apparent that that role was more likely to fall to Dango Ouattara; and then they brought in a new specialist striker in Evanilson; and then Kluivert had a breakout season, largely stealing everyone else's thunder at the club, at least for a while. Semenyo had a few other nice hauls as well, but they were very spread out over the season, and he rarely looked like posing any really consistent threat. From the beginning of February, he went on an 8-game run that yielded only 2 assists; when I was still seeing him in a lot of people's sides in March, I thought there was something very odd going on.... He was never really the best attacking pick from Bournemouth at any stage of the season; and by then, when Bournemouth's team form was faltering badly in the closing third of the season, none of them were worth having any more.

Bruno Fernandes is, of course, one of the best players in the Premier League; but, unfortunately, he plays for one of the worst teams - which seriously calls into doubt how far you can ever rely on him to be a consistent FPL producer. He did have a few very nice little runs this year: back-to-back double-digits in Gameweeks 10 and 11, closely followed by three 9-pointers in four games across the end of November and the beginning of December; and then another little spurt of 46 points in just 4 games from mid-February. But also.... a lot of barren spells, alas. If you happened to have him during one of those hot streaks, you were lucky; but neither he nor United were producing regularly enough to make him a good bet for an extended hold in your squad (unless there just weren't any other decent midfield prospects available - which might have happened once or twice this year!).

I mentioned in my earlier post on the overall course of the season that many FPL managers had gone for Morgan Rogers in the 5th midfield spot early on (and mainly just because he was cheap, rather than because they knew anything about him), and were sufficiently impressed to hang on to him all season. I feel that was a mistake - an error of complacency or apathy. Not that I have anything against Rogers; in fact, I'm one of his biggest fans in the real world; but in the sphere of FPL, he just wasn't quite a regular enough producer to justify the long-term hold (and that was mostly down to Villa's problems with consistency, rather than any failing on his part). He only managed decent back-to-back hauls once all season. And he suffered a particularly bad lull from January onwards, missing the New Year game against Leicester, and then only managing a solitary assist in his next 8 appearances. Now, it was certainly an outstanding debut season, and (in this year when so many top midfielders have disappointed...) he wound up as FPL's 14th best player (and 8th best midfielder). However, he was edged out of a higher spot by the late lunge from Semenyo, while the likes of Murphy, Kluivert and Iwobi were a negligible distance behind; so, he wasn't even clearly the best of the ultra-low-budget midfield options this year. 

And the fact is, the end-season standings don't always count for that much. Even if you correctly guessed who the top 15 performers for the year were going to be way back last August, and could afford them all in your initial squad, they probably wouldn't have given you anywhere near a league-topping score if you'd stuck by them all year. There are very few players who are consistent enough to rely upon for the whole season. All the other positions. you have to rotate furiously - to try to keep finding the most in-form picks for the moment. That was particularly true in the cheaper midfield slots this year - because these were the players producing the most (very often not just the best points-per-pound return, but the highest absolute points), but also they were the players who were shifting in and out of peak form most rapidly. Although Morgan Rogers might have looked like the best budget midfield pick overall, there were almost always at least 2 or 3 others in the 5-to-6-million price category who were outperforming him over a short run of games: Emile Smith Rowe at the beginning of the year, and then his teammate Alex Iwobi (or, for very brief spells, perhaps even Harry Wilson or Adama Traore!), Dwight McNeil, Justin Kluivert, Georginho Rutter, Enzo Fernandez, Amad Diallo, Julio Enciso, Jacob Murphy, Harvey Barnes, Anthony Elanga, Kevin Schade. Spotting the emerging form of guys like these, and getting on them - and then getting off them again! - quickly was especially crucial this season.

Strange things were happening up-front this year. For a long time now, maybe a decade or so, the forward selection has been very limited. We've usually had just one or two really outstanding performers - Vardy, Kane, Haaland - with few if any of the other contenders getting anywhere near to their eminence. But this year, we have 2 forwards in the Top 5 overall FPL points producers,.... and 6 in the Top 11! That is unheard-of - at least as far back as I can remember. Partly, of course, it's down to the disappointing performances or injury absences of so many top midfielders this year; but also, it's very rare to have that many forwards all doing that well.

Chris Wood, for me, was the pick-of-the-crop this year. Although he slipped behind Isak in the overall points totals, he was often the more consistent points producer through the first two-thirds of the season, his finishing was uncannily efficient (beating his xG by nearly 50%?! WTF???), with him again and again claiming a goal from just two or three half-chances in a game, he was a lot cheaper than Isak, and he was a much more unexpected success story of the season. His form did falter from around mid-February, though, with two or three games missed with a knock he picked up on international duty, and only 2 more goals during that closing phase of the season. Almost no-one - apart from Salah and Mbeumo - was a season-long hold this year!

Alexander Isak confirmed his enormous potential in his second full season, managing to stay clear of major injuries this year, and looking very much like the most complete forward in the league. He started a little sluggishly, perhaps carrying an injury of some sort from the summer - managing only a couple of returns in his first six outings, and then missing a couple of games with a 'broken toe'. After that, he began to settle into a groove, and never went more than two starts without a goal for the rest of the season. I worry that the FPL Gnomes are going to make him stupidly expensive next year. It wouldn't be that unreasonable, as he is pretty much on Haaland's level; but it would spoil our fun to have two of the top attacking talents rendered unaffordable.

Matheus Cunha was the other outstanding forward of the year, posting very decent numbers even with such a weak side as Wolves (deep in the relegation mire for the first half of the year), and often manifesting an other-worldly brilliance in his approach play as well as his finishing. His temperament is the one big problem, of course; if he hadn't got himself a couple of extended suspensions (and he was really fortunate that they weren't longer, especially the one for assaulting the Ipswich steward), he probably would have finished at least 3rd in the forward rankings, and might have challenged Isak for the top spot.

But as it was, Ollie Watkins and Yoane Wissa were the best of the rest this time. Wissa was the breakout star among the forwards this year (well, assuming that we allow that we've known about Chris Wood's potential for the best part of a decade, even if he hasn't often realised it): apart from a few games missed with an injury from the end of September, and a brief goalscoring lull in January/February, he has been remarkably consistent in his output throughout the year. Watkins had a bit more of an up-and-down year: he too looked to be troubled by some sort of fitness issue to begin with, then there were rumours that he was out of favour with Emery (perhaps because he was angling for a move away from the club at the end of the season?), and pundits began to muse that he might - perhaps should - lose his start to the very sharp-looking Jhon Duran, and later to loanee Marcus Rashford. It didn't help that Villa were struggling with the unfamiliar burden of Champions League football, and often weary and woefully inconsistent in the League, especially in the first half of the season. But class will out, and Ollie ended up having another pretty solid season; he looks to be forming a particularly productive rapport with Morgan Rogers, and it's notable that although his goal tally wasn't that great this year, he supported it with an impressive 8 assists.

Erling Haaland, of course, presented the great conundrum for us at the start of the season, when FPL priced him at an outrageous 15.0 million pounds. At that cost, the only sensible decision, really, was to try to go without him in your initial squad. But only about half of the FPL community chose that path, while the other half paupered the rest of their squad to keep Haaland; and they were absurdly well-rewarded for their faith in him when he banged in a remarkable 10 goals in the opening 5 games, for an unprecedented 63-point haul. But City's season began to unravel immediately after that, and he only managed 3 goals and an assist over the next 13 games. Although they began to rally somewhat around the end of the year, their form still looked shakey. Haaland, though, was nearly back to his best and scoring consistently: but was 8 goals and 2 assists in 11 games from Gameweeks 19 to 29 enough to justify that 15-million price-tag (remarkably, the sell-off on him during City's long slump was so slow-and-steady that he never dropped lower than 14.7 million!)? Probably not, when there were so many other strikers in great form, at barely half the price. Just when people were starting to get tempted by the Haaland option again around the start of March, he picked up an ankle injury and was out for two months. Yet he still ended the season on 181 points, the 5th best forward in FPL, and 10th best player. For a forward who only cost 8 or 10 million, that would have been just dandy; but for one who cost 15 million???  His price is bound to come down again next year, after this relatively 'disappointing' season; but I fear it won't drop enough to significantly change the dynamics of the game - he'll still be unaffordable!

There were a number of other forwards who looked like good acquisitions for a limited spell: Danny Welbeck and Raul Jimenez looked very good at the start of the season, Joao Pedro often looked the most enticing super-budget option (although, like Cunha, he has temperament issues which seriously undermine his FPL value), and Evanilson and Strand Larsen could have had much more impact if they hadn't suffered spells of injury. Omar Marmoush had an eye-catching debut half-season. Nicolas Jackson started the year very impressively, but then started to lose his way, as did Chelsea; and then he got sidelined for a month or so with an injury, and couldn't rediscover his scoring touch on his return,... and then got himself suspended for a particularly ugly foul near the end of the season. (With the news that Chelsea are now in the process of signing Liam Delap from Ipswich, I wonder if Jackson might have ended his career at the club with that rash assault on Sven Botman.)  Delap, Beto, and Ndiaye all looked intermittently promising prospects as well. But the much fancied Mateta, Solanke, and Havertz all disappointed (though it might be said that a lot of that was down to injuries sustained, and shakey team form, rather than bad performances from these players when they were fit).

I did own all of these most outstanding players at some point; most of them, in fact, were in my initial squad. And yet I still had a thoroughly appalling season! 'Tis a funny old game, indeed....  Having most of the right players, most of the time - isn't enough. You've got to have all of the right players, at all the right times - to do really well in this game. And get all your captaincy picks right as well....

The story of MY season

 

I've already summarised how the first quarter or so of the season panned out for me, and then the next third, in a couple of earlier 'self-review' posts.

An overview of the conclusion to my season can be very brief - as I took the noble, self-sacrificing decision to quit the game after Gameweek 23 in protest at the monstrosity of the 'Assistant Manager' chip. Until just now, I hadn't logged into my account since shortly after the GW23 kick-off; I have been stumbling towards oblivion as a 'zombie' account for nearly 4 months....

My one small 'cheat' was that I set up for Double Gameweek 24 before retiring (though, in haste - and before any of the Gameweek 23 results were known), and played my Bench Boost on it.

My team, for the last 15 weeks of this season, looked like this:

My ZOMBIE Team

I'd been rushed into playing my two bonus chips earlier than I might have wished, to get them out of the way before my protest withdrawal from the game. They didn't work out too badly (although could have been much better...): I picked up an extra 8 points for a Triple Captain punt on Salah against Ipswich in GW23, and a handy 33 points on my Bench Boost (though, in truth, only 11 or 12 points for my lowest-returning players in that week!) for this Everton-stacked bench in DGW24.

Of course, I'd realised that my end-season performance was bound to be massively compromised by refusing to play the potentially very lucrative AssMan chip, and cutting myself off from the considerable benefits of my two rebuild chips (or any additional transfers), and not being able to rotate anyone off my bench or switch my captain's armband around, and particularly by not being able to adjust to the late-season speed-bumps of blank and double gameweeks; but... I had thought that maybe, just maybe, if I didn't get too many injuries, I might still do OK...

However, my DISMAL LUCK this season continued, and I got a stack of injuries: Amad (lately my best player) and Jackson and Ndiaye all got struck down in that very first week, and Lewis Hall not very long afterwards. Hall was out for the season, and the other three only returned to availability fairly late on, unable to have any very big impact for me. Gabriel too, of course, missed the last 8 games of the season, and Aina was out for GWs 31-33. So, my squad was suddenly full of holes, and I put out short teams in Gameweeks 28. 31-33, 35, and 37 (when Nico bloody Jackson got himself suspended...); and in Blank Gameweek 29, of course, I was royally screwed, fielding only 5 players, with a return of 15 points (barely half of my previous worst-ever).

Moreover, Gordon had a few problems with short-term injuries and a couple of suspensions, and just not being in his best form; while Cole Palmer's output remained in the doldrums for the rest of the year. And I was left with Jordan Pickford, who had an outstanding finish to the season,... stuck on my bench - ooops!  At least Salah amd Mbeumo and Isak produced fairly well for me; but the rest of the team had melted down around them almost immediately.

Not surprisingly, I was mostly well below the global average during these 14 weeks where my team shambled on rudderless - although I did have 4 fairly good weeks early on in that run, before the injuries hit me too hard; and strangely, I rallied at the very end, managing slightly above the average score in GW37, and a surprisingly solid 67 points in the - for most people - very low-scoring GW38. 

I was losing, on average, around 150,000 places per gameweek in the global ranking during that run - finishing way outside the top 3 million. And my squad value crashed from 107.2 million to 105.0 (although it had rebounded by nearly 1 million from its lowest point of 104.1 over the closing few weeks).

Trying to look on the bright side,... at least I am reasonably confident that I will DO BETTER next year!

DON'T FORGET The Boycott, The Protest.  Even if you have played the new 'Assistant Manager' chip this time, please do criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

I worry that the fight on this is only just now really beginning: we'll have to push hard for the next few weeks to try to ensure that this silly, game-distorting innovation does not become a permanent feature of FPL from next season.

#DownWithTheNewChip

Luck-o-Meter (38)

Fatigue - and perhaps a bit of nerves for some - was becoming very evident in a mostly rather drab final set of matches. Goals were in short supply (apart from Brighton's stuffing of Spurs, the rest of the matches didn't produce 20 goals between them), and for a remarkable 5th week running the FPL global points average was only in the 40s.

Fulham v Manchester City was one of the most entertaining games of a mostly tense and grim final Sunday, with end-to-end play and both sides enjoying some good chances. For most of the match, only Gundogan's improbable improvisation mid-way through the first half separated the teams, until the German also won a very soft penalty late in the game to clinch the win. Although, shortly after Haaland converted that spot-kick, Ruben Dias somehow got away with a very obvious handball in the penalty area (yes, the ball was fired at him from quite close range, but he had chance enough to see it and react; his arm was way higher than it needed to be, even attempting a jumping block, and he appeared to deliberately move it down towards the ball, striking it with his elbow); that was one where VAR might usefully have recommended a second look, just to be sure (not necessarily prejudicing the referee into reversing his original call, just emphasising that it's an arguable decision and deserves a good long think). And then, in the final seconds, Raul Jimenez put a lovely bicycle-kick only just wide of the left-hand post... As so often this season, Fulham looked like they deserved more from the game,... and City weren't quite worth the win.

Manchester United produced a rare half-decent performance at the end of the season to claim a 'surprise' win against Champions League-chasing Villa. The visitors will claim that the sending-off of Emi Martinez was the turning-point, but they were very flat all game, and United were all over them from the kick-off; Dalot had already thundered a shot against a post long before Villa were reduced to 10 men. There was nothing controversial about the dismissal of the keeper: a deliberate body-check on a striker trying to go round him 8 yards outside the box, with no other defenders anywhere near, is inevitably a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' (there might be something in the argument that you might not expect Hojlund to score even with an open goal, but that rationale is not admissible to the referee; it's a stronger case for Martinez not needing to have made the foul!). The more decisive moment came in the second half, when Morgan Rogers cleverly nicked the ball off United keeper Bayindir and deftly spun to chip it into the empty net; the referee's fault here was not wrongly adjudging Rogers to have kicked the ball out of the keeper's hands - which was difficult/impossible to judge with the naked eye (and perhaps still open to some argument even with VAR playbacks) - but blowing his whistle for that so hastily (before the ball hit the net), which debarred VAR from intervening to consider whether the goal should rightly be allowed. While this was a major refereeing blunder (amazingly, the only really bad one of the day), it didn't feel to the neutral observer like it really turned the course of the match: United were much the better team throughout, and hit the post twice more, before Eriksen's penalty sealed the comfortable win for them (and there was absolutely no doubt about that award at all, although a disgruntled Emery clapped the decision sarcastically).

Newcastle v Everton was also quite entertaining for the neutral, though no doubt agony for the home fans. The lively visitors took the lead through the outstanding Carlos Alcaraz, and only a towering display from Nick Pope prevented them from pulling out a two or three-goal advantage. Late in the game, Newcastle piled on pressure, searching for the win they thought they might need to secure a Champions League place - and three of their best efforts came from defender Fabian Schar,... which, if any of them had gone in, would have been a very nice lift for anyone that owned him (I'm rather surprised that only 5.5% do!).

Playing Pedro Neto as a makeshift centre-forward didn't really work for Chelsea, and despite being allowed plenty of possession by home side Forest, they never created much threat - until defender Colwill was able to steal in at the far post for a tap-in (from what looked more like a misshit shot than a calculated square ball from Neto). Chris Wood, Mr One-Chance-One-Goal for most of the season, here had only two difficult opportunities, and put them both over the top. Thus, Chelsea scraped home to a Champions League spot that the second half of their season had emphatically not deserved, while Forest, who had been challenging for second place mid-season, almost fell out of the European places altogether, and have to content themselves with a spot in the Europa Conference League (at least that should be a winnable competition for them; though it is a monstrous injustice that awful Spurs will be playing in the Champions League while they will not).

Liverpool were again a bit flat, but were resilient enough to power through for a draw, despite having gone down to 10 men. (Particularly unfortunate for Gravenberch to be sent off in the final game, after such an outstanding season. Although there's no question that it was a bad foul, it wasn't 'dangerous play', and you feel that a trip on the half-way line shouldn't really be a 'denial of a goal-scoring opportunity' either. I think the guidelines on that need to be modified, perhaps with a specific distance from goal - 35 yards, maybe? - introduced as one of the necessary criteria.)  Salah had a penalty shout against Lacroix for handball, but the defender's arm was by the side of his body, so there was nothing in that. Owners of Conor Bradley or Trent Alexander-Arnold will feel aggrieved that Arne Slot split the 90 minutes evenly between them - although a token outing for Trent on his final day at Anfield was always to be expected.

Spurs, despite taking a first-half lead through a Solanke penalty, allowed themselves to be completely dominated by Brighton in the second half - although it is a pretty fair bet that just about nobody in FPL owned any of their goalscorers!

Brentford couldn't add to Mbeumo's first-half goal, despite many good chances. But home side Wolves were also often dangerous: full-backs Semedo and Ait-Nouri brought smart stops out of Flekken with powerful drives either side of half-time - but the Brentford keeper could do nothing about Marshall Munetsi's 20-yard screamer. Woe for the nearly 7% of FPL managers who own Yoane Wissa (really surprised it isn't more!!); he was continuously lively, but couldn't quite find his way past Jose Sa.

Bournemouth achieved a comfortable though hardly impressive win against Leicester. Some Dean Huijsen owners are no doubt miffed that the youngster was here given only a token 12 minutes or so off the bench - though such things must be expected at this time of year, especially when a player has confirmed a move to a new club (he's going to be joining Trent at Real Madrid next season). A very pleasant surprise for some FPL managers was Antoine Semenyo suddenly popping up for 2 goals - as many as he'd produced in his previous 14 games, and his only brace of the season.

More unexpected sentiment may have irked a few FPL managers when Graham Potter reinstated Fabianski in goal for a farewell match (over 4% own Areola) - he made one outstanding save from Nathan Broadhead early on. Ipswich might feel they were a little unlucky, as they came within inches of a second equaliser from Jack Clark, and a couple of wonder-strikes from Bowen and Kudus rather flattered a lacklustre West Ham.

A spirited last-day performance by relegated Southampton almost embarrassed Arsenal: they equalised with a header from a corner, and were hanging on impressively for that result, until Odegaard's wonder-goal in the dying minutes took it away from them. Last-day lineup changes, when there's nothing much to play for, must generally be expected, but Arteta doesn't usually seem the type in indulge in them - so, it was an unwelcome surprise for many in FPL-land that he left Saka and Odegaard on the bench, instead starting Sterling and Nwaneri... and giving the departing Kieran Tierney a spot in central defence (though he somehow popped up at the near-post in the opposition six-yard box to convert Ben White's low cross - yet another most unexpected goalscorer!!).

At least Salah and Mbeumo produced something this week, but almost none of the other most fancied players did; and Haaland's penalty was the only contribution from any of the most popular 'forwards'. It was a very low-scoring weekend (the global average was probably only elevated into the mid-40s by all the people who somehow still had a bonus chip to play this week; but for that, it might only have been around 40, or perhaps even a bit under). and almost all the goals came from very unexpected sources. The final 'Team of the Week' is utterly silly, with Jarrod Bowen being just about the only player in it that anybody owns in FPL.

However, that's barely enough to make it a 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'. Incompetent refereeing, so often this season the largest element of 'luck' in a gameweek, was pleasantly absent this week - with really only a couple of poor decisions.

DON'T FORGET The Boycott, The Protest.  Even if you have played the new 'Assistant Manager' chip this time, please do criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

I worry that the fight on this is only just now really beginning: we'll have to push hard for the next few weeks to try to ensure that this silly, game-distorting innovation does not become a permanent feature of FPL from next season.

#DownWithTheNewChip

Luck-o-Meter (37)

 

The rate of injuries has slowed somewhat in recent weeks, but a greater incidence of fatigue, nerves, perhaps occasional complacency or dipping in motivation, and a preoccupation, for some, with the final rounds of the European competitions, has meant that already over the past few gameweeks we've seen more and more bizarre swings in form and unexpected results. The tail-end of the season becomes even more of a lottery than usual - especially in this penultimate gameweek, when the unfortunate circumstance of the FA Cup Final and the Europa League Final clashing with the Premier League schedule this year means that we have a mini fixture logjam around this weekend; two fixtures have been moved forward to Friday night, and two moved back to Tuesday night, spreading this batch of games out over 5 days....

Spurs and Manchester United weren't nearly as bad as expected on Friday night, and frustrated their hosts for long periods. United actually put out a full-strength team, to try to get themselves in a competitive mindset for the upcoming Europa League Final. They made some good chances, but their finishing was poor; although they were unlucky that a Maguire header that appeared to have given them the lead was ruled out for the narrowest of offsides (I really don't like to see these decisions given for a matter of centimetres - particularly when it's the upper arm!); and late in the game Amad's crisp near-post shot demanded a sharp save of Sanchez. Reece James grazed the post with a long-range effort, and Madueke and Enzo Fernandez squandered decent chances, but Chelsea were making heavy weather of it until Cucurella's header gave them a late breakthrough. At least VAR was doing its job properly for once, directing referee Craig Pawson to have another look after he'd adjudged Andre Onana to have brought down Tyrick George in the box: TV camera angles clearly showed that the keeper had fairly got a hand to the ball, and hadn't touched the forward (it was a straight-up dive, for which George should have been booked - but wasn't).

Villa were similarly unconvincing against Spurs; they had far more of the ball, but weren't doing much with it, and Spurs created some of the better chances (two spurned by a slightly rusty-looking Son); the best, an early break down the left from Odobert, squaring neatly to Tel, whose cheeky back-heel angled across the goal forced Martinez into a fine reaction save with his legs. Kinsky ultimately looked Spurs's best player, though, being credited with 5 saves in  the match, including two crucial fingertips to deny Rogers and Watkins; and Watkins might perhaps have had a penalty for the challenge on him by Ben Davies as he got that shot off - but VAR saw nothing in it. Villa eventually won comfortably, but not emphatically, with their goals coming from unexpected sources: an instinctive prod home from the edge of the six-yard box, a fine poacher's goal for centreback Ezri Konsa, and then a hopeful shot from just inside the penalty area from central defensive midfielder Kamara.

Iliman Ndiaye, who's threatened to become a major goal-threat all season but rarely fulfilled that promise, came up with two slick finishes to secure an easy win for Everton in their farewell game at the iconic Goodison Park. Southampton were dogged rather than impressive in their resistance, the defensive cohesion they'd somehow attained against City last week largely evaporating again.

West Ham v Forest proved to be the brightest game of the weekend, with both keepers needing to be at their sharpest to keep the scoreline down - Sels having to make a superb stop from an unmarked Soucek header in the opening minute. It was unfortunate for Areola that, after making some great early stops. he gave away the lead with a careless pass to the predatory Gibbs-White (yet another victim of the playing-out-from-the-back malaise). Forest increased their advantage with a somewhat fortuitous 'header' from Milenkovic helping in Elanga's free-kick (it came off the back of his neck, and he didn't appear to know much about it!). But we then suffered the farce of a 5-minute VAR delay (apparently the new offside-decision technology was malfunctioning, but that's really no excuse; we have to put a time-limit on this process) to adjudicate a possible offside by an obviously non-involved player. The irrepressible Jarrod Bowen's superb volley got West Ham back in the game with 5 minutes left. Or what should have been 5 minutes left, but thanks to the VAR cock-ups and various other delays, we ended up with a staggering amount of added-on time: West Ham won a corner in the 113th minute, and the Forest defence, perhaps distracted by the arrival of Areola in their box, allowed Fullkrug to get on the end of it with a powerful header... which Sels had to desperately parry away to cling on to the 3 points - and the mathematical chance of still qualifying for the Champions League. Sels, weirdly, was only credited with 4 saves in the match; I think I counted at least 6 in the highlights, and a number of them were so crucial - especially the ones in the opening and closing minutes! - that he should have been up near the top of the bonus points as well,... instead of nowhere to be seen??!!  (BPS is broken.)

Jamie Vardy - inevitably - found a 200th competitive goal for Leicester, in his emotional farewell at his home stadium; although it had started to look as if it might not be his day, after two promising early chances had just got away from him; but then a surging run through the middle by full-back James Justin slipped him in behind for one of his classically casual finishes. Leif Davis, back from suspension, was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet for the visitors - thundering a left-foot shot against the post early on, and then having an excellent late volley ruled out by VAR (one of those offsides that's far too close to call with the naked eye.... and thus, for me, shouldn't be called at all).

More FPL woe at Brentford, where 47%-owned Bryan Mbeumo should have come away with at least 15 points for the game, but ended up with just 5, thanks to an uncharacteristic penalty miss (Leno pulled off a fine stop, but Mbeumo had telegraphed where he was going to put it, and didn't hit it that hard: a very straight run-up like that is always a bad sign...). Overall, though, justice was probably served there, since Andersen's fleeting touch on the inside of Schade's elbow was surely not strong enough to substantially impede him, and the striker's subsequent going-to-ground was a blatant dive (yet again, extremely unsatisfying that VAR isn't willing to intervene very often to question the on-pitch official's call on things like this). Fulham then somehow nicked the win, with a 25-yard banger from Harry Wilson. Flekken again didn't exactly cover himself in glory here: he probably could have done more with all three Fulham goals, especially the first one - Raul's header was low and well-directed, but not powerful, yet somehow slipped under the keeper's dive. Also, very odd that Wissa was credited with Brentford's second goal, since the ball was surely already over the line from Norgaard's shot (the credit for that could yet be reassigned before the end of the gameweek, I suppose; if it was Wissa's, it can't have been by more than an inch or so!). Brentford, remarkably, had more than 3x as many xG as Fulham, yet still lost - largely thanks to a 'Man of the Match' performance from Bernd Leno in the Fulham goal,.... again, strangely undercounted by the BPS, which barely acknowledged his presence on the field: bizarre, and very, very wrong.

Arsenal prevailed narrowly in a close-fought match against Newcastle. The visitors failed to make The Gunners pay for a sluggish start to the game, but kept their much livelier second-half performance well-contained - apart from Rice smashing home another banger from the edge of the box. 'Man of the Match', though, was David Raya, with a string of superb saves. The big upset for FPL managers (56.5% of them, anyway!) was the last-minute omission of Alexander Isak with a groin problem. And the second biggest upset might be the half-time withdrawal of William Saliba (the second most popular defender in the game, with 30.5% ownership), apparently with a hamstring strain - that will probably keep him out of the closing weekend. Raya, officially credited with 5 saves, just scraped into the last bonus point slot, but surely deserved at least 2 extra points for his heroic performance. The BPS is very down on keepers lately.

An away trip to the south coast on a Monday night can always bring out the worst in a team, but giving the night off to two of your most crucial players of the campaign, Van Dijk and Diaz, pretty much ensures trouble, and Liverpool got plenty of that, being put under constant pressure by a lively Brighton, twice losing a lead, and then conceding a late winner five minutes from the end. Lots of other FPL frustration here, in addition to the starting selections (which we must accept are going to get a bit wayward at this time of year): a fabulous Danny Welbeck being kept off the scoresheet by three massive saves from Alisson, Szoboszlai restoring the lead on the stroke of half-time with a pinger from the edge of the box.... which might well have been a misshit cross, and mighty Mo Salah missing a sitter (Gakpo squared the ball to him at pace, and he tried to hit it first time with the inside of his left foot as it went across him; but with half the goal to aim at, you'd usually expect him to bury the chance... rather than steering it just wide!). Brighton also had a penalty shout late in the second half when the always dangerous Gruda went down under a challenge from Tsimikas; the contact was light, and the Greek full-back may just about have got a toe on the ball, but he was trying to reach it from behind the attacking player, which is asking for trouble; probably the right call from VAR, but one that could have gone either way. Hinshelwood's late winner was reinstated by VAR, after the linesman had mystifyingly ruled it offside at first - it was nowhere near! (A rare 'success' for the new 'semi-automated' technology; mostly, so far, it's just been ruling out good goals on insanely thin - and unconvincing - margins.)

After Saturday's heroics, it was inevitable that Palace would rest some players for Tuesday night's game against Wolves: Wharton and Guehi were ruled out by injuries picked up in the Cup Final, while Eze, Mateta, Mitchell, and Kamada were dropped to the bench. Nevertheless, they still managed to win fairly comfortably against a very out-of-sorts Wolves - whose magnificent form of the last three months has suddenly evaporated. Keeper Jose Sa was mysteriously omitted from the squad, and his understudy Dan Bentley didn't have a great game. And star Matheus Cunha, nearly 15%-owned in FPL, was left on the bench - amid mounting rumours that he's signed a deal to move to Manchester United over the summer (so, that's his career over, then....); he got on for a token 20-odd minutes at the end, but wasn't able to make much impact. The remarkable Ebere Eze, though, picked up yet another goal in a very brief run-out at the end; his owners - also around 15% - are no doubt a bit disappointed with just a 6-point haul from hum,.... but it's 6 points more than they had any right to expect! This game also saw goals from defenders Agbadou and Chilwell; and a brace from rarely-starts Nketiah.

Manchester City have the squad depth to be able to make multiple changes to their lineup without significantly weakening it - but rotations were not as many as might have been expected; and Kevin De Bruyne's 14% ownership will have been relieved that he was able to start again just three days after the Cup Final, and last a bit beyond the hour-mark - although he failed to register any FPL contribution, and actually missed a sitter, lashing a shot against the cross-bar when presented with an open goal by Marmoush (it did bobble a bit just as he hit it...). Marmoush had opened the scoring with a 30-yard screamer that might well be a 'Goal of the Season' contender - yet that somehow wasn't quite enough to secure him the maximum bonus points. Evanilson hit a post shortly afterwards, and the game might have developed very differently if he'd been able to level the score then. And there were two sendings-off in the game: Kovacic for pulling back Evanilson when clean-through just beyond the half-way line - a fairly clearcut 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' offence; and shortly afterwards, Lewis Cook was dismissed for a heavy challenge on Nico Gonzalez (not clear from the highlights I've seen that the tackle was bad enough for a straight red; more a clumsy shin-on-shin contact than a reckless driving-through-with-the-studs one).

The fixture rescheduling caused by the FA Cup Final and the upcoming Europa League Final added to uncertainties about selections and performance this week, exacerbating the problems of end-of-season form being generally erratic anyway. And so we ended up with a particularly weird 'Team of the Week': Ezri Konsa was the highest-scoring player, and the lineup also included James Justin, Declan Rice, Bernardo Silva, Harvey Elliott, Iliman Ndiaye, and Eddie Nketiah! But absolutely none of the most popular FPL picks.... And hence a wretchedly low 'global average' score of just 39 points.

Thus, it's looking a 7 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'; the refereeing mostly not too bad this time (apart from that very soft penalty award to Brentford), but VAR being painfully slow, and a few goals disallowed for paper-thin supposed 'offsides'. However, injuries, last-minute omissions and 'rest rotations' for some key players have contributed quite a bit to the FPL 'luck' factor this week, as have oustanding individual player performances - with a few banging goals, and even more extraordinary saves,... and a lot of goals from unexpected quarters! Moreover, the bonus point allocations have been really, really dodgy this week.

DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  Most people will have played the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip by now; and indeed, if you haven't, it might not be available to activate any more (the rules never addressed this point). I took the high road by quitting playing the game for the rest of the season when it was introduced in GW23. [I worry that, if people don't protest vociferously about it, the new chip may become a permanent feature of the game - and it will completely ruin it.]  If you didn't feel able to join me in such an emphatic gesture, I hope you at least thought about refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip.

And even if you have played the new chip this time, please do criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

I worry that the fight on this is only just now really beginning: we'll have to push hard for the next few weeks to try to ensure that this silly, game-distorting innovation does not become a permanent feature of FPL from next season.

#DownWithTheNewChip

The LOTTERY

I've joked a few times recently in my weekly roundups that, because of cumulative fatigue, nerves, or complacency, form tends to get more ragged for just about every team in the last few weeks of the season, and game outcomes thus wildly unpredictable. Hence, trying to predict FPL points returns becomes even more of a lottery than usual.

Apparent fixture-difficulty is no longer much of a reliable guide to likely points returns. (We just saw Manchester City held to a goalless draw by [second] worst Premier League team ever, Southampton!) And, basically, any attacking player might produce something between 0 and 3 attacking contributions across a couple of fixtures - regardless of how 'hard' or 'easy' they ought to be. Few, if any, will get any more than that; quite a few of the most fancied options, the biggest names.... will probably blank twice.

With only 2 games left to play - within the space of 7 days (less than 5 days for Palace, City, Wolves, and Bournemouth!), it really is impossible to guess how most of the remaining fixtures are going to pan out. Hence, elective transfers - choosing to swap out a starting player for someone else - at this stage of the season are a huge gamble, particularly if they're to be made at the cost of a 'hit' (although there can be indirect costs even with a Free Transfer, if you then don't have that available to sort out a last-minute injury problem and have to use a 'hit' there instead). It's always very difficult to be confident of recouping that 4-point spend in just one gameweek; but you can sometimes justify it if you foresee likely additional value in the new player over the next 2 or 3 fixtures as well; at the fag-end of the season, that consolation is no longer available to you. You are simply betting that the player you're dropping wouldn't have scored anything, and that the player you're bringing in is bound to score something,.... and should produce more than 4 points more than the guy you're replacing. And that is a VERY BIG BET at any time, but especially amid this end-season climate of increased uncertainty.

The one small kindness the Fantasy Gods have shown us this year is that the final Saturday is full of very unevenly-matched fixtures, so there should be rather more predictability about results than usual then - and the prospect of some good points returns from several leading players. (It's actually looking rather a promising Gameweek to drop the Bench Boost or Triple Captain chips,.... if you've somehow forgotten to play them until now. Even without a chip for that last week, it's probably worth saving up transfers until then.) But even that apparently tempting prospect may turn out to be illusory, just a taunting mirage.

And making elective transfers this week??  GOOD LUCK with that!!

Luck-o-Meter (36)

 

The rate of injuries has slowed somewhat in recent weeks, but a greater incidence of fatigue, nerves, perhaps occasional complacency or dipping in motivation, and a preoccupation, for some, with the final rounds of the European competitions, has meant that already over the past few gameweeks we've seen more and more bizarre swings in form and unexpected results. The tail-end of the season becomes even more of a lottery than usual. 

And Manchester United, Spurs, Chelsea, and Arsenal are likely to be a bit tired - mentally as much as physically - by their European exertions this midweek. Eccentric coaching decisions and incompetent refereeing may add even more to these uncertainties.... Will they this week? Let's see.

And, oh dear, we are in the dog days of the season, aren't we? Mental and physical fatigue is taking its toll, and we're likely to see more and more woefully dull games. Saturday brought a whole clutch of embarrassing snoozefests.

Everton started poorly at Fulham, and were lucky that the home side failed to capitalise on the period of dominance they enjoyed following Raul's early breakthrough. A deflected Mykolenko shot gave Everton a toe-hold in the game on the stroke of half-time, and they improved strongly through the second half. The main talking point, though, in a very mid-table kind of game, was Darren England's near-unique sticking by his original call after a visit to the VAR monitor; it is very gratifying to see a ref not being prejudiced into reversing his initial decision by a VAR intervention (and here, it felt like the right call: Traore fired the ball at Mykolenko from very close range, and he was clearly trying to pull his arm out of the way of the ball, not reaching towards it).

Usually prolific Brentford only managed a solitary goal against dogged Ipswich? More FPL woe! And it fell to their overlooked third striker, Kevin Schade, rather than the more fancied Wissa and Mbeumo? Double woe!! And Brentford really should have got a penalty on a previous attempt to take that corner, when Greaves wrestled Van den Berg to the ground, but VAR didn't see enough to intervene. So, the goal should by rights have been penalty-taker Mbeumo's.... Thrice and four times woe!!! They really should have had two more penalties, either side of half-time, when Schade was clearly held when receiving Mbeumo's incisive pass, and then when Collins was rugby-tackled to the ground at a corner - VAR adopting a far too lenient attitude to 'holding' in the box, which led to increasingly extravagant wrestling from both sides at set pieces. Ipswich very nearly nicked a result, with three good chances falling to them in a flurry of late pressure.

Southampton produced a tediously unadventurous but impressively dogged display to frustrate an uninspired Manchester City. It would be tempting to say that Haaland was ring-rusty after nearly two months out of the game, but in fact he looked pretty sharp (winning a lot of high balls beyond the far post and heading them back into the six-yard box... where no-one was ever following up); it was more a case of the rest of the team having apparently forgotten how to play with him. Pep's selections were a bit of a head-scratcher as well; City looked far more dangerous once they brought on the likes of Doku, O'Reilly, Savinho, and Marmoush (who crashed a thumping shot on to the crossbar within minutes of coming on at the very end of the game), and you suspect they could have broken Southampton down if they'd been on from the start. The home side were maybe a little fortunate to get away with a couple of shoves in the penalty area, but in both cases the City players didn't help their appeal by going down so heavily under fairly trivial contact. The last quarter of an hour (half of that, amazingly, added on) actually became quite tense and exciting, as every football fan in the world other than City supporters was praying for the minnows to hang on to their hard-earned draw. (And it's hard not to indulge in a little schadenfreude at all the naive FPL managers who brought in Haaland and/or DeBruyne this week - often at the expense of far more reliable producers like Salah and Isak! It is dangerous to chase week-by-week points from a 'soft fixture'!)

Wolves were yet another team who were strangely flat this Saturday. On recent form, you would have fancied them to spank Brighton quite comfortably - but they rarely got in the game (a solitary low shot from the edge of the box from Cunha being well turned away by Verbruggen early in the second half). A particularly rough day for fans of the recently popular Matheus Cunha (over 15% ownership in FPL), who conceded a penalty (WHY was he playing in the back line???), got booked for it (and maybe was fortunate not to get a red card: if it was a deliberate foul [though I think you could take the view that it was just a clumsy late swish at the ball rather than an attempted trip; and he barely made contact with his toe on the side of the attacker's shin], it was surely also a 'denial of a goal-scoring opportunity'?), and was then subbed off just shy of the hour - for a nul-pointer. Cruel, cruel game!

Bournemouth were perhaps a little unlucky not to get at least a point out of their game, but their finishing just wasn't good enough: Semenyo drilled a shot just wide of the post, and right at the death, substitute Jebbison somehow managed to head over the bar from a yard or so out. Early in the game, Asensio had hit a firm shot against the foot of the post. That was about it - Watkins's solitary goal came 'out of nothing'; there was no sustained pressure from either side. Tyrone Mings was lucky to escape a red card for breaking Alex Scott's jaw; the collision did look 'accidental', but when you catch a guy in the face with your elbow, at speed, you can expect to be penalised most of the time.

Chelsea, too, were a shadow of the side that embarrassed Liverpool last week - perhaps somewhat flummoxed by Howe's crafty decision to line up with a back-three. Newcastle, however, were lacking a cutting-edge themselves, and failed to capitalise on Tonali's early breakthrough goal - even after Chelsea had been reduced to 10 men. Indeed, Chelsea grew into the game through the second half, and were piling on some worrying pressure during the last 20 minutes - until Bruno G pinged in a dipper from just outside the box with a few minutes left. There can't be any dispute about Jackson's sending-off: he clearly had a look at where Botman was, and then charged into him, leading with his elbow. It was such an ugly foul, so obviously committed with intent, that I wouldn't be at all surprised if the FA add another game or two to his mandatory three-match suspension, for exceptionally dangerous play. The only surprise here was that referee John Brooks initially gave the foul only a yellow card; and that it then took such an inordinately long time for VAR to recommend a second look,.... and then that the second look also seemed to take him forever. It was such an obvious and clearcut red card - what on earth was the problem?? (Some of the offside checks have been taking well over a minute lately too - even when there's no close call to be determined. Something amiss with the technology, it would seem.) Later on, VAR declined to intervene when James shoved Gordon to the ground in the box; Gordon was perhaps suffering for having got himself a reputation as someone who goes looking for fouls in the box a bit too obviously, but here James clearly shoulder-charged him in the back - and it was definitely at least worth a second look.

A lot of surprises at the City Ground: a rare-ish goal - a very, very rare headed goal! - from Morgan Gibbs-White (the blocking defender standing nearly 15 yards back from Elanga's touchline free-kick was a big help with that - but that appeared to be his decision, rather than a referee's instruction); Chris Wood, somewhat out of form over the past couple of months, suddenly coming up with a superb diving header; a surprisingly tough performance from relegated Leicester, but still no 200th goal for Jamie Vardy; and then a late equaliser from Buonanotte, to devastate Forest's Champions League hopes.

West Ham finally seemed to be clicking under Graham Potter at Old Trafford, playing with passion and cohesion to end a long winless drought. But it was only against United, who seem to be getting progressively more dire with each passing week. Ruben Amorim's relentless negativity in post-match interviews is now extending to admitting that United don't deserve to be in next season's Champions League if they play like this - which, while obviously true, isn't the sort of thing that the fans like to hear, or that serves any useful purpose. His gloom now even extends to his own prospects in the job, acknowledging that maybe someone should replace him if he can't quickly re-instil a winning mentality in this shambolic team - not clear if he's asking to be sacked, or acknowledging that he's under the threat of it, but again.... not the sort of thing it's encouraging for players or fans to hear at this point.

Rotations ahead of looming Cup Finals for Spurs and Palace were perhaps not as bad as might have been feared: Glasner gave recently-back-from-injury Adam Wharton the day off, but otherwise went with his best eleven, including Eze. Postecoglou put in back-up keeper Kinsky (though that might possibly be a permanent, form-related change?), though he yanked Betancur at half-time, and Porro just minutes shy of the hour - sore vexation for any FPL managers foolhardy enough to still hold any Spurs players! Sarr's tap-in of a great Munoz square-ball across the six-yard box to give Palace an apparent early lead was laboriously ruled out by VAR for a highly questionable offside: ultimately the computer graphic picture showed Mateta ostensibly offside at the start of the move, but.... only by a matter of inches/centimetres, which - I think - is always too close for any technology to convincingly adjudicate (and it was his upper arm only, an area which gets a very subjective and inconsistent interpretation in handball decisions!), and he was standing in his own half at the time, so his upper-arm being in the opponent's half could only be a presumed 'offside' if all the opposing outfield players were in the Palace half.... which I'm not at all convinced of, because by the time he actually received the ball, barely a second later, there were at least three Spurs defenders well back in their own half, all ahead of Mateta. Moments later, the constantly dangerous (because Spurs were consistently omitting to mark him at all) Munoz blasted a shot off the top of the crossbar - bitter frustration for the rather less foolhardy FPL enthusiasts who still have these very popular Palace assets from their recent double gameweeks. At least Ebere Eze came up with two slick finishes to make the result safe - and claim the FPL 'Player of the Week' crown. But Palace really had been rather profligate with their chances: Spurs were so ragged and disorganised here that the visitors might easily have won 5-0 or 6-0. I can't see Big Ange keeping his job now, even if he does sneak into next season's Champions League.

Liverpool v Arsenal wasn't quite the great game we might have hoped for, but there was at least enough excitement in it to brighten up what had been a thoroughly dull weekend of football. Salah blanked (although he had a lively game.... and really ought to get some credit for the sublime 'pre-assist' for the second goal!). The home side went 2-0 up in the first 20 minutes, but then allowed a much improved Arsenal back into the game in the second half - even the great Van Dijk went to sleep and allowed Martinelli to ghost in behind him for an unopposed glancing header. Lots more strangeness in the game: Saka beating an offside trap early on, but then missing a sitter; Alexander-Arnold narrowly playing Merino on for the equaliser; Merino getting himself sent off for two silly fouls; Robertson blazing a great chance for a late winner wide, then having an apparent winner ruled out shortly afterwards (either for a very, very marginal offside, or for a soft foul by Konate - not clear which, and either seemed a bit unjust); in between which decisive moments, Odegaard also had a chance on a counter-attack, but scuffed his effort narrowly wide of the post.

Oh my god - if there was a Razzie for 'The Worst EPL Gameweek of All-Time', this one would surely at least have to be on the shortlist. Gary Lineker joked on the Beeb that it had been the most boring Saturday he could remember in 26 years of presenting 'Match of the Day'; and Sunday wasn't really much better, was it? It's difficult to point to any team that produced a really good performance (Southampton's spoiling display against City perhaps; that was the emotional highlight of a drab weekend, anyway), and just about half of them were really, really poor. For the third Gameweek running, the 'global average' score was stuck down in the 40s, and very, very few people were managing any better than 60 points. Almost all of the most fancied players (including leading 'sheep picks' for the week, DeBruyne and Haaland) came up blank. The 'Team of the Week' includes FOUR defenders, has Ramsdale in goal, and features such low-owned surprises as Gibbs-White, Soucek, Tonali, Schade, and Raul.

There were a couple of penalties and red cards missed, and a few very tight offsides (the Mateta/Munoz/Sarr one to me looked certainly unjust and almost certainly wrong); but the officiating problems this week were mainly about taking too long to reach the right decision rather than making a lot of wrong ones; it was actually one of the better weeks we've had from the refs and VAR.

Only looking just about a 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter' this time, and mainly for the flurry of disappointing player and team performances.

DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  Most people will have played the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip by now; but if you haven't.... this is the last week that you could refuse to do so!  I took the high road by quitting playing the game for the rest of the season when it was introduced in GW23. [I worry that, if people don't protest vociferously about it, the new chip may become a permanent feature of the game - and it will completely ruin it.]  If you didn't feel able to join me in such an emphatic gesture, I hope you at least thought about refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip (and still might refuse, if you've kept it till the last few gameweeks of the season).

Please also criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip