Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 5

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

I will try to resist any extended commentary (although I probably will still indulge in a few diatribes about any particularly egregious penalty or handball incidents).

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

Red cards awarded: 

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

It feels, in terms of naural justice, that Elliott Anderson should probably have received a red card for such a blatant and deliberate handball; although perhaps, since he was not blocking an attempt on goal or 'denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity', perhaps the current rules would only mandate a yellow card.

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

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

Sunderland's fill-in left-back, young Frenchman Dayann Methalie brought down Ndiaye with a clumsy lunge right on the edge of the penalty area. Fernandez scored direct from the subsequent free-kick anyway, but it did look very much as if the point of contact between the players might have been right above the edge of the line of the edge of the box; and VAR apparently didn't check this??

Sunderland were trebly screwed over by referee Rob Jones and his VAR team. They were denied a clearcut penalty when Elliott Anderson swatted the ball with his hand to help him take the ball away from Enzo Le Fée, Anderson might have been sent off for an offence like that, something that would have critically weakened City defensively above and beyond the mere fact of being reduced to 10 men for the final 40 minutes of play - and, to add insult to injury, City immediately broke down the left flank and seized another goal of their own through Semenyo! Apparently, the subsequent official 'explanation' - self-justificatory fudge - was that the ball had hit Le Fée's hand just prior: that was absolute nonsense (only Joe Hart, on 'Match of the Day', a City man to the core, could have even pretended to be convinced by that rationale) - that contact was accidental, had no material effect on the flight of the ball, was completely unavoidable (the ball bounced against him from a matter of inches away), and his arm/hand was in a perfectly natural position (resting on Anderson's chest to try to maintain distance between them): no way in a million years is that ever a 'handball'!! The match - and, possibly, the course of the title race - shifted crucially on that one awful decision.

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

It was a tough break for Thierno Barry that his second goal was ruled out for a 'subjective' offside by Brennan Johnson. It's hard to argue that a player isn't potentially distracting a goalkeeper when he's standing that close to him, but also Johnson wasn't actually making any contact, or really blocking Walton's path to the ball - so, it was perhaps a bit of a 50/50.

It was unfortunate for Tyrick Mitchell that his fine goal - and probable match-winner - was ruled out for a very tight offside by assister Anan Khalaili: off by a knee. This was one I felt was just about substantial enough to have been called with the naked eye - but absolutely at the limit of what should be considered a decisive margin. I'd be far happier with a rule that required the whole of the attacker's body, rather than just a body part, to be closer to the goal.

The offside call for Brian Brobbey's second goal must have been very, very tight: as City held their line on the edge of the penalty area, it looked as though Ruben Dias's left heel might have been playing everybody on by an inch or two (Angulo on the near side was just off; but he wasn't interfering with play). It was one of those where you're happy to see the attacking side 'get the benefit of the doubt' (which was how these situations were always decided, on a discretionary basis, in the past anyway); but whichever way the original on-pitch decision had gone on this, I wouldn't have liked to see SAOT overrule it on such a preposterously fine margin.

When Haaland finally got his goal, after 80 minutes, he was denied the chance to celebrate by an offside flag, and a strangely extended VAR deliberation. In fact, his supplier, Gvardiol, had been plainly onside by nearly half a yard - so, it was a terrible initial call by the linesman, and should have taken mere seconds to correct.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: City's 4th goal should plainly have been chalked off for the earlier handball by Anderson.

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

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

Ipswich manager Gary O'Neill dropped his keeper, Kjell Scherpen, in favour of back-up Christian Walton (though nobody in FPL owns either of them!).

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

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

Doku is apparently now fit for the bench; but the form of Semenyo and Ndiaye might keep him on the sidelines quite a while longer.

Luke Shaw was back from his short-term injury absence, displacing Patrick Dorgu to the bench; and Baleba was finally fit to take part, although he was not put on from the bench this time.

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

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

Dominic Szoboszlai had two decent attempts with long, curling free-kicks, but couldn't quite get either of them on target.

Bruno Fernandes played Cunha's cut-back first time, but the shot flashed across the open goal and rebounded off the inside of the far-post. Marcus Rashford also had a great chance 8 yards out, but the ball came to him unexpectedly, and his improvised side-foot volley ballooned miles over the bar.

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

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

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

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

Evanilson's deft near-post flick from Tavernier's square-ball demanded a very sharp stop from Alisson, low at his near-post. Barcola's shot from the edge of the box may have taken a slight deflection to throw off Petrovic, but the keeper still managed to clear the effort with his feet. Isak, shortly after his goal, had an even better chance, played in behind by Jacquet - in the middle, 18 yards out, with only the keeper to beat, he pulled his shot wide. The linesman then flagged him offside; but he wasn't, and SAOT would surely have confirmed a goal if he'd been able to hit the target.

Trafford made a very sharp stop at the foot of his post from Pino's wicked free-kick. In the second-half, Palace stand-in keeper Walter Benitez made a fantastic reaction stop from a close-range effort from Calvert-Lewin (although he might have been offside by a shoulder...). Shortly afterwards, Daichi Kamada ghosted in unmarked for a free header at the far post, but put his effort far beyond the far post.

Neat the end of the first-half at The Etihad, Ndiaye, with a shooting chance in the centre of the box, unselfishly squared the ball to Haaland in space to his right. And the big Norwegian, with no pressure and half the goal to aim at, unbelievably slotted his shot wide of the post - probably one of the worst misses we'll see from him all season!

Ruben Dias, almost prodding the ball into his own net after Donnarumma had flapped at and missed a long free-kick down the middle from Xhaka in the centre-circle, redeemed himself with a spectacular hooked clearance right on the goal-line. City nearly got a 6th when late subsitutes Doku and O'Reilly combined, the Englishman played in behind by a sublime diagnonal ball from the Belgian, but Roefs spread himself well to block the shot. Moments later, a scramble in the City box ended with Dan Ballard prodding an effort towards goal, but a defender's block deflected it just wide off the outside of the post.

Lisandro Martinez had a swerving 22-yard half-volley well pawed away by Bernd Leno early in the game at Craven Cottage. A firm low shot from just outside the box by Berge was well tipped away by Lammens; his later save with his outstretched leg from King's fierce cross-shot was even better. Cunha's shot from long-range deflected off one of two blocking defenders and looped high in the air over Leno - but grazed the outside of the post. Mbeumo's strong 20-yard curler was perhaps the best of the lot, but superbly tipped away by Leno; the Fulham keeper also made a great stop going down at full stretch to his left to push away a long, low shot from Cunha.

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

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

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

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

It was 'only bangers allowed' in the thoroughly entertaining match at The Etihad: Cherki's dazzling bit of close control probably the pick of the crop, but Semenyo also produced two thumping finishes, Fernandez hit home a very sweet free-kick, and Brobbey nabbed a hattrick of perfect centre-forward goals.

Outstanding performances: Cherki, Semenyo, and Ndiaye are all on fire for City at the moment (a pity that that fire may now smoulder and fade over a three-week break in club training - no-one knows). However, I thought the performance of the weekend came from Bernd Leno: he's been a bit disappointing so far this season, but this Sunday he kept his team in the game with  a string of fantastic saves.

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

Enzo Fernandez's cheeky free-kick from the right corner of the box was sweetly struck - but it really shouldn't have caught Robin Roefs out like that.

Calvin Bassey's slightly deflected shot rebounded awkwardly off Lammen's knee and Martinez's hurried attempt at a 'clearance' ended up looking more like a side-foot shot into the corner; though Lammens might still have been able to save it if he'd decided to dive for it with his hands rather than trying to kick it away - an unfortunate comedy of errors.

Bad luck/good luck: Semenyo's second goal was slightly fortuitous as Cherki's slotted through-ball was sort of cut out by a sliding Sunderland defender, but landed right at Semenyo's feet anyway. (I thought 'deflections' like this no longer invalidated an 'assist' - but Cherki doesn't seem to have been given this one??)

Florian Wirtz was lucky to be credited with an 'assist' for Isak's goal: it was possibly a wildly mishit shot or simply an entirely accidental deflection which made little material difference to the path of the ball; all of the work to set the chance up was done by Cody Gakpo. (If the inconsequential deflection had come off a defender, it would still be Gakpo's assist!)

Fulham defender David Affengruber was unfortunate that his attempted block on the edge of the box helped Cunha to claim a barely-deserved equaliser for Manchester United in the closing moments of regular time.

FPL weirdness: Denying Cherki the assist for Semenyo's second goal seems harsh - and inconsistent. Over the past season, we've usually seen quite large deflections/interventions from a defender disregarded, even if they did materially affect the flight of the ball towards the eventual goalscorer. Here, although there was a very big deflection, it was not a controlled attempt by the defender to play the ball in any particular direction; and although it looped up in the air, the direction of the ball barely changed at all. Cherki was plainly looking to find Semenyo, and did so - how is this not an assist? [Maybe this will be revisited 'overnight' before FPL Towers finally confirms the points and rankings on Monday morning.... We can't complain too much, because this goal should not have been allowed to stand anyway.]

Bernd Leno, frustratingly, just missed out on a second 'saves' point, only being credited with 5 stops in the game (I thought there had been way more; and it is a pity that there is no qualitative element in rewarding keepers' work - at least 3 of these saves were absolute worldies!!). And, as last week with Bart Verbruggen, although he was clearly the 'Player of the Match' (and possibly of the entire weekend), because of the chronic under-recognition given to goalkeepers in the BPS, he didn't get close to earning a bonus point.

Matheus Cunha was fortunate to be credited with United's winner: it looked as though his effort was bound just wide of the near-post until it took a massive deflection off Affengruber's outstretched boot; that touch was certainly 'decisive' in wrongfooting Leno, but it did also look as if might have turned the effort on target.

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

It was a bit of a surprise that Bournemouth were so flat this week; at home, against an uneven Liverpool, they had been fancied to have a chance of causing a minor upset.

It was also a little surprising that Crystal Palace, who've been struggling so far, managed to look much the better side away at Leeds, and ended up being rather unlucky not to nick a win.

With United's wobbly form so far, perhaps a struggle - even against a bottom-of-the-table club like Fulham - was not so unexpected. What no-one probably expected, though, was that it would be such a ding-dong of a game: it might have finished with a bigger scoreline than City v Sunderland, but the goalkeeping was better and the finishing not quite as good.

With Chelsea and Arsenal having absolute horror-shows (many of the more naive FPL managers have recently chosen to treble-up on one or both of these!!), and recently fancied Hull and Forest also going down to slightly unexpected defeats, there is much lamentation in FPL-land this week. The 'Team of the Week', contained none of the star names by the end of Saturday; among its members, probably only Tarkowski and Gross have an ownership even above 1%, let alone 10%! Only Semenyo managed to add himself to its ranks on Sunday. The global average was an utterly abysmal 18 points after Saturday, but eventually climbed to a barely respectbale 44 points after a livelier Sunday. With so many inexplicably bad performances from leading teams, an extraordinary number of exceptional goals (and near-misses!), and some very dubious points attributions, this is certainly one of the weirdest gameweeks of the season so far; it was only saved from being one of the worst FPL gameweeks ever by an unusually entertaining and free-scoring Sunday! On top of Darren England's rather generously letting Arsenal off a penalty and a sending-off on Friday night, and that one slightly questionable offside in Brentford's favour, we also saw that absolutely horrendous ignoring of a penalty handball by Elliott Anderson, which may have changed the course of the match. At least there weren't too many dodgy bits of officiating in the other matches, but that's quite enough to make this another 9 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 4

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

I will try to resist any extended commentary (although I probably will still indulge in a few diatribes about any particularly egregious penalty or handball incidents).

Red cards awarded: No possible argument with Axel Disasi's sending off: he went in with studs raised and caught Jack Clarke just below the knee.

It didn't make a lot of difference to the result, but Reinildo's second yellow card against Arsenal looked unjust.

Foden's early red card at Old Trafford was certainly 'harsh', but fairly inevitable: even though the contact was utterly trivial - a mere twitch of his upstretched legs towards Bruno's midriff - it did look petulant and retaliatory. However, Fernandes was also clearly at fault for having a niggly little kick at Foden's buttock as he lay on the ground immediately prior (and for play-acting so egregiously to try to get his opponent sent off for the offence), and might well have deserved a red card himself - if the rules were being applied absolutely strictly and absolutely consistently. Common sense would suggest that a yellow card for each player would have been a fairer response; but referees seem to have very little leeway to exercise 'common sense' any more. Ultimately, though, this sending-off was only consequential for the small percentage of FPL managers who rashly own Foden; United were miles off it, and were pretty comprehensively outplayed by City throughout the match - after the sending-off even more so than before it.

There was not too much doubt about Taiwo Awoniyi's offence, though: he did fairly clearly throw his shoulder or the back of his upper-arm into De Cuyper's face as the Brighton man rushed towards him - apparently retaliation for a small clash between the two a few moments earlier.

Red cards not awarded:  Jason McAtee was perhaps fortunate to get only a yellow for his wild challenge on Maatsen - not 'violent', perhaps, but rash and cynical, and it did injure the player. The Villa left-back was unable to continue, which left Villa with 10 men in the closing minutes, as Emery had used all his substitutes early.

Penalties awarded: The penalty award against Konsa looked harsh; behind-the-goal views showed that Ballard was grabbing his shirt rather than vice versa, and had probably dragged him off balance. You can see why the grappling may have looked different to the referee; but that was surely an instance where VAR should have intervened to question the initial decision. Arsenal's late penalty, though, looked even more dubious: there was a little bit of holding by Reinildo, but that was outside the area; his challenge on the edge of the box appeared to play the ball (so, his second yellow was also unjust; but VAR again remained silent).

Penalties not awarded:  Leeds had a big shout in the first couple of minutes at Elland Road on Monday night when a bouncing ball hit Newcastle's Matias Fernandez-Pardo on the arm. The ref and VAR swiftly dismissed the contact as 'accidental', but to most people it looked more 'avoidable'. That was probably a 50/50 call; definitely another dubious one, in a gameweek sadly full of dodgy officiating.

Tight/dubious offsides: Liam Delap appeared to have blasted home a second goal from Gibbs-White's cross - but someone (Gibbs-White, presumably) was flagged offside. That was an utterly baffling call; and the SAOT picture was not shared to explain it.

Timber headed home powerfully from Odegaard's curling free-kick. On TV, he didn't look offside (and we were never shown the SAOT graphic): the supposed margin can't have been more than an inch or two!

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: While Haaland's goal did feel 'just' on the balance of play (United were never really in the game, before or after their visitors were reduced to 10 men), it was a very, very odd decision. Apparently, Pro Ref ('Professional Game Referees', the newly rebranded version of the former PGMOL) has admitted a procedural lapse, in that the VAR team was mistaken not to recommend that referee Michael Oliver conduct a review of the 'subjective' offside issue as to whether Enzo Fernandez's attempted diving header was 'interfering with play'. This was a grave oversight; but it wouldn't necessarily mean that the decision itself was wrong (although it would be hard to argue that a player diving across the last defender and right in front of the goalkeeper is not distracting them from other threats beyond the far post...). However, I felt the bigger issue here was that Haaland himself had looked offside anyway - and not by a small margin, by a foot or two! And yet when the decisive SAOT graphic was finally revealed, it was another of these situations we've seen quite a lot of already this season where the pieture appeared significantly out-of-sync with what we'd seen with the naked eye, as if the freeze-frame had been taken at least a few tenths of a second later than the actual delivery of the ball by Gvardiol out on the left of the box: all the United defenders were about half a yard nearer to the goal-line than they had looked in real life. And even then, there was no visible margin: the tip of Patrick Dorgu's outstretched toe appeared to be exactly level with Haaland's leading shoulder, not ahead of it - not even by one millimetre!!  This decision felt very clearly WRONG: and it might be hugely consequential not just for this one game, but for the eventual title race.  It suggests to me that the SAOT system is fundamentally unreliable, and needs to be suspended until they've worked out how to improve its implementation. (I suspect the problems lie more with how officials are using and interpreting the technology's outputs than with the technology itself; and with the inappropriate finickiness of the Offside Law itself - it simply is not practicable, or desirable, to attempt to adjudicate offside situations down to a matter of inches, a margin decided by toeneails, eyebrows, and shirt ruffles...)  It seems to have been argued subsequently that Haaland was in fact 'played onside' by a tiny deflection on the cross off Dorgu's boot. But that is even more baffling: a) it was not clear from TV pictures that there was any such deflection; and b) I thought the rule was now that deflections did not count, that only a controlled attempt to play the ball by a defender was considered a 'deliberate touch' for these purposes (that would seem fair and commonsensical, anyway; and it does seem to have been how these incidents have been interpreted for the last several years); and c) this was not explained as the rationale for the decision (the SAOT graphic appeared to be attempting to justify it on the basis that Haaland had in fact been in an 'onside' position 'behind' Dorgu, regardless of any touch on the ball by Dorgu).

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Keith Andrews surprisingly left out Michael Kayode in favour of Aaron Hickey (one wonders if there was some fitness issue behind that; although Kayode did come on for the last 20 minutes).

Jaydee Canvot has apparently had a falling-out with his manager, not even being included on the bench against Ipswich; new loanee Honest Ahanor was surprisingly given an immediate start. Walter Benitez started in goal because of a late injury for Dean Henderson.

Forest lost Nikola Milenkovic and Jair Cunha to late injuries in training, so had to use full-back Ola Aina on the right side of the back-three (a lucky reprieve for a player who'd looked certain to lose his place to new signing Daniel Munoz).

Iraola, worried about fatigue after the midweek Champions League game against Atleti, subbed off Munoz and Gravenberch just shy of the hour. (At least it was a relief to see Gakpo - who had been rumoured to be facing a possible long spell on the sidelines with a thigh-muscle injury - able to play a full half-hour and more.)

White and Lewis-Skelly were replaced at half-time by Timber and Guimaraes, after a sterile first-half in which Arsenal failed to make any impression against Sunderland. White's withdrawal, at least, was said to be forced by a groin-muscle problem.

Luke Shaw, troubled with a muscle problem all week, was unable to play on Sunday, and was replaced at left-back by Patrick Dorgu. Nico O'Reilly was sufficiently recovered from his back trouble to make an appearance from the bench, but as I'd mused the other day, does now seem to have been edged out of any chance of a regular start by Enzo Fernandez and Josko Gvardiol. Because of the challenge of having to play most of the game with 10 men, Maresca took a tactical decision to replace Cherki with Ndiaye at half-time (a cruel blow for the nearly 30% of managers who now own Cherki; I suffered a similar vexation a few years ago with Luis Diaz being withdrawn because of a sending-off for Van Dijk).

Near misses:  Late on at Bournemouth, substitute Ben Gannon-Doak's swift break down the left ended with him shooting powerfully from the edge of the box - but the effort deflected off a defender's shin and looped on to the post.

Shortly after his opening goal, Liam Delap met Munoz's cross at the near-post but powered his header into the side-netting.

Marcus Rashford curled a sweet 25-yard free-kick against the face of the near-post midway through the first-half, with Donnarumma struggling to get across. After the break, Kobbie Mainoo cracked an open-play effort from similar range against the same left-hand post - but those were United's only decent efforts in a fairly sterile game. In the second-half, Enzo Fernandez had a cracking curler from the same kind of distance brilliantly finger-tipped on to the post by Lammens.

Big misses/big saves: There was a bit of a comedy-of-errors early on at Villa Park, when Murillo deflected a shot towards goal off the back of his heel, it hit Sels rather than being saved by him, the ball immediately rebounded to Murillo whose hurried attempt to clear smashed against the inside of the post and fortuitously hit Sels again; but at least the subsequent follow-up attempt on goal was well blocked by the Forest keeper. Neco Williams was teed up for a great chance from just inside the box, but lashed his effort miles over the bar. Schlager's diving header was brilliantly saved at the foot of his post by Suzuki - but ultimately to no avail, as Forest found a winner shortly afterwards anyway.

Bournemouth's new centre-back Antonio Silva ghosted in behind to meet Tavernier's delicious delivery from a free-kick, but put his header wide of the post. Kelleher did well to parry Kluivert's powerful low shot, but the rebound fell straight to Rayan - who rushed his effort and skied it over the bar.

Reece James's 30-yard free-kick was probably curling just wide of the top corner, but Tzolakis came flying across his goal impressively to tip it away. Palmer played Rogers in for a golden opportunity to secure a 3-2 win, but he shot straight at the keeper. A rather shakey-looking Emi Martinez spilled a long-range effort from Slater in front of Oli McBurnie, but was able to save his blushes by blocking the close-range follow-up effort with a foot. Hull had an even better chance to nick a late victory when Giles's delicious curling cross was met at the far post by substitute Cho, but he side-footed tamely at the keeper.

Anan Khalaili spurned a late chance to claim a win for 10-man Palace when he blazed a volley over the bar after Scherpen had patted Hughes's teasing cross straight at him.

Victor Munoz had a dangerous looping header from a corner well tipped over by Leno - about the only good chance in a very drab game at Anfield. Towards the end of this tedious encounter, Isak managed to connect with a Szoboszlai corner at the near-post, but glanced his header across the face of the goal and wide.

Bukayo Saka ghosted in behind in the opening minutes (onside by a whisker?) to meet Rice's teasing cross - but somehow failed to make a proper connection with the ball, allowing Roefs an easy claim. Shortly afterwards, Havertz unleashed a crisp volley on the swivel that Roefs had to tip over the bar. And then, of course, Raya pulled off a superb penalty save from Le Fée to keep Arsenal in the game (a huge FPL points lift for that - but it shouldn't have been a penalty!!). Shortly after Arsenal took the lead, Sunderland somehow failed to convert a series of chances in a penalty area scramble - Mukiele ultimately back-heeling towards goal, but the effort being well blocked by Konsa.

Bryan Mbeumo fluffed two good chances late in the game: stealing in between Gvardiol and Dias for a free header, but directing the effort clean across the face of goal; and then ghosting in clear behind in the middle of the box in the closing minutes, but firing straight at Donnarumma.

Although Coventry were utterly woeful defensively, they did create a lot of moments of danger, and 'Man of the Match' Bart Verbruggen ended up with a 'saved xG' of nearly 2, producing 3 particularly outstanding saves: the best an acrobatic full-length stop from Rudoni's volleyed cross-shot early in the game, although his tipping over Onyeka's fierce dipping volley was almost as good, and the late save at his near-post from Thomas-Assante excellent as well.

Outstanding goals: Liam Delap pinged one in from nearly 30 yards out. Villa's equaliser, a powerful header from their new Brazilian winger, Alysson, converting McGinn's cross, was also excellent.

Jorgen Strand Larsen's firm, low cross-shot into the far corner was the best of 5 good goals at Selhurst Park.

Bruno Guimaraes opened his account for Arsenal with a banger into the top corner from nearly 23 yards out.

As Coventry's composure and morale collapsed in the last quarter of the game, Brighton had a little bit of a mini 'Goal of the Month' competition all by themselves: Coventry were repeatedly guilty of not closing their opponents down, allowing them far too much time and space to contemplate shots from distance (and goalkeeper Rushworth may have been a little off for those two late goals as well, perhaps having his confidence eroded by the sudden landslide his team were facing); but it is odd that Brighton managed to conjure two such outstanding finishes in quick succession: Dunk's thumping 30-yard dipper right into the top-left corner is surely a front-runner for September's 'Goal of the Month', but Ayari's low drive from just outside the box a few minutes later was nearly as good.

Outstanding performances: Bart Verbruggen, rather surprisingly, in a game in which his team ran rampant in attack, had to produce one of the best goalkeeping performances of the season to keep Brighton ahead.

Big mistakes: Djorde Petrovic gave up 2 points by passing the ball straight to a lurking Kevin Schade late in the game; Schade finished very coolly, chipping into the open net - but it was a gift of a chance.

Ipswich keeper Kjell Scherpen passed the ball directly to Adam Wharton early on, but Wharton's first-time 'shot' passed it straight back to him!

Antonin Kinsky also produced a similar lapse, giving the ball away to Dewsbury-Hall waiting in the middle just outside the penalty area - but he made amends by managing to block the Everton midfielder's effort with his legs.

Bad luck/good luck: Leif Davis nearly bagged a second goal for himself with a looping header in the final minute of regular time; the effort crashed back off the face of the crossbar allowing substitute Zian Flemming a tap-in, so Davis claimed a second assist instead.

Roefs very nearly saved Saka's penalty.

All of Leeds's 4 goals on Monday night were helped by deflections; Tanaka's opener was the most dramatic, with two huge diversions off defenders' legs leaving Hornicek with no chance on it; but Dom Calvert-Lewin's headed goal also looked to me as if it might have been quite generously awarded to him, as it might have come off the head of the teammate or the defender who were challenging for same ball. (Ah, I see that second Leeds goal was ultimately given to Bogle - fortuitous for him, unlucky for Calvert-Lewin owners!! No, wait, that revision was itself revised again later in the week; and so it was ultimately - and rightfully - Calvert-Lewin's goal,... except in FPL-land, where it still wasn't!)

FPL weirdness: Goalkeepers receive far too little credit under the BPS: Verbruggen was universally acclaimed as the 'Man of the Match' for his outstanding performance in the Brighton goal, but failed to get close to even 1 bonus point because his teammates scored so many goals up the other end.

The bizarre incident on Monday night when Bogle, Thiaw, and Calvert-Lewin all went up for a high ball in the same square yard of space, and Big Dom's header appeared to bounce off the heads of one or both of the other two before flying into the goal has caused much dismay and vexation among FPL managers. Originally the goal was given to Calvert-Lewin in-game; but shortly afterwards, the credit was reassigned to Bogle (a very rare 'Bank error in your favour' for me, as that boost to Bogle's haul saved my gameweek!); which seemed somewhat unjust, as Calvert-Lewin had pretty clearly got the first touch, and his effort was bound goalwards anyway. Such, too, was the eventual decision of the League's Goal Accreditation Panel; but it took them until Thursday to render that verdict - and FPL declines to reallocate points after the 'closing' of a gameweek (this year, offcially at 9am, UK time, on the day after the last match). So, Bogle owners end up with points for a goal he didn't score, and Calvert-Lewin owners get nothing for a goal he did score.... It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

Unexpected results:  Villa are usually tough to beat at home, but they have started the season poorly, and usually struggle with stamina after a European game; and Forest tend to get especially fired up for Midlands derbies - so, I was predicting a Forest win in this one; but many people were not. Most people seem to have been expecting a comfortable home win for Chelsea - but I'd actually predicted a tight game and a possible 2-2 draw. Palace were also probably expected to get a home win against struggling Ipswich; but Ipswich have looked much better than Coventry, while Palace have looked very shakey at the back - a draw might have been the most likely outcome, but I wouldn't really call the Ipswich win a 'surprise'. Although Iraola's Liverpool haven't yet looked all that convincing, they would have been expected to win fairly comfortably at home against a frail Fulham. And I wouldn't have predicted a floundering Spurs would have been able to keep a clean sheet - even at home, against a not particularly incisive Everton.

And surely very few people were expecting Sunderland to make Arsenal struggle so much; their xG was actually nearly as good as their visitors', and if Le Fée had converted their penalty, the result might have been different.

Brighton were fancied to get a win, perhaps quite a big win, against woeful Coventry; but the 5-0 thrashing was ultimately somewhat fortuitous, as the home side unravelled due to Awoniyi's silly sending-off offence early in the second-half, and a fairly soft penalty award fairly soon afterwards. Coventry actually created the better chances, and with only slightly better luck might have been able to stay on terms.

Almost all of Saturday's games contained significant elements of the unexpected, and the FPL 'Team of the Week' yet again includes a fair number of randoms; Raya, Schade, Gross and Joao Pedro are the only high-owned representatives in it. Despite expected big returns for Arsenal, Chelsea, and Brighton players, the global average was still only a relatively modest 42 points after Saturday, but eventually climbed to a fairly respectable 67 points. The thrashing of poor Coventry by Brighton - not fully 'expected' or deserved, I would say! - was particularly consequential for FPL, with 17%-owned Pascal Gross being credited with 2 assists as well as being gifted a fairly soft penalty to convert for a 17-point haul, while Maxim De Cuyper nabbed 1 assist and a clean sheet for 11 points; if you had one or both of these, you had a pretty good gameweek! If (like me...) you felt that Brighton's prospects against Coventry were not overwhelmingly strong enough to make up for their daunting run of fixtures from now until early December, then... you got slammed. 

With so many bizarre incidents and near-misses, several absolute bangers of goals, 2 goals ruled out for invisible 'offsides', 2 pretty terrible penalty awards on Saturday and another more tenuous missed one on Monday, and an arguably missed red card for McAtee, the controversial sending-off for Foden and the massive cock-up on the game-deciding offside call at Old Trafford, and then the protracted to-and-fro over whether to credit Dominic Calvert-Lewin with a second goal, I'm afraid this is now a 9 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter', much the most eccentric gameweek of the season so far; and, sadly, 'back to normal' for chaotic refereeing, after an unusually good opening few weeks to the season.

Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 3

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

I will try to resist any extended commentary (although I probably will still indulge in a few diatribes about any particularly egregious penalty or handball incidents).

Red cards awarded: 

Red cards not awarded:  

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Betancur was very lucky not to have a penalty given against him when he tangled clumsily with Igor Jesus while chasing him towards a cross in behind.

Tight/dubious offsides: Isak was denied his hattrick - with a nice assist from Wirtz - being adjudged offside by a kneecap.

Daichi Kamada's goal for Palace, converting a superlative chipped cross from Pino, was ruled out for another of those insanely tight, impractical margins - the toe of his right boot.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: Ballard's apparent opener against Brentford was eventually ruled out for Danso having been in an offside position ahead of him and interfering with Kelleher's line of sight to the ball. But Kelleher could still see the ball, and was too far in the middle of his goal to have been able to save a shot right inside his post; so,.... that call seemed very, very harsh.

Neco Williams definitely deserved a goal for his bravery in throwing himself at a bouncing ball on the goalline as Van de Ven swung his boot to clear it. While it does seem very possible that the defender kicked the ball against his arm rather than his face, none of the TV views clearly showed that, as all lines of sight to the actual point of contact were blocked by the bodies of Spurs defenders (nor, indeed, could we clearly see whether the ball might have already crossed the line from Gibbs-White's original deflected shot); so, I can't see on what basis VAR could intervene on this incident. Moreover, Williams looked genuinely mystified as to why the goal had been disallowed, and continued to plead afterwards, with all apparent sincerity, that the ball had not touched his arm.

The overruling of Calafiori's goal was a bitter blow for those of us that own him, but obviously quite correct: Konsa had been in an offside postion when he kicked the ball against the post, and the rebound then squirmed past Martinez to allow the Italian his chance to stab the ball home. I had thought initially that Konsa would be penalised for a foul on the keeper, since he did walk through the back of Martinez as he was floundering trying to recover the ball.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: On Friday night, Iraola started Araujo instead of Frimpong at right-back.

Giorginio Rutter was a late omission for Brighton, with an undisclosed injury problem; Kostoulas started up front in his place.

Foden was dropped, while Ndiaye, slightly surprisingly, was given an immediate start, only days after his arrival at City. Enzo Fernandez was not supposed to have started, but stepped in when Nico O'Reilly felt a problem in his back during the warm-up. (One wonders if this was all a piece of theatre designed to bamboozle the opposition? Although Coventry hardly seem worthy of such an elaborate ruse...)

FPL 'Flavour of the Month' Mamadou Sangaré (15% ownership really is ridiculous for a 'defcon'-only midfielder!!) was withdrawn at half-time.

Damiel Munoz - unsurprisingly - was not ready for a start for Forest. But the also newly arrived Liam Delap was given the nod over Igor Jesus. Oliver Glasner infuriated FPL fans by swapping out Ola Aina and Dan Ndoye seconds shy of the hour mark!

Tyrone Mings was reinstated to the Villa defence, in place of Pau Torres. (Probably no-one owns any Villa defenders at the moment; but this was a little bit of a surprise.)

Ezri Konsa got his first start for Arsenal, though perhaps only because of a 'minor injury' to Mosquera; and Lewis-Skelly again got the start in the pivot role, although Zubimendi came on for the last 25 minutes; and Guimaraes was finally fit for the bench but didn't get on. Meanwhile, Alonso brought Josh Acheampong in for Levi Colwill.

Near misses:  Enzo Le Fée let fly an absolute scorcher from just inside the box, but it smashed against the middle of the near post.

Bruno Fernandes hooked a thumping volley against Pickford's crossbar early on against Everton.

Joao Pedro missed by inches to slide in on to the end of Cole Palmer's delightful diagonal through-ball - which would have put Chelsea 2-0 up before half-time, and might have clinched the game for them. Pedro Neto also had a cracking left-foot shot rebound from the foot of the far post in the closing moments of the first-half that might have given them a 2-1 lead.

Big misses/big saves: Ipswich full-back Leif Davis really should have clawed his side back into the match when he pulled clear of Munoz at the far post, but ballooned his header miles over the top.

Evanilson squandered an early chance to put his team 2-0 up when Botman's sloppy square-ball fell straight to him on the edge of the box.

Pascal Gross had a late chance to claim a winner for Brighton, but lashed the effort over the top from 5 yards out.

Verbruggen made a fantastic save with an outstretched leg from Stach's close-range shot early in the second-half.

An offside Calvert-Lewin was played in behind by a careless back-pass, but after taking the ball round the keeper his feeble shot was easily cleared by Dunk.

Taiwo Awoniyi had a golden chance to put Coventry ahead in the opening minutes, intercepting a loose pass in midfield to steal in behind on a quick breakaway, but then rushing his shot from the edge of the box and putting it wide. Haaland had two good efforts - both set up by Cherki - well saved by Rushworth. Late on, Donnarumma had to make a very sharp full-length save when Tchaouna intercepted a mishit pass from Guehi. And in the closing minutes, Ellis Simms prodded a close-range shot straight into the face of the advancing Donnarumma.

Dean Henderson pulled off a sharp reaction save from Oscar Bobb to keep Palace in the game in the first-half.

Omar Marmoush, with only the keeper to beat, dragged his early chance against Forest well wide. And in the second-half, be blazed an effort miles over the bar - when Kudus was in acres of space on the far side of the box, just waiting for the lay-off that would present him with an open goal.

John McGinn was played in behind by Nicolas Jackson, but, with only the keeper to beat, spooned his chip way over the bar. A little later, young winger George Hemmings's cut-back teed up Buendia perfectly in the middle of the box, but he also skied his effort. Later, Belloumi lashed a curling, dipping shot against the face of the crossbar, with Suzuki beaten. In the dying minutes, substitute Cho lashed a crisp first-time volley from McBurnie's lay-off, but the effort flew straight at Suzuki. And moments later, McBurnie himself had a golden chance to secure a deserved win when Ryan Giles's perfect cross reached him unmarked in the middle of the box - but he misjudged the bounce and took a fresh-air shot.

Matheus Cunha had United's best chance of the first-half, but blazed it over from an unmarked position in the middle of the box. Shortly afterwards, Barry got on the end of Rohl's delicious curling cross to the far post, but couldn't control his header.

Emi Martinez made a good stop from fierce shots from Saka in each half (I own Saka too; it was not a good weekend for me...!). Raya's tipping over a fierce second-half curler from Estevao was even more impressive. The end-to-end Arsenal v Chelsea match could well have ended 3-3 or 4-4 (as I'd predicted...).

Outstanding goals: Alexander Isak produced two very smart finishes on Friday evening, both from superb through-balls from Gakpo - although for the first, Scherpen had left a huge gap at his near-post. Both of these highlights came within 10 minutes of kick-off, though; Liverpool quickly lost momentum after this bright start.

Harvey Barnes cutting inside to unleash a perfect curler from the corner of box would be a 'Goal of the Month' contender in any other month - but nobody's beating Cherki this month! Oh, wait: that was last month. So, Harvey will the be a frontrunner in the next one!

Vitaly Janelt's rasping half-volley to finally give Brentford the lead over Sunderland was the second best goal of the day.

Tyrick George's rasping near-post shot to put Everton level for the first time would have been the 'goal of the day', but for substitute Ainsley Maitland-Niles's precise 25-yard drive into the top corner to nick a point with the last kick of the game.

Odegaard's goal against Chelsea was also a beauty, though not quite as spectacular as those earlier ones.

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: Jordan Pickford wasn't looking at his sharpest on Sunday, and might have been slightly at fault for both of United's goals. He had a good view of Mbeumo's crisp curler, and it wasn't that far away from him; but the bounce just as it reached his hands seemed to deceive him. He looked even more unhappy with the second: Sesko's header was well directed downwards, but had little power on it, Pickford got a strong right hand to it... but wasn't able to turn it around the post.

Morgan Rogers's early goal was a decently-hit volley that went through a defender's legs, and was tucked right into the bottom corner; but he didn't really get any power on it, more just prodded it towards goal - and the normally impeccable Raya will probably be rather disappointed in himself that he wasn't able to get down to it more quickly. Kai Havertz's low shot for the equaliser was more crisply struck than Rogers's, but Martinez had a much better view of it, and was still too slow to get down to keep it out at his near-post.

Bad luck/good luck: Donnarumma, who's looking clumsier on the ball with every passing week, was extraordinarily lucky to get away with an early miscontrol, where he tried a little drag-back to give himself space to look for a pass to the other side, but had misjudged how close he was to his goalline: he was only a fraction of an inch from scoring one of the most embarrassing own-goals of all time!

Justin Kluivert was unfortunate that his blistering long-range shot cannoned back off the post.... and then didn't quite go in from the deflection off Hornicek's back either. In the scramble that followed, Scott's off-target follow-up shot took a huge deflection off Thiaw's boot to take it looping over a helpless keeper into the far top corner - quite the comedy of errors.

FPL weirdness: Kai Havertz's dummy on the edge of the box was more instrumental in setting up Odegaard's goal than Tzolis's pass; but of course, that gets no credit in the FPL scoring system - not even under the BPS.

Unexpected results: Although Bournemouth are a dangerous opponent, Newcastle's very sloppy home performance was a big surprise after their impressive showing in the first two games; but at least they showed commendable resolve in clawing their way back to a draw.

Coventry, looking much more cohesive than in their first two games, gave City a bit of a scare. They had a couple of good chances to go ahead early in the game, and came close to drawing level near the end. On balance, they probably deserved at least a draw - which no-one would have anticipated for them at The Etihad; certainly not the more than 1.6 million FPL managers who punted their Triple Captain chip on Haaland in this game!

Tyrick Mitchell, who very rarely scores, snaffled two goals in one game - that's a turn-up for the books!! And then his late replacement, Ben Chilwell, got the third with his first touch!! Strange days, indeed. Mind you, it was against Fulham - who are already looking fairly assured of relegation.

Brentford were far below their best: they were comprehensively outplayed by Sunderland in the first-half, and despite a stronger performance after the break, they were fortunate to come away with a point.

Spurs again played pretty poorly, and were extremely fortunate to come away with a point and a clean sheet against a vastly superior Nottingham Forest.

Villa were also fortunate to share the points against a Hull side who continue to look very impressive.

With quite a few shakey performances and some very low-scoring games (an awful lot of wasted chances this week!), the global average remained a miserably low 36 points; it appeared not to move on Sunday, which ought not to be possible, so, I wonder if FPL Towers is being painfully slow to update the site again....? Ah, yes.... this week's global average actually appears to be 51 points (still pitiful); but the site wasn't updated until mid-afternoon on Monday, UK time!! The 'Team of the Week' did at least end up with a not wildly unexpected selection of attacking players; though fairly few people owned any of the defensive unit - Suzuki, Mitchell (a defender who never scores bagging a brace to become 'Player of the Week'??), Vuskovic, Bogle. The record-breaking number of managers who punted their Triple Captain chip on Erling Haaland (just over 1.6 million of them, apparently), anticipating that City would run riot againt Coventry, will have ended up relieved that he scored something. Although the refereeing continues to look a lot more solid than last year, we saw 1 penalty questionably turned down this weekend, 2 goals very harshly disallowed, and a couple of very good goals ruled offside by distances so small that they must be well inside the SAOT system's margin of error. Therefore, I think we can say this is 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 2

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

I will try to resist any extended commentary (although I probably will still indulge in a few diatribes about any particularly egregious penalty or handball incidents).

Well, after a mostly rather drab and low-scoring opening weekend last week, it feels as though the season is finally getting properly under way in Gameweek 2 - with most teams starting to find their form a bit (at least - in attack or defence, but not usually both!): lots of goals and some absolutely cracking games.

Red cards awarded: 

Red cards not awarded:  

Penalties awarded: The penalty against Liverpool seemed slightly harsh: Alisson made very little contact with Neco Williams's foot - and his chip had already drifted wide of the goal, was very nearly out of play before he was brought down: one of those decisions that is technically 'correct', but is always going to feel otherwise to the side it goes against. We have sometimes seen these not given; and if Sam Barrott had not called it on the pitch, I doubt if VAR would have intervened to overrule that.

Although it is, in general, a good thing that VAR is being so much more brisk in most of its deliberations this season, and so much less interventionist, I fear that this comes at the cost of it not really doing anything at all most of the time. Jaden Bogle clearly stepped on Kevin Schade's instep inside the penalty area. So.... it might have been 'accidental', it might not have been that hard a contact? Are these the criteria we're using to adjudicate these incidents now? You can't pick your foot up if someone's treading on it, even lightly, even briefly - that's a foul. I suspect the only criteria VAR is following in situations like this is 'go along with the on-pitch referee, if he seemed to have a good view of it'.

United's penalty for the supposed foul by Greaves on Cunha was decidedly soft. The Ipswich defender was rash to be lunging in from so far back, but it was not clear on any of the TV slow-motion replays I saw that he'd actually made any significant contact; Cunha appeared to have just realised that he was sliding in alongside him, and threw himself to the ground. If the referee had not given that one, I wonder what the VAR team would have done?

Penalties not awarded:  James Hill was perhaps slightly fortunate to be let off when Dewsbury-Hall crashed to the ground after colliding with him. The Everton player probably was knowingly initiating the contact, but Hill had stepped across the line of his run - albeit inadvertently - at the last-minute, making that a very 50/50 call.

Malick Thiaw definitely made contact with Omar Marmoush's ankle as they both stretched for a high ball in the penalty area early in the second-half. It was a very slight contact, it was perhaps 'an accidental collision' as both players tried to play the ball at the same moment - and Marmoush did roll around pretending to be injured for a full minute in a blatant attempt to sway the decision. So, VAR's dismissal of the incident didn't feel 'unjust'; but it did raise further questions about exactly how this sort of contact is being adjudicated - in the past, this kind of thing has almost always been deemed to be a penalty.

Ian Maatsen had two decent penalty appeals in fairly quick succession late on in Monday night's game at Villa Park. For the first, it did look as if there had only been the lightest and briefest tug of his arm, and that contact had been broken before he entered the area. But the second, when he was barged to the ground by Declan Rice, was a much stronger claim; presumably it was adjudged to be a fair 'shoulder to shoulder' challenge, but Rice was leaning into and across him so heavily that he was not just impeded but flattened - and it is open to argument whether the Arsenal player was within the playing distance of the ball. That one, I think, might have been given; one of those where, in the present VAR climate, if the referee had given it, it would not have been overruled.

Tight/dubious offsides: Several Forest players looked offside when Sels first played the ball forward to set up Ndoye's opening goal, but had apparently all got back onside before anyone played the ball again (that must have been very tight...!); but there was another offside call later in the move which was apparently determined by a Liverpool defender having raised his lower leg to take a step backward at an inopportune moment. Similarly, I was happy to see Elanga's excellent opening goal allowed to stand; but the SAOT rendering of the offside call appeared to show a Spurs player playing Newcastle onside by the length of his shirt-sleeve - there is just no way that the system is accurate enough to reliably make judgements like these on margins that slim!! Liverpool may feel that nothing was going their way, as an excellent finish by Wirtz was ruled out - after a long VAR review - for Frimpong having been half a yard slow in getting back onside before providing the assist; again a very close call, and 'rough justice' - but this time clearly correct.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: It seems a particularly odd quirk of the rules that a handball is only regarded as a 'strict liability' offence if it is committed by the goalscorer. In commonsense terms, Maguire having the ball kicked into his arms from close range, when his arms were close against his chest, should simply not ever be considered handball; but if it can be so considered, why should he be exonerated purely because of the Greaves deflection? Maguire was still effectively the 'goalscorer', even if he wouldn't be credited with the goal; he was instrumental in creating the goal by taking the shot.... and he got the chance to take the shot by 'handling the ball'. The decision looked quite right; but the rules are cockeyed!! Well, that's what I thought when first watching the game last night. On second viewing, his arms weren't that close to his chest, and you could make the case that he anticipated the defender was going to try to kick the ball over him and was deliberately putting his arms up to try to block it. I'm not convinced by that argument - but it certainly should have been considered. And it looks as though it wasn't, it looks as though the VAR team got bogged down in the rules minutiae of whether the 'own goal' deflection would exonerate Maguire of a non-deliberate handball, and failed to consider at all the possibility that it was deliberate. For me, a bit of a 50/50; it didn't feel deliberate or culpable to me - but you see them given both ways.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Mateta and Sarr failed to appear for Palace on Friday night, although Pierre Sage claimed that this was because of injury issues rather than the transfer interest around them.

It was a bit of a surprise that Iraola chose to start Macallister rather than Gravenberch in central midfield; and perhaps also that new arrival Victor Munoz was given his first start, in preference to the recently lively youngster Rio Ngumoha (one of those changes worked out much better than the other!). The least expected Liverpool selection, however, was probably Gakpo retaining his start (though being switched to the right-wing, to accommodate Munoz on the left), despite the speculation about his imminent departure from the club (he was largely invisible, although he did provide the assist for Isak's equaliser).

There was still no start for Senesi at Spurs, or, even more surprisingly, for Mateus Fernandes (though he did get on as a substitute); and the newly arrived Savinho has picked up a muscle injury already, in his short outing in the League Cup against Charlton on Wednesday night (although there was a debut for Marmoush). Maddison was missing again, after hurting his shoulder against Brentford last week; but at least Kudus and Solanke are finally fit again.

Reece James and Moises Caicedo started on the bench for Chelsea, but were brought on for the last 20 minutes or so (Caicedo soon had to withdraw again with what looks like a recurring muscle injury).

Kobbie Mainoo and Marcus Rashford finally started, at the expense of Andrey Santos and Patrick Dorgu.

Arsenal's Christos Tzolis abruptly ceased to be 'flavour of the month' with the FPL Sheep when he had a poor first half at Villa, and was yanked off at half-time after picking up a booking.

Near misses:  Hull's Canadian winger, Liam Millar, was released on a surging forward run late in the game by Ollie McBurnie; however, his eventual low shot, through a defender's legs, from just outside the area had Rushworth well beaten but went inches wide of the post. (He was able to make amends for the miss with a clinical finish to a lone breakaway in behind a few minutes later.)

Big misses/big saves: Phil Foden was set up with an open goal in the first-half against Palace on Friday, but somehow sliced his effort high over the bar. Shortly afterwards, Cherki's cross from the right set him up for a headed chance only a few yards out, but he didn't get a proper contact on it (he did eventually provide assists for 2 of the 4 goals [although I'm not sure he really deserves one for being the last person to touch the ball before Cherki scores a ridiculous solo goal!!], but overall it may have been a shaky enough performance to dissuade FPL managers from selecting him at the moment). Shortly afterwards, Tyrick Mitchell headed Wharton's perfect cross wide of the post - when he had the entire goal to aim at (and at that point, Palace were still only 0-1 down).

Dan Ndoye ghosted in behind Frimpong early in the game to get a free header at the far post from a lovely cross by McAtee - but directed the effort right across the face of the goal and beyond the other post: a huge let-off for Liverpool, who were completely dominated in the first-half, and could easily have gone in at the interval 2 or 3 behind. Alisson kept Liverpool in the game on the stroke of half-time, when he pulled off a superb flying save to tip Igor Jesus's point-blank drive on to the underside of his crossbar.

Djordje Petrovic made possibly the 'Save of the Season', a flying reaction stop with his fingers somehow forcing Branthwaite's powerful glancing header from outside the near-post across the face of goal to safety, when it already seemed to be past him. Thierno Barry (suddenly the most coveted cheap forward in FPL - coveted, at least, by The Sheep - after scoring a hattrick in the Cup midweek... against Preston), squandered three excellent chances, blasting one close-range effort straight at Petrovic, then soon after lashing another into the side netting on the near-side, when he had lots to aim at on the other side of the goal, and again failing to get past Petrovic in a one-on-one in the second-half. Late on, Vitaliy Mykolenko made two superb blocks in quick succession to keep Everton in the game.

Hull full-back Nobel Mendy unleashed a fierce drive from more than 30 yards out, but Rushworth was just able to claw it away from his post.

Spurs created a few moments of danger early on, with Hornicek making a good save from Tel, and Porro having an effort deflected over the bar by a block from Hall.

Dan James was played in behind for a one-on-one with Kelleher, but couldn't ultimately put his effort to lob the Brentford keeper on target. Dominic Calvert-Lewin's late equaliser for Leeds would have been well offside if.... a knackered and soon-to-substituted Schade hadn't been loitering motionless near the touchline two or three yards behind his defensive line.

The 'in form' Joao Pedro spurned a chance to put Chelsea 3-0 up against Brighton, placing his shot wide of the post when he pretty much had an open goal before him, only the keeper to beat. Towards the end of the first-half, Diego Gomez had a golden chance to pull Brighton back to 3-2 down, but put his free header right across the face of the goal.

Granit Xhaka provided one of the best assists of the weekend - but Wilson Isidor slammed his shot against the foot of the post, when it should have been quite easy to beat the keeper and convert the chance (although he was able to make amends with a very similar chance created for him by Diarra a little later).

Julio Enciso's pace got him in behind the Manchester United defence on a long lone breakaway early on, but he couldn't put his shot past Lammens. While others this week were competing for 'Goal of the Season', poor Bryan Mbeumo probably wrapped up 'Miss of the Season' when he threw himself at a cross barely a yard from the goalline, but it spooned up off his thigh and ricocheted back off the underside of the crossbar; missing from that position genuinely looked impossible.

Outstanding goals: Rayan Cherki probably tied up 'Goal of the Month' - and maybe even 'Goal of the Season'!! - on Friday night when he received the ball from Foden on the edge of the box and proceeded to dribble around the entire Palace defence.

Anthony Elanga pulled off a very sharp turn to get his shot off for the opening goal at Spurs (although the offside call on the move was extremely tight!). Victor Munoz's late second equaliser for Liverpool was very similar - but perhaps even more emphatic a finish (although a slight deflection off Murillo's toe may have taken it away from Sels).

Cole Palmer actually had quite a subdued game against Brighton - but you give him one sight of goal and he says,"I want to be in 'Goal of the Month' too!"

Leif Davis's adroit first-time finish on Fatawu's perfect cross might also have been a 'Goal of the Month' contender in another month, but.... Cherki.

Emi Buendia had Raya beaten with a firm drive from just outside the box early on in Monday night's game at Villa Park, but his effort crashed against the underside of the crossbar. Later in that game, Odegaard's lovely curling free-kick from a similar distance drifted only inches wide.

Outstanding performances: Cherki - outrageous!!! Everybody's going to be buying him this week!!!  Alex Scott was also superb for Bournemouth; and it's great news for them that he's saying he wants to stay at the club. And then, yes, there was Bruno Fernandes - pulling off what might prove to be the biggest FPL points-haul of the entire season. (It will certainly be one of the top handfull.)

Big mistakes: Bernd Leno looked seriously at fault for Sunderland's late, decisive goal - opting to spread himself on the ground for a shot that wasn't yet coming, rather than trying to intercept Diarra's square-ball, and so letting it run through to Isidor lurking just beyond him.

Bad luck/good luck: Elliot Anderson had a flick at Pino going past him, but did not appear to make any contact. So, it was unjust that he received a yellow card for the non-existent foul, and even harsher that Pino then managed to convert the resulting free-kick from nearly 30 yards out. That was a terrific strike, but it was a big slice of good fortune that it crashed back off the underside of the crossbar and richocheted into the net off the back of the diving Donnarumma's shoulder!

Verbruggen was perhaps a little unfortunate to get tangled up with his defender, allowing the ball to bobble free to gift Chelsea an opening goal - though some would call that a goalkeeping error. Own goals are almost always a little unfortunate, but Joao Pedro's deflection of Pascal Gross's going-nowhere shot more so than most; and Jacob Greaves's similar diversion of a wildly off-target effort from Harry Maguire even more so. 

FPL weirdness: It is unfortunate that there's no 'qualtitative' element to the BPS tallying; and you sometimes doubt if even its 'quantitative' aspect is entirely reliable. It seems more than a little unjust that Djordje Petrovic's outstanding performance in the Bournemouth goal - in a low-scoring game - somehow only elevated him to 6th place in the BPS ranking for that match. It is doubly galling for his owners that he was only credited with 5 saves (I thought it had been more!), one shy of earning him a second 'saves' point.

Unexpected results:  Liverpool are all over the place at the moment; but even so, Nottingham Forest, who'd had a pretty flakey opening game themselves last week, would not have been expected to cause them too many difficulties at Anfield. Manchester United were not widely fancied to get a comfortable win over Ipswich, after their awful opening display against Hull; and indeed Ipswich were bossing the game for most of the first-half and things might have ended very differently; that disputed Maguire goal changed everything. And Villa would not have been expected to push Arsenal so hard, after their absolutely dire opening game.

The global average this week ended up at an astonishing 81 points. The FPL 'Team of the Week' was, for once, fairly well populated with well-owned players - although the Hull goalkeeper, both of Newcastle's full-backs, and Bournemouth's Alex Scott were probably not widely expected to feature in it. On Saturday there were only 3 mildly contentious (but probably 'correct') penalty decisions and a few very close (but probably 'correct') offsides, and it looked as if the gameweek might be remarkably free of error or controversy in the refereeing. But on Sunday, we saw Manchester United benefit in quick succession from an at least mildly controversial handball decision in favour of Harry Maguire for the equalising goal, and then from a very soft penalty award to Matheus Cunha; Schade should definitely have had a penalty at Leeds; and Maatsen had a fairly strong shout for one turned down at Villa on Monday night. Bruno Fernandes's super-massive points-haul, though not entirely unexpected against a promoted side, itself puts this gameweek somewhat outside of normal bounds. Thus, I think we've crept up to about a 4 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'!! 

Luck-o-Meter 26-27 - Gameweek 1

  

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

I will try to resist any extended commentary (although I probably will still indulge in a few diatribes about any particularly egregious penalty or handball incidents).

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

Red cards awarded: 

Red cards not awarded:  

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

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

Tight/dubious offsides: 

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FPL weirdness: 

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

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