Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 30

In the middle of the European 'Round of 16' ties, we've inevitably seen a few surprising and inconvenient rotations this weekend; and, yet again, some up-and-down performances from the big teams.

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I've been aiming to keep them briefer recently. I made just about zero progress on that resolution for the first few weeks, but.... now I've hit upon a new 'format', which might help: 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: Gabriel Gudmundsson's sending-off for a second yellow seemed a bit harsh, as the incident looked like an accidental coming-together rather than a rash challenge. And the referee, Thomas Bramall, who'd evidently forgotten he'd carded the player earlier, would surely have been likely to take a more lenient view if he'd realised it was a sending-off decision. (Leeds will also complain about a lack of consistency in the refereein, in that Brennan Johnson also committed a mild but bookable offence shortly afterwards, and was spared a second yellow card.)

Red cards not awarded: Yankuba Minteh was very fortunate not to get a second yellow card against Sunderland (and Hurseler immediately subbed him off, to avoid the near-certainty of his dismissal for any further infraction). His second foul was a fairly mild contact, and might have been seen as an 'accidental' coming-together - but it was the sort of contact we usually see cards given for. Hannibal was even luckier to get only a yellow card for his wild, overreaching lunge which cuaght Truffert above the ankle; the VAR team were again, unfathomably, sitting on their hands (it was a bad enough foul that the referee should at least have taken a second look at it).

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Michael Keane plainly clipped Havertz's heels not once but twice, bringing him down in the penalty area in the first-half at The Emirates; VAR's silence on the incident is utterly baffling. 

Cole Palmer was clipped on the edge of the foot by Woltemade's rash challenge: the contact was very slight, but it was clearly there - and it was enough for a penalty to be awarded. [Along with two good efforts on goal, one saved, one just wide, Palmer, despite looking still at only about 85% of his full capacity, was not far off a 20-point game, but came away with only 2 points. So it goes....]

Richarlison should have had a penalty at Anfield at the start of the second-half when Van Dijk was clearly holding him back; the referee didn't have a clear view of the offence, VAR did - but VAR didn't want to 'overrule' their on-pitch colleague. This is getting ridiculous.

Brentford surely should have had a penalty on Monday, when Andre wrestled Kevin Schade to the floor at a corner. It seems that adjudicating all this goalmouth grappling is becoming such an insuperable challenge for the officials that they're just throwing up their hands in despair and refusing to give any decision on these incidents now. Something's got to change, and soon.

Tight/dubious offsides: The offside against Brennan Johnson was very, very tight; the one against Dan Ndoye was just plain wrong.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed: Sunderland are unhappy about Brighton's goal, as Diarra had been shoved to the ground on the preceding corner-kick; but that contact might not have been violent enough for a foul, and Diarra appeared to be rolling around on the ground to try to perusade the referee to reconsider his decision on that, rather than because he was actually hurt; he certainly didn't have a head injury, so there was no reason to halt the play.

There was a bit of a question-mark over Ross Barkley's goal for Villa, as Onana, in an offside position, bad been standing directly on the line of the shot (and it might actually have touched him); he probably wasn't impeding Lammens' view of the ball, but the fact that it might have touched him was surely 'distraction' enough (again, perhaps the rule is not framed that way; but it should be!).

Dan Ndoye appeared to have scored a deserved winner for Forest against Fulham. To the naked eye, he had looked comfortably onside; but SAOT reckoned his heel had been 'off' by a matter of millimetres - a severely unconvincing contention; and the technology should not be attempting to adjudicate such unreasonably tiny margins anyway.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries:  Viktor Gyokeres was rested in favour of Kai Havertz (although anyone who'd been rash enough to include the Swedish striker were rewarded with a gaol from him when he came on from the bench). Jurrien Timber picked up an injury, and was subbed off just before half-time. Tarkowski and Branthwaite failed to appear for Everton (and there's no excuse of European football there, so presumably there are undisclosed injury issues of some sort?).

Alex Jimenez, who's been almost an ever-present for Bournemouth this season, was dropped in favour of Adam Smith - although he did get decent minutes off the bench.

Sandro Tonali was a last-minute absentee for Newcastle, after suffering with an illness this week. Robert Sanchez got a somewhat surprising recall in the Chelsea goal, though apparently this was down to Jorgensen having picked up a slight groin-strain rather than Rosenior having had a change of heart about him.

Dean Henderson was missing in goal for Crystal Palace, because of an illness. Dominic Calvert-Lewin, however, was a surprise starter, despite missing most training over this past week with a niggly knee problem.

Benjamin Sesko, despite excellent recent form, was moved back to the United bench, with Mbeumo moving into the centre-forward role and Diallo returning on the right wing.

Perhaps with an eye on the challenging return leg against Galatasaray in the Champions League on Wednesday, Arne Slot rested both Mo Salah and Hugo Ekitike from the start against Spurs.

Raul Jimenez surprisingly did start for Fulham, despite having lost his father just a few days prior. Harry Wilson was also able to play despite having been suffering with an ankle problem all week, but Emile Smith Rowe unexpectedly gave way to young Josh King, after reporting an issue in training shortly before the game.

Near misses:  Everton nearly embarrassed title-chasing Arsenal when McNeil's long-range curler had Raya well-beaten, but slammed against the post - and Ndiaye got to the rebound first, but put it wide. Only moments before, a close-range drive from McNeil had been somewhat fortuitously blocked by Calafiori's hopefully flailing leg, as he lay sprawled on the ground. Reece James's 30-yard free-kick late in the game clipped the outside of the foot of the post, with Ramsdale struggling to get across to it.

Ola Aina, played in by a delightful through-ball from Murillo, smashed a half-volley against the bar from just outside the box. Taiwo Awoniyi, breaking clear one-on-one with Leno late on, but dragged his shot wide (though it looked as though he might have been 'offside' by a toecap...).

On Monday night, Igor Thiago looped a header past Sa on to the angle of crossbar and upright - very, very close to putting Brentford into an unassailable 3-goal lead. Adam Armstrong also hit the post for Wolves at the end of a quick breakaway early in the second-half. Then, near the end of the game, Arokodare smashed a header against the crossbar. In the dying moments, Brentford then had another chance to take the win, with substitute Reiss Nelson ghosting in behind for a free header, but taking his eye off the ball and having it come off his shoulder - and go just wide of the post.

Big misses/big saves: Erling Haaland had a pretty quiet game, but did square the ball to set up Semenyo for what should have been a decsive opportunity - but the usually impeccable forward side-footed the shot just wide of the post. It wasn't a terrible mis, but it's looking very much as if might be a decisive one in the title race. Palmer had a great early chance against Newcastle, but lashed the shot just wide. Robert Sanchez pulled off a very good flying save from Gordon's fierce long-range curler. A little later, Liam Delap blazed the best chance of the game way over the bar. Ellborg's reaction save with his foot to deny Hinshelwood's point-blank shot will probably be the 'save of the weekend'. Evanilson rounded the keeper early on, but his effort was blocked at the near-post by Bashir Humphreys. Jadon Anthony absolutely smashed one against the underside of the crossbar; the best chance of a fairly dour game against Bournemouth. A little later, Marcus Tavernier's crisp left-foot shot clipped the outside of the post.

Calvert-Lewin produced one of the best penalty misses we've seen this season. Most of them have been tame efforts, scuffed straight at the keeper; but Domnic hit his cleanly, with power, just.... a bit outside the post!

Spurs looked much improved against Liverpool (who didn't...), and Alisson was forced to make a good save from a long-range shot from their new teenage Brazilian left-back Souza. Vicario might have been a little at fault for letting Szoboszlai's free-kick go in despite apparently getting a good hand on it, but a little later he redeemed himself by fingertipping Gakpo's fierce low shot from the edge of the box on to the foot of his post.

Outstanding goals: 

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: Jose Sa was allowed to pick up a back-pass without punishment from referee Stuart Attwell. That would have been a good scoring chance for Brentford - that might have put the game completely out of Wolves's reach. Not only that, but Wolves immediately broke down the other end to get a goal back; so, the home side might feel doubly aggrieved: that one decision almost certainly cost them the win.

Bad luck/good luck: Bernardo Silva's inch-perfect chip was... pretty obviously a mishit cross. Mineth's goal from a tight angle against Sunderland was also a fortuitous mishit, as he lost he feet and sliced his shot.

FPL weirdness: 

Unexpected results: Although denied an obvious penalty, Arsenal were fairly lucky to come away with a win, as Everton looked much the better side for most of the match. City then failing to get a win against battling West Ham has probably cost them the title. Newcastle managed to get a win away from home, against an oddly lacklustre Chelsea. In a battle of the under-performers at Anfield on Sunday, Spurs showed much greater improvement than Liverpool, and were very unlucky not to come away with a win. And... credit to Wolves for a spirited performance, but Brentford were so on top of them in the first-half, they really should have won by a landslide.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' includes almost no-one that anyone owns - apart William Saliba (and even he's a much less popular choice from the Arsenal defence than Gabriel or Timber; or, recently, Hincapie!), Bruno Fernandes and Dominik Szoboszlai. Once more, we've seen a bunch of low-scoring games, and no hauls from any of the week's more fancied prospects: Semenyo, Haaland, Mbeumo, Joao Pedro, Palmer, Ekitike, Wirtz all giving no joy. The global average is a miserable 43 points (driven mostly by clean sheets). With a few surprise last-minute omissions and some unexpected results, two or three missed red cards (and one rather harshly given), a couple of goals denied for ridiculously tight offside calls, and three pretty clearcut penalties not given, and a missed award of an indirect free-kick on the edge of the six-yard box for Brentford on Monday night that might have decided the course of the game, this is lookiing like an 8 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 29

 

Again, we've seen a fair number unpleasant selection surprises this week; and some up-and-down performances from the big teams.

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I've been aiming to keep them briefer recently. I made just about zero progress on that resolution for the first few weeks, but.... now I've hit upon a new 'format', which might help: 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: Jacob Ramsey's second yellow card for 'simulation' when he went down in the penalty area was a ridiculous decision from Peter Bankes; the player pretty obviously just slipped over. At the moment VAR has no jurisidiction over second yellow card decisions (although, thankfully, that is going to change for the World Cup). Fortunately, his removal actually seemed to galvanise Newcastle, and may have saved the game for the home team rather than costing them a defeat.

Red cards not awarded: 

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Andoni Iraola was convinced Bournemouth should have had a penalty, when Tavernier lost his footing in the act of shooting. It did appear that Kayode might have caught his Achilles, but the contact was so fleeting (and not clearly visible on any of the TV camera-angles) that I think you can forgive the officials 'missing' this one.

Leeds were aggieved that Luke O'Nien had briefly had both his arms around Struijk's neck at a first-half corner, but the Dutch defender went down very easily, and there wasn't really much in it - a 50/50 sort of call. (Leeds were also unhappy with the penalty awarded against Ampadu, but that one looked straightforward enough: the first contact on his arm was slight and unavoidable, but he did then appear to make a deliberate second movement towards the ball, prodding it away with his elbow.) They might have had another shout at the end, when a corner fell against Dan Ballard's arm; he was in the middle of a ruck of players, and knew nothing about it - but with the mess the Handball Law is in at the moment, we often see these given.

Haaland went down after a collision with Matz Sels. He was 'looking for it', but the goakeeper's challenge was rash, culpable. The only reason referee Darren England didn't give it must be because of Haaland's reputation as a bit of a con artist in these situations; the only reason VAR didn't intervene must be because of their excessive timidity about challenging on-pitch decisions this season, especially for penalties.

At least VAR was doing its job, for once, at Fulham, directing referee Matt Donohue to take a second look, after he'd initially awarded the home side a penalty when Tom Cairney went down in the act of shooting; Castellanos had indeed been innocently in the way of the Fulham player's kick, not making any kind of challenge himself. These days, alas, the VAR team almost never has the courage to question an onfield penalty decision like this.

Tight/dubious offsides: Ollie Watkins appeared to have given Villa the lead for a second time when he supplied an emphatic finish to a lightning quick breakaway - but SAOT ultimately determined that his shoulder had been inifinitesimally closer to the goal-line than the last defender's. This was another instance where there are questions about the reliability of the timing of the SAOT freezeframe, because to the naked eye he had looked well onside - and this was a call that might have turned the course of the match.

Ismaila Sarr might have had a hattrick on Thursday night against Spurs: his opening effort, a solo  breakaway, was eventually ruled out for offside by one of those deeply unconvincing SAOT graphics; everyone in the stadium thought he had looked 'on' by about a foot, but the computerised decision system apparently reckoned his forehead had been 'off'. (But, dear me, that guy should not be on penalties.)

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed:  

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries:  Robin Roefs has strained a thigh-muscle doing the splits to make a save at the weekend, so was a late omission against Leeds on Tuesday, replaced by his new understudy, January signing Melker Ellborg. Granit Xhaka, only recently back from injury, was also rested - though he came on for the last 35 minutes.

Saliba was suffering with a knock, so Mosquera started in his place; while Brighton were without their defensive stalwart Lewis Dunk.

Liam Rosenior made multiple changes to his Chelsea line-up for the visit to Villa, the most momentous being his dropping of Sanchez in goal (the third most popular pick - after the stupidly over-popular Raya and Dubravka - with an ownership of nearly 14%) in favour of Jorgensen, but Reece James was also switched into midfield, making room for Gusto to get a start at right-back, Fofana came back into defence in place of Tosin, and Garnacho, who had seemed to have fallen from favour, came back in on the wing in place of the suspended Neto.

Eddie Howe was also moved to drop a keeper in apparently dodgy form, replacing Pope (only 4.5% owned in FPL; though that's not an insignificant figure) with Ramsdale for the visit of Manchester United. Woltemade was also missing, the latest victim of a virus doing the rounds. And Carrick replaced Dalot with Mazraoui - presumably just a 'rest'.

Harry Wilson hadn't recovered from the sore ankle he suffered at the weekend, so young Josh King got another chance.

Near misses:  Marcus Tavernier might have had a hattrick against an out-of-sorts Brentford: first, he put a curler just wide early on, then rounded off an incisive break by beating Kelleher with a great sliding effort only to see it hit the foot of the post (and might have won a penalty in this moment too), and late on unleashed an absolute scorcher that smashed against the near-post. Later still, his super cut-back was drilled just wide of the far-post by Kroupi... Nothing broke for the poor guy in that game.

Idrissa Gana Gueye nearly added a late third goal against Burnley on Tuesday night when his fierce dipper from the edge of the box smashed against the crossbar.

City really should have beaten Forest much more comfortably: Semenyo unlieashed a fierce shot inches outside the near-post in the opening minutes, and Haaland had a good deflected effort loop on to the roof of the net early in the second-half.

Kieran Trippier saw his floated cross beat everyone - and come back off the inside of the far post.

Big misses/big saves: Sunderland's stand-in keeper Ellborg made a very good save at the foot of his post from Stach's low free-kick.

Jose Sa probably produced the save of the gameweek on Tuesday night, Rio Ngumoha's cross-shot on to the post; athough Jordan Pickford was running him very close with another worldie, an amazing reaction save in the dying seconds to thwart Lyle Foster's close-range flicked volley.

Ryan Yates got a free header at the near-post from a late corner that could have nicked all three points for Forest against title-chasers City, but he blasted the chance wide of the post.

Raya made a rare boo-boo, passing the ball straight to a Brighton player from the edge of his box after just two minutes; fortunately for him, Gabriel quickly dropped in behind him and was fairly comfortably able to head clear Baleba's feeble attempt at a lob.

The Villa v Chelsea game might well have been even more high-scoring: Martinez managed to block a point-black header from Joao Pedro early on, and short afterwards Jorgensen made a great one-armed stop to deny a fierce drive from Watkins. Garnacho had a great late chance to grab a fifth goal for Chelsea, after being set up by Palmer and Cucurella, but shot tamely at Martinez's legs. And then Tammy Abraham looped a header against the crossbar in the dying moments.

Anthony Gordon snuck in round the back at a corner routine to get an unmarked chance at the far post, but skewed his effort wide. A little later, Aaron Ramsdale pulled off a very good flying save from a fierce dipping shot from Zirkzee that was bound for the top right corner.

Hermansen had to make a good save with his leg from a Josh King effort.

Outstanding goals: Elliot Anderson, of all people, coming up with a pinger from well outside the box.... to hand the title to Arsenal (possibly...)!

Will Osula, only on the field from the 86th minute, nicked a late winner for Newcastle with a delicious curler from just inside the box. Amazingly, he is owned by around 25,000 FPL managers; but I rather doubt if any of them started him.

Outstanding performances: Joao Pedro and Marcus Tavernier both had stupdendous games. But Tavernier, in fact, played the better of the two - yet came away with only 2 FPL points, against Pedro's 19!! Ain't no justice in this game of ours....

Big mistakes: Habib Diarra took an absolutely dreadful penalty for Sunderland on Tuesday night - but Karl Darlow made an even worse mess of saving it. Sometimes, it's just your night....

A dreadful blunder from Leno gifted Summerville the chance to claim all three points late in the game. Alisson had likewise handed Wolves their late win the night before.

Bad luck/good luck: Andre's last-gasp winner against Liverpool needed a huge deflection off a defender to wrong-foot Alisson (and it might be doubted if his initial shot was even on-target, although he has been credited with the goal).

Saka's shot from wide on the right shouldn't have been a problem, but it took a wicked glancing deflection off Baleba; Verbruggen was still behind it, but off-balance - and couldn't stop bouncing into the goal off his heel.

Ezri Konsa nearly put a mishit clearance into his own net in the first-half, and was hugely relieved to see his shinner loop millimentres over the bar. And a rare moment of unselfishness from Garnacho - squaring the ball to Joao Pedro to complete his hattrick, when he might have shot himself - had rather a big impact on the FPL points from the game; if he'd finished the move himself, Palmer would have got the assist, and quite possibly the third bonus point also.... On such small decisions and tiny margins do all our FPL fortunes hang!

FPL weirdness: The usual doubts about the counting of 'saves', 'defensive contributions', etc.... And how on earth did Marcus Tavernier, 'man of the match' by a mile, not even get close to earning 1 bonus ponit??? Something going wrong 'round here....

Unexpected results: Bournemouth v Brentford really should not have ended goalless. Liverpool getting beaten by bottom-of-the-table Wolves might look like a bit of a surprise, but given how ropey their form has been recently, it's not that much of a shock. City being held to a draw by Forest, Chelsea winning so comfortably away from home, 10-man Newcastle squeaking a win against United to end Michael Carrick's winning streak, and Arsenal sneaking another narrow win in a game in which they were largely outplayed.... were all rather more surprising.

Apart from Ellborg (who??) and Andre, the FPL 'Team of the Week' actually looks pretty reasonable, for once. And, after the utter shit-show of the weekend's refereeing, the decision-making has been mostly pretty good - although there have still been a couple of highly dubious offside calls, and a few missed penalty awards,... and a fair old welter of other 'lucky' incidents of various kinds, and a lot of injury absences/rest rotations. The global average is an almost-healthy 54 points (a big jump up after the final game; probably not because a lot of people were on Spurs or Palace players, but because almost everyone had at least one or two auto-subs promoted into their starting line-ups at the end of the gameweek!).  Overall, this one's ended up looking a fairly average 7 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 28

 

Again, we've seen a fair number unpleasant selection surprises this week; and some up-and-down performances from the big teams.

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I've been aiming to keep them briefer recently. I made just about zero progress on that resolution for the first few weeks, but.... now I've hit upon a new 'format', which might help: 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: Tyler Adams's clumsy challenge on Granit Xhaka, catching his standing leg above the ankle, was very, very close to being a straight red card.

Penalties awarded: Maxence Lacroix was a bit unlucky to concede a penalty to Manchester United, since he did appear to have started holding back Cunha some way outside the box, and to have released him as he entered it. But it was a foul, and a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' (that latter determination might be something of a 'grey area' call, since there were other defenders more or less in line, and Cunha was quite far wide of the goal; but he's a pacey player, and good on his left foot, so you would have fancied him to get a shot off with only the keeper to beat; for another player, it might not have been such a promising goalscoring opportunity).

Penalties not awarded: Alex Jimenez clearly shoved Enzo La Fée firmly in the back, sending him sprawling to the ground in the penalty area; neither the referee nor VAR thought there was 'that much' in it???

Oh, OK, the BIG ONE(s) came in the top-of-the-table clash. First, Rice was clearly holding on to Hato at a corner with both arms (and not only pinning him down, but trying to hurl him to one side), and then very blatantly hit the incoming ball with his arm (nearly sending into his own net!). The officials seemed to feel that the first incident somehow excused the second (Rice wasn't 'in control' of himself, because he was so busy wrestling another player??) - and neither were penalty offences?! UTTER NONSENSE. But the one in the second-half was even worse, when Raya almost laid Joao Pedro out cold by thumping him in the side of the head (getting something on the ball is not an absolute defence, even for a keeper, when you make such a dangerous contact with an opponent); again, the officials were so preoccupied with (I would say, wrongly) exonerating Raya that they seemed to completely overlook that Saliba had had the Chelsea forward in a bearhug throughout the incident. So, that's TWO utterly clearcut penalties denied to Chelsea (and, ahem, to Cole Palmer owners in FPL!). Utlimately, such egregious injustice actually works to Arsenal's disfavour as well; because these two outrageous refereeing cock-ups determined the result of this crucial game, unless they now win the title by a wide margin, nobody will feel they really deserved it (not even their own fans).

Tight/dubious offsides: Heartbreaking for Burnley that Flemming's apparent goal to give them a 4-3 lead over visitors Brentford was ruled out (after an intolerable 3-minute delay) for crosser Jaidon Anthony's shoulder having allegedly been an inch too far forward (to the naked eye, he had looked well on; and decisions really shouldn't be made on such unfeasible wafer-thin margins, anyway - this lunacy has to stop).

.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed:  More galling injustice for poor Burnley when Ashley Barnes's last-gasp equaliser was ruled out (after 4.5 minutes of deliberation by the VAR team) for a supposed handball. If there had been any contact with Barnes's lower-arm, it was so incredibly slight as to be completely inconsequential; but none of the TV pictures gave a clearcut view of this, so a decision was impossible, and VAR had no business to interfere with the referee's on-pitch award of the goal.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries:  Tyrone Mings was a late omission from the Friday night game, having picked up a problem in training.

Brentford keeper Caoimhin Kelleher was missing because his wife had just given birth to twins. (This is the kind of 'personal information' which is almost never generally available ahead of time, and can catch out even the best prepared FPL manager.)

Erling Haaland (owned by two-thirds of FPL managers) was a surprise last-minute omission, after allegedly picking up a knock in training late in the week. [Even worse: an awful lot of people - including my personal FPL nemesis - had made him their captain, but high-scoring Hugo Ekitike their vice-captain,... which turned out extremely fortuitously for them. A lot of others had Bruno Fernandes, who also ended up with a big week, as their back-up choice. There just ain't no justice! These folks will protest that they deserve some credit for making a strong vice-captaincy pick; but the fact is that, in this gameweek, either of these two should have been far preferable to Haaland as captain; so, they actually made a really dumb choice - and got away with it through sheer luck. And that is very, very, very galling for everybody else.]

Eddue Howe, not happy with the way things were going in the first-half at St James's, withdrew Ramsey at half-time, and Elanga and Woltemade only 10 minutes into the second-half.

Joachim Andersen was missing for Fulham, due to illness.

Igor Tudor also made a raft of substitutions before the hour mark - but nobody owns any Spurs players any more, so that's of no concern for FPL managers.

In the wake of Lacroix's sending-off, Oliver Glasner withdrew Jorgen Strand Larsen and Brennan Johnson just shy of the hour.

Stefan Ortega was troubled with a calf-strain after Thursday night's game against Fenerbahce, and so Matz Sels was suddenly back in goal for Forest.

Trossard was pulled off for Martinelli after just 55 minutes.

Near misses:  

Big misses/big saves: Dominic Calvert-Lewin was played in behind the City defence by a superb cross from Aaronson, but, with only the keeper to beat, put his effort wide. A little later, Nico O'Reilly was defied by a double-save from Karl Darlow.

Alisson carelessly played the ball to Jarrod Bowen just a few yards out, but the West Ham attacker wasn't able to control the ball and it rebounded off him straight back to the grateful keeper. In the second-half, Gakpo was unmarked as the ball came through to him at the back post, but blazed wide. Alisson pulled off the 'save of the day' to tip over a fierce near-post drive from Crysencio Summerville.

Beto broke away one-on-one with Pope, but smashed his effort against the crossbar (although there was an issue as to whether the ball had gone out of play at the side of the pitch when he first picked it up; I thought not, but this was another instance where, if he had scored, VAR would probably have purported to make this call on a margin of millimetres, when they really had no definite evidence for doing so). And Jordan Pickford produced possibly the 'Save of the Season' to deny Tonali's ferocious 20-yard volley in the dying seconds.

Forest sub Taiwo Awoniyi had a great chance late in the game when ghosting in behind to get on the end of Elliot Anderson's perfectly floated cross...., but, with the whole goal to aim at, he directed his header miles wide.

Outstanding goals: Morgan Gibbs-White produced the pick of the weekend, with an absolute screamer from nearly 25 yards out. Although Alex Iwobi's fizzing side-foot half-volley against Spurs was a very close runner-up.

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: There really wasn't enough power on Ekitike's first strike at goal to have troubled Mads Hermansen at his near-post, but the West Ham keeper somehow completely misread the shot.

Nick Pope fumbled a fairly gentle curler from Dwight McNeil, and then took a long time to recover - allowing Beto to nip in to steal the lead for the visiting team for the second time.

Bad luck/good luck: Thierno Barry got a shove in the back from Lewis Hall as he raced to meet a cross and tumbled to the ground - the ball deflecting into the goal off the back of his thighs as he rolled forwards, entirely without his knowledge: one of the flukiest goals we've seen this season.

Robert Sanchez made one of his all too predictable errors early on against Arsenal, nearly giving the ball away on the edge of his own box - but was just able to make a recovery tackle to wrest the ball back from Gyokeres. Shortly afterwards, Eze very nearly lobbed him from inside his own half - and Sanchez, scrambling back to recover the ball falling just wide of his post, clearly failed to keep it in play, but the assistant was too far away to see the error and failed to award the corner.

FPL weirdness: Antoine Semenyo somehow didn't get close to earning even 1 bonus point - despite scoring the only goal of the game; I've never seen that before.

Cody Gakpo was lucky to be credited with a goal, since his effort looked well off-target, until ricocheting off two West Ham defenders.

The attribution of the first Arsenal goal to Saliba was a little generous; it looked as if his glancing header was going just wide until it hit Hato's shoulder.

Unexpected results: Wolves have been improving in their attacking play under Rob Edwards, but few people would be betting on them to keep a clean sheet - even against a Villa side whose form is starting to nosedive. Bournemouth were lucky to salvage a point against Sunderland, when they should have conceded a penalty early on, and might have been reduced to 10 men. Burnley were absolutely robbed by a couple of atrocious VAR calls going against them. City were incredibly fortunate to claim all the points, and a clean sheet, against a Leeds side who outplayed them for much of the game. Liverpool's result against West Ham flattered them enormously: they were all over the place defensively, and outplayed by their visitors for long stretches of the game. Arsenal's win over Chelsea was hard-won, but felt somewhat unjust, in that it depended so heavily on a couple of appalling missed penalty awards for the visitors.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' after Saturday yet again included no-one that anybody owns, except Ekitike; Bruno Fernandes, Harry Wilson, and William Saliba pushed their way into the selection on Sunday, but it was still fairly light on high-owned players. Although there were quite a large number of goals this week, the global average only just crept up to a still relatively modest 53 points. - which is 'good' by the standards of this miserable season, but still fairly low, really. There was also an unusually large points spread this gameweek, with plenty of managers benefitting from good hauls from Fernandes, Wilson, Ekitike, Van Dijk,... and the entire Arsenal defence; but others suffering disproportionately from being without one or two of that handful of big returners. 

Because Erling Haaland has such a massive ownership in FPL, his unexpected absence alone would have given this week a pretty high 'luck' score; and the impact of his being missing was greatly compounded by two of the most popular vice-captain picks, Ekitike and Fernandes, happening to have very big gameweeks. There were some more enjoyable 'freak events' too: a few spectacular goals, and what will probably be the 'Save of the Season' from Jordan Pickford. All of that, and a string of flakey - at least somewhat unexpected - results would combine to get this gameweek close to a maximum '10' score. And then the atrocious decisions against Burnley and Chelsea would also, on their own, get us to a '10' score!!  So, I'm afraid this is one of the worst Gameweeks we've ever seen; it really ought to be more than a 10 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 27

 

A few unpleasant selection surprises again this week; although, at least, not too many new injury disasters to add to our FPL troubles.

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I've been aiming to keep them briefer recently. I made just about zero progress on that resolution for the first few weeks, but.... now I've hit upon a new 'format', which might help: 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: Ladislav Krejci's second yellow card was a bit unjust: he clearly thought - rightly - that the ball was still in play, and was trying to clear it upfield (as Strand Larsen closed him down to try and block), and perhaps had not heard (or couldn't believe) that the referee had just blown his whistle because the linesman had wrongly flagged for a throw-in.

Red cards not awarded: Ruben Dias was perhaps slightly lucky to get only a yellow card for hauling back Anthony Gordon's first-half breakaway. Yes, it was way out on the left touchline, but Gordon's got a lot of pace, and there was no-one else between him and the goal.

Fofana's second yellow card might well have been a straight red: his wild lunge caught Ward-Prowse on the instep rather than the shin, but it was violent and out-of-control and could have done some serious damage. Chelsea were very lucky not to get a second defender sent off when Tosin appeared to run across the back of Flemming - briefly grabbing his arm, pushing him in the back, and probably tripping him too (all three contacts might have been too slight on their own to justify punishment, but the combination demonstrated a determined intent to bring the attacker to a halt) - knocking him over when he was clean through on goal.

Penalties awarded: 

Penalties not awarded: Palmer was unfortunate not to get a penalty when flattened from behind by Joe Worrall. The Burnley defender had got a toe to the ball to clear it first, but he was sliding in from a long way back, out of control, and his follow-through into Palmer's Achilles was dangerous, regardless of whether he'd made contact with the ball.

Tight/dubious offsides: Dan Burn had a goal ruled out for a narrow offside: that looked correct, but it was still a bit harsh as he'd been shoved into that position by Ruben Dias.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed:  Randal Kolo Muani's second equaliser for Spurs might have dramatically altered the complexion of the north London derby; and Gabriel's extravagant dive when he felt the slightest touch of the forward's hand on his back was one of the most egregious pieces of 'conning the referee' we've seen in quite a while. This is the kind of incident where VAR is invariably too timid to intervene; but, in the interests of justice, they really ought to.

Macallister's last-gasp winner surely should have been disallowed. Both he and, even more so, Van Dijk (who got in the first header) looked well offside as Szoboszlai curled in his cross; but the SAOT graphic eventually indicated that one of them (not clear which) was supposedly being kept on by the edge of a defender's boot. I simply do not believe that: there is something gravely amiss with this technology - Van Dijk looked 'off' by about a yard.

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Foden, Cherki, and Reijnders (all still modestly high-owned in FPL) were all omitted by Pep against Newcastle; Cherki at least came on for half an hour or so, but Foden only got a token few minutes at the end, and Reijnders wasn't used at all.

Brentford's Michael Kayode was a late omission, due to a training knock. And Fabian Hurzeler rested/dropped Baleba and Veltman.

Michael Kayode was a surprise omission, having apparently picked up an injury in training late in the week. Mikkel Damsgaard was surprisingly rested against Brighton, only came on for the last 25 minutes.

Antonee Robinson was missing for Fulham, having complained of an ankle problem in training during the week. Nordi Mukiele limped off after barely 10 minutes, apparently with a calf-strain.

Timber was replaced by Mosquera at Spurs after just 55 minutes.

Lisandro Martinez, troubled with a calf problem, was a late dropout for Manchester United on Monday evening. David Moyes surprisingly preferred Branthwaite to Mykolenko at left-back for that game. And Amad Diallo was subbed off for Sesko a few minutes shy of the hour.

Near misses:  Emi Buendia smashed a post with a curler from the edge of the box.

Ferdi Kadioglu's 25-yard effort crashed against the crossbar - but set up the opener for Diego Gomez with a kind rebound.

Bournemouth's new prodigy, 19-year-old Brazilian winger Rayan, crashed a 20-yard effort against the outside of the post - narrowly missing out on becoming the youngest player ever to register an attacking return in his first four Premier League appearances.

Milenkovic fired a bullet-header inches wide of the post; that might have claimed a win for Forest against a dreadfully lacklustre Liverpool. Later, a mishit cross from Aina dipped on to the roof of the net.

Big misses/big saves: A pair of fantastic stops near the end of the City v Newcastle clash, Pope, with his foot, blocking a fierce Foden drive, and Donnarumma just getting fingertips to a long-range volley from Barnes.

Cole Palmer had a great solo breakaway opportunity, but shot fairly tamely, from too far out.

Djordje Petrovic made a great reaction save from Callum Wilson's near-post flick in the closing minutes to save a point for Bournemouth.

Joel Veltman nearly deflected a ball into his own net in the dying minutes at Brentford, but Bart Verbruggen brilliantly clawed it off his goalline.

Richarlison's cheeky back-heel sneaked through David Raya's legs, but the keeper somehow recovered to claw the ball back off the line. Probably not a turning-point of the match, because Arsenal were already 3-1 up by that point, and completely dominating; but it was a big moment in FPL.

Mosquera's loose pass presented Yeremy Pino with a fairly straightforward chance to lob a stranded Jose Sa, but he put the effort well wide.

One has to wonder why on earth Tolo Arokodare was on penalties in the first place. Presumably he won't be again, after that absolutely dreadful one - that gifted 'penalty save' points to Dean Henderson (who, of course, I'd just transferred out....).

Romaine Mundle was put in one-one-one against Bernd Leno, but blazed wide from 10 yards out.

Outstanding goals: Anton Stach conjured a thumper of a free-kick to give Leeds the lead at Villa (although Emi Martinez left him far too inviting a gap in the right half of the goal!).

And Benjamin Sesko combined with Cunha and Mbeumo on Monday night to finish off one of the most incisive breakaway goals we'll see this season.

Outstanding performances: Nico O'Reilly, playing a full 90 minutes, playing in an advanced midfield role,... and snagging two great goals - is likely to be the performance of the week.

Big mistakes: A bizarre mistake from Nathan Collins gifted a decisive goal to Danny Welbeck.

Bad luck: Forest really didn't deserve to lose against Liverpool, and certainly not from Aina's clearance rebounding into the net off an oblivious Macallister. Fortunately, this goal was ruled out when VAR noticed that the ball had bounced into the net off the back of his upper-arm.

FPL weirdness: 

Unexpected results: Burnley holding Chelsea to a draw, and indeed very nearly beating them, was a bit of a turn-up. Villa fans will probably feel that dropping points at home to lowly Leeds was an unpleasant surprise; but given the way their team's form has been swinging over the last few weeks, and how strong Leeds have become since the start of December, it really wasn't. Brighton's very comfortable win at Brentford was also quite a surprise: it was their best performance for some weeks, and one of Brentford's weakest in a long time. Brighton, Bournemouth and West Ham being the only teams to keep a clean sheet on Saturday was also a mite unexpected. Liverpool were probably expected to win at the City Ground, but they were so dreadful on the day, they didn't really deserve even a draw; and their last-gasp winner looked a mile offside.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' after Saturday included absolutely no-one that anybody owns (apart from Nico O'Reilly, who's only in just over 5% of FPL teams); although eventually some moderately popular picks - Henderson, Van Dijk, Eze, Iwobi, Gyokeres - found their way in. It's looking set to be yet another wretchedly low-scoring gameweek, with a global average of just 45 points, and nothing much coming from any of the most popular players. Saturday was uncommonly free of refereeing cock-ups, but Sunday saw two fairly horrendous ones, with a Kolo Muani goal being unjustly disallowed while Macallister's miles-offside last-gasp winner was unfathomably allowed. Thus, it's getting up to about a 7 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 26

A few unpleasant selection surprises again this week; although, at least, not too many new injury disasters to add to our FPL troubles.

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I've been aiming to keep them briefer recently. I made just about zero progress on that resolution for the first few weeks, but.... now I've hit upon a new 'format', which might help: 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: Jake O'Brien's sending-off was at least pretty clear-cut: one of the few big decisions in this gameweek that no-one can have much of an argument with.

Red cards not awarded: Kenny Tete appeared to have had a surreptitious tug on Semenyo's braids in the penalty area, but after some rumination, VAR felt that the TV pictures didn't give a decisive view of the incident (I bet there were some camera-angles that did; and they just didn't get around to accessing them). Phil Foden was also rather lucky to get away with a clumsy challenge on Bassey, planting his studs in the back of the defender's Achilles as he ran away from him - amazing that wasn't at least given a serious look by VAR.

Brobbey was wrestled to the ground in the penalty area by Konate; he went down 'easily', but he was clearly being held - I don't know how VAR can not give these! Ekitike was even more fortunate to go unpunished when he caught hold of Roefs's chin to pull him off-balance as he was trying to clear the ball: it was only a very brief contact, and possibly 'accidental' - but it was again a very clear and incontrovertible foul; and, as contact with the face, it might well have been considered worthy of a red card.

Arsenal can rightly feel aggrieved that Santiago Bueno did not receive a second yellow card, or possibly even a straight red, for what looked like a fairly deliberate shoulder-charge into Trossard - which caught the Arsenal attacker in the face, and led to him having to go off shortly afterwards. However, such was the intensity of Arsenal's meltdown in the closing portion of that game that it doesn't seem all that likely - and certainly not deserved - that a man advantage would have fully restored their composure and changed the outcome of the game.

Penalties awarded: Both penalties in the Chelsea v Leeds game were uncontentious.

Rayan's lunge did not appear to make any contact with Branthwaite, yet a penalty was awarded - and VAR didn't seem to pay the incident any further attention.

Penalties not awarded: Arsenal had a shout for a penalty in the first-half when Andre appeared to have brought down Hincapie, but there wasn't much in it; the two TV replays shown were both inconclusive as to how much contact the Wolves midfielder had made with either the man or the ball - but probably a little, not much, with either.

Tight/dubious offsides: Joe Willock's apparent opener against Spurs was eventually ruled out by VAR; yet again, the SAOT graphic was severely unhelpful, unconvincing - appearing to show that the last Spurs defender's shoulder was indeed at least marginally nearer to the byline than any part of Willock's body. A strange one. Casemiro also had a goal chalked off for a very tight offside; to the naked eye - and to the player himself - he had looked narrowly 'off'; but the SAOT picture again confused rather than clarified the call.

Goals wrongly allowed/disallowed:  Palace have a fair case that the ball bounced up on to Ugochukwu's arm at the beginning of the move that led to Burnley's second goal (and we didn't hear that VAR was even looking at that?).

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Calvert-Lewin was a late omission on Tuesday, owing to an illness.

Both Pep and Marco Silva made a raft of substitutions just shy of the hour. And Haaland was withdrawn at half-time after suffering a heavy challenge.

Matty Cash was a last-minute omission, owing to a knee problem.

Eddie Howe left Hall, Wissa, and Tonali on the bench at Spurs.

Lots of surprises/disappointments for Arsenal fans in their first game of the gameweek against Brentford, the biggest of which was the omission of Saliba due to an illness. Havertz had also dropped out with another muscle strain, while Saka and Odegaard, struggling with injuries for a while, were only fit for the bench; hence, Madueke, Eze, and Mosquera got starts.

Near misses: Wirtz had a stinging 25-yard drive well palmed away by Roefs, and shortly afterwards hit a 15-yard cross-shot against the foot of the post.

Kadioglu cracked a long-range effort against the cross-bar in the first-half against Villa (Martinez got fingertips to it, but not enough for it to have counted as a 'save' - although it probably did!)

Big misses/big saves: Cole Palmer unbelievably sky-ed a late effort over the bar from a few yards out - when presented with an open-goal by Caicedo's low cross from the right.

Harry Wilson fluffed Fulham's best chance of the match (twice!) in the first-half at The Etihad - an opportunity he would surely have converted any other time in the last couple of months. Fulham also had a dangerous goal-mouth scramble in the closing seconds of the game, but couldn't find a way to prod home the consolation goal that would have wrecked everyone's 'clean sheet' points for City...

Ekitike had a free header near the end, but couldn't get his effort on target. Moments later, a Salah half-volley went just inches wide of the far post.

Martin Dubravka pulled off a superb save from an Ismaila Sarr volley in the final moments, to save the points for Burnley.

José Sá pulled off an important double-save late on against Forest to secure the draw - and make him (so far...) the gameweek's top-scoring keeper. In the first-half, Forest had enjoyed a 6-on-1 break, but Hudson-Odoi's cross found new-boy Lorenzo Lucca, who somehow spooned his effort over the top. At the death, Wolves had a 4-on-1 break, but this time Mateus Mané fired his shot tamely straight at the keeper.

Wan-Bissaka made a great goal-line block with his knee to preserve West Ham's lead.

Thiago had one powerful header brilliantly saved by Raya, while Lewis-Potter put one into the side netting - before eventually grabbing an equaliser. Thiago also blazed over from a good chance on a second-half breakaway. And Kelleher made a great stop from Martinelli at the end of a dangerous quick break late in the game. So, lots of excitement in that crucial game - but, as far as I can gather (from the very brief highlights so far available online), no refereeing screw-ups.

Outstanding goals: Hugo Bueno's delicious curler to start Arsenal's nerves rattnig on Wednesday was a peach of a shot - and enormous in its potential impact on the course of the season.

Outstanding performances: 

Big mistakes: An awful mix-up between Sanchez, Acheampong, and Gusto gifted Leeds an equaliser they didn't really deserve.

Bad luck: Lerma's own-goal was wretchedly unfortunate - Henderson's parry pinging into him from no distance, and being deflected into the net off his heel: one of the most improbable - and least culpable - o.g.'s I've ever seen.

Arsenal will feel that Wolves's late equaliser, cannoning in off the post and Calafiori's knee (twice!) was unlucky for them, but it wasn't at all outside the general run of expected game incidents. Saka's opening goal seemed considerably more fortuitous, since he barely got more than the tips of his hair to the ball, and that inconsequential, scarcely controlled deflection happened to take the ball straight through Sa's legs.

FPL weirdness: Surely Haaland should have had an assist for City's first goal? It looked to me as if he won the header cleanly, even if it subsequently got a bit of a deflection off the nearest defender on the way through to Semenyo to poke it home. 

And Van Dijk should not have been awarded Liverpool's late winner: the final decisive touch clearly came off the back of Diarra's head. (Maybe there's still time to reappraise that one? It really makes a huge difference in FPL land!! It's probably a case of a decision prejudiced by sentiment: with the assist currently awarded to Salah's corner, Super Mo has moved level with Steven Gerrard as Liverpool's second highest provider of assists [he'll never catch Kenny Dalglish...].)

There was another similar aberration at Villa Park, with Mings unaccountably being credited with an 'assist' on Hinshelwood's unfortunate late own-goal - though he clearly didn't get any contact on the ball, and the assist should properly have been given to Leon Bailey taking the corner.

There's also something very weird with the counting of 'saves' this week, with many keepers only being credited with 1 or 2, despite having fairly 'busy' games; Henderson and Dubravka seem to have been particularly hard done-by, with an official total of just 1 each - despite clearly getting at least a few more than that even in the brief TV highlights.

And it does seem very odd that Samuel Edozie has continued to be credited with Wolves's late, late equaliser on Wednesday night - when his effort was recorded as an own-goal by most news outlets; understandably so, since the shot struck Calafiori twice, as well as the post, before winding up behind the goal-line. I don't think the attacking player can reasonably still take credit when a defender has made two attempts to clear the ball, but still not managed to stop it going in.

Unexpected results: Chelsea really should have won comfortably against a Leeds side who were well below their recent best - but somehow they didn't.

The normally robust Everton defence wouldn't usually be expected to give away two such soft goals as they did against Bournemouth on Tuesday.

Liverpool really didn't deserve that win over Sunderland. Nor did Villa against Brighton.

Burnley put up a very spirited performance at Palace, but no-one would really have expected them to pull out a win here - especially after going 2-0 down! This was the most topsy-turvy result in a pretty wild gameweek.

Few people would have bet on either Forest or Wolves to keep a clean sheet - even against each other.

Although Manchester United were well below their recent levels, West Ham's clinging on to a draw against them was unexpected, and only just barely deserved.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' is another odd one, though not as crazy as most this season have been: José Sá is one of the few goalkeepers to have managed a clean sheet, which will have been an unexpected bonus for the many FPL managers who got him in just for this double gameweek; and the defence did at least include four fairly popular players (albeit ones who haven't consistently been producing at the highest level); although Hincapie - perhaps the least likely of the Arsenal defence to get a big return from the double, as he wasn't even an expected starter - eventually displaced one of them. Semenyo and Palmer, though, are the only attacking players that anyone owns; but again, with the benefit of a double appearance, Madueke, Saka, and Rice muscled their win, despite a pair of poor results for Arsenal. After the main batch of games, it was looking another utterly miserable gameweek average, of only 40 points' though the two Arsenal games eventually dragged that up to a more respectable 58 points, that's still not great for a Double Gameweek.

Liverpool were very, very fortunate to come out on top in a game where Sunderland mostly matched them pretty well; and they probably should have both conceded a penalty and had Ektike sent off - so, that rankles as a particularly unjust result in this batch of games. In fact, 6 of the first 9 games didn't really pan out according to expectation or desert. And, while I would argue that an Arsenal 'wobble' in their two games wasn't entirely unexpected, the majority expectation was not for two feeble draws from those two fixtures. And there have also been an usually large number of at least slightly dubious decisions, and non-appearances by popular players over the gameweek. I think this is actually one of the worst, weirdest gameweeks we've had in a long while, and it's at least an 8 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

However, since everyone surely has 3 Arsenal players this week, almost everyone is making one of them captain, a fair few have 1 or 2 picks from Wolves as well, and many are playing a bonus chip to boot,... we''re still barely half-way through this gameweek. We'll have to wait another week to find out how bad things really are.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 25

 

Not too many new injury worries or unexpected selection woes this week... What a nice change!!

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I've been aiming to keep them briefer recently. I made just about zero progress on that resolution for the first few weeks, but.... this time, I'm going to try something new: just 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: Romero's sending-off just before the half-hour at Old Trafford was not obviously unjust, but it was, for me, on the harsher end of things. It was misfortuitous that Casemiro's toe-studs had got stuck in the turf just before the Argentinian caught him on the inside of his ankle and so caused his foot to roll over so painfully; the actual contact was really not that hard. And we have seen many similar incidents in the last year or two dismissed as "having insufficient force to seriously endanger the opponent" or as "being an accidental contact from a natural follow-through". I think the Argentinian was a bit rash to have such a vigorous swish at a ball that was about to not be there any more; but it wasn't a really bad foul.

Red cards not awarded: Alisson's late penalty-foul on Nunes was not in any doubt; but the keeper had been fortunate in the first-half when he took the ball off a breaking Marmoush with a very high foot, and the Egyptian forward flinched out of the way of contact; if he had been caught, even slightly, that would have been a certain red card. Not a wrong decision - but a very lucky near-miss.

Penalties awarded: The handball decision against Jacob Murphy was very harsh: his arm was close to his side, not moving towards the ball - and the shot was fired directly at him from close range. If we accepted that blocking a goal-bound shot should always be a 'strict liability' offence, then fine - but I don't think that's the rule at the moment. If there's supposed to be some 'unnatural position' culpability element in the offence, then this looked like a bad call. A penalty for Newcastle seemed 'fair' on the balance of play (especially as they'd had a very harsh one awarded against them earlier), but Kayode's contact on the back of Guimaraes's leg was light and accidental - there was really nothing in that.

Both of Chelsea's awards were probably correct, but a bit soft: a slight - accidental! - treading on Joao Pedro's toe for the first, and a very, very light push (and only just barely over the line!) in his back for the second.

Penalties not awarded: Cunha suffered a shin-to-shin or knee-to-knee contact from Pape Sarr in the first half that tripped him on the edge of the box: not a bad foul, but very defiinitely a foul - and it looked like the point of contact was probably right over the outer edge of the line. It deserved a full consideration from VAR, which it seemed not to get. 

Two Sunderland players appeared to get wrestled to the ground in the Arsenal penalty area at a set-piece, in the final action of the first-half; it should have been looked at by VAR, but apparently wasn't - as the referee immediately blew the whstle to take the players off the field.

Marmoush surely should have had a penalty after 15 minutes at Anfield: Konate had both hands on him, and put his leg across - the combination of which threw him off balance as he entered the box. The contact was, yes, brief and light; but it was plainly deliberate and illegal, and more than enough to bring the man down. The only question should have been whether the contact had 'started outside the box' (possibly; but the consequential part of it was clearly on or just over the line). Somehow, the VAR team seemed to find this incident unworthy of their consideration. In the second-half, Salah was hauled down by a tug on the shirt from Guehi: the holding had certainly begun outside the box, but continued into it - and it will always be a bit of a grey area as to where the 'decisive moment' of such an illegal contact occurred. To me, that one looked like a penalty.

Tight/dubious offsides: Gabriel Jesus's break from the half-way line (which nearly produced a second goal barely a minute after Zubimendi gave them the lead) was very, very narrowly offside (and yet again, the SAOT graphic was a bit unconvincing - somehow making the margin look three times as big as it had to the naked eye!). This move ended in a penalty award from Sam Barrott when Jesus was nudged off the ball by Ballard while trying to round Roefs. Didn't look like a penalty to me; but VAR never looked at it, because of the prior offside. (I worry that they perhaps wouldn't have looked at it, even if Jesus had been adjudged onside, because they'd become too preoccupied with that issue....)

Surprise omissions/early substitutions/injuries: Udogie had to go off with a knock after just 54 minutes.

Noni Madueke was pulled of just shy of the hour.

Nuno dropped Areola in goal, in favour of Mads Hermansen - a potential blow to over 250,000 Fantasy managers (although most of them, perhaps, will only have the French keeper as a back-up option rather than their preferred starter).

Rosenior rested Reece James in favour of Malo Gusto.

Strand Larsen did indeed start straight away for Palace, replacing Mateta. Van Hecke is apparently struggling with a previously undisclosed hamstring problem, while Minteh and Welbeck were surprisingly left on the bench.

Cherki and Foden were this week's victims of Pep Roulette (and Foden did not look happy about it), as Marmoush and Ait-Nouri surprisingly got starts against Liverpool. 

Near misses: Calvert-Lewin smashed a header against the crossbar early on in Friday night's game at Elland Road.

Mbeumo's best chance of the game, a hooked half-volley from Diallo's lay-off, flew a bit too high. Cunha and Simons also had good 20-yard efforts fly just wide in Saturday's opening game.

Janelt scrambled a Wissa effort off the line - and an early two-goal lead for the home side would surely have changed the outcome of the match; indeed, Janelt went down the other end and headed an equaliser shortly afterwards. 

Mateus Mané whacked a 17-yard curler against the post.

Smith Rowe beat Pickford with a 20-yard dipper but saw it slam against the crossbar, while Chukwueze later unleashed an absolute screamer from 25 yards which grazed the top of the bar. In the same game, Jake O'Brien headed a corner against the post.

Big misses/big saves: Fernandes's floated chip found Sesko unmarked in the middle of the box in the final seconds of the game, but he headed softly straight at the keeper. Ektike fluffed a rather similar effort from a Salah cross against City.

Kelleher produced the 'Save of the Day' from a fierce cross-shot from Thiaw. Donnarumma's crucial late save from Macallister's long-range effort was perhaps a bit more showy than it needed to be - but still very good.

Outstanding goals: A 20-yard pinger from Zubimendi for Arsenal's first: perhaps very slightly mishit, but fizzed low, with a wicked in-swing to beat Roefs and thud in off the foot of the near post. And that 33-yard rocket of a free-kick from Szoboszlai!

Strangely, that was the only really striking effort this week. In most recent weeks we've had 3, 4, 5 bangers from outside the area (January's 'Goal of the Month' selection on the BBC was just ridiculous!!); but none of that this time, despite there being a rather higher number of goals overall (29).

Outstanding performances: Cole Palmer - suddenly recapturing the magic! Only about 12% of FPL managers own him at the moment: they must be very happy (though I suspect an awful lot of those are 'zombie accounts' that bought him at the start of the season, but soon stopped playing the game - rather than people who took a hopeful punt on bringing him back in for the present short run of relatively easy fixtures, before he'd recovered his form...). Although, yes, two of them were - slightly dubious - penalties... And he said afterwards that he still isn't "proper fit".

Big mistakes: NONE, remarkably.

Bad luck: Very unfortunate for Vitaly Mykolenko to have Pickford's save of a Raul effort ricochet off him into the goal! In the same game, Leno was perhaps even more unlucky to have a corner bounce in off his fist as he failed to get around the blocking Everton player.

Rayan Cherki's 'goal' in the dying seconds at Anfield would have been slightly lucky if it had stood, since he clearly intended a through-ball rather than an attempt on the goal left unguarded by Alisson's desperate foray into the attacking third. But equally, it seemed rather unlucky that it was disallowed because of a holding foul on Haaland by Szoboszlai (which inevitably earned him a sending-off, almost certainly the latest of the entire season...). And indeed, but for that foul, it would have been Haaland's goal. So, there were all kinds of massive FPL points fluctuations across the multiverse in that little 10-second fiasco!!

FPL weirdness: Dalot doing better on the BPS than Fernandes this week seems a trifle odd. And we have a rather low number of players earning 'defensive points' this week (although the top performers on this metric, Garner, Anderson, and Caicedo came through again): only 29, I think (4 of them from West Ham?!).

Unexpected results: Leeds's win over Forest on Friday night was not 'unexpected' in itself, though the ease of it, and the eventual margin of victory were; this was a game where the visiting team strangely failed to turn up.

A hell of a ding-dong between Newcastle and Brentford, with the home side ultimately very unlucky to lose it - as they got punished for Trippier going to sleep in the closing minutes.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' is again superlatively weird - with Palmer, Dalot, and Guimaraes (and, eventually, Haaland...) the only members so far that anybody owns! It was also shaping up to be yet another dismally low gameweek average, but a good haul from Haaland in the final game dragged it up to a respectable 57 points. Both of Chelsea's penalty awards were pretty soft, and the penalties for each side in the thrilling Newcastle v Brentford encounter both looked unjust, while Salah may have been a tad unlucky to miss out on being given one at Anfield. There were a couple of other potential penalties that should have been looked at by VAR, but seemed not to be. Although an uncommonly good weekend for the refereeing, there have been enough other odd events already this weekend to make it this time at least a 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 24

A few unpleasant selection surprises again this week; although, at least, not too many new injury disasters to add to our FPL troubles.

These weekly 'summaries' have been getting a bit too involved - and excessively time-consuming for me! - so I'm aiming to keep them briefer from here on. [Didn't make much of a success of that last week, but let's try again...] 

[Aha! - the secret to greater brevity in these roundups may be... no 'Match of the Day'. For some unfathomable reason, the BBC iPlayer service today has only very attenuated highlights of individual games, not the complete matchday roundup programme - with its team lineups, extended replays, and post-game pundit discussion. Not the solution I would have wished for....

* MOTD did eventually show up. Perhaps it was just a case of the Beeb's minions having forgotten to add the right 'tags' to the upload to make it identifiable to the abysmal in-site search engine??]

Arsenal found the comfortable win their fans have been craving to settle their nerves after a minor 'winter wobble' has begun to undermine confidence in their title credentials just a little over the past month or so. Leeds may be much improved over the past two months, but they're still a struggling bottom-end side, and their defence was hopelessly outclassed here. Fate played a cruel trick on the roughly 17% of FPL managers who own Bukayo Saka, as he was a last-minute dropout after apparently "feeling something" in his leg during the warm-up (Madueke, taking his place, had another very lively game). Arteta added to those woes for a few by resting Odegaard in favour of just-back-from-injury Havertz (anyone who'd punted early on the German's return will have been glad to see him having such an impactful runout - but anxious that Arteta moved to withdraw him right on the hour; he only earned his full appearance points by a matter of seconds!). Leeds keeper Darlow notched an own-goal by getting himself impeded by a couple of his own players at the near-post (no Arsenal men anywhere near him on this occasion!) and so flapping clumsily at Madueke's wicked inswinging corner - to palm it into his own net. No refereeing cock-ups in this one?? (I watched it live last night, and don't remember any...)

Brighton v Everton was a mostly pretty drab game, although it livened up a little in the second half. It's nice at least to see Pascal Gross and Kaoru Mitoma looking dangerous again (Mitoma appeared to have got a decisive second goal, but the effort was rightly ruled out for Veltman having been offside and interfering with the goalkeeper's line of sight). Dewsbury-Hall was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet, with one shot deflected just wide, and another brilliantly saved by Verbruggen with an outstretched leg. David Moyes is over-the-moon about yet another last-gasp equaliser from Beto!! Garner comfortably earned his 'defensive points' again in this one; but Tarkowski, for once, came up well short of the threshold. 

Liam Rosenior thought he could get away with fielding a 'B team' against West Ham, resting Palmer, James, Cucurella, Neto, and Joao Pedro after Wednesday night's heroics in Naples (and then having to start Jamie Gittens [although he was rather brutally pulled off for Neto after just 25 minutes] on the right in place of Estevao, after the Brazilian youngster had to return home because of a family issue); boy, was he wrong! The visitors completely bossed the first half (although Bowen's early opener was extremely fortuitous; he whipped in a first-time inswinging cross on the turn from the far corner of the box, barely even looking where it was bound - and was as surprised as anyone to see it beat everybody and float into the top corner of the goal!), and might have gone into the break with a 3-0 or 4-0 lead, rather than just 2-0; the home side were booed off at the interval by their own fans. The new manager wasn't afraid to make drastic changes to try to reverse the tide of the game: Hato, Badiashile, and Garnacho were all sacrificed at half-time - and that seemed to work, as a much sharper Chelsea began to put their visitors under the cosh, and gradually clawed their way back on to terms (although, once they'd equalised, they lost momentum again for a while, and West Ham briefly looked more likely to nick a late winner). Unfortunately, the game was marred by an ugly scuffle around the corner flag in the last moments of added-on time; Traore took exception to Cucurella having accidentally-on-purpose put the ball out with his hand (though it made no material difference whether his team was going to receive a corner or a free-kick next to the corner-flag), and threw the Spanish defender bodily off the pitch, then violently shoved two other Chelsea players over the byline, and even lurched into the assistant referee at one point; as the ruckus rapidly spread, Mavropanos also got stuck in, slapping Palmer across the face. And then Todibo - perhaps 'taking one for the team', committing a particularly egregious offence to try to deflect attention from all of his other teammates who were trying to get themselves sent off?! - briefly tried to throttle Joao Pedro. Anthony Taylor did not handle this fracas well; after an interminable VAR delay, only Todibo was recommended for a red card, although Traore and Mavropanos should clearly also have received one (I suspect that they could still be subject to retrospective sanctions from the FA; and Todibo might well receive more than just the standard three-match 'violent conduct' ban).

Wolves started brightly against Bournemouth, and the irrepressible Mané appeared to have given them an early lead - but his supplier, Rodrigo Gomes, had been just offside when he broke in behind down the right flank. Another superb 20-yard strike from Kroupi gave the visitors the lead and settled them into the game. The overall balance of play was very even, the xG was similar for both teams, and Wolves actually had nearly twice as many goal attempts - but just couldn't put any of them away. Petrovic somehow recorded 7 'saves' in this game (few of them at all memorable), which looks likely to make him the week's top-scoring goalkeeper.

Although their talismanic captain Bruno Guimaraes was still unable to take part, and Eddie Howe felt the need to rest both Wissa and Woltemade (for the coming League Cup Semi-Final against City), Newcastle opened strongly at Anfield and were dominant for most of the first-half; Barnes had already cracked a curler against the inside of the post, before Gordon, filling in at centre-forward, finally grabbed a deserved lead (amazingly, his first league goal from open play in around a year!). However, as soon as that happened, Liverpool started to find their rhythm, and two quick goals from Ekitike just before half-time put them back in control (he somehow then squandered a much easier chance to complete his hattrick just after the break!). The second half thereafter was mostly much more even, and Alisson had to make one very good save from Barnes; but the home side ultimately powered through. Florian Wirtz is finally finding his feet at the club, which is great to see.

Villa are predictably starting to look a bit thin from their recent spate of injuries, and with Buendia and Rogers being rather too easily cut out of the game by Brentford's well-organised central pressing, they offered almost no attacking threat at all, even when the visitors had been reduced to 10 men by Schade's dismissal for a petulant foul on Cash (an inescapable decision; though Cash made a ridiculous meal of the minimal contact the forward's foot made with him). Douglas Luiz, newly arrived back at the club, had several moments of promise (including a delightful floated ball into the box - which unfortunately landed at the feet of Ezri Konsa rather than a forward!), but I doubt if he's going to be able to anchor that frail midfield on his own. And the other debutant, Tammy Abraham, was unfortunate to have a goal chalked off by VAR. (Again, I think this was an inescapable, correct decision - though an unusual circumstance, in that the ball was found to have gone out of play at the opposite end of the pitch, immediately before Villa's counter-attack,... a full 20 seconds before Abraham put the ball in the net. And I say 'correct', but I still have some doubts about the decision-making process here: although the verdict looked correct, the TV view used didn't really give an unequivocally clear view of the incident; and I don't think VAR should be getting involved in line calls; not just at the moment, anyway - that massively over-complicates their already highly contentious and excessive involvement in today's game. Also, it somehow took 5 bloody minutes to resolve this issue. As I said way back at the start of the season, if VAR can't reach decisions in a brisk 30-40 seconds maximum [and ideally no more than 15 seconds or so for more straightforward decisions!], they should just say, "We are unfortunately unable to resolve this issue; the original on-field decision must be respected." Are we ever going to see that happy day?) I've always felt that Villa have been weirdly managing to punch massively above their true weight so far this season; and I have a hunch that they'll now slip back down to 7th or 8th or so, which is probably a fairer measure of where they're at (even without the current injury crisis).

At Old Trafford, VAR was actually doing its job properly for once, overturning John Brooks's original award of a penalty against new Fulham centre-back Jorge Cuenca for a challenge on Cunha by correctly determining that the final tackle had been entirely fair and that an early tug at the sleeve had terminated just outside the penalty area. The only pity here was that both calls were so obvious, it was strange that Brooks had got them wrong in the first place, and unfathomable that it took the VAR team so long to rectify them. However, this long and stressful interruption did perhaps get in the visitors' heads a bit, as they completely forgot to defend the subsequent wide free-kick, and allowed Casemiro a free header at the far post to give United a scarcely deserved lead. Cunha's fierce near-post strike from an acute angle early in the second-half should have comfortably secured the points, but Fulham fought back bravely from that point. There was, however, another puzzling passage of VAR-ness, when Cuenca's apparent goal to initiate the recovery was ponderously ruled out for 'offside': Cuenca himself had been very clearly offside when the ball had first been played in, but that apparently didn't matter (was he 'played on' by the deflection off Lisandro Martinez's heel? I thought the rule these days was that only a deliberate intervention by a defending player re-set the offside line??); in fact, it was Chukwueze at the other end of the line who was called 'off', although the SAOT graphic entirely failed to demonstrate why: it seemed to come down to where the dreaded 'line' of demarcation (which, I suspect, at least in close calls like these, is still being designated manually - and hence, with massive inconsistency!) was drawn on his upper-arm - and surely he wasn't 'interfering with play' anyway: another headscratcher! The game might have slipped beyond reach straight after that when newly introduced Sesko crashed a glancing header against the foot of the post; but a cool penalty conversion from Raul and then a 20-yard banger from Kevin at the beginning of stoppage time seemed to have secured a well-earned draw. But a superb instant shot on the half-turn from Sesko nicked the win back for United right at the death (he must be staking a strong claim to play from the start!). Though Carrick will take consolation from the fact his team managed to push through for the victory despite not playing all that well, it must be a concern that this was not a shadow of the two previous weeks' performances against top-of-the-table opposition. (Was Dorgu 'the secret' to those stunning successes?? I suspect only indirectly so: I think it's possible that Cunha works better as a 'super-sub' - when he starts, he perhaps unbalances the side, and draws focus away from Mbeumo. Although Beardy Bryan clearly does not relish the No. 9 role anyway, and is far too short to play it effectively against a big central defensive pair. These are a couple of issues that I think Carrick is going to have to address fairly quickly, if he is to keep the 'renaissance' going.)

Palace dropped Mateta - in the throes of an expected move to AC Milan on deadline day - for their visit to Nottingham, which left them stretched so thin, they couldn't even muster a full bench. And Ismaila Sarr, handy as he is in his usual winger/support striker role, simply could not adapt to the idea of trying to be the centre-forward for the afternoon, and so left the visitors with nothing up-front at all for most of the game. He did at least salvage a draw by converting a penalty; although it was such a bad one - telegraphed, softly hit, straight down the middle - that I very much doubt if he'll be taking any more. One almost suspected that Dyche yanked Sels at half-time in a fit of pique at him having failed to save it; although it was later announced that the keeper was complaining of a groin problem. Hudson-Odoi was also withdrawn at the interval with a shoulder injury. Forest had to retreat into their shell a bit when Neco Williams unfortunately got himself sent off for punching a Lerma header off the goal-line (possibly the 'Save of the Gameweek' - although I was initially convinced he'd headed it away fairly,... and I think he probably could have got his head to it), but Palace were so toothless that their man-advantage made no difference to the flow of the match.

Spurs, so often City's 'bogey team' in recent years, just didn't show up in the first-half at all this time; and, given the way they were allowing their visitors to trot towards the penalty area with the ball at will, City probably ought to have been at least 5 or 6 up at half-time. Frank's half-time revamp, however, switching to a back-four and removing Cristian Romero (an odd and provocative choice of sacrifice; unless there was an injury issue there, one must suspect that this is further evidence of - or a likely cause for - some dressing-room discontent at the club) in favour of strengthening the midfield by the introduction of Pape Sarr, seemed to catch City off-guard, and the home side were able to dominate much of the second-half. Solanke's breakthrough goal, though, only 7 minutes into the half, will go down as one of the great VAR travesties of the season; he had looked offside, for a start (certainly a very tight call, for which we would have expected the reassurance of a thorough VAR inspection and an SAOT graphic), but that seemed to get overlooked as the protracted off-pitch review focused exclusively on whether the forward had committed a foul in getting his shot off. And he definitely had; arguably TWO, actually, as he initially clattered his knee into the first covering defender, Khusanov, throwing him off balance, and then, as Guehi came across to get in a last-second block, he very clearly kicked through the back of the defender's leg - causing Guehi to poke the ball beyond Donnarumma into the net. Now, it might, in the bizarre fantasy-world where most of our match officials seem to be living, be possible to judge that Solanke's contact on the back of Guehi's leg was too light to be consequential, culpable; but it had to then be a Guehi own-goal (as, in fact, most of the stats compilers other than Opta and the League seem to have classified it), not one for Solanke! [And although I an a huge admirer of Danny Murphy and Troy Deeney - in fact, I think they're much tbe best two match analysts on television, at least amongst the BBC's regular roster - I do think they sometimes fall victim to an old, tough player's misty-eyed nostalgia for a past where you could get away with a lot more argey-bargey in the game; and this distaste for the fact that these days we're so often seeing free-kicks and cards dished out for very minimal fouls can lead them into an over-compensatory celebration of a foul not being given - even when it very obviously is a foul. The boys were doing that about this call on Sunday's 'Match of the Day'. I don't think they were convincing many people, apart from Spurs fans.] Despite not quite managing to secure the longed-for victory (a victory that might, given the history between the two sides in recent years, have been 'expected'), the strength of the second-half fightback for a gutsy draw might just have saved Thomas Frank's job. While City, repeatedly failing to capitalise on Arsenal's slight 'wobbles' over the past month-and-a-half, now look to be falling out of the title race.

Sunderland, after a bit of a wobbly spell, seem to be getting into their stride again, with their returned African players Diarra and Talbi being particularly impressive in their comfortable Monday night destruction of Burnley - so good, in fact, that the still injured Granit Xhaka was not missed this time. Diarra seemed unlucky not to be credited with a brace, as his opener was not clearly 'off target' before deflecting off Tuanzebe's heel (hard to tell when a deflection comes so soon after the shot is hit, but it looked to me as if the initial effort was bound somewhere pretty near the far post - and I'd give the attacker a generous 'benefit of the doubt' in circumstances like this). The margin of victory might have been even greater (Dubravka made one particularly sharp low save from an effort from Brobbey), as the visiting side were really not in the match at all. I've been saying for a few months now that the drippy and ineffectual Scott Parker looks very much the most uninspiring manager in the league, and really needs to be replaced as soon as possible to give the club any faint chance of staying up; it's probably now already too late, but perhaps this dismal non-performance be will the camel's-back-breaker that finally triggers his exit.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' is another bizarro one, with Gabriel, Ekitike, and Joao Pedro (who only came on as a sub!) the only popular picks in it after Saturday's games, and only Ekitike remained in it by the end of Sunday; indeed, he and Wirtz were the only inclusions with any major FPL ownership. It was again looking rather set to be another miserably low gameweek average; although the final total somehow crept up to 55 points after the final game on Monday (a lot of people have Roefs and/or a Sunderland defender!). Amazingly, there didn't appear to be any really dubious refereeing calls in the first batch of games either (apart from Anthony Taylor's strange leniency towards a couple of the ringleaders of West Ham's injury-time riot!!). There was quite a bit more VAR sketchiness on Sunday, though, with a dubiously disallowed goal for Cuenca at Old Trafford, and a very clearly wrongly allowed one for Solanke against City (which may have 'decided' the title race, so a huge 'Luck-o-meter' swing for the Premier League as well as for Fantasy managers...). Also, Saka's last-minute withdrawal, and a lot of other unexpected rotations and early substitutions add further mayhem, to make it this time about a 6 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.