Getting ready for our NEW summer tournament

 Bracket for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025

FIFA's big new-format Club World Cup tournament gets under way next Saturday evening (8pm EST in Miami) - intriguingly, a breakfast kick-off in my part of the world.

There seems to be remarkably little (good) information about it online as yet, but here's the best of what I've been able to turn up over the past couple of days.

Here's the official schedule of games.

And here's a link for accessing full coverage on streaming service DAZN (allegedly FREE, but I bet there's a catch to that...).

This is Goal magazine's list of the qualified teams, and an explanation of the seeding system (FIFA's own team list doesn't seem to include any actual information about them!); and here's a bit more information on how they qualified.

Club World Cup seeding pots

And Yahoo Sports - amazingly - appears to have the best ranking of teams' likely prospects so far.

More detailed team and player information, including predicted lineups, is available on Fantasy Football Community and Fantasy Football Scout.

I'm actually quite excited about this tournament. There are things to have misgivings about: it's probably too big, the quality of football is likely to be undermined by having so many makeweight, punchbag teams in it, and it's bound to have a detrimental impact on sharpness and stamina for many players at the start of the next domestic season. But it is, on the whole, a good idea, I think: a bigger spectacle, a more inclusive tournament - and moved away from being an annual event (now, once every four years, like the major international tournaments) plonked in the middle of the domestic season - lots to like about all of that.

[And, of course, we'll ALL be rooting for the plucky Kiwis of Auckland FC - who are amateurs!!]

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!!!

Dilemmas of the Week - GW26

 

Very tight turnaround this week between the second legs of the European play-off games (and the rescheduled Villa v Liverpool game) in midweek; so, there might not be much up-to-date selection news available ahead of a Friday evening deadline.

And I'm going to try to streamline these weekly round-ups, as they have been getting dangerously over-long recently! Last week's was particularly bad: with a two-week gap between regular EPL games crammed with League Cup and FA Cup ties, European games and the postponed Merseyside derby.... there was a fair old avalanche of injury news to report. From now on, I'm going to confine myself to just the injuries to players that are likely to have a major significance in FPL. [I currently find the 'Injuries & Bans' summary on Fantasy Football Scout the most reliable resource for this kind of information - go check that out for more comprehensive coverage.]

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 26?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Well, the big news of the week was that United's Amad Diallo, by far their best player in recent months, hurt his ankle in training (a fact which did not emerge until after last week's FPL deadline - oh, woe!): ligament damage, apparently, which will keep him out for the rest of the season. That's pretty huge for FPL, since his ownership had been up near 25%.

Cody Gakpo complained of a knock to his knee after the Everton derby just over a week ago. Originally it was said to be minor, and that he would have a good chance of appearing in at least one, if not both of Liverpool's GW25 fixtures - but he didn't. Alarming. I have to say, though, with the wealth of forwards available at Liverpool, he was always likely to be at some risk of sharing minutes, and thus not a very compelling forward pick beyond these last two double gameweeks. Trent Alexander-Arnold's understudy Conor Bradley had to come off in the Villa game two days ago with a thigh muscle strain, but is now only expected to be missing for a week or so.

Brentford centre-back Sepp Van den Berg had to come off against West Ham last weekend with a knee injury: no further news so far, it seems. He has been quite a popular cheap fifth defender pick in FPL.

Everton forward Illiman Ndiaye has been diagnosed with a medial ligament injury in his knee after the Merseyside derby (not as bad as a cruciate, but...), and seems likely to be out for several weeks.

Ipswich full-back Leif Davis missed last week's game against Villa with a training knock: supposedly 'minor', he should be back this week. However, his teammates Julio Enciso and Sam Morsy both picked up potentially quite serious injuries in that game and are now doubts.

Leicester's James Justin also suffered an apparently quite serious ankle injury against Arsenal.

Kobbie Mainoo and Manuel Ugarte both missed the Spurs game last week with training injuries: no word on how serious those might be.

Rodrigo Betancur, Son Heung-min and new centre-back Kevin Danso had to come off against United with knocks - could be more woe for poor Ange!

And Erling Haaland hobbled off late in the game against Newcastle last Saturday with what looked like quite a serious knee injury. He and the club are so far putting a brave face on things and insisting it's nothing too bad: he was on the bench against Real in midweek, but was not risked on the pitch. He clearly jarred the knee badly when landing after a high jump for an aerial ball and was in immediate distress; a little while later, he broke down, suddenly unable to take any weight on the leg... after bending it at a certain angle in trying to accelerate towards the ball. I would bet a large amount of money that that is a cartilage tear. I've had that injury: and that is exactly how you get them, and exactly what they look like. If it's just a minor one, he might be able to play on with it; but that would be taking a big chance. I would imagine he'll need a keyhole surgery to rectify it before the end of the season - probably sooner rather than later.

Do we have any players who are dropped, or not looking likely to get the starts we hoped for?

Poor Axel Tuanzebe is having to serve a one-match ban after his ridiculously unjust sending-off for two supposedly yellow-card offences against Villa last week. But that's the only suspension this week!

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Um, can't think of any, no - no absolute stinkers this past week.

Did anyone play so well, you have to consider bringing them in immediately?

Well, many, of course, would say Omar Marmoush - who did come up with a stunning hattrick against Newcastle. But I'm still a little hesitant on him; partly because I don't see last week's comfortable win as any convincing evidence of a City revival (Newcastle just didn't show up for that one), and partly because there's such strong competition for forward slots in FPL at the moment. On form and fixtures, Wolves's Matheus Cunha looks a far more compelling choice.

I'm not getting over-excited about Ollie Watkins or Marcus Rashford just yet either. For me, Marco Asensio has looked Villa's most exciting player in their last few games.

Beto's form with Everton is looking very impressive; but I felt their new Argentinian midfielder Carlos Alcaraz was even more eye-catching in the last match.

Perhaps the biggest excitement of the week, though, is the emergence of Mikel Merino as Arsenal's potential goalscoring saviour; to me, he looks tailor-made for a central striking role - but I worry that Arteta may somehow not see things that way.

As for the dratted AssMan chip.... Thomas Frank looks the safest prospect of win points this week, with victory surely as near-certain as can be against currently dreadful Leicester (and a high chance of a big goal haul, and maybe a clean sheet too); however, I'd probably rather gamble on the possibility of table-bonus points for Oliver Glasner's Palace away to Fulham. (Backing Kieran McKenna's Ipswich against Spurs might also work, but is surely a much rasher gamble!)

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

DON'T FORGET The Boycott; the dratted new 'Assistant Manager' chip is in play now - and I am urging everyone to please consider quitting the game, or at least refusing to use this silly chip. 

And if you can't bring yourself to do either of those things, please do criticise the Assistant Manager chip as vigorously as possible on any relevant social media channels you use, raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

The final countdown.....

I had been about to try to fake up some excitement about this year's mid-season transfer window by observing that we now have less than 72 hours before it closes...

But, what do you know?  I'd been expecting it to close at midnight on Friday, because.... you know, tradition. And the calendar.

But I've just discovered that this year the deadline is not at midnight on the 31st, but at 11pm (UK time) on Monday, 3rd February.

So, we have a whole 5 more days..... of waiting for nothing to happen. Oh, joy!

So far, the moves of Kinsky to Spurs, Malen to Villa, Marmoush to City, and Philogene and Enciso to Ipswich have been the only events of even mild interest to unfold. Well, apart from the amusing spectacle of Arsenal repeatedly leaking details of forwards they've supposedly made lavish bids for, only to discover that no-one wants to go and play for them....

But Arsenal and Manchester United and Manchester City and Newcastle and Villa and Spurs and a few others are really quite desperate to bolster their squad depth, if not to acquire one or two major new assets in key areas, so things might yet get a bit more interesting.

And everyone seems to thrive on the insane brinksmanship of trying to tie up the details of a deal in the last hours and minutes before the window closes. So, there's quite likely to be a late flurry of activity next Monday evening.

To keep up with developments (if any should ever occur...), I've mainly been looking to the very simple transfer updates page being maintained by the Fantasy Football Scout website... although this is a very similar resource, with slightly more commentary, on Football Transfers, if you crave an alternative (or just want some additional confirmation, to soothe your cynicism; I usually do).

The NEW United?

I had been thinking of doing a quick post on what I think United's lineup might start to look like under new coach, Ruben Amorim, but - as so often - I find I am in almost complete agreement with FourFourTwo's excellent analyst Adam Clery.

The only thing I'd add here is that I can really see Zirkzee thriving as one of the 'twin 10s' (at the expense of Rashford...).

But, as Adam points out, there's sufficient depth in the United squad that Amorim has the scope to try different players in different positions, and perhaps vary the selection occasionally according to his opponent. With this level of uncertainty, I feel it's hugely risky to take on any United assets at the moment, even the mercurial Bruno. (Onana might be the one exception.)

I had thought Amorim might have to move away from his tried-and-trusted '3-4-3' in order to better fit the personnel he finds at Old Trafford; but early training-ground videos apparently show him working on that formation. The main reason I thought Amorim might have to drop this approach, or only phase it in slowly, was that it might be difficult - undiplomatic - to drop Garnacho and Diallo, who have been United's two most dangerous players so far this season. They are likely to be the main casualties of the new tactical set-up, since it doesn't really have any place for conventional wingers. Although it's commonly billed as a 3-4-3 formation, it's actually more a 3-4-2-1, with the 'wide' attackers actually playing fairly narrow, dropping in behind the main forward as support strikers or dual 'No. 10s'; while the wide midfielders are wing-backs, for which defenders with some attacking capability will be favoured (although Antony, whose defensive numbers are very impressive, might get a look-in here).

I also wonder if Mazraoui might be somewhat at risk, since he's newer to United, and perhaps a bit less adaptable than Dalot (who has plenty of experience playing on either flank for the club), and a bit less of an attacking threat. The Moroccan's start looks safe for now; but when Shaw and Malacia are available again on the left, I can see Dalot switching sides and becoming the preferred starter at right wing-back.

This will be bad news for some FPL managers, since (until the recent surge of optimism about Bruno), Mazraoui and Garnacho are the two most selected players from United. Oops...

So, farewell then....

 Alas - goodbye (at last), Uncle Erik.

Though few people, I imagine, will mourn his passing from Old Trafford. The overwhelming sensation, for most of us, is probably rather a sense of profound relief that we've all now been put out of his misery.

It had indeed become embarrassing, painful to witness this ongoing slow-motion train-wreck over so many months....  It is baffling that the board did not get rid of him last summer (an untypically brilliant performance to clinch the FA Cup scarcely compensating for another dismal season in the League); or during the last international break. Van Nistelrooy has recently been much-touted as at least an interim option; but I suppose they didn't fancy handing the reins to him for any extended period, and thus weren't willing to do so until they had a substantive replacement finally secured. And Thomas Tuchel taking the England job may have thrown a spanner in the works. Even if he wasn't their prime target, he must surely have been in the conversation, and other managers they'd approached will probably have thought he might have been their preferred option - and hence that his apparent spurning of their overtures presented an opportunity for them to intensify their own negotiation over the position.... and so drag things out for another week or two.

Once upon a time, it would have been just about inconceivable that any top manager would take a post in charge of a national team in preference to the Manchester United job. But this, sadly, is how far they have fallen - from being 'The Greatest Club in the World' 15 years ago.... to an object of general derision now.  And the real reason for Ten Hag surviving the last 5 or 6 months may not have been that unexpected FA Cup win, but the fact that the United job has become such a 'poisoned chalice' that none of the several managers said to have been tapped up for it showed any interest in accepting the offer.

I never felt Ten Hag was a good fit for the position. United's fans expect an expansive attacking style of play - exciting to watch, even if not consistently successful; but the Dutchman's attitude seemed to be more dour and pragmatic. And the United job - even more than those at the other top Premier League clubs - really demands someone who's very media-savvy, who cuts a charismatic figure in interviews. Poor Erik always came across as stiff and pompous. And, over the last year or so, he, not unnaturally, increasingly had rather a hunted air about him - which did not inspire general confidence.

Yes, he came to a club with all kinds of structural problems, a squad that was a total mess, with a long history of under-performance. And he has had some ridiculous injury problems to cope with. But even when players were fit, he seemed to be constantly chopping and changing between them - never sure what his best starting eleven should be: particularly in defence, where Lindelof, Varane, or Maguire could never seem to get an extended run of starts, even when they played well (Lindelof, I thought, was particularly hard done-by); but he also couldn't make his mind up about how to juggle his attacking assets - Martial, Rashford, Antony, Garnacho, Elanga, Diallo. There was never any consistency in the selections, nor any clear 'identity' in the style of play; and very often, his players on the pitch looked lost, as if they just didn't know what they were supposed to be doing. This might be tolerable on occasion, early in a manager's tenure; but with Ten Hag, this never changed across two years! And he rarely seemed to be able to adapt his tactics, or use new personnel off the bench, to improve matters when games were going badly for them. That remarkable FA Cup victory gave a tantalising glimpse of what he might have been, should have been capable of - a shrewd gameplan to knock City out of their stride, and his players fully invested in it, all giving 110%. Why did he scarcely manage to produce any hint of such effectiveness in the 85 EPL matches he led United out for??

One suspects that his high-profile spat - which seemed petty on both sides - with Jadon Sancho was just the tip of an iceberg of poor player relations. It seemed he might have long since 'lost the dressing room', as most of his players rarely seemed willing to really 'put in a shift' for him.

Above all, it seemed incredibly perverse that he persisted in a tactical set-up that could never possibly work with the players he had available. If you're going to pursue an aggressive high press, you need to compress the play in the opposition half by keeping a high defensive line; but in order to do that, you need at least one or two very fast defenders who can get back quickly to deal with counter-attacks (Nope), atacking players, particularly in the wide areas, who are willing to run their arses off to get back and help out with thwarting a counter (Garnacho, Rashford?? Nope!), and, ideally, a highly mobile central defensive midfielder who can usually snuff out such attacks at source (Nope). Instead, because of the chronic lack of pace at the back and in the holding role (Casemiro reads the game superbly, but has no legs any more), and lack of reliable forward cover down the flanks,... his defensive line tended to drop very, very deep - leaving 30 yards of open space for opposing attackers to canter through at will (poor Kobbie Mainoo last season often being left with the thankless task of trying to police 25-30% of the entire pitch on his own...). And on a related point - really, what was the point of buying one of the world's best ball-playing goalkeepers if you never let him leave his area?  All of fhat was just self-destructive lunacy. So, YES, he absolutely had to go. It was long, long, long overdue.

As usual, my man Adam Clery at FourFourTwo is largely in agreement with me. He's been very swift to put out a video on Ten Hag's departure.

He's done one on Ruben Amorim as well now - thanks, Adam.

The UNLUCKIEST team so far?

The chaps over at The Athletic have just done one of their round-table chat videos on the issue of LUCK and how it's impacting the Premier League season so far. [I feel inclined to ask them for a token royalty fee for ripping off my idea...]

Host Joe Devine quizzes their two tactical analysts, JJ Bull and Jon Mackenzie, on some of the leading 'unluckiest team' contenders. They end up agreeing on.... Bournemouth. Which I can kind of see; they've often felt as if they've had games that have slipped away from them by the slenderest of margins; and the disallowing of Dango Ouattara's last-minute winner against Newcastle in Gameweek 2 was certainly one of the most outrageous injustices of the year.

However, the pundits here were mainly relying on Opta's 'expected goals' and 'expected points' stats - which, I feel, are probably of rather dubious value anyway. And, even if you do accept their validity and significance, if you're seriously underperforming these expected attacking numbers, that probably means you're playing badly rather than that you're being unlucky. They also mused on the impact of fixtures quite a bit; but again, for me, that's scareely relevant - it is a different kind of luck. Sure, having a particularly tough run of games - or a particularly easy one, Liverpool! - to start the season is going to have a big impact on your points and league standing; but there is nothing unexpectted, unpredictable about this; as soon as the schedule is announced, you know when the spells are where you're likely to struggle - or to be making hay! - and you have to try to adapt. Apart from the Ouattara disallowed goal, I don't think they gave any consideration to the impact of poor refereeing decisions (which has been the main focus of my 'Luck-o-Meter' series), or to uncommonly superlative goals - or near-misses - swinging the results of games.

And I don't think they even mentioned the two clubs I would nominate as way out ahead in the BAD LUCK Stakes so far: Crystal Palace..... and Chelsea! (The Blues just cannot get a penalty award this season!! They've had good shouts in almost every game so far; sometimes more than one; but they've only been given ONE. It is bizarre,.... outrageous.)

What did we learn from pre-season?

 

A big fat ZERO, basically....   (So, for once, this is only going to be a short post!)

The pre-season friendlies are always a rather dubious guide to form, selection, or even tactics, because managers are often using them more as a PR exercise (especially on overseas tours), or just as an opportunity to try out a few youngsters, rather than to do some serious workshopping on ideas for the season ahead.

But this year, there have been such generous extra rest periods bestowed on everyone who was involved in the Euros or the Copa America (even those who were only shining the bench with their buttocks), that a majority of the leading players have only got token minutes, if any at all, in this year's games - rendering them completely useless as any sort of form guide for the opening weekend.

Past experience should have taught us not to get over-excited about pre-season performances, and yet... many people still do.  In recent years, it seems, in fact, to have become something of a curse, with so many of the outstanding players in the warm-up games then succumbing to major injuries on the eve of the season. Mainoo and Chukwuemeka were sensational last year, but....  This year, poor Oscar Bobb is the latest victim. Let's hope there aren't any more.

The other headline-grabbing displays this year have come from Jacob Murphy, Yankuba Minteh, and Morgan Rogers. But it would be a rash punt for FPL to splash cash on any of those, when they're still far from being sure of a start.... and certainly not a regular start. 

Minteh wasn't wanted by Newcastle last season (wasn't even recalled from loan in the depths of their injury crisis), so I'm not convinced that he can be ready for an automatic start in the Premier League yet. And Brighton, anyway, are geared towards making money from developing promising young players, and have to rotate a lot among a bloated squad; even if he were to assert himself as the first choice, he probably wouldn't start every week - especially when he's competing with the likes of Adingra, March (when he's fit again), and their new Croatian acquisition Gruda. Rogers, likewise, might get a few starts early on - but it's difficult to see him holding his place against the likes of Bailey, and the soon-to-return Buendia. Jacob Murphy is probably the strongest bet for the start of the season; but the poor lad has been very injury prone, and Barnes or Almiron might well be preferred in the attacking role on the right flank. 

So - sorry, I think I'll pass on all those. (For the first week or two, at least!)

The only team who did show us something worthwhile in pre-season, I think, were Arsenal. (Well, OK, Liverpool too...  And arguably Chelsea;:at least we saw the system Maresca wants to try to implement, but probably not with all the players he's actually going to use. And so far, it's not working.)  They actually played something like their proper starting eleven in most of the friendlies. And the message that sent out to the rest of the League was: Be afraid; be very afraid.  They're still showing their need of an outright striker, but they're getting more and more fluent, and developing some new attacking ideas; and generally, they're so much more stable and balanced with Partey available to take the holding role in central midfield. (Declan Rice might just be the best value midfield pick from them now, over Odegaard and Saka.....)

Fantasy Football Hub had the best round-up of the pre-season games I could find this year.

They also have a pretty good listing of this summer's transfer activity so far.  [I used to like the Fantasy Football Scout website for that; but their updates haven't been so prompt or helpful over the past couple of years. I've got a nasty feeling they're starting to restrict their free content, or are making it just a little bit more crap.... to try to goad you into buying beyond their paywall.]

"Once more unto the breach, dear firends..."

'Rank your team?' ('No thanks, HAL...')

I've noticed some of the FPL forums being awash with posts over the past couple of weeks about this online widget that purports to assess the strength of your preliminary FPL squad - giving it a score out of 100.

With a month to go before the real game gets under way, people seem to have been going crazy over this as a surrogate distraction, seeming to find it a worthwhile challenge to see if they can push their score higher and higher, to see if it's possible to edge it up to a perfect 100.

Such A LOT of problems with this gizmo. Here are the main ones, as I see it:

1)  It says it rates your 'team' - but it actually expects you to submit your whole squad (in the form of a screenshot of your FPL 'Team' page). So, it's not clear if it's rating the full 15, or just your starting 11. It also doesn't tell you if your initial captain and vice-captain picks are considered relevant to its 'judgement' on you. And it doesn't tell you if it's offering a prediction of your likely success over the whole season... or the first month... or just the opening gameweek.

2) It doesn't explain its criteria, or what its rating scale is supposed to mean. What would a score of 100 actually signify? That you're absolutely certain to be this year's Global Winner?? Or that you're fairly sure to be among the top 10,000, 50,000, 100,000??  Or just that you're likely to have a very good Gameweek 1???

If you were to try to assess your own squad on a 100-pt scale, or asked one of your more knowledgeable and objective friends to do so, you wouldn't expect anything like a 100% answer; even mid-90s would be very, very good. Heck, even if you gave yourself an unlimited budget, you wouldn't seriously expect perfection: you'd know that some of your picks were a little bit of a gamble, a hopeful hunch; while maybe some others that seem like 'bankers' will, in fact, turn out to disappoint. I think, however you define 'success', no team/squad can really be said to give you more than an 80-90% prospect of achieving it.

3)  It doesn't give you any meaningful feedback, doesn't explain WHY it has rated your squad as it has, or identify the weakest members you should consider replacing. It just endlessly trots out the same infuriating glib cliché about needing to 'find some transfers to improve'. [It's probably still having a problem with the pod-bay doors too...]

So, as a tool for helping you pick your squad, it's utterly USELESS.

4)  I had a little fun the other week, quickly testing it with about 20 or so squads randomly generated by FPL's 'Auto-Pick' facility.  

Three things quickly stood out: a) They ALL scored in the high 80s to mid-90s; there was very little variation.  b) The squads that were most conspicuously a bit weak, or downright dreadful, tended to score higher!  c) It was possible to get a different score for the same squad resubmitted within quite a short space of time.

Now, I had been hoping that there might be something to this gimmick.... that a careful observation of its prognostications might enable us to deduce something about its algorithm, to divine what factors it was considering in its assessment.

I had thought, that at the very least, it might be aggregating the points scored by your chosen players last season (which of course we already know; but it might have been handy to have the calculation done instantly for us), or perhaps even be producing a slightly more subtle and complex rating of expected 'form' based on a combination of factors.

But, alas, no - it's pretty obviously just spiting out random numbers... and jeering at how seriously some people take the results!  Thank you, HAL, you condescending bastard!