The (likely) story of my season so far

Of course, my season was cut short this year in Gameweek 2, when I was bizarrely locked out of my account by FPL's perpetually useless website - and I was so dismayed and flabbergasted that I couldn't be bothered to set up another new one (this is the third or fourth time this has happened to me in the last half-dozen years).

However, as we're now nearing the third-of-the-way-through-the-season mark, I thought I'd indulge in a bit of playing along in imagination, and review how I think my season probably would be panning out so far.

I went for Sels and Petrovic as a promising rotation pair of keepers at the start of the season. Sels disappointed amid Forest's dip in form around Nuno's departure and replacement with Ange Postecoglou: clean sheets disappeared, and somehow he wasn't even registering that many saves. Fortunately, the Bournemouth defence was holding up much better than many had feared, and Petrovic would soon have displaced him as 'first choice', though he's possiby not quite strong enough to be my regular starter; I think I would have swapped Sels out for Henderson as soon as I could. (Though, by GW4 or 5, Sunderland's Robin Roefs was starting to look a very appealing option.)  Henderson and Petrovic actually enjoyed a pretty good rotaion around their tougher fixtures for a while.

I usually counsel against taking 'too many chances' in the initial squad - and then I don't take my own advice. And Milos Kerkez counted as a bit risky, because he was a new arrival at Anfield and would almost certainly take some time to properly bed in. And he was not free of some risk of rotation with the veteran incumbent in his position, Andy Robertson; although his start, mercifully, proved to be reliable, he was yanked off very early in a few games. And with Liverpool not keeping any clean sheets, despite their winning start to the season, I think I would have soon ditched him - probably for an Everton or Bournemouth defender. Ben White was also perhaps somewhat risky after he'd missed so much of last season with injury, and Timber, Calafiori, and Lewis-Skelly had all impressed in his absence. But I did trust that he'd established first dibs on the right-back slot - and so perhaps it might have been, had he not immediately picked up an injury again. Rank bad luck there! But I would have moved for Calafiori and Senesi as replacements pretty promptly - probably even at the cost of a hit.

I would be well contentt, though, with my other two main picks, Munoz and Van de Ven, at least at first; and with Burnley's attacking left-back Quilindschy Hartman as my cheap bench-filler for the start of the season (though after a month or so it had begun to look as if Sunderland rather than Burnley were the most formidable of the promoted sides and their options might provide more consisttent 'defensive contributions', and even a good number of clean sheets throughout the season). However, I fear I would have lost patience with Van de Ven and his faltering Spurs - before he came up with that improbable brace of goals against Everton for a 23-point haul in Gameweek 9! Van de Ven, I think, would have been sacrificed for early 'defensive points' monster Tarkowski in GW6 or 7.

I also fret that I would have been likely to stick with Calafiori and/or Timber from the Arsenal defence -on the not unreasonable basis that, once established as nailed starters (which hadn't seemed certain, or even likely at the start of the season), they would be slightly more likely than Gabriel to produce the occasional attacking contribution. However, Gabriel, of course, then produced a freak run of form, not only benefitting from a long sequence of clean sheets (a bonanza shared by all his fellow Arsenal defenders), but also racking up improbable numbers of 'defensive contributions' a few times, and picking up a goal and a couple of assists - for a whopping 55-point return from Gameweeks 6-10. It would have hurt to miss out on that;... but I think I would have done. Arsenal's defence became so dominant during that period that it would have been very tempting to bring in Gabriel - or the cheaper Timber - for Tarkowski or Senesi. (Heck, some people were even piling in for 3 Arsenal defenders!!!)

In the midfield, I bet on Palmer rather than Salah (too expensive this year, and obviously going to fall far short of last year's returns - although still likely to be worth considering if he hit any hot streaks; though that signally failed to happen in the opening three months), decided to go without Saka for now (because of Arsenal's tricky early-season fixtures; I got a bit lucky on that risky gamble when he picked up an early injury), and flipped a coin between Cunha and Mbeumo (again, arguably, a risky bet, given their newness to the team, and United's long history of being able to convert gold into dross). Of course, the coin came down on Cunha - who was the one who started more brightly, and then succumbed to an early injury. Palmer too had an injury problem straight away; although it wasn't immediately apparent, inhibiting his performance in the first game, forcing him to withdraw early in the second, missing the next two, and then dropping out quickly again in the fifth: cruel and unusual punishment indeed - tempting you to think that it was no big deal, would only keep him out for a game or two, he might be worth hanging on to.... I'd like to think that I would have offloaded him promptly; but more probably I think I would have kept him until GW5, by which time a lot of damage would have been done.  Cunha, at least, was an easy swap for Mbeumo, who soon started coming good. And Palmer's indisposition would have created an easy opportunity for me to bring in the initially overlooked Semenyo, although I might only have got a couple of decent returns out of him, as his opening hot streak would fizzle after GW7; fortunately, that was an ideal time to swap him out for the returning Saka or the suddenly in-form Trossard.

My mid-budget selections of Ndiaye, Enzo Fernandez, and Mo Kudus looked good at first - although the latter kept showing a lot of promise without delivering very much, and would not, I think, have survived in my squad for more than a few weeks. However, none of the 'usual suspects' among the game's goalscorers and creatives consistently came good in the first few months of the season, and we were left hopefully casting the dice on novelty options. For a long time, the top of the midfielder charts were dominated by fairly unexpected players like promoted Burnley's Jaidon Anthony,.... and a bunch of central midfielders who were doing quite well off the new 'defensive points' and happened to have picked up a random goal or two. (Gravenberch, Caicedo, Zubimendi, Palhinha, Tonali). Kudus I think I would have swapped out for Eze, in his last couple of games for Palace; and then probably swapped him for Anthony, or perhaps Forest's promising new winger, Dan Ndoye. I feel sure I would also have been tempted to go in early for Phil Foden on his eventual return from injury - because of the shortage of other compelling options; though I fear I would probably not have picked him in anticipation of his impressive comeback game against Manchester United, but only for his subsequent run of blanks!!

The only player in that position category who was pretty regularly registering points early on was Antoine Semenyo. I have historically been quite a fan of his; but I grew gadually more sceptical last season - he seems to lack consistency, his hot spells are never sustained for all that long; and I think he suffers a bit from competition with so many other goalscoring creatives in the Bournemouth squad (Kluivert being out of action for much longer than originally anticipated was possibly a major factor in his early success this year). I'd like to think I would have brought him in fairly early, but..... I suspect I might have hesitated until his returns were about to start drying up! And at that time, I would have been tempted by the return of Bukayo Saka - although he was a little bit slow out of the blocks. Trossard was actually the better Arsenal midfielder to be on, from about GW7 onwards; although Rice probably had the better - or at least steadier - long-term prospects. It would have been a tough choice around then between a second Arsenal defender (for me, Gabriel; and then Timber, when he got injured) and a second midfielder (Trossard during his scoring streak).

I would have resisted Grealish, despite his red-hot start - fancying that he was ultimately only an assists man, whereas Ndiaye might offer goals and assists (and I didn't want to be doubled up on one club in one position). Bruno Fernandes, initially a pretty popular selection, I've found eminently avoidable in recent years: only returns well in short streaks - and that seemed even more likely to be the case this season, as Amorim was expected to be playing him in a deeper midfield role. (To be fair, he did show a lot of promise early on, often abandoning his 'pivot' brief to forage forward, and basically trying to carry his struggling team single-handed. But his returns were very up-and-down, with strong Gameweeks 3 and 5 being interspersed with far more disappointing returns, missed penalties, etc....)  I also refused to 'drink the Kool-Aid' on Tijjani Reijnders (probably now destined to be remembered most for the inevitably popular FPL team name 'Breakfast at Tijjani's'!!). He was undoubtedly tempting value-for-money, but City's early-season form didn't overly impress me, and, although he did at least prove to have a regular start nailed down (which I'd initially doubted), I feared that he was usually being played too deep to be a really regular attacking threat, and expected his season goal-haul would be much closer to the 4 that he got in his first season with AC Milan than the 15 he claimed in his second.  [I may yet be proved wrong on this. There is a lot to like about him, and I think he's been one of the best of the league's new arrivals so far. And 4 or 5 goals for a midfielder isn't at all bad; especially for one who only cost 5.5 million at the start of the year But I have a hunch he won't even reach that many. And he's not picking up much on the 'defensive contributions' either....]

The biggest of my opening gambles that failed to pay off was trying to do without Haaland - when he started with a string of big hauls, just as he did last year. I knew that might backfire on me. And with little to spend the money on in midfield, I should have been able to quickly back-track - at least once Palmer and Cunha were ruled out, perhaps by GW2 or 3 (I would surely have had to eat a 'hit' to get it done promptly...). I acknowledged pretty early on that he was, for the time being, a rare must-have this season. However, I don't think I would have got great captaincy returns off him, as I would have often been tempted by rival options, especially in midifeld (and I didn't fancy his chances of a big haul against Bournemouth or Everton - or even Burnley, really) - and yet, again and again, these perfectly rational alternate picks failed to come through, while Haaland knocked in braces.... even when City were playing quite poorly, even against opponents with reasonable defences.

I'd started off with Joao Pedro, Ekitike (another risky punt on a newly-arrived player, but one that paid off for once - though we knew he was only going to be a short-term investment, as likely to be sidelined or dropped into a regular rotation once the Isak deal materialised) and Strand Larsen (yet another early injury victim!!).  That was OK for a little while; but all three of them would probably have to be replaced fairly soon (not ideal, but usually unavoidable at the start of the season!!). I would have had Richarlison for a while as well, after his promising start. But I was quick to recognise the form of Thiago and Woltemade, and would have had them alongside Haaland fairly early on that's still looking a pretty strong trident a third of the way into the season.

At least I avoided the error of piling in prematurely for Isak or Eze - as so many people did, having rashly assumed that they would immediately start for their their new clubs, and immediately be at their best, and immediately have a huge impact. It was obviously going to take Isak a few weeks at least, given his poor conditioning after skipping training with Newcastle for a couple of months; and with Eze, I really worried that it might never happen - as Arsenal's stye of play just wouldn't suit him. He and the team are adapting to each other better than I'd feared, and he made a lively start at his new club, beneftiting enormously from the extended injury absence of Odegaard, which has enabled him to shift into a freer central playmaker role (not one he's likely to keep for long, presumably); but still, he's not the regular game-changer he was at Palace. However, FPL managers who punted on him may feel that their faith was repaid by that one enormous haul he just bagged against Spurs - another one that it was painful to miss out on; but I can't see him repeating a return like that (Spurs were epically bad in that one! Surely no other opponent will give him that much space around the edge of the box?!).

Yes, I'd missed out on the two biggest returners, Semenyo and Haaland, in the early weeks (though would have repented on at least one, possibly both, in time to catch a good bit of that run of returns from them), and was hit by 4 injuries to key picks almost immediately (not the worst run of injuries I've ever suffered, but.... pretty devastating!).  I fear I would also have done pretty poorly with my captaincy, regularly favouring guys who played great games but somehow only came away with 4, 6, 8 poins (before doubling them) to show for them; I would have had a few better returns from Haaland and Mbeumo, and I fancied Munoz for Gameweek 12, who came through very handsomely (but got booked, and missed out on defensive points by one 'contribution' - vexing!).

So,  a really, really bad start for me, this year (possibly my worst ever!): I was down around the 3 million mark in Gameweek 1, and must have slipped even lower - probably well outside the top half - with a couple more probably very bad weeks early on. In general, though, fairly steady upward progress was likely thereafter - although I might have suffered heavily for passing on Gabriel during his exceptionally hot run. 

I think I'd have just about made 700 points by now; not sure where that would put me in the global ranking - just about in the top 1,000,000 I should think; or getting pretty close, anyway. And I would have held off using any of my Bonus Chips yet, so would still be trailing the 'early leaders' quite badly - but hoping o make up more ground soon if those chip plays work out nicely for me. That's actually starting to feel pretty 'successful' - after my atrocious start! And it's been a particularly tough season - and a weirdly low-scoring season all-around - .so far for everyone; most of the people I keep tabs on as consistently smart and usually quite high-performing FPL managers are still outside the top 2 or 3 million at the moment! It's nice to be inside the top 200 or 300k for most of the season; but it doesn't always happen. Just got to roll with the punches!

My greatest WEAKNESS

 

Although I generally do pretty well at this game of FPL,.... I never do quite as well as I'd like.

Many of the factors that clip my performance are external handicaps which I can't do much about. [I live in a distant timezone, with limited availability of coverage of the games (often none with English commentary); and usually a slow and unreliable Internet connection, to boot! Also, I spend a lot of time travelling, which throws all attempts to maintain any regular routines out of the window, and occasionally even makes me miss an FPL deadline altogether. And I really think it's a huge disadvantage simply to be living anywhere outside the UK; there is such a rich immersion environment over there - it's almost impossible not to be aware of every little snippet of breaking football-related news, by a simple osmosis. Anywhere overseas, trying to root out that sort of information can be very effortful.]

But, yes, of course, there are occasional faults in my decision-making too. 

And I think the worst of them is that I tend to take a few too many chances in my initial squad.

I almost always have a pretty poor start to the season; and often, a very, very, very poor - 'Might as well give up now...' - kind of start!

 

And while a large part of that can be attributed to simple BAD LUCK, I do acknowledge that often I'm partly bringing it on myself. 

I like to take chances on players that I rate highly, but are perhaps not yet fully established in their team set-up - only recently elevated to the first team from the reserves or youth ranks, or just joined a bigger club,... perhaps haven't previously shown any sustained FPL form.

Now, I think one of my greatest strengths in the game is that I am in fact a very astute judge of a player. Almost always these more speculative picks of mine do come good in the end; just not quite as emphatically, and almost never quite as promptly as I'd hoped.

I think probably the core of the 'problem' here - the reason why this innocent little foible of mine seems to have become more and more damaging to my results in recent years - is that modern football managers are usually far more conservative than they were in the past; most of them do not like to 'take risks' on emerging talents,... when they know exactly what they're going to get from their veteran warhorses. (Pep Guardiola didn't think Cole Palmer was going to cut it in the Premier League??!! Ethan Nwaneri will probably be in his mid-20s before Mikel Arteta will give him more than 1,000 minutes in a season...)

And perhaps that excess of caution is partly driven by the extraordinary physical demands of the modern game. Selections now are often made for reasons which are completely opaque to the outside world - reasons that probably have far more to do with 'fitness' than a player's raw talent or game intelligence. 

Not that many years ago, my assessments of young players' ability usually accorded very closely with when they were about to break through on the big stage. These days, they rarely do. And it's not just the disappointment of my FPL hopes that saddens me about that....

So, I probably should try to curtail my predilection for including two or three such optimistic selections in my opening-week squad.

Or should I???

This game of ours is essentially a kind of gambling. Each week with our selections we are placing bets on unknown - and unknowable - outcomes. And sometimes you have to bet big to win big.

One day, perhaps, all of my 'emerging star' punts will play in the first game, and will all have blinders!! And I'll be off to a scorching-hot start for once!!

Maybe you have to be prepared to endure several years of mediocre starts, in order to enjoy one really good one? And maybe you have to endure several mediocre seasons, before you get a really successful one?

Maybe.  I'm not sure about this...  Ask me in another ten years or so!

[And, yes, my other great weakness is Vietnamese coconut coffee. Whenever I spend a month in Vietnam, I pile on a couple of kilogrammes through overindulging in these bad boys! It's really a blessing-in-disguise that this is still almost impossible to find anywhere else in Asia.]

The story of MY season

 

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

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

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

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

My ZOMBIE Team

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#DownWithTheNewChip

Report Card (2)

 

A couple of months ago, I was giving myself a rueful C- for my performance in the first quarter of the season,... though indulging in some light optimism about a slow-but-steady improvement after a string of early misfortunes in the opening weeks of the season. How have things gone since then?

Well, I continued dogged - but not too spectacular - upward progress: 110 points above global average (3 'bad' Gameweeks, very slightly below the average) over the next 9 gameweeks, scrabbling up almost back into the top million (it can take a very long time to drag your way clear of bad beginnings: by GW5 or 6, when most of the eventual global leaders were probably at least in the top 500,000, if not the top 100,000, I was still barely inside the top 5 million!). I take particular comfort from the fact that my squad value leapt by nearly 4 million quid in those two months - a sign that a lot of my picks are proving quite shrewd.

However, I was still suffering quite a lot of bad luck. I'd decided to take a chance on Iliman Ndiaye, being impressed by his early-season form before he'd actually scored much; and he gave me a nice return in his first match for me, against Ipswich, but then had quite a long fallow run (came back into form for a while, after I'd dropped him; but then got injured again.... one to watch for a budget forward option next year, perhaps). I got on Matz Sels, Jarrod Bowen, Lewis Hall and Jorgen Strand Larsen quite early, and in December, Amad Diallo too; but only Sels proved a strong long-term hold, the others soon picking up injuries. I dropped Mbeumo during his lull in form in November, and then he suddenly started scoring like a monster again - despite some unfavourable-looking fixtures. I took a punt on Giorginho Rutter as a fifth midfielder for a while, but his points dried up, and then he got a season-ending injury. And I retained optimism in Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson perhaps a bit too long after Chelsea's form began to falter badly in early December. (Not sure how long I would have ultimately held on to them, as I stopped playing at the end of January, in protest at the absurdity of the new 'Assistant Manager' chip. Jackson, of course, picked up an injury immediately after that. But Palmer was still giving intimations of threat, and had some appealing fixtures - so, there was certainly a case for retaining him until some time in April....); I was gutted that I hadn't given Palmer the captain's armband for his last really big haul, in Gameweek 15. Even worse, I'd gone in for Enzo Fernandez during his brief hot streak - which abruptly ended when Romeo Lavia got injured, requiring Enzo to revert to being one of the deep pivots, rather than pushing up alongside Palmer.

In general, I would say, my selection decisions all looked pretty sound, often prescient; but few of them gave me any long-term returns - I had a lot of bad luck with injuries or crashes in form almost immediately I brought someone in. The most egregious of these was Bukayo Saka, who I only managed to find room for in GW12, and in GW17 picked up a hamstring problem that would sideline him for nearly half the season.

January went rather nicely for me, with 100 points above the 'global average' in just 5 gameweeks (although that was with the benefit of Triple Captain and Bench Boost chips working out quite well in Gameweeks 23 and 24). But then I quit the game in a huff, just as things were starting to go well...

So, the second quarter of the season was probably a solid B for me, maybe even a B+ (and getting near to an A in January...). Alas, the stupid innovation of the 'Assistant Manager' Chip spoiled the season, and drove me to abandon the game for the year. But honestly, it was going to be a godawful year for me anyway. I still hadn't quite got back into the top 1 million at the end of January, and probably would have struggled to reach the top 500,000 by season's end - which might have made it my second worst year ever.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Although I'm not American, I do have many American friends, and through them I have come to embrace Thanksgiving Day as my favourite holiday of the year! (Slightly less protracted than Christmas, and without the unwelcome additional stress of gift exchange or - for me - obligatory family socialising! But with all the good bits ramped up to the max: eating and drinking prodigiously with good friends. And I love turkey; rarely get to eat it any other time of the year!)

Now, I don't currently have many (any?!) regular readers on this fledgeling blog (I know, nobody reads long-form content any more in this smartphone age....); but, just in case anyone should happen here by chance in the next few days, I send you all my best wishes.

Reflecting for a moment on what I have to be grateful for in Fantasy Premier League... I am initially a bit stumped for inspiration! I'm having my worst start to a season ever!! But then it has been a weird season so far, with a lot of upset results, yo-yo-ing form, and freakisly low-scoring gameweeks! At least I can console myself that things are slowly getting better....

And I've finally been able to afford to get Saka in! I'm pretty chuffed about that.

Best wishes to ALL for a great start to the 'holiday season'!!

How's it going SO FAR?

 

Since we're just about a quarter of the way through the season, this seems like an appropriate point to pause and assess our progress so far.

As I noted right at the start of the season, a bad start can scupper your chances for the year. Being quick out of the blocks is pretty much essential to a high ranking at the end of the season - or, certainly, gives you a HUGE advantage in chasing that dream. Picking the first squad is a real lottery. After even a few weeks, we start to get a pretty good sense of who the players (and teams) in the best form are, and we can narrow down the pool of potential picks quite dramatically. But in that opening week, no-one really has any idea; we're all just making hopeful guesses. And if you happen to have an outstanding Gameweek 1, chances are you'll continue to do pretty well in Gameweeks 2 and 3 as well, since you've guessed correctly on who the majority of the most productive players in the opening phase of the season are going to be; and you won't have to worry about using up transfers, perhaps even resorting to an early Wildcard, to fix problems in your squad, which is an enormous additional advantage. So, a strong Gameweek 1 can leave you galloping off gleefully into the distance, with an intimidating lead over the chasing pack right from the outset; a lead which is very likely to get even bigger over the next few weeks, because that opening advantage will continue for a while and compound itself. The rest of us, the unfortunate ones who didn't make such successful guesses, are not playing catch-up..... we're just desperately trying to stop falling even further behind as soon as possible.

I tend to have very weak starts to the season. In fact, I've had two or three really AWFUL ones (last year was a particularly egregious disaster, which I might share some details of on this blog one day); so, this year doesn't feel so bad by comparison. (A sense of perspective can be a great comfort in times of trouble.)

I was pretty happy with my squad: it looked strong and well-balanced. And most of the players I'd picked would come good soon. But, unfortunately, almost none of them picked up anything in that first week. And I'd put my captain's armband on Isak rather than Salah. And I didn't have Haaland (although that wasn't yet such a calamity as it was about to become). So, I kicked off my season a few points below the global average, and outside (just) the top 50%. Horrendous.

Going without Haaland was a risky though viable strategy. But then the bugger went and got back-to-back hattricks in the next two weeks (which was hardly to be 'expected'; City had started sluggishly, with Rodri recovering from a muscle injury sustained at the Euros; and West Ham had looked as if they should be a decent mid-table side, while Ipswich seemed likely to be the best of the promoted sides, and had given a very good account of themselves at Anfield in GW1). Some folks even punted their Triple Captain chip on him in one of those weeks! So, those of us who'd bet on the non-Haaland option were irrevocably screwed by the end of August.

I'd decided to steer away from Arsenal attacking assets too, being doubtful that they could build on last season's success after a disappointing summer transfer window, and an early spate of injuries. But Saka and Havertz both had an excellent opening week (and, although Havertz soon faded a little, Saka continued strong until he picked up a short-term injury in GW7). That choice also harmed me in the early part of the season.

I'd also failed to anticipate that Chris Wood and Danny Welbeck would start the season so strongly. (Come on; did anyone anticipate that??)  And I remained hesitant to bring either of them in, since I always had other pressing issues to use my transfers on; and their advanced age, poor injury history, and record of never keeping a hot scoring streak going very long, all suggested that their early-season form was likely to be a flash-in-the-pan (every week I've thought that; and every week, they keep banging them in!). If my crystal ball had told me that so many (virtually all!) of the cheaper forward options would start the season so strongly, I probably wouldn't have bothered to go with Watkins and Isak as my strike force, and could have saved a bit of money for elsewhere in the squad. Watkins had some kind of fitness issue at the start of the season, failed to have much of an impact in the first few games, and kept getting subbed off perilously not-far-past the hour mark; but he has finally started to come good with 5 goals (and 2 assists) since then. I still have concerns about him, though, as I've found Villa's form a bit unconvincing so far (it seems as if they're saving their best efforts for their debut Champsions League campaign). Isak also seemed to be impaired by a slight fitness issue at first; and then broke a toe. And for my cheap back-up, I'd gone for Muniz at Fulham - who struggled to regain his excellent form from the end of last season, and was rather hastily dropped in favour of Raul Jimenez - yet another 'old warhorse' improbably recapturing his best form after years in the doldrums. Watkins, Isak, and Muniz had looked like a very strong attacking trio before the start of the season - but none of them came through for me.

I'm pleased that I was on Salah and Palmer (and Mbeumo and Smith Rowe) from the outset, who have been paying off quite nicely. I also got on Robinson and Lewis, and Davis and Delap quite early; although they haven't yet brought huge rewards, I am at present fairly content that they look like smart and prescient picks that may do quite well for me. Alas, I keep guessing wrong most of the time with my captaincy picks: only Super-Mo, in GWs 2 and 3, has given me a decent return on the armband so far.

I had been thinking that this season hadn't been too bad for injuries, really (at least, not compared to the record-breaking number I suffered last year!); but on reviewing my transfer record so far, I am reminded that I lost Ben White - my premium defensive pick - almost immediately to a knee problem; also Mykolenko. And when Luis Diaz started getting left out in favour of Cody Gakpo, I brought in Dwight McNeil, who immediately got injured. I also gave Eddie Nketiah a try; he started brightly at Palace, but quickly faded... and then got injured.

Other strokes of ill-fortune I suffered in my early selections included: punting on Valentin Barco as an 'investment pick' at the start of the season (he had been widely expected to start the first two or three games, as there were so many injuries elsewhere in the Brighton defence; but instead he was suddenly packed off to Spain on loan [at least his price was - unexpectedly* - frozen, so I didn't have to worry about getting rid of him immediately; but I did as soon as possible, because I didn't want to risk having an empty seat on the bench for long]); going for Henderson and Munoz, but finding that they and Palace were in flakey form at the start of the season, and deciding I needed to offload them quite quickly; then going for Areola (a mainstay of mine for most of last season) to replace Henderson, and have him promptly suffer two minor injuries... and then lose his place. And I've had Bowen for a while - who's played really, really well,... without actually producing many points so far.  Oh, and I brought in Haaland on an early Wildcard... and his goals immediately dried up. (Hope springing eternal.... I just made him captain against Southampton - while three of my midfielders returned much better points. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.)

At least.... starting from such a low point, I was easily able to maintain 'green arrows' of upward progress through the next five gameweeks. But then, I hit a couple of disastrous returns in GWs 7 and 8 (just wretched luck: very good teams put out, but almost no-one returned anything!). My only 'good' week so far was GW6, where Palmer's monster haul helped me to get 18 points above the global average (many people didn't yet have him??); but even there, I'd failed to make him my captain. Oh, woe!

So,  NO, my personal 'Report Card' is not showing A+ at the moment; more like C- !!!  Just about everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for me so far. But.... things can only get better...!!  Right?

* That Barco thing was very weird. I've never noticed a player being kept in the game, but have his price frozen before. Usually, when players get loaned overseas, they're removed from the player roster altogether. Although it would actually make more sense to retain them, but leave their price subject to change. Loan agreements typically have a clause providing for a player's peremptory recall, if the parent club feels it might need him after all - particularly if they're hit with a bit of a mid-season injury crisis. And it would actually be rather fun to occasionally have the opportunity to bring in a recalled loan player like this, whose price might have dropped well below 4.0 during his absence.