Luck-o-Meter (4)

 

I feel a superstitious hesitancy to say this, but..... the refereeing/VAR checks are perhaps slowly getting a bit better.

This, at least, is the first week of the season so far where there haven't been any egregiously bad decisions that skewed the results of games. Stephens's red card against Man Utd, and Coady's clumsy trip on Ismaila Sarr to gift Palace a penalty were both pretty uncontentious decisions. There was perhaps some doubt about Southampton's penalty, since Dalot had begun his reckless slide when both the ball and Dibling were still a little outside the penalty area - but it was an extended contact (perhaps two or three separate contacts between the players in fact), and it looked as though even the earliest part of this occurred right above the line at the side of the box, and the final, decisive element of the trip was well inside. For this one, I think it would have seemed very harsh if the penalty had not been given; and it was surely too tight a call for the VAR team to feel they had any reason to question the referee's initial award. Archer made a pig's ear of the spot-kick, so it didn't matter anyway.

And there was also the unfortunate spectacle of Anthony Taylor - usually one of the league's best referees - losing the plot rather in the Bournemouth v Chelsea game, and handing out a record-breaking 14 yellow cards... in a match that wasn't even all that physical, let alone dirty?! Aberrations like that can also have a big impact on FPL points tallies - and not just in the immediate gameweek, because many of those unluckily carded players will reach suspension thresholds earlier, perhaps miss crucial games, and so miss out on further points for us at a later date.

The only possible refereeing/VAR goof of the week, I think, was the failure to award a penalty for Max Kilman's bumbling into the back of Adama Traore. Certainly the contact was very light, and Traore did go down 'easily' (whenever I see the big guy hit the deck like that, I am reminded of the moment a few years back when Patrick Bamford was caught on camera plainly mouthing to the referee: "Oh, come on! He's built like a brick shithouse - how did I bring him down??"). But there was definitely some contact on the back of his left leg. And when an attacking player loses his balance in tbe box because of a contact on his leg from behind - that's always a penalty.  The worry here is that, yet again, the VAR team declined to do anything about the incident. In general, I think the lack of VAR interventions this year has been a great improvement on the welter of unnecessary interruptions and delays we suffered last year; but the pendulum has clearly swung too far the other way - the VAR team now seems so fearful to intervene about anything that they might as well not be there at all. We're still struggling to find an ideal balance on the use of this review facility.

Well, except for correcting the occasional 'offside' mistake, perhaps...There was a surprising amount of doubt and dismay expressed by the punditry about the offside call against Mateta's opening goal being overturned by VAR, but it looked pretty obvious to me: the defender on the near-side (Justin, I think?) was clearly a bit further back than the guys in the middle, and as he stretched out a foot to try to block Mitchell's cross, he was in effect moving the 'line' a yard or so further towards the goal than most people - including the linesman on the far side - realised it should have been. The only problem here was the 'decision photo' apparently released by the VAR team subsequently was taken from a ridiculous angle, far behind the line of play (and with deep shadows across everything!), such that you couldn't clearly see anyone's relative position in regard to the bye-line. There had been an angle, initially shown on TV highlights, which, although not completely in line with play, was close enough to give you a fairly convincing picture of Mateta's having been onside.

The unstoppable Erling Haaland continues to score for fun. I think this was his best performance of the season so far, and he was actually UN-lucky not to claim a history-making third successive hattrick: he pulled a good save out of Flekken, crashed a shot against the near post, and had another effort blocked by Collins... could easily have had 4 or 5. (I expect Arteta to bring on his best 'Frustrating Pep' gameplan and grind out a dour goalless draw next week; but after that, the lanky Viking will probably be back to sticking 2 or 3 in the net almost every week....);

Like last week, goalkeepers, on balance, came out on top, with Muric, Vicario, Johnsone, Pope, and - especially - Raya also producing some outstanding saves. And of course, it's quite a rare event to see even one penalty save, so to have two in the same week was a real freak occurrence, and a major stroke of good luck for owners of Onana or Sanchez. (Rather more so in the case of Sanchez, I would say; since we know that Onana is an outstanding shot-stopper, and was one of the top performers for 'saves' points last season. Sanchez, on the other hand, really hasn't looked very convincing in the Chelsea goal until now; and, with the flakiness of their defence so far, there's really very little reason for anyone to have had him as their starting FPL keeper.)  

Likewise, a goal by a defender is quite a rarity these days; yet this week, Gabriel, Schar, and De Ligt all got on the scoresheet - making them the major FPL differentiators of the gameweek.

The number of goals from distance this weekend was also extraordinary. Jhon Duran produced an early contender for 'Goal of the Month' - and indeed, perhaps for 'Goal of the Season' - with his 25-yard screamer. But we also saw great goals from just outside the penalty area from Harvey Barnes, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Dwight McNeil.... and even Marcus Rashford.

And there might have been even more goals this week, with an astonishing number of good efforts clattering the woodwork or whistling just wide.  Diaz, Gordon, Strand Larsen, Delap, Calvert-Lewin, and perhaps especially Marcus Tavernier - and their owners - can feel particularly hard done-by.

The disruption caused by the international break (luckily not too many injuries; but a certain amount of fatigue for several players - and a loss of momentum inevitable from having a two-week break from club training), compounded by it coming this time directly before the first main round of games in the European competitions, led to a few unexpected team selections, and a lot or early withdrawals. Pep Guardiola and Eddie Howe made double tactical switches at half-time; while Slot and a few others swapped out players just shy of the hour mark, robbing some FPL managers of precious extra points for a 'full appearance'. One of the most bizarre points quirks of the weekend was that Luis Diaz, withdrawn from play at the same time as Diogo Jota, wound up with 3 points to Jota's 1 just because he walked off the pitch slightly more slowly - a difference of 10 seconds or so in stepping over the touchline to complete the substitution resulted in three times as many points. [Mr Slot seems to have a penchant for making his first substitutions around 58 or 59 minutes; this might become a reason to avoid having too many Liverpool players....]

And we had a few unexpected results, with Liverpool in particular turning in a pretty dreadful performance; but Chelsea, Newcastle, Spurs and Brighton were also well below their best.

Looking at the 'Team of the Week', again it's one where few people will have had more than half of these players. Indeed, outside of the forward line (Haaland, Watkins, and Mateta are clearly three of the best four or five strikers available this season), and Gabriel... and maybe Dalot at the back, most of this eleven are extremely low-owned.

So, even though there wasn't much bad refereeing to mess up the points returns this week (thank heavens), there were rather a lot of exceptional events that have quite a distorting effect on FPL outcomes: outstanding goals, outstanding saves, amazing near-misses, early substitutions, missed penalties, etc., etc.  Perhaps only a 4 or 5 out of 10 on the Luck-o-Meter... rather than at least 8 for each of the opening three gameweeks. At least that's some sort of progress....

GW4 - what did we learn?

Although, as I remarked a couple of weeks back, Rashford is showing signs of recovering some of his mojo once more (though not yet anywhere near the electrifying form he discovered in the second half of the 2022-23 season), Manchester United are still not looking very convincing. Their defence is slowly starting to look a bit more solid; Onana's in fine form; and their two attaking full-backs might start to produce occasionally. But the midfield is still a gaping void (can Ugarte 'fix' that? I have my doubts); and Ten Hag obviously doesn't know who his best attacking line-up is (a dilemma that's only going to become more complicated with Hojlund's imminent return from injury).... although it does seem strange that Garnacho can ever be the one omitted. Southampton were much more promising in this game; in fact, they were completely on top for the first twenty minutes or so, and, if Archer had managed to put that penalty away, they probably could have gone on to win the match. But they're still looking abysmal in defence; but for a string of fine saves by Ramsdale, they might eventually have gone down by a landslide, even to this lacklustre United side.

Ipswich are, for me, still looking much the most compact and dangerous of the promoted sides, and were good enough to knock thus-far buoyant - but also massively overrated - Brighton out of their stride. They needed Muric to pull off a string of excellent saves to keep them in the game, but had their own moments too (notably Delap smashing a shot against the post), and looked more and more comfortable as time went on. Hurzeler is doing a fantastic job with the rather thin resources at his disposal this season - but I think the wheels are going to fall off Brighton's bright start very soon.

Palace are slowly settling down again, after the transfer window upheavals. Their inability to keep clean sheets is a big concern to the substantial number of FPL managers who went for Munoz (or Mitchell or Guehi) in their squads; but I think Glasner will be able to get them playing better soon; and Henderson still looks the best 4.5 keeper, for me, although he didn't have his best game here. It's reassuring to see Mateta find his scoring boots again; and Eddie Nketiah also had a very lively start for his new club (and it's exciting to see that Glasner thinks he can play at the same time as Mateta, in a wider role; there must have been some concerns that Eddie might only be a back-up choice as centre-forward, or would, at best, get stuck in a regular rotation with Mateta). Jamie Vardy is looking unreasonaby lively for a 37-year-old, and is likely to become an even more popular third striker pick after this performance.

The Fulham v West Ham match was a rather drab affair, with little to enjoy or get excited about, apart from an excellent pair of assists from Smith Rowe and Bowen. Many FPL managers are no doubt disconsolate that the young Brazilian Muniz was taking too long to rediscover his scoring touch, and appears to have now lost his start to Raul Jimenez (though Jimenez himself has struggled for fitness or consistency over the last few years, so that narrative might change again very quickly). I remain sceptical about the 'sheep' enthusiasm for Adama Traore that was quickly building after his goal in GW3; I really don't see him being good enough to keep his start in this side. And I continue to be concerned about how much West Ham are struggling to find any rhythm under Lopategui; they look to have more than enough great players to mount a decent challenge for the European places - but it's not happening yet.

Liverpool's wobble this weekend didn't come as any surprise to me; I've been saying all season that the sharpness of their front three seems to me to have been masking some basic weaknesses with the structure and personnel in the middle; that starting midfield three just haven't looked all that convincing. And this week, the 'trident' had a bit of an off day too. No reason for alarm bells just yet; but I think Slot's still got quite a bit to do before this side can be consistently dominating enough to challenge City for the title. Forest were somehow transformed here; but the BBC highlights were too brief for me to work out quite why - was it the impact of Ward-Prowse's introduction (seems unlikely; I barely noticed him on the ball), or of Moreno's at left-back (he seemed to make a much more substantial contributiion)? Or was it just Hudson-Odoi and Elanga finally 'clicking' again, rediscovering their synergy from the end of last season, after a rather lacklustre first few games from the pair of them? I still think Forest lack the quality to stay up; but it's starting to look as if Nuno will at least get them to put up a good fight.

Dear, oh dear, there is no stopping Erling Haaland at the moment, is there? This was probably his best performance of the season so far, and he really was a bit unlucky not to claim a history-making third successive hattrick. It really is feeling very difficult to go without him in FPL while he's playing this well; but all strikers are streaky - and this super-hot form of his might evaporate at any moment (probably the moment I bring him in....)  I wouldn't worry too much yet about the tactical early withdrawal of Rico Lewis; switching him back to the left side was probably a mistake by Pep - but Lewis's FPL owners might take comfort from the fact that this might seem to indicate that Pep now prefers him to both Walker and Gvardiol (Walker was surely only getting a token start to keep him match-fit for possible use in the Champions League). The return of Rodri is a great relief to City fans - and a source of despair for just about everyone else. Brentford put up a spirited fight (they often seem to raise their game against the top teams), and were really on top enough in the early phase of the game to have got themselves a dangerous lead. After next week's also potentially tough away game at Spurs, I think it will be time to consider getting in one or two of their players.

The FPL Sheep are, of course, getting wildly over-excited about Dominic Calvert-Lewin's apparent rediscovery of his 'magic boots' (or forehead...). He is indeed suddenly looking very sharp again, almost back to his best of three or four years ago; but.... it should be noted that he also botched a golden chance for a third goal, which would probably have put the result beyond doubt for Everton. There also seems to be an upsurge of interest in Michael Keane, which is even more misguided, since Everton keep bizarrely blowing comfortable leads in the closing stages of the game... and he surely won't keep his start once Branthwaite is fit again, anyway. It is encouraging for Everton fans that the team has started to become a dangerous attacking side again; but if that has been at the cost of them becoming woefully leaky at the back, they'll still be deep in relegation trouble for most of the season. I wouldn't consder going in for any of their players until things settle down for them a bit; and if I did, only McNeil or Branthwaite might be worth a punt, I think.

It is, of course, very reassuring for the 24% of FPL managers who own Ollie Watkins that he's finally got amongst the goals again. But that should never really have been in doubt: he hasn't been playing badly so far, just hasn't had many chances fall to him. He is now looking very, very sharp; and, as the team behind him improves, I expect him to probably finish out on his own as the second highest scorer in the league this season. And if Jhon Duran keeps up these super-sub performances, he's going to become more and more popular as a third striker pick in FPL. Morgan Rogers, though, has probably exhausted the patience of those who took a punt on him as a cheap fifth midfielder at the start of the season; he has demonstrated (yet again) the sad truth that some players can play extremely well without ever producing any FPL points.

Bournemouth did well to contain Chelsea, who, while not quite 'on it' after the international break, nevertheless still made a lot of good chances. Nicolas Jackson didn't play at all badly; and I don't think one goal from Nkunku, however well taken, is going to boost him to being a preferred starter at No. 9 (though that's what a lot of the sheep are thinking). I'm far more excited about the possible contributions of Jadon Sancho. We all know how good he can be when he's happy with his environment; if Maresca trusts him with a regular start - on the left or the right - I think he might emerge as one of the great value picks of this season; though, at this stage, that's still a mighty big 'IF'. (And it was utterly bizarre that Anthony Taylor ended up showing a record-breaking 14 yellow cards in a game that wasn't unduly physical, let alone 'niggly'!!)

Arsenal had to ride their luck once more, not looking terribly convincing again (though, of course, this week they can blame the absence of their two midfield lynchpins, Odegaard and Rice), and needing a header from a corner to nick the 3 points; but grinding out the wins even when you're not playing that well is the mark of a strong title-chasing side. Arteta paid Postecoglou the compliment of adopting an extremely defensive approach, allowing Spurs fully two-thirds of the posession - confident that they wouldn't be able to do anything with it. And we are starting to see why Timber now seems to be the nailed choice at left-back: he's strong, combative, good on the ball, really doing a job for them. (Although I still feel that Calafiori has a more elegant and diverse game, certainly better at carrying the ball forward. And it will be very unfortunate if he ends up spending the whole season on the bench. Ditto Kiwior, who filled in so well in that position last season; and Tomiyasu, who looks outstanding every time he gets a game. I worry that Arteta's reluctance to give major game-time to any of his back-up players is weakening his squad; there was a mass exodus of young talent this summer - and they struggled to find anyone willing to come in as replacements.)  [I can't resist throwing in a brief reminder that, in a controversial pre-season post on here, I pointed out that Gabriel should probably be preferred to Saliba as a defensive pick from Arsenal because he is significantly more likely to pick up the occasional goal from set pieces...]

Spurs really weren't that good either, and failed to build on a lively start; Maddison, their crucial playmaker, new arrival Solanke, and goalscoring talisman Son, all looked well below their best. And I am increasingly worried about Romero's body-language: he is, to my mind, projecting an awful lot of can't-be-arsed in the last couple of games (I wonder if there's been a falling-out with Ange behind the scenes?).

Newcastle looked to be suffering from some tired legs after the international break, and their back-four still hasn't settled down; but they are slowly starting to look more composed; and at least they eventually managed a win here, away from home - which was something they struggled to achieve last year. Howe's half-time substitutions proved inspired (although, with Harvey Barnes in such hot goalscoring form, you have to wonder why he isn't a regular starter yet); and the restoration of Sandro Tonali after his long gambling ban may strengthen up their options in midfield. Wolves probably feel a bit hard done-by in this one, though; it was their best performance of the season, and they really should have been able to hang on to the 3 points. I remain confident that Gary O'Neill can turn things around for them eventually; but unfortunately, they still have 5 or 6 really tough fixtures to get through, before that is likely to be possible.

A little bit of Zen (7)

 

"Hindsight is not an argument."

GW

One of the most tiresome things you encounter on the FPL forums (and there are a lot...) is people who gloat about the results of ONE GAMEWEEK and purport that they disprove a point you've made in favour of or against a certain player or team. Of course, one result never proves anything: most of the time, we're attempting to make general predictions about the likeliest outcomes over a long run of games, or even over the whole of the remainder of the season... not just for the coming weekend.

But even if we are making a prediction for the short-term, one that might be interpreted as applying solely or mainly to the upcoming gameweek,.... being 'wrong' still indicates nothing about the validity of the point made.

Everybody is going to be 'wrong' in their predictions most of the time; it's impossible to foresee future outcomes - particularly in a sport with so many 'moving parts', and so much sheer randomness, as football. 

What matters is having the courage to attempt a prediction, and the insight to produce a persuasive rationale for it. What susbequently happens is in the hands of Fate - it really has no bearing on whether you made a good point or not.

Attempts to predict outcomes before they happen can be valuable to consider, even when they don't turn out to be correct. Crowing arguments that "I knew that was going to happen...." are worthless.   [a)  You didn't know in advance, you couldn't possibly have done.  b)  Even if that was your - as it happens, lucky - guess, you gave no reason for it.]

Jackasses like this undermine my faith in Humanity sometimes....

Timing of transfers

 

It's one of the perennial controversies in FPL-land: should you make transfers early, to dodge possible price changes, or make them late, to avoid risk of a new signing immediately getting injured before he plays a game for you?

I veer very decidedly towards the former view. Price changes are indeed worth avoiding; but unlike injuries, they're fairly readily predictable (and also rather more common).

If the risk of an imminent price-rise on the player you covet (and/or of a fall on the one you're looking to offload) is not an issue, then, yes, of course you wait until shortly before the deadline, to be on the safe side. But the danger is not that the player you bring in will immediately get injured in training before he even plays for you (yes, that has happened to me; but not often - and I'm extremely unlucky; that kind of misfortune is super-rare); it's that another member of your squad may get injured, whose replacement becomes a higher priority. (But hey, that's what 'hits' are for.)

If, however, your desired change is price-sensitive, and a price change seems likely, then you should move fast to secure the deal.

Similarly, you have to avoid losing squad value on injured players. (Although FPL allegedly tweaks its algorithm to slow down the rate of price decrease on injured players, they do still drop value - often quite fast.) When I see a player of mine get badly injured in a game, I usually transfer him out immediately (before I forget!); I mean, really, while the match is still in progress.

The risk of injury during a single week - such that it could impact on a new transfer - is greatly overrated by most people. Curiously, even the European competitions (where you'd think that the additional stresses of air travel, and unfamiliar playing times, and often drastic changes of climate might add significantly to the injury risk) seem to produce a far lower rate of injuries than our own Premier League. And in international matches (which, even when 'competitive', are often against relatively weak opposition, and always far less intense than domestic league games; moreover, the training for them is also far less intense, and top players tend to get limited minutes), it's fairly negligible. 

Actually, in my experience, injuries in domestic training are far more common than in any matches outside the Premier League programme. So, I never have major worries about transferring in a player ahead of an international or a European game. (I'll avoid it if I can, but it's nothing to get your knickers in a knot over.)

Just as I said about the Wildcard last week, the mantra should be: Make your transfers as late as you can, but as early as you need to.

The recent internationals - what did we learn?

 

As I just mentioned, international football is such a different creature to the domestic game - players are adapting to new teammates, new coaches, new styles of play; and, most of the time, the games are far less competitive, and played with far lower intensity than the typical EPL game - that it doesn't provide much of a clue as to players' form or confidence. A player who has a blinder for his country might well go back to misfiring for his club... and vice versa.

Also, I've been travelling for the last 10 days, so haven't found the time to watch any of the international games yet.... and I might not. It's not a high priority for me at the moment. Sorry.

I would be interested to hear if anyone has an argument to make that this or that player has made a case for inclusion in our FPL sides (or for being dropped!) on the basis of their international performance this past week. But I get the impression that the majority of FPL enthusiasts share my tepid engagement; there seem to have been almost no comments on the forums I usually follow about player performances for their countries.

Soon enough, we'll have another round of actual Premier League games to fret over the implicaions of....

Dilemmas of the Week - GW4

 

Every week, we need to take a long hard look at our squad, and ask ourselves if we want to make any changes....

If we do see a pressing case for a change here or there, we then need to weigh that against the possible advantage of saving our transfer - 'rolling' it over to use in a future week. This option achieves greater tactical complexity this season with the new rule that allows us to save up as many as 5 Free Transfers to use at one time. If we ever manage to do that, it would in effect be a 'mini Wildcard', enabling us to conduct a major squad overhaul in one fell swoop (particularly useful as there are a handful of 'premium' players who cost so much more than everyone else that you can't conveniently move them in and out of your squad without making multiple other changes as well).

Then, of course, occasionally multiple changes may seem so inescapable that we have to consider whether it's worth spending points on 1 or 2 extra transfers (a tactic which obviously deserves a whole post of its own one day; I'll be getting to that soon, I think). And a lot of people are now considering unleashing their first Wildcard for a major overhaul.... 

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 4?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Amazingly enough, NO: Odegaard and Calafiori seem to be the only casualties from international duty - but not too serious (and Calafiori hasn't been starting at Arsenal anyway). Ooh, later reports on Odegaard sounded a bit worse, though: might be out for a few weeks at least? Given how thin Arsenal's cover is in midfield, that could be really bad news for them.  Ake suffered a serious thigh-muscle injury in the Germany game on Tuesday night; unfortunate for him, but unlikely to have huge impact in FPL, since he's obviously fallen behind Gvardiol in the pecking-order at 'left-back' for Pep, and has almost always been well behind Dias, Akanji, and Stones (and Gvardiol) in the running for starts as a central defender.

The injuries with Palmer and Watkins (and Elliott and Wharton in the under-21s) and a few others sound like they're the kind of phantom problem that clubs conjure up to get their boys out of pointless internationals; if there was any substance to these problems, it was probably only minor, and should have been shaken off with two weeks' rest. (Again, later reports revealed Elliott had a more serious problem - fractured metatarsal? - likely to keep him out for several weeks. Not that he was getting starts anyway, so probably not that relevant to FPL managers.)

Areola, of course, went off at half-time in the City game the other week, having apparently jarred his back on landing in pulling off that miracle save from DeBruyne; but there seems to be no further problem with him now, so he will presumably reclaim his starting spot at once (a blow for 15% of FPL managers who thought their random non-playing back-up keeper choice of Fabianski might suddenly be about to start producing points for them, and maybe even get a bump-up in price as a result).

Milner, Veltman, and Wieffer are minor doubts at Brighton - but presumably nobody would have picked any of them anyway??

I had thought Ait-Nouri was the only current injury doubt (again, seemingly not major) who might be quite high-owned; but it seems only about 2.5% of managers held him.

And Hojlund might be close to a return at United - what might that mean for Zirkzee, or Rashford? (And does anyone really care?? United are so woeful at the moment, surely even their most diehard fans aren't selecting any of their players for FPL?!)

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

Calafiori, mysteriously overlooked by Arteta; Martinelli, also suddenly out of favour with the boss somehow - and facing increased competition for a start from Trossard and Sterling.

Rice, of course, is suspended for this week, after his unlucky sending-off. You wouldn't want to replace him for a one-match absence, though. Of greater importance is the likely shake-up in the team to adapt to this: I would guess that Havertz will drop back into midfield, while Trossard or Sterling start in the middle of the attack. Though I suppose it is also possible that Jorginho could replace Rice, allowing Havertz to remain up-front. (But that, alas, is how thin the Arsenal squad is now; they really don't have much cover anywhere...)

Savinho's omission against West Ham was allegedly down to a minor knee problem only, and he's said to be in contention again for this weekend. But I stand by my initial view that he is probably somewhat below Grealish and Doku in the pecking-order, and will be used in rotation with them.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

This is not in itself a strong reason for dropping anyone, but for the most part it happens with players whose inclusion was a dubious choice in the first place: players who are looking like they might drop in price should be offloaded, if you can afford to use a transfer on that - unless you are really convinced that they will bring value to your squad (if you're right, their price will bounce back eventually!).

This tends to happen with players who are 'over-owned' at the start of the season, players around whom exaggerated expectations developed, and who produced a kind of mass hysteria among the 'sheep' of the FPL community - those whose first instinct is to go with what 'everybody else' seems to be doing. When those exaggerated expectations are disappointed, there can be an equally sudden - and irrational - mass movement away from a player again, sometimes resulting in a steep drop in price.

Curiously, Gvardiol, Porro, and Saliba seem to be most at risk of such a price-drop at the moment; they haven't been playing at all badly, but.... their owners wanted more from them, unreasonably more! (I never like to say 'I told you so...', but on this occasion, I did.)

Usually, strikers are much more vulnerable to these sudden shifts in ownership, as FPL managers can be very impatient with any lull in goal-scoring (despite the fact that even the great Erling blanks at least 1 game in 3; and 2 games in 3 is more typical for regular mortals...): Solanke, Watkins, and even Isak (who scored last time out!) are suffering such an unreasonable sell-off at the moment; also Jota, Saka, and Palmer (which just defies belief - WTF???). I'm surprised not to find Son higher up that 'most sold' list!!

And I think I'm not alone in feeling that Manchester United are such a mess at the moment, that you should really consider getting rid of any of their players you own.... until they turn a corner (which, I think, won't be until after Ten Hag is replaced... which is unlikely to be until the New Year).

Are there any new transfers or loans who are immediately tempting?

I can't see anyone getting that excited about Sterling going to Arsenal: we're rarely going to see him before the 70th minute I would imagine. Sancho's move to Chelsea is much more intriguing (he knows Palmer from his youth team days with City, so there's reason to hope that they could swiftly strike up a productive rapport - if he gets regular starts): one to watch, rather than one to pile in for speculatively now, I would say.

Ugarte, while he could help to revitalize United's fortunes as a ball-winning midfielder whose quick recovery tackles could reduce their vulnerability to counter-attacks (he's about as terrible as Casemiro at playing through the press, though, so... I wouldn't get too optimistic about his transformative powers), is not really the type of player anyone wants for FPL: quite good bonus point potential, perhaps, but extremely unlikely to provide any sort of attacking returns.

The most interesting late transfer action was among the goalkeepers, with Arrizabalaga moving to Bournemouth, Johnstone to Wolves, and Ramsdale to Southampton - and that is the order I would consider them in. Keepers can get very useful points from saves alone, even if they hardly ever manage a clean sheet; but ideally, you want a bit of a balance between the two: a fairly decent defence who will pick up 6-8 clean sheets over the season, but also expose their keeper often enough to allow him to rack up plenty of saves. Wolves are all over the place at the moment, but are a basically decent side with a shrewd manager - so I expect them to recover more defensive solidity soon. Southampton, even with a keeper upgrade, are bound straight back to the Championship - and might well not keep a single clean sheet all season. Bournemouth are good enough to challenge for the top third, and have a modestly robust defence. I'm still fairly happy with my original keeper choices - but if I were going to make a change, I'd go for Kepa (how can you resist the nominative determinism?); although I'd wait a while to see how he beds in at his new club - and they do have a pretty rocky run of fixtures until GW11.

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

I haven't found time yet to watch much of the internationals. But they don't really count for that much, as a rule, since playing in different tactical systems alongside different teammates will mean that there's little comparability between club and country performances. A good haul - or one particularly good goal - from a striker can be a valuable boost to confidence, especially if they've been struggling a bit for goals in their domestic football. But other than that, international games are of little relevance.

In the last Gameweek, only Diaz and Mbeumo really stood out as players in very impressive form, who would be worth considering (if you hadn't had them from the start of the season!). But there are lots of other tempting picks from Liverpool (Salah is looking essential; Jota has also been in good form; and they're keeping things so tight defensively that many people are coveting at least one of their defenders... so, it's perhaps a bit tricky to shoehorn Lucho in); and it's not an opportune time to bring Mbeumo in, when Brentford are now facing two daunting away fixtures. Lallana caught my eye too; but he's unlikely to achieve much with Southampton.

The sheep seem to be getting very excited about Minteh, and Joao Pedro, and Mitoma, and Welbeck, and Dunk... that's enough reason to steer clear of any of them. That, and the fixtures Brighton face from GW6 through GW11.

Much sheep love also for Semenyo, Mazraoui, and Amadou Onana - only the first of those would I give any thought to.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

Sheep Picks (3)

 

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think.

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are dangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin has seen his ownership more than double, rocketing above 400,000, since his goal against Bournemouth. Now, he did look quite sharp all around in that game. And Everton, inspired by Dwight McNeil in a more central creative role, are looking much more dangerous going forward this year. But... DC-L has had an appalling injury record over the last three years. And he's completely lost his way as a goalscorer, massively under-performing his xG figures. He really seemed to benefit from the mentorship of Duncan Ferguson, and since the big Scot left the club in 2022, his form and confidence have tanked. While it is occasionally possible to form a reliable long-term judgement about someone from one game (with Cole Palmer last season, it took me just a few minutes!), that's not the general rule; you really need to see evidence of a consistent shift in form emerging over two or three games; and I doubt if we'll get that from Dominic.

Even if we do, it would be crazy to take a risk on a player with such a reputation for being injury-prone, under-performing for long periods, and suffering crashes in confidence and 'mental health' problems. Particularly when there are so many other promising forward options this year costing 6.0 million or less. Piling in for Calvert-Lewin on the basis of one goal - or even two or three or four - is absolutely NUTS.

'Dead men' earn NO POINTS; and they LOSE VALUE

Following on from last week's explanation of why the Bench is so important, I thought I'd better add a further point on the folly of leaving holes on the Bench.

Having non-starters - or players performing so weakly that you can't rely on them even to come out of a match with their bare minimum 2 'appearance points' intact (so many people try to save money by going for a defender from a promoted side: that is almost always a Trail of Tears....) - in the squad is effectively leaving A GAP on your Bench. And a gap on the Bench, as I discussed in that earlier post, can all too easily translate into a gap in your starting eleven. 

Sooner or later - probably quite soon! - an empty seat on the Bench is going to cost you points.

Moreover, a player who's out for an extended spell with an injury, or otherwise appears to have lost a regular start at his club, or is just returning really dismal points.... will get rapidly sold off by FPL managers who are paying attention. If you are slow to do likewise, or somehow fail to do so at all, you will bleed squad value, as that player's price plummets.

If you see a player pick up a bad injury, you need to sell them straight away. Any player who's not starting regularly or not returning well - needs to be sold promptly. You cannot afford to carry dead weight on your Bench - EVER.

Emptiness

 

An international break so early in the season?? It doesn't seem right, does it?

Just as we were starting to get back into the swing of the FPL season, all the comforting little weekly rituals of checking for last-minute team news and so on... suddenly snatched away from us! It is easy to feel bereft, resentful.

But we should EMBRACE THE VOID.  Having a bit of time off to clear our minds, to attend to other things a while... should be good for our mental health generally, and for our selection perspicacity when we return to the fray in another week. Enjoy the silence....

A little bit of Zen (6)

"Am I eccentric - or am I just wearing a funny hat?"

Tom Waits

Sheep Picks (2)

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think.

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are dangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

This week's nomination, of course, is Chelsea's Noni Madueke.

Yes, he's getting a start on the right side of the attack - which wasn't necessarily expected. And he's played very well in these opening two games. And he just scored a stunning hattrick! That, naturally, is the reason why The Sheep are getting so over-excited about him. Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but he's NOT going to get a hattrick every week. Heck, he's not even going to score every week. He might not even score every month...

It should be noted that this hattrick was against Wolves, who currently have one of the ricketiest defences in the League. And that they were all set up for him particularly sweetly by Cole Palmer (who was obviously the real 'Man of the Match', whatever FPL's bizarre 'Bonus Points System' pretends!). Not even Palmer plays that well every game; and most of the time, he'll be looking to set up Jackson rather than one of the wingers. So, this was almost certainly a one-off; there's no reason to suppose that Madueke is particularly likely to bag another double-digit haul all season. And that's if he even keeps his start - which, with Neto and Sancho competing for the place, is very much in doubt. (Whether Maresca will invariably start with two wide attackers is also open to question. For some games, he could well want a narrower front line. And if he feels like introducing Nkunku in a more central No. 10 slot, Palmer would be forced out wider on the right, replacing Madueke.)

Moreover, Madueke is priced at 6.5 million. While that's not expensive, it's also not cheap. There are this year a bunch of starters at 5.5 million who look even more promising.

Madueke is a very good player, and has the potential to be one of the season's surprise breakthrough stars. But that one hattrick was not enough to convince any sensible observer that this breakthrough is already starting to happen. There are still too many doubts about Madueke's hold on the starting place, or his likely regular productiveness even if he does become an automatic first choice, to justify an ownership of 100,000 - let alone over 1 million (most of those having piled in for him in the last week!).

When to use the 1st Wildcard

 

A lot of self-important twerps in the FPL online forums like to pontificate that there are rigid rules for this - that you cannot possibly use your first Wildcard before 'the first big turn in the fixtures' (whenever they deem that to be...), or not before some arbitrary, distant date like... Gameweek 15.

That's all nonsense, of course.

The answer is, you play it when you need to.

Certainly, it's nice to be able to hang on to it as long as possible. 

In an ideal world, I like to keep mine right up until the GW19 cutoff for using it (unless it's a year when we have the midwinter Asian and African Cups to worry about, in which case it can be handy to drop it a bit earlier, to swap out the players departing for those tournaments). We tend to get a lot of injuries during the winter fixture logjam, and the second half of the season (as the fixtures reset) does tend to form a fairly distinct new phase of action; so, there are good reasons for fancying a major rebuild around then.

And there shouldn't be any reason to want to do so any earlier than that - unless things have gone badly wrong.

But, alas, in FPL things very commonly do go very badly wrong.

Indeed, that is most likely to happen right at the start of the season! We're all largely betting blind as we go into Gameweek 1. We don't really know which players or teams are going to be in form; and there are usually some big surprises in store for us. Our initial squad is nothing but a collection of hopeful guesses; and many of those guesses will turn out to be wrong. Sometimes, nearly all of them will! Moreover, injuries early in the season tend to be extremely common - as players push themselves just a little bit too hard when not yet quite fully match-fit; when things really go badly for you, you can easily lose 4 or 5 players to early injuries in the first few weeks of the season.

If that happens, it's perfectly reasonable to go with a Wildcard very early in the season - to rectify those unfortunate wrong guesses and/or strokes of cruel fortune.

If you've had a disastrous opening to the season, you should probably try to hang tough for a few weeks, to see how everyone's form develops; Gameweek 1 isn't always a reliable guide to how things are going to go. Indeed, many of the top clubs have a bit of a habit of being slow out of the blocks, and may only start to show their true capability after four or five weeks, or more. So, it's worth hanging on a bit, to assess the situation. Gameweek 5 is still pretty early to play a Wildcard; but I can see that really exteme circumstances might sometimes seem to warrant using it in Gameweek 4 or Gameweek 3.....

My basic rule-of-thumb is: If the number of changes you desperately want to make (injured already, transferred out of the league, unexpectedly not starting, or just in really poor form) MINUS the number of Free Transfers you have available is MORE THAN 5, then it's legitimate to resort to the Wildcard.

A Wildcard is typically used to make at least 6 or 7 or 8 transfers. It is a bit of a waste to use one for any less than that.

If the number produced by my formula is only 4 or 5, probably not all of those changes are absolutely essential (probably 1 or 2 of those unwanted players are at least starting - and might yet rediscover their scoring boots), and you could take a chance on leaving your bench empty for a week or two. You could even consider taking a few 'hits' - spending points for additional transfers. But in all probability, you can just be patient, and make the desired changes with Free Transfers over the next few weeks. Even if your surplus of needed changes over available transfers is 6 or 7, it might still be a marginal call whether the Wildcard is the best option; don't use it rashly.

In a nutshell, you drop your first Wildcard as late as you can,... but as early as you need to.

Oops - he did it AGAIN!

 

I joked last week that we might already have seen 'peak Haaland' for this season - at least in terms of his points-per-game average.  And then the bugger goes and gets another hattrick!!

Now, it would be absolutely astonishing if he managed to register THREE hattricks in successive weeks. (I don't think that's ever been done in the Premier League? And probably not in top flight football anywhere in the world, ever in history? But dammit, he is a record-smashing machine... Maybe it could happen??)  And, statistically, it does seem rather improbable that he'll even pick up a brace again for another month or so now....

But he is in exceptional form: probably the sharpest and most confident we've ever seen him. And that is utterly terrifying!

And it is prompting many people to revisit The Big Question I considered before the start of the season, whether a with-Haaland or without-Haaland squad was likely to be the best option for FPL this year.

I think that question is more open than we might have expected - an early switch of strategy more tempting - not just because of Haaland's exceptional start to the season, but because of the impressiveness of our options at the lower end of the price scale. No, we don't have any 4.0 starting keepers (like Areola last year) or unexpectedly starting and oustandingly good cheap defenders (like Gusto and Van Hecke); and we don't have a 'Player of the Season' available for only 5.0 (Palmer was a once-in-a-decade-or-two FPL miracle!!). But we do suddenly have Arrizabalaga, Johnstone, Verbruggen, and Ramsdale added to the pool of very decent keeper options at only 4.5 (I'd probably stick with Areola and Henderson as the strongest two at the moment; but Hermansen, Sels, and Muric could also emerge as tempting, more left-field picks); there's even a chance that 4.0 Fabianski might get a few starts, after Areola apparently hurt himself with a bad landing in the City game this weekend. Up front, we've got Wood, Wissa, Welbeck, Joao Pedro, Delap, Vardy, Calvert-Lewin, Duran and Strand-Larsen among the leading scorers so far - all priced between 5.0 and 6.0 million. And - outside of the inevitable Liverpool and Arsenal (and the slightly less inevitable Spurs!) back lines - all the top 15 highest-scoring defenders started the season at only 4.5 million. In particular, Rico Lewis getting a regular start at City (for now) is a huge bonus. And, to fill out the last couple of seats on the bench, there are even some OK defenders starting who cost only 4.0 million: Nedeljković, Faes, Harwood-Bellis.

Above all, there are some very strong-looking cheaper midfield options; and that is the area of the field where most of your points are usually produced. A With-Haaland squad would not be viable, I don't think, unless we could assemble a full roster of 5 strong attacking midfielders with the remains of our budget. But we have the likes of Smith Rowe, Semenyo, Iwobi, Rogers, Murphy, Wharton, Hudson-Odoi, Adingra, Minteh, Diallo, Kluivert, Tavernier, Sinisterra all looking like more-than-decent prospects to take up the last one or two spots in midfield.

It is looking perfectly possible to assemble a Haaland-Salah-Palmer squad that includes at least one other premium player, and doesn't go ridiculously light in any area of the pitch (NO non-playing bench!!). You only get into trouble, I think, if you rashly opt for Raya or Alisson in goal, and/or one or two of the more premium defenders. With Arsenal and Liverpool looking so solid, it is very likely that players from their defences will substantially out-perform almost all others, but.... will they do so by enough of a margin to justify the huge extra outlay?? That remains doubtful: the spread of points across the best keepers is usually fairly small; the spread across defenders - except for a few outliers sometimes - not much greater. Extra money spent almost always yields more points in midfield.

I can see why so many people are getting tempted to go for an early use of the Wildcard this week (I will probably have more to say on that before long): many of those who initially opted to go without Haaland - perhaps the majority - have had a change of heart. (It's probably safe to assume that almost no-one is moving the other way, and dropping him!)  I hope that's not just short-term reactionism, getting spooked by his two hattricks (you've already missed those: let it go....).  If you're going to make this momentous switch (as I think I will myself), it needs to be because you've carefully considered the overall budget constraints and the available player pool. At the start of the season, we didn't know how many of these cheaper options would be starting, or how good their prospects might be; now that is becoming more apparent, we have a better picture of what a strong With-Haaland squad could be.

Luck-o-Meter (3)

 

I am really trying to persuade myself that the overall standard of refereeing is getting better, little by little, every week.

And yet... still it seems that almost every week we're going to see at least half a dozen dubious - or just outright daft, bad, outrageous - decisions: disallowed goals, penalties and sendings-off given and not given... which can completely flip the course of matches.

And that is an absolutely staggering number: it probably means that poor refereeing is, in most weeks, having the largest single impact on FPL points outcomes (as well as, you know, possibly distorting the Premier League title race) - far more than quirks of team selection, unexpected swings in team form, or outstanding pieces of individual brilliance. This should not be happening. Sigh.

This week, the bizarre sending-off of Declan Rice was probably the most egregious. (Referees do have some discretion as to how severely they punish a 'kicking the ball away' kind of offence, particularly when it would be a second yellow. And you'd think that kind of leniency was mandatory here, since Rice barely moved the ball at all, and it might well have been accidental, or at least unthinking.)  This appalling error of judgement was further compounded by the fact that Veltman, who'd taken a petulant swish at Rice in the same incident, clearly had no excuse for being left on the field - trying to kick an opponent must always be a straight red (even though the contact here was fairly minimal; you can't have any leniency with a deliberate kick). And yet again, we heard nothing from VAR on this?? What is going on with that?

Just to rub salt into Arsenal's sense of grievance, Joao Pedro had been let off a much more serious 'kicking the ball away' offence earlier in the game. Even omitted yellow cards can have a major impact on game outcomes, especially this early on: Pedro would have been at risk of expulsion himself for most of the game, and his contribution would likely have been more muted as a result (he would probably have been withdrawn much earlier, and wouldn't have been around to score the equaliser). 

Saka probably should have had a penalty early in the game as well, when hauled to the ground by his shirt on the edge of the box (we can see the argument that the offence 'started' outside the box, but it certainly continued long after that, and its decisive element - for me - clearly happened when Saka was at least directly above, if not well inside the line of the side of the box). And they definitely should have had one for the Dunk handball - which should be a 'strict liability' offence when you stop a goal-bound shot: arguments about presumed intentionality have no relevance (other than to whether the defending player deserves a card for the offence), nor do questions about the position of the arm (unless it's so close to the body that you really can't see if it hit the body as well, or in front of the body, such that the body would also have blocked the shot - neither the case here), or whether he had any time to get out of the way; if you stop a goal with your arm, even by accident (and I'm pretty sure that was at least half-deliberate...), it's a penalty. Arsenal should have won that game far more comfortably, and probably kept a clean sheet as well - a HUGE turnaround for FPL and EPL. (I'm usually annoyed by Arteta's whingeing - but he's absolutely got a point this time.)

It is also unfathomable that Palace's Will Hughes didn't receive a second yellow for blatantly holding back Palmer on a surging run through the middle. Again, that decision probably robbed Chelsea of a win.

Leicester, too, absolutely should have had a penalty, when Tielemans flattened Vardy from behind on the edge of the box late on. He got something of the ball, yes; but that is never an absolute defence - he got all of the man.

Wolves might also consider themselves a bit unlucky that they didn't nick the win with a late penalty after Wood had clumsily tangled with Dawson in the Forest penalty area. That one was much more of a 50/50 (and they wouldn't have deserved the win) - but at least it was a decent shout.

Haaland owners must again consider themselves slightly lucky. A hattrick in successive weeks is a very rare feat, even for such a remarkable player as him; and really, Ipswich and West Ham do not appear the most likely victims for such a drubbing. At least his haul this week was entirely deserved, all three brilliant finishes - whereas last week he'd needed a very soft penalty and a horrible goal-keeping error to gift him two of the three.

Another element of the 'luck' equation, though, has to be missed chances; and it should be noted that Haaland actually fluffed his easiest chance in this game; while Mo Salah failed to convert two of his (though not quite such gimmes as Haaland's). DeBruyne, Porro, Isak, and Palmer also battered the woodwork. So many little moments in a game where things might go one way or the other.

And overall, it was a week where outstanding goalkeeping performances prevailed over striking ones - with a remarkable 18 'saves' points being racked up. There were some particularly good stops from Ederson, Alisson, Pope, and a whole string of them from Dean Henderson; but I think the pick of the crop was probably Areola's save from DeBruyne's fierce near-post drive. (Yes, he might have been slightly at fault for inviting DeBruyne's hastily improvised attempt by leaving such a large gap on that side of his goal, but he came flying across to his near post and somehow clawed the ball away from behind him...  It was one of those saves that didn't seem possible.)

However, a keeper being withdrawn at half-time is a very rare occurrence - that was a hard blow for Areola's owners, but an unanticipated windfall for Fabianksi's (especially if the injury proves to be significant, and the Pole now gets promoted for a run of games, rather than just a rather unenviable 45 minutes against Erling Haaland....).

At lleast, the 'usual suspects' all came through pretty well this week: in the 'Team of the Week', probably only Sugawara, Sinisterra, and Calvert-Lewin are very low-owned.

Overall then, I think a LUCK rating for this week would have been fairly high even without any more refereeing cock-ups. But with four contentious penalty decisions and three sending-off incidents, Gameweek 3 was pretty nearly as bad as the phenomenally LUCKY Gameweek 1 - another 9 out of 10, I think.

Let us hope that things settle down after the international break.

GW3 - What did we learn?

Arsenal, while looking quietly dangerous, are still nowhere near as formidable as they were at their strongest, in the third quarter of last season. OK, they were very unlucky to be reduced to 10 men (yet another doubly terrible refereeing decision, with Veltman deserving a red card and not getting one, while Rice was unjustly sent off), and would probably have beaten Brighton comfortably but for that; and I don't see how they didn't get a penalty for Dunk's handball (questions of the position of the arm and presumed 'intentionality' should be irrelevant when you block a goal-bound shot!). But it really wasn't a terribly convincing performance from the Gunners. 

And there are worrying signs at The Emirates, I think: Arteta appearing not to rate his expensive new signing Calafiori (unless it's just a fitness issue; but it had looked like he should sail straight into a regular start at left-back, and that hasn't happened for some reason....), and to have lost confidence in Martinelli. It's also not good that most of their summer transfer initiatives have failed, the only new arrivals being Merino (who's immediately picked up a fairly serious injury in training) and Sterling (who hasn't played much first-team football in the last two years, and doesn't seem like a type of player they urgently need); while they've let go four of their best young back-up players - so, the squad, at the moment, is even thinner than it was last year. I wonder if Sterling's main role will be to come off the bench fairly regularly for 10 or 20 minutes, not so much as an 'impact sub', but just to save Saka's legs (reduced minutes for him might lessen his FPL appeal slightly...). Next week, however, I can see he might possibly start as a 'false 9', to allow Havertz to slot back into midfield to replace the suspended Rice.

Getting a draw away at Arsenal continued Brighton's impressive start under Hurzeler, but... I think they've got some serious structural problems in central midfield, having lost Caicedo, Macallister, Gross, and Gilmour in quick succession (and now Milner, to injury); I don't think Baleba can hold things together on his own. The FPL sheep are getting over-excited about Minteh (who hasn't done much yet; and will surely share minutes with Adingra and Gruda), Welbeck (who has started superbly, but is bound to pick up an injury again soon), and Joao Pedro (who's playing well, but doesn't look likely to produce that many goals). The only one of their players I might fancy is just-back-from-injury Verbruggen in goal - but not until after their horrific run of fixtures from GW6 to GW12 is behind them.

Everton were quite mystifying this weekend: they've suddenly remembered how to score goals, but forgotten how to defend! Dominic Calvert-Lewin looked very sharp and confident; if he's really rediscovered his scoring boots after two or three years in the doldrums, that could be transformative for the team's prospects this year. But they need to start defending much better; and the problem there at the moment really seems to be in midfield rather than defence. Their late collapse against Bournemouth this weekend seemed to be largely the result of fatigue, so perhaps there are some fitness issues too, players' stamina not yet back to 100% after the summer break? But everyone else's in the league is, so that would suggest some deficiencies in the club's training regime.

Bournemouth were.... inexplicably bad for most of the game at Goodison, just not 'at the races' at all. And yet you have to admire their fighting spirit in engineering that last-gasp recovery. And they have a lot of talented attacking players - Semenyo, Ouattara, Kluivert, Tavernier, Sinisterra - which suggests they might not find life too difficult without Solanke. And Kepa is one of the most interesting last-minute transfer deals: I fancy him to give quite a boost to Bournemouth's prospects now... and perhaps to become one of the most productive 4.5-million-pound keepers.

Brentford, apart from the form of Bryan Mbeumo, are not giving much grounds for optimism yet about their season; a comfortable win against Southampton is nothing to write home about. And I'd probably hang fire even on considering the acquisition of Mbeumo, given that they must be favourites to take a couple of drubbings in their next two matches, away to City and Spurs. Heck, even their following home games against West Ham and Wolves might not be easy for them. They look, at the moment, as if they'll struggle to get out of the bottom third.

Southampton's only bright spot, really, is the inventivneness of Adam Lallana. It's a pity they don't seem to have anyone around him who can capitalise on this. They are, unfortunately, already looking like this year's Sheffield United, a team so hopelessly out of their depth that you can safely bet your house now on them going back down at the end of the season.

Leicester, while not as abject as any of last season's promoted sides, are not yet showing signs of having enough creativity to trouble an opponent. The goalkeeper, Hermansen, is their only player who impresses me as a possible FPL prospect. However, they were robbed of a penalty near the end when Tielemans flattened Vardy from behind (if doesn't matter if you 'get a piece of the ball' if you've completely swept an opponent's legs away to achieve that...).

Villa, then, were a little lucky to prevail in that game. They're still not firing on all cylinders - although the form of Rogers, Duran, and Digne is encouraging. FPL managers should not get over-excited about Onana's points prospects: he's a midfielder who scores a goal occasionally, rather than a goalscoring midfielder - bagging 2 goals in 3 games doesn't mean that he'll be bag another 2 this month,... or over the remainder of the season..... Equally, they shouldn't get too disheartened about Watkins: he is playing well, but the team just aren't creating many clearcut chances for him at the moment. But there's little doubt he'll start racking up the goals and assists soon. (I'm sure his early withdrawal, on the hour, was precautionary, after he'd suffered a series of heavy knocks in the game, rather than 'tactical', and shouldn't raise any doubts about his minutes prospects - much less his start - in upcoming games.)

Kieran McKenna - unsurprisingly, I suppose - stuck by his keeper, Muric, despite his absolute horror-show against City last week. I hope that show of confidence will pay off, with the keeper settling down to a solid season (apparently he had a very good season for Burnley in the Championship two years ago). The rest of the Ipswich side is looking, as I'd expected, quite impressive - hard-working and well-organised, much the most likely of the promoted sides to have a chance of going up. And Liam Delap is becoming a tempting 3rd forward pick.

Fulham are still not quite clicking. I think they have enough strength and balance in their squad to be fairly comfortably mid-table, but their season's looking like it might be a bit up-and-down. The young Brazilian striker Muniz hasn't found his goal-touch yet - but I remain hopeful that he soon might. Alas, his large number of FPL owners are probably going to grow impatient with another blank from him and initiate a big sell-off. The other big 'sheep' move here is likely to be a big pile-on for Traore, as people are easily convinced that he has now become a reliable goal-machine. (He has never in his career been a 'reliable' anything; and I really can't see him even being a regular starter.) Smith Rowe, and the full-backs Robinson and Tete, continue to look like their best FPL prospects.

Wolves are still all over the place in defence: Kilman is a huge loss for them. But I trust that Gary O'Neill can sort things out there... eventually. Sam Johnstone is looking an intriguing goalkeeper prospect now that he's got a regular starting place again. He's not likely to keep many clean sheets at Wolves as they are at the moment, but a leaky defence provides the opportunity for lots of 'saves' points - and he produced a couple of really outstanding ones on Saturday.

Forest, apart from the hot goalscoring form of Chris Wood, are not giving much reason for optimism. Even against a very ragged Wolves, they weren't able to generate many chances; and they were actually lucky to get a point, when Wood, defending like a forward, brought Dawson crashing down in the box near the end; it might have been an accidental tangling of limbs, but it looked clumsy.... and we've seen them given so often before.

Haaland has certainly started this season in red-hot form: another hattrick, even after missing a sitter early on!  DeBruyne and Lewis and, of course, Bernardo Silva are also looking very sharp. And City really might have scored a lot more, with DeBruyne bringing one of the saves of the season out of Areola with a fierce drive at the near post, and later crashing one against the woodwork; Grealish too had a couple of good chances, one blocked by a defender, and one fizzed just beyond the far top corner of the goal. However, without Rodri, City do lack some defensive solidity; the pace of Kudus and Bowen often exposed them on the counter-attack And people who went in for Savinho suffered immediate regret: surprise, surprise - the favoured running-order for City wingers at the moment is Grealish, Doku, Savinho! They'll probably all get decent minutes when fit, but it will always be a guessing-game as to which of them will start in any given week; and Savinho will probably get on the pitch slightly less often than the other two.

West Ham are still a bit of an enigma: a definitive new style of play under Lopategui has not yet emerged. While the pace and guile of Kudus gives them a lot of attacking threat, their midfield doesn't seem to have any shape, and they were very sloppy in possession. They're looking like they might be one of those entertaining teams who both score and concede loads - but that won't get them a very high league finish. And they really need to start making use of Fullkrug....  

Areola's injury didn't look too bad; so, I suppose we have to keep our fingers crossed until the end of the international break. If he's out for a while, it would be a very useful windfall for the significant handful of managers who'd gone for Fabianski as a cheap, non-playing back-up keeper (a fair enough pick, since he is much the best of the 4.0 options; perhaps the only back-up keeper in the EPL - well, aside from the more expensive Kelleher and Ortega - who's a worthy starter, and perhaps actually stands a chance of being promoted on form, rather than just injury to the No. 1).

Eze owners are no doubt relieved that he's finally got off the mark. But they shouldn't have been worried: he's been playing well all season, and was desperately unlucky not to have scored in each of the first two games. And there are signs that Palace are finding some confidence and steadiness in possession again - though I still worry if they can adapt to the loss of Andersen. At least Henderson is in good form, producing outstanding saves from Palmer, Madueke, and Jackson to secure a point they probably didn't quite deserve.

I really don't know how Sanchez is still starting in goal. I suppose Maresca must see something in him that I don't. I have been hoping that Jorgensen would be promoted to the first team at any moment - which, with Chelsea's improving form, and soft early run of fixtures, would make him a very tempting keeper option. I suppose, if Sanchez really is nailed for now, he becomes a tempting option for the same reasons. Palmer, of course, is Palmer; he is, I think, the most dependable of all the premium-priced players, and will almost certainly be the best of them in points-per-pound return, even if he can't quite outdo Salah and Haaland for total points.

Newcastle's makeshift defence is still looking very vulnerable, but Spurs are not yet firing properly: lots of possession and pressure didn't really lead to many chances on Sunday - while they, predictably, got cut open far too easily by a quick counter-attack. Romero, I thought, looked alarmingly unconcerned, like he just couldn't be bothered to try to sprint back in situations like that. Maybe he was carrying some kind of an injury, or maybe was just getting badly fatigued late in the game - but it did look more like an attitude problem to me. Solanke still missing, Son and Maddison failing to impose themselves on the game, and Vicario still laughably intimidatable at set pieces - lots of alarm bells for Spurs. Dragusin was probably their best player, and he's not a regular starter. Many more positive signs for Newcastle, with Barnes, Joelinton and Murphy looking very sharp, as well as the always dangerous Isak and Gordon; but they do have a rather challenging run of fixtures coming up.

I am slowly warming to Gravenberch in the Liverpool engine room: he's not the combative Keane/Vieira type I prefer to see in that role, but he's doing a job for them. And Luis Diaz is confirming my view that, when fit, he's always been one of Liverpool's most consistent and dangerous players, as deservedly nailed-on for the left-wing start as Salah is for the right. Some FPL managers are getting so delirious about Liverpool's attacking form, though, that they are taking the 'trident' in its entirety Salah, Diaz, and Jota. That's just NUTS, because it doesn't spread risk (you're screwed if Liverpool suffer a piece of bad luck like an early wonder-goal against them, or a soft penalty award, or a sending-off, and you suddenly have three key players with limited points), and your total return is capped (they are sharing Liverpool's total attacking haul each week; and while that might often be a very big haul, it often won't be, and there is certainly a maximum limit to which it can approach even in its very best weeks: if one of these chaps gets a hattrick, one or both of the others will probably return few points that week; you really want to try to identify a sole primary goal-threat in midfield from as many teams as you can, and get the best 5 of those that you can afford; that should give you more points than taking 3 attacking midfielders from the same side - however good that side is). Also, you know, Liverpool currently have the best defensive record in the league, so you might want to at least leave yourself the option of getting one of their defenders...

Manchester United? The most interesting thing about them at the moment is the betting on when Ten Hag's going to be sacked....  I suppose at least Rashford is finally starting to show some signs of returning form; not much, but some. And I had thought Onana could be a tempting prospect in goal this season; but the way they're playing at the moment, I wouldn't touch any of their players with a bargepole.

You NEED your Bench!

Many FPL managers seem to take the view that the Bench doesn't matter, and - especially early in the season, when they're struggling to make their budget stretch - they may fill it up with super-cheap players who are virtually worthless, Indeed, they may even omit to transfer out players who are dropped or pick up long-term injuries, leaving a bench seat completely empty.

That is a very foolhardy approach to the game.

Here's why your Bench is so important:

1)  It's useful to be able to rotate your back-up goalkeeper with your primary pick, to avoid his tougher fixtures. (And it's useful to have guaranteed back-up, if your primary keeper unexpectaedly doesn't start one week!)

2)  It's also useful to be able to rotate your defenders away from tougher opponents. (Since you're usually only starting 3 defenders, you can get away with having only 1 good back-up on the bench; but it's risky. More choice is more value, more points potential.)

3)  It's useful to be able to drop any player to the bench for a week - and replace him with an at least half-decent altnerative - if they're facing a particularly unpromising fixture; or if they're likely to be rested after a tough European game, or are facing a short-term absence for a minor injury or a ban. Sometimes, indeed, you might want to try to 'carry' a top player on your bench for a slightly longer period (an expected injury absence of a few weeks, or participation in a mid-season international tournament); you're often kind of locked-in to your best players, because they've increased in value so much while you've owned them that you might take a heavy hit from 'transfer tax' if you tried a short-term sell-and-buy-back.

4)  You never know when you may need an 'automatic substitution' to get you out of trouble. Very, very often a top player will go missing right on the eve of the Gameweek, or even during the Gameweek, because of a training injury, illness, family crisis, car crash, spat with his manager, or whatever - and you have no time to adjust. That can happen at any stage of the season, even in the very first gameweek! You need to have decent players on your bench to fill in for any unexpected absences like that. Most seasons, I find I'm drawing on at least one auto-sub every 2 or 3 gameweeks; and needing 2 or 3 in one week is far from unknown! During the winter months, when injuries and rest rotations become even more common, you often need auto-subs every single week.

5)  A strong Bench gives you much more flexibility to negotiate the occasional fixture speed-bump of a Blank Gameweek without needing to resort to paid transfers. (For example, if 5 of your players are involved in the FA Cup Semi-Finals, but you have 3 good back-ups on the bench you can replace some of them with, you only need to use 2 transfers to assemble a full starting 11. If you have any 'holes' on your Bench, your problem in that gameweek is much worse.)

6)  It's good to be continuously 'set up' for the possibility of an opportunistic Bench Boost. It's difficult to get the most out of that chip, and really quite fatuous to try to plan for it too far in advance. Yes, it's nice to have everybody (all 15 squad members!) facing a really favourable fixture, but it's even more important to have all 15 of them fully fit and looking certain to start - that's not something that happens very often, and not something you can plan for more than a few hours ahead of the weekly deadline! Also, relative fixture difficulty can shift very suddenly and unexpectedly, as the form a leading team may crash while a struggling club rediscovers a dangerous bite; and hence a gameweek of fixtures that looked promising early the season may cease to be so, but while another gameweek comes to look much more attractive - at short notice.  

Moreover, if you're hoping to coast by with a shit Bench for most of the season, you have to go to a lot of extra trouble to assemble a quartet of decent starters when you do want to play your Bench Boost.

It takes only a little bit of extra thought and care, and perhaps a paltry extra 1 or 2 million pounds of your budget to recruit a solid Bench - rather than a pants one.

It is always absolutely WORTH IT - even for Gameweek 1!