I HATE the 'Assistant Manager' Chip (EXTENDED version)

When the FPL Facebook page first announced the new chip last week, I was so appalled that I left a comment likening the revelation to.... waking up on Christmas morning to find a turd in your stocking.

I explained briefly the other day why I didn't like the newly announced addition to Fantasy Premier League this year - the 'Assistant Manager' Chip to be made available in the second half of the season.

Today I thought I'd take the time to enumerate my objections to it more fully:

1)  It is a radical departure from ALL previous chips introduced in this, or any similar game, or even just mooted for possible introduction.... or dreamed of in jest! Fantasy games for international tournaments have typically had a chip where you can get a doubled-points 'captain' bonus without needing to designate a captain, automatically receiving the addition for your highest-performing player in the gameweek (I like that one...), or a suped-up 'Free Hit' where you can remake your squad for a single gameweek with the additional advantage of having the budget cap removed (just a slight riff on the two 'squad makeover' chips we're familiar with in FPL). Over the past year, FPL has been running occasional 'side games' under the 'Fantasy Challenge' banner, which have offered novelty points systems such as defenders getting more points, or forwards getting more points, or players from particular clubs getting more points - inviting you to consider a major squad makeover for one week, to adapt to this modified points weighting. And this has prompted many FPL managers on the forums to joke about even wackier new bonus possibilities.... such as extra points for players with beards, or players with double-barrelled names (Definitional problem: Does a double-barrelled name have to be hyphenated? Sorry, Emile, yes it does!). But the point about all of these is that they are just small modifications to the existing structure of the game, simply allowing you to earn more points - for one week only - for things you already earn points for.

Sometimes, variations in the rules might allow you to earn points in slightly different ways, for different kinds of game actions. In the last Fantasy Euros tournament, additional points were awarded for 'ball recoveries'; although it was rather unclear how this was defined or tabulated, it did add an interesting extra wrinkle to the game, potentially giving a big boost to the points returns from defenders and defensive midfielders. And the popular Swedish Fantasy Football game, Allsvenskan, does something similar, wtih additional defensive points available for actions like this, and additional attacking points awarded for every 2 'key passes' (rather than faffing around with the obscure and often perversely erratic 'Bonus Points System' that FPL inflicts on us!). But again, these are just small modifications to the points structure: we're still getting points for defined game actions by individual players week by week.

By offering points for team results over a number of weeks, this new chip falls completely OUTSIDE the current scope of the game.

2)  By extending the duration of the chip far beyond that of 'normal' chips (which have until now, without exception, been effective for one gameweek only), by adding in 'charges' for it (a sum of money to be deducted from squad budget and an impact on your club quota for players!), by making it variable from week-to-week (this wasn't mentioned in the early posts about the chip, and I think might be part of a series of subsequent 'revisions' they've made to the rules: you can now change your choice of 'assistant manager' in each of the 3 weeks that the chip is in play). by awarding points for such a swathe of different things (wins and draws and goals and clean sheets.... and additional bonuses for getting a result against teams 5 or more places higher in the table!!), they have made the new chip absurdly over-complicated - needlessly difficult to understand, difficult to evaluate (this alone may, I suspect, put many people off using the bloody thing at all).

3)  The imposition of a 'transfer cost' for your chosen manager is particularly irksome. Although the sums of money demanded are relatively trivial (from 0.5 to 1.5 million), you will - if you're making as close to full use of your budget as possible (which you should always be striving to do!) - find yourself obliged to make at least 1 or 2 transfers to free up some extra cash before you can activate the chip... and make do with a slightly suh-standard squad of players while the chip remains active. Moreover, they've added in (this feature appeared to be absent in the first published version of 'the rules') the provision that subsequent changes of manager choice within the three-week period of the chip being active will cost you a transfer.... so, that's a bummer too.

4)  The additional bonus for team performances against clubs higher in the table seems to me to be a particularly unnecessary over-elaboration. Originally, there was no explanation offered of how the 5-place gap between clubs was to be defined. It might have been at the time of kick-off of the game in question, at the deadline of the Gameweek in which the match is played, or at the deadline of the Gameweek in which the chip first becomes active,.... or at the moment that the chip is played (all perfectly possible, and all potentially very different!!). 

It now seems that they intend that the gap is measured at the start of the Gameweek in which the indiviidual match is played (although the wording still isn't absolutely clear on that point: "at the start of the Gameweek" isn't enough, when a number of different Gameweeks mght be understood as relevant to the applicaton of the rule; they really need a few more words in there to specify what they mean with absolute precision). And the (late added?) ability to change 'assistant managers' from one Gameweek to the next potentially gets over the problem that it would be nearly impossible to predict where or how big gaps in the league table would be more than one week in advance (particularly with the middle of the table so congested as it is so far this year: there are currently only 8 points separating 3rd and 13th positions, and only 5 points between 4th and 12th!). However, I think most FPL managers were originally expecting - and probably hoping - that this would be a set-and-forget deal where you simply chose one manager for the chip for all three gameweeks. (The 'club quota' rule will restrict the extent to which anyone can take advantage of this facility: you're not going to want to waste transfers on removing someone from your squad when you happen to have three players from the club with the most promising manager for that gameweek; you'll probably rather pass on that manager option than use a transfer, and sacrifice a top player [when you treble up on a club, it's because you regard all three of those players as extremely valuable....]. Hence, most FPL managers will have at least one, maybe two or three clubs whose managers are effecively excluded from consideration for this chip.)

And one final potential problem on this: the league's ranking is occasionally determined on alphabetical order alone. Now, this is really just a formatting convention; I believe there are 'tie-break' rules in place - even if it's ultimately just a coin-toss?! - for deciding the crucial European qualification and relegation places at the end of the season. And in practice, everyone considers teams with equal points, goal difference, and goals scored to be in a tie - even though one of them will be listed higher than the other. It would seem rather unfair, for the application of this aspect of the chip, if two such clubs were not to be treated equally - i.e., that they're not both regarded as 5 places above your manager's team, even though one of them is listed only 4 places above. It might be an unlikely eventuality, perhaps one that won't arise this year; but it is something that the FPL gnomes ought to have considered and clarified in framing the rules for the new chip - and they have omitted to do so.

5)  There is, I feel, a dangerous lack of proportionality about this chip. It is potentially worth 2 to 3 times as much as the other two bonus chips combined! And since it is offering points for team results as well as game actions, and over a number of weeks rather than just one, its minimum return will certainly be far higher (as the other chips carry a significant risk of returning zero points, or close-to-zero; the 'Assistant Manager' chip clearly does not); its average return is likely to be far higher too. And it's difficult to gauge what its upper-end might be; but certainly far, far more - perhaps over just one week, and certainly over its full three-week span - than the Triple Captain chip... and substantially more than the Bench Boost (unless you manage to get a very, very good return from that in a Double Gameweek).

Thus, it will be the single biggest determinant of FPL rank outcomes this year. (Well, after terrible refereeing decisions, anyway....)  And that, to me, does not seem FAIR.

6)  There are still a number of lacunae in the 'rules', unexplained gaps about how things are supposed to work with this chip.

They seem to have now added in a gloss about a manager leaving a club having no impact on the chip: you will continue to get the points from that manager's (former) club, unless you select a new manager. (Thus, it's not really a 'manager' chip at all, but a 'club' chip.) That seems somewhat illogical and unfair: if you're supposed to be getting points for the manager, you would expect to stop getting points for him if he loses his job... or start getting points for him from a new club, if he switches clubs.

And this still doesn't address the issue that there can be a number of other ways in which the manager may not actually be 'managing' the club, without having left it. If his assistant has taken over because he's absent with illness or a personal problem - why should you still get points for your manager? If he's serving a touchline ban and not able to coach the team directly this week - why should you still get points for you manager?  If he's been suspended because of allegations of misconduct - why should you still get points for your manager?  Most people would surely feel that you shouldn't (just as you shouldn't - but apparently will - when he's been sacked by his club!). 

However, at the moment, I suppose we must assume that the intention is that this is really a 'club' chip, and you keep getting points from the designated club, regardless of the status of the manager - but this hasn't yet been explicitly stated. And I suspect this has the potential to cause some controversy later on - particularly if we had a manager suspended by his club in a 'Me Too' case.

Moreover, the rules also fail so far to specify whether you can choose to go without an 'assistant manager' during one of the gameweeks that the chip has been activated for (if you perhaps decided that you'd just much rather bring a more expensive player into your starting eleven than continue with a manager that week). I suspect that the interface won't let you remove a manager without adding a replacement; but they don't appear to have said as much (yet). 

In addition, the rules appear to remain silent thus far on whether there is any possibility to cancel the chip before its three-week span is up. As I went on to elaborate more fully here, a raft of unexpected postponements could be devastating if you're not able to to use the Free Hit to create a workaround squad. And if you had your 'Assistant Manager Chip' in play in such a gameweek, you'd almost certainly want to cancel it, if you could. And to me, it would seem fair that you should be able to do so - voluntarily giving up the benefits of the remaining weeks of the chip (perhaps even all three of them!) for some more immediate advantage. However, I imagine that the absence of provision for this in the rules is intended to mean that it won't be possible. [This point was subsequently clarified; but it had not appeared in the first published version of the 'rules' for the new chip.]

I think there's potentially also some doubt as to whether you could choose to use the 'Assistant Manager Chip' for less than the full three weeks by playing it right at the end of the season. Again, I suspect the chip will cease to be available after Gameweek 36; but this hasn't been specified as yet.

7)  There is also - as yet - no reference to whether the chosen manager would be subject to penalties for receiving yellow or red cards in a game. The commonsense answer would be YES, since the chip is represented as making the selection of a manager directly analogous to that of your players. But since the rules omit to say anything about this, we should probably assume that the answer is in fact intended by FPL to be NO.

8)  For some unstated reason, the launch of the chip has been delayed until Gameweek 24, at the beginning of February (originally it was said that it would become available at the beginning of the second half of the season - i.e. from Gameweek 20). Because of the chip's bloated duration, this actually leaves fairly little time in which to take advantage of it; and it will be difficult to juggle it around other priorities for using the other chips. [I discussed this problem much more thoroughly in a further post a few days later.]  

Also, of course, with the late-season reschedulings around the League Cup Final and the FA Quarters and Semi-Finals, we often don't get three weeks' notice of the new fixture dates. So, trying to plan how to use this new chip alongside the existing ones is just going to be horrendous.

Again, there was originally no explicit statement as to whether the new chip would follow the usual rule that only one chip may be played at a time. Since it is utterly unlike any of the other chips in any other respect, it was not unreasonable to suppose that it might not abide by the one-at-a-time rule - and that is what many FPL managers seemed to hopefully assume at first. But now there has been a clarification that other chips will not be available during the three weeks this chip is active. And that..... is a HUGE pain-in-the-arse.

This 'Assistant Manager' Chip is just a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE idea - ill thought-out, clunkily implemented, unclear in its details, maddeningly over-complex, utterly divorced from the usual format of the game we so love. It actually threatens to ruin the game this year.

And I would strongly recommend people to boycott using this silly chip.... or to give up the game altogether, before it starts being spoiled by people using the chip - in Gameweek 23.  

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

I HATE the 'Assistant Manager' chip (Short version)

 

Last week, FPL unveiled its big innovation for the second half of this season: the new 'chip', previously identified only as a 'Mystery Chip', is now revealed as the 'Assistant Manager' chip.

In the intitial announcements on the FPL Facebook page, there was a terrifying lack of detail about how this - insanely complicated - new bonus was actually going to work. And although they rushed to revise and amplify the rules concerning it, I fear there are still a few holes in them. I think I will have a more extended rant enumerating the many insanities and inanities of this silly new gimmick soon; but I will try to keep this initial response to the news fairly brief.

What I love about this game of ours is its simplicity. It is closely tied to the game we love to watch every week, English Premier League football. It makes you a virtual 'manager', allowing you to assemble a squad of players and choose a starting eleven each gameweek, and to earn points for specified game actions by the individual players you've chosen within each gameweek.

I've said before that I don't particularly like the game's current 'bonus chips' (a relatively late introduction), as they are superfluous to the regular gameplay, and an irksome additional element of randomization (you only have about a one-in-three chance of getting much from them, and perhaps only a one-in-ten chance or less of doing really well from one of them). However, they do at least fit within the regular structure of the game: they simply give you more points for things you already earn points for.

This new bonus chip is something completely different, it falls entirely outside the points structure of the game as we know it. Instead of points for individual player performances in a single gameweek, it gives us points for team results over a run of gameweeks. So, it is essentially a completely separate side-game crudely grafted on to the game that we enjoy at the moment. 

Moreover, with the existing bonus chips that I don't like, there is at least some proportionality: the chips can be worth little or nothing if you get unlucky with them, and rarely yield much more than 15-20 points for each. This new chip is potentially worth such a HUGE number of points that it will completely distort the outcomes of the game - and will thus, alas, be impossible for most FPL managers to resist using (though I'd really love to see a mass boycott of this abomination).

To make things even worse, the new chip doesn't just offer points for one thing, but for a whole range of things: not just for wins or draws, but also for goals and clean sheets. And it offers yet a further set of potential bonus points for gaining a win or draw against a team currently well above your chosen manager's team in the league ranking. And, unlike any of the other chips that have ever been tried in this or any similar game, they want to impose 'charges' for it. You will need to give up a small amount of your player budget to play the chip, and also sacrifice part of your player quota from the club you pick for it - over-complication upon over-complication upon over-complication, all completely needless.

It might be an intriguing challenge, but... it has absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REGULAR GAME. It is a gimmicky side-game idea that would be better accommodated within the occasional 'Fantasy Challenge' series.

Luck-o-Meter (16)

Credit to Everton for frustraing Arsenal so effectively. Pickford played an especially crucial role (in denying those of us who'd given Saka the captain's armband for this one our expected points bonanza...), pulling off one especially smart save from Saka at the foot of his near post, and then, minutes later, cutting out a fierce square ball across the six-yard box from him that was destined to be a tap-in for Havertz. And oh my god, what was that penalty decision near the end?? Partey gets clattered by two Everton players, Mykolenko both tripping him with his extended front leg, and dangerously flattening his standing leg with the knee of his trailing leg as he dives in from recklessly far away, and then as Partey is starting to fall, Doucoure runs into the back of him - which should have been a foul in itself, even if the first challenge wasn't. Presumably, the referee and the VAR official felt that Mykolenko 'got something on the ball' - well, maybe (very, very doubtful in the initial challenge; he toe-poked it away after flattening Partey, in a separate movement, so that obviously can't count), but that's not an absolute defence if you completely take out an opponent's legs. That is one of the most obvious and unarguable penalties I've seen all season. (And I don't say that merely because my boy Saka would obviously have converted the kick, and earned 7 or 8 more points for the match, doubled.... Athough, damn, YES, that rankles.)

Credit to Fulham too, for - yet again - having the organisation and the desire to upset one of the 'big boys' (strange, though, that they're often so much less impressive against their mid-table peers...), but.... Andy Robertson should not have been sent off. And, as far as we could tell, VAR didn't even consider the referee's decision on the foul, only whether the whole passage of play might have been rendered moot by a possible offside against Antonee Robinson when the ball was initially released to him down the right flank. That was yet another of those that was decided on a ridiculously narrow margin, and the screen resolution on the still frames shared on TV just wasn't good enough to confirm a gap of an inch or two (as with so many of these calls we've seen this year, it was so close that the issue of the timing of the ball being played would be crucial; and it's highly doubtful whether the correct still frame had been chosen, or indeed whether any single frame could have been definitive). To the naked eye, he certainly looked offside; and it was impossible to see why the decision 'lines' had been drawn where they were. I strongly suspect that this one might have been swayed by an optical illusion, by a mere assumption that Virgil Van Dijk's toe was further back than it actually was - as you expect the defender's foot to be pointing towards the byline, but Virgil's foot was actually turned inwards quite a lot, so it was almost parallel to the byline. Anyhow, the decision on the foul was ridiculous: the ball was running away from Harry Wilson, he was chasing it towards the middle of the pitch, not directly towards the goal, and there was another defender in the middle who could have put in a challenge or a block if he had recovered it to have an attempt at goal himself; but the ball did break to Raul Jimenez, and the ref played an 'advantage' to allow him to try to score (and he really should have done) - so, clearly there was no question of a 'denial of a goal-scoring opportunity'. (And I'm really not sure of the rules on this any more, but doesn't an offence like that have to be 'deliberate'?? I honestly thought Robertson's 'challenge' looked accidental, as if he just ran into Wilson.)  So, yet another huge refereeing cock-up, which might well have turned the course of the game - and maybe even the championship. (Not that I have much sympathy for Liverpool: they've definitely enjoyed the 'rub of the green' so far this season, with a lot of dodgy decisions going their way; this really felt like a fair evening out of their luck.)

After a bright start to Van Nistelrooy's stewardship at Leicester, they're back to their old selves again, defending like a gaggle of old washerwomen...  It didn't help that they lost their outstanding goalkeeper Hermansen (to a groin strain, apparently) at half-time. Newcastle were somewhere near their best again, especially Anthony Gordon (another BPS travesty that he somehow missed out on any bonus points here) - although the absence of Pope will be a worry, since their form did drop off while they had Dubravka in goal last season. And although the BBC pundits were strangely criticising Bruno Guimaraes for a supposed 'dive' in the penalty area, I thought Westergaard clearly ran into the back of him - more than enough contact for a penalty.

Wolves did well to get themselves back into the game against Ipswich in the second half, but they should never have let a visiting team - particularly a fellow bottom-end struggler - get so on top at the beginning of the game. And they yet again got caught out at a set piece to throw away the hard-earned point at the death. Ugly scenes after the end of the game saw the ridiculously over-popular Ait-Nouri (still somehow at 14% ownership, despite just 4pts in 3 straight defeats prior to this match) receive a second yellow card after the final whistle for getting involved in a scuffle on the touchline (with whom? not sure!); and I suspect he might end up with more than a one-game ban for that. His teammate Cunha also piled in to some argey-bargey with one of the Ipswich staff and was lucky to escape a card - a red card. TV cameras clearly show him slapping the guy across the back of the head with his forearm, then shoving him in the face and ripping his glasses off; I think that will probably land him with a lengthy ban too. At least all of this isn't likely to be Gary O'Neill's problem much longer.

More controversy - and bad refereeing - at the City Ground in the late match. First off, we had Morgan Rogers's penalty appeal being rejected. That, I thought, was fair enough, on balance: the contact - the defender grabbing his wrist to pull him back - had started well outside the area; and Rogers should already have been penalised for grabbing handfuls of the opponent's shirt just before this. But the VAR determination of the incident on the basis that the holding 'did not affect play' was ridiculous: it clearly stopped Rogers reaching the ball. Villa fans are also probably a bit miffed - although, strangely, none of the players seemed to complain about it at the time - that Anderson had bundled over Cash to win the ball at the start of the move that produced Milenkovic's late winner. The referee was unsighted; but VAR is supposed to review potential fouls in the build-up to a goal, and conspicuously failed to do so here. That was a bit of an odd goal too, in that Martinez was perhaps a bit lucky not to have it credited against him as an 'own goal', since he caught it... and then dropped it over his goal-line. We don't like to see those taken away from the attacking player, and it was an awkward one to handle, a firm header directed into his midriff - perhaps never fully under his control as he fell backwards trying to gather it more securely; but we have sometimes seen those called an 'own goal'. Still, the away fans will probably pardon this rare bit of clumsiness from the Argentinian because he had earlier pulled off a truly remarkable instinctive save to claw a ball back from behind his goal-line. But good grief, yet another of those ridiculously tight - and unconvincing - offside decisions against Elanga to deny Chris Wood a goal! It's not just the technical shortcomings of VAR at fault here; we really need a radical rule change to make these incidents more effectively police-able - including the recognition that you simply can't make accurate determinations to a matter of inches, and shouldn't try.

Brighton, facing their 'derby' rivals, Palace, produced a strangely flat performance - and some more dreadful defending - to allow the visitors to get well on top. But for Munoz having a goal ruled out (surely correctly) for Sarr having pushed over a Brighton defender in supplying the assist for it (and what a surprising 'Man of the Match' he was!!) and Nketiah fluffing a late one-on-one,... and Guehi suffering a really unlucky ricochet to gift the home side a late consolation own-goal, this might have been a real landslde. Although Brighton did mount more pressure in the second-half, with Enciso being their main inspiration - and Henderson had to pull off a string of sharp saves to preserve the clean sheet for most of the game. Palace are finally starting to build some positive momentum, with the back three, in particular, now looking very robust. A knock for Eze could be a bit of a worry, though.

The only real excitement from the City v United clash came in the pre-match news, with Garnacho and Rasfhford being omitted from the squad (a chatter-inducing 'statement' from Amorim, though scarcely a 'surprise', as these were obviously the two players who least fitted his preferred system of play, and hence the two likeliest to be sold or loaned out next month; this development was certainly not as much of a shock as the abrupt falling-out with Dan Ashworth at the start of the week), and Ederson being suddenly restored to the City goal, apparently without a word of explanation from Pep. The game itself was a bit stale, an uninspiring clash of struggling 'mid-table' sides! United should surely have had an earlier penalty when Dias hung his leg out across Hojlund without getting anywhere near the ball; it was a weird challenge, more of an attempt to block the attacker's path than a trip; and Hojlund made it look as if 'he went down easily' - but there was definitely contact, and you can't fling your leg across a player like that and escape consequences. It didn't make any difference to the ultimate result; but a lot of FPL managers who were on Bruno this week can feel a little aggrieved that he only registered 1 goal rather than 2 (although perhaps the match's most surprising moment was him squandering a golden chance to grab the equaliser from open play when he was put clean through by a delightfully weighted reverse pass from Hojlund). Well, there was also, of course, a huge slice of luck in Gvardiol's opening goal, since DeBruyne's cross took a massive deflection (how does Kevin still get the assist for this?!) off Diallo's attempt to block it, and looped rather fortuiitously straight on to his head - even Pep looked dismayed, embarrassed rather than celebratory at getting the breakthrough this way. And then a superb late winner from Diallo!!! Lots of surprises here. And yes, there is a strong case that Walker should have been sent off in the first half: one yellow card for the petulant, violent shove on Hojlund, and another for then pretending that the Dane had headbutted him in response. It's a pity that kind of shameful play-acting can't earn a straight red; but a double-yellow here would have been quite justified.

Chelsea perhaps weren't quite at their best in the evening kick-off, but still dominated Brentford - and could have won more comfortably if Jackson hadn't muffed a sitter in the first-half. But Carvalho nearly got Brentford back in the game when he smashed a close-range effort against the underside of the crossbar. However, Chelsea should probably have had at least one penalty before that; there were a number of instances of heavy 'wrestling' going on in the Brentford box at set-pieces, one with Colwill being pushed to the floor (by Lewis-Potter, I think?) that looked a stone-cold penalty - but VAR, taking the weekend off, apparently didn't even glance at any of them. Cucurella getting himself a second yellow for an altercation with some Brentford players after the final whistle was a bitter pill for those who - like me! - have recently brought him into their squads. Palmer once again played a fantastic game, without picking up any FPL points for himself; this will no doubt precipitate another mass sell-off by 'the sheep' (I hope they will be duly punished by another huge haul from him against Everton next week!!). It was also a bit of a disappointment for many that Mbeumo was able to steal a consolation goal with a late breakaway - and so wipe out what had looked a certain Chelsea clean sheet (many managers now have Palmer and Enzo - or perhaps Madueke - and one of the defenders or Sanchez; so, that one little lapse by the Blues was a 6-point hit for them!!).

Spurs were not immediately missing their preferred central defensive pairing against largely toothless Southampton, and indeed felt able to field a 'B Team' for their visit to the south coast, with youngsters Bergvall, Gray, and particularly Djed Spence all having impressive games; and inspirational captain Son able to be taken off for a rest at half-time, with the result already safely beyond question. Southampton did rally slightly in the second half, managing to prevent any more leaks, and actually creating a few decent chances of their own through Tyler Dibling. But after this embarrassing demolition, it was no surprise that Russell Martin's departure was confirmed shortly after the game. No, the big surprise for me is that BBC's match report fan poll only ranks the outstanding James Maddison as Spurs' thirteenth best player on the night! WTF???  I wonder if some of the fanbase have turned against him, after his occasional benchings over recent weeks? He was clearly, by any conventional measure, the 'Man of the Match', scorer of two absolutely stunning goals, and involved in the creation of the others. This massive win made it a good week in FPL for Spurs fans (who often loyally hang on to the full quota of three of their players, regardless of the team's form or fixtures!). This was obviously a fixture that presented an excellent opportunity for some huge hauls; but the essence of 'Spursiness' is to constantly confound expectations, to surprisingly outplay better teams while often floundering against weaker ones. And their performances have been so flakey over the last few weeks, almost no-one other than diehard fans wanted to take a chance on their players this week - a reluctance we now regret!

A sharp performance from Lukas Fabianski in goal seems to have kept West Ham in the game at Bournemouth on Monday night (although match reports all seem to indicate slightly fewer than the '8 saves' he was credited with by FPL; and the highlights I just watched showed only 3!); however, Bournemouth's finishing was again poor, with a huge number of attempts on goal but most well off target. Apart from one neat curler from Bowen that hit the top of the crossbar, West Ham didn't generate much of an attacking threat, and their late penalty seemed unjust on the balance of play, as well as for the decision itself; the TV replays I saw did not even clearly show that the ball had touched Tyler Adams's hand; but the cross was fired at him from such close range, there wasn't much he could have done to get his hand out of the way. (And how does Wann-Bissaka earn an assist for that? That doesn't seem right, either! If a defender deliberately 'saves' a goal-bound shot, you deserve an assist for shooting, sure; but when you just play a hopeful ball into the box and it happens to hit someone's arm??) Fortunately for Bournemouth, they managed to win a free-kick a few minutes later, and Enes Unal managed to convert it from nearly 30 yards out, and bang in the middle of the goal.

Another poor week for refereeing, with the the denial of Partey's penalty one of the worst decisions of the season so far - but two or three other strong shouts ignored in other games as well; and the ridiculous sending-off of Andy Robertson changing the course of the Liverpool v Fulham game, while a couple of other red cards probably should have been shown elsewhere, but weren't; the penalty against Bournemouth probably shouldn't have been given, Forest's second goal should have been disallowed - but their earlier effort from Wood had been ruled out for a non-existent offside.....  Ugh!  Just a mess of really bad decisions.

There were some goalkeeping heroics from Martinez, Pickford, Henderson, and Fabianski - and also an almighty goalkeeping cock-up from Martinez. And some fantastic goals from Diallo, Cucurella, Maddison...

Everton's and Fulham's draws against the title front-runners, and also probably Palace's win over Brighton count as pretty major upset results this week.... and TWO post-game red cards (and a retroactive third certain for Cunha)... a very weird week. The three most fancied captains, Salah, Palmer, and Saka, all failed to produce very much. And the 'Team of the Week' was once again just ridiculous, with Ismaila Sarr becoming the expected-by-nobody 'Player of the Week', and among the rest, probably only Isak and perhaps Son featuring in more than a handful of sensible FPL selections at the moment.

Thus, I have to give Gameweek 16 another very strong 8 out of 10 on my Luck-o-Meter.

THIS is why you shouldn't TripleCap in December!

 

As I warned a couple of weeks ago, December is a very bad time to play your Triple Captain chip.

Fixture congestion and miserable weather (and perhaps even the distraction of the looming holidays: footballers too need to plan for family gatherings, and get their Christmas shopping done!) tend to reduce performance levels and increase the risk of unexpected, upset results.

And sure enough, here we are at the start of the GW16 weekend, with players like Salah and Saka the most favoured captaincy picks for the week, playing at home and facing much weaker opposition..... and both players produce not very much, both sides are surprisingly held to a draw. I now rather fear that Palmer will have a rare stinker today, and Chelsea will somehow get turned over by Brentford....

In addition to all the factors I listed in that earlier post which can make results at this time of year more unpredictable, we also have to endure the impact of poor officiating (does this get worse in December too? perhaps referees are also preoccupied with thoughts of their Christmas shopping??). Bukayo Saka (my captain choice this week!) was not only denied a goal and an assist by some excellent work between the sticks from Pickford, but, near the end of the game, was robbed of the chance to convert a penalty by possibly the worst refereeing/VAR decision of the entire season so far. The only small consolation I can cling to is that this injustice would have pained me even more if I'd had my Triple Captain chip riding on him....

This is a Season of Craziness, my friends. Hang on to your bonus chips until the New Year....

Dilemmas of the Week - GW16

Throughout this hectic December, the main uncertainties are likely to surround 'rest rotations' - and the sudden realisation of 'totting up' suspensions -  rather than injuries. Although, with the final round of European games for this year taking place in midweek, I suppose there are bound to be a few knocks and niggles complicating the picture. Fingers crossed for no major disasters (or last-minute postponements)!

It's still early morning in the UK as I put this together. I'll add updates as necessary if any major news breaks on Friday or Saturday.

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 16?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Leon Bailey went off with some kind of hamstring strain in the match against Southampton last weekend; although described as a 'mild' injury, it seems it might keep him out of the reckoning for the rest of the month. And now Ollie Watkins has hobbled off with a knock in Tuesday night's game in Leipzig; he's a pretty resilient guy, and I suspect he'll be OK for Saturday - but this is probably the biggest FPL worry of the week, with around 24% of managers still owning him (despite his and Villa's iffy form for most of this season?!). Some, though, are no doubt getting excited about the possibility of a start for Jhon Duran in his place.

Of Brighton's numerous 'walking wounded', only Joel Veltman yet seems close to being able to feature this weekend; and it might be doubtful he'll immediately replace Tariq Lamptey, who was outstanding last week.

Marcos Senesi has just had surgery on his thigh injury, and is now likely to miss most of the rest of the season. (Good news, at least, for early adopters of his promising understudy, Dean Huijsen, one of my new 'Picks of the Week'!)  Marcus Tavernier also picked up a hamstring problem in Monday night's game against Wolves, and could be out for weeks at least. (This probably makes more room in the starting line-up for recently back-from-injury Dango Ouattara, and will perhaps allow more creative space to Kluivert and Semenyo to earn FPL points.)

Callum Wilson has reportedly picked up yet another hamstring injury in training this week, and could be out for a couple of months or so. (Presumably no-one owned him anyway; but the news could slightly enhance Alexander Isak's perceived value, by reducing his risk of rotation or 'managed minutes'.) Joe Willock also dropped out of last week's squad to face Brentford with a hamstring problem, but said to be 'minor' - and he might be available again this week.

Disasters mount for under-pressure Ange Postecoglou: his central defensive pairing of Cristian Romero and Micky Van de Ven, both rushed back perhaps a little over-hastily from lengthy injury absences last week, both broke down with new hamstring problems in last week's game, and both now seem likely to be out until at least sometime in January.

Michail Antonio seems likely to miss the rest of the season after suffering a broken leg and other injuries in crashing his Ferrari a week ago. (It is at least fortuitous for West Ham that Niclas Füllkrug has finally got himself fit at the same time.)

José Sá's unexpected absence last week was apparently only due to a minor shoulder problem picked up in training, and he could be back between the sticks for Wolves this weekend. Pablo Sarabia might also be able to take part again, after missing a couple of weeks with a calf problem.

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

Alexis Macallister, Yves Bissouma, Calvin Bassey, Emerson, Joao Gomes, Boubakary Soumaré, and Pedro Neto all miss this gameweek after clocking up their fifth bookings (which is going it some for Neto, given he's only registered 7 starts this season). And Southampton's Jack Stephens is starting a 4-game ban for a 'violent conduct' sending-off last week. Rico Lewis, of course, is also stuck with a 1-match ban for his ridiculous sending-off, because you can't appeal against double-yellow cases.

Alex Moreno, only on loan at Forest, is ineligible to play against his parent club Villa this week (although he hasn't been getting regular starts anyway, so this is probably of just about zero FPL relevance).

In better news, Alisson is now back in goal for Liverpool, and looked pretty much straight back to his imperious best in Tuesday's Champions League game at Girona. I just about never see a goalkeeper change as an urgent priority, though; and I'd probably wait a week or two, just to make sure he doesn't break down again - muscle problems like this have a habit of recurring. [His return is an unwelcome, though hardly unexpected, development for those who've been relying on Caoimhin Kelleher for the past two months.]

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

There's obviously something amiss between James Maddison and his manager, and I wouldn't be taking any chances on him - even in what is generally perceived to be the 'easiest' fixture in the calendar (I would argue that Wolves and West Ham currently look even weaker than Southampton); remarkably, some 7.6% of FPL managers still would.

And I would be tempted to say... the whole of the Manchester City team! (If anyone still had any of them anyway....)  However, I expect they'll rouse themselves to best efforts against their cross-town rivals, United; and they have a long run of pretty soft-looking fixtures from here. But damn - Foden is strangely out-of-sorts (and maybe out of favour with Pep?), DeBruyne is trying to play through a hernia problem, Ederson is unfathomably dropped, Gundogan looks hopelessly off the pace, Lewis is suspended this week, Walker's pace and stamina are failing him, and Stones and Ake and Akanji all seem likely to be missing again, while Gvardiol is starting to look desperately weary from constantly having to cover for everyone else. So, their prospects this week don't look that great.

And Wolves, alas, are on the 'highway to hell', and I find it impossible to fancy their prospects even against fellow-strugglers Ipswich (surely a last chance game for poor Gary O'Neill??). After this, they don't have another likely winnable game until the end of February. Cunha appears to have put his scoring boots into storage already anyway; and, as I predicted two months ago, Ait-Nouri is now mostly being held in a more defensive role and so rarely threatening attacking contributions even in games where they have been briefly able to get on top. Thus, I wouldn't be keeping these two any longer - or any other Wolves players, obviously.

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

Well, Minteh and Lamptey both came up with cracking goals for Brighton last week, but they're both 'minutes risks', uncertain starters. Sancho also looked very lively for Chelsea, but again isn't likely to be an invariable starter when Neto and Madueke are also competing for inclusion on the flanks.

I think the whole of the Bournemouth defence - even including Kepa in goal - are starting to look very promising, and they have a good run of fixtures through the rest of December. (Kepa might perhaps gain additional value if he gets recalled from his loan in January to replace the very unconvincing Robert Sanchez; but I suspect his bridges are well burned at Chelsea.)

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (20)

 

"Intelligence is not making no mistakes, but quickly seeing how to make them good." 

Bertolt Brecht

Picks of the Week (3)

DISCLAIMER: I always refuse to identify myself as any sort of FPL 'guru' or 'mentor' or 'expert'. And I have previously on this blog expressed my reluctance to share many details of my own selections, or to make very specific player recommendations.

However, in addition to occasionally critiquing common 'sheep picks' of the moment (not all necessarily outright bad, but ridiculously over-popular selections), I thought I would start occasionally trying to highlight one or two players who seem not yet to be very widely owned but are starting to look very tempting prospects.

I will generally try to come up with at least 2 options per week - so that it doesn't look like I'm making a sole recommendation. And these suggestions are intended to be simply 'worth thinking about', not at all 'must-haves'   (And some weeks, I'll have nothing.....)

First up for Gameweek 16, we have.... Enzo Fernandez. Yes, I know, I am in danger of coming a little late to the party on this one, of making a fairly obvious and popular recommendation. Enzo started getting among the goals against Leicester three weeks ago, and his ownership has swelled by well over 400,000 since then - fully half of that increase just in the last few days! - boosting his price by 200k (though, at present, it's still only the very modest 5-million he started the season at - so, still a bit of a bargain!). Heck, he's looking set to be one of the most transferred-in players this week.... which might seem to make him a candidate for one of my 'Sheep Picks'. Why is he not?  Because people are right to be buying him in such huge numbers!  Suddenly he's got a regular start in the team again, and Maresca's found a way of fitting him in that gives him the freedom to get forward more and contribute in the attacking third alongside Palmer. And he's absolutely thriving on it: 3 goals and 2 assists in just 4 games; and his BPS numbers are through the roof - 150 in just those 4 games! In the space of just a few weeks, he has become clearly, unarguably, by far the most the most attractive pick in the budget midfielder category (in fact, he's been playing so well, he would probably still be one of the most attractive midfield picks even if he cost 8 or 9 million).

Why, then, have I been a little slow to acquire him? (And why do I still have slight reservations about doing so...?)  Well, there's a practical difficulty for many of us in fitting him into our squad. Palmer, of course, is indispensable at the moment; Jackson has shown much the best form of the higher-priced forwards this season; and Marc Cucurella has been in absolutely outstanding form over the last 5 matches; and some people like Sanchez (who's actually worked out quite well because of the kind fixture run, even though just about everybody now expects him to get axed next month) or Colwill (a bizarre choice, but a semi-popular one). So, we may already have our quota of Chelsea players, and be uncertain whether we want to sacrifice one of them; however good Enzo looks in isolation, he might still not be one of the three most valuable assets from Chelsea. (This is a problem with choosing players from Arsenal as well; for me, the decisive argument against Raya - great goalkeeper, but won't bring you as much of an edge over other goalkeepers as Timber and Gabriel or Saliba do over other defenders, or Saka and perhaps Odegaard do over other midfielders.) Also... I'm a little bit concerned that accommodating him with a regular starting place involves the 'convenient fiction' of starting Caicedo at right-back; and I think the Ecuadorian's distaste for this role - and/or the strong claims of Gusto and Reece James (well, if he ever gets fit again...) in that position - may mean that this is not a long-term or invariable formation. But we'll cross that bridge... if it gets built; for now, I'm joining 'the sheep' and rushing in for Enzo.

[Well, this recommendation proved a little disappointing at first. Enzo picked up an assist against Brentford in the first match after I published this, and a clean-sheet point in the following game against Everton. But he - and Chelsea - have been much more subdued over Gameweeks 16-18. As I'd feared, he hasn't been able to continue to play in such a free and advanced role - mainly because the absence of Romeo Lavia with an injury is requiring him to sit a bit deeper and help out Caicedo in the middle of the park. At least he's been continuing to start every game, and play the full 90 minutes; but no sign of any further goals - or any bonus points - in the last few games.]

No, I'm not just getting a rush of blood to the head because Bournemouth's teen prodigy Dean Huijsen scored a header in the midweek game against Spurs last week. He was bloody good at the defensive end of things too: absolutely outstanding, in fact - barely allowed Solanke a kick all game, won 'Man of the Match' in the BBC's online poll, and had the home fans singing his name at the final whistle. And again looked very, very solid in Sunday's game against Ipswich. With the Argentinian stalwart Marcos Senesi likely to be sidelined for several weeks with a serious thigh injury, the youngster is looking set for a good run of starts. I'm not suggesting anyone should immediately install him as one of their three preferred starting defenders; but his price has fallen to 4.3 million (from a rather ungenerous opening level of 4.5 at the start of the season, when, I suppose, it was imagined that perhaps he might be getting a regular start immediately; though I can't understand why anyone could have thought that when Senesi and Zabarnyi were so outstanding last season), which makes him a tempting budget pick for the rarely used fourth or fifth defender slots - particularly as Bournemouth now have a pretty kind fixture run through until mid-January.

[Young Huijsen has been one of the biggest successes in this series of recommendations so far. He didn't quite make an immediate hit, blanking in the turgid 1-1 draw against West Ham in GW16, but got a huge 14-poinr haul in the next game against Manchester United, scoring a header, keeping a clean sheet, and raking in maximum bonus points. As Bournemouth's defensive form steadily improved, he kept another clean sheet and again picked up maximum bonus points in the Boxing Day game against Palace - though he did also get booked in that one.]

And finally, as a slightly more left-field third suggestion this week, I propose Nottingham Forest's Jota Silva. The 25-year-old Portuguese attacking midfielder suddenly seems to have displaced Anthony Elanga in the pecking-order at the club, and has looked absolutely on fire in his three consecutive starts over the last couple of weeks (I find myself surprised that he hasn't yet registered a goal or an assist: he looks very, very likely to soon). Like Fernandez and Huijsen, his absence from the first team caused his opening price to drop a little; and at just 5.9 million, he's looking a very attractive prospect to me at the moment. Forest's little fixture-difficulty blip is pretty much behind them too: with the form they're in, they don't have to fear Brentford or Spurs; and while the New Year game against Liverpool is bound to be tough, at least it's at home - and they've already done them once this season! Apart from that, they don't really face anyone terribly formidable until City in mid-February. (Time to get back in on Sels and their defenders, I fancy... And, if you also have Wood up front - and why would you not? - that could again mean that your club quota is fully occupied. But if you do have space for one more Forest player, I think Silva is worth consideration.)

[Oh dear! Well, Jota Silva was more of a 'one to watch' than a strong recommendation. He had seemed to have become a nailed starter in the Forest lineup; but as soon as I mentioned him here, he lost his place to the resurgent Anthony Elanga. He's still getting regular minutes off the bench, and still looking pretty sharp - but he's obviously not an FPL prospect unless he gets a regular start again.]

Moving deadlines - needed or not?

 

In the wake of this weekend's late postponement of the first scheduled kick-off of the Gameweek, a few managers on the online forums were advocating for the FPL deadline to have been moved.... ostensibly to allow people a little more time to panic (sorry, I meant 'think'....) about how to address this unforeseen calamity.

Would this actually have been a reasonable or useful (or practical) idea?  Or a fair one?

I think not. Probably not reasonable or practical because - unless the FPL website has been set up with a straightforward back-end interface that allows fairly un-techie staff to easily implement a deadline change (which I doubt) - that kind of thing could involve quite a bit of programming... which probably wouldn't be easy to get done safely and accurately within just an hour or two, especially on a weekend (when I imagine only a skeleton staff are on duty at FPL Towers...?).

Probably not even that useful to anyone, since, as I've noted previously in the last few days, there's really not much that you can do about an 'Act of God' disaster like this; making multiple short-term transfers, or throwing your Free Hit at the problem, is only going to be counter-productive. If you happened to be on top of the weather news (and the likelihood of a postponement was heavily predicted over the preceding 24 hours), you had ample time to take whatever panicky and inappropriate 'remedial' action you fancied before the original deadline anyway; and if you weren't, a few extra hours of potential faffing time probably wouldn't have made much difference to you.

And a change certainly would not have been FAIR, I don't think - for two reasons:

1) Such a modification of the rules could only have been implemented for a postponement of the first match of the gameweek, not for any of the later ones. (And with a major storm like that slowly rolling across the country, and some gameweeks being extended over three or four days, it is quite possible that some matches may get postponed only after the gameweek deadline has passed; it happened a number of times during the Covid pandemic. Such an eventuality is really rough on any FPL managers with a lot of players affected by the post-deadline postponement; managers adversely affected by a postponement of the opening game already enjoy a slight advantage in that respect - why should it be made any greater?

2)  Far more importantly, in my view, the gameweek deadlines are set and advertised weeks in advance, and should remain fixed, for the sake of clarity and straightforwardness in the application of the game rules: everyone expects the deadlines to come into force at the originally advertised times, no matter what. 

Some people choose to finalise their teams for the week some way ahead of the deadline, and indeed may not conveniently be able to leave it until just a few hours beforehand. (When the first kick-off is at Saturday lunchtime, the deadline is in the middle of the night for managers in the Americas and Oceania!) Unexpected, last-minute changes to the gameweek deadline would disadvantage those in adverse timezones, and those with spotty Internet access who are not readily able to keep abreast of EPL news - or UK news more generally, or any news - hour by hour. And that accounts for a very substantial proportion of those playing the game (including myself): the USA, Malaysia, Australia, and Indonesia are some of the countries where the game is most popular, outside of the UK. It is unfair to FPL managers in countries like those to implement rule changes (which is what moving the deadline would be) at times when they can't readily be aware of and respond to them.  [The same argument would apply to another rule change often argued for on the forums, allowing manual substitutions to be made throughout the gameweek - as is usually the case with international tournament versions of the game, where the 'game days' for each round of matches are usually spread over two or three or four days. I find it a clunky and unnecessary over-refinement of the gameplay.... and very, very difficult to make use of from a timezone 8 or 10 or 12 hours distant from where the matches are being played.]

Moving a deadline unexpectedly - particularly 'late in the day', quite shortly before the original deadline - would unfairly disadvantage anyone who'd already made their squad changes for the week (perhaps shortly before the deadline change is announced, or as it's being announced... or even after its announcement, but still before the original deadline, because many people will have remained unaware of the change). We all plan for when the deadline is originally advertised to be; and if we choose to finalise our teams before that, we shouldn't be retroactively penalised for that decision by a late 'rule change'.

Perhaps a stronger case could be made for such a late change to the deadline, if - and only if - there were clearly defined circumstances for implementing such a change automatically (not just leaving it to the discretion of whoever's on the FPL Crisis Desk at the weekend.... and blindly trusting to the tech team to be able to put it into effect at short notice); and this provision is well-publicised to all participants. But even then, I think it's unnecessary (not actually that helpful to anyone), and unfair (it confers a privilege - albeit one that is probably not actually very valuable - on managers in or close to the UK, who are constantly on their phones....).  And at the moment, this is not the case: there is no established provision or precedent for automatically shifting a gameweek deadline in circumstances like this.

Therefore, I contend, the deadline should be treated as sacrosanct, and not moved for anything.

Deadline brinksmanship - DON'T try to cut it too close!

I mentioned the other day in my short post on the consequences of the Merseyside derby postponement this weekend that many managers who'd lost more than 1 or 2 players in that fixture scrambled to try to plug the gaps just before the weekly deadline. And it was this flurry of late transfer activity which enabled so many of us to start the Gameweek on a short-lived high, as our rank surged upwards on the number-of-transfers tiebreak rule.

I ddi subsequently see a few complaints on online FPL forums about managers being unable to complete their desired transfers, espcially if they were attempting to do so via Wildcard or Free Hit chiips, because the FPL website seemed to freeze up or crash on them, not letting them confirm or save their changes.

Now, this is not a problem that I've encountered myself for a few years - because I just don't take chances with the deadline any more. In my early years playing the game, though, (and in my first few times playing the sister games for the World Cup or the European Championship) I ran into such bothersome glitches a lot.

And it's not really surprising - with a game of this magnitude (typically well over 10 million user accounts each season nowadays). However good the overal server capacity for the game is, it's bound to get a bit overstretched if a significant proportion of the game's players are all trying to make changes to their accounts at the same time. - and, in extreme cases, that may lead to the user-interface becoming slow, glitchy, unreliable.... or perhaps even to it breaking down altogether. And  I suspect this problem is likely to be exacerbated by any local shortcomings you may be suffering with the Internet architecture; if your connection to the Web is already a little bit slow or unstable, then the chances of your connection to the FPL servers breaking down are going to be even higher during times of peak demand on them.

And of course, the FPL site traffic tends to be highest just before the deadline for team changes each gameweek. So, if you try leaving your team changes until the very last minute.... you are always running the risk of having a 'technical issue' prevent you from completing them. I really don't think it's SAFE to leave your team changes to the last half-hour before the deadline. And I don't usually even try to do them any later than 1 hour before.

And yet many managers persist in this crazy brinksmanship - kidding themselves that there may be late, late 'team leaks' that might give a better clue to a manager's selections for the upcoming game.... perhaps a rumour that this or that player is a late dropout because he woke up with a cold or stubbed his toe in the shower...

Frankly, I can't remember the last time a piece of news like that broke (that was actually reliable or useful). And if it doesn't emerge until the last couple of hours before the first kick-off, there's really not much you can do about it anyway - unless, like FPL's vapid anonymous pundit 'The Scout', you are prepared to use  unlimited transfers to optimise your squad each week, regardless of the cost in points. This is why it's IMPORTANT to always have a proper bench: so that 1 or 2 - or perhaps even 3! - last-minute dropouts from your starting eleven can be readily replaced. 

And if you lose even more than that, because of some strange circumstance.... well, that's just a disaster there's really no way to deal with; you just have to suck it up. As I counselled in regard to this weekend's postponement, if you did lose a lot of Merseyside players, and you had no decent back-up on your bench, it was probably better to just accept your ill fortune for this one gameweek... rather than resorting to a bunch of transfers, possibly at a cost of valuable points, and then face the prospect of wanting to undo most of those transfers the very next week, and have to spend even more points to do so. [Some people apparently thought their Free Hit might be the answer to their troubles on this. But that is a topic for another time, I think. In brief, it was impossible to be missing more than 5 or 6 players as a result of this lost fixture; there will be at least one gameweek later in the season when we will all, almost certainly, lose at least 1.5x to 2x that many players; and that is when you will NEED your Free Hit. Playing it now might have saved you some points this weekend; but it will cost you far more further down the line - when you no longer have it available when a far more needful occasion for it arises.]

A flying start! HOW did that happen?

 

As this weekend started with the postponement of the first scheduled game, Everton v Liverpool, some of us found ourselves comforted by the sight of a forest of 'green arrows' next to our league positions... before a ball had even been kicked.

How could this be??

Well, it's a curious quirk of the FPL rules. The principal tie-breaker for rank order where managers have the same points is the number of transfers they've made (regular transfers only; not those made with a Wildcard or Free Hit, or in pre-season). And while points deductions are not made for any 'hits' they've chosen to take (i.e. spending 4 points for an additional transfer, over and above any Free Transfers they have available) until the end of the Gameweek, the transfers themselves are recorded immediately.

Thus, every time you make a transfer, your rank goes down. But, on the upside, every time those tied with you on points make more transfers than you, your rank goes up! Nice.

And since so many people lost multiple players in that cancelled Merseyside derby and were scrambling to fill gaps just before the Gameweek deadline, those of us who were able to sit tight with the squad we had... enjoyed a sudden surge in rank.

This was the only small consolation for me in an otherwise utterly horrible week....

Luck-o-Meter (15)

Well, of course, we kicked off our Gameweek 15.... without a kick-off! One of the most extreme examples of 'luck' intervening to mess with our hoped-for FPL outcomes! And believe it or not, at the start of the season, when I was listing the main sources of luck in FPL results, I did mention 'Acts of God':

I was able to celebrate Storm Darragh's wiping out of the opening Merseyside derby, because I only lost Mo Salah from my starting lineup. Many people found themselves without 3, 4, 5, even 6 players - immediate disaster for them. (Some reached in panic for their 'Free Hit' chip! And apparently the last-minute rush of attempted transfer activity crashed the FPL servers, freezing screens before changes could be implemented for some - and many managers were left doubly vexed and frustrated over the turn of events. However, I suspect most of them will ultimately be better off without having made changes. If you were fairly happy with your squad before the postponement, you shouldn't waste transfers on short-term changes. [It quite often happens that a team you're doubled or trebled up on will have an unexpectedly awful game and none of their players return anything... or all your star men are unexpectedly 'rested' on the same weekend... That kind of thing hurts bad; but you just have to suck it up. A last-minute postponement is the same kind of pain. Using a bunch of transfers to try to deal with it is like self-medicating with alcohol: it won't really make things much better now, and it will leave you with a terrible hangover the day after.]

We have to expect a lot of 'rest rotations' at this time of year, but... Ollie Watkins seemed one of the least likely players to be dropped to the bench this weekend; and that will have been a hard blow for the nearly 24% of Fantasy managers who still own him, despite his and Villa's subdued form over the past month (there was a big inrush for him this week, in anticipation of this 'easy' Southampton fixture!). Southampton largely avoided their usual catastrophic defensive errors here - the only major one, from goalkeeper Lumley, they survived by the skin of their teeth - and, in fact, Villa seemed to be making more sloppy passes. And oh, mirabile dictu, no contentious decisions here. (Not much of anything, really: a very drab game.)

The Brentford v Newcastle game was full of surprises - first, and most painful of which for me (because I recently bought him), was that the almost-never-rested Anthony Gordon got rested (and he didn't make much of an impact when he eventually came on as a sub). Newcastle, perhaps emotionally and physically depleted by their defiant heroics against Liverpool in midweek, were incredibly flat; in fact, this was probably their worst performance of the entire season - with Nick Pope having a particularly bad day at the office, and Lewis Hall (another recent purchase of mine!) having an absolute stinker. One should expect some wild swings of form during the crowded holiday fixture schedule, but even so, it is unusual that one team can suddenly be so much worse than expected, while their opponents produce their best game of the season, as Brentford did here! Moreover, there are certain patterns which, although one can't necessarily determine their causative roots, seem so reliable that they come to mould our expectations (not unreasonably). One such is that the Brentford forwards tend to take it in turns with the goals, and rarely does more than one of them score in the same game; but here, Mbeumo (suddenly back from a five-game mini-slump), Wissa, and Schade (who was only on as a substitute) all scored; and a bloody defender, Nathan Collins, too! A big tremor on the Luck-o-Meter in this one, for all sorts of reasons!  (And I have to admit, Mark Flekken is growing on me slightly of late; well, I think he's slowly getting better. And his scrambling recovery to tip the ball off Isak's toe as he set himself to fire the ball into an empty net was really a top piece of goalkeeping. I still don't think he's anywhere near the best goalkeeper in the EPL; but I wouldn't rank him dead last any more...)

At least there weren't any problems with the refereeing in this game... Well, except for that incident where Dan Burn made a heroic last-ditch block to prevent a late fifth goal after Mbeumo dispossessed a hapless Pope 35 yards out (I was more alarmed by the keeper's complete lack of pace to even try and recover, rather than his initial clumsiness on the ball): Burn clearly attempted to steer the ball away from the goal and back towards his approaching keeper - and did so successfully; Pope immediately picked the ball up and looked to bowl it out to another defender. If the Pau Torres touch to Martinez last weekend was deemed a 'back-pass', why was this not? As I observed then, there's just no consistency about how this rule is applied. [Another bugbear of mine is how careless goalkeepers are now allowed to be in handling the ball near the edge of the box, particularly when about to launch a kick forward: there are examples every week of the ball plainly having strayed outside the lines of the penalty area in a keeper's hands, but referees never do anything about it. There was one particularly egregious example a few weeks back - can't remember who it was now; Vicario, maybe? - where a keeper fell on the ball on the edge of the area, and it briefly rolled a good foot outside the box while he still had his hands on it - but the ref turned a blind eye.]

City floundering against a lower-half side is no longer surprising; it will surely continue to happen unless they can find some sort of Rodri fill-in in January (and replacements too for Walker and Gundogan, who clearly no longer have the legs to play in this League). The only big surprise here was that Rico Lewis finally got a goal (although he has threatened a few times this season; and has 'previous' against Palace); and then got himself sent off! The second booking looked incredibly harsh (Chalobah's boot arriving at the point of contact slightly after Lewis's, and scraping the studs over Lewis's instep - if anything, a foul the other way). The major problem here is with the VAR protocols: sendings-off are so important that they clearly should review all instances, not just 'straight red' situations.

Manchester United fans will no doubt protest that their result was unjust, as they managed to dominate the possession (three-to-one!) and 'expected goals' numbers. But, although they managed to move the ball around a little better than Forest, especially in the first half, Forest had a clear edge in competitiveness, and always felt more 'in control' of the game to me. It was a fair old humdinger, though, with a number of near-misses - notably a crisp volley by Murillo just wide of the near post from a corner, and Martinez's athletic volley over the bar in the closing minutes, as well as Bruno's free-kick effort fingertipped on to the face of the crossbar by Sels, and Jota Silva's powerful early header crashing against the woodwork. One might also consider it... unusual that Andre Onana, who should by rights be one of the best 3 or 4 goalkeepers in the Premier League, had one of those days where he looked like he belonged in Division Two. And he should really have been booked for his ridiculous faffing around with the placing of the ball for the free-kick in the dying minutes (WHY was he time-wasting anyway, when it was his team chasing the equaliser??). Apart from that, though, it seemed to be a pretty well-refereed game, with no controversial decisions.

Sunday, alas, was one of the worst days for VAR that I can remember for a while. Well, there have been an awful lot of them this season, but this one was certainly up there. Kulusevski should clearly have been sent off against Chelsea for blatantly throwing his elbow into the side of Lavia's head, a really nasty foul - somehow completely missed by the officials. (Spurs fans will whinge that perhaps Caicedo should have been sent off a little earlier for kicking Sarr on the shin, but that looked to me like an accidental foll0w-through, as he stumbled forwards slightly off balance; there was little force behind the contact. It should certainly have received a yellow card, and didn't; but it was nowhere near a red.)  Yet another goal was ridiculously disallowed for a non-existent foul on a goalkeeper, and yet again VAR shirked its responsibility (an injustice that will cut particularly deep for relegation-strugglers Ipswich). And then there were some utterly unfathomable offside calls in the Fulham v Arsenal game.  [Grinds teeth in frustration]

Fulham have become a bit of a bogey team for Arsenal, and Marco Silva again did a very good tactical job of smothering their threat here. And even Arteta - for once - took a harsh decision against his side with uncomplaining good grace. Fulham indeed had done enough to deserve a point - although Raul converting their only chance of the game so well was a bit unexpected; especially after a six-game spell when he has not merely not scored but never looked likely to! - and I suppose the dubious offside calls cancel each other out, since I felt Saliba was fairly clearly, if narrowly, offside, while Martinelli almost certainly wasn't (but either way, it was one of those that was too close for any decision on it to be sensibly made) - although the second one rankles with me as it denied Saka any points in the game, and I'd given him my captain's armband after Salah disappeared from the roster. 

My gripe about these decisions, though, is with the VAR process. On live coverage, they seem to have started occasionally showing us a camera view inside the VAR room (is this new? I haven't noticed it before); however, this is vexingly unrevealing, since it is without any audio, and the view is facing away from the monitor screens, so we have no idea what they're looking at. It actually adds to our confusion and anxiety, rather than dispelling it!  Both these decisions took an inordinately long time; and in both cases, a decision appeared to have been reached before the 'lines' were superimposed on the still frame to indicate how it was supposed to have been reached (are the pictures shared at the ground and with TV stations the same as those the VAR officials are seeing??  surely, they ought to be; but we just don't know). Even worse, the still frames being shared on TV were not the most appropriate ones: in the first case the action appeared to have been stopped a bit before Havertz headed back across the face of the goal, so Saliba was not at his furthest point forward (and he still looked offside by an inch or so; but when the ball was actually headed, it looked to me more like a foot); for the second, it just wasn't the best angle to make the call, too far ahead of the defensive line (a better view later appeared, to retroactively justify the decision; but even in that one, Martinelli, way over on the far side, looked just onside). There was again a timing issue with that second decision, as Martinelli checked back for a fraction of a second while the nearest defender was still retreating, and just as the ball was being played to him - so a difference of a 10th or a 20th of a second would have made a substantial difference to the players' relative positions, and it was not clear that the action had been frozen at the appropriate moment. In any case, another Arsenal player almost in line was blocking a clear view of where those two players' feet were, so really I don't see how any decision was possible. In fact, it looked very much as if the call may have been made not against Martinelli, but against another Arsenal forward (Trossard, I suppose?), between the Fulham centre-back and right-back, who was clearly a foot or so offside - but also very clearly not interfering with play. These two decisions may not have been 'wrong' (though they both looked it to me); but it was not clear on what basis they had been made - and that lack of clarity in the process is completely unacceptable.

Ipswich really only have themselves to blame: more atrocious defending from them allowing Bournemouth to nick the game at the death. But they will feel hard done-by - rightly so - at being denied a goal for Delap putting a hand on Kepa's arm at a corner. The amount of indulgence being shown towards goalkeepers by referees has reached an utterly ridiculous level. (And once more, VAR appear to have taken a look, and said: "Well, that was a ridiculous call. But we can't call out a colleague as ridiculous, so... let's just pretend we saw nothing wrong with it.")

Brighton dominated most of the game at Leicester, but couldn't make it count - ultimately needing a couple of worldies from Lamptey and Minteh (and a fantastic fingertip save by Hermansen from Estupinan's fierce drive early on), after the more usual outlets of Mitoma, Ferguson, and Joao Pedro had all spurned chances; and then sitting back to defend the two-goal lead for the last 10 minutes.... and not being able to do so??  Bizarre game on the footballing front; but at least there didn't appear to be any refereeing cock-ups in this one.

The Spurs v Chelsea game got off to a weird start, with the hosts being gifted a couple of goals inside the first 10 minutes or so as a result of - the otherwise excellent! - Cucurella twice giving possession away by falling over (his complaint about the studs on his boots probably just a scapegoat excuse??). The endlessly flakey Sanchez looked somewhat at fault in goal on both of them too. For the first, he appeared to be trying to come out for the cross (which was obviously going to be cleared by his defender, if the Spurs forward at the near post didn't reach it first), rather than staying on his line to guard his near post; it was as if he hadn't even seen Solanke running in on the ball. And the second, while a crisp shot through a defender's legs, nestled right inside the near post, didn't have that much power in it, and Sanchez got across to it comfortably enough but somehow didn't get his hand on it. For me, that is a keeper that has got to go (and I'm not alone: the 'Match of the Day' pundits on the BBC seem to have been saying the same every weekend for the past month or more). A thrilling end-to-end game, with a fair few near-misses, a 'Goal of the Month' contender from Sancho, 2 penalties (both completely uncontentious, for once), Jackson's finishing - mostly immaculate so far this season - suddenly letting him down again (and so denying Palmer perhaps 2 or 3 more assists!!), and the rare sight of Son Heung-Min fluffing an easy one-on-one... And Cole Palmer (much as I love him...) was extremely fortunate to be awarded an 'assist' for his pass across the box to Enzo, since it took a huge deflection off a Spurs defender, and most of the time even the smallest intervening touch will rob a player of credit for setting up a goal (I worry that this decision may yet get revised, possibly harming his bonus points tally as well... God, I hope not: he's the only player who returned for me this week!). This match alone was probably worth a couple of points on my Luck-o-Meter scale!

Monday night's West Ham v Wolves clash was really a 'Save Your Manager's Job' match; and I had thought that perhaps Wolves would be a little more motivated on Gary O'Neill's behalf than West Ham would be for the drab and uninspiring Lopategui. But not as it turned out: despite a thumping half-volley equaliser from Matt Doherty (yet another goal from a defender?!), West Ham looked to be absolutely dominant in this one; and if Mohammed Kudus was aware of the offside law, they might easily have scored 4 or 5. And there was another selection 'surprise' here, with O'Neill suddenly switching back to Sam Johnstone in goal, in place of Jose Sa (it didn't do him any good; but it will have pissed off the 2% of managers who still owned Sa). Swapping your keeper is usually a sign of ultimate desperation; isn't that right, Pep?

Alas, it looks as though - yet again - O'Neill can feel rightly aggrieved at the refereeing decisions in this game: the corner from which Soucek headed his opener should have been a goal-kick (although that's no excuse for the awful defending, as four Wolves players formed a gaggle near the edge of the six-yard box to watch the lanky Czech eagerly waiting for his free header to arrive, and doing absolutely nothing to try to prevent it); Emerson ran into the back of Guedes on the edge of the box, but VAR declared, rather dubiously, that the contact had started 'outside the area'; and then in the closing minutes, Mavropanos stamped on Bellegarde's foot - clearly inside the box this time, and clearly a foul, but once more both the referee and the VAR team unaccountably looked the other way. While these accumulating small injustices will rankle with Wolves fans, and probably have had some impact on their standing in the table, it doesn't alter the fact that their performances this season have been abysmal - and O'Neill really needs to go now (probably should have gone a month back). But so does Lopategui: he's doing an even worse job, with a much stronger group of players.

Losing an entire game from the schedule - especially 'at the last minute' (only around 2 hours before the deadline; which, for a Saturday luncthtime kick-off, is still the middle of the night for anyone playing the game in the Americas!) - is probably worth 4 or 5 points on the Luck-o-Meter straight away.

Losing Mo Salah, the most potent player in the game at the moment, to that postponement, and then having so many other leading players either rested (especially Watkins and Gordon, both quite high owned), or dropped (Maddison!) amped up the unpredictability of the weekend even further. There were some moderately surprising performances and results too, with Southampton holding Villa to the narrowest of victories, Leicester, Fulham, and Palace managing draws against the much more fancied Brighton, Arsenal and Manchester City, and Brentford/Newcastle, Man Utd/Forest, and Spurs/Chelsea producing multi-goal ding-dongs!!

And among the 'usual suspects', only Cole Palmer had a big week this time - and that essentially down to the 2 silly penalties Spurs gave him (his first 2 of the season???). The 'Team of the Week' is really a bit of a joke, with almost no-one that any sensible manager would (any longer) own: Emi Martinez and Ezri Konsa are very poor picks for the long-haul, almost never keep clean sheets (but did this week!); Saliba is, of course, a great player - but usually only third choice from the Arsenal defence after Gabriel and Timber (and he looked to me well offside for his goal, though VAR somehow erred in his favour!); Tariq Lamptey and Tim Hughes are irregular starters, Ouattara only just back from injury; Mbeumo, Bowen, Raul, and Vardy were all making surprise returns to form after a scoring drought (5 games without a goal for Mbeumo and Bowen, 6 for Raul, and - before last week - 4 for Vardy); and Morgan Gibbs-White hadn't produced anything since his solitary goal of the season in the second game against hopeless Southampton. So, that right there, that combination of the usually reliable players (Saka, Jackson, Joao Pedro, Isak, Watkins...), as well as many of the recently popular 'Sheep Picks' (Cunha, Ait-Nouri, Iwobi, Porro, Kerkez...) all producing little or nothing... while so many players we should have given up on by now came good again out of nowhere... that on its own is probably worth at least 4 points on the Luck-o-Meter scale.

And then, on top of all the wild swings of fortune in the selections and performances, we had some spectacularly bad decisions marring the gameweek too: Lewis being wrongly sent off, Kulusevski being wrongly allowed to remain on the field, Ipswich being denied a perfectly good goal, Wolves being denied 1 or 2 penalties, and a few offsides so close that the VAR determinations on them were severely unconvincing. Ugh - just a horrible, horrible Gameweek. I only hesitate to give it a maximum score of 10 because I fear there will almost certainly be at least one week this season that manages to be spectactularly worse still, but.... it's definitely a strong 9 out of 10 on the Luck-o-Meter.