Luck-o-Meter (33)

 

Astonishingly, there were few new injuries emerging over the preceding week. But there was still huge uncertainty around the toll the midweek Eurepean games might have taken - emotionally as well as physically - on the teams involved, and how much player rotation we might expect as a result of that,... especially with four teams now going on to face two-leg semi-final ties which will define their season.

Brentford and Brighton produced an entertaining game, though the south-coast side still aren't firing on all cylinders, and look particularly wonky in defence. Oddly, they had their best spell of pressure after Joao Pedro got sent off early in the second half (his frequent petulance really is a bit of a problem); but they were no match for Mbeumo at his best. Welbeck had a penalty claim, but there wasn't much in it: he was clearly jumping over/through Flekken's outstretched arm rather than actually being brought down by it.

Crystal Palace, rather to my surprise, bounced back fairly strongly from their abject display against Newcastle a few days ago - but were still strangely toothless. The big talking point here was Chris Richards's unjust dismissal on the stroke of half-time: his first yellow card had been extremely harsh, and the second one wasn't a foul at all (very, very minimal contact, if any). It was all the more galling for Palace that Bournemouth midfielder Alex Scott had been let off for a second bookable offence only shortly earlier (though that, too, would have been a very harsh sending-off, I feel). Luckily, it didn't really affect the subsequent course of the game (although it will have been annoying for the more than 14% of Fantasy managers who own Eze, seeing the defender's dismissal lead to Eze's tactical withdrawal at the interval): Palace dug in resolutely, and held on for a goalless draw, in what was ultimately a rather lifeless game, with both sides miles below their best.

Everton, strangely, seemed to set out to contain City and play for the clean sheet. On recent form, you would have fancied their chances of getting a win against their misfiring visitors if they'd gone after them (and the decision to start Broja rather than the recently excellent Beto up front was particularly mystifying). Everton did, in fact, have most of the better chances, with Tarkowski looping an early header against a post, and Ortega having to make excellent saves from Branthwaite and Doucoure. DeBruyne started, and played most of the 90, but had fairly little impact; and you suspect that he'll be rested in the midweek game against Villa. Everton probably would have held on to their hard-won point, if defensive lynchpin Tarkowski hadn't pinged a hamstring 5 minutes into the second half; they immediately started looking much more vulnerable at the back when Michael Keane replaced him, and eventually gave up 2 goals in the closing minutes - producing an unexpected, and somewhat undeserved win for Pep's men.

Ugochukwu's injury-time winner at West Ham felt well-earned: Southampton had been much the better team, for most of a rather drab game, with 4 or 5 good chances before that clincher. Jarrod Bowen's reliable finish from a quick breakaway was the only high spot for the home side. (Fullkrug's 'goal' was rightly ruled out for barging/holding the keeper.) I'm not sure Graham Potter will still be there next season.

The big surprise at Villa Park was that - for the first time this season - rather than looking deflated and weary after a big European game, Villa actually recovered strongly and produced one of their best League performances of the season. While Newcastle were short of energy, wearied by their big win over Palace in midweek.... and star man Isak barely got on the ball. The final scoreline, though, was a little flattering: Villa needed a big slice of luck to get under way, with a huge deflection on Watkins's opening effort; and further out-of-the-blue moments with Dan Burn's unfortunate own goal, and then Onana getting a pinger from the edge of the box near the end!! Villa fans, however, may feel that their luck was deserved, and perhaps even that on balance, things didn't particularly go in their favour: Watkins thundered efforts against the woodwork twice, and Ramsey once; Watkins also had a penalty shout ignored (fair enough, I think; Schar stuck out his foot unwisely as the forward passed him, but there was very minimal contact, and Watkins was clearly 'looking for it' - might have been booked for 'diving'); and Newcastle's goal started with a free-kick in the middle of the pitch that should have gone against Livramento rather than for him. An early upset in this extended gameweek for managers who fancied Newcastle to repeat their recent big wins (Isak, Murphy, Schar and Livramento are all high-owned at the moment), and those who - like me, I confess! - were sceptical about how Villa would bounce back from their disappointment against PSG.

Damn, Sunday's games were a bit of a yawn. I'd planned my travels to be able to spend two successive weekends in the best sports bar I know in Asia (it's not a high bar, unfortunately...), but I'd run out of enthusiasm by half-time, and toddled back to my hotel at 9pm... Even Arsenal's demolition of Ipswich was dully efficient, rather than a thrill-ride. And the scoreline was perhaps a little flattering: although they had lots of good chances, with Palmer making a few fine saves, and Odegaard hitting the foot of the post, Nwaneri's late fourth clattered off two defenders to wrong-foot keeper Palmer, and both of Trossard's goals were slightly scuffed efforts that squeaked through a defender's legs. Again, there's not much argument about the sending-off of Leif Davis, for his dreadful lunge through the back of Saka's right heel - a challenge that could well have torn ligaments or the Achilles tendon. There must be some surprise, though, that Arteta had chosen to start Saka in such an unimportant, unchallenging game; and then that, after taking a crunching hit like that, he wasn't immediately subbed off for assessment  He had to be withdrawn 10 minutes into the second half, and the injured foot was immediately strapped up and plastered in ice-packs. Arteta said afterwards that this was just 'precautionary' and he didn't think it was anything too bad - but I'm not so sure. And I don't know why he'd be taking such unnecessary chances with a player so valuable. (Further misery for Saka owners in that Odgaard's slight, non-decisive touch on his cutback to Trossard denied him the 'assist' for the first goal.)

Chelsea dominated possession without achieving much penetration at Fulham, but did well to fight back after going behind to Iwobi's goal-out-of-nothing (which surely should have been disallowed for Sessegnon fouling Reece James to gain possession at the start of the move). Chelsea finally achieved a first away win in four-and-a-half months - but they left it very late, with Neto producing the 'Goal of the Month' deep into injury time.

Manchester United v Wolves was a woefully uneventful game - until Sarabia's sublime free-kick goal in the closing minutes. United dominated possession but couldn't generate many decent chances from it, an squandered all the ones they did (all coming from Garnacho, who must be feeling particularly frustrated that all his good work counted for nothing): Mason Mount and Bruno Fernandes - of all people! - were guilty of particularly glaring misses. The major surprise element in this eminently forgettable match was Wolves keeper Jose Sa feeling a muscle injury in the warm-up and having to be replaced at the last moment by understudy Dan Bentley - a bitter blow for the 3.2% of FPL managers who rely on Sa; and a sharp reminder to everyone that you really can't afford to be without a decent back-up keeper.

Were Liverpool getting just a little bit nervous, or was it just poor luck - that they could have so many chances and not score.... until Trent's cracking volley, when he came on for a 20-minute cameo at the end? Salah being played in behind by a lovely slick passing move after just a couple of minutes, but seeing his shot ricochet off the inside of both posts was a portent of how the whole game would go for them. Salah didn't play badly, and his 'blanks' this season have been very rare: it was a huge surprise that he didn't manage to get on the scoresheet against such a flakey defence. On the other hand, Liverpool were somewhat fortunate not to go behind when a scrambled Leiecester goal was ruled out for Daka's very slight nudge on Alisson as he'd tried to recover the ball on the byline. And indeed, the referee might well have stopped play - probably should have - for a possible serious head injury to Luke Thomas (who'd been laid out by a knee in the back of his head from his keeper) before Trent's goal. Leicester v Liverpool nearly being a goalless draw... nearly being a 1-0 home win?? Nobody was betting on outcomes like that! Funny old game, indeed.

Spurs looked very flat and uninspiring at home on Monday night, and might easily have conceded more than 2 in the first half against a very fluent Forest. Chris Wood's early goal being disallowed as offside was close-ish, but looked about right. The home side increasingly came back into it through the second half, requiring a few really fine saves from Matz Sels and an acrobatic clearance off the line by Harry Toffolo; and they eventually got a late consolation goal from Richarlison. But overall, another performance that the Spurs fans cannot have been at all happy with. It's beginning to look as if everyone is just concentrating on the Europa League as their 'Get Out Of Jail' card this season.

It looks as if City once again laboured to a win they scarcely deserved at home against Villa on Tuesday night. Rasfhord had managed to break in behind straight from the kick-off and slammed a fierce cross-shot past Ortega - but it was one of those that cannoned off the base of the post and rebounded straight into the hands of the surprised and grateful keeper. Later, they were let down (again) by Emi Martinez, going through a slightly flakey phase, who let Bernardo Silva's shot (firm, but not that challenging) somehow go straight through him. And it was rough on Marmoush fans that his cutback to create this goal was not credited as an assist because it took a slight deflection off a Villa defender's heel on its way through to Silva. The only bit of dubious refereeing evident in the highlights was that Craig Pawson apparently didn't see Ruben Dias's very obvious collision with Jacob Ramsey in the box in real-time, and needed a helpful whisper in the ear from his VAR colleague to prompt him to correct his oversight. (And WHY is Marcus Rashford on penalties?? He managed to put this one away, but he doesn't look at all convincing about it.) It looks like it was a fairly even game, but Villa were perhaps feeling the effect of having played three games in a week a bit more towards the end; City kept pushing to the last, and were eventually rewarded with an excellent Matheus Nunes goal deep into injury-time.

Arsenal twice took the lead, but twice lost it again - to a Palace who were better than in their awful midweek game last week, but still didn't defend at all well. Saka, apparently miraculously recovered from the crunching blow he took to the back of his ankle barely 100 hours previously, was chanced for 30 minutes off the bench, but had little impact. (I find that staggering: a week ahead of the PSG game, I would not even have put him on the bench here - Terminator-like though his physical indestructibility may appear to be!)  The one potential controversy here was a second 'goal' for Arsenal when Martinelli headed over the line from inches out after Timber had heroically hooked the ball back from the byline. The linesman appeared at first to have rather mystifyingly adjudged that someone had been offside; VAR hastily overruled that, without explanation, but then took a while to decide that Timber had failed to keep the ball in play - although it was very, very tight, and the supposedly 'decisive' picture shared with the fans was not clear enough to justify the verdict. Bitter gall for Timber or Marttinelli owners: such is FPL! At the end, it was was Saliba, of all people, who gave away the win, playing the ball straight to Mateta 25 yards out to claim an equaliser at the death; a lot of pundits were eulogising the quality of his finish, but - with Raya having come forward to the edge of his box to assist in build-up - the goal was completely unguarded.... and I think I can usually hit an empty net from 25 yards! (Saliba has looked a little bit error-prone of late. I suspect the stress of being - now - the only invariable starter in the Arsenal defence is starting to wear him down mentally, and he would probably benefit from being given a game's rest here and there. But Arteta's greatest weakness, for me, is that his terror of defeat is such that he seems to feel unable to ever risk dropping his best players: Saka, Saliba, Rice.... will play almost every minute of every game, so long as they can walk. This could backfire on him big time in the Champions League semi-final, I fear.)

It wasn't quite such a terrible Double Gameweek as I'd feared, with Palace and City surprisingly claiming clean sheets at the weekend, and City in fact managing 2 wins (though not terribly convincing ones...), while Palace picked up two draws in games they were generally expected to lose, and Villa somehow pulled off a drubbing against up-and-down Newcastle!! Only 3 single gameweek players  - Mbeumo, Wissa, and Sessengnon - ultimately made the 'Team of the Week' (barely half as many as might have been expected, with some big names like Salah surprisingly coming up blank), although there were a fair few more knocking on the door, and of the doublers, only Leandro Trossard racked up a really big haul; not too many others got into double figures, and the best of them were unexpected heroes, players that almost no-one would have owned - Matheus Nunes, Nico O'Reilly, Oleks Zinchenko, Yakub Kiwior. The failure of many of the most popular doubling picks - Saliba, Rice, Merino, Rogers, Rashford, Munoz, Eze, Mateta, Gvardiol, DeBruyne, Marmoush - to come up with very much.... will have been a huge disappointment to most FPL managers who bet big on the double. But it might have been very much worse; many of the biggest single gameweek threats - Salah, Isak, Strand Larsen - came up with nothing, so they probably ended up doing better than most players who opted not to go for so many doublers.

However, it was a very strange week, with an absolutely enormous points spread: the week's top performer got a colossal 158 points, more than 100 above the global average! However a great many players, possibly the majority, only got something very close to, or even well below the global average; and it appears from my country league that most 'good scores' for the week were only somewhere in the 60s. Funny old game, indeed.

This is only looking a 4 out of 10 kind of week on the 'Luck-o-Meter': a few contentious refereeing decisions (and there are still a lot of problems with how VAR decisions are being reached, and communicated), but only the Chris Richards sending-off and the Newcastle and Fulham goals were clearly wrong; and, astonishingly, there seem to have been no ridiculously tight offside calls this week.  However, there have been a number of surprises in selections, performances and results - which almost bumps it up to a 5 or 6....

DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  Most people will have played the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip by now; but if you haven't.... it's not too late to refuse to do so! I took the high road by quitting playing the game for the rest of the season when it was introduced in GW23. [I worry that, if people don't protest vociferously about it, the new chip may become a permanent feature of the game - and it will completely ruin it.]  If you didn't feel able to join me in such an emphatic gesture, I hope you at least thought about refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip (and still might refuse, if you've kept it till the last few gameweeks of the season).

Please also criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

Dilemmas of the Week - GW33

Amazingly, there don't seem to have been many major new injuries this week. But once again, the main uncertainties will arise from how physically and emotionally strung out - and hence, below par in performance - Arsenal and Villa and Spurs and Manchester United and Chelsea may be after their big European games in midweek. And with all of those but Villa now facing semi-finals in those competitions shortly, precautionary 'rest rotations' are a huge hazard for FPL managers (this is why you really need a good bench at this time of year!).

Of course, it's a Double Gameweek; but it's a very bad one - curb your enthusiasm.

I am trying to streamline these weekly round-ups, aiming to confine myself to just the injuries to players that are likely to have a major significance in FPL. [I currently find the 'Injuries & Bans' summary on Fantasy Football Scout the most reliable resource for this kind of information - go check that out for more comprehensive coverage.]

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 33?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Jorginho suffered bruised ribs against Brentford last weekend, and looks like being unavailable this week.

Ipswich's Liam Delap is also suffering with bruised ribs, and only got short minutes against Chelsea last week.

Ederson strained a groin muscle against Palace last week, and his recovery timeline is uncertain - so, Stefan Ortega will be deputising for him again.

At Manchester United, Joshua Zirkzee pulled a hamstring in last week's game and has been ruled out for the rest of the season, while promising young defender Ayden Heaven missed out against Lyon in midweek with a training-ground knock. But at least Luke Shaw is back in contention again now, after managing an extended appearance in the European game.

Southampton striker Paul Onuachu had to go off against Villa last Saturday with an ankle problem, and remains a doubt.

Postecoglou was trying to be upbeat about the condition of James Maddison after he was laid out by a heavy collision with the Frankfurt keeper on Thursday night, but 'concussion protocols' must surely keep him out this weekend.... and possibly next as well? Son Heung-min had to drop out of last week's game at Wolves with a foot injury, and was unable to be involved against Frankfurt either.

At West Ham, Aaron Wan-Bissaka is a slight doubt with a bruised toe.

Wolves's Matt Doherty and Jean-Ricner Bellegarde were both withdrawn in the Spurs game 'as a precaution', but remain slight doubts for this weekend. Having an excuse to rest Bellegarde might be convenient for Vitor Pereira, since it allows an easy path to reintroducing Matheus Cunha - who will surely get in a sulk if he's left on the bench much longer.

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

Remarkably - we have no new suspensions this week.

But all the teams that just played in Europe - Arsenal, Villa, Manchester United, Spurs, Chelsea - are likely to be seriously fatigued and below their best.... and (except for poor Villa) may be resting key players ahead of the semi-finals. That is particularly a concern in regard to Bukayo Saka, who I would expect to get very short minutes in the League until the PSG games are out of the way.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

It would be tempting to omit Asensio, Eze, and Saka for crimes against penalty-taking in this past week!

But on a more serious note, there must now be grave doubts about retaining any Palace players: they don't have the easiest run-in, and their confidence must be dented by suffering two such heavy defeats inside a few days. While they were just a bit unlucky in the close-fought game with City at the weekend, against Newcastle in midweek they were absolutely abysmal.

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

Kevin DeBruyne, Omar Marmoush, and Nico O'Reilly were outstanding in the comeback win against Palace last Saturday. However, the rest of the City team were still pretty poor.... Moreover, O'Reilly is a surprisingly expensive 4.9 million, and is - unfortunately - classified in the game as a midfielder, which greatly lessens his appeal. Marmoush, though in impressive form, is still probably not quite a top three forward pick (outside of the current double gameweek, anyway). And KDB.... well, he's made a bit of a habit of rousing himself to a superb 'comeback' performance soon after returning from a long absence, but he's rarely managed to hit quite the same heights subsequently. He's nearly 34 now, and has struggled with a string of persistent injuries over the last few seasons: it's very difficult to imagine him playing a full 90 minutes very often, and certainly not twice within four days.

Most people have probably done with the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip now - wanting to keep the last few weeks of the season (and the Double Gameweek resulting from the FA Cup Semi-Finals) open for playing their Bench Boost (and/or, perhaps, their Triple Captain chip), while keeping their Free Hit and/or 2nd Wildcard available till now to help deal with these tricky blanks and doubles at the end of the season. If anyone does still have AssMan in play, Arsenal and Mikel Arteta are surely the favourites for this week: they're the only one of the doubling teams that look likely to register 2 wins (and probably at least 1, maybe 2 clean sheets as well); none of the others looks to have a great chance of managing even 1 win. Some might fancy Ange and his Spurs to pull off a table-bonus upset against Forest, but in the midst of their battle for European consolation, and possibly - probably - without Son and Maddison this week, that looks extremely unlikely to me. David Moyes's Everton, however, could well nick something off still rickety Manchester City....

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

AND PLEASE DON'T FORGET The Boycott; I loathe the pointless innovation of the 'Assistant Manager' chip - and I have been urging everyone to please consider quitting the game, or at least refusing to use the chip, in protest. 

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

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip 

A little bit of Zen (38)

"How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself..."

Marcus Aurelius

Picks of the Week - DGW33

Which players should we covet specifically for this week's Double Gameweek??

Well, this should even quicker than last week's review of the options....

NONE.

Or at least, none that you don't have already.

If there are a lot of doubling teams to choose from, you can make sure you only get the best players from the best teams, with the best fixtures. And you can try to minimise the number of players you have who are pitched against each other in the same match.

With a smaller Double Gameweek like this, you can't do that. You only have 4 teams to choose from - and, inevitably, they're all playing each other. And the other team they're playing is a daunting opponent, for three of the four. Only Arsenal actually have a decent double-fixture. The others are best avoided, at least for defensive assets, as it's difficult to have much confidence that they'll win either game; certainly, clean sheets don't look very likely for anyone.

Moreover, apart from Arsenal, the doubling teams aren't all that good - only mid-table sides this year: good mid-table sides, yes, but they've been so inconsistent, and have such glaring defensive frailties, that they're left scrapping with the likes of Fulham and Brighton for the chance of a place in the lesser European competitions next year, rather than challenging hard for Champions League qualification: Palace, Villa, and City are just not teams to be all that enthused about at the moment.

Loading up on doubling players should be dismissed as undesirable/impossible if you haven't kept your Free Hit or Wildcard to get yourself out of trouble in the following week when those players will all miss a fixture. And if you use the Free Hit to get around the Blank Gameweek, you're then left with all those players for the rest of the season. Do you really want 10 or 12 players from those teams, with their remaining runs of fixtures?? Do you even want 7 or 8?? I would suggest NOT. So, you won't just be burning transfers to bring players in for this week, you'll probably be burning more to get rid of most of them again as soon as possible. It is very, very unlikely that any doubling player will give you enough of a points lift to justify using two transfers on them in a short space of time.

I would rather be considering moving out some players from the doubling teams, as I really don't see much value from Palace or Villa players with their fixtures.

Arsenal have a good chance of picking up one clean sheet, possibly two - so it could be tempting to load up on their defence and/or get Raya in goal. But as I just noted above, you might not want to be overstocked with Arsenal defensive assets beyond this week, as their next three opponents - Bournemouth, Liverpool, and Newcastle - are quite challenging (and they'll probably be somewhat distracted by the forthcoming Champions League showdown with PSG). Most people have William Saliba already, since there was never that much to choose between him and Gabriel as the most reliable defensive pick for FPL this year, and for those who hadn't picked him already, he was the natural replacement for Gabriel when he tore his hamstring at the start of this month. There's a bit too much uncertainty about rotation in the rest of the Arsenal defence, though Jurrien Timber or perhaps Ben White could be worth gambling on. David Raya, though, I would be wary of, because of the following fixtures. As for attacking assets - well, they don't have a striker, none of their attacking midfielders have established regular goalscoring form, and there's too much likelihood of rotation in those positions. Some people are getting over-optimisitic about Bukayo Saka's prospects now that he's back from injury - but I think he's likely to be wrapped in cotton wool and saved for the PSG games. The in-form (and rarely rested) Declan Rice would be my pick, if you are going for another Arsenal man. Trossard, Merino, or Martinelli could always come up with something; but it's so difficult to guess if they'll start in both games.

Most people already have Omar Marmoush (well, over 31% own him), who's been in excellent form lately - although arguably not a top three striker pick, without the benefit of an additional fixture. Many have Josko Gvardiol as well (and indeed, have held on to him all season): his goalscoring is phenomenal, but his opportunities to register attacking contributions are severely limited when he plays in central defence; and City still look like they're going to be leaking a lot of goals. All the attacking midfield options are far too at risk of unpredictable rotations. Kevin DeBruyne is the only one who'd tempt me, after his sensational performance against Palace last week; but he is turning 34 in a couple of months, and definitely starting to show his age - I fear it's very doubtful that he'll play a full 90 minutes twice within a few days.

Many people have Morgan Rogers (or Asensio or Rashford) already. Fine to keep them, and keep your fingers crossed, for this week; but it's difficult to imagine them getting much against Newcastle or City. And Villa, alas, have usually been dreadful immediately after one of their big European games; that's likely to be even worse this time, with them being emotionally depleted as well by the narrow loss to PSG. I certainly wouldn't touch any Villa defensive assets with a bargepole for these two games. And Ollie Watkins isn't worth getting in just for this week.

Palace, I fear, may be badly demoralised by the two heavy spankings they've just suffered; these defeats might signal a collapse in form. Part of the problem might be that they just don't have a deep enough squad at the moment to cope with playing twice in a week - and they're now looking at having had to play four times wihin 10 or 11 days. Mateta looks to be out of form, perhaps inhibited by his painful ear injury. Sarr has been predictably disappointing (just not a reliable goalscorer, only a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of guy); and I wouldn't want to take a chance on having Munoz or Henderson for a pair of games they're very likely to lose. (Indeed, I can see them not winning another game this season.)  Only Eberechi Eze might be worth having from the Eagles.

I think we might well see a particularly emphatic exposé of the Double Gameweek Delusion this week. Double-fixtures are not automatically better than single-fixtures; they are usually only worth pursuing if at least one of them is a good fixture. (And in this DGW, NONE of them are - except for Arsenal's.)  Even then, you have to bear in mind other factors as well, like the transferred-in players' prospects in the following weeks.

Some people are going crazy for the DGW, using a chip or spending 'hits' to bring in the maximum 12 doublers - even dropping the best of their current squad to do so,... some even dropping Mo Salah! That is INSANITY. Mo Salah, with a game against awful Leicester, is very likely to be the week's highest-scoring player (yes, even without a second game!). And if he isn't, it will probably be Luis Diaz or Diogo Jota; or maybe Mbeumo against Brighton, or Iwobi against Chelsea, or Bowen against Southampton, or Elanga against Spurs, or Evanilson against Palace, or Cunha or Strand Larsen against Manchester United. The doubles this week are nothing to get excited about, and I don't see doubling players dominating the 'Team of the Week' (they're bound to get some representation; but maybe only 4 or 5 spots, not all 11!). You ignore the most promising single-gameweek players at your peril.

The great CHIP Dilemma

This conundrum presents itself every year - In what order should we play our Free Hit and 2nd Wildcard chips?

In general, the Free Hit would seem better suited to helping you dance around the problem of a big Blank Gameweek - when many top teams, and hence many of your best players, may be missing from the action for one week only.

And the Wildcard is traditionally preserved for use just ahead of the big Double Gameweek, which usually follows close after it,... but this year, oddly, is going to precede it. (You might, of course, use your Wildcard in the Double Gameweek; but a big Double is usually a good opportunity to get the most out of the Bench Boost chip - and, since you can only use one chip per gameweek, people tend to use their Wildcard to 'set up' their squad to optimise all 15 players with the best fixtures the week before the Double so that they can use Bench Boost the following week.)

However, there's no hard-and-fast rule: you always need to stay flexible in your approach to chip play.

The optimum use of the chips in any given year will depend on how the fixtures break on those crucial weekends (do the blanks/doubles involve a lot of your players, or not?), and on the subsequent run of fixtures (do you actually want to keep most of your doublers for more than that one gameweek?).

For Gameweeks 33/34 this year, with only a small number of teams involved, and mostly not the most popular ones in FPL at the moment - it was really looking as though, for most FPL managers, you'd probably only want additional players from the doubling teams in GW33, but not thereafter (indeed, you might even want to reduce or eliminate your exposure to those teams by removing some of your long-term holds from them, because their form was stuttering or ther run-ins looked a little shakey). In contrast, many of the players you were loading up on in the subsequent Blank Gameweek 34 were not just one-week makeweights, but players coming into form and/or facing a promising final month of fixtures, players you would want to keep for the remainder of the season.

And thus.... playing the Free Hit for the double in GW33 and the Wildcard for the blank in GW34 was probably the more sensible option this time around.

It can work out either way. But it's usually very much better one way than the other - and that can be a tricky choice to make.... And the answer could be different in each year. [At least, that's how it is now - since we no longer have any truly big Blank/Double Gameweeks to worry about, as the FA Cup Quarter-Final weekend has been removed from the League programme from this year. In the past, with a really huge Blank and Double resulting from up to 8 rearranged fixtures, the case for using Free Hit to survive the BIG Blank was pretty overwhelming...]

Luck-o-Meter (32)

Well, amazingly, no major new injuries appear to have resulted from this week's batch of BIG European games. But we still had quite a few problems hanging over our heads from last week... And with HUGE European second-legs loomng for five teams, the risk of rest rotations is a big hazard for this week.

This week also sees the long overdue introduction of the Semi-Automated Offside Technology, replacing the laborious, inaccurate, unconvincing manual placing of thick coloured lines on the freezeframe view with detailed computer graphic renderings of the players' relative positions. It's not going to be infallible (though the main problem with 'fairness' lies in  the framing of the Law itself; we shouldn't be seeking to make offside determinations to a fraction of an inch - if part of the torso is 'level', overlapping with a defender's, the position of an attacker's toe or a nose shouldn't matter), and it's going to take some time to convince us that it's even moderately accurate and reliable, but.... it's got to be an improvement, surely. [ESPN has quite a good overview of how the new system is supposed to work and why it's been introduced.]

Well, what an absurd bish-bosh of a game we had to start the weekend off - one of the best games of the entire season: not perhaps the greatest football, but the most entertaining end-to-end contest. There were so many potential 'turning points' one might argue the significance of in this (the xG numbers were ridiculous!): Henderson making a great early save from Marmoush, DeBruyne crashing a shot against the post shortly afterwards, KDB then squeezing a free-kick in off the inside of the post to launch the improbable comeback, McAtee spurning three excellent chances before finally converting one,... and, of course, the amphetamines with which Pep obviously spiked the half-time lemon juice. For me, the slightly harsh early booking of Kamada could have been a more subtly decisive moment, subsequently robbing Palace of some of their bite in midfield. (And the withdrawal of Mateta for Hughes by Glasner at half-time was a bit of a head-scratcher - was it 'tactical'? What was the idea??) But really the game swung on the new offside decision-making system: Eze's apparent second - which would have put Palace 3-0 up, and even a superlative DeBruyne and Marmoush would have struggled to inspire a comeback from that - looked onside, but he was adjudged to have been offside by the length of his boot (possibly the 'correct' decision, but it will be hard to earn fans' confidence in calls like this; and it obviously doesn't feel fair to chalk off a good goal for such a trivial infraction), whereas young Nico O'Reilly looked well offside in providing the pre-assist for the crucial third City goal early in the second half, but was apparently 'on'.... by the width of a ruckle on the shoulder of a defender's shirt - WTF? And although the decisions themselves are being produced fairly quickly, there may still be issues about the speed with which the justifying images can be rendered - or shared with the public: the graphic of the Eze offside didn't show up on TV until nearly a quarter of an hour later!  Sharing the images promptly is going to be a key part of winning public confidence in this new system.

S9, a wonderful spectacle at The Etihad, and a fine swansong performance by one of the all-time Premier League greats, but.... boy, oh boy, City dodged a bullet in this one; in at least half of the possible universes, they must have gone down to Palace's blistering start. (A uniquely FPL concern in this match was Eze taking a painful whack to the leg early in the second half, and looking like he might have to be pulled just shy of the hour. He was visibly slowed down by the challenge, and was withdrawn less than 20 minutes later - so, I worry he might now be a doubt for the Wednesday game against Newcastle.)

Leicester managed to score a goal for the first time in three months! Then they did it again. And they nearly nicked a win in the dying minutes when El-Khannouss cracked one against the far post. The visitors might also feel aggrieved that they didn't get a  first-half penalty when McAteer was barged to the ground by Estupinan in the corner of the box: one of those incidents that might be arguable, but at least deserved a good long ponder from VAR - and didn't seem to get it. There wasn't any doubt about either of the Brighton penalties at least; the mystery there was why VAR needed to intervene when they were both so obvious they really should have been spotted by the on-pitch referee straight away. But damn, Ruud van Nistelrooy very nearly pulled off a table-bonus win - which would have brought much joy to the 427 FPL managers brave or foolish enough to have chosen him for their 'Assistant Manager' this week.

Doucoure's late, late winner for Everton at Forest was just about deserved, in what had been an entertaining stalemate. With a few of their best players absent or compromised - Aina still in the treatment room, Elanga unable to start, Wood only just back from the troublesome hip injury, looking rather ponderous - Forest were inevitably a bit flat, but looked much more dangerous in the second half. I'm pleased I predicted the likelihood of an 'upset' here - Moyes keeps pulling off these results! Both Wood and Beto got tumbled to the ground inside the box; both might have been fairly light or 'accidental' collisions, but they were both the sort of penalty appeals that are often given - and they seemed substantial enough to merit far more than the apparently very cursory VAR attention they were given. And Jarrad Branthwaite was very, very lucky to escape a red card (actually, any card at all??) for blatantly shoulder-charging Jota Silva in the side of the head. It was an obviously deliberate piece of thuggery, and the kind of challenge which could cause a very serious injury (probably did cause a concussion - which is another issue; why wasn't Silva taken off the field for checks?). What was VAR doing here?

Villa were pretty lacklustre against Southampton, as they invariably have been after their big European games this year - only really starting to look much of a threat in the final half hour or so. Even then, they needed a bit of luck - with Watkins's smart volleyed chip for the breakthrough only just scudding in off the underside of the bar, and two very soft penalty awards breaking the home side's morale, even if they weren't converted (both incidents were blocks rather than challenges, where the Villa player clearly initiated contact with a defender's outstretched leg [actually, for the second one, Stephens played the ball!]: I wouldn't have given either of them; and what on earth was going on with Asensio taking the second, and hitting it in exactly the same place as the first, allowing Ramsdale to make exactly the same save??); and Emi Martinez had to make two very sharp saves, one early from Archer, one late from Fernandes, to spare Villa some potential embarrassment. FPL managers who rushed to bring in more Villa players ahead of their upcoming double gameweek are probably mostly a bit disappointed with their returns here... and they might be even more disappionted after next week.

Arsenal dropped points again against Brentford (again, not exactly unexpected). What was unexpected, in a fairly dour encounter, was that Rice would combine with Partey for a high-speed breakaway goal (far more of a Mbeumo-and-Wissa thing)! Or that Saka, on for the last 25 minutes, would fail to convert when presented with the ball on the edge of the box by one of the worst goalkeeping errors of the season (Flekken decides to step out of his box to deal with a long clearance from Raya which is obviously going to come all the way through to him to gather safetly in his hands... and then elects to try to control the ball rather than hoof it to safety - WTF???). The BBC pundits were outraged that Norgaard got away with a rash scissor-tackle on Martinelli - but he trapped the Arsenal man's legs between his own rather than making any heavy contact with them: only a yellow card, for me.

The most bizarre thing about the Chelsea game (well, apart from the hosts being carved open on the counter-attack by Ipswich twice in the first twenty-odd minutes!!) was the linesman flagging an offside against Ipswich's second goal, when no-one had been anywhere near offside (presumably he'd been looking at the wrong Chelsea defender, failing to notice that the one on the far side had been a yard or so deeper?); and then, even more bizarrely, it took VAR an agonisingly long time - 2 or 3 minutes - to correct this very obvious error. It would seem there are still some teething problems with the new SAO system, or with how it's being used. So, that was an assist and a goal for right-back Ben Johnson - how many people own him??  (1.7%!! I'm surprised it's that many.)  Chelsea were oddly toothless, apart from a lively start (the momentum was with them for 15 or 20 minutes, after Jackson smashed a shot against the near-post in the opening minute) and a spell of pressure chasing the win at the end (when Cole Palmer had his obligatory near-miss - fingertipped to safety by Alex Palmer - and Enzo Fernandes saw a fierce drive clawed away one-handed by the excellent Ipswich keeper in the closing minutes); it took two goals-out-of-nothing - a fast break down the wing from Madueke to set up Cucurella in the opening seconds after the restart (which somehow got credited as an own-goal??), and a brilliant solo effort from Sancho - to salvage a draw (and George Hirst had come within inches of putting the visitors 3-1 ahead). There is something still very not right about Chelsea.

West Ham produced a much better performance than they have for weeks, and provided Liverpool with quite a stern test - but the champions-elect still ultimately breezed through fairly comfortably. If things had just broken a bit more kindly for them, they could easily have won by a landslide: Luis Diaz might have had a hattrick, Macallister might have had 4 or 5, and Salah curled an early effort inches wide - which would probably won 'Goal of the Season' had it gone in. And VAR somehow decided to let James Ward-Prowse off for a particularly blatant handball in the penalty area (yes, the ball was coming to him very fast, but his arm was fully extended... and moving towards the ball, with apparent intent...).  As it was, they needed several outstanding saves from Alisson to protect a slender lead, and a late header from Van Dijk to clinch it (to atone for his dreadful own-goal a little earlier; a major piece of 'luck' in itself - he doesn't score very many goals, but here he managed to get one for both sides within the space of 3 minutes??!!). And even then, Fullkrug still gave the home fans palpitations when he looped a header against the crossbar in the dying seconds.

Oh dear, oh dear - Ange Postecoglou has been using his long injury-list as his excuse all season; but a lot of his key men are back now,.... and Spurs are playing worse than ever. Nicking consolatory goals through Tels and Richarlison - to almost get back in the game - really flattered them excessively; in truth, they were absolutely bulldozered at Molyneux, and provided one of the most shambolic defensive performances we've seen from any team all season. Things might have been even worse if the in-form Strand Larsen hadn't contrived to screw an effort a quarter-of-an-inch wide of an open goal.... but we can let him off for that one, as he was lying on his back at the time! If Spurs can't pull off a win against Frankfurt on Thursday to progress to the Europa League semi-finals, I imagine Ange will be leaving the club next weekend. Losing so comprehensively, to a club below you in the table, who were until recently deep in the relegation mire - that, I think, is a humiliation too far for the long-suffering Spurs fans. [Interestingly, I can't seem to find any current odds on Ange getting the sack - which may suggest that it's become such an overwhelmingly popular punt that the bookies aren't accepting the bet any more?! The Sun was apparently quoting him as being only 15/8 a week ago; strange, since he's been odds-on for three or four months now! If I could find odds like that anywhere, I'd definitely risk a fair wedge of money on it! The only thing that's saved Ange this long is the Spurs' fanbase's passionate dislike of their Chairman, Daniel Levy, who most of them want to blame for the team's dismal performances - rather than the flailing manager.]

Was Ruben Amorim being brutal or compassionate in dropping Andre Onana this week? The United keeper had been coming in for a fair bit of stick in recent weeks already, but might well be having a bit of an emotional implosion after the flak he received for his two costly fumbles in the Europa League game this week, His sudden omission is a blow to the nearly 5.5% of FPL managers that still own him (and he's actually not a terrible choice: he's still the 5th highest-returning keeper for the season; joint 4th for clean sheets, joint 7th for number of 'saves' points - and he picked up a massive 11 FPL points in last week's derby game!!). His deputy Altay Bayindir looked pretty sharp in protecting the goal, but often got rattled by Newcastle's relentless high pressing - and ended up giving the ball away to gift Guimaraes a fourth goal; that leaves quite the selection conundrum for next week! Manchester had started quite brightly, though, with Zirkzee contriving an early chance from a delightful quick interchange on the edge of the box with Bruno Fernandes that would have been a 'Goal of the Season' contender - but for a superb save from Nick Pope. Anthony Gordon was well enough to come on for the last 12 minutes; so the 8% who own him will be desperately hoping he can now start against Palace on Wednesday.

There don't seem to have been any wildly dubious refereeing calls in the Monday night game at Bournemouth, although there was some argument about whether Senesi should have received a straight red card for a high challenge on Andersen. The home side appeared completely dominant, despite only winning by Semenyo's solitary  goal in the opening minute (which must have come as a mighty relief to the 7.5% of managers who still - unfathomably - own him, despite his having only produced 2 assists and ZERO goals in the last 10 matches); Evanilson crashed a close-range shot against the underside of the crossbar, and Leno had to make two very sharp saves. Curiously, Kepa at the other end was credited with 7 saves, which - in a relatively 'uneventful' game - was enough to secure him maximum bonus points as well (he's only owned by 2..9%; surprisingly low, given his excellent recent form and fairly easy closing run of fixtures; but I'd bet almost all of his owners left him on the bench this week - ouch!); however, only ONE of those saves made it into the club's highlights reel for the game - and that was a relatively rroutine stop, from a long-range curler from Iwobi. Meanwhile, the outstanding Alex Scott got no love from the BPS at all...

Palace completely forgot to turn up for their second fixture of the week at Newcastle, surely their worst performance of the season. The scoreline wasn't at all flattering to Newcastle, as it was really one-way traffic, and they might have scored twice as many - although Isak kept failing to convert chances, Henderson pull off one superb one-handed save early on, and the home side needed a fair slice of luck to get things rolling: Murphy's opener was clearly a mishit cross rather than a shot, and Barnes's second needed a huge deflection off the unfortunate Guehi to slip past the keeper. The only moment of mild controversy came from the penalty decision - which was a tough call to make since VAR appeared to have only one view of the incident.... in which the contact with Richards was obscured by another Newcastle defender in front of him jumping for the ball. Given that the Palace man was laid out by the impact, I think the penalty award was probably fair enough - although we usually see keepers able to get away with clattering people in order to get to the ball... even if they don't actually get to the ball; and here, Pope did. So, a bit of an odd one: if it wasn't deliberate, it shouldn't have been a penalty; but if it was, he surely should have been sent off for it. As it turned out, the penalty award didn't matter, since Eze claimed the prize for The Worst Penalty Kick of the Season; really, one questions if Pope should even be credited with a 'save' for this, since Eze essentually just passed the ball to him. A cruel blow for Eze's FPL owners; and a huge piece of unearned good fortune for Pope's!!

A particularly topsy-turvy week then: a week of some great individual performances.... and some really poor team ones! A LOT of goals (41!), but most of them from fairly unexpected sources... After the weekend games, the 'Team of the Week' was one of the most eccentric collections we've seen all season, containing no-one that anyone would own - apart from Van Dijk and Air-Nouri, and maybe Joao Pedro; that didn't change much with the final two games,... except that suddenly 5 Newcastle players muscled their way into the lineup! 3 'penalty saves' is a very rare eventuality as well (though really all of them were down to utterly appalling spot-kicks rather than any great heroics from the keepers). VAR missed 3 fairly obvious penalties, yet 2 were awarded wrongly to Villa; while Senesi, Norgaard, and perhaps Pope were lucky to escape sendings-off, and Branthwaite definitely should have been dismissed; and a few unreasonably tight offside calls again...

This one's a 7 out of 10 kind of week on the 'Luck-o-Meter', with a few key decisions that were certainly highly questionable, if not wrong, and some ding-dong games, unexpected results. Not the worst refereeing week we've seen; but very far from the best, either.

DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  Most people will have played the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip by now; but if you haven't.... it's not too late to refuse to do so! I took the high road by quitting playing the game for the rest of the season when it was introduced in GW23. [I worry that, if people don't protest vociferously about it, the new chip may become a permanent feature of the game - and it will completely ruin it.]  If you didn't feel able to join me in such an emphatic gesture, I hope you at least thought about refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip (and still might refuse, if you've kept it till the last few gameweeks of the season).

Please also criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

Dilemmas of the Week - GW32

Well, amazingly, there don't seem to have been any major new injury worries arising out of this week's European games - although there'll still be a lot of doubts about precautionary restings ahead of the second-leg games next week; and there are, of course, still some doubts hanging over us from last week. So, this should be quite a short round-up this week.

I am trying to streamline these weekly round-ups, aiming to confine myself to just the injuries to players that are likely to have a major significance in FPL. [I currently find the 'Injuries & Bans' summary on Fantasy Football Scout the most reliable resource for this kind of information - go check that out for more comprehensive coverage.]

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 32?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The main concerns are at Arsenal, where Saka, Rice, and Timber were all taken off against Real in some discomfort on Wednesday and are now doubts. Although with the huge rematch at the Bernabeu only days away, I think we were all expecting they'd get bench minutes at best this weekend anyway. The risk of rest or injury after this pivotal game for their doublle gameweek following also presents a huge conundrum for us.

Villa appear to be all in good knick (even Ross Barkley's just about back...), but some rotations seem likely ahead of their return leg against PSG; although they've got a bit of a mountain to climb in that one, they have to try to climb it - so Morgan Rogers is probably favourite to be dropped to the bench this week, and Watkins too, I should imagine. Unfortunate, as a game against Southampton is usually almost as good as a double-fixture!

Kaoru Mitoma is suffering with a painful heel, and so a big doubt for the Leicester game today.

Phil Foden suffered a knock in the Manchester derby last weekend, and Pep doesn't fancy his chances this week. (But few of us have fancied his chances in FPL for a while now, alas....)

Forest are facing some problems, with Chris Wood's back-up No. 9 Taiwo Awoniyi going down with a hamstring injury ahead of last week's game against Villa, and recent hero Anthony Elanga having to be withdrawn at half-time in that game with muscle discomfort; it's looking like they could both be out for a few games at least. However, Chris Wood is finally back in training and might be able to return this week, while Jota Silva (who I fancied as a very speculative 'pick of the week' back in early December when he'd been getting a run of starts) has been quite the super-sub lately, and is a natural replacement for Elanga.

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

Marc Guehi, Eddie Nketiah, and Jan-Paul van Hecke all miss this weekend after their double-yellow-card madness (the two Palace men were lucky to escape straight reds and a longer ban for their second fouls!) in the 'derby' game last week. It's only a one-game ban, so Guehi and Nketiah will be available for the midweek game against Newcastle.

And Facundo Buonanotte, a loanee, is ineligible to turn out for Leicester against Brighton.

Matheus Cunha has completed his four-game ban, but might start on the bench this week, as Vitor Pereira has stated very strongly that he doesn't want to disturb his winning line-up.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Well, City still fail to convince, United, while looking decent at the back now, are still impotent going forward, and Spurs, despite getting the inevitable comfortable win against non-entities Southampton, still look pretty dreadful. (Although a case can be made for a rare representative of these faltering sides: Marmoush, Garnacho, Mazraoui, Johnson...)

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

Not really, no. People are getting excited about Ryan Sessegnon after his recent goal splurge for Fulham, but - as with Ismaila Sarr a couple of weeks back - that could very well be a flash-in-the-pan. Calvin Bassey was the real standout for Fulham last weekend; but I wouldn't be in any rush to buy him either - as Fulham's form continues to look a bit flakey.

And Jørgen Strand Larsen, of course, has been on a tear for the last few games - but they were three games against very poor teams. Howeever, I think his form looks really good, and that he can probably continue to produce for the rest of the season (especially with Cunha back to support him); probably the strongest budget forward pick at the moment.

Palace are favourite for an 'Assistant Manager' ploy this week, as they have a double-fixture (and another one next week, if you've still got more weeks live on the chip: another chance of an elevated return, without having to switch managers). However, it's not a particularly promising double-fixture (though both of this week's games and next week's visit to Arsenal could yield table-bonuses), and they're stretched thin in defence without Guehi for the City game. A lot of people are enthusiastic about doubling Newcastle too, but that looks a much weaker alternative to me, with no table-bonuses available, and a strong chance that, even at home, they'll drop points in one or both games. Others favour Villa's chances of a big win over Southampton; but again, no table-bonus, Villa haven't been a particularly prolific team (and Southampton have at least been picking up the occasional goal lately, so a clean sheet isn't a sure-thing either), and there are so many doubts about how tired they might be after the PSG game, and who might start on the bench. For me, the chance of Everton causing an upset against Forest or Brentford against Arsenal offer the only tempting alternative to Palace this week.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

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

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

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip 

Picks of the Week - DGW32

 

Just a quickie this week, to run through the possible Double Gameweek picks....

As I often warn, double gameweeks are not the magical pot of gold so many people suppose they must automatically be - and this next one, GW32, is really a bit shit: two above-average but well below-the-best teams facing pairs of non-straightforward opponents, games whose outcome is hard to predict... but very possibly - likely - not going to go the doublers' way.

People are probably only going for Palace players (apart from Munoz, who's been excellent for a while; and Mateta who has shown some strong goalscoring form since the turn of the year, at least up until his recent injury) because they have another double next week (though that one's arguably even tougher than this week's!). Since their two games this week will be hard to win, and they almost certainly won't be able to keep a clean sheet in either, I'd suggest passing on any of their defence - even Munoz! And if you were going to go for one, I'd favour Dean Henderson, since at least a keeper can pick up some useful 'saves' points, even when his side take a battering. Mateta's sharpness and confidence are likely to be undermined by his sore ear for a while, so I'm not sure there's much value in him either (particularly with budget options like Evanilson and Strand Larsen, and the similarly-priced Marmoush doing so well at the moment). And Ismaila Sarr I have expressed my scepticism about before: good player, but not a great player, and not a regular goalscorer. For me, Eberechi Eze is the only attacking asset - and probably the only player at all - one ought to be taking from Palace for these two double-fixtures.

Newcastle have slightly better fixtures in the double, both at home, where they do tend to be much more formidable; and then a not-too-bad run over the next few weeks - including a strong prospect for a clean sheet against Ipswich in GW34. So, picks from their defence are rather more viable than from Palace's. It would be nice if we could be confident that Trippier was back to his best; but, alas, we can't. A lot of FPL managers are getting over-excited about Tino Livramento having just scored a goal; but history suggests that will be the last time he does that for a year or two! He has been playing superbly of late, but Fabian Schar and Dan Burn carry a much more regular goal-threat, so they would be my suggestions. Nick Pope I would pass on; his form hasn't looked that convincing to me this season - quite a few big saves, yes, but also far more errors than usual.

Alexander Isak is the only other strong pick from the Geordies at the moment; and everyone ought to have him already, because he's been the Striker of the Season. Anthony Gordon might be in contention for some, although it looks like he's still a big injury doubt, for the first game at least; and his form has been a little disappointing over the last few months. The recently excellent Jacob Murphy - again, quite widely owned already (now in over 17% of teams) - is also a tempting option; but, given the fixtures, I'm not sure he's tempting enough to be worth bringing in just for this week, if you don't already have him.

People flock greedily to a Double Gameweek for their 'Assistant Manager' chip as well. Some favour Newcastle and Eddie Howe, because they look the likelier to pick up two wins. But I don't think those wins are by any means guaranteed, and I certainly don't see either of them being big wins. And neither of them can earn the crucial table-bonus extra points.

Palace's Oliver Glasner would be more tempting for me, as the high-risk/high-reward option with two table-bonuses on offer: if he gets a draw against Newcastle, he'll probably do as well or better than Howe over the double; if he can get something against City as well, he'll slaughter him. But even if he does rather less well than Howe this week, he's still the better pick if you have more weeks to run on the chip, because there's also the chance of an elevated return for him next gameweek (with another double, and one table-bonus opportunity); being able to keep the same AM pick for successive gameweeks - not having to burn a transfer to swap them out, maybe at the cost of a 'hit' - is a huge plus.

But I think Everton's David Moyes or Brentford's Thomas Frank have really good chances of getting upset results against recently faltering and injury-hit Forest and Arsenal; with the huge lift of the table-bonus, these two look much more promising 'Assistant Manager' picks for this week.

A little bit of Zen (37)

 

"Some people say football's a matter of life and death. But it's much more important than that."

Bill Shankly

Shankly, a gruff Scotsman, was one of the great managers of the early modern era in football, the man who first set Liverpool on the path to sustained greatness during a long tenure in charge of the club throughout the '60s and early '70s. Although this line is generally attributed to 'Shanks', I have also seen it sometimes ascribed to other football managers of his time (including his successor at Anfield, fellow Scot Bob Paisley), and I haven't been able to find any definite citation as to when or where he's supposed to have said it.

The line has something of the cracked logic of the celebrated baseball coach 'Yogi' Berra, whose 'wit' was characterised by such apparently inadvertent paradoxes or tautologies (though one suspects that at least some of them were self-consciously crafted). 

It was probably just a stumbling attempt to express the extremity of his - and many fans' -  passion for the game, but....

I like to think there may be deeper layers of meaning in it: that perhaps he was suggesting that life and death are ultimately not that important after all, not as important as they are commonly supposed to be, that perhaps individual moments of experience matter more than states of being... or perhaps that all things are equally important, equally unimportant....

The Double Gameweek that never was....

"Double, double toil and trouble...!"

Or..... the Double Gameweek that isn't now going to be!

FPL enthusiasts have been brimming with excitement all year about the prospect of late-season Double Gameweeks - which have traditionally (though wrongly) been viewed as the best and only option for playing the bonus chips (an excitement exacerbated - and complicated! - this year by the appearance of the 'Assistant Manager' as a third bonus chip...).

But really, Double Gameweeks are only a big deal when there are a lot of teams with double-fixtures. And that would only ever happen if all, or very nearly all, of the games rescheduled from the FA Cup Quarter-Final weekend were placed in the same gameweek. Since this year, for the first time, the League programme was suspended on that weekend, and thus no fixtures were lost that week and needing to be rescheduled,.... there was never going to be a BIG Double Gameweek this season.

Yet people had still been fondly hoping that the rescheduled fixtures from the Semi-Final weekend would provide some compensation, create a Double Gameweek of some consequence.

Because the teams facing a Cup quarter-finalist or semi-finalist also lose a match in those weeks, and get a compensating double-fixture, the quarter-finals could produce up to 16 doubling teams (although, typically, at least one club from a lower league usually manages to stay in the competition that far; and occasionally some of the Cup teams may be drawn against each other in the League that week, reducing the number of teams affected by cancelled matches; in some years, only 10 or 12 teams might have got double-fixtures like this); similarly, the semi-finals can affect up to 8 teams (but in some years, only 4 or 6). In the absence of the traditional BIG Double resulting from the FA quarter-finals, everyone was pinning their hopes on a fairly big Double to come out of the semi-finals. And most years in the past, that would have fallen in Gameweek 36 or Gameweek 37.

8 teams having a double-fixture in the same gameweek would give you the chance to select an entire squad of doubling players (although it's not always worth doing: one good fixture is generally better than two tough ones, so there will almost always be some single gameweek players who will produce better returns than doublers). However, sometimes the League will assign the rearranged fixtures to different gameweeks. Heck, sometimes, even if all the games are rescheduled in the same midweek cluster, they may decide to attach the earlier ones to the preceding gameweek, and the later ones to the following gameweek - creating two small gameweeks rather than one big one.

And - oh, woe! - this year, Manchester City and Aston Villa made it to the semi-finals, but were drawn to play against each other in the League that weekend, so.... only 6 teams would have a double this year, rather than 8. And the reschedulings were split over two different weeks. And then, as a final indignity, the League, in its fathomless mischievousness, decided to deem that the Forest v Brentford game was still part of the FA Semi-Final weekend (GW34), even though it had been shifted to the following Friday. and thus wouldn't get a double-fixture after all. WTF??

Oh, and for the first time that I can remember, the bulk of the fixtures were moved forwards rather than back ('anteponed') - into the preceding Gameweek. So, the much-anticipated Double Gameweek 36.... isn't going to happen.

And in the forthcoming Gameweek 33, we have only 4 doubling teams. And of those, only Arsenal (ironically, the only one of the four teams not actually in the FA Cup round) has a good double-fixture. It's not only a very small Double Gameweek, but a fairly SHIT one - with mostly middling teams and unpromising fixtures. Nothing much to get excited about at all: certainly not for the Triple Captain chip (which should have been used long since by now, anyway).

For the Bench Boost, well.... there may be some prospect for getting something out of it. In general, you wouldn't bring in doubling players unless you thought they were going to do better than single gameweek players; and thus you wouldn't expect to have any doubling players on your bench unless your entire squad had double-fixtures (which is always hard to achieve, even if there are a lot of doubling teams to choose from). However, you tend not to get that many points from defenders and keepers, so even the small lift of 2 additional 'appearance points' for a second game-start can be a significant propoortional lift to them; but even with that possibility, you still might not favour them over your regular starters in those positions, even if they only have one match. Given that your bench almost invariably consists of your 4th and 5th defenders and your weakest forward or midfielder, plus the back-up keeper, it might be possible to find doublers for all or most of those slots - and legitimately claim that they still wouldn't be first-eleven choices, even with the extra game. And so your bench might be augmented slightly by the Double Gameweek. (Also, having at least a few doublers in your starting eleven as well slightly reduces your chances of having someone not play at all in the gameweek, and so drag someone off your bench as an auto-sub. That, however, is a very minor consideration.)

But really, whenever you choose to play the Bench Boost, the quality of fixtures is more important than the number of them; and even more important than that is the confidence that everyone - all 15 squad players - will start.... because if anyone is missing, your Bench Boosti s screwed.

Don't get hung up on the Double Gameweek Myth. It's not necessarily the best time to play the Bench Boost - never has been. Double Gameweek 33 looks like it could be a promising opportunity for the Bench Boost (not a great one, but better than nothing); but there may be better options for your squad - it depends on which fixtures you like most, and when you're most confident of having everybody start.

GOOD LUCK!

 

The Great FREE HIT Controversy

Every year, we get a few folks who take it into their heads to argue very vociferously for a weird - obviously wrong-headed! - position on some aspect of FPL strategy. 

The most common focus of contention is the optimal chip strategy for navigating the various blank and double gameweeks in the latter part of the season. (Though that perennial challenge has become hugely easier this year, now that we're no longer losing the FA Cup Quarter-Final weekend from the Premier League programme. Moreover, from this season we're enjoying the new luxury of being able to save up to 5 Free Transfers. If we are ever able to do so [a big ask!], that effectively becomes an additional 'rebuild chip', giving us greater flexibility on where to use our Wildcards and Free Hit. In all past years, when we generally only had 1 FT to work with each week - and never more than 2 - and multiple Blanks/Doubles to worry about, chip strategy was a lot more stressful,... although also somewhat easier, since the most essential options for playing the 'rebuild chips' were always pretty obvious and unarguable.)

There has always been a quirky minority of FPL managers who like to think that the Free Hit chip is better used in a big Double Gameweek, so that you can maximise your number of doubling players for it.

While I never like to rule any idea out of consideration completely, there are a number of very obvious flaws in this proposal:

1)  If it's such a big and good Double Gameweek that you want to go fully loaded on doubling players, then.... you probably want to play your Bench Boost on it! And that probably necessitates using your Wildcard to bring in the best doublers for it the week before.

2) The teams with the doubles are mostly the teams who've progressed well in the Cup,.... who are mostly the teams who are doing better in the League as well; and hence they are likely to be teams you'll already have players from (though you'll almost certainly want to bring in more for a Double Gameweek), and players you'll want to keep thereafter.

3)  Conversely, the (usually preceding) Blank Gameweek is generally one with mostly weaker teams left taking part, teams from whom you don't usually want many - or any - players.

Hence, while it might possibly - in exceptional circumstances - be conceivable that the 2nd Wildcard would work better than the Free Hit in the big Blank Gameweek for certain managers, it is pretty unlikely. 9 times out of 10, the players missing in the Blank Gameweek are players you want to keep; and thus you only want replacements for them for that one week. And similarly, most of the players you want for an optimum big Double Gameweek are players that you already have.... and/or that you'll want to keep for at least a few subsequent gameweeks as well. The Free Hit naturally works better with a big Blank Gameweek, and a Wildcard better with a big Double.

Yet last year, there was a particularly heated debate on this very topic on many of the FPL online forums. Many, many people - close, it seemed, to being the majority?? - had somehow convinced themselves that the Double Gameweek was such a rich fixture opportunity that year that one simply had to play the Free Hit on it. In most cases, this was compounded by a decision to try to navigate the big Blank without using a chip at all; these poor fellows clung obstinately to the notion that they were somehow being exceptionally clever in thus being able to keep their 2nd Wildcard to help them get around the smaller Blank/Double resulting from the FA Semi-Finals in April.

There was, of course, absolutely NO LOGIC behind that contention. They were  strangely in denial about the very basic points I outlined above, that you rarely want to replace your blanking players for more than that one week, and that you rarely need to bring in a lot of extra players for a Double Gameweek because you'll have plenty of players from the best teams already. They were also overlooking the fact that you can usually anticipate which teams are mostly likely to progress to the FA Cup Semi-Finals, and thus 'set up' for the later - much smaller - Blank/Double challenge when you play your Wildcard.

Furthermore, these folks had failed to consider the additional 'hidden costs' of their strategic choice. Most of them were condemning themselves to putting out a seriously short team in the Blank Gameweek. But they were also mostly having to use multiple transfers - and often a few 'hits' - to minimise the number of gaps in their lineup. Thus.... a) They were bringing in players that they really only wanted for the Blank Gameweek a week - or two, or three - earlier than they really wanted, at the expense of better players. b) They were also usually having to quickly offload some of these players in the weeks following the Blank, again at the cost of missing out on having a superior player available for a week or two - that all potentially costs you points! c) They were burning through transfers to do this (and even 'Free Transfers' have an effecive points cost...), which hampered their ability to make other changes they might have wanted or needed to carry out during those weeks. d) They were running the risk of going into the Blank Gameweek with an entirely empty bench, which again would have cost further points if they suffered any unexpected dropouts from their starting team. e) And in most cases, even after inflicting all this pain on themselves, they were stil mostly only fielding 9 or 10 players for that Gameweek - some only putting out a pitiful 6 or 7.  It was horrible to watch: UTTER INSANITY.

Now, as it turned out, that big Blank Gameweek turned out to be one of those rare shockers where all of the games wound up being low-scoring, and what goals there were came from unexpected sources; just about none of the big players produced anything. It was, in fact, one of the lowest-scoring gameweeks in FPL history!!  (Though this was also partly due to the fact that so many people had fielded short teams, the number of points available was exceptionally low.)  This, of course, massively ameliorated the negative impact of the rash 'No Free Hit' strategy: people who'd used their Free Hit - or otherwise managed to put out a decent eleven without needing multiple transfers - might have expected to get at least 15 or 20 more points than the folks who ended up with short teams, but most of them wound up with an advantage barely half that. However,.... 5 or 10 points is a huge lift. And, as I just outlined above, most of the 'No Free-Hitters' had also spent points on 'hits' and compromised their squad for a week - or two or three - either side of the troublesome Blank Gameweek; so, their actual deficit was usually somewhat intangible, but surely far greater than just the points-gap in that gameweek.

But you know how people who've just done something stupid love to cling to any excuse to persuade themselves that they haven't been stupid after all...?  The 'No Free-Hitters' suddenly started crowing about how they'd somehow anticipated what a terrible gameweek it was going to be, and of course they'd been right, and this was a complete vindication of their strategy. 

No, they'd been very lucky to only lose maybe 20 or 30 or 40 points on their more sensible rivals; but that wasn't any sort of vindication.

Oh, but then the following Double Gameweek proved to be a real humdinger, with oodles of points flowing in from every game. It was - bizarrely - one of the highest-scoring Gameweeks in FPL history!! Now, of course, those darned 'No Free-Hitters' went apeshit about what far-sighted geniuses they had been: not only had they done far less badly than might have been expected in their weak Blank Gameweek, but they'd done exceptionally well in the Double Gameweek! Their brave but shrewd gamble had sensationally paid off!

A few things:  1) They'd done not-so-badly, not well.  2) They'd been absurdly lucky to get away that lightly; no-one could have predicted two such extreme sets of points returns in the critical gameweeks.  3)  They still did bloody awfully in the Blank Gameweek (just not quite as badly as they might have done, relatively speaking...).  4)  Almost everyone did well in that exceptional Double Gameweek; many who had not followed the perverse 'No Free Hit' path did far better in that week than those who had. (I myself pulled in very tidy returns for both Gameweeks; and I'd been able to set up for the Double with regular transfers only - no need to use a chip or any hits. Hence, I still had my Wildcard to deal with the later Blank/Double problem.)

This whole bizarre story is a fascinating case-study in the kind of mass hysteria - and self-harming delusion - that so often grips the FPL hordes.  [I never searched into the possible origins of this curious 'No Free Hit' cult, but I imagine it must have been started by one of the online FPL 'gurus'....]

Maths!!

Joe Devine narrates this interesting short - posted the other day on The Athletic magazine's Tifo sub-channel on Youtube - about why football is intrinsically much harder to analyse than almost all other sports.

The killer quote in the middle of it comes from Christofer Clemens, the Head Analyst of Die Mannschaft when they won the 2014 World Cup, who once noted ruefully: "We are increasingly convinced that there's a lack of data that provides real information about the things that make you successful in football..."  Even the World Cup winners didn't know how they'd done it!

The main point of the video is that a continuous sport like football is much harder to analyse effectively than one which is more broken up, divided into a series of discrete, short passages of play. In cricket or baseball, for example, there are only so many types of delivery that the bowler/pitcher can produce, and only so many ways that the batsman/batter can respond; and once the fielding side have dealt with whatever happens, the ball quickly becomes 'dead' - the game is paused while the fielding side reset and the bowler/pitcher prepares to deliver the next ball. In football, the ball becomes dead far less regularly, less often; and while some teams will try to eat time off the clock by putting the ball into touch as often as possible, it is common for sequences of uninterrupted play in a field game like football to go on for a minute or two.... and occasionally even for several minutes at a time. The possible patterns of play are thus almost infinitely complex. 

The video points out that there are a few games that are arguably even more continuous in their play: ice hockey, for example, allows for substitutions to be made without pausing the game. What it doesn't go into, however, is that these games tend to have fewer players and/or shorter playing periods - again making the challenge of analysis just that bit more manageable. Most field games have settled on 11 as the number of players; a few, such as rugby have more - but again, they usually have rules which restrict the variety of play. In rugby because the ball can only be passed by throwing, there is a fairly narrow practical limit on how far and how fast the ball can be moved with each pass; also, the ball cannot be passed forwards in that game. In football, almost any part of the body is able to be used for controlling and moving the ball, and passes in all directions are allowed, and it is possible to move the ball when struck with the foot a huge variety of different distances and at different speeds - and even to shape the trajectory of the ball by deliberately applying spin to it. This almost limitless range of potential movement for the ball also means that in football almost every player on the pitch can potentially receive the ball next, whereas in most similar sports there are generally only a very small number of likely receivers. (Stick-and-ball games like hockey have similar fluidity of movement, but are much more heavily biased towards passing the ball in a particular arc of the field.) Thus, even a relatively short passage of play, just 4 or 5 passes, can move the ball enormous distances and involve almost the entire team. There are few other games - probably NONE - which have anything like this level of variety and complexity in their potential patterns of play.

The video notes that as statistical analysis has become more thorough in recent years, it has started to prove useful in some areas - particularly in identifying the 'skills profile' of individual players, and deciding if they might be a good match for a given squad and style of play (Brighton's business model is founded on this, and they've become very, very good at it). Where it still falls down, and probably always will, is in assessing the effectiveness of tactical approaches, and determining how far they contribute to a team's overall success.

I would suggest that this is not just because it requires one to look at an entire game (or a whole series of them) rather than just individual game actions, and at the team as a whole rather than just an individual player - although obviously that is a massive (and insuperable) part of the problem. Surely, it's also that it's impossible to define with any precision or consistency what team tactice are. They change from minute-to-minute, as players seek to adapt to shifting circumstances on the field; they change as the manager makes in-game tweaks, or galvanises his team to greater efforts with a rousing half-time pep talk; they change with shifting game-states. They change from game to game, as a manager seeks to adapt to a particular opponent. They change from season to season, and even within the course of a season, as managers seek to stay fresh - and surprising to the opposition. And however clear and consistent the tactics may be in the manager's vision, how cohesively and consistently and effectively they are realised on pitch by the players can vary drastically from game to game.... and within a game, sometimes even from minute to minute. Plus, of course, the effectiveness of the chosen tactics always depends not only on how accurately the team impements them, but on the response of the opposition. 

In a fluid game, like football, with an almost unlimited range of possible movement, and long uninterrupted sequences of play.... any attempt to statisticallly analyse success or failure in terms of the overall team tactics is usually going to be doomed to failure. 

Caveat: Unless the tactics are really, really bad! If a team has a really obvious flaw, like Ten Hag's United having such a huge gap between their midfield and defence, because they didn't have the pace in defence to mount a high defensive line, even though their high-pressing style really required that - then, yes, you can see why a team is losing all the time, and the statistical data will expose that flaw too. But when you have two very good teams going up against each other, it's far more daunting to try to disentangle the impact of the tactics from the importance of individual moments of skill from the players. [Maybe Pep's tactics have never been that good, and he's just been saved over and over again by the brilliance of his teams...??]

I'd go further and say that I think you can usually determine the tactical basis of a result in indvidual games via the 'eye test' - watching closely, and analysing multiple different interacting factors at once. It's much harder, usually almost impossible, to reliably draw such conclusions from data alone. And disentangling the impact of 'tactics' - amid the web of other elements: form, fitness, confidence, refereeing decisions, the 'luck of the bounce', the quality of the opposition - in overall results over a run of games.... that, i think, is a very elusive - probably illusory - Grail to be chasing with statistical analysis.

Food for thought.