Dear FPL - please FIX this!

Long ago, in one of my 'previous lives', I worked for a while in website design (I was more the sales/client liaison guy, but I had to work closely with the development team to fulfill the client's needs). And there were certain basic principles of UI design that were universally recognised - even a quarter of a century ago, in the early days of the Internet: a) Avoid pop-up screens (they're clunky, and people hate them); b) In particular, avoid 'large' pop-ups (they're an awkward compromise between small or mid-sized and full-screen pop-ups: if you need a larger display space, you should always go full-screen); c) Avoid sliders (really, really fiddly and irritating); d) In particular, avoid lateral sliders (shuffling from one side of the screen to the other in order to view all the information it contains is excruciating...); e) NEVER leave anything essential outside the initial field of view (if you have to have your sliders, they must be immediately visible when the pop-up opens; any 'control' items or essential information must be within the visible area of the screen when it first appears - you can't have people needing to scroll down to find a lateral slider, and then scrolling back up to look at the part of the screen they want);  f) If you must have sliders, leave row & column headings outside the sliding frame - so that they'll remain visible and unmoved as you scroll down/sideways.

How many of these 'golden rules' does the FPL 'Player Info' screen break? That's right - ALL OF THEM! It is an abomination, a disgrace, an absolute shit-show.

There are several aspects of FPL's User-Interface design and data presentation that I'd like to see changes to; but we have to start with that one - it is the most massively annoying defect in the game, because it's a screen that we use multiple times every week.

Improvements I'd like to see in the game's UI

1)  The 'Player Info' screen: make it a full-screen pop-up, or - better - an 'open in a new window/browser tab' full-page display. And reformat the layout, if necessary, so that it can be navigated without the need for slider bars. (It would also be nice if we could get hotlinks under the 'previous seasons' totals to open a page with the full week-by-week records for each year.)

2) a)  The League tables: make them searchable by Gameweek (as well as, or instead of by month, which is the only option currently offered). It's nice to be able to easily check who the weekly winner is, in any league, or find out what your weekly position was in your country league,... or remind yourself how you did during a crucial double gameweek, or whatever. Shouldn't be at all difficult to implement.

2) b)  The League tables: display the current total number of participants for each one!

3) a)  Player search: make it available on every 'team' page, not just the 'Transfers' page. We don't need the full sidebar, just a search box. We often want to check up on a specific player - often mid-gameweek, while we're monitoring our own progress on the 'Points' page - and it is a pain-in-the-arse to have to keep switching to the 'Transfers' page (or to have to leave that open in a separate tab, which is what I usually end up doing) to do that.

3) b)  Player search:  clear the search automatically when parameters have changed, and/or add a quick 'clear' button.  If I've switched my field of search from 'Midfielders' to 'Goalkeepers', I don't want to be told that no goalkeepers can be found... because the stupid bloody widget is searching for a goalkeeper called Mbeumo. (Again, it doesn't help that the 'search box' is usually off the bottom of the field-of-view when you're adjusting the other search parameters!)

3) c)  Player Search: broaden the data field so that a player can be recognised from any part of his name. It can be impossible to find out anything about Diogo Jota's history unless you know that the game recognises him ONLY as 'Diogo', or about Korean forward Hwang Hee-Chan unless you realise that the game mistakenly believes Hee-Chan is his surname.

4) (a)  Player Statistics:  make that page searchable by gameweek also. By month, or over a particular run of gameweeks - with 'from' and 'to' selectable - would be nice too. But at the very least, we should be able to recap players' relative performances in any given gameweek. (And heck, it would be nice to have a 'Season so far....' total available under a by-gameweek search too, in addition to the figures for that week.)

4) (b)  Player Statistics:  make 'historical' records available as well, by adding a facility to search by season.

4) c)  Player Statistics:  for heaven's sake, start displaying the saves points as well as just the number of 'saves'!  The number of saves is 'good to know', but it's not as important as how many points your keeper has actually contributed to his team (and yours). And after all, 75 saves in a season could represent anything from 0 to 25 actual points!!

5)  'Global Average' score: a pretty important statistic, it should be appearing in more than one place! Please add it to the weekly record in 'Entry History',... and to the 'Team of the Week' pages,... and anywhere else that refers to gameweek-by-gameweek results. And gosh, it would be nice if they'd tally the 'global average' for the season as well.

6)  Captaincy rates: also a pretty useful statistic, it should be added to 'Player Statistics' - at least for the historical record; although live updates for the current gameweek would also be interesting to see.

7) a)  Gameweek team records: make them 'historically accurate' as to player status. If we're checking back to see how we - or a rival - did in an earlier gameweek, we want to be reminded of players' injury/suspension status going into that gameweek, not NOW. That shouldn't be difficult!

7) b)  Gameweek team records:  also make the team 'Points' pages' linked league tables 'historically' sync'ed, so that if you click on that league, you'll see the standings as they were at the end of that gameweek. (Also, wouldn't it be lovely if clicking on your own team name in a league took you to the page that your rank actually puts you on? And perhaps, you know, you could even make the leagues searchable - by team name or by score/range of scores??)

8)  Fixture Difficulty Rating:  make it searchable backwards as well as forwards. Sometimes we want to check back on the pattern of fixtures (and their predicted difficulty [even though this is laughably inaccurate much of the time!]) in a previous gameweek; but, at present, everything prior to the following gameweek disappears as soon as a new gameweek begins. [And if they're going to keep the dreadful 'Assistant Manager' chip next season (although I'm fervently praying that they won't... #DownWithTheNewChip), would it be so much to ask if they could do something to highlight the fixtures in which a 'table bonus' would currently be available (or was available, in a previous gameweek)?]

9)  The 'Transfer' process: streamline it, and make it more idiot-proof. We hear sob-stories many times a season of people who've ended up paying for multiple transfers because they'd somehow inadvertently failed to activate a Wildcard or Free Hit as they'd thought. And I sympathise: the transfer process at the moment is a bit clunky and confusing. I think in the past you used to have an option to play Wildcard or Free Hit within the 'Transfers' pop-up window; but that seems to have disappeared - why? It is an unnecessary hassle to have to go back to the main screen to activate the chip. And if transfers are blocked (because you've inadvertently chosen too many players from one club, or strayed over-budget), you should have the warning notice about that in the 'confirm transfers' window - not just find that it is frozen, without explanation, and have to go back to the main screen to find out what the problem is. And I DO NOT WANT to have an annoying pop-up ad inviting me to participate in 'Fantasy Challenge' at the end of this process, rather than the quick reassurance of a confirmation of a successful transfer.

10)  Key buttons must be PROMINENT, CONSPICUOUS: returning to the point in my preamble about 'essential' items needing to be immediately within the field of view on a screen, FPL is often guilty of 'hiding' stuff in inconspicuous places at the edge of the screen, or completely out of sight off the bottom of it. Having to scroll down in the 'Transfers' pop-up screen to find the 'Confirm Transfers' button is a needless irritation; but even worse (in my experience, a very regular source of 'mistakes' - particularly with bench order or captaincy allocation) is the vital 'Save Team' button hiding off the bottom of the 'Select Team' page. If they're going to require a manual save to confirm the team (rather than just auto-saving every change), there should be a prominent warning notice to remind you of this: 'Do you want to save this team?'  And it would make more sense to have the 'Save' button at the TOP of the screen (where it's immediately in view) rather than at the bottom. [And maybe we could make this button and/or warning notice about the need for manual confirmation into a 'Do you want to enter this team this week?' question - part of my plan for expunging 'zombie accounts' from the game. If you don't specifically 'enter' a team for the coming gameweek, I think you should get ZERO points for that gameweek. And if you fail to 'enter' for a few weeks running, your entry for the year should be deleted.]

There will probably be a few more points about the layout of the FPL website that occur to me over time, but I think this is enough for now; these are the most important ones. [Yep, I came up with one more.]

Dear FPL, can you please fix these things before next season?  Pretty please.

Luck-o-Meter (38)

Fatigue - and perhaps a bit of nerves for some - was becoming very evident in a mostly rather drab final set of matches. Goals were in short supply (apart from Brighton's stuffing of Spurs, the rest of the matches didn't produce 20 goals between them), and for a remarkable 5th week running the FPL global points average was only in the 40s.

Fulham v Manchester City was one of the most entertaining games of a mostly tense and grim final Sunday, with end-to-end play and both sides enjoying some good chances. For most of the match, only Gundogan's improbable improvisation mid-way through the first half separated the teams, until the German also won a very soft penalty late in the game to clinch the win. Although, shortly after Haaland converted that spot-kick, Ruben Dias somehow got away with a very obvious handball in the penalty area (yes, the ball was fired at him from quite close range, but he had chance enough to see it and react; his arm was way higher than it needed to be, even attempting a jumping block, and he appeared to deliberately move it down towards the ball, striking it with his elbow); that was one where VAR might usefully have recommended a second look, just to be sure (not necessarily prejudicing the referee into reversing his original call, just emphasising that it's an arguable decision and deserves a good long think). And then, in the final seconds, Raul Jimenez put a lovely bicycle-kick only just wide of the left-hand post... As so often this season, Fulham looked like they deserved more from the game,... and City weren't quite worth the win.

Manchester United produced a rare half-decent performance at the end of the season to claim a 'surprise' win against Champions League-chasing Villa. The visitors will claim that the sending-off of Emi Martinez was the turning-point, but they were very flat all game, and United were all over them from the kick-off; Dalot had already thundered a shot against a post long before Villa were reduced to 10 men. There was nothing controversial about the dismissal of the keeper: a deliberate body-check on a striker trying to go round him 8 yards outside the box, with no other defenders anywhere near, is inevitably a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' (there might be something in the argument that you might not expect Hojlund to score even with an open goal, but that rationale is not admissible to the referee; it's a stronger case for Martinez not needing to have made the foul!). The more decisive moment came in the second half, when Morgan Rogers cleverly nicked the ball off United keeper Bayindir and deftly spun to chip it into the empty net; the referee's fault here was not wrongly adjudging Rogers to have kicked the ball out of the keeper's hands - which was difficult/impossible to judge with the naked eye (and perhaps still open to some argument even with VAR playbacks) - but blowing his whistle for that so hastily (before the ball hit the net), which debarred VAR from intervening to consider whether the goal should rightly be allowed. While this was a major refereeing blunder (amazingly, the only really bad one of the day), it didn't feel to the neutral observer like it really turned the course of the match: United were much the better team throughout, and hit the post twice more, before Eriksen's penalty sealed the comfortable win for them (and there was absolutely no doubt about that award at all, although a disgruntled Emery clapped the decision sarcastically).

Newcastle v Everton was also quite entertaining for the neutral, though no doubt agony for the home fans. The lively visitors took the lead through the outstanding Carlos Alcaraz, and only a towering display from Nick Pope prevented them from pulling out a two or three-goal advantage. Late in the game, Newcastle piled on pressure, searching for the win they thought they might need to secure a Champions League place - and three of their best efforts came from defender Fabian Schar,... which, if any of them had gone in, would have been a very nice lift for anyone that owned him (I'm rather surprised that only 5.5% do!).

Playing Pedro Neto as a makeshift centre-forward didn't really work for Chelsea, and despite being allowed plenty of possession by home side Forest, they never created much threat - until defender Colwill was able to steal in at the far post for a tap-in (from what looked more like a misshit shot than a calculated square ball from Neto). Chris Wood, Mr One-Chance-One-Goal for most of the season, here had only two difficult opportunities, and put them both over the top. Thus, Chelsea scraped home to a Champions League spot that the second half of their season had emphatically not deserved, while Forest, who had been challenging for second place mid-season, almost fell out of the European places altogether, and have to content themselves with a spot in the Europa Conference League (at least that should be a winnable competition for them; though it is a monstrous injustice that awful Spurs will be playing in the Champions League while they will not).

Liverpool were again a bit flat, but were resilient enough to power through for a draw, despite having gone down to 10 men. (Particularly unfortunate for Gravenberch to be sent off in the final game, after such an outstanding season. Although there's no question that it was a bad foul, it wasn't 'dangerous play', and you feel that a trip on the half-way line shouldn't really be a 'denial of a goal-scoring opportunity' either. I think the guidelines on that need to be modified, perhaps with a specific distance from goal - 35 yards, maybe? - introduced as one of the necessary criteria.)  Salah had a penalty shout against Lacroix for handball, but the defender's arm was by the side of his body, so there was nothing in that. Owners of Conor Bradley or Trent Alexander-Arnold will feel aggrieved that Arne Slot split the 90 minutes evenly between them - although a token outing for Trent on his final day at Anfield was always to be expected.

Spurs, despite taking a first-half lead through a Solanke penalty, allowed themselves to be completely dominated by Brighton in the second half - although it is a pretty fair bet that just about nobody in FPL owned any of their goalscorers!

Brentford couldn't add to Mbeumo's first-half goal, despite many good chances. But home side Wolves were also often dangerous: full-backs Semedo and Ait-Nouri brought smart stops out of Flekken with powerful drives either side of half-time - but the Brentford keeper could do nothing about Marshall Munetsi's 20-yard screamer. Woe for the nearly 7% of FPL managers who own Yoane Wissa (really surprised it isn't more!!); he was continuously lively, but couldn't quite find his way past Jose Sa.

Bournemouth achieved a comfortable though hardly impressive win against Leicester. Some Dean Huijsen owners are no doubt miffed that the youngster was here given only a token 12 minutes or so off the bench - though such things must be expected at this time of year, especially when a player has confirmed a move to a new club (he's going to be joining Trent at Real Madrid next season). A very pleasant surprise for some FPL managers was Antoine Semenyo suddenly popping up for 2 goals - as many as he'd produced in his previous 14 games, and his only brace of the season.

More unexpected sentiment may have irked a few FPL managers when Graham Potter reinstated Fabianski in goal for a farewell match (over 4% own Areola) - he made one outstanding save from Nathan Broadhead early on. Ipswich might feel they were a little unlucky, as they came within inches of a second equaliser from Jack Clark, and a couple of wonder-strikes from Bowen and Kudus rather flattered a lacklustre West Ham.

A spirited last-day performance by relegated Southampton almost embarrassed Arsenal: they equalised with a header from a corner, and were hanging on impressively for that result, until Odegaard's wonder-goal in the dying minutes took it away from them. Last-day lineup changes, when there's nothing much to play for, must generally be expected, but Arteta doesn't usually seem the type in indulge in them - so, it was an unwelcome surprise for many in FPL-land that he left Saka and Odegaard on the bench, instead starting Sterling and Nwaneri... and giving the departing Kieran Tierney a spot in central defence (though he somehow popped up at the near-post in the opposition six-yard box to convert Ben White's low cross - yet another most unexpected goalscorer!!).

At least Salah and Mbeumo produced something this week, but almost none of the other most fancied players did; and Haaland's penalty was the only contribution from any of the most popular 'forwards'. It was a very low-scoring weekend (the global average was probably only elevated into the mid-40s by all the people who somehow still had a bonus chip to play this week; but for that, it might only have been around 40, or perhaps even a bit under). and almost all the goals came from very unexpected sources. The final 'Team of the Week' is utterly silly, with Jarrod Bowen being just about the only player in it that anybody owns in FPL.

However, that's barely enough to make it a 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'. Incompetent refereeing, so often this season the largest element of 'luck' in a gameweek, was pleasantly absent this week - with really only a couple of poor decisions.

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

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

#DownWithTheNewChip

The FOLLY of always looking over your shoulder...

 

Or of fretting needlessly about someone looking over yours....

The FPL forums over this past week have been utterly overrun with people seeking advice on how to clinch a mini-league victory.

My bitterer impulses are to tell them that if they can't make their own unaided selection decisions, they don't deserve to be anywhere near the top of even the shittiest mini-league. But I can sympathise with the anxiety. Very early in the life of this blog, I recognised that mini-leagues are - rightly - the main focus of most FPL managers' aspirations; I think that's useful for maintaining focus and motivation. [As I said back then: Playing against people you know rather than just anonymous netizens puts far more fire in your belly!]

But is there really anything specific you can do to improve your chances against one or two particular opponents?  NO.

The attempt to do so is misguided; more often than not, self-harming.

If 'chasing' - seeking to overtake a rival a short way ahead of you - the tactic of desperation (that's all it is; it does nothing to actually improve your chances of achieving the result you crave) is to focus on choosing as many different players to your opponent's selection as possible; and, usually, such left-field choices that there is little chance your adversary (or many other people at all.....) would think of choosing them!

If defending a fragile lead, people attempt to 'block' by doing the exact opposite, trying to load up on as many of the same players as your opponent as possible - to reduce the scope for 'luck' to operate in the opponent's favour.

Now, there is an argument to be made for either of these approaches - but it is not the one most of their adopters seem to want to believe. 

The first tactic, in particular, may be justified as a last desperate throw-of-the-dice - hut that's all it is. By taking so many wild gambles, so many long shots, you are giving yourself a very small chance of achieving a big return that most others will miss out on; but that comes at the cost of vastly increasing the likelihood of a below-average return for the week. Your chances of a big success with a play like this are infinitesimally small: in every thousand or so of the possible alternate universes, there may be a few where you're a very happy camper; but in the vast majority of all possible universes - including, almost certainly, this one -  you have a miserable week, and drop places rather than gain them.

When 'blocking' a pursuer, the argument in favour only really works if..... a) you have a fairly substantial lead, and b) you can limit the differences in your starting eleven to just 2 or 3 players.

Even then, it's not a terribly convincing ploy, because.... you don't know exactly what you're going to be up against until after the gameweek deadline. Even the most 'similar' teams almost always have at least 2 or 3 different players, usually slightly more. And your opponent has at least one Free Transfer to use. He might surprise you by spending points on one or two additional ones, and making that work for him. He might also make some surprising selections from his bench, or get very lucky with his captaincy pick.

Even if you have restricted him to just 2 or 3 'differentials' in comparison to your starting team, that might still be enough for him to overhaul your lead, if the Fates smile on him. And there is always a chance that he's boosted that 'differential' number to 4 or 5 - or more - with his last week's transfers.

By focusing only on trying to thwart one particular opponent, you will often fail even in that; and you'll almost certainly diminish your squad's overall performance - perhaps even to the point where you might get caught and overtaken by one or two other players who were a long way behind you.

A truly 'optimized' selection is optimized against EVERYONE, not just one other manager.

One forum panicker I saw just now was worried that his antagonist's captaincy pick might prove to be better than his! Yes, indeed it might. And, if there's a small gap between you, that will probably prove decisive. But if you trust your captaincy pick, stick with it. There is no point second-guessing yourself,... or endlessly trying to anticipate what your nemesis might do....

This is a harsh and unfair game: it depends very largely on pure LUCK. There is no point losng sleep about the potential for bad outcomes. You just have to accept that they are possible,... likely; laugh them off when they happen, be duly grateful and relieved when they don't.

The essence of the game is to pick what you think is the best team for the week. You do that in isolation, in a vacuum - relying on your own knowledge and judgement of the EPL teams and players - without reference to what any other FPL managers are doing. You follow that same principle every week, including the final week of the season. And you see what happens.  If a lot of your picks work out, you have a good week. If you have a lot of good weeks, it becomes a good season. But if not,... then you don't. C'est la vie.

You play THE GAME; you don't play individual opponents.

Dilemmas of the Week - GW38

As I commented a week or so ago, 'form' always becomes more and more unpredictable in the closing weeks of the season, maiking it very risky to use any purely elective transfers, even on apparently very 'favourable' fixtures. There are quite a few unbalanced match-ups in our final batch of fixtures for his season, but.... it's very difficult to guess who's going to play well this Sunday,... or indeed, who's even going to play; there are surely bound to be some eccentric 'rest rotations', and token run-outs given to thus far rarely used squad players.

At least there's still quite a fight on for European qualification, with 5 teams chasing the last 3 Champions League spots (and still a hypothetical, if extremely remote possibility that City could miss out....), and a theoretical chance that Brighton or Brentford could yet attain the Europa Conference League through finishing 8th. However, Arsenal have joined Liverpool in an unassailable position at the top of the rankings, Bournemouth, Fulham, and Palace have fallen out of touch with the European chase, and there's never been much to dispute in the bottom half of the table this season, so.... there are a few 'dead rubbers' this week, 4 games out of the 10 with absolutely nothing at stake (except 'pride'....).

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; and also, of course, only to new injuries - I figure everyone should be aware of players who were already ruled out for the last gameweek! [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 38?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Willam Saliba picked up a hamstring problem against Newcastle last weekend - which will leave Arsenal with a bit of a makeshift defence; the only recently back-from-injury White and Calafiori will presumably have to deputise for the missing Timber and Saliba.

Tariq Lamptey picked up a knee problem ahead of last week's game, and looks set to miss this week as well.

Marc Guehi and Adam Wharton will both be kept out by injuries they picked up in the Cup Final last Saturday (both blows to the head, although Guehi's issue is now said to be bruising around one of his eyes rather than 'concussion'). And Ben Chilwell is now said to have a problem with an 'illness', so Palace might be a bit short-handed at Anfield.

Everton's Seamus Coleman and Jarrad Branthwaite picked up leg-muscle problems in last week's game, and will miss the Newcastle game - Michael Keane and Ashley Young will presumably deputise.

Alexis Macallister was unexpectedly omitted last week and is now said to be being given a rest for an unspecified fitness issue.

Alexander Isak was a late omission last weekend with a groin problem; touch-and-go whether he'll be OK to start this Sunday.

Murillo played on for the whole game against West Ham last week, despite twisting an ankle in the first half; he's been out of training since, and seems likely to be absent on the final day.

Jørgen Strand Larsen has picked up another knock, and is now said to be doubtful for Sunday (which probably makes it more likely that Cunha will start - although Pereira has said that he doesn't fancy him in the No. 9 role, so that might go to Hwang, Guedes, or perhaps Munetsi).

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

Marcus Rashford is apparently just about fit to play again at Villa; but he is ineligible to play against parent club Manchester United this week.

Joao Pedro, back from his latest three-match ban last week, was apparently omitted after a training ground bust-up with one of his defenders; and Fabian Hurzeler has said that he'll be sit out this final weekend as well.

Jamie Vardy decided that he'd like to end his Leicester career in front of his home fans last week, so has made himself unavailable for selection.

Mateo Kovacic is banned for one-match, after being sent off for a 'denial of a goal-scoring opportunity' offence against Bournemouth on Tuesday evening, while Lewis Cook is beginning a three-match ban for 'serious foul play' in the same match (bit of a harsh call in my opinion, but the club have chosen not to appeal it).

Jose Sa was omitted without explanation on Tuesday night, in favour of Dan Bentley; that might well happen again.

And Manuel Ugarte was left out of the Europa League squad for Wednesday's final, which raises questions about his place at Manchester United (although it's doubtful if Casemiro can play twice within four days, and they don't have many other options in the engine-room).

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Anyone who suffered through that dreadful Europa League Final on Wednesday night is surely going to be ditching any Manchester United or Spurs players they might still have had. And I rather think this Sunday's game might be Ruben Amorim's last at the club.

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

As I said a couple of weeks ago, I think elective transfers at this time of year are usually a bit of a rash indulgence - certainly if you're feeling forced to make them early to avoid a price-rise, when it's certainly preferable to hang on until close to the deadline to try to firefight late injury developments. But even if you have no injury gaps to plug, it's quite a gamble to replace a starting player when you only have one match to show a return on the change.

Most of the outstanding performances in the last gameweek came from keepers, and you certainly don't want to be swapping them on a whim. I suppose Danny Welbeck, Cody Gakpo, and Omar Marmoush also had very impressive games - but do they really look massively more tempting than the players you have already?

The stronger temptation for most FPL managers now is to bring in players from Arsenal or Aston Villa, or possibly Bournemouth, who appear to have the weekend's 'easiest' fixtures.

It was never actually specified in the 'rules' for the 'Assistant Manager' chip if it would cease to be available in GW37 if you hadn't activated it yet. But I saw people on a couple of Facebook forums last week claiming that they had just deployed the chip for the first time; thus, presumably, you would also be able to play it just for this final gameweek, if you'd forgotten about it until now! And it seems quite a lot of people had waited until GW36 to play it; so, many have it in play this week. But with all the uncertainty of end-of-season form, and so many curiously mismatched fixtures on the closing day, it really is a complete lottery as to who to select for it this time. Fulham against City, Everton against  Newcastle, Wolves against Brentford, Spurs against Brighton, and perhaps even Manchester United against Villa all have table-bonus potential - and that would be my running order; Marco Silva and David Moyes have produced some of the best returns for this chip. (Some might fancy Palace against Liverpool, perhaps; but I don't think the Cup winners have got much going for them at the moment apart from the 'Eze Factor'; and although Liverpool have been very flat since clinching the title, I would expect them to raise their level considerably for their final appearance at Anfield, when they'll be celebrating their title victory with their fans.) Others, no doubt, will be banking rather on BIG wins for Arsenal against Southampton or Bournemouth against Leicester.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

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

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

#DownWithTheNewChip

A little bit of Zen (43)

 

"‘It’s only a game,’ people say - as if they don’t realise that everything’s a game."

GW

The photo above is the cover of an early paperback edition of a classic footballing book, 'Only A Game?' - a diaristic account of a professional footballer's life in the early 1970s, written by an Irish player, and later a distinguished broadcaster and journalist, Eamonn Dunphy,.... about an unhappy season he spent with Milwall.

The BPS conundrum: abolish, replace, or modify?

As I mentioned yesterday in my 5 FPL Wishes for Next Season, I think a major revamp of the bonus points allocation in our game, and more particularly of the 'Bonus Points System' (BPS) rating scale currently used to achieve this, is needed urgently. [On top of everything else, it's very annoying that the 'ratings units' used in the BPS itself are also caled 'points'. It's really clunky to have to speak of 'Bonus Points' points. And it also causes confusion sometimes as to what people mean by 'bonus points' - the extra points actually awarded to players, or the BPS scores that determine those. I have fallen into the mental habit of usually referring to BPS 'points' as 'credits' instead; I wish FPL would follow suit.]

The sources of dissatisfaction with the current system are threefold:  a) It lacks transparency (too little information is shared about how the BPS totals are calculated);  b) It has been much abused by the FPL Gnomes this season (often the BPS scores have been adjusted after the event - apparently to produce less contentious outcomes in a few instances);  and c) Its results often appear unfair, inconsistent, and contrary to common sense (players who've had very good games - often, indeed, been generally acknowledged as the 'Man of the Match' - sometimes get strangely overlooked for FPL bonus points,... or at any rate given only a token 1 or 2 extra points, rather than the 3 points they seem to deserve).

Many long-standing FPL managers are now so disaffected with the BPS that they're grumbling it might be better to do away with it altogether.

I can sympathise with that view. Like the bonus chips (which I've grumped about elsewhere), they seem superfluous to the basic gameplay - merely an additional randomizing factor that tends to make the game even more unpredictable and less meritocratic.

At least, with the current BPS the award of bonus points is reasonably predictable for certain players over a long run of games; so, from that point of view, it could be considered 'fair', as it's not too difficult to take account of when making selections. But over a short run of games, or in a single Gameweek, it can be vexingly opaque, capricious, random. 

And it can potentially have a very big impact. While my weekly returns of bonus points don't seem to have a huge variance (almost never any less than 3 or 4, but rarely much more than 12, and mostly around 8 or 10), over a season I can easily stray 100 points either side of my 300-point median; and that's pretty much all - sometimes more than... - my typical season-to-season points total fluctuation. Bonus points and BPS might actually decide the whole shebang!

So, the bonus points are a big deal. And, at the moment, the way they are distributed is causing a lot of resentment in the FPL community.

However, I have a sentimental regard for tradition. And 'bonus points' - in pretty much the form they are now, I believe - have been around ever since FPL's inception in 2002. So, I'd be loathe to give them up completely, after being so long a core part of the game. (Apart from anything else, that would make it extremely difficult to make any meaningful comparisons between present and historical data in the game. This is one of the many gripes I have against this season's absurd novelty, the 'Assistant Manager' Chip: many people earned 30-50 points from it - more than you typically get from the other two bonus chips combined; a lucky few got even more from it; and it could conceivably have yielded 80+, maybe even close to 100 points. That is a really huge - and distorting - addition to the game's points potential for the season.)

Other critics favour replacing the current BPS with a simpler - hopefully fairer - means of deciding the weekly bonus points allocations. There are indeed a number of stats-compiling companies who offer ready-made player ratings (the current BPS is based on stats licensed from Opta; although, curiously, assists and own goals are adjudicated with the assistance of Stats Perform instead; not sure what the distinction is anyway, since they're essentially the same company now). And the Premier League itself is now making the official 'Man of the Match' awards 'democratic' by inviting fan votes through social media (though this is quite new, and hasn't been that well publicised as yet; I don't know what kind of numbers are participating).

While a ready-made player rating system could give more satisfactory results (if you pick the right one!) than the current one (which goes through the clunky additional step of filtering third-party data through a weighting template of FPL's own devising - I think that's where the problem really lies), there would be bound to be considerable teething troubles with any new rating system applied in the game. And I doubt if a new ratings provider would be immune to my misgivings about 'transparency' - since all of these stats companies seek to keep an awful lot of their process secret. 

Using these new online 'Man of the Match' polls is more immediately tempting to me as an alternative. But the problem with leaving the rating process to the subjective judgement of individuals (even very knowledgeable football professionals, as used to happen with the EPL 'MotM' awards in the past; or very large numbers of people, as we now have) is that there's a risk of the results being skewed by personal biases - especially, now, the loyalty of large fan groups. You've noticed how the BBC's 'Goal of the Month' competition, also decided by a fan vote, is very rarely won by a player from a less fashionable club (and indeed, even among the most popular clubs, a player is far more likely to win the accolade if his club was playing on the day the vote was held, especially if that was one of the 'games of the day' featured early in the show)? Heck, with a mass-participation game like FPL, there's a serious danger that groups of Fantasy managers would organise 'Man of the Match' voting in favour of the most popular captaincy picks for the gameweek. I do quite like the idea that all the popular votes could be tallied to identify the handful of most impressive players in each match in a rank order, to decide the award of FPL bonus points; but in practice, I think there would be too much scope for 'manipulation' of the results.

Another option sometimes suggested is to replace the current bonus points with new categories of points awards for specific game actions. We've seen something of this in Fantasy games for the big international tournaments: the last Fantasy World Cup introduced additional points for a certain number of 'ball recoveries'; actions like tackles or duels won, 'key passes', and 'big chances created' might be other possibilities for inclusion in such a revised scoring scheme. While I quite enjoy having to adapt to such novel wrinkles in a once-every-four-years Fantasy tournament, I feel it would be too much of an upheaval in our well-established annual competition of FPL, Again, it would produce much higher potential points scores for each gameweek, and across the whole season, rendering all earlier seasons incompatible for FPL performance comparison.

So, reluctant though I am to admit this as the only viable solution, I feel that we probably have to make do with the current bonus points format - decided by the dreaded BPS.

How, then, might we address the three areas of difficulty I outlined at the start of this piece?

a)  Transparency

Probably a lot of the problem here arises from the fact that Opta, the provider of the underlying game statistics used to tally the BPS player scores, is reluctant to share much of its data - or almost anything of the process it uses to compile that data. (All other stats compilers are much the same in this, I would imagine.)  Partly, they want to steer people towards premium subscriptions for richer data; partly they want to protect their IP, to prevent upstart businesses from too easily copying what they do; and also, probably, they don't want it to be too easy for people to check up on their accuracy and consistency by attempting to replicate their stat-compiling process, even over a small sample size.

However, this could be an area where sticking with the incumbent data-provider (rather than instead buying an off-the-shelf 'player rating' stat from a rival company) will give FPL some useful leverage: they ought to be a powerful enough client that they can persuade Opta to allow the release of more data than they might ideally like to. What I'd like to see is the full background stats BPS is supposedly based on - for every player. But if Opta is digging in its heels against that, I'd probably settle for being able to see the detailed breakdown for the 'Top Ten' BPS scorers usually listed for each match; or even just for those few players who ultimately receive bonus points. And there surely shouldn't be any problem about FPL publishing the BPS total for every player??  (In an ideal world, I'd also like to see detailed explanations of how each of the relevant game actions is defined, and at least some explanatory examples - each week! - of how potentially contentious incidents have been classified, and why. But let's work towards that slowly, eh? We probably can't get everything we want, all at once....)

b)  Surreptitious adjustment of BPS scores (after matches are over)

That seems to rest with FPL rather than Opta. But either way, it shouldn't happen - not without an open acknowledgement, and an apologetic statement explaining what happened. Most of the BPS data is updated almost live - so you can actually check on who's in the running for bonus points while games are still in play. You must expect that some things might get tweaked up to an hour or two after the game ends. But this season we've seen quite major points adjustments occurring a day or two later; if that occurs, we need to be told why.

c)  Appropriate Results

The main thing we want to see is the bonus points for each game more consistently, accurately, and predictably reflecting the commonsense assessment of player performances. 

And I think this could be achieved just with some tweaking of the current BPS scoring. 

The key problem with it is that it massively over-rewards certain game actions, while under-rewarding and even excessively penalising others - with the net effect that the bonus points tend to go mostly to the players who are already earning FPL points in the game: those who've made an attacking contribution, or defensive players who've managed to keep a clean sheet. It's a classic case of double recovery, and that is fundamentally unfair - particularly as a lot of significant game actions don't get any recognition in the main FPL points system, ('Pre-assists' are my particular pet peeve: the pass before the actual assist is very often the one that actually makes the goal; yet it earns no recognition, in either direct points or BPS credit.)  Midfield playmakers who quietly dictate the tempo of the whole game, or 'engine-room' lynchpins who break up every opposition attempt to progress the ball through central areas... are the kinds of players almost invariably overlooked by BPS - although proper football fans recognise them as the true 'Man of the Match'. And just last week (Gameweek 37) we saw an instance - sadly, not at all an unncommon one - where some exceptional goalkeeping performances from the likes of Sels, Leno and Kinsky went unrewarded. That's what we need to change.

Other game contributions get only negligible BPS recognition at present. A defender blocking a shot may be as important as a goal - but he only gets a tiny fraction of the BPS credit (for two of them!) that an attacker does for scoring a goal - essentially nothing. Defenders have never fared all that well under the BPS (unless the match is very low-scoring, they're bound to be eclipsed by all the players who contributed to the goals); and I pointed out early on this season that a small change in the BPS scoring would make it even harder for them to win bonus points this year (defenders and keepers are now more heavily penalised under BPS for conceding a goal, which makes it extremely difficult for them to get into bonus point contention if they fail to keep a clean sheet). [FPL tried to redress this longstanding 'unfairness' towards defensive players (not only defenders) at the start of the following season by introducing a new category of 'defensive points'; but this was fraught with its own difficulties and opacities. I found it a poorly thought-out innovation, an unnecessary and confusing over-complication to the game.]

I'd be tempted, in fact, not to give any BPS credit for actions that are already credited in the main points system. However, that might lead to eccentric outcomes where a multiple goalscorer was overlooked for bonus points - which would also seem unfair under any commonsense view of things. So, I think we'd have to keep BPS credit for goals, assists, clean sheets, etc., but massively reduce it from the levels it's at now; while increasing the range and value of other game actions credited in BPS.

I don't see why scoring a goal should have such a massive weighting in BPS, or why it should differ for different players, different goals. There's a case for giving defenders (and keepers!) more game points for a goal, because it's so much rarer an occurrence for them (and they are under-rewarded by the overall points system, compared to attacking players). But as part of the overall 'game contribution' assessed under BPS, one goal is surely the same as another. 

I've always found it particularly baffling and exasperating that BPS awards an additional 3 'credits' for the 'goal that wins a match' - but offers no definition for that. Is it the last goal scored? Or (more probably) the last goal that moves a side into the lead? Either way, it's nonsense; it's really a matter of chance which player may get to contribute the 'most important' goal. And in any case, the truly decisive goal is the one that turns the momentum of the game - often, not one that establishes or extends a lead, but one that ties the score again, or even one that gets a side back in the match after falling a long way behind. I can see no reasonable argument for giving extra credit only to one of the game's later goals.

I'm doubtful about rewarding clean sheets under BPS as well; certainly not with a massive 12 'credits', as is currently the case. A goal can come out of nothing, out of pure fluke (or a bad refereeing decision...). It's probably undesirable that defenders and keepers get such a huge lift from a clean sheet under the main points system (but they need it, because they get no points for anything else, and usually only a fairly remote chance of big bonus points); and again, 'double recovery' seems inappropriate to me - if they're getting 4 points for the clean sheet already, they don't need a huge BPS boost too. For me, there's not usually any difference in quality of defensive performance between a team that concedes 0 goals and a team that concedes 1 (or 2, sometimes....).

Weighting the BPS so heavily in favour of game actions that are already rewarded is plainly wrong-headed and unfair. If those 'credit' items are still to stand, they need to be massively dialled down, I would say. Whereas, credits for other important game actions like 'key passes', 'tackles won', and 'fouls won' should be significantly increased. That could produce BPS results that accord more closely with actual player performances.

It will be a complex task to get this rebalancing of the 'Bonus Points System' right, but - I believe it can be done. 

FIVE Wishes for next season

 

As the 2024-25 season draws to a close, I find myself brooding on things about the game I'd like to see change....

1)  Weed out 'zombie' accounts!

It is infuriating how much the overall rankings are distorted by the number of 'non-playing' accounts cluttering them up. Many managers accidentally get locked out of their accounts, or just give up on the game at some point in the season,.... yet their teams remain in play forever. There is no good reason for that. (Well, except that FPL's executives probably feel that artificially inflating the number of managers/teams may help to entice more and bigger sponsorships... But surely sponsors can see through this horseshit: it is obvious that the number of active players in the game can't be anywhere near the headline figure of 10-million or whatever.)  I would simply require a log-in every week, to confirm entry of your team for the next gameweek (even if you're not making any changes to it). Of course, people do occasionally just 'forget' to tweak their team for a week, or might run into real-world distractions like a health crisis of some sort for a few weeks; so, we might allow a 'grace' period - perhaps 3 or 4 gameweeks,.... before an account with no recent sign-ins is deleted. (Most kind souls would be inclined to allow team scores to continue to be counted during such a 'grace period'; but I'd take a hard line on that, and suggest that if you don't actively 'submit' a team for a gameweek, for whatever reason, you should get nul points for that gameweek.)

2)  Make a space for the most popular 'side-games'

On a related point to that first item, another major source of distorting clutter in our game is the number of people who are not actually playing the main game, but various little riffs on it. The main one, of course, is 'Weekly Win', where people are just chasing a one-off high score, and don't care how many transfers they use to achieve it. There may be variants, like 'Daily Win' or 'Early Lead' (chasing the best score on the first day of the gameweek) too!! And then there are some people who play a kind of 'Monopoly' where amassing squad value rather than points is the aim. There is no reason why these major alternate competitions could not be identified and accommodated within official side leagues (and let people have separate teams for them, if they also want to play the 'main game') - just as there are already separate 'game areas' for Fantasy Draft and Fantasy Challenge games. If you make it easy to enter these games, and offer some decent prizes for them, that should draw people away from trying to play them within the main game. However, I'd also be quite happy to see players expelled for 'suspicious behaviour' of this kind, or at least discouraged from pursuing such variants by placing a cap on the number of paid transfers - 'hits' - that can be used.

3)  More and better prizes!

It is ridiculous, really, that such a massively popular game, which is now regularly attracting well over 10 million sign-ups each year, offers such pitiful prizes. Rather than having huge cash prizes for the top few positions, though, I'd prefer a wider distribution of incentives, to share the goodies more generally: with multiple prizes - weekly and monthly - in all the major 'public leagues' as well as the 'Overall' competition. It's not so much to ask, is it?

4)  Do something about the 'Bonus Points System'

I've been saying quite often in my weekly roundups that 'BPS is broken'. There is a remarkable degree of general agreement among the FPL community online that the present system of calculating bonus point allocations is deeply unsatisfactory. It's utterly lacking in transparency (they only reveal the BPS figures for the 'leading' players in each match, not for everyone; and they don't give any detailed breakdown on how these totals are reached). And it doesn't appear to be at all consistent or fair,... or consonant with common sense: very often, players who've had outstanding games - indeed, who are, by general consensus, the 'Man of the Match' - get no recognition under this system whatsover. That can't be right. Moreover, this season we've seen a fair bit of flagrant skullduggery with the manipulation of the system: BPS results have frequently been adjusted - without explanation, and sometimes quite a long time after the end of the match in question - apparently to produce a less controversial allocation of extra points. Some have suggested such radical 'fixes' as replacing BPS with a third-party player rating that would more closely accord with the general perception of relative player performances; others propose abandoning 'bonus points' altogether, and allowing all players to earn additional points for specific useful game contributions, such as 'key passes completed', 'duels won' or 'balls recovered'. I see some problems with either such approach; I'd prefer to attempt an overhaul of how the BPS is calculated, and improve its clarity and consistency of implementation. [I might have a whole post on this soon... Here it is.]

5)  No more silly innovations

For the most part, we like the game as it is. It does not need any injections of 'novelty'!! The 'Assistant Manager' Chip foisted on us this year was a game-distorting aberration. It offered such a huge number of potential additional points that it was very difficult to ignore (anyone who - like me - nobly tried to do without it, in protest, probably lost at least 30-50 points on most of those who did use it; more, probably, than you'd get from both of the other bonus chips combined); and this now makes it impossible to meaningfully compare this year's scores to performance in earlier seasons. Moreover, this new chip was awarding points for things we'd never previously earned points for; it was, in effect, a completely different game - crudely grafted on to our beloved Fantasy Premier League. We do not want this kind of change in the game. We do not want the 'Assistant Manager' Chip in the game again next season (except as part of Fantasy Challenge, perhaps...) - or anything else of the kind.

Oh, and don't get me started on the UI!  That is a whole other post in gestation as well.....

Luck-o-Meter (37)

 

The rate of injuries has slowed somewhat in recent weeks, but a greater incidence of fatigue, nerves, perhaps occasional complacency or dipping in motivation, and a preoccupation, for some, with the final rounds of the European competitions, has meant that already over the past few gameweeks we've seen more and more bizarre swings in form and unexpected results. The tail-end of the season becomes even more of a lottery than usual - especially in this penultimate gameweek, when the unfortunate circumstance of the FA Cup Final and the Europa League Final clashing with the Premier League schedule this year means that we have a mini fixture logjam around this weekend; two fixtures have been moved forward to Friday night, and two moved back to Tuesday night, spreading this batch of games out over 5 days....

Spurs and Manchester United weren't nearly as bad as expected on Friday night, and frustrated their hosts for long periods. United actually put out a full-strength team, to try to get themselves in a competitive mindset for the upcoming Europa League Final. They made some good chances, but their finishing was poor; although they were unlucky that a Maguire header that appeared to have given them the lead was ruled out for the narrowest of offsides (I really don't like to see these decisions given for a matter of centimetres - particularly when it's the upper arm!); and late in the game Amad's crisp near-post shot demanded a sharp save of Sanchez. Reece James grazed the post with a long-range effort, and Madueke and Enzo Fernandez squandered decent chances, but Chelsea were making heavy weather of it until Cucurella's header gave them a late breakthrough. At least VAR was doing its job properly for once, directing referee Craig Pawson to have another look after he'd adjudged Andre Onana to have brought down Tyrick George in the box: TV camera angles clearly showed that the keeper had fairly got a hand to the ball, and hadn't touched the forward (it was a straight-up dive, for which George should have been booked - but wasn't).

Villa were similarly unconvincing against Spurs; they had far more of the ball, but weren't doing much with it, and Spurs created some of the better chances (two spurned by a slightly rusty-looking Son); the best, an early break down the left from Odobert, squaring neatly to Tel, whose cheeky back-heel angled across the goal forced Martinez into a fine reaction save with his legs. Kinsky ultimately looked Spurs's best player, though, being credited with 5 saves in  the match, including two crucial fingertips to deny Rogers and Watkins; and Watkins might perhaps have had a penalty for the challenge on him by Ben Davies as he got that shot off - but VAR saw nothing in it. Villa eventually won comfortably, but not emphatically, with their goals coming from unexpected sources: an instinctive prod home from the edge of the six-yard box, a fine poacher's goal for centreback Ezri Konsa, and then a hopeful shot from just inside the penalty area from central defensive midfielder Kamara.

Iliman Ndiaye, who's threatened to become a major goal-threat all season but rarely fulfilled that promise, came up with two slick finishes to secure an easy win for Everton in their farewell game at the iconic Goodison Park. Southampton were dogged rather than impressive in their resistance, the defensive cohesion they'd somehow attained against City last week largely evaporating again.

West Ham v Forest proved to be the brightest game of the weekend, with both keepers needing to be at their sharpest to keep the scoreline down - Sels having to make a superb stop from an unmarked Soucek header in the opening minute. It was unfortunate for Areola that, after making some great early stops. he gave away the lead with a careless pass to the predatory Gibbs-White (yet another victim of the playing-out-from-the-back malaise). Forest increased their advantage with a somewhat fortuitous 'header' from Milenkovic helping in Elanga's free-kick (it came off the back of his neck, and he didn't appear to know much about it!). But we then suffered the farce of a 5-minute VAR delay (apparently the new offside-decision technology was malfunctioning, but that's really no excuse; we have to put a time-limit on this process) to adjudicate a possible offside by an obviously non-involved player. The irrepressible Jarrod Bowen's superb volley got West Ham back in the game with 5 minutes left. Or what should have been 5 minutes left, but thanks to the VAR cock-ups and various other delays, we ended up with a staggering amount of added-on time: West Ham won a corner in the 113th minute, and the Forest defence, perhaps distracted by the arrival of Areola in their box, allowed Fullkrug to get on the end of it with a powerful header... which Sels had to desperately parry away to cling on to the 3 points - and the mathematical chance of still qualifying for the Champions League. Sels, weirdly, was only credited with 4 saves in the match; I think I counted at least 6 in the highlights, and a number of them were so crucial - especially the ones in the opening and closing minutes! - that he should have been up near the top of the bonus points as well,... instead of nowhere to be seen??!!  (BPS is broken.)

Jamie Vardy - inevitably - found a 200th competitive goal for Leicester, in his emotional farewell at his home stadium; although it had started to look as if it might not be his day, after two promising early chances had just got away from him; but then a surging run through the middle by full-back James Justin slipped him in behind for one of his classically casual finishes. Leif Davis, back from suspension, was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet for the visitors - thundering a left-foot shot against the post early on, and then having an excellent late volley ruled out by VAR (one of those offsides that's far too close to call with the naked eye.... and thus, for me, shouldn't be called at all).

More FPL woe at Brentford, where 47%-owned Bryan Mbeumo should have come away with at least 15 points for the game, but ended up with just 5, thanks to an uncharacteristic penalty miss (Leno pulled off a fine stop, but Mbeumo had telegraphed where he was going to put it, and didn't hit it that hard: a very straight run-up like that is always a bad sign...). Overall, though, justice was probably served there, since Andersen's fleeting touch on the inside of Schade's elbow was surely not strong enough to substantially impede him, and the striker's subsequent going-to-ground was a blatant dive (yet again, extremely unsatisfying that VAR isn't willing to intervene very often to question the on-pitch official's call on things like this). Fulham then somehow nicked the win, with a 25-yard banger from Harry Wilson. Flekken again didn't exactly cover himself in glory here: he probably could have done more with all three Fulham goals, especially the first one - Raul's header was low and well-directed, but not powerful, yet somehow slipped under the keeper's dive. Also, very odd that Wissa was credited with Brentford's second goal, since the ball was surely already over the line from Norgaard's shot (the credit for that could yet be reassigned before the end of the gameweek, I suppose; if it was Wissa's, it can't have been by more than an inch or so!). Brentford, remarkably, had more than 3x as many xG as Fulham, yet still lost - largely thanks to a 'Man of the Match' performance from Bernd Leno in the Fulham goal,.... again, strangely undercounted by the BPS, which barely acknowledged his presence on the field: bizarre, and very, very wrong.

Arsenal prevailed narrowly in a close-fought match against Newcastle. The visitors failed to make The Gunners pay for a sluggish start to the game, but kept their much livelier second-half performance well-contained - apart from Rice smashing home another banger from the edge of the box. 'Man of the Match', though, was David Raya, with a string of superb saves. The big upset for FPL managers (56.5% of them, anyway!) was the last-minute omission of Alexander Isak with a groin problem. And the second biggest upset might be the half-time withdrawal of William Saliba (the second most popular defender in the game, with 30.5% ownership), apparently with a hamstring strain - that will probably keep him out of the closing weekend. Raya, officially credited with 5 saves, just scraped into the last bonus point slot, but surely deserved at least 2 extra points for his heroic performance. The BPS is very down on keepers lately.

An away trip to the south coast on a Monday night can always bring out the worst in a team, but giving the night off to two of your most crucial players of the campaign, Van Dijk and Diaz, pretty much ensures trouble, and Liverpool got plenty of that, being put under constant pressure by a lively Brighton, twice losing a lead, and then conceding a late winner five minutes from the end. Lots of other FPL frustration here, in addition to the starting selections (which we must accept are going to get a bit wayward at this time of year): a fabulous Danny Welbeck being kept off the scoresheet by three massive saves from Alisson, Szoboszlai restoring the lead on the stroke of half-time with a pinger from the edge of the box.... which might well have been a misshit cross, and mighty Mo Salah missing a sitter (Gakpo squared the ball to him at pace, and he tried to hit it first time with the inside of his left foot as it went across him; but with half the goal to aim at, you'd usually expect him to bury the chance... rather than steering it just wide!). Brighton also had a penalty shout late in the second half when the always dangerous Gruda went down under a challenge from Tsimikas; the contact was light, and the Greek full-back may just about have got a toe on the ball, but he was trying to reach it from behind the attacking player, which is asking for trouble; probably the right call from VAR, but one that could have gone either way. Hinshelwood's late winner was reinstated by VAR, after the linesman had mystifyingly ruled it offside at first - it was nowhere near! (A rare 'success' for the new 'semi-automated' technology; mostly, so far, it's just been ruling out good goals on insanely thin - and unconvincing - margins.)

After Saturday's heroics, it was inevitable that Palace would rest some players for Tuesday night's game against Wolves: Wharton and Guehi were ruled out by injuries picked up in the Cup Final, while Eze, Mateta, Mitchell, and Kamada were dropped to the bench. Nevertheless, they still managed to win fairly comfortably against a very out-of-sorts Wolves - whose magnificent form of the last three months has suddenly evaporated. Keeper Jose Sa was mysteriously omitted from the squad, and his understudy Dan Bentley didn't have a great game. And star Matheus Cunha, nearly 15%-owned in FPL, was left on the bench - amid mounting rumours that he's signed a deal to move to Manchester United over the summer (so, that's his career over, then....); he got on for a token 20-odd minutes at the end, but wasn't able to make much impact. The remarkable Ebere Eze, though, picked up yet another goal in a very brief run-out at the end; his owners - also around 15% - are no doubt a bit disappointed with just a 6-point haul from hum,.... but it's 6 points more than they had any right to expect! This game also saw goals from defenders Agbadou and Chilwell; and a brace from rarely-starts Nketiah.

Manchester City have the squad depth to be able to make multiple changes to their lineup without significantly weakening it - but rotations were not as many as might have been expected; and Kevin De Bruyne's 14% ownership will have been relieved that he was able to start again just three days after the Cup Final, and last a bit beyond the hour-mark - although he failed to register any FPL contribution, and actually missed a sitter, lashing a shot against the cross-bar when presented with an open goal by Marmoush (it did bobble a bit just as he hit it...). Marmoush had opened the scoring with a 30-yard screamer that might well be a 'Goal of the Season' contender - yet that somehow wasn't quite enough to secure him the maximum bonus points. Evanilson hit a post shortly afterwards, and the game might have developed very differently if he'd been able to level the score then. And there were two sendings-off in the game: Kovacic for pulling back Evanilson when clean-through just beyond the half-way line - a fairly clearcut 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' offence; and shortly afterwards, Lewis Cook was dismissed for a heavy challenge on Nico Gonzalez (not clear from the highlights I've seen that the tackle was bad enough for a straight red; more a clumsy shin-on-shin contact than a reckless driving-through-with-the-studs one).

The fixture rescheduling caused by the FA Cup Final and the upcoming Europa League Final added to uncertainties about selections and performance this week, exacerbating the problems of end-of-season form being generally erratic anyway. And so we ended up with a particularly weird 'Team of the Week': Ezri Konsa was the highest-scoring player, and the lineup also included James Justin, Declan Rice, Bernardo Silva, Harvey Elliott, Iliman Ndiaye, and Eddie Nketiah! But absolutely none of the most popular FPL picks.... And hence a wretchedly low 'global average' score of just 39 points.

Thus, it's looking a 7 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'; the refereeing mostly not too bad this time (apart from that very soft penalty award to Brentford), but VAR being painfully slow, and a few goals disallowed for paper-thin supposed 'offsides'. However, injuries, last-minute omissions and 'rest rotations' for some key players have contributed quite a bit to the FPL 'luck' factor this week, as have oustanding individual player performances - with a few banging goals, and even more extraordinary saves,... and a lot of goals from unexpected quarters! Moreover, the bonus point allocations have been really, really dodgy this week.

DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  Most people will have played the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip by now; and indeed, if you haven't, it might not be available to activate any more (the rules never addressed this point). 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 even if you have played the new chip this time, please do criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

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

#DownWithTheNewChip