The trouble with VAR

I just came across this interesting video from Youtuber Dagnal Diagonal, which provides a pretty good survey of some of the most egregious examples of VAR screw-ups over the last couple of seasons - and presents some suggestions for improvement. (Strangely, although it's invariably a major focus of discussion on TV highlights shows, I haven't seen very much commentary on this issue anywhere online.)

Dagnal's main points are:

1)  The overall quality of officiating needs to improve. And in particular, referees need to focus more carefully on getting their initial decision right. There does seem to be a psychological reliance - perhaps unconscious! - on the presence of VAR being able to get them out of trouble, which may lead to them making hasty or over-cautious - or, sometimes, over-bold - calls at first instance. (I suspect, in particular, that they will often give penalties a little more easily, with the 'safety net' of thinking that VAR can overrule them, or suggest a second look, if they've misread the incident. And that they'll often be hesitant to give a red card for a bad tackle, knowing that VAR will take a closer look.)

2) The scope of VAR responsibilities needs to be expanded - particularly with 'second yellow', or potential 'second yellow' incidents (which are just the same in game impact as a straight red card, so it's absurd that they should be treated differently under the VAR protocols).

3)  Refs need to get over the prejudice that there's an overwhelming expectation they ought to change their original decision if they're directed to the pitch-side TV monitor (easier said than done!). Dagnal suggests it might help if they're allowed an additional category of response, as in pitch-side reviews in American football, where an initial call can be simply 'not overruled' - instead of actively confirmed - if the TV playbacks are not readily able to provide conclusive evidence one way or the other.

I rather feel that this last suggestion of his really goes to another issue: the frequent fallibility or inconclusiveness of the available TV coverage of an incident. Encouraging referees to be more confident in their original decision, and not put under any weight of expectation as to what conclusion they should reach when sent for a second look at an incident, is more a matter of training. 

And I think stricter guidelines on the way that the on-pitch and off-pitch officials communicate with each other are essential too. They should not be getting into any extended conversations; the VAR official should not be giving any indication of what he thinks happened. There should be a set list of formulaic 'instructions', giving the reason for the suggested review, the particular event or events that need to be looked at - but without any extended detail, which might be prejudicial. And the word 'possible' should always be included, to emphasise that the question is entirely OPEN for the referee: 'Possible contact on ball by tackling player', 'Possible handball by goalscorer', 'Possible holding by x and y', 'Possible obstruction of goalkeeper's sightline by z' - that's ALL the VAR official should ever be saying.

And there's a lot of scope for improvement in the technical side of things too (something that Dagnal omits to comment on in his video). We often see a referee apparently only being shown a slow-motion or freeze-frame picture on the monitor (which, again, tends to be prejudicial), or only being shown one or two camera angles of the incident, when more - and much better ones - do exist. WHY???  This is the kind of staggering incompetence in the implementation of the system that they need to stamp out, if they are to build any public confidence in the operation of VAR.

Let us hope we'll see better things in this area next season. But I'm not at all confident we will.

The story of MY season

 

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

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

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

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

My ZOMBIE Team

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#DownWithTheNewChip

A final WISH

 

Could we possibly - pretty, pretty please - make the very simple rule change that...

Bonus Chips no longer count in Cup ties?

Just about nobody thinks that this is fair - even people that profit from it. (I actually had someone offer a heartfelt apology to me a few years ago when he knocked me out in a quarter-final with his Bench Boost, and assured me he hadn't realised it would give him an advantage in his Cup match.)

This is my last wish to address to the FPL authorities. (For now. I'm sure I'll think of some more next year...)

Oh, wouldn't it be NICE if some of these wishes were granted before the start of next season?

A little bit of Zen (44)

 

"I've looked at Life from both sides now,

From 'Win' and 'Lose', and still somehow...

It's Life's illusions I recall;

I really don't know Life at all."

Joni Mitchell - 'Both Sides, Now'

The STORY of the season... 2024-2025

It has indeed been a funny old season - with rather more unexpected twists and turns than usual.

I noted at the start of the season that THE BIG CONUNDRUM of the year was going to be whether to go without Haaland, after the FPL gnomes priced him at an eye-watering 15 million pounds. That came down to more or less a 50-50 split among FPL managers at the big kick-off. And which way you'd flipped the coin on that..... largely decided your entire season. 

It would have been reasonable to doubt Haaland and City at the beginning of the season. Pep's men have usually been a little slow to find their rhythm in the early games. We'd seen in the previous year how disastrously unsettled they could be by Rodri's absence; and he was going to be missing for a while with a hamstring problem picked up in the Euros Final. Pep had said that other key players - Foden, Bernardo Silva, DeBruyne - were also going to be rested for the first 2 or 3 matches after a late return from the summer tournament. And their early fixture run - away to Chelsea in the opener, and then facing Brentford, Arsenal, and Newcastle from Gameweeks 4 ot 6 - looked quite challenging. Hesitating over whether to bring in Haaland, or boldly deciding to go without him, were entirely reasonable choices - really, the better choices. But the Viking colossus pulled out back-to-back hattricks in Gameweeks 2 and 3, and then a brace in GW4. as well as singles in the first and fifth games - for a phenomenal opening haul of 63 points in 5 games. If you'd missed out on that, your season was pretty much SUNK immediately. (Though.... never say NEVER!  Global champ Lovro Budišin was actually struggling in the early weeks, having gone without not only Haaland, but also Saka, Palmer, and Mbeumo - rashly favouring Fernandes, Son, and Jota in his side instead. I may at some point attempt a deeper examination of how such an apparently 'bad' team ended up doing so phenomenally well...)  And that advantage to Haaland owners was unfair, because that early blitz really came out of nowhere, contrary to all reasonable expectation (even the demolition of promoted Ipswich wasn't entirely predictable, as they had appeared to be the strongest of the three new teams joining the League, and had given Liverpool a very tough fight in their opening game); going-without-Haaland had really seemed the more sensible strategy for the season.

And so, indeed it would prove to be - from Gameweek 6 onwards! After that opening avalanche of points, Haaland's - or rather, City's - form fell off a cliff, and he only managed 3 more goals in the next 13 games. It was a collapse so dramatic that even Haaland's most passionate idolaters - most of them, anyway! - soon accepted that they'd have to give up on him for a while,.... and hence switch to the No-Haaland strategy, which had looked as if it should have been preferable all along.

So, if there was ONE FACTOR which had the most decisive influence on season outcomes in FPL, it would be that: you needed to have been on Haaland for the first 4 or 5 games, but to have dumped him out as soon as possible after that. The nearly half of managers who had opted against him initially - and hadn't been immediately persuaded to reconsider by one good return, against a weak team - were most royally screwed. But they would probably still have been OK, the No-Haaland strategy might still have more than balanced out in their favour over the remainder of the season,.... if City's form hadn't crashed so emphatically that almost everyone was soon forced into joining the No-Haaland camp, Funny how life goes.

The second big game-changer right from the get-go was Bukayo Saka, who notched 12 points in his opening game against Wolves, and racked up 90 more in the first three months of the season (with just 1 game missed with a knock, and 3 blanks over the next 12 fixtures). Once again, there had been many tempting alternatives to Saka before the start of the season; and despite his white-hot start, some of them might have proved better in the long-haul, if he'd suffered one or two dips in productivity (which was already starting to happen, with three blanks in a row from GW13....). But he had to come off in the first half against Palace in GW17 with a hamstring problem that would effectively wipe him out for the season. So, once again, people who'd merely been a bit lucky to make the 'right' pick on Saka for the early phase of the season were forced to ditch him at an opportune moment, rather than possibly sticking with him - out of misplaced loyalty or mere superstition - too long through a barren spell, perhaps even through the whole of the rest of (what might have been) a relatively unproductive season from there on (exactly as subsequently happened for many people with Cole Palmer!).

Even at Arsenal, Saka wasn't an absolutely obvious or inevitable pick. There had been signs last season that Arteta was requiring a more disciplined and controlling contribution from him, often doing more defensive work deeper in midfield, or sticking to the touchline to stretch the opposition defence - rather than being given free rein to drift inside at will and seize on numerous goal-scoring opportunities in the right-half space. Even his impressive points total the previous year had mainly come in two absurdly hot streaks, offset by some lengthy runs of little output. And over the previous two seasons, Odegaard in particular, but also Martinelli and Trossard in spells, had sometimes been higher-producing Arsenal assets in FPL. I myself would have been tempted to go with Odegaard initially - a more central creative force, and, at least when at his best, a more consistent points prospect. But the Norwegian was not at his best this time, in fact, by his elevated standards, it was a very disappointing season: a fairly respectable 8 assists ultimately (though down on last season's 11), and a paltry 3 goals (compared to 8 last year and 15 the year before). Being tempted to punt on Odegaard rather than Saka in the initial squad wasn't a rash or foolish choice, but it would have backfired horribly - with Odegaard picking up just 7 points in the opening 3 games (against Saka's 24!), and then getting wiped out by an ankle injury for two months.

Another big surprise was what I came to think of as the Revenge of the Grandads...  Suddenly, a bunch of aging strikers, who'd rarely in their youthful prime managed a long run of consecutive starts and almost never produced an extended scoring spree, were somehow now staying fit and playing the best football of their lives, able to start every week, and banging in a cracking goal almost every week. There was a case for taking an early punt on Chris Wood, as he'd finished the previous season with Forest very strongly (although his age, and the likelihood of competition for the place from his athletic understudy, Taiwo Awoniyi, appeared to make it quite a risky punt); but the sudden rejuvenation of Danny Welbeck and Raul Jimenez surely blindsided everyone.

The unexpected strength of these fairly cheap forward options early in the season made it much easier to go without Haaland or Isak or Watkins - and to spend more money in midfield or defence. And with Isak avoiding long-term injuries this year, Wissa stepping up a notch, Cunha often looking one of the best players on the planet (when he wasn't suspended...), Mateta eventually starting to come good after a very slow start, Gakpo becoming an FPL prospect once he finally started getting some regular starts in the second half of the season, and newcomers Strand Larsen and Evanilson also showing a lot of promise (and Marmoush too, of course, after his introduction in January) - along with occasional fitful showings from the likes of Muniz, Delap, Ndiaye and Beto - meant that we really were spoiled for choice in the forward positions this year. I wasn't playing FPL in its early years, but I'm sure there have been occasions in the past when there were 3 or more really strong forward choices, and you might often want to start all of them. But in the last several years, that has not been the case. There has rarely been more than 1 forward in the top 5 or 10 overall FPL points producers; and, even if you could afford the best 3 forwards, the 3rd best has almost always been outperformed by not just 5 midfielders, but 8 or 10 or 12 of them! So, for some time now, you haven't really wanted to play 3-4-3, except by necessity, when one of your midfielders is unavailable for the week (or facing a really bad fixture). But this season, with so many strong forward options, and so many of the 'usual suspects' in midfield disappointing or sidelined with injury, 3-4-3 suddenly became common again - perhaps even the default option for many.

Yes, the midfield - usually the main foundry of FPL points - was a constant challenge and vexation this season. Many of the most promising producers - Saka, Amad, Bowen, Maddison, Son, DeBruyne - missed big chunks of the season through injury. Palmer, after another blistering start, had his output collapse in the second half of the season. Kluivert and Semenyo enjoyed brief hot flashes, but much looonger barren spells. Phil Foden - last year's 'Player of the Season' at City - suddenly couldn't get a regular start any more.  Poor unlucky Luis Diaz suffered a lot of rotation and was mostly played out of his best position. Eze and Mitoma were slow to rediscover their FPL scoring knack. Newcastle's Jacob Murphy only really got going in the second half of the season. Merino and Asensio failed to fulfill their early promise as goal-scoring midfielders. Bruno Fernandes and Morgan Rogers did heroic work trying to single-handedly carry very inconsistent teams, but in those trying circumstances were only able to manage sporadic FPL contributions. Yet, note that these players, despite patchy, or in some cases very short, seasons, were all still well up in the top 40 or 50 midfielders, and in most cases in the top 20 or the top 10! Apart from Salah and Mbeumo, all the leading midfield prospects seriously under-performed this year - in season-long terms, as against their undoubted potential in more favourable circumstances.

For that reason, even more than usual, one had to rotate constantly in the midfield selections, to try to optimise returns from those most in-form for the moment. I think this was particularly true in the cheaper spots - because there was a broader choice there, and more constant shifting of form. Many FPL managers had plumped for Morgan Rogers at the start of the year (and in most cases simply because he was very cheap, rather than because they knew his abilities from his Manchester City youth team performances, or because they'd seen how well he might fit in at Villa from his pre-season displays with them), and were content to stay with him for the whole season. His final ranking was certainly very good for such a cheap player, but not outstanding overall (he only just managed to edge back up into the Top 10 midfielders and Top 15 in all positions towards the end of the season, as Villa finished the campaign quite strongly - while so many others fell away). There was invariably at least one other cheap midfield option - sometimes, two or three or four - producing better than him for a run of games: Smith Rowe or Iwobi (or, for very brief spells, Harry Wilson or Adama Traore!), McNeil, Enzo Fernandez, Amad, Kluivert, Barnes, Murphy, Elanga, Schade.

And frankly, there was never much pressure on budget this year - certainly not once Saka had got injured, and Haaland and Fernandes and Son and eventually Palmer had all proved dispensable. (By the end of the season, most managers - most in the top third or so of the rankings, anyway - had boosted their squad value to 106 or 108 milliion; but in the last few weeks of the season weren't even spending 100 million of that - many leaving as much as 8 or 10 millon unutilised. I've never seen that before.) You didn't have to limit yourself to fifth midfielders who were cheap. It was just that - with most of the usually stronger options failing to produce - the cheaper midfielders were giving the best returns most of the time!

There were a lot of unexpected turns in regard to team form as well. We expect the promoted sides, these days, to be poor; but on paper, this year's trio had seemed to have some promise - particularly Leicester and Ipswich. But in fact, they proved to be the worst set of new clubs coming up in history, and were all beyond hope by Christmas - much to the relief of Wolves and West Ham, and Manchester United and Spurs! And yes, we probably expected Spurs and United to have another very disappointing year - but not, surely, to be down in the relegation zone! 

City's collapse was even more dramatic, and - to most - even more unexpected (I'm not saying I saw it coming, but I think we should have done....; the early loss of Rodri for the season was only one part of the problem). They rallied somewhat in the second half of the season, with winter-window signings Marmoush and Gonzalez and Academy-product Nico O'Reilly providing much-needed vigour; but they needed to ride their luck in making the most of a fairly soft closing run of fixtures over the last couple of months to scrabble back up into third spot. During the middle of the season, they'd looked as if they might struggle to qualify for the lesser European competitions. Indeed, 20 points dropped in just 8 games in November and December was looking like relegation form (if relegation had still been an option for any of the established clubs...).

Arsenal had a pretty disappointing season as well - again, hardly surprising, after their frankly disastrous failure to make any major new signings over the summer, while losing almost all of their back-up players. A constant stream of (relatively minor, but still disruptive) injuries meant that they were seldom able to field the same back-four. Having Ben White, outstanding down the right flank the season before, hampered by a long-standing knee problem early in the season, and eventually needing surgery and missing most of the rest of the year, may have been one of the biggest defensive curveballs in FPL this season; if he'd been at his best, choosing other defensive options from Arsenal - Gabriel, Raya, Timber, Saliba? - would have been a lot trickier; and Trent Alexander-Arnold or Josko Gvardiol might not have been such overwhelmingly popular choices for a more attacking premium defender option. However, it's an ill wind that blows no-one any good.... David Raya had been a poor goalkeeping option the season before because Arsenal were so watertight defensively that he hardly ever got to make any saves; the much more rickety team performance this year meant that he was able to claim 13 points for saves (including 6 in the first 4 gameweeks!) to compensate slightly for the 5 fewer clean-sheets his team managed, and keep him up among the top handful of keepers throughout the season.

Chelsea also had a 'season of two halves' - looking impressive, and even perhaps outside challengers for the title, until early December, and then crashing horribly. The dichotomy is most graphically revealed in Cole Palmer's FPL returns: he produced exactly 3 times as many points in the first 21 games as he did in the last 17!! (And I maintain, he wasn't playing badly during that later period; but with the rest of the team in a complete meltdown, there was nothing he could do.)

Liverpool also, perhaps, surprised us somewhat - in being so immediately reinvigorated under Arne Slot. However, they were efficient rather than breathtaking - often doggedly grinding out a result in a game where they hadn't really played very well; and rarely blowing opponents away as they so often had in the Klopp heyday a few years ago. Alas, frequent rotations in the attacking positions meant that Salah was the only pick you could rely on from the Champions (outside of Konate or Van Dijk, as a reliable defender, that is); though we might have liked to make some use of Luis Diaz, or Diogo Jota (when fit...), or Cody Gakpo, or Dominik Szoboszlai, or perhaps even Darwin Nunez on occasions - we just couldn't rely on any of them getting a regular start. Salah, however, oh dear me...! He'd turned 32 over the summer, had suffered a slump in form and seemed to have had a bit of a bust-up with Klopp at the end of last year, and had had contract extension negotiations hanging over him all this season, with persistent associated rumours that he'd accepted offers of obscene money to join the Saudi League,,.... and yet he smashed his own FPL record for the most points in a season. How is that possible??  I have no idea; but we are privileged to have witnessed it. (He was so astonishingly consistent this season that - for possibly the first time in FPL history - it actually made sense to regard the same player as your default captain choice almost every single week.)

The BIG SURPRISE of the year, though, was undoubtedly Nottingham Forest - who went from narrowly avoiding relegation in the last two seasons to challenging strongly for a Champions League place throughout this campaign. WTF???  Nuno Espirito Santo really should have won 'Manager of the Year' for achieving that - with such a thin squad. Players like Sels (actually the best FPL keeper for most of the season; only edged into 2nd place by the inevitable Jordan Pickford in the last few weeks), defensive giant Milenkovic (a leading clean-sheet producer, and often a threat in the opposition box as well), and old warhorse Wood (who rarely produced more than 1 goal in a game, but was managing that with uncanny regularity - and often from only 2 or 3 half-chances in each game!) became favourite picks for everyone this year.

Eddie Howe also deserves a shout-out, for turning Newcastle's season around - without the benefit of any new signings. With 5 draws and 4 defeats in their first 14 games, they were floundering in mid-table at the start of December, and questions were being asked about the manager's future. But an astute tactical reshuffle galvanized the team's performances, and they then pulled out a string of 6 wins on the bounce - when so many others were faltering under the strain of the midwinter fixture logjam. And 9 more wins out of the last 16 was - just - enough to drag them back up into Champions League qualification.

Bournemouth and Crystal Palace rallied strongly from poor starts (in which they were both desperately unlucky and abused by fate...), and show the possibility to kick on to a much higher finish next year. Wolves and Everton also enjoyed a much stronger second half to their seasons, after inspired changes of manager.

Villa struggled with the novel demands of Champions League football this year, and were very disappointing in the first half of the season. Some good signings in January (and crashing out of the Champions League in the quarter-finals) re-energised them, and they managed a strong finish to the season. But still, none of their players - not even their two finest, Rogers and Watkins - really managed enough consistency to make them compelling FPL picks.

Brighton were exasperatingly up-and-down in their performances under their bold young manager. And their bloated squad makes them unappealing to Fantasy managers. Adingra and Minteh and Gruda and March are all attractive attacking players down the right, but..... which of them will play? Rutter and Ayari and Joao Pedro and Riley are all impressive creative midfield options, but....?  Aside from Mitoma (when he's in form) and Joao Pedro (when he's not suspended), you don't really want to be going near any other Brighton players very often.

Brentford and Fulham once again punched above their weight impressively; but, with relatively thin squads, they just couldn't find the consistency to haul themselves above mid-table. Bryan Mbeumo, however, emphatically confirmed the promise he's shown as a primary goalscorer over the past couple of seasons, and emerged as the season's strongest FPL performer (after Mo Salah, of course); and his sidekicks Yoane Wissa and Kevin Schade also made a big impression.

As I noted long ago in this post, there were a lot of innovations in FPL this year, which unsettled the usual pattern of the season and the 'traditional' thinking about tactics. The most momentous of these was the ending of the BIG Blank and Double Gameweeks that used to result from fixture reschedulings from the FA Cup Quarter-Finals weekend. But the rule change allowing us to save up to 5 Free Transfers (effectively a 'mini Wildcard' - if we could ever manage to pull that off!) is also a big - though very positive - shake-up in the game.

The introduction of the absurd novelty of the 'Assistant Manager' chip caused 'excitement' for some,... but horror and dismay for most of us long-time FPL managers. It was a game-distorting aberration (probably worth more than the two traditional bonus chips combined; potentially, perhaps, two or three times as much - and hence likely to be the ultimate determinant of ranking outcomes; moreover, it made it impossible to compare this season's performance against previous years) that really SPOILED the season. We must hope that it will be dropped next year.  #DownWithTheNewChip

We had the first Merseyside derby game called off at very short notice at the beginning of December due to concerns about possible high winds (which did not really eventuate, not to the extent feared...) - which at least gave us an additional Double Gameweek in the season, and a golden opportunity to bet our Triple Captain chips on Mo Salah. And we were further reminded of the potential for additional Blanks and Doubles to be created by unexpected events with several other games over the following month or so being threatened by thick fogs (one or two of which really did seem to be compromising visibility too far for the matches to have kicked off) or heavy falls of snow (requiring dozens of volunteers to frantically clear the pitch just hours ahead of a match). Though none of these subsequent 'extreme weather' events actually resulted in any further postponements, they served as a salutary warning: the possibility of such fixture disruption is something we should be constantly alert to, especially over the winter months.

Finally, one of the biggest differences in the EPL this season - though not much talked about anywhere so far, at least not that I've seen - is that there have been massively fewer penalties awarded this year: 23 fewer than last year, and 41 fewer (down by over 30%) from the record high number in the 2020-2021 season. This has affected some clubs far more than others: Chelsea have only been given 5 penalties this year (and Palmer managed to 'miss' one of them; although I feel it was illegally saved by Mads Hermansen, who clearly had both feet off the ground before the ball was kicked), as against 12 last year (that's a big part of Palmer's 'disappointing' return this season right there). The reasons for this are partly a revision of the guidelines on the interpretation of the Handball Law, making it less likely for defenders to be penalised when the ball is struck against their hand or arm (in principle, a good thing; though, in practice, it doesn't so far seem to have given any more clarity or consistency in the decision-making); and partly, VAR now being reluctant to go against the on-pitch referee's initial decisions in most instances - to the extent that penalty calls are now scarcely reviewed at all, and very rarely referred to the pitchside monitor for a second look. (The attempt to move away from excessive VAR interventions has swung much too far the other way this year, so that the VAR oversight now seems often otiose and impotent. This needs to be fixed for next season.)

I've been trying to monitor the impact of 'LUCK' on FPL points returns all season - and I'm afraid I think this has probably been an unusually lucky season. Some of the elements of 'luck' are always to be expected, and we just have to accept them and adapt to them - eccentric managerial decisions, jaw-dropping goals-out-of-nothing, horrendous defensive howlers,... and sudden bad weather, etc. However, the major element this season has certainly been poor refereeing: we have seen some truly dreadful decisions this year - penalties or red cards wrongly awarded or not awarded, goals occasionally bafflingly disallowed, goals ruled offside for ridiculously paper-thin margins... There's hardly been a week without at least one instance of such a significant injustice in the game; often there have been three or four, or more. This is unacceptable, it's got to stop.

I'll attempt a follow-up post with a few more specifics on the Players of the Year in a day or two....

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.