That SAME OLD QUESTION again....

"Are Haaland and Salah worth it this year?"

Short answer: NO.  (But....)

'Super-premium' players are almost never 'worth it': the opportunity cost of going without so many other better players in almost every position in your squad will massively outweigh any points-advantage they might offer (4 times out of 5, anyway). 

There are certain guideline criteria I suggest in that earlier post on this issue which might justify their inclusion. But I don't think these criteria (the crucial last two of them, at any rate) are clearly going to be met with either of the BIG TWO this season.

Will they rack up an absolutely massive season total??  Probably not - not anywhere near the level of their previous best years, anyway. Liverpool and City are both in a 'rebuilding' phase, which makes their overall team performance much more suspect (City, in fact, were really poor for most of last season - and haven't yet shown any sign of turning that around). Their star men are having to adapt to a lot of new personnel around them, with probably a very radically different playing style arising from that as well; and, more particularly, they will probably face more competition in sharing the club's pool of potential goals than in many previous years, with new players like Ekitike and Wirtz and Frimpong (and maybe Isak...?) very likely to cut into Salah's total, and Marmoush and Cherki probably claiming at least a few chances that might previously have fallen to Haaland. I think both of these superstars will still have very decent seasons - probably breaking 200 points, and maybe even getting up towards 250. But is that enough to justify a price tag of 14.0 or 14.5 million? Probably not!  [And that, I think, is at the optimistic rather than the pessimistic end of the range for projections of their performance this season. Salah, of course, is likely to lose a month or so mid-season due to his participation in the African Cup of Nations, and we should adjust our expectations of his season-total accordingly (although we should always be concerned rather with current form, rather than year-long achievement). And both Liverpool and City are giving signs that they're likely to struggle a little this season, at least against better opposition - and returns from all of their players will probably be slightly restricted by this. There is a good chance that Haaland and Salah - even without a major upset like a significant injury or a prolonged dip in output - will only return something like 170-190 points this season.]

Will they be the top-returner in their position category, by a big margin??  Again, probably not. They might again be the top points-returners, but, as I pointed out a few days ago, that, on its own, doesn't matter; it's the runs of returns over short stretches of the season, and the overall returns from the full starting eleven rather than the best individuals that decide your outcomes in FPL. Palmer, Saka, and Gakpo could run Salah pretty close, maybe even do a little better; and Cunha, Mbeumo, Ndiaye, Kudus, Wirtz, Ndoye, Hudson-Odoi, Elanga, Grealish, Ismaila Sarr, Enzo Fernandez and a few others also look like they could have very big seasons. Haaland has been given stiff competition by Isak and Watkins in the last couple of seasons, and they might prove even better prospects this year (especially if they move to stronger teams?); Joao Pedro and Richarlison have started the season very strongly, with suddenly rejuvenated teams who now look likely to be able to challenge at the top of the table; Wissa and Wood will be hoping to build on their outstanding form of last season; and the new arrivals in the league, Ekitike and Sesko and Gyokeres, look to have a lot of potential too. I'm not saying any of these will beat Haaland; but I don't think he'll open up much of a gap over the best of them.

Despite - probably - failing these key 'rule-of-thumb' tests, Haaland and Salah might still be justifiable picks as long as they're getting somewhere close (they might; though I'm not super-confident in them this time...),... IF the overall budget dynamics this year make them still affordable.

The key factors that determine this 'affordability' are how many other premium players there are (that you might covet as well as, or instead of the BIG TWO), and how much really good value there is to be found at the lower-end of the price spectrum.

On the first point, the situation looks rather promising: there are almost no other premium-priced players this season - the smallest number there has been for many years, I think. With the departures of Son and Luis Diaz in pre-season, we're left with only Palmer and Saka priced above 10 million in midfield, only Bruno Fernandes at 9.0 (who really should not be in contention at all this year, at any price), only Marmoush and Wirtz at 8.5, and only Cunha, Mbeumo, Foden, and Odegaard at 8.0. Among the forwards, only Isak is priced above 10 million (and not by much: I'd expected he'd start this season at least at 11.0 or 11.5!!), and only Watkins and Gyokeres are at 9.0.

But the cheap squad-filler end of the equation isn't nearly so favourable: among the forwards, only Strand Larsen and Thiago look like reasonably viable picks at the bottom end of the price spectrum (if Strand Larsen's rumoured move to Newcastle comes off this week, he could suddenly become one of the most popular picks in FPL!), and only perhaps Beto, Muniz, and Osula possible ultra-cheap bench-fillers (though they'd be low-value, very risky picks, as they don't currently look like being regular starters). Amongst the cheaper midfielders, only Reijnders, Ndoye, and Tavernier have so far stood out - and those might have been flash-in-the-pan performances. So far, we haven't seen many really compelling possibilities even at 6.5 (Rice and Enzo, Ndiaye and Grealish?), let alone much cheaper. Finding a player like Palmer two years ago, someone who might become the top points-producer of the season from a starting price of only 5 or 6 million, is a real 'Black Swan' event.....

Moreover, quite a few of the better budget midfielders, and most of the strongest defenders seem to have been priced 0.5 million higher this year, presumably to reflect their greater overall points-potential because of the newly-introduced 'defensive points'. This has a surprisingly big impact on the overall budget dynamics, and really puts a squeeze on our ability to afford the most expensive players (effectively, it means an extra 1.5-2.5 million of our budget is being spent 'invisibly').

If Haaland or Salah hit a run of form where they seem to be averaging 7 or 8 points a game for a while, they will be worth considering. But actually, for players of their price, even that isn't particularly outstanding - maybe still not quite enough to justify their selection, most of the time. Last year, Salah managed to average 9 points-per-game over the entire season; and both of them have often enjoyed spells of averaging 10 points or more per game. This year, I just don't think they'll do that again. While lots of other players will also probably hit that desirable threshold of bringing in 7 or 8 ppg, at least for a short spell.

But, of course, the dynamics of squad selection are always very fluid, dependent on multiple interacting factors. Salah and Haaland, despite not playing conspicuously well, have both produced pretty good points across the opening two games. While most of their more expensive rivals are currently out of contention: Isak is unavailable for selection while transfer discussions drag on, Watkins may be distracted by thoughts of a move and has looked out-of-sorts, Palmer and Saka and Odegaard just got injured, Eze just moved clubs and might not get an immediate start, Cunha and Mbeumo and Wirtz haven't found their form at their new clubs yet....

As it happens, you probably can afford Salah or Haaland at the moment. But I don't think you should splash the cash for both of them!  And neither of them should be regarded as a long-term hold this season.

For many FPL managers, alas, this question is treated as above rational discussion. These two players have developed a cult-like following of fanatics - who insist that they must always be a must-have pick, regardless of any considerations of form or overall budget. This, of course, is a very damaging delusion.

LOCKED OUT??!!

 

The FPL website has bugged the crap out of me for years, and I've complained a number of times about how glitchy it can sometimes get - how, for example, it's dangerous to leave team selection until too close before the weekly deadline because the site is quite prone to crashing altogether when traffic volumes peak.

This year, I gather (from perusing various online forums about the game), the smartphone app version of the game has proven particularly unstable and frustrating in the opening weeks, forcing many people to have to turn to the web version instead in order to get their weekly housekeeping taken care of. I only ever have the web version at my disposal, as I am an avowed smartphone refusenik.

And I've been especially vexed by the fact that there no longer seems to be any option to 'stay logged in' for any extended period; and, indeed, I was often being logged out every hour or so. Also, when I did log in, my password was otten somehow 'forgotten' by the system, and I was having to go through the tiresome rigmarole of reopening my account with a 'recovery code' sent to my email.... sometimes multiple times in a day.

Annoying as this was, I was getting kind of used to it. 

But then, our FPL Overlords escalated to the next level of vexatiousness, and stopped sending me the recovery code.

Now, I thought at first that the recovery code emails had just gone astray somehow, or been delayed for a little while. I checked in my spam folder a few times; I chccked my Inbox every hour to see if the codes had yet shown up; I requested a code to be re-sent several times. But this was Friday evening, just before the Gameweek 2 deadline, so things were getting rather critical. And in my timezone, the deadline is in the wee small hours of the morning; I really didn't fancy staying up all night for what was seeming increasingly likely to be a vain pursuit of regaining access to the account in time to update my team. So - I gave up on it. No team tweaks for me this week!!

However, I hadn't quite yet given up hope that this noisome glitch would eventually resolve itself, and my account be restored to me.

But over the weekend, the bastards revealed that they still had one further level of escalation: yep, they suddenly stopped recognising that there was a Premier League/FPL account 'associated with' my email address, and wouldn't any longer even give me the option to request 'recovery codes' that they wouldn't actually send.

Well, except that they didn't quite expunge my former account from their consciousness... If that email address was now 'unknown' to them, I should have been able to use it to open a new account, shouldn't I? But, oh NO - they weren't having that, either.

Now, if I deluged them with trenchantly worded emails about this business, perhaps they would relent and magic my old account back into existence. Maybe it would reappear naturally, if I just waited long enough - patiently trying to log back in every day, for a week or several.....  And, sure, I have several other email addresses I could have tried to use to create a new account (albeit that I would have missed the first two gameweeks, so any whole-season goals or objectives I might set for myself would already be out of the window).

But you know what? I just couldn't be bothered. I took this as a sign from Fate that I wasn't meant to take part this year.

Heck, maybe I'm used to it - since I stopped taking part a little over half-way through last year as well (in protest at the noxious inanity of the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip).

And I have often joked - with friends, and in various online forums I frequent - that I really enjoy thinking about the game more than playing it, and actually having a team of my own in competition isn't that compelling an element of my interest in FPL.

Maybe I'll return to it next year. Maybe I won't. (It might depend on how many more unnecessary changes the game's overlords try to foist on us next year!)

But what I chiefly love about the game is the added incentive it gives me to follow the Premier League more attentively - and the different perspective it gives me in my watching of the football every week. That, I believe, can continue.

And I have also come to enjoy reflecting on my experiences, insights, and opinions relating to the game of Fantasy Premier League, and to find satisfaction in sharing some of them with other enthusiasts - on platforms like this blog. That will certainly continue.

Cruel Fate has kicked me out of the game. But, in the words of Bernie Taupin, "I'm still standing...."

Players' season totals really DON'T MATTER

I already touched on this point quite extensively a couple of weeks back in this post on the price steps that are applicable for categorising FPL player options in different positions. However, it's such an important topic, I felt I should say a little more on it.

The problem here is that many FPL managers fall in thrall to the silly, dangerous delusion that ALL YOU HAVE TO DO in the game is identify the players who are going to get the highest totals for the season. (With the usual corollary that the players likeliest to do this are those who got the highest totals last season - which is a reasonable but not infallible guide to form.)

It seems paradoxical, unfathomable to many - but this is just NOT TRUE (not generally so, anyway; there will always be some exceptions, which I'll outline below).

The thing is, you really need to be pulling in around 200 points or so from every starting slot in your squad over the season, if you are to have a chance of finishing near the top of the rankings. In fact, since you're bound to come up short of that - perhaps well short - for many of the slots (defenders and goalkeepers just don't produce points at anything like the levels of the best midifelders and forwards), you really need to be aiming for more like 250+ points from at least a few of your highest-returning slots.

[It's very difficult, in practice, to get anything like 'optimal' returns from your captaincy picks throughout a season. But, even if we grant that you can match or slightly better the return from your top squad slot with your armband choices (Note: this might not be - probably won't be - a single player, held in the team all season.), and even if you could get a fairly good lift from all of your 'chips' (although we have double the usual number of chips this season, it's pretty unlikely they'll be collectively worth a lift of anything like an extra 100 points over the season), and even if you can get, say, 4 squad slots returning something close to 250 (whereas 2 or 3 hitting that level would be remarkable...), and even if you could hit that ideal of a 200-point average across the whole of the rest of your starting eleven (which would entail you having a very strong bench as well, since you're going to have to be drawing on those guys fairly often to fill out the main line-up),..... you'd still probably come up 50-100 points short of last year's global champion. That's how big of an ASK it is!!  But that's what we all have to aim for.....]

And 250 points is an enormous season-total for an individual player. Usually, there are only 1 or 2 players who manage that in a season; but quite often, there are none. There are only ever a handful who manage to get over 200 points each year - and usually only a little over that threshold; and again, it's possible that sometimes no-one will even crack that seemingly more modest milestone.

So, you can't usually rely on any player - even your Mo Salah, Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney, Erling Haaland types - to deliver you the kind of points you need from your best positions in the eleven. Even the very best players don't always reach that level; occasionally, they might come up a long way short.

Even when the top players have a really outstanding season, they are very, very rarely the highest-returning player across every shorter run of games within the season. There was almost always a player who, across 4 or 5 or 6 games, was delivering more points than them once or twice over the season. That was even true of Salah in his record-breaking season last year; his returns tailed off in the latter part of the year, and there were spells when it would have been profitable to drop him for someone else. [Of course, it can seem like an unacceptable risk to swap out one of these top-performing players. As I discussed in this post, their ability to deliver some exceptionally high gameweek hauls, and their overall consistency - with few if any long runs of 'blanks' - often makes them worth holding on to for an extended period of time, and occasionally, perhaps, even the whole season. Furthermore, the fact that they're usually very high-priced players makes it much more difficult to swap them in and out of a squad at will; so, once you have them, you may feel somewhat stuck - obliged to persist with them, come what may. But that will often be a mistake: even the best players almost always hit runs of less impressive form,... while a cheaper rival is suddenly banging in goals every week. You must not let yourself become bewitched by the glamorous reputation of a top performer; if they're not the top performer right now, you need to be ready to let them go.]

You can't expect to be able to hang on to any player for the whole season. You need to be trying to wring more points out of every slot in your line-up than any single player can produce. In order to achieve that, you have to seek to constantly rotate in the best current players over a short run of games.

As I explained in the post I mentioned at the top here, previous season totals are a useful guide to likely performance in the current season. But what you're really interested in is not the actual season total, but the projection of a theoretical season total from recent form - when the player you're looking at has been getting a regular run of starts and has been playing well. You will often find that that number is well over 250 points (if he's been averaging around 7 points per game in his last 3 or 4 starts) Their actual season-total won't be anywhere near that, 99 times out of a hundred; they'll get injured, get dropped, or just suffer a bit of a drought at some point - their run of high returns will come to an end sooner or later. But you need to try to have them in your side when their pro rata returns are up in that golden zone. 

If you become fixated on your Haalands and your Salahs, you risk missing out on a lot of players who could actually give you more points than them - at least for a part of the season.

In addition to this problem that even an exceptional player like Haaland or Salah will rarely guarantee you a big enough points total to make them an attractive season-long hold, there is also the - again, often perversely unacknowledged or stubbornly denied - fact that.... the game is about getting the best returns collectively from your starting eleven (backed up, on occasion, by your bench), not just from a handful of top-performing players.

Even if Haaland and Salah do outscore the next best option in their positions by a massive 50 or 80 points over the season,.... you can almost certainly more than make up that margin by being able to afford substantial upgrades in almost every other starting position with the money you save by not having them.

Players like these can be worth having, at least for certain spells of certain seasons; but they are almost never - only in the most exceptional of circumstances - worth having for the entire season.

If you think you MUST have players like these just because they seem likely to be the season's top-returning picks - you are committing a grave error. There will be certainly be other (cheaper!) players who outscore them in short spells during the season. And there will certainly be a massive opportunity cost in going without so many other top players in order to afford them.  (I may have a little more to say about this in a few days....)

Luck-o-Meter - 25-26 Gameweek 2

 

We got off to the worst possible start this week, with Cole Palmer, the most owned player in the game (slightly above Salah and Joao Pedro at 55%), being a last-minute omission, after feeling discomfort in his groin during the warm-up. If anything, Chelsea seemed to benefit from the enforced change - which allowed Joao Pedro a freer role in the No. 10 space, while the combative Delap came into the side to take on the central striker's role of giving the West Ham defence a rough ride. Things nearly went amiss early on, though, with a Paqueta drive from 20-odd yards somehow beating Sanchez (the keeper had a clear view of it all the way, and wasn't far from the ball, but seemed to completely misread the flight of it); and then a little later, Fullkrug appeared to have given the home side the lead for a second time - but his effort was ultimately ruled out for a very tight offside in the build-up (which again seemed to take an inordinately long time for VAR to rule on). But after those two early scares, Chelsea took control and powered through to a comfortable win; they could, in fact, have scored more than the 5 they eventually notched (Enzo Fernandez, in particular, spurned a fantastic chance to nab what would have been his second and Chelsea's fourth early in the second half). Graham Potter brought on Callum Wilson for Fullkrug at half-time; not clear if this was for tactical or fitness reasons, but either way, it's not likely to endear him to the player - or perhaps to the fans, who were rushing for the exits very early on, as their team collapsed for the second week running. The unfortunate Potter is now a hot favourite to become the first managerial sacking of the new season. (William Hill are currently quoting 9/4 on that - which is well worth having!)

Manchester City, still worryingly toothless in the midfield duels, were fairly comprehensively outplayed by Thomas Frank's well-organised Spurs (the home side might have had nearly two-thirds of the possession, but they were unable to do very much with it). No major controversies here, although Spurs were a bit hard done-by to have two bad fouls on Porro and Kudus, on the very edge of the opposition penalty area, ignored by the referee within a minute or so of each other: a free-kick in a dangerous position, and an early yellow card for goalkeeper Trafford, might have had a significant impact in the game. It was also a bit mystifying as to how the ref came to add on a further 5 or 6 minutes at the end of the first half, over and above the 7 minutes that had already been calculated. And a fair chunk of that additional time was occasioned by a painfully protracted VAR delay in adjudicating Spurs's first goal (if the 'semi-automated' decision technology was in use for determining offsides, it was not shared on live television; and it was a terrible initial call by the linesman - Richarlison was comfortably onside, and it should really not have taken more than a few seconds to confirm that fact). Richarlison owners are probably a little aggrieved that he was denied a second assist, when Trafford pushed the ball away from his feet - straight to a grateful Palhinha; if the City keeper had parried a shot to another attacker, the assist would have been awarded - I can't see how or why this should be any different. There was yet another FPL injury blow in this one, with 23%-owned Ait-Nouri limping off in the first half with a sprained ankle. (Hopefully not too serious; but one wonders why anyone would want City defenders at the moment....)

Wolves were looking occasionally dangerous, and were still in the game at Bournemouth - until Toti's unfortunate sending-off. That again was a slightly questionable decision, very, very soft: a defender chasing a forward on a breakaway shouldn't take a chance by placing a hand on him - but I think that's all Toti did: he placed his hand on Evanilson's back for a fraction of a second, but it didn't look like any kind of a push. I'd like to see those claims denied a bit more often - to discourage forwards from collapsing like a deckchair as soon as they feel the slightest contact on them. It seemed a bit odd, too, in this instance that the referee took such a very long time before reaching for the red card (it wasn't clear if perhaps VAR was whispering in his ear about the incident, and recommending the card).

Brentford are starting to get their act together, after a worryingly shambolic opening performance last week. They looked like they could have won much more comfortably against a lacklustre Aston Villa, whose star men, Rogers and Watkins, were so anonymous here that they may have played themselves out of an England call-up from the watching Thomas Tuchel. There was another very questionable disallowed goal in this one, with Mikkel Damsgaard lashing a volley into the roof of the net, only for the referee to declare that Emi Martinez had been 'impeded' by Nathan Collins; sure, Collins was trying to get in the way, but that's a legitimate aim for a defender in the opposition box; Martinez ran into him, rather than vice a versa - and should have been strong enough not to be unbalanced by the collision anyway (he was desperately play-acting, feigning an injury from the incident to try to gain sympathy - or forgiveness for an error that appeared to have cost his side a second goal).

For the first half hour, Sunderland looked well on top in their 'relegation six-pointer' away to Burnley, but failed to convert a couple of excellent chances - and then faded out of the game.The loss of last week's goal hero Dan Ballard to an early injury may have been a psychological blow that took some of the wind out of their sails. Burnley utlimately looked well worth the win (although their lead was precarious until Jaidon Anthony's late breakaway). The only slight refereeing controversy here was the disallowing of an initial goal for Burnley's Lyle Foster for a very soft 'foul' on a defender.

Arsenal cruised to a predictably comfortable win against promoted Leeds, but injuries to White before the game, and Odegaard and Saka during it, may be a major setback (although, on the other hand, this might present an excellent opportunity to immediately integrate Eze in the starting line-up, which might not otherwise have happened). Timber, coming in for White at right-back, managed to bundle in a couple of scrappy goals from Declan Rice corners, making him probably the highest-returning FPL player of the week (anyone who had him in their side was astonishingly lucky, as he really wasn't fancied to get more than token minutes off the bench). Arsenal fans will also be relieved that new striker Gyokeres is off and running (it may have been particularly valuable to settle his nerves after an horrendous early miss, when Leeds were caught out in building from the back, and the ball broke perfectly to the Swede, on his own 8 yards out with only the keeper to beat,... and he rushed his effort, screwing it miles wide). Max Dowman, 15-year-old wonderkid, also made an impressive debut for the last 25 minutes, fizzing a left-foot volley just wide, and later winning a penalty to let Gyokeres claim the home sids's fifth goal.

Palace v Forest was a tight game, with no standout incidents. The major disappointment for FPL managers in this one was that two of the stoutest defences in the league, facing each other, both narrowly failed to keep a clean sheet. Forest had rather the better of it in the second half, and might have nicked the win late on when new signing Igor Jesus smashed a shot against the post (that would have been assist for centre-back Murillo; I really fancy him to come up with a few attacking contributions over the season). For the second week running, industrious midfield lynchpin Elliot Anderson appeared to be slightly screwed by the 'defensive points' assessment; he was initially credited with 13 eligible 'contributions' in this game, but that was subsequently downgraded to only 11, without explanation, so he again just missed out on the extra points. (We really could do with a proper explanation from FPL of how this new points system is supposed to be working.)

Oh dear, this just wasn't Brighton's day, was it? They looked the better side for long spells, and had plenty of chances to secure an away win at Everton: Mitoma's superb volley in the opening minutes scudding off the top of the crossbar, Welbeck somehow missing an open goal from four yards out, Van Hecke's deflected shot from distance beating Pickford burt crashing against the post, O'Riley fumbling the chance to convert a suicidal back-pass from Tarkowski,...; and then, in the second half, Welbeck fluffing an unjustly awarded penalty to hand Pickford a fairly easy save. It's a bit strange that Welbeck was even taking it, after O'Riley had despatched such a good one last week. But the decision against Dewsbury-Hall was very, very harsh (I'd be OK with a 'strict liability' rule that a penalty automatically results if a contact with the arm deflects a goal-bound shot; but I don't think that is the case at the moment. If a shot is fired at a defender from close range, and he's turning away from it, trying to keep his hands close to his chest.... under the current framing of the rule, that shouldn't be a penalty.) Poor Fabian Hurzeler must have been tearing his hair out. A good first win for Everton at their new stadium, with excellent performances from Grealish and Ndiaye - but they certainly rode their luck a bit.

Fulham again redeemed themselves through their substitutions (though it makes you wonder if some of these players should be starting....). United, apart from a few lively moments from Cunha, really showed nothing - and I suspect the odds on Amorim getting the chop will soon be shortening; their expensive summer signings haven't really done anything to rectify the problems the team had last year, and another bottom-half finish is looking dangerously likely. Another really awful VAR decision here, with the backroom team, after long deliberation, deciding to direct the unfortunate Chris Kavanagh (who's now made two of the worst penalty awards imaginable within the space of six days!) to take a second look at some grappling in the box at a corner. Yes, it did look rather as if the burly Calvin Bassey had executed a neat judo throw on the much more slight Mason Mount - but Mount had been holding him, indeed still had a handful of his shirt even after he'd hit the floor (and another United player next to him was clearly guilty of a blatant holding offence too); and he really just tripped over, as Bassey violently shifted his weight to unbalance him - nowhere near a penalty! Bassey himself was whingeing that United's goal should have been ruled out for a foul on him, but I was less in sympathy there: Yoro placed hands on his back, but there appeared to be absolutely no force in the 'push' at all - the defender just felt contact, and immediately sat down to try to get the foul. The further FPL wrinkle in that opening goal was that it was orginally awarded to Yoro, and the assist thus was given to Mbeumo's corner - though the United defender's weak header was clearly miles off target, and had fotuitously deflected into the goal off Muniz's back. The incident was correctly re-classified as an 'own goal' some time after the end of the game; but it's a bit rough on Mbeumo or Yoro owners (OK, Mbeumo owners - why would anyone own Yoro?) to have FPL points awarded to them and then taken away again. Owners of Bruno Fernandes (who is, bafflingly, the 20th most popular player, with an ownership of over 21%) were dismayed to see him waste the unjustly awarded penalty with one of the worst spot-kicks he has ever taken. (Bizarrely, he allowed himself to be put off by an accidental collision with the referee, who he bumped into as he was backing away from the ball during his pre-kick routine. He probably made things worse for himself by getting into an exasperated exchange with Kavanagh about it, and then taking a long time to re-spot the ball and begin his routine all over again. And then.... all the warning signs were there: completely straight-on initial position, still very straight-on approach position after shuffling a couple of paces to his left, very short run-up, not looking where he meant to place the ball.....  Everyone in the stadium knew he was going to miss a second or two before he struck the ball.)

And oh, dear me, the Monday night game turned out to be the game of the weekend, and of the season so far,... and might well be a leading contender for the overall 'Game of the Season'. Liverpool were once again full of quality, but also full of frailty, and were really astonishingly lucky to win this one: Newcastle were well on top for most of the game, even when reduced to 10 men for slightly more than half of it, and only a couple of very much against-the-run-of-play goals (great strikes from just outside the box from Gravenberch and Ekitike, the first of which, a scudding effort that took a bit of a deflection off a defender and just sneaked inside the post - Pope didn't even appear to see) had given them a lead in the first place. And then, after Newcastle had bravely battled back into the match, they got hit on the counter-attack by teenage substitute Rio Ngumoha, with pretty much the last kick of the game - after some 10 minutes of added-on time (why so much??  does Slot have some 'compromat' on PGMOL???). Even the straight-red sending-off of Anthony Gordon just before half-time wasn't entirely straightforward. He certainly came rushing at Van Dijk from a long way off, and clattered him from behind - but it looked as if he was pulling out of the contact at the last moment, had his studs down, foot on the floor, just smacking the big defender's heel (Van Dijk himself didn't seem that perturbed by it afterwards). The referee apparently saw it that way too at first, just issuing a yellow card - but he was eventually told to go and have another look by VAR, and, of course, that invariably prejudices the referee into thinking that he has only one possible decision. Though the challenge was reckless in its closing speed, there didn't seem to be anything too extreme in the contact itself - although the VAR playback (at least as far as I've been able to see on highlights so far) weirdly didn't seem to show the moment of contact at all. There may be a case that Gordon only got his foot down at the last instant (Van Dijk stepped across him slightly as he closed in, and leaned backwards to try to shield the ball; Gordon, rushing in with his foot initially raised, thinking he could reach the ball, put his foot down very late), and, in doing so, may have raked the back of Van Dijk's leg. Some post-match stills appear to show stud-marks on the Dutchman's calf (but they look very 'Photo-shopped'; and there was no glimpse of that on the original TV coverage). In any case, that might be deemed an unfortunate, 'accidental' contact - and certainly a long way short of the kind of potential 'leg-breaker' we usually expect for a straight red card offence. When a foul divides opinion as sharply as this one did, it's probably a bit of a 50/50; and I'm concerned that the video playback didn't seem to offer a definitive view. For the second week running, Liverpool were riding their luck in this game; but, in the EPL as in FPL, you need to be lucky as well as good to win the title!

It's been a relatively unremarkable week on the officiating, with no really outrageosly awful decisions - although quite a few questionable ones: 2 goals ruled out for non-existent, or very, very soft 'fouls', and a perhaps slightly harsh sending-off on Saturday; a couple of dubious-looking penalty awards (both, remarkably, missed!) on Sunday; a further red card on Monday, and a few suspiciously 'generous' rations of added-on time! The large number of injuries to popular picks is also a major contributor to the 'LUCK' equation, with the late dropping-out of Ben White, the last-second exclusion of Cole Palmer, and the in-game injuries to Rayan Ait-Nouri, Martin Odegaard, and Bukayo Saka all rather eye-watering for some FPL managers. The tallying of 'defensive contributions' for potential extra points this year will probably continue to add to the sense of confusion and injustice we almost invariably feel about the bonus point allocations; though there don't appear to have been any such surprising outcomes from that as we saw in the opening gameweek (though Elliot Anderson may have been slightly shafted...). And I'm still concerned about often awkwardly long delays in deciding offside calls, and an ongoing general lack of transparency about how VAR is operating. And heck, the fact that Jurrien Timber (who wasn't expected to start) produced the most massive haul of the week is worth at least one more 'LUCK' point all on its own! Apart from Joao Pedro and Viktor Gyokeres up front, the 'Team of the Week' is yet again composed entirely of players that just about nobody would have owned. So, it's looking like a fairly average 6 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter' this week (though perhaps very nearly a 7!!).

Early Wildcard?

 

"Oh, damn, six of my players were disappointing this week. But, hey, what, there's a way I could replace them ALL??" 

That seems  to be the attitude of many FPL managers - reeling in pain after a low-scoring opening week, they suddenly 'remember' their Wildcard, as if it were a pleasant surprise, like an unexpectedly generous gift left under their pillow by the Tooth Fairy. And they embrace it as their SALVATION.

It would be less funny and painful if it were only the most naive newbies that fell for this misguided foolishness, but actually an awful lot of long-time players give in to this sort of 'buyers' remorse' at the start of the season and blow a Wildcard after 1 or 2 gameweeks. 

The thing is, you don't really know if someone is a 'bad pick' after one game (or even two or three, most of the time), so it's crazy to make judgements that quickly. Almost all of the best and most fancied players had a fairly subdued opening game this year. That often happens. It doesn't mean they won't start getting into their usual groove this week, or next... And last week's top performers - Ekitike, Reijnders, Gibbs-White - aren't yet in 'hot form'; they've had one good game. They could very easily have a stinker this week,... or not start at all.

This game craps on you so often and so hard that even if you do find yourself with a number of absolutely horrible players in your initial squad that you really need to dump as soon as possible, there will almost certainly be a few occasions over the next four months where you have more players than that suddenly dropped/injured/suspended..... 

Wildcard is for emergencies; a bad GW1 is NOT an emergency.

More on the Sisyphus metaphor

My (becoming) regular likening of the FPL experience to the mythical labour of Sisyphus at the start of each season... just reminded me of this little oddity. I hope it will amuse. It is a story that came to me in a dream, a quarter of a century or so ago. (Really)

I am in a desert environment, a hot, dusty plain - almost completely featureless but for a large hill just in front of me.

Half-way up the hill, I see a brawny man grunting and sweating as he struggles to turn over a large, round-ish boulder.  He eventually succeeds in flipping it over once, pauses for just a few moments, and then sets to trying to do it again.  The stone is clearly enormously heavy, and it is painfully hard work: he is endeavouring to move it uphill.

I approach, fascinated.  I'm tempted to offer to help him move this rock, but feel embarrassed as to how to do this. And the man is anyway too intent on his labours to notice me.

At last, he manages to get the boulder to the top of the hill, and then, with one last huge heave, he sends it toppling over the crest and rolling - skipping, bouncing, crashing - down the far slope under its own weight, raising a cloud of dust behind it as it goes, scattering smaller stones left and right, smashing the occasional withered tree or cactus that stands in its path.

The man whoops and hollers with delight as he watches the boulder's descent.  Then he trots down the hill after it.

I catch up to him at the foot of the hill, just as he has once again started toiling to roll it back to the top.

"Say, that does look kind of fun," I say, sheepishly.  "Could I have a try?"

And Sisyphus (for it is he) replies, "Get your own f***ing rock!"

In FPL-land, I feel this should remind us to make our own selections, and keep our teams to ourselves. Each of us has his own boulder to push; and we should not seek, or offer, help in that task.

Yes, everything's a potential metaphor for me.

Dilemmas of the Week - Gameweek 2 (25/26)

 

Not too much to take note of, injury-wise, for the second Gameweek of the new season; but ongoing transfer shenanigans are still causing some upheaval - as well as some unwelcome revelations last week about early-season fitness levels and likely minutes-risks due to early substitutions.

I'll try to streamline these weekly round-ups a bit from last year, restricting myself for the most part to just the injuries etc. affecting 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've already been ruled out for some time!  

[For some years, I have found the 'Injuries & Bans' summary on Fantasy Football Scout the most reliable resource for this kind of information; although this site, Premier League Injuries, is a very good alternative (often a little quicker to update, I think - though it did go through a bit of a glitchy period for a while last year).  Go check these out for more comprehensive coverage. 

I see the Fantasy Premier League site has added an improved 'Player Availability' page this year (though hidden under 'The Scout' tab?!). That also seems to be reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date, but god knows how it's supposed to be 'organised' - maybe by 'date of injury'? Obviously, arranging it by club and alphabetical order would be more sensible; but the denizens of FPL Towers seem to have a deep aversion to the sensible.]

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 2 of the new season?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Kai Havertz reportedly has a knee problem that may keep him out for an extended period, but no details seem to have been released as yet. That's probably not much of a deal for FPL, as nobody was expecting him to get many starts after the arrival of Gyokeres.

Jeremie Frimpong sustained a minor hamstring strain in the opening match, and is expected to be out until at least mid-September. (A blow to many, as he had been selected by over 23% of FPL managers prior to the start of the season. Since his natural replacement, Conor Bradley, has been struggling with a muscle injury for some weeks, and apparently still hasn't been seen in training, this could be an opportunity for Joe Gomez to get some starts - and offer cut-price representation in the Liverpool defence. Although that might not be so enticing, as, on the evidence of their opener against Bournemouth, they might not be keeping many clean sheets this season!)

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

Ezri Konsa is serving a one-match ban, after getting sent off for a 'denial of a goalscoring' opportunity foul against Newcastle last week.

Alexander Isak and Yoane Wissa are still ruled out by ongoing transfer discussions around them. I am somewhat surprised that Ollie Watkins isn't in the same boat; and Nicolas Jackson is also very unlikely to get any minutes at Chelsea, even off the bench, until his future is resolved one way or the other; I'd be very wary of taking either of them, for fear of them suffering a lack of focus on their game - or perhaps suddenly being removed from squad consideration because of a new offer.

Ebere Eze is set to move to Arsenal. That probably wipes out his FPL value anyway, as he's unlikely to enjoy a regular start there, or to be nearly as impactful as he was for Palace even if he does. But he certainly won't be able to turn out for them this week, and probably not until after the early-September international break.

Exciting new striker arrivals, Benjamin Sesko and Viktor Gyokeres, both still look quite a long way off full-match fitness, and might get abbreviated minutes for another week or two at least.

Amad Diallo, although displaced from any likelihood of an outright attacking role by the arrival of Bryan Mbeumo, had been widely expected to become Amorim's preferred starter at right wing-back. However, Diogo Dalot got the nod there last week, and it seems likely that the two of them may rotate that position - making either of them useless for FPL, until one of them becomes the regular starter.

Crystal Palace played a preliminary game in the Europa Conference League on Thursday evening, and they don't have much squad depth - so, they are likely to be suffering a bit of weariness in their Sunday afternoon game at home against Forest.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

The early withdrawal - just prior to the 60-minute mark - of several popular FPL picks last week was a major cause of concern. We must hope that this was just a one-off aberration, prompted by early-season concerns about inadequate fitness levels. But if top managers start showing this behaviour frequently - and players don't remember the art of walking off slowly if the board with their number goes up around the start of minute 59 (honestly, this is one of the things I most cherish Erling Haaland for!) - we might have to seriously rethink taking a chance on any players likely to be so affected. (I got burned on Milos Kerkez last week.)

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

Cody Gakpo and Hugo Ekitike, Morgan Gibbs-White, Richarlison, Tijani Reijnders and Rico Lewis produced the only really outstanding performances in a mostly very drab Gameweek 1. However, the latter three of those look fairly unlikely to enjoy invariable starts at their clubs, Ekitike is playing under the shadow of possible imminent replacement by Isak, and Gibbs-White, even at his very best, isn't really quite enough of a goal-threat to merit FPL consideration. Gakpo, on the other hand, was for me an obviously far preferable choice to Wirtz (and even Salah, who's just far too expensive this year) all along, and I can't fathom why people hadn't picked him in the initial squad.

A fairly short roundup this week - but things will doubtless get muddier and muddier in the weeks to come....

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (56)

 

"If you constantly strive to do your best, if you constantly seek to improve - you can 'succeed' every week."

GW

How the transfer window became such A CESSPOOL

My mate Adam Clery - taking a rare break from his usual output of insightful tactical breakdowns on players and teams - just put out this rather fascinating video about how the transfer market operates in the modern game: not so much about the Isak saga in particular, though that, of course, provides the main illustrative example, but rather about how the evolving media landscape of the last few years has led to this toxic soup of disinformation in which we now find ourselves drowning.

Two of the key takeaways I found in this (which, if I'd been previously 'aware' of them, I'd not fully taken onboard and appreciated their significance) are that this toxic soup has got very much worse just in the last few years since Elon started to monetize Twitter/X; even 'respectable' journalists can't now resist the allure of easy dosh for circulating inflammatory transfer gossip that may garner millions of 'views' and 'shares', while a few ludicrous vultures like the notorious Fabrizio Romano can now manage to make a fat income from peddling this kind of crap 24/7. The second vital point is that whereas players in the past would generally utilize the 'legitimate' means of putting in a formal 'transfer request' if they were really desperate for a move, in recent years that has become almost unheard-of, as modern contracts heavily disincentivize this 'nuclear option' with a range of financial penalties (Isak and Wissa - and others who are known to 'want away' but haven't made such big waves about it - haven't dared to pursue this option, despite their alleged determination to leave their present clubs).

With the effective removal of this key piece of leverage players formerly used to be able to employ to lobby aggressively for a transfer, they - or rather, in the great majority of cases, their management teams - have felt obliged to resort to flame wars via social media instead. We see almost daily dribbles of news about how a player doesn't want to join in pre-season training, feels that his relationship with his present club has irrevocably broken down, that 'trust has been broken', that he couldn't possibly play for them ever again, etc., etc..... just to affirm his eagerness about a possible move and to try to keep some pressure on interested clubs to keep plugging away at the negotiation.

Much of the time, this stuff is at best grossly overstated, at worst entirely bogus. Isak - although he's done terrible damage to his relationship with the Newcastle fans, and possibly with some of his teammates too - would surely continue to play for his present club, and do so quite 'happily', if the mooted transfer to Liverpool were not to be completed in the next 11 days. And if the club are potentially open to such a lucrative transfer going ahead, they probably won't want to jeopardize it by having the player take part in competitive matches, or even in the often intense team training that precedes them; if negotations are ongoing, the prospective buyer typically imposes such a stipulation on keeping the player out of harm's way. So, I'm not convinced that Isak has really 'refused' to join the squad; I doubt if Newcastle would want him taking part while transfer discussions are happening.

A question remains, though, HOW, WHY does any of this nonsense work?? Surely the clubs aren't fooled, football insiders know that this is all smoke-and-mirrors, PR tomfoolery. I suspect that, if it does have any impact (perhaps it doesn't), it operates indirectly through fan pressure. Fans tend to feast on this regular diet of tweet and counter-tweet rather undiscriminatingly, and can become very emotionally invested in their perceptions of an unfolding narrative around a particular player. Perhaps it feels a little harder for the Liverpool leadership to back away from signing Isak now that their fanbase has got so excited about the idea? Just a thought. Perhaps Newcastle are going to be more open to letting him go, now that so many of their fans have turned against him as a Judas? That is perhaps even more likely.

It is very sad that things have come to this. It is yet another instance of the corrupting influence of the social media, an untrammelled, unfiltered torrent of titillation and provocation gushing into people's brains every hour (if you own a smartphone; I never have!). The blame rests ultimately on the great reading public; if they didn't gobble up this diet of shite so gleefully every day, there wouldn't be the incentives to produce it.

I would also venture that perhaps the game's authorities - either the Premier League or the Football Association, or perhaps, for once, both of them working in concert - should intervene to try to stop this sort of unseemly behaviour before it gets any worse (can it get any worse??). Players who refuse to honour their contracts - or even publicly threaten to do so (and if statements are put out in a player's name, they should be challenged immediately to personally confirm or deny their contents) - should be heavily sanctioned under the rules of the game. It is probably already within the power of the clubs to suspend wages and/or impose fines for such behaviour, but they'll be reluctant to take such extreme action if it might jeopardise their relationship with a player who might yet stay with them. But the game's authorities could surely take action under the umbrella of the 'bringing the game into disrepute' offence - imposing fines, banning someone from playing, perhaps even suspending their registration to effectively block any possible transfer.

That sounds extreme, I know. But if such measures were to be announnced, I'm quite sure they would never need to be used. Players and clubs would simply find a new - and hopefully, more civilized, and perhaps more private - means of working through their disagreements. Well, a man can dream.

[I wonder if the frequent mention of interest from other clubs - 'interest' which often evaporates suspiciously quickly, and is sometimes never corroborated by the club in question - is perhaps one of the most overused and most hollow of these Twitter-wars ploys. Does it really seem plausible that Ebere Eze was on the brink of signing for Spurs today,.... and then only an hour or two later would sign for Arsenal instead??  Hinting at interest from such a hated rival would be a guaranteed means to amplify the emotional temperature of the Arsenal fans, and thus perhaps intensify the pressure on the negotiating team to close the deal quickly....  And Spurs might not feel inclined to deny the story, even if completely unfounded. If there were in fact a chance of Eze being available, they wouldn't want to write themselves out of contention for him, would they? And even if they weren't interested, they wouldn't want to rouse their fans' ire by stating as much publicly - that might suggest poor judgement on their part, or a lack of ambition, or a shortage of funds. If Eze's agents say he nearly signed for Spurs, that's quite flattering and exciting for Spurs - even if it came to nothing. And it adds that little bit more fuel to the fire of their implacable enmity towards their North London rivals. All good.  I really don't think Spurs were ever in talks with him; though they might have wished they had been...] 

Don't take a chance on uncertain starters (or new arrivals)

 

As I noted last week, I have often been guilty of taking a few too many risks in my own initial squad, and this has no doubt played its part in the fact that I have generally suffered a rather poor start to the FPL season.

With me, it's a rather specific foible of getting tempted to gamble on a fringe pick, a promising up-and-comer who isn't yet quite established as a regular starter at his club, or not at any rate as a significant force in FPL. Last year, for instance, I fancied that Jarrell Quansah was likely to get a few starts, because of a minor injury problem with Konate, and that he might prove good enough in that spell to earn a regular place; instead, Slot grew disillusioned with him very quickly, and took the almost unheard-of step of yanking him off at half-time in the very first game - wrecking the youngster's confidence, and effectively ending his Liverpool career. (Though I can understand why he did it in terms of the tactical situation on the pitch, I still feel that was a mistake on the Dutchman's part: possibly gaining a marginal advantage in the immediate game-state does not outweigh the damage done by potentially ruining a young player's career and thereby depleting the club's back-up resources in central defence.)  A year or so before that, I'd been bullish about Rico Lewis's prospects with City: and indeed, he was a regular starter, and playing very well, early in the season - but, of course, Pep being Pep, that didn't last very long. Going back a bit further, I was a huge fan of the talent of Norwich's elegant No. 10, Todd Cantwell, and was convinced he could become one of the best budget midfield picks for the season - but he too fell out of favour with his manager, and his career mysteriously tanked from that moment. (Yes, I could begin to worry that I am some kind of jinx....)

A bit later in the season, you can get away with taking one or two chances like this; bringing in a player who's not yet a proven points-provider, perhaps not even an absolutely certain starter; buying them early to get them at a low price, and carrying them on the bench for a few weeks until they start to confirm the promise you saw in them.

But in the opening weeks,... there are so many other uncertainties: players who might be displaced by new arrivals at the club, players who might be dropped because of an imminent transfer away, players who might not start or might only get short minutes because they're still short of full match-fitness, players who might go down with a last-minute injury....  Yep, at this time of year, you're quite likely to suffer at least one unexpected drop-out - perhaps even two or three, if you're a bit unlucky - from your squad every week, even among the players that you'd normally expect to be certain starters. (This is one of the key reasons why it's INSANE to consider playing a Bench Boost this early in the season.)

So, you really can't afford to load the odds against yourself by including any picks who are obviously in one of those most 'at risk' categories. We knew Isak was going to be mired in a transfer wrangle - and unable to play for anyone - for weeks. We knew Eze was likely to move this week - surely too late to have any chance of turning out for his new club this weekend. We knew Sesko and Gyokeres were relatively late arrivals, and hadn't trained much over the summer, and were thus likely to get quite limited minutes over the first two or three weeks. We knew that with Marmoush, Foden, Cherki, Reijnders, Silva, Gonzalez, Kovacic and Gundogan all competing for a small number of places in the City midfield, we couldn't count on any of them being invariable starters.

It was really not smart to pick ANY of these players in the initial squad this year.

Even if new arrivals at a club do appear to be more-or-less fully fit, and have had just about enough time to start bedding in with their new teammates, they remain unknown quantities: it is likely that they may take quite a while to fully settle in to a new style of play, and it might be weeks or months before they start producing their best; some, perhaps, if they're arriving from a lower tier in England or from an overseas league, may never successfully make the step up to this most physically intense and competitive of leagues. How soon - if ever - will Eze become a starter at Arsenal, what kind of role will he play there, and can he ever have the kind of impact for them that he had for Palace?? We just don't know. Will Cunha and Mbeumo gel together at United, or are their styles and personalities too different - will they end up in fractious competition with each other rather than synergistic cooperation?? And will one of them assume the penalty-taking duties?? We just don't know. How long will it take Gyokeres, or Sesko, or Wirtz to start producing their best form in the Premier League?? We just don't know.

Players like these are watch-and-wait options. They'll probably come good at some point, maybe soon;... but they're just not good bets at the very start of the season.

Dear FPL - how about a little 'demo'?

As I mentioned in my round-up of the week's action the other day, the perennial doubt and confusion over how bonus points get allocated has been added to this year by the similar lack of transparency regarding the new 'defensive points'.

So.....

Dear FPL,

Could you possibly put together some highlights reels for a few top players each week - demonstrating just HOW these 'defensive contributions' are being counted?

There are already a lot of weird things going on,... like Ait-Nouri getting a massive 'defensive contributions' tally despite not having an obviously super-busy game, and half the Bournemouth side also racking up big numbers on this new metric, while other players, like the excellent - and very industrious - Elliot Anderson, somehow just missed out on qualifying for the extra points. 

At the moment, we don't know exactly how all the eligible actions are defined, or quite what they look like in practice,... or why some incidents might be counted as one rather than another, or not counted at all. 

Really, the release of this kind of demonstration video should have happened LAST SEASON, to properly explain the idea before it was introduced. 

But it definitely needs to happen now.

Please, Dear FPL - pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top, please give us some more clarity on what's going on with this new rule.

EVERYBODY has an AWFUL Gameweek 1

Well, almost everyone.... who's any good at the game.  

I've just done a quick survey of my long-time reference points in the game, people who strike me as making consistently smart decisions, and who - most of the time - get pretty high overall finishes as a result. Quite a lot of them are below the gameweek average this week!!!

There are all kinds of reasons why Gameweek 1 tends to be even more RANDOM - and unpredictable, and unfair - than most other weeks of the season: 

1)  A lot of people are so desperate to pull out an early lead that they'll blow one of the bonus chips right at the start of the year. (With the unnecessary extra bonus chips being thrown at us this year, that's likely to be even more common.)  These premature chip plays don't generally work out all that well (especially with a Bench Boost: my national league leader wasted his this week, only got a 10-point lift from it, with two non-starters), but they do give some extra points - and those briefly inflate the ranking of the managers who made such a foolish play.

2)  Team and individual form is extremely unpredictable at the start of the season, as players and coaches haven't had much preparation time together - and the pre-season games rarely give us any useful guide to how things are likely to go in the Premier League. There are usually a lot of surprising - and disappointing - performances on the first weekend. This time, we've seen rampant-in-pre-season Chelsea, greatly strengthened Manchester United, and always sprightly Newcastle completely dominate their opening matches - without managing to generate a really good scoring chance between the three of them! Liverpool and City, while managing to win fairly comfortably, didn't really play very well, and looked defensively vulnerable (against probably lower-half sides!). Arsenal and Villa were extremely poor. Only the Spurs and Forest games really turned out as expected: and even there, Forest's performance was a massive step up from their worryingly goal-shy pre-season.

3)  Even the refereeing is sometimes a little extra-dodgy too!  It's natural enough for match officials to feel a bit of extra nerves for their first match of the season; and they are inevitably just a little bit ring-rusty after the summer break. Mistakes are, unfortunately, that bit more likely. (Chris Kavanagh's penalty award against James Tarkowski might be one of the worst decisions we see all season. And VAR - just as guilty, just as inept - apparently did nothing to query it.)

4)  The ongoing transfer window causes so much disruption. Some players are excluded from selection altogether. Others (Eze, perhaps? Watkins?) might be somewhat distracted by thoughts of an imminent move away from a long-time home club. And most new arrivals probably haven't yet spent enough time training with teammates to be considered for extended minutes. Lineups, tactics, and team balance can all be thrown up in the air by all this uncertainty. And we have a few more weeks of it to suffer, before teams finally start to settle down into the sort of shape we can expect from them for most of the coming season.

5)  Almost no-one's at their best yet. Pre-season is too short, and the practice matches too uncompetitive, to really get anyone back up to peak physical condition or mental sharpness for regular top-flight games. Some players haven't trained while waiting on imminent transfers. Others have joined a new club too recently to get fully integrated and up-to-speed yet. Even the earliest summer transfers - like Joao Pedro and Ait-Nouri - probably aren't yet completely familiar with the style of their new teammates and their new coach. And it might prove to be an additional problem for Chelsea and City that they were still playing in the Club World Cup just over a month prior to the new season. As players push themselves that little bit too hard when still not yet 100% fit, injuries (even - especially - in training) tend to be more common early in the season. Rotation and early substitutions to manage fitness worries are also far more common. And very few players or teams come out of the blocks in Gameweek 1 already at their very best. (A few might: we've seen magnificent performances this weekend from Gibbs-White, Reijnders, Ekitike... But they are just a handful of outliers. Most players - most of the most fancied FPL players - had pretty subdued first games.)

6)  There is no 'template' as yet. Well, there never is, as it is popularly misconceived - an obvious and incontestable 'Best 11' that almost everyone at least has heavy representation from!  But what we do often see later in the season is a common pool of perhaps 20-30 clearly superior players, from which the vast majority of FPL picks are taken, and perhaps relatively few good 'fringe' options outside of that core 'most popular' group. This results in most of the better FPL teams usually having 6 or 7 or 8 members of their starting eleven in common (not all the same 7 or 8 players, but selections from that common pool matching up in several places). At the beginning of the season, this 'pool' of justifiable selections is far wider: there are 21 players with an initial ownership of 20% or higher, a further 36 with an ownership above 7.5%; a total of 70 options with an ownership at 5% and above! And the 'fringe' of possible left-field picks for the last couple of spots in a squad or starting eleven extends quite a bit further than that. 

This far greater variety in the composition of FPL teams allows for a far greater spread of points returns - with far more room for a big return from an unexpected source to have a massive impact on the initial rankings.

In this opening week, for example, Tijani Reijnders was one of the standout performers; but a goal from him is likely to be a relatively rare event, as he's most likely to start as one of the pair of central pivots who play a mainly defensive role. And he wasn't even a guaranteed starter; and probably won't be a guaranteed starter in every game, given how many other midfielders City have to choose from (and that Rodri, when fit again, will surely always be one of the two selected for these central roles). Even at his temptingly low price-point, a 25% initial ownershp was way too high: he was a 'sheep pick' that paid off (in the opening week, with a bit of good fortune; but perhaps not in the long-term....). He's certainly a great player, and might turn out to be a great FPL pick this season; but he was a wildly risky pick for the initial squad, given the significant uncertainties about his goal potential or his starting role or the regularity of his selection by Pep.

Likewise with Antoine Semenyo, while he is often dangerous in attack, he's also been very inconsistent. I've followed him closely over the last couple of seasons, and have usually managed to have him in my side when he's hit a little patch of goalscoring; but his returns overall have been rather disappointing. There are lots of other tempting - probably better - attacking midfielders in the mid-price segment, even at his own club, and certainly across the rest of the league. And Bournemouth, reeling from the loss of so many key players over the summer, are not expected to have a great season; nor were they expected to get anything in an evening game away against the defending champions. Semenyo didn't even have a particularly good game overall; he just happened to score two excellent breakaway goals - in quick succession, mid-way through the second half. Again, 10% ownership was absurdly high for such an unpromising prospect; but that 10% got off to a very good start. (68 FPL managers apparently played their first Triple Captain chip on him - which was utterly, utterly daft, but paid off ridiculously well for them! There is no justice in this game. Or very, very little...)

Or Riccardo Calafiori, widely expected to lose out to Myles Lewis-Skelly or Jurrien Timber at left-back in this game (and very unsure of a regular start in this slot for the season) - he was extraordinarily lucky even to be on the field. But the United keeper spooned a corner into his own net (after being jostled - possibly unfairly - on the line by Saliba) in the opening minutes, and the Italian happened to be able to get his forehead to it as it crossed the line... for the only goal of the match. Arsenal somehow hung on to a clean sheet, despite being absolutely overrun by the home side for most of the rest of the game. Thus, a player who wasn't even expected to start wound up with a massive 13 points, the joint third best score of the week. Only 2% of people owned him this week - but that's at least 1.5% more than should have owned him. And that 2% got off to a flying start!

How did these players do so well, when widely - and rightly - fancied prospects like Palmer and Enzo Fernandez, Eze and Sarr, Mbeumo and Cunha, Ndiaye and Grealish and McNeil, Wirtz and Frimpong, Saka and Rice all somehow came up blank, and a few like Marmoush and Cherki and Amad Diallo weren't even given a start? How did the forwards who'd looked so good in pre-season, Joao Pedro and Watkins and Bowen, all disappoint, while the one who most definitely hadn't, Chris Wood, suddenly came good again?  That's just the luck of the draw. You can never foresee clearly what the FPL outcomes are going to be for any given week. But in the early weeks of the season, the element of unknowability and devastating surprise is even stronger than usual.

You should not be too disheartened if you had A DREADFUL START to the season.

The opening Gameweek is especially unpredictable, and a lot of weird shit happens. There is much more scope in this week than in most following ones for LUCK to run absolutely rampant.

But LUCK - for most people - has a way of balancing out over time. Better results lie ahead for shrewd and well-informed FPL managers!!