Picks of the Week (6)

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

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

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

Well, I haven't done one of these roundups yet this season, so I suppose I'm overdue....  Here goes.

The guy I've got most excited about over the past month is Brighton's new attacking midfielder from Paraguay, Diego Gomez. He really looks a complete package, and is brimming with confidence: that brace of goals against Leeds didn't look like a one-off to me. Brighton's team form has appeared to be on a strong upward trend in recent weeks, and  - apart from away trips to Liverpool and Arsenal! - they have a fairly inviting run of fixtures over the next month-and-a-half. And he's a steal at 4.9 million! If you're looking for a change in midfield - tiring, perhaps, of Grealish or Reijnders or Enzo Fernandez or Kudus or Semenyo - he's a tempting possibility; and completely 'under the radar' at the moment, with a puny 25,000 owners. However, we have to acknowledge that this would be a particularly speculative and risky pick: Gomez has only just graduated to a regular start, and Brighton have such a deep squad that rotation is always a danger; he might be competing with Mitoma or Gruda for the place before long. But I have an inkling this might be a gamble worth taking. He's just playing so damn well the moment that he might even be able to keep the start over Mitoma; but I think he could equally play off the right side (displacing Minteh), not as an outright winger perhaps, but nominally starting out wide, and drifting in to fill in a playmaker role in the right-half space, like Cole Palmer or Martin Odegaard. Indeed, I have a hunch his best position might actually be as a central 'No. 10'; it would be hard for him to achieve precedence over the excellent Georginho Rutter in that slot - but it is surely inevitable that Welbeck will pick up an injury sooner or later, and if that happens, I think it is likely that Rutter will switch to operating as their '9' or 'false 9', vacating the 'No. 10' space for Gomez. But of course, none of those optimistic eventualities may come to pass, and he might just be relegated to the bench again as soon as Mitoma's fully fit.

Alejandro Garnacho has also started to look on fire in his last couple of outings for Chelsea. At just 6.4 million, and with an ownership of less than 70,000, he too seems to be an underappreciated asset. The reservations on this pick would be that his frequent defensive weaknesses (I prefer to think of them as being down to 'inattentiveness' rather than 'laziness', but he can be a bit of a liability out of possession sometimes, especially in the defensive third) probably make him more likely to get limited minutes even when he's starting; he'l almost always be taken off for the last 20 minutes or so, whenever Chelsea have a lead to protect. And a regular start might be in doubt - as Palmer will probably start nominally wide on the right when he's available again (soon, we hope!) and Neto will probably then be regarded as the strongest option for a regular spot on the left. Also, Chelsea have a bit of an up-and-down fixture schedule: a few inviting opponents, but a home game soon against Arsenal, and then away trips to Bournemouth, Newcastle, and Manchester City over the following month. Nevertheless, I feel strongly tempted by Garnacho at the moment; I think I would resist the temptaion; and I fear I might regret resisting it - as he'll probably come up with one or two really big hauls in the next few weeks!

And finally, it might be worth giving Leandro Trossard a thoughtt as well (if you don't have him already: only 85,000 do - but that number is substantially up from two weeks ago); he's looked Arsenal's most dangerous player in recent weeks, with 2 goals and an assist in his last 4 starts. The doubt about him is that once Odegaard's available again (although there's still no definite timeline for his return), Eze is likely to switch back to the left flank, returning Trossard to the bench (although he might also start as a central striker if Gyokeres is going to be out a bit longer). Arsenal might face a bit of a challenge with London derbies against Spurs and Chelsea in their next two matches; but after that, they have a pretty soft run through the rest of December. Trossard would therefore be a very appealing pick - if only we could be confident that he would retain a regular start. (Unfortunately, that is becoming more and more of a doubt for a majority of players at the top clubs. It is a major pain for FPL selection!)

A little bit of Zen (69)

"You should be self-confident enough to abandon your 'certainty' - and to explore and to allow contradictions."

Christoph Waltz

A couple of weeks ago, the great Austrian actor was the featured guest in Mythical Kitchen's 'Last Meal' series, chatting thoughtfully with erudite host, Josh Scherer, about a range of topics, while enjoying some of his favourite dishes and wines. It's a curious coincidence that I should stumble on this pithy warning against the vice of excessive 'certainty' so soon after coming across Derek Muller's video on the same topic, 

This is one of the best things I've seen on Youtube all year: Waltz is a wise and funny man, full of intriguing insights. He's nearly 70 now, but still exudes a boyish enthusiasm about everything, am effervescent joie de vivre. The line above comes at timestamp 29.17. There is a bit earlier in the conversattion, around about 13.35, where he touches on another idea that I often like to highlight on this blog - the importance of prioritizing process over result.

I highly recommend watching the whole thing. Waltz is a treasure; Scherer too.

Another way of looking at LUCK in FPL

 

Following on from my comments the oher day about the perils of over-confidence, I want to make a further observation about how we should view our LUCK in this game.

In Tuesday's post, I pointed out that if our self-confidence in regard to our FPL decisions were what cognitive psychologists call 'well-calibrated', it would correspond exactly to the probability of the outcomes we were betting on with those choices. But there are so many variables at play in a game like football that no one game event ever has anything like a 100% probability; in fact, with there usually being multiple potential outcomes to any situation, very few of them can properly be said to have anything near even a 50/50 chance of happening. [Even an absolutely 'ever-present' player can.... catch a cold, break his toe in the shower on match-day morning, wrap his sports car around a lamp-post, have a row with his manager or his girlfriend.... No-one, absolutely NO-ONE has a 100% probability of even starting a game, let alone of achieving any particular points-outcome in it.]

We should never presume to know what a player is going to do in a game. The best we can hope for is to formulate a fairly reasonable projection of his range of likeliest points-outcomes.

And then we have to try to judge what the median likelihood return is on that spectrum of expected possible returns.

Now, it is always more likely that a player will only perform at the lower-end of that scale - or perhaps even have an unexpectedly disastrous week and return well below even his lowest predicted outcome. A disappointing - or, sometimes, outright terrible - return is almost invariably a far more likely outcome than some kind of very big points haul. Thus, the median point of a player's projected most likely returns for the gameweek will not be in the middle, but skewed quite significantly towards the lower end of the range.

Now, of course, as I observed in that post on Tuesday, if a player does really, really well for us, we always like to convince outselves that we absolutely foresaw this - with perfect confidence - and are thus absolutely deserving of all the points we receive. But in fact, even a middling points return is usually at least a little bit above what would have been a reasonable median outcome, and you should be very happy with any such returns. Every really big haul you get is well above what you could reasonably have expected as a return on this basis; every really big haul is, to a significant degree, 'LUCKY'.

Our results in this game are not earned 100% by merit. We should be more ready to acknowledge our debts to good fortune and the caprices of Fate, to cultivate an attitude of humility and gratitude when we enjoy really big points returns - rather than constantly trying to deceive ourselves into believing that such a result was entirely deserved.

The vice of OVER-CONFIDENCE

 

I've referrred to Derek Muller's consistently thought-provoking science channel, Verittasium, on the blog before - here and here.

His latest post last week was on the unfortunate human predilection towards being massively - and inappropriately - confident about our beliefs all the time. 

He starts by touching on the notorious Dunning-Kruger Effect (which identifies the tendency for less 'knowledgeable' or 'competent' people to most drastically over-estimate their abilities in self-evaluations), but goes on to discuss how EVERYONE tends to be massively over-confident - even when making a guess about a problem that we really don't know the answer to - and explains the concept of 'calibration', meaning the correlation between the confidence we have in our beliefs or predictions and their accuracy.

Playing FPL, of course, is a classic case of having to constantly make intelligent predictions of events in the football world that we can't actually know the outcomes of in advance; we are just making guesses about problems we don't know the answer to.

And such events in football all come with a high degree of uncertainty: even the great Erling Haaland, even when he's on such a great run of form as he has been so far this season, cannot be relied upon to always get a big haul against a 'weaker' opponent, nor indeed can he be relied upon to score at all in every single game.

'Calibration', in this sense, means that our confidence in a particular outcome should correlate exactly to its probability. 

Therefore, if our guessing was 'well calibrated', we wouldn't ever feel much more than 60% or 70% confident that Haaland, even in the form of his life, was going to score in any given game, and should never really be more than about 50% confident - or anywhere near that! - of him notching a brace; and confidence in him returning a hattrick cannot ever be more than a very, very low percentage - it is just too rare and unpredictable an event, even for a player like him (especially when Pep so often subs him off early!). 

And yet, somehow, we always seem to end up professing near-100% confidence in such predictions. That is a dangerous INSANITY.

It probably arises from our desire to feel good about ourselves all the time, and to look good in front of others. Anxiety about future outcomes, and doubt about the accuracy of our decisions are uncomfortable feelings, something we seek to suppress. And we imagine that other people will be more impressed by us, and be more likely to be swayed by our opinions if we express them with absolute assurance. Hence, once we've made a decision, we immediately reassure ourselves that it must - absolutely definitely - be correct, and that we can place near-100% confidence in it. But that just ain't so - EVER.

There are, I think, FOUR supplementary vices which follow on from this tendency to be over-confident in our choices.  1) It hurts harder, makes our disappointment and dissatisfaction all the sharper when we happen to be 'wrong'.  2) It makes us more stubborn: the disproof of an idea we had become so confident of, and so emotionally invested in, undermines our sense of self, and we struggle to accept that; the powerful impulse of denial drives us into thoughts such as, "I might have been wrong this week, but I'm bound to be right next time!" and into sticking by bad picks longer than we should.  3) It makes us less self-reflective, more resistant to the possibility of change in the short-term as well. (Many FPL decisions, such as the captaincy choice, playing a chip, the starting lineup and bench order, can be changed without cost within the gameweek, right up until the deadline. And late-breaking news might often give good cause to do so. But once we've made our choices for the week, we tend to be very reluctant to revisit them - for any reason.)  And 4) It makes us less grateful for our good fortune: when we get a great haul from a player, we always like to think, "I predicted that, I knew that was going to happen: I completely deserve every single point of that improbably huge return!"  Hmm, NO, you don't; you got LUCKY.

We would be much better off - certainly happier in our playing of the game, and probably more successful too (though these two things should not be inextricably correlated) - if we could break away from this habit of always wanting to be believe that we are absolutely correct in our decisions, that we know what the best FPL picks for the week are going to be. We don't; we're just guessing.

Upcoming prospects for Bench Boost (and Free Hit!)

 

Now, of course, the best time to play the Bench Boost chip will vary for each manager - probably more so than just about any other aspect of FPL 'strategy', as it depends on all 15 members of your squad (whereas, for the Triple Captain, the options are pretty much the same for everyone - especially at the moment this year!). However, as I pointed out the other day, the Bench Boost is a chip whose value derives from the collective return of the full squad: you not only need to have all 15 players starting their matches, you want to have as many of them as possible playing weak opponents. 

And sure, you will focus mainly on the fixture-difficulty for your 'usual' bench players. But the fixtures for the starting eleven can be very relevant also: if some of them are facing especially tough fixtures, you might not really want to start them that week (you probably don't want to bet on your Arsenal and Liverpool players, for instance - or not all of them, anyway - when they're playing each other). And there may be opportunities to tweak your squad - with a splurge of saved Free Transfers, or perhaps even a Wildcard rebuild a week or two beforehand; or, this year, with the over-generous award of additional Free Transfers for the start of AFCON in Gameweek 16 - to take maximum advantage of an unusually appealing set of fixtures in a particular gameweek.

This year, for the first (and, hopefully, last!) time, we are getting an additional Bench Boost chip, which has to be played in the first half of the season - before the end of December. Some people were so befuddled by this surprising and unnecessary rule change that they spent the chip very early (many even in the very first week of the season - which was completely NUTS!)

It has always looked to me as if the most promising gameweeks for this first Bench Boost would come in the latter part of its eligible window, over the coming month or so.

In fact, this coming Gameweek 12 might look especially appealing - with Villa playing Leeds, Bournemouth playing West Ham, Chelsea playing Burnley. Palace playing Wolves, Liverpool playing Forest, and Manchester United facing a recently out-of-sorts Everton. That is one of the most 'lopsided' sets of fixtures we'll see all season. But I am a little wary of it, because it comes straight after an international break, when there are increased uncertainties about players' form and fitness: travel fatigue as much as game weariness can take the edge off players' performances (South American internationals, in particular, are often rested for the first game back, just because they've had to endure such long return flights), and minor injury problems may not have been disclosed. Also, the disruption of usual club routines, and especially the shortage of time to conduct tactical preparation, means that almost all teams will be something below their best this coming weekend - and some match outcomes (more than usual!) may therefore be surprises.

Gameweek 13 is also promising, with Villa playing Wolves, Brentford playing Burnley, Liverpool playing West Ham, City playing Leeds, and Spurs playing Fulham - although Arsenal being drawn against Chelsea may give pause to managers with a lot of representation from those two teams (surely everyone now has 3 Arsenal players; but it's quite easy, at the moment, to get by with 1 or 0 picks from Chelsea!). And City against Leeds is probably a prime opportunity to chance the Triple Captain on Haaland, so that's a tricky dilemma.

Gameweek 14 doesn't look so hot, with a lot of quite finely balanced match-ups, and only United against West Ham, City against Fulham, and Palace against Burnley looking likely to be really one-sided.

Gameweek 15, though, might be another fairly good prospect: Brighton playing West Ham, Newcastle playing Burnley, Liverpool playing Leeds, City playing Sunderland (certainly not a gimme, but Haaland will probably fancy it...), and United playing Wolves. However, Arsenal away to Villa, Chelsea away to Bournemouth, and Brentford away to Spurs might perhaps go either way, and if you have a lot of players from from those teams, the Bench Boost might look a bit too risky. But if you've managed to save up a few transfers over the preceding weeks, you mightt have the opportunity to optimize your squad this week with a 'virtual Free Hit' (being able to immediately undo any changes that you want to, with the 5 Free Transfers being made available in the following Gameweek 16).

Gameweek 16 is a bit less enticing: although Arsenal, Villa, and Brentford have soft opponents, a lot of matches in this batch - United/Bournemouth, Liverpool/Brighton, Burnley/Fulham, Palace/City, and the Sunderland/Newcastle derby - might all be very tight, 

The fixtures in Gameweeks 18 and 19 include a lot of top-of-the-table clashes, where most FPL managers will have too many players pitted against each other to be able to expect a really good overall haul. And I'd tend to avoid those gameweeks anyway, because the matches are crowded together in the Christmas holiday week: family distractions, more limited preparation, and usually abysmal weather tend to hamper performance in these games, and you rarely see the best of anyone; and a lot of players may be getting rationed minutes, or be rested altogether for one of the games.

Moreover, that's a bit far away to plan for - so much might have changed with form and injuries by then. And, especially with something like the Bench Boost, which requires all 15 players to be fit, and starting, and at their best, it is too much of a risk to leave the chip until the very end of the available window for use: if a rash of late injuries suddenly renders the ploy invalid, you might have only one more week in which to play it, or..... no remaining alternative at all.

That last point also argues against leaving the BB until Gameweek 17, but bold managers might be tempted to give it a try, if they fancy Arsenal against Everton, Bournemouth against Burnley, Brentford against Wolves, and City against West Ham (although that could be possibly the strongest opportunity of the season for a Haaland Triple Cap!). However, Villa/United, Brighton/Sunderland, Newcastle/Chelsea, and Spurs/Liverpool will be rather harder to call.

And of course, all of these gameweeks with an unusually large number of one-sided fixtures - and/or some close match-ups where you might want to avoid having several of your best players facing each other - are also prime candidates for playing the Free Hit chip.

You don't want to be playing any chips early in the season, if you can possibly help it, because tactics and selections, team and individual form take a month or two to settle down - after the dust of the summer transfer window has settled. And this year, the pattern of the fixtures definitely creates a heavy bias towards using them at the very end of the available window. Heck, some lucky people haven't even used their Wildcard yet; and most people with any sense will still have all the others. Hence, we're faced with the challenge of how to make the best use of 3 or 4 chips within the space of just 7 or 8 weeks. This kind of 'overcrowding' is not an enhancement to the game. The introduction of the additional chips this year was yet another stupid idea from our FPL overlords.

NB:  You can't rely on FPL's 'Fixture Difficulty Rating' (as in the screencap at the top of this piece) as an indicator of likely outcomes. It is only, at best, a very crude guide to the relative status of clubs. It seems to take no account of factors like the form or fitness of key players, only 'expected performance' based - initially - on last year's results. It is ludicrously slow to update its assessments, doesn't appear to have much, if any, weighting towards recent results (as it ought to), and maintains an entrenched prejudice against promoted teams, even if they're doing well (4th-placed Sunderland are still considered an 'easy' opponent for almost everyone?!). The FDR grid is a handy reminder of what the fixtures are; but you have to use your own knowledge and judgement to decide which games are actually likely to be very one-sided or very tight, and which team will be the more probable winner.

Another little breather....

 

Yet another international break is upon us. We should really be grateful for a little bit of a rest from the relentless grind of the FPL season,.... and yet, and yet we do tend to fret at the sudden absence of our usual preoccupations and anxieties at the end of the week.

'Withdrawal symptoms'!!

A little bit of Zen (68)

 

“We have set our sights very high; so high, so high, in fact, that even failure would have in it an echo of glory."

Bill Nicholson

The legendary Spurs manager, who led the club to its greatest successes in the early 1960s, was a surprisingly idealistic, and indeed, at times, a poetic chap. 

We can all take inspiration from this thought.

How much is a Bench Boost worth?

I thought I'd better follow up on yesterday's post about calculating the value of the Triple Captain chip with a companion piece on its cousin, the other 'bonus chip', the Bench Boost.

As with the Triple Cap, FPL managers often like to self-deceive about the extent of their success in playing this chip. Because the points scored by all 15 squad players will be counted for the gameweek when this chip is in play, they will often protest that team selection "doesn't mattter" - and so contrive to accidentally-on-purpose leave some of their best players on the bench. If 'bench players' end up recording 2 or 3 - or even 4! - of their best individual scores of the week, then of course it will appear that their bench collectively produced enormous points,... and that can all be credited to a canny deployment of the Bench Boost chip, so these folks like to claim. But of course, that just ain't so.

Even if we go through the motions of trying to make a normal team selection, with the players who look likely to have the week's shakiest points prospects left on the bench, many of us may still fall prey to this idea that "it doesn't really matter" and be a bit lazy or hasty in deciding the starting eleven; even if we're not consciously stacking the bench with some of our more promising prospects, we might subconsciously be guilty of it. 

And even if, by a freak of good fortune, the 4 poorest prospects left on your bench have returned uncommonly well, contrary to your honest expectations - that isn't worth much if a lot of your starters have returned 'blanks'. The Bench Boost is indeed a reward for collective excellence, and you ought to evaluate it in terms of the overall return from all 15 players.

I follow two 'rules of thumb' for gauging the success of playing my Bench Boost:

1)  Decide my 'bench players' after the event, based on the lowest points returned from my squad (bearing in mind the 'formation rules' on eligible team selection): thus, I only count 4 of my lowest player scores as the value of the Bench Boost.

2)  Consider my squad total score against the gameweek's 'Global Average', to get an idea of how much bettter I did - if at all - than in a typical non-Bench Boost gameweek. (I typically manage around 10 points better than the 'Global Average'; in a 'good' week, around 15 or so better. So, I don't consider I've had a successful Bench Boost unless it's put me at least 25-30 points above the 'Global Average'. I'll make mental adjustments to that rough scale of comparison, based on how high-scoring or low-scoring a gameweek it was [and, of course, there will be some gameweeks where huge numbers of people are playing the Bench Boost, which complicates this calculation!]. But in most gameweeks, 15 points above 'Global Average' would probably still represent a very poor return on the Bench Boost, and 20-25 points barely adequate.)

Now, in practice, your Bench Boost is rarely going to be worth all that much - because, inevitably, you have your weakest players left on the bench. And, very often, you'll find that at least one of your squad doesn't play that week for some reason, so you'll only have 3 players (or sometimes even fewer....) contributing from your bench. Typically your bench consists of a back-up goalkeeper, a rarely-used (and perhaps ultra-cheap) 5th defender, and whoever your other 2 weakest players look likely to be on that week's fixtures. It's not a recipe for huge points!

That being the case, the Bench Boost can benefit significantly more from a Double Gameweek than the Triple Captain does: because these are players who are unlikely to produce any big returns, even minimum 'appearance points' from a second fixture will give a useful proportional boost to their total for the gameweek. However, if you follow my austere policy of only counting your lowest-returning players as comprising the value of your Bench Boost, you really need just about the entire squad to be enjoying a double-fixture (if only your usual bench players have double fixtures, they'd probably become preferred starters for that gameweek, and your 'true' bench, with only single fixtures. would probably not score quite as well) - and BIG Double Gameweeks like that don't happen any more. (The only week where we could sometimes see 12-16 Premier League teams enjoying a Double Gameweek at the same time was when FA Cup Quarter-Final participants would have their League games from that weekend all rescheduled to the same gameweek [and that didn't always happen; sometimes they were split...]. But since last season, the Premier League is suspending its match programme on the Quarter-Final weekend, so we don't get any postponements from that any more.)

This season, we've been given the novelty gimmick of a 2nd Bench Boost, only valid for the first half of the season - when there are no Double Gameweeks anyway! And as I observed in relation to the Triple Captain chip earlier in the season, now that Double Gameweeks are so few and so small, there's no reliable advantage in them any more (to be attractive possibilities for etiher type of Bonus Chip, at least one of the two fixtures for each of your players needs to be against a really easy opponent; and you have no idea if that is going to be the case until very shortly beforehand). 

It is a huge risk to wait until the last few weeks of the season on such a slim possibility of a slightly enhanced return for those chips; it's certainly not worth passing up favourable combinations of fixtures in gameweeks earlier in the season.

As I mentioned last week, it's best to stay agile and be prepared to play your Bench Boost opportunistically - any time when you feel really confident that all 15 of your squad players are going to start, and most of them, at least, are facing promising fixtures.

Of course, it also helps if you've managed to assemble a particularly strong squad, and one that is especially targeted towards the gameweek's weaker fixtures. In the past, we've generally liked to try to play the Bench Boost chip immediately following a Wildcard, so that our squad is fully optimized for form and fitness, and for the coming week's fixtures. 

Since last season, the new rule allowing us to bank up to 5 Free Transfers has effectively given us the theoretical opportunity of further 'mini-Wildcard' plays, where we could substantially remodel our squads if we've managed to save up extra transfers for a few weeks. In practice, it's incredibly difficult to save 5 FTs - and probably self-harming to try! - but being able to use even 2 or 3 transfers at once can be a significant advantage in optimizing the squad for a Bench Boost attempt. And, of course, remodelling this way, rather than with a Wildcard, enables you to make your changes right on the eve of the gameweek, thereby minimizing the risk of injuries removing some of your squad (a major hazard, if you're having to 'set up' for your Bench Boost using a Wildcard the week before).

Also, this season we have the further unnecessary gimmick of being given additional Free Transfers in Gameweek 16 (supposedly to ease the impact of players departing for AFCON; but at the moment, it's looking very unlikely that anyone will own any African players... apart from Bryan Mbeumo). The odd way this GIFT is being implemented - giving us extra Free Transfers, up to a maximum holding of 5 of them - means that, in order to best take advantage of this measure, we need to use up all of our existing Free Transfers by Gameweek 15. And if we've managed to save up quite a few of them, Gameweek 15 might then be a promising opportunity for the first Bench Boost. Or Gameweek 16, when we'll suddenly find ourselves magically in possession of another 5 Free Transfers. Or possibly even in Gameweeks 17 or 18, when we should still be reaping the advantages of those recent major rebuilds.  (FPL's needless largesse in Gameweek 16 could also be seen as giving us an additional 'mini' Free Hit in the preceding Gameweek: we could use saved Free Transfers to substantially recast our squad for one week only, undoing all of the changes again immediately with the extra transfers being given us for the start of AFCON.)   [I wrote a follow-up piece here - with a bit more detail on this issue of which gameweeks (in the first half of the current season) look most propitious for possibly playing the Bench Boost.]

However, even if you have managed to optimally 'set up' your squad to use this chip, you should consider 10-15 points - fairly counted - for your Bench Boost as adequate; anything around 20 is a very good return; and 25+ is absolutely outstanding.

But, again, as with the Triple Captain, you should temper your expectations, and realise that the chip can easily return little or nothing. If you have a dismal Bench Boost score this season,.... maybe you'll get a big one next time. That's how the game goes.

What is a Triple Captain worth?

 

There are two aspects to that question:  1)  How should you assess the points value of the Triple Captain chip?  and 2)  How many points can you expect to earn from it?

Unfortunately, if your thinking is muddled on the first part of the question (as it often seems to be in FPL-land), that prevents you forming a clear idea of what you ought to be aiming for with the chip.

People very commonly claim that their return from playing the Triple Captain is THREE times the gameweek points-haul for their chosen captain. But this is just empty bragging, or dangerous self-delusion. (People who somehow persuade themselves that the value of the chip is TWUCE their captain's points-haul are even more perversely misguided in their way of looking at this!)  Of course, you should really only be interested in the points lift that the chip gives you over what you would have had without it. And you'd get the basic points haul for that player anyway. In fact, since you surely would have made him your captain anyway, you would have got twice his points-haul for the week if you hadn't played the chip. So, the additional value of the Triple Captain chip is only the basic points-haul total, not some multiple of it.

I have discussed in some detail before the issue of whether the Triple Captain chip invariably pays off better in a Double Gameweek. (Summary; it can - but usually it does not. And it's a very dangerous thing to gamble on, since Double Gameweeks are now few and small, and right at the back end of the season.)

My general advice on both types of Bonus Chip is that you have to be prepared to play them opportunistically. There can be so many swings in player and individual form over a season that you often don't know who the hottest player of the year is going to be until a streak of exceptional returns suddenly emerges,.... and you often don't know what anyone's 'easiest' fixture is going to be until shortly before it happens. You can suss out the likely most promising options some months ahead; but you need to stay flexible, and be prepared for those tentative plans to completely change. (This year, Erling Haaland is still in form, and still the only FPL player regularly producing big points returns. And it has been fairly obvious since the start of the season that his two best fixtures in the first half of the season were likely to be City's home gaines against Leeds and West Ham in Gameweeks 13 and 17. So - for once - the start-of-season provisional plan for most people hasn't changed.... yet. But a lot of people weren't prepared to risk waiting this long, when Haaland was also knocking in braces of goals against better opponents. And now there is a chance that Saka or Mbeumo might be coming into tempting form as possible alternative picks. If Haaland gets injured in the next few weeks, then there'll have to be a late change of plan.... Such things often happen.)

Of course, you hope to successfully target one of your best hauls of the season for a Triple Captain play - but it is not reasonable to expect to land on the best; it's all just too unpredictable. Almost always, in fact, your and everyone else's best haul of the season comes from some complete random that you would never have expected to produce for you - and didn't very often, so wasn't a strong bet for the TC chip. You have to focus on players who can bag very large hauls multiple times a season, and who maintain top form for extended periods. Even if they won't ultimately provide any of your very best scores of the season, they are more reliable bets to provide a good score in a particular gameweek.

You shouldn't use the chip lightly, just throw it away on impulse; you should carefully choose a week in which your best player, when he's in his best form, is facing an opponent against whom he should have an especially high chance of scoring more than one goal.

But even the most exceptional players don't return every week. Usually, in fact, they'll 'blank' at least 1 game in every 3 across the season, probably closer to 1 game in 2. And sometimes even a Mo Salah or an Erling Haaland in their hottest run of form will still manage to 'blank' against a poor side.

You have to steel yourself to accept that a Triple Captain play can return nothing - and very often does. Perhaps 1 time in 3, your Triple Captain will only produce basic 'appearance points', or even less (the annals of FPL abound with horror stories of managers who ventured their TC on a player who got injured inside 10 minutes, or missed a penalty, or received a red card....).  

You have to be grateful for any sort of return at all from the chip; and very, very grateful if your haul from it happens to break into double-digits, even narrowly. It is foolish to expect - or even to hope for - a massive dividend of 15 or 20 or 25 points. That kind of thing happens fairly rarely, and requires a very large dose of LUCK.

[I wrote a follow-up post a day or two later on how to assess the impact of your Bench Boost chip.]

Unlucky Alf revisited

Last week, I noticed one of my regular antagonists had been having a hard time of it in FPL lately, and had suffered a particularly abysmal Gameweek 10. I commented that there didn't actually seem to be anything amiss with his squad, and I hoped that he would have the fortitude to stick by his selections and not rush into a lot of panicky changes.

And look at this - he put out the same team in Gameweek 11, and enjoyed markedly different fortune. That's the way this game goes: some weeks, you're lucky, some weeks, you're not.

 

This time out, despite having again picked the 'wrong' captain, and getting disappointing returns from Calafiori and Szoboszlai (with perfect foresight, he could have had a few more points off his bench),.... he managed nearly twice the global average; that lifted him into the top 22,000 for the week, and probably put him top of most of his mini-leagues. 

That was nearly 11.5 million places higher than his miserable GW10 ranking - surely one of the biggest week-to-week swings ever recorded.

This example is a powerful illustration of the point I always try to stress about Fantasy Football: you have to avoid being too reactive, to resist being swayed by your emotions. When you have a bad week, you have to try to calmly analyse why it's gone badly for you - before you decide to make any changes. Often, there's nothing wrong with your selections at all; you just had a week where everything broke against you.

Even in a pretty good week, you usually have at least 3 or 4 of your starting eleven who will 'blank'; quite often, there may be 5 or 6 who fail to bring you a return. And - Statistics being the Cruel Mistress that she is - that means that you're occasionally going to have a week where almost everyone fails to produce any worthwhile points. It doesn't mean they're bad selections; you just had an unlucky week. Hang tough - and next week will probably be better; maybe a lot better!

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 11

Arsenal's long run of clean sheets coming to an end hit FPL hard - as many managers are now doubled or even trebled up on their defence; almost everyone seemingly now owns Gabriel and/or Raya plus one other,.... and that did not work out well this week. It's also a pretty rare event to see 2 failed penalty conversions - even over one weekend, let alone on the same day,... let alone from two of the most popular players in the game!

Spurs v Manchester United was very much the 'game of two halves'. It was frankly embarrassing how easily the visitors were allowed to dominate proceedings in the opening 45 minutes - looking comfortably on top, and really more like the home side, but - as usual - struggling to create many clearcut chances. Thomas Frank must have deployed the 'hairdryer' at the interval, because Spurs came back out with a greatly increased sense of urgency and soon got back on top of things - though they likewise struggled to create chances, and it was really quite a drab match until the late flurry of goals from both sides led to a bizarre - but probably fair - draw. Those late goals were a harsh blow for Bryan Mbeumo, and his FPL owners, though; he was - once again - by far United's best player, but thanks to the perversity of the BPS, that burst of scoring at the death robbed him of any bonus points, as well as wiping out his clean-sheet bonus; he'd been on course for an 11-point game, and it was whittled down to just 7 points in a matter of minutes! This week's bizarre curveball from Ruben Amorim was to give Amad Diallo another try-out as one of his '10's, which necessitated playing Bryan Mbeumo out of position in the left-half space rather than his preferred right side (while again trying to get Cunha to operate as a centre-forward, which he is not cut out for at all; he had a face like thunder on the bench, after being pulled off in the 70th minute, and one must suspect that there is some serious dressing-room disharmony brewing at the club). It increasingly feels as though this constant tinkering with the lineup is not considered tactical innovation, but simply a desperate case of throwing everything at the wall to see if anything will stick.

Everton cruised to an ultimately fairly comfortable win against a toothless Fulham, who, alas, are increasingly looking like strong favourites for relegation. The major FPL luck-blip here was probably yet another late, late goal, from a defender - and it being somewhat of a fluke, ballooning into the net off Michael Keane's shoulder-blade after he'd completely missed his near-post header. Sasa Lukic was a little fortunate to escape a dismissal for cynically bundling over Dewsbury-Hall just before half-ttime, after having already picked up an early card.

Everton fans. and FPL owners of certain of their players (Tarkowski particularly!), may feel aggrieved that they had a remarkable 3 goals chalked off for - fairly non-obvious - 'offsides'. For the first and third of these incidents, you can accept that Ndiaye and Barry were slightly offside and close to the keeper, in a position to maybe get something on the ball being played into the danger area; but for the Tarkowski goal, WTF??  Yes, he had strayed in behind the back line when the first cross was hit; but at that point, he was having no immediate impact on the play; he immediately ran back onside, and surely a new 'phase' of play had been initiated before he struck his shot - the ball went all the way out to the far side, was played back to Ndiaye who put in another cross, which was half-cleared before falling to Tarkowski to smash home a half-volley; 3, 4, 5 other players had touched the ball and secconds had passed since the brief instant when he was - irrelevantly - 'offisde' in the preceding passage of play. That was an absolutely absurd, disgraceful decision. (And this week, we seem to be getting no SAOT graphics shared - nor any reference made to the system, either in commentary or post-match discussions. Has the syttem's use been surreptitiously suspended?? The Offside Law and its implementation are a complete mess at the moment; and this unconvincing new technology is not helping the situation.)

West Ham v Burnley was mostly a competition of terrible defending, rather than of any more positive footballing qualities. The visitors looked comfortably in control for the first half hour or so, but then unaccountably let their focus slip, and allowed West Ham to get on top. But 1-1 would probably have been a 'fair' outcome; and the only reason the scoreline didn't end like that was a string of uncharacteristic goalkeeping howlers, two from Dubravka and one from Areola, right at the death. Owners of Jarrod Bowen (there are some) will feel piqued that his teammate Kyle Walker-Peters stole the ball off his toe to claim the final goal.

It shouldn't really have been any surprise that Arsenal's remarkable clean-sheet streak was due to end, or that 4th-placed Sunderland, on their home turf, might have been the team to do it - but probably no-one was expecting quite such a thrilling and finely-balanced game on Wearside. Zubimendi thundered one effort against the crossbar, and both teams really might easily have had 3 or 4 goals each. Mystifyingly, David Raya was not credited with any saves in this game - although he clearly made at least 3 important stops in the BBC highlights I've seen: what's up with that? (It is, alas, becoming increasingly apparent that we just can't trust any of the statistics on which the game of FPL is based; it is particularly vexing in the case of this year's novelty, the 'defensive points' - but it can make itself felt in all aspects of the scoring system.) Dan Ballard was perhaps a little lucky to escape giving away a penalty - and possibly suffering a red card - when he elbowed Mikel Merino in the face early on; but it did look like a natural 'footballing incident', devoid of any malicious intent. This game also saw one of the most egregious BPS injustices of all time: Ballard scored a superb opening goal, provided fhe assist for the late equaliser, and put in a heroic goal-mouth block right at the death which probably saved the point for his team - the obvious and undoubted 'Man of the Match', by a mile; but the BPS only ranked him 5th in the game???

Chelsea had to huff-and-puff a bit to secure their expected home win against a clueless Wolves. It wasn't a particularly convincing performance from them, but they ultimately came through comfortably enough, with Joao Pedro perhaps restoring confidence in many of his (remaining) owners with another smart finish; and a lively performance from Garnacho has probably now put him on the FPL radar.

Villa continued their impressive run of results with a big win at home against Bournemouth, but the final scoreline flattered them considerably, with all the goals being somewhat freakish: a chipped free-kick over the wall from Buendia that Petrovic probably should have been able to deal with, a firm scudding effort from 23 yards out by Onana that just sneaked in at the foot of the near-post, a looping back-header from substitute Ross Barkley, and another long-range effort that took a huge and decisive deflection off the heel of an oblivious Donyell Malen. The home side's best action in the game was really Emi Martinez's excellent penalty save from Semenyo rather than any of their attacking efforts. But Bournemouth were somehow just not at the races for this one - surely their worst performance of the season.

At Selhurst Park, the VAR team were actually doing their job properly (for possibly the only time this weekend) when they invited Tim Robinson to reconsider his decision to award a penalty for Rutter's rather blatant dive. (The big worry about this incident was that VAR appeared to be repeatedly showing only a juddery picture composed of a sequence of freeze-frames taken a 10th of a second or so apart, rather than either a normal-speed or slow-motion replay. This was very confusing, and actually failed to show the exact moment of contact at all - so the ref was rather left guessing what had happened from the players' body-language, rather than having been able to see it clearly.) Apart from that brief moment of excitement, there was little of note in a drab game, apart from Minteh and Kamada squandering one good chance for each side. Palace were short of energy after their Europa Conference League outing on Thursday evening; and they were also without captain Marc Guehi (now owned by a staggering 36% of Fantasy managers), a late omssion because he'd been struggling with a severe bruise on his foot after that game against Alkmaar. Brighton looked more like the home side here - dominating most of the possession and playing the better football, but failing to create many good chances. It was probably a little bit of a surprise that this fixture would produce the weekend's only goalless draw, and 2 of only 6 clean sheets from this batch of matches; but Brighton are starting to look much more secure in defence, and Verbruggen, in particular, had an impressive game here - pulling off a superb stop at the foot of his near post from Pino's stinging low shot in the closing seconds of the game.

Well, I had thought that the disallowal of Tarkowski's goal on Saturday would surely have to be the worst decision of the week. But Stuart Attwell's decision to book Dango Ouattara for 'simulation' rather than book (and send off) Dan Burn and award a penalty, when the big defender had clearly trodden on the forward's foot. was utterly mystifying; even stranger was VAR's unwillingness to say anything about it. As it happened, this had no real impact on the game. Burn would pick up a second yellow for a penalty foul on the same player shortly afterwards, and Brentford would go on to win fairly comfortably against a Newcastle who were looking jaded after midweek exertions in the Champsions League. Nick Pope's withdrawal with a possible shoulder or collarbone injury, after a heavy landing, will be a concern to the 12% of FPL managers who (unwisely!) include him in their teams.

Sean Dyche seems to be shoring up Nottingham Forest, and they look like they should soon be able to climb out of the relegation places. Leeds can perhaps take some comfort from a well-taken goal from their new forward, the German Lukas Nmecha, but are otherwise looking increasingly relegation-worthy. The only major incident of note was the award of a penalty to substitute Omari Hutchinson - who was under pressure from behind, but appeared to simply trip over his own feet; and this rather odd decision from the ref was apparently not reconsidered by VAR at all, or only very briefly. It was also perhaps a bit of a surprise that Elliot Anderson has taken over on penalties for Forest, after Morgan Gibbs-White had muffed one against Sturm Graz a few days ago. (He dispatched it calmly, emphatically. And since he tends to do very well on 'defensive contributions' as well, this lift to his points potential might possibly bring him into FPL consideration for the '5th seat' slot in midfield.)

The Liverpool 'revival' does indeed look fragile: after their dominating display against Real Madrid in midweek, they were suddenly back to misfiring at The Etihad. Luck was most definitely not on their side, though: Haaland's opener was a happy fluke, the ball fortuitously bouncing off his head into the goal rather than being purposefully headed in that direction - after Konate's attempt to head the ball to safety merely gave it a glancing deflection on to the big Viking rather than a decisive redirect away from him; Nico Gonzalez's firm drive from the edge of the box needed two deflections off defenders' legs to find its way past Mamardashvili, and then Doku conjured an unstoppable curler from just outside the area to put the result beyond question. Liverpool got at the home side more effectively in the second half, and had their chances: Gakpo blazing over at the far post, Salah's clever dink past Donnarumma drifting agonisingly just wide of the far post, and then a fierce drive from Szoboszlai requiring a good one-handed save from the keeper. The one big point of contention in the match was the strange VAR decision to overturn (on their own authority, without directing a review by the ref?) Chris Kavanagh's initial allowing of Virgil Van Dijk's headed goal from a corner, which would have put Liverpool level at 1-1; Andy Robertson was offside, and had to duck under the flight of the ball - but he made no attempt to play it, and he was not in any way interfering with Donnarumma or any of the City defenders. The penalty award early on was a bit of a dubious incident too: while Mamardashvili had just touched Doku with his knee, it was a very, very slight contact, perhaps not really enough to bring the attacker down - and his eventual collapse a few steps later looked very much like 'a dive'; it was perhaps technically a 'foul', but a very soft one, and the kind of incident that I would prefer to see not given as a penalty. Kavanagh's initial response was to signal 'no foul', and I don't see that that was an egregious enough 'error' to warrant VAR insisting that he look at it again. As it happened, this didn't affect the result, as Haaland hit a weak penalty that Mamardashvili was able to save - though that unlikely occurrence, of course, had a huge FPL impact. And Uncle Arne was at it again with the early substitutions, withdrawing Robertson and Ekitike after just 55 minutes.

The absurd denial of Tarkowski's goal at Everton was one of the worst decisions of the season so far. There were 2 rather dubious VAR interventions in the week's biggest game, at The Etihad, as well as a dreadful non-award of a penalty to Brentford and a rather dubious granting of one to Nottingham Forest And we have, yet again, seen a lot of goals from defenders, and a lot of goals in the dying minues of games. There's been that curious case of FPL/Opta somehow not recognising Raya as making any saves aagainst Sunderland (which rather calls into question the reliability of all the stats on which this game relies!), and a couple of mildly contentious potential red card incidents. Then on Sunday, we had two of the game's highest-owned players, Haaland and Semenyo, both fail to convert penalties! The FPL 'Team of the Week' is usually one of the strongest indicators of the fluctuating 'luck factor': and it is once more a pretty oddball collection: Pickford, Saka, and Joao Pedro were the only inclusions with any significant ownership after Saturday's games; and after Sunday, only Saka was left, The 'global average' this week was a remarkably low 38 points; though, curiously, while in most previous weeks this season the distribution curve seems to have been heavily skewed towards the low side, with the majority of FPL managers actually getting slightly less than the average, here the largest concentration of scores seemed to be in the 40s and 50s.  With quite a bit of dodgy officiating, and so many of the most fancied players failing to produce anything, I think this week gets up to an 8 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Sheep Picks (17)

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are dangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

This is probably the disrecommendation in this series that I feel most hesitant, least confident about, but.... remember, the point of this 'Sheep Pick' category is not that these players have no merit, but that they're dangerously over-popular just at the moment. And going into Gameweek 11 of the 25-26 season, I think that certainly applies to Palace forward Jean-Philippe Mateta.

Mateta is the most transferred-in player this week, by a mile, with 435,000 new owners - and counting (still 5 hours till deadline!). 

Here's why I think those recent purcchasers are probably mistaken:

1)  They're a bit late to the party! Some may use the excuse of the injury news this week about the unaccountably popular Viktor Gyokeres (the week's second most transferred-out player since it was revealed that he was likely to be out-of-action for a few weeks, nearly 300,000 quitting on him in the last few days) giving an additional opportunity/incentive to bring in Mateta. But really, the uptick in his form has been emerging over the last few weeks, and the decisive turn in fixture-difficulty for Palace occurred last week - so, Gameweek 10 was when you really ought to have bought him, if you fancied him.

2)  His numbers really aren't that good. The Bournemouth game was really a bit of a freak result, with both sides being far more open - and downright leaky in defence! - than was expected; and he needed a very soft penalty award to complete his hattrick there, having squandered 3 or 4 of his best opportunities in the match. His chance-conversion rate is actually pretty terrible, one of the most profligate in the league: he scores in games where he gets a lot of chances - but in games where he doesn't enjoy so many chances, he's not likely to get on the scoresheet. If you discount that penalty, he's only got 3 goals in his last 3 league games - which is nothing that remarkable for an 'in-form' striker. And prior to that, he'd only managed 2 goals in 7 games - which is arguably a more accurate reflection of his typical level of performance.

3)  Palace don't have a gimme fixture this week. 'Derby' games are almost always a bit tumultuous and unpredictable. And Brighton, although inconsistent, are a very dangerous opponent, and have shown strongly improving form over the last few weeks. Most of the bookies only have Palace at about 5/4 or 6/5 for the win - and I think that's a little bit generous.

4)  He's not obviously the most appealing pick for this week in his price category. Unless you're swapping him in for Gyokeres (and, presumably, at least 135,000 of his new owners are replacing someone else with him!), the most obvious swap-targets are Nick Woltemade and Joao Pedro. They both have much softer opponents than Palace this week. Admittedly, Woltemade had a bit of a 'mare last weekend; but it looks as though that uncharacterisically 'off day' was caused by some transient problem with injury or illness; prior to that, his recent form had been outstanding. Joao Pedro has been in something of a slump, but we know he has the quality to hurt any opponent; and he has suddenly started to look back to his best in his last two outings, against Spurs and Qarabag in the past week. So, there is really not a compelling case to use up a transfer bringing in Mateta for either of them this week (next gameweek, maybe; Pedro's uptick in form may prove to have been evanescent; and Newcastle's fixtures are a bit challenging in at least 3 - arguably 5 or 6! - of their next 7 games after this week).

5)  Palace without Adam Wharton tend to be much less dangerous. The young midfielder is the crucial progressive passer in their midfield. He was out with an illness last week, and is reportedly still suffering with his fitness this week. If he can't start, or is well below his best because of this, it is much less likely that Palace will produce a good overall performance and achieve a good result.

6)  Palace's upcoming fixtures aren't that easy.  Manchester United, City, and Spurs - even at home - can be very challenging opponents; and Burnley, Fulham, and Leeds, away, might not be pushovers. Bringing Mateta in just for the next 2 matches, against Brighton and Wolves, would be a spendthrift use of transfers!

7)  As ever, there's a club quota issue to keep in mind as well. Palace's defensive record has been so good that most people want at least 1, possibly 2 of their defenders; and Dean Henderson is one of the most appealing goalkeeper picks too. And amongst their attacking players, Ismaila Sarr is often a tempting option - as a fairly inexpensive goalscoring midfielder. If you choose Mateta, you're denying yourself one of these - who are likely to prove more valuable to you in their positions.

8)  Even if he does produce good returns over the next month or so, Mateta might not be an optimum use of budget. He's become a bit expensive now, at 7.9 million pounds; he costs more than Woltemade and Joao Pedro (and Bowen); he costs a lot more than Welbeck, Thiago, Kroupi, and Isidor - who, frankly, have looked in much better form than Mateta. Sesko probably shouldn't be written off, either, as United seem to be slowly getting their shit together somewhat. And a number of budget forward options are suddenly getting a run of starts, and might soon come into contention for inclusion in FPL squads: Callum Wilson, Zian Flemming, Randal Kolo Muani, Igor Jesus,... maybe Liam Delap...  It is quite likely that some of the best attacking midfield talents will start producing again soon: Mbeumo and Trossard should already be 'on the radar' (if not already in the squad!!), and I think it is highly likely that we'll all soon be wanting someone like Saka, Palmer, or Cunha again. There'll be a need to free up some budget to afford players like that; and the most obvious way to do that is by going without higher-priced forwards (Haaland is pretty much essential at the moment; but you could easily go with 2 fairly cheap back-ups - ideally with nice fixture-difficulty rotation!).

9)  The times, they are a-changin'.....  Further to that last point, I think it's very likely that we'll start seeing a number of the most dangerous attacking/creative midfielders, who've been weirdly 'absent' so far this season, return to form/fitness and start producing big FPL returns again. If/when that happens - and it might be soon - we'll probably want to scale back on our forward line. At the moment, most people have built up a strong defensive roster (because that's where most of the points have been coming from so far!), and have often been starting 4 - or occasionally even 5! - of them. That seems likely to continue for a while, as most of the upcoming gameweeks have quite a few seriously unbalanced fixtures in them, and a number of teams (not just Arsenal!) will stand above-average chances of delivering a clean sheet. If we suddenly have more scoring prospects in midfield too, and often want to start 4 or 5 of them (rather than only 3, as has become quite common of late), there will only be room for 2 regular starting forwards - sometimes, perhaps, only 1 (Haaland!!). Now does not seem like a prudent time to be dropping nearly 8-million quid on a forward!

Now, I do rate Mateta; and I do think he's in decent form. He is not by any means a terrible pick, just in terms of his ability and points prospects: there is a very good chance that he will score this week, and/or in a number of the upcoming gameweeks. But in the overall selection context, I see him as an unconvincing choice - he's not clearly better than the closest alternatives, and he's just too damned expensive.

Dilemmas of the Week - Gameweek 11 (25/26)

 

Remarkably few new injury concerns arising from the week's European ties, so this could be quite a brief rundown (for once)!

I'm trying 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 11 of the season?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The biggest news of the week is probably the absence of Viktor Gyokeres at Arsenal, who had to come off at half-time in the Burnley game last week with a muscle problem, and now seems set to be out for at least a few weeks. That's quite a big deal for FPL, because, despite his very limited points output so far, Gyokers was remarkably owned by nearly 20% of managers! Mikel Merino looks likely to deputise at 'centre forward', as he did in Tuesday's game in Prague (although I'd rather see him in midfield, and move Trossard into the central attacking role, with Eze alongside him on the left).

Tyrone Mings suffered a hamstring strain against Liverpool last weekend, and might be ruled out for several weeks.

Romeo Lavia limped off the other night against Qarabag with a thigh muscle problem; still being assessed, but seemingly out of contention at least for this week. Pedro Neto missed the European game with a knock, but Maresca is optimistic that he'll be available this weekend.

Dominic Calvertt-Lewin had to come off against Brighton last week with a muscle problem. He has been of zero relevance in FPL so far, but his enforced absence should finally give a chance to Joel Piroe, who was outstanding for Leeds in the Championship last year.

Mateo Kovacic apparently missed the Bournemouth game last Sunday because an ankle injury picked up in training; seems likely to be out for some weeks.

Anthony Gordon was withdrawn at half-time against Athletic Bilbao on Wednesday with a recurrence of a hip problem. Back-up striker Will Osula is also struggling with an ankle problem, which is expected to now rule him out for some weeks. At least full-backs Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento seem to be nearing a possible return - though probably not this week.

Callum Hudson-Odoi suffered a dead leg against Manchester United last time, and seems set to be unavailable this week. Summer signing Omari Hutchinson should finally get a chance to appear on the right side of the attack, with Dan Ndoye probably switching to the left.

Lucas Bergvall suffered a serious concussion in Saturday's match against Chelsea and will be out for a couple of weeks. Mo Kudus is also suffering from a knock, and had to miss the Champions League game against Copenhagen on Tuesday.

Wolves midfielder Rodrigo Gomes needed surgery this week on a groin injury picked up in the recent League Cup defeat by Chelsea, and may be out for two to three months.

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

Wolves centre-back Emmanuel Agbadou is serving a one-match ban after being sent off (slightly harshly) for a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' against Fulham.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

No-one really stank the place up last time out - although Wolves (currently under the caretaker management of youth team coach James Collins, as they struggle to find a replacement for the ousted Vitor Pereira), and perhaps also Leeds, look like poison at the moment, while Everton appear to have run out of steam, after their bright start, and Newcastle, Spurs, and Villa were severely unimpressive last time out.

And there are now several players who are getting worryingly close to a 'totting up' suspension.

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

Dominik Szoboszlai, outstanding all season, has been instrumental in Liverpool's apparent revival this week against Aston Villa and Real Madrid, and looks likely to have a lot more attacking impact if he continues to play in the 'No. 10' spot (only 50,000 new buyers this week is really a pretty sluggish response from the market!). Hugo Ekitike might suddenly be looking a temping option again too; although, with Alexander Isak expected to be available again by the end of the month, that might be a very short-term punt.

Joao Pedro has also suddenly looked very sharp again in his last two outings, against Spurs and Slavia Prague, and over 220,000 FPL managers have piled in for him already this week (many of whom probably only sold him in the last week or two!!), no doubt further encouraged by the prospect of his facing Wolves, Burnley, Leeds, and Everton between now and mid-December. However, with Chelsea's yo-yo-ing form this season, I would curb my enthusiasm on that: there are lots of other tempting forward options at the moment; and if you only just sold him, he hasn't yet given convincing evidence for anyone to repent of that.

Rayan Cherki has caught the eye as well in his last couple of outings for City; but the ever-present threat of 'Pep Roulette' must give us pause on that for a while, I think - until we see if he might become a regular and influential starter.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (67)

'The Library of Babel' 

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

Bertolt Brecht

"In my next life I will try to commit more errors."

Jorge Luis Borges

Yes, we've had the Brecht line on here before (well spotted!); but I couldn't resist repeating it, as it goes so well with Borges' resolution.