Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 15

I always think of December as 'Random Month' - mounting exhaustion, dreadful weather, and a slew of unpredictable 'rest rotations' lead to some yo-yo-ing form and a lot of unexpected results. And we seem to be getting that again this weekend, with our second set of December fixtures inside a few days. It's already looking set to be another stupendously low-scoring gameweek overall (like almost every one thiis season!!), with only Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, of all people, managing to get more than 15 points in the main batch of games on Saturday, and only 10 others scrabbling into double-digits (half of them defenders or defensive midfielders?!); nearly all the 'big names' are drawing blanks again. Oh, woe!

Arsenal's visit to Villa was a lot livelier than most lunchtime kick-offs, with some nice open football, and a few decent chances at either end: Ollie Watkins demanding a very good low save from Raya early on, and Eze appearing to have claimed the lead with a tap-in from a Saka square-ball into the six-yard-box, until VAR confirmed that the winger had made his run a fraction too early and been caught offside. It was the home side who eventually got in front, with a quick switch of play from left to right finding Mattty Cash in space on the far side of the box (Eze had momentarily fallen asleep and omitted to track him), and he was able to rifle the ball through Raya's legs from the corner of the six-yard-box. Arsenal should have been more alert to this danger, as a near-identical move had nearly produced a goal earlier, when only a brave last-ditch block from Declan Rice had thwarted a fierce half-volley from Cash just inside the penalty area. Arsenal started the second-half with all guns blazing and might have picked up 2 or 3 goals in the first 10 minutes or so; but after Trossard pounced on the leftovers of Martinez's save from a Saka cross-shot, they strangely slackened off again, allowing the home side to start coming back at them. For a while, the game was end-to-end, but Villa's pressure during the final 15 minutes became relentless, and their eventual last-gasp winner from Buendia, with literally the last kick of the game, after a protracted goalmouth melee, was well deserved, Villa are slowly growing on me: what they may lack in quality, they are more than making up for in organization and workrate, and this was their best performance of the season so far; something special was needed to end Arsenals three-month unbeaten streak, and they managed to produce it. Eze owners, though, will be reconsidering his value, in light of his being replaced by Trossard at half-time.

For me, Bournemouth did just about enough to have deserved the win against Chelsea, and it was disappointing to see Semenyo's early goal revoked after a ponderous VAR deliberation, because assister Evanilson had supposedly been offside when the ball was played to him. I have 3 big gripes about this: a) the margin was incredibly tight, allegedly just a shoulder and a knee-cap - and we really don't want to see goals disallowed for such impossibly small distances; b) you can't measure gaps like that with any convincing accuracy (it was so tight that the exact instant of the ball's leaving Alex Scott's foot would be decisive, perhaps to within hundredths of a second; but on the TV coverage, this was completely impossible to judge because Chelseaa players were blocking a view of Scott's foot); c) the SAOT graphic wasn't finally shared on TV until several minutes later (is that really how long they take to render? if they're not actually being used in the determination of the decision, what is the point of them??). Delap had to go off early after injuring - possibly dislocating? - his right shoulder after falling to the ground with Senesi on top of him in an inevitable bout of penalty area wrestling. (I have no sympathy. Delap is a thug who invites aggro - and an unnecessary number of cards for himself - with his constant niggling fouls. I think this week he picked on the wrong guy, and Senesi found a way to get him back, withou being punished for it.)  Bournemouth had the best double-chance of the match when Semenyo's crisp cross-shot was barely deflected wide by Sanchez's fingertips and then Evanilson, rushing in at the far post, somehow sliced wide from less than a yard out. Cole Palmer, finally back from injury, immediately looked lively and confident, but even his rangefinder wasn't completely dialled in as he overhit a few key through-balls; and the rest of his side were mostly misfiring as woefully as they had against Leeds a few days before.

Sean Dyche will be concerned at how anaemic his Forest looked on their visit to Everton: they hardly mustered a decent chance in the entire game, and were lucky not to go down by a small landslide. Gralish saw a fierce 20-yard effort strike the outside of the post, and Ndiaye brought a superb save from Sels in the second-half. Dyche felt that Everton's break for the first goal should have been stopped because the first pass might have touched the referee's foot as it was threaded through his legs as he gamely tried to jump over it; any such contact wasn't obvious and incontrovertible on the TV playback, and certtainly not in any way decisive. And we really don't want to see promising attacks thwarted by such trivial technicalities, much less goals that have actually been scored then being chalked off again by VAR. If the referee felt the ball didn't touch him, that ought to be decisive in a case like this. Tarkowski and Keane continue to be the league's most reliable providers of the new 'defensive points'.

City produced possibly their best performance of the season, and Sunderland one of their worst - but they were still a bit unfortunate to end up with such a drubbing at The Etihad: they really played well enough for the most part to deserve slightly better, and the final scoreline was a little flattering to the home side, who had to rely on a 25-yard belter from Ruben Dias, of all people, to give them a breakthrough after half an hour. A second goal just a few minutes later, a powerful Gvardiol header from  a corner, may have broken the visitors' spirits somewhat, but they came out for the second-half showing a lot of resolve, and were able to prevent ny further damage, apart from Foden's 65th-minute header from Cherki's impish Rabona cross (Foden did his best to loop the effort over the top, and was rather fortunate to see it just scud home off the bottom of the crossbar). Sunderland had, in fact, been unlucky not to pull one back shortly before that, when a rare mistake from Dias gifted the ball to Isidor to break through one-on-one with the keeper, but Donnarumma produced a fine block. Pep surprised people here by not rotating - apart from dropping Reijnders in favour of Cherki. And Haaland had another one of his occasional afternoons of anonymity - apart from one good hooked effort from 5 yards out that Geertruda was able to head off the line. That Haaland chance was again set up by Cherki, who also supplied substitute Reijnders with a sitter late on that he scuffed into the side-netting, and the Frenchman also had a firm cross-shot of his own well saved by Roefs - so, he was 'Man of the Match' by a wide margin, and unfortunate not to amass a huge FPL points total for the game.

Scott Parker's decision to start Armando Broja over the in-form Zian Flemming was a bit of a headscratcher - though at least the Dutchman was on for the last few minutes, and able to confidently despatch a penalty to put the visitors back in the game and give Newcastle a nervous time at the end. Burnley, I felt, were a little unfortunate to be reduced to 10 men before half-time: Lcuas Pires's challenge on Elanga was technically a foul, but the contact was fairly minimal, and looked to me as if it lacked any intent; such infractions, even if they interrupt a break on goal, don't seem to me to merit a sending-off - but the current interpretation of the rules on this seems to be veering towards 'strict liability'. Anthongy Gordon suddenly seems to be back in form, having two scorching efforts glance off the woodwork, and emphatically tucking away the penalty (disappointing for Woltemade owners, though, that he's lost that duty). And Guimaraes got the opener by swinging his corner directly into the far top corner, a real once-in-a-season (at most!) kind of freak event! At least here VAR was doing its job properly, twice intervening to correctly award penalties that the referee had initially missed.

Spurs were much improved for the visit of Brentford, inspired by the performance of Xavi Simons, suddenly brimming with energy and confidence again after several very frustrating weeks. Brentford were out-of-sorts, and were fortunate not to go down more heavily: Djed Spence had a shot well-saved by Kelleher, and Pape Sarr just couldn't get his feet sorted out to crack off the shot when the ball fell to him unmarked in the middle of the box and he had the whole goal to aim at for what seemed like several seconds - before he finally scuffed his effort straight at the keeper. A very promising turnaround for Spurs - and you wonder if this result might just possibly have saved Thomas Frank's job; he would surely have been in a world of trouble if he'd lost this one to his former club.

Arno Slot brought Bradley and Kerkez back in as his full-backs for the visit to Leeds, gave Macallister a rest in favour of Curitis Jones, sttarted Ekitike up-front instead of the misfiring Isak, and left Salah on the bench for the third successive game (unsurprisingly, he seems to be very unhappy about this; a move to Saudi next month is now a racing certainty, I fear...). I fret that all this rotation is born of desperation rather than calculated variation and managing of minutes, and is only likely to produce disgruntlement in the players suddenly dropped. The home side seemed to have rather the better of the exchanges in a fairly uneventful first-half, but Liverpool gained momentum when Ekitike stole a loose ball to slot past Perri early in the second; he notched his brace only a couple of minutes later, and nearly set Gakpo up for a third shortly after that. If Perri hadn't got a crucial hand to that effort, the game would surely have been done-and-dusted. But Liverpool strangely slackened the pace from that moment, and as Leeds gamely came back at them, they got a bit lucky with a very soft penalty decision against Konate (he barely made any contact, and it could be said to have been 'initiated' by Gnonto, who was going down already, just hopping over - and into - the defender's leg as he slid across between him and the ball). Calvert-Lewin, reported as a doubtful starter because of a calf problem, was playing, and on peanlties, and managed not to miss this one - a triple slice of good luck for anyone who happened to be on him this week (amazingly, nearly 100,000 do own him; although I'd suspect most would have left him on the bench). And then the Liverpool defence all decided to play statues while Anton Stach cantered through the middle of the box unopposed and slotted home an equaliser - to set up a thrilling final quarter of an hour in what had, up to then, been a mostly pretty dreary game. Liverpool quickly got back in the lead with a quick break culminating in a slick finish from Szoboszlai, but then they once more relaxed their grip on the game, allowing Leeds to come back at them yet again. And Slot will be especially alarmed and perplexed that his erstwhile impregnable defence completely failed to defend a corner in the dying minutes, allowing substitute Tanaka to volley home another equaliser at the far post. On balance, Leeds looked well worth the point here, while Liverpool were perhaps lucky to come away with that much. Slot is now favourite to be the next EPL manager to be sacked. I still don't see that happening quite yet; but if he can't start to turn things around within another month or so, I think it will (and an apparent revolt by their most iconic player, for which he must surely take much of the blame for poor man-management and failed communication, won't help his cause).

The first-half of the Brighton v West Ham game was a 45 minutes that made you question your life choices: a stupendously dull and inept slice of football. At least both sides came out with greatly increased urgency after the break, but execution was still largely lacking, as again and again passes were overhit, misplaced, miscontrolled. Verbruggen made a superb double-save from Bowen and Summerville early in the second period (he looks to me the most in-form goalkeeper in the league over the last several games), but West Ham started looking immediately more dangerous with the introduction of Callum Wilson for the last 20 minutes, and he soon helped to produce a chance for Bowen to put the Hammers ahead. But Brighton have an impressive record for coming up with goals in the later stages of matches, and a sustained spell of pressure justifiably led to Rutter (although he'd had rather a poor game up to that point) claiming an equaliser just as the game moved into added-on time. Nuno is understandably, and perhaps rightly, upset that the goal was allowed to stand, since there was a hint of possible handball by Rutter on an earlier shooting attempt (looked to be on the upper part of the upper arm, and the ball cannoned on to the arm off the torso; so, it would have been a very harsh decision); there was, however, a much stronger case (which VAR did not seem to have considered) for 'dangerous play'against Kostoloulas, whose overhead kick did make like contact with Mavorpanos's forehead.

Fulham v Palace was a close-fought and fairly entertaining game, producing two of the best goals of the weekend, from Eddie Nketiah and Harry Wilson. The match was somewhat blighted, though, by yet another ridiculous VAR decision on an offside - Smith Rowe's goal, following up on a thurderous Iwobi header which had crashed against a post, was eventually disallowed for a supposed offside by winger Chukwueze at the start of the move, although the SAOT picture appeared to show that the margin was the riffling of the fabric of his shorts; even under the current insane definition of the offence, that decision ought not to have been made. This aberration perhaps balanced the scales of justice, though, as Joachim Andersen had earlier got away with clattering Nathaniel Clyne on the edge of the penalty area; the referee had somehow let it go, and VAR seemingly didn't want to intervene because it might have been outside the area (it wasn't). The home side had looked comfortably on top for most of the second half, but Palace roused themselves to a determined surge in the last 15 minutes, and were eventually rewarded with Guehi's late headed goal from a corner. The firecracker form of Chukwueze down the left flank (probably off to AFCON soon, alas) and another impressive display from Smith Rowe, thriving in the central role as a No. 10, will be some consolation to Fulham fans. The biggest news for FPL was the surprise omission of Daniel Munoz (to give a rare run-out for the long neglected Clyne).

Manchester United finally managed a decent win again on Monday night, although it was only against woeful Wolves - and even there, they made life difficult for themselves by conceding an equaliser on the stroke of half-time, but they came out strongly after the break and ended up comfortable winners. Amorim once again baffled FPL managers with his selection, starting Dalot rather than Dorgu on the left, and Mazraoui, Heaven, and Shaw as his centre-backs, while dropping the recently impressive Joshua Zirkzee up front. And Bruno Fernandes was rather fortunate to earn such good points in the game, his first goal being a weak, somewhat mishit effort that somehow dribbled through Johnstone's legs, and the second a very unjust penalty award (Mosquera did lean towards the shot, but he was trying to pull his arm behind his body, and the ball clearly struck his upper arm, near the shoulder - there was no way that was a penalty; and the referee appeared to have a good view of it the first time, so there was no call for VAR to tell him to take a second look).

The FPL 'Team of the Week', always one of the strongest indicators of how the tides of 'luck' are flowing each week, turns out to be yet another freakshow only Gvardiol and Foden have any significant FPL ownership (and Bruno Fernandes, who gained late - and highly fortuitous - accession to 'Player of the Week'!). Moreover, it's been another gameweek with a painfully low 'global average' of just 49 points; and another gameweek in which the points distribution seems to be heavily skewed towards the low side - the great majority of managers actually getting somewhat below that average, and only a long thin tail, a lucky handful, achieving scores in the 80s, 90s, or low 100s; not that many - in my mini-leagues, anyway - getting much over 50, in fact! However, we do seem to have been, for once, relatively free of refereeing cock-ups in this gameweek, although there has been at least one likely penalty overlooked (for Crystal Palace), one unfairly given (for Manchester United), a couple of very dubious offside calls denying goals, and the probably wrongly allowed late equaliser for Brighton. Outlandish events like a goal direct from a corner, a few more rotation nightmares, 'blanks' from almost all the most popular FPL picks, quite a high tally of 30 goals (5 of them from defenders!!) and just 4 clean sheets, and 'upset' results for Liverpool and Arsenal... still make this at least a 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'

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Dilemmas of the Week - Gameweek 15 (25/26)

Amazingly, we seem to have been spared too many new injury concerns in this packed week of league fixtures (although suspensions, especially for accumulated yellow cards, will be a hazard throughout this month), so this rundown can once more be a relatively concise one.

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 15 of the season?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Christhian Mosquera suffered a leg injury in the game against Brentford in midweek (still not clear exactly what, or how serious, but seems likely to keep him out for a few weeks at least). With Saliba still doubtful, it seems likely that Timber will now play alongside Hincapie in the centre, making room for Ben White to return at right-back (he started there anyway on Wednesday - apparently just to give Timber a rest - and turned in a 'Man of the Match' performance!); but both of those could be very short-term assignments: once Saliba is back, it's quite likely that Timber and White will again be contesting, and perhaps rotating the right-back slot. Declan Rice also had to come off with a knock in that Wednesday night game, but it doesn't sound too serious.

Emi Martinez was a last-minute withdrawal from the Wednesday game against Brighton with a back problem, so it seems likely that Marco Bizot will continue to deputise for him for a little while.

Yasin Ayari also had to miss out on that Villa match with a muscle strain suffered in training. And the young Greek striker Stefanos Tzimas had to come off in that game with a knee injury that might be quite serious.

Burnley defender Axel Tuanzebe missed out on the Wednesday game against Palace because of a training knock, and is expected to be out for a couple of weeks. (This might actually be to Burnley's advantage, if it spares him from an AFCON call-up... Conspiracy theorists might indeed speculate that the injury is purely fictitious.)

Sandro Tonali may be a slight doubt, after apparently suffering a dead-leg in the game against Spurs.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin suffered a calf-strain in the surprise win over Chelsea, and could now be out for a few weeks, while Leeds's first-choice striker, Lukas Nmecha, might be out even longer after apparently pulling a hamstring in that match. Presumably, Joel Piroe will now finally get a chance to start up front for them.

Matthijs de Ligt missed out on Thursday's West Ham game with a training knock, but Amorim hopes he might be OK again to face Wolves on Monday night. If he's not, United are getting stretched a bit thin at the back! Diogo Dalot was also struggling with a leg-muscle problem at the end of the West Ham game, but that appears to be not too serious....

Destiny Udogie hasn't quite got back to his best since his return from injury, and appeared to be limping heavily at the end of Tuesday's draw at Newcastle - so, might give way to Djed Spence again this weekend.

Wolves left-back Hugo Bueno missed the Forest game in midweek because of a back-muscle problem, and Marshall Munetsi suffered a calf-strain in that match (although the cynic in me again suspects the club are playing up that one to try to get him out of going to AFCON with Zimbabwe)

Does anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Bournemouth's Tyler Adams, Everton's Tim Iroegbunam and Wolves's Joao Gomes are the latest players to have to miss a match for collecting a 5th yellow card. These are the other players now getting close to a 'totting up' suspension.

Moises Caicedo and Ryan Christie have the second instalment of their three-match 'violent conduct' bans this weekend, and Idrissa Gueye is serving the last part of his suspension for slapping Michael Keane for a loose pass out of defence.

West Ham defender Igor Julio is on loan from Brighton, so ineligible to turn out against the parent club this week.

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

'The Sheep', of course, are getting terribly excited about Phil Foden. But I'm still nervous of Pep Roulette, especially at this very busy time of year (and especially because, in recent years, Pep has often seemed to bench him, for no obvious reason, precisely when he's appeared to be coming into top form - almost as if he just doesn't want him to get too big for his boots?!). I still think City's team form isn't stable enough for it to be worth betting on more than one of their midfielders (and maybe not more than one of their players from any position in addition to the, for now, still 'essential' Haaland), and Jeremy Doku still looks likely to be the most regular and reliable points scorer from them. But with a make-or-break Champions League game away to Real Madrid next Wednesday, this weekend's selection at The Etihad is even more of a lottery than usual; it does seem dangerously likely that several top players - perhaps even Haaland - will get only fairly short minutes, or perhaps remain on the bench throughout.

The imminent Early Christmas Present of extra transfers to help us get over AFCON means that this weekend, Gameweek 15, could in effect be a mini-Free Hit: we are incentivised to use all our existing transfers at once (to gain maximum advantage from the extra ones available after the deadline passes), but we could undo all those changes again immediately the next week if we wanted to (the splurge of additional Free Transfers in GW16 being effectively a mini-Wildcard for that gameweek, or one of the ones soon following).

AFCON itself is not likely to be directly much of an issue (apart from Salah [why does anyone still own him??], Mbeumo is the only high-owned player affected; Semenyo and Kudus are not taking part in this year's tournament), although it may lead to some interesting fluctuations of form and revision of team selections in teams that are losing key players.

Also - REMEMBER, the 1st Round of the FPL Cup is this weekend!!

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

UP for the Cup!

There is an FPL head-to-head knockout 'cup' competition for each of the leagues we're enrolled in, as well as in the overall 'global ranking'; but, over the years, they've done absolutely nothing to promote this dimension of the game!

At least this year, these side competitions have achieved slightly greater prominence through now being separately listed on our main account pages, in the left sidebar, underneath our placings in all our leagues (if you can be bothered to scroll all the way down...); whereas, in the past, you had to find a tab to switch views from 'League' to 'Cup' and it was easily missed, and most people probably never had any inkling it was there, or that these competitions existed.

But the FPL Gnomes still seem to be saying NOTHING about the cup competitions in their regular burps of publicity material....

It turns out that the global Cup is kicking off this week!  Who knew???

Gosh, yes, there are 2^24 registered users this year!! Well, not quite: 4 million or so managers will be getting a bye in the opening round.

In most previous years, I have failed to pay any attention to the global Cup - not realising when it had started! - until long after I'd been eliminated from it.

And I would generally counsel against paying too much attention to it, as obsessing about head-to-head results is detrimental to your long-term goal of getting the best possible points total for the season.

However, Cup competitions in the smaller mini-leagues are a nice little side-event that can provide a lot of fun in the game - and, sometimes, a lot of consolation for disappointing overall performance. (You can luck into a good cup run even if you're doing pretty terribly in points and league rankings!)

So, pay attention to when your mini-league Cups are due to start. (It takes just a little bit of maths to work it out. Check the size of your league, find the nearest higher figure in this 'powers of 2' table [unless it's an exact match, there will need to be a preliminary round - with some players getting a 'bye' - to whittle the number down to nearest power of 2; the number of competitors being halved in each round], and then subtract the number of that power from the number of gameweeks in the season [38] and add 1 to find the number of the starting gameweek.)

And have some FUN with them!!!

A little bit of Zen (71)

 

"Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries."

James A. Michener

"The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do."

John Holt

Curious, that two of my improbable heroes (Michener, often dismissed as a mass-producer of potboiler fiction, but actually a fine writer, despite being a successful one; and Holt, an entertaining and influential writer on the philosophy and practice of education) should have had such similar thoughts on the nature of moral character.

AFCON - iceberg, or irrelevance?

Every two years the African Cup of Nations tournament in December/January causes a certain amount of disruption for our EPL/FPL season, as a host of African players depart to play for their national teams for up to a month - at a particularly busy time of year in the domestic football calendar. But this year, it's probably not going to have too much of an impact - well, for some Premier League clubs, maybe; but not for FPL managers.

Every four years, we get AFCON coinciding with the Asian Cup; so, we have then sometimes faced the horror of suddenly being without Salah and Son and Mané and Mitoma, etc. The loss of leading players from two continents could be a serious inconvenience. But you just had to remember this speed-bump was coming, and prepare for it - by limiting the number of African (and Asian) players you had in your squad, and by transferring them out before the start of the tournament(s). Really, no big deal - so long as you were aware that the tournaments were happening! Certainly, AFCON on its own, without a simultaneous Asian Cup, was never much to worry about. And it's become even easier to deal with following last year's rule-change allowing us to save up to 5 Free Transfers to use at one time. (So, FPL's further rule-change this year to gift us extra Free Transfers for AFCON in Gameweek 16 is utterly superfluous - an overkind gesture to help out managers who don't know what's going on with the international schedule.)

Moreover, this year, with Mo Salah making no impression at a suddenly struggling Liverpool, Omar Marmoush and Rayan Ait-Nouri no longer getting many minutes at City, and Ola Aina and Yoane Wissa out injured,... there really aren't many popular FPL picks affected this year.

United's Bryan Mbeumo is really the only high-owned FPL asset (currently around 36%) who's going to be departing next week.

Brighton and Everton might struggle a bit without Carlos Baleba and Idriss Gana Gueye to anchor their midfields, but no-one owns players like this in FPL.

Everton will also be without their lively forward Iliman Ndiaye, Brentford without the right side of their attacking trident, Dango Ouattara, and Manchester United are losing Amad Diallo and Noussair Mazraoui (although the latter hasn't been getting many minutes so far this season, and the former hasn't been an invariable starter under Ruben Amorim's ADHD approach to selection).

Fulham may be hard hit by the absence of defensive stalwart Calvin Bassey, veteran creative midfielder Alex Iwobi, and promising new winger Samuel Chukwueze, all in the Nigeria squad (although this should mean more minutes for players like Josh King and Emile Smith Rowe: the interesting impacts for FPL are mainly felt not in the players who disappear, but in the knock-on effects for those still here!).

West Ham will be without both of their currently favoured starting full-backs, El Hadji Diouf and Aaron Wan-Bissaka. And Sunderland might really struggle when they lose full-back Reinildo, central midfielders Noah Sadiki and Chemsdine Talbi, and wingers Simon Adingra and Bertrand Traore (not all of them have been regular starters; but Sadiki is likely to be a big miss for them). Wolves will lose centre-back Emmanuel Agbadou and attacking midfielder Marshall Munetsi. And Palace will be losing one of their top goalscorers, Ismaila Sarr.

But really - almost no-one in FPL is going to own more than Mbeumo + at most 1 or 2 of the others. AFCON is not an issue in FPL this year. (Except insofar as it's likely to have some major impacts on team form and selections, particularly at Sunderland, Fulham, and West Ham, and perhaps Manchester United.)

The extra 'good news' this year is that Ghana somehow failed to qualify for the tournament this time, so Antoine Semenyo (currently the most popular African player in FPL with over 52% ownership) and Mo Kudus (still the third most popular African player, with 16.5% ownership) will not be affected.

Here's a complete list of players involved in AFCON, and the tournament schedule, from AllAboutFPL.

REMEMBER, also, that the gift of extra transfers in Gameweek 16 is not a fixed number, but a top-up to a limit of FIVE. So, to take maximum advantage of that, we need to use up all our existing transfers by Gameweek 15 - this weekend!

As I noted the oher week, if you have multiple transfers available to use up in GW15, that could in effect be a 'mini Free Hit', as you'll have the opportunity to undo those changes straight away in the following gameweek, should you want to. And that gift of extra Free Transfers effectively makes GW16 - or one of the gameweeks immediately following - a 'mini Wildcard' opportunity.

What gives, BBC??

 

Dear Auntie Beeb, WTF is up with this??  Midweek 'Match of the Day' programmes almost never seem to be available on the iPlayer any more! Only (if we're lucky) bare highlights of individual games, with no team line-ups shown at the start, and no pundit analysis afterwards.

And no explanation is ever offered for this strange - and exasperating - omission; at least, not any very readily accessible one; at least,... not one that the ever-deteriorating Google can find. The only possibly relevant notices the Internet seems to have about the non-appearance of the full programme are generic and out-of-date FAQ answers which vaguely suggest it might be down to 'a rights issue', with no further elaboration. And sometimes the programme appears as normal; but sometimes it doesn't.  WHAT GIVES???

Now, some may object that I shouldn't really be watching the BBC iPlayer anyway, since I don't in fact live in the UK (and haven't for nearly a quarter of a century!). But come on, the BBC obviously don't really give a shit about that, because they must realise that at least two-thirds of their streaming viewership is accessing the service from other countries via VPNs (it would be easy to stop, if they wanted to; and they have, occasionally).

And, as a sometime lawyer, I don't really get this argument about 'rights issues' in other territories. Where cable and satellite services - to say nothing of the dear old Internet - are now so widely available cross-border, there can be no effective exclusivity of broadcast rights within any particular geography. And the nominal 'exclusivity' for its rebroadcast rights that the EPL sells can only meaningfully apply against rival providers in the same medium (terrestrial TV, or cable, or satellite, or streaming) as well as the same territory,... and only for the same type of content (presented for the local audience, with commentary and discussion in the native language). It is utter nonsense to suggest that anyone shouldn't have access to BBC programming in English because a TV station in a nearby country might be offering coverage of the same event in a different language.

But good grief, BBC, if you are going to randomly withold some of your programmes from the Internet - without any obvious logic or consistency - you should at least give us a NOTICE OF EXPLANATION, easily available, every single time. It's not that hard to do.

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 14

I always think of December as 'Random Month' - mounting exhaustion, dreadful weather, and a slew of unpredictable 'rest rotations' lead to some yo-yo-ing form and a lot of unexpected results - particularly in a set of midweek fixtures like this. Sure enough, here we've seen surprise wins for Leeds and Everton, and ridiculous ding-dong matches at Fulham, Brighton, and Newcastle!

Bournemouth will feel a little unlucky that they couldn't make their superiority count in a fairly dour game against Everton. Semenyo had a strong first-half shot well-parried by Pickford, and just before the break Kroupi appeared to have put the home side ahead with a slick run to the near-post, but was caught just offside by Adli's unnecessary touch on Kluivert's cross as it came through to him. It was left to Jack Grealish (of all people - he hadn't registered an attacking return, or, really, come closing to doing so, in the last 6 games!), to break the deadlock on a quick break through the middle; although he was a bit lucky to be credited with the goal, as his shot might not have been on target, and surely wouldn't have beaten Petrovic without an enormous deflection off the shin of Diakite.

At Fulham on Tuesday, Haaland looked much sharper than he had at the weekend against Leeds; but still things seemed to be not quite clicking for him at first, as he crashed an early left-foot shot against the foot of the post. But it didn't take him long to make amends, as he lashed home a Doku cross from the penalty spot. He later added a couple of assists as well (the first a nicely weighted through-ball to Reijnders, but the second merely fortuitous, as he miscontrolled a cross which then fell to Foden at the far post), to give him his second-best haul of the season so far (salt in the wounds of all those FPL managers who'd been so sorely disappointed by their Triple Captaincy bet on him on Saturday), and might indeed have had more, as he hit the woodwork again in the second-half, with a thunderous header. But having been 3-0 up in the game just before half-time, and 5-1 ahead inside 55 minutes, Pep will surely be furious with his team that they allowed the home side to claw their way back into the contest - wih stunning strikes from Iwobi and Chukwueze (twice!) - to set up a very nervous end to the game. Indeed, Fulham very nearly pulled off a record-setting comeback, with a Josh King effort in added-on time having to be lashed off by the line by a back-pedalling Gvardiol. One of the games of the season - and one that somehow furnished its own mini 'Goal of the Month' competition!

At Newcastle, Van de Ven, Richarlison, and Gordon were the rest rotations de jour. The home side were completely on top at first, with Joelinton cracking a low cross-shot against the inside of the far post. But a little later, Spurs enjoyed a little spell of pressure, and Bergvall almost nicked the lead with an impish back-heeled volley from Kudus's cross. Newcastle looked even more dominant in the second half, and will be baffled as to how they didn't manage to score more than just Guimaraes's goal - and how they were later punished with a late Spurs fightback, where two late goals from Remero, a brave stooping header at the near-post then a shinner of a bicycle-kick (that Ramsdale probably should have been able to keep out), stole two of the points from them - twice in quick succession. Newcastle had quickly regained the lead from a Gordon penalty (he'd only just come on as a substitute), but couldn't hang on to it.

Arteta didn't endear himself to the FPL community by resting the massively popular Timber and Saka here (although Timber got on at half-time, to replace Mosquera in central defence, and Saka played the last half-hour or so), and Saliba still wasn't fit to play. Also, you have to worry that the gaffer's continuing to start Merino in preference to the fit-again Gyokeres must be dampening the Swede's confidence. White and Madueke were so good here that you wonder if they might have staked a claim to a more regular start: Madueke could operate also on the left wing (displacing Eze?), but Timber would have to give way for White, who was outstanding here (for once, his BPS rating was in accord with the 'Man of the Match' award - that doesn't happen nearly often enough!). Saka's cameo was long enough to nick a late goal in added-on time; and he should really have had 2, since he'd misshit a sitter a few minutes earlier. Brentford never really got in the game here, though Arsenal were well below their best - mostly huffing and puffing to little avail, as they had against 10-man Chelsea at the weekend.

In-form Danny Welbeck was rested for the visit of Villa, and that may have cost Brighton dearly. Marco Bizot, rather bizarrely given a start in goal over Emi Martinez, immediately looked likely to be a costly decision as well, as he flapped ineffectually at an early corner to allow Van Hecke to put Brighton ahead with a free header (although Villa had a point that a corner shouldn't have been awarded, since the ball had clearly gone out off a Brighton player). Like Wirtz at Anfield, Hinshelwood was unfortunate to be denied a goal after his fine break down the left put the home side 2-0 mup; but in this case, his shot had looked well wide of the far post before Pau Torres unluckily got a toe on it to divert it past his keeper. In a bizarre ding-dong of a match, though, Villa rallied strongly, and got back in the game with a brace of goals from Ollie Watkins just before the break; the second, in the dying seconds of added-on time, rounded off a bizarre sequence of play where Konsa was convinced he'd scored from a corner, but the ref said the goalline technology hadn't indicated the ball was fully over the line, Brighton immediately broke down the other end on a quick counter, but Gruda wasted the chance, and then Pau Torres pinged a long ball over the middle to Watkins to launch a counter-counter - and the big forward did well to resist three Brighton defenders closing in around him before getting off his low shot past Verbruggen. Onana put the visitors in front by heading home a corner on the hour, and then substitute Malen (how is he not starting??) stabbed home a fourth in a goalmouh scramble. But this topsy-turvy game still wasn't done, as Van Hecke (again?!) fired in a cracker from the edge of the box in the 83rd minute to give Villa an anxious end to the game - and Bizot was able to redeem himself with a point-blank save from Welbeck's header (he'd come on as a sub for the last 20-odd minutes). For me, this was yet another game where Villa didn't really seem to have deserved the win, but things somehow broke for them at the right time

Burnley v Palace was a close-fought encounter, with the home side defending resolutely, and creating some attacking danger: Henderson needed to make a couple of smart saves, and they nearly nicked an equaliser in added-on time at the end when Henderson missed a cross under pressure from Broja, and the ball fortuitously looped off the Albanian's back towards the goal, but was cleared from the goalmouth by Chris Richards. Another goal from Munoz, emphatically converting Guehi's great early cross from the left, made the difference.

With Caicedo suspended, Maresca probably couldn't afford the luxury of resting Reece James (and Garnacho, and Estevao, and - still - Palmer), but he did anyway, and thus we saw another downward swing of the Chelsea yo-yo. Although the home side managed to stay on top in most of the possession stats, Leeds completely dominated on chances created, and might well have gone even further ahead in the first-half. However, Chelsea might feel a little aggieved that they didn't get a penalty when Struijk's clumsy slide tripped Delap just inside the box; VAR didn't even seem to consider this as a possible missed call by the refere. A goal from Neto early in the second-half briefly gave Chelsea some momentum again, although they were somewhat fortunate not to concede a third goal almost immediately from Nmecha; this time it was Leeds who might have felt rather hard done-by, as the goalscorer was penalised for having been briefly offside much earlier in the move - how many touches of the ball and repositionings of the defensive line do there have to be before we're considered to be in 'a new phase of play'?? When Leeds eventually nicked a third, after a horrendous mix-up between Tosin and Sanchez, it seemed well deserved. Palmer got on for the last half-hour, but wasn't able to make much impression for his struggling side: he had one good scoring chance, but his first-time shot went the wrong side of the near-post.

Liverpool v Sunderland was a fairly drab affair, with Trai Hume's fierce 25-yard drive needing to be tipped on to the crossbar by Alisson the only really good chance in the first-half (though Wirtz, starting to look livelier in the last few games, had earlier come close to threading the ball through Roef's legs to claim his first league goal). Salah, again omitted at the start, was introduced for the second-half, but had little impact. Sunderland in fact looked livelier and more dangerous after the break at first, and deservedly took the lead with Talbi's long-range effort - though it probably wouldn't have troubled Alisson without a substantial deflection off Van Dijk's bum. Witz did in fact get the home side back on terms fairly quickly, with a neat low shot after a weaving run - but it was rather harshly credited as an own-goal after deflecting off Mukiele's shins (harsh on both attacker and defender; I don't think you could clearly determine that the initial shot was off-target....). Liverpool then went hunting for a winner in the closing minutes, but nearly got caught on the counter by Isidor, who eventually managed to round Alisson only to be thwarted by a goal-line block by Chiesa, who'd made a heroic recovery run to get back and cover . A fine draw for Sunderland, to keep them above Liverpool in the table. But things just keep getting worse for Arne Slot: there now seems little rationale for starting either Salah or Isak, other than desperation.

Morgan Gibbs-White, who had been a doubt beforehand with an ongoing back problem, was able to start at Wolves, which no doubt helped the visitors to assert their superioriy, Igor Jesus was denied his debut goal for Forest (well, made to wait a little longer for it...) by yet another of these 'interfering with the keeper' offside decisions against Dan Ndoye: fair enough on the rules as they stand, but implementation seems inconsistent at the moment, and it's always a bit hard on the goalscorer. Neco Williams, having won a free-kick in a good position by drawing a double-foul just outside the box, decided to take it himself and brought a very good save out of Sam Johnstone at the foot of his far post. Forest's class began to tell, and they increasingly dominated through the second-half, although it wasn't until the 72nd minute that Jesus's goal finally broke the deadlock.

United fans will be peeved they could take all 3 points off struggling West Ham, but for all their dominance of possession, they didn't really produce many clearcut chances. An improvised effort from Zirkzee, again filling in as a centre-forward for the injured Sesko, guided towards goal with his thigh, was headed off the line by Wan-Bissaka, and a follow-up volley from Bruno Fernandes a few moments later grazed the outside of the post; but that was as close as they got, until Diogo Dalot, of all people, fired home from around the penalty spot on the hour mark. Amorim will no doubt be exasperated that his side couldn't defend a corner properly in the closing minutes, Mazraoui heading clear off the line but steering the ball straight to Magassa who graretfully fired it straight back in. The only mild moment of controversy in a fairly dull game appears to have been a muted appeal for a penalty for Bryan Mbeumo in the second-half: Todibo was asking for trouble for dangling a leg out in the United forward's path, but Mbeumo appeared to have jumped over the obstructing limb without making sure that he made some contact with it - and probably should have been booked for 'simulation'.

The FPL 'Team of the Week' isn't looking quite so crazy as it usually has so far this season; although only Haaland (and perhaps Foden) and the Palace defence are likely to have been in many people's line-ups. At least there doesn't seem to have been any terrible refereeing in this batch of games: although Brighton got their first goal from a corner that shouldn't have been given, and Chelsea were mysteriously denied a penalty (yet again: they really have been conspicuously abused on these decisions since the end of the 23/24 season!!); and there were also a number of dubiously attributed - non-attributed - goals that only went in with the aid of big deflections from defenders (Grealish's looked particularly questionable). Ultimaely, though, there don't seem to have been too many of the usual elements of 'LUCK' in this Gameweek - apart from the multiple rest rotations, the occasionally topsy-turvy form, and the large number of goals and unexpected results. I think all of that probably makes it just about a 6 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

The distant laughter of the Fantasy Gods....

 

On Saturday - when half the world had bet their precious Triple Captain chip on him - the great Erling Haaland played like a man who'd been heavily on the lash on Friday night....

But just three days later, he comes up with a goal and 2 assists, for what would have been a very decent return on the TC chip!!!

The pagan gods who preside over the realm of FPL are not just cruel and capricious, but fond of mockery; it is not enough for them to smash our hopes, they must then taunt us in the midst of our despair.

But really, backing Haaland against Leeds was the 'right' choice, Fulham are a way better team than Leeds, and this match was on their home ground: it was not nearly so favourable a prospect for a big haul from the lanky Viking. (But then, neither were the Bournemouth or Everton games; or even Burnley or Wolves.....! It's impossible to predict with any confidence when the big hauls are going to happen.)

The Crystal Ball revisited

 

Early in the season, I ventured some tentative predictions on where everyone would finish in the EPL this year. Now that we've just passed the one-third point of the season, I thought I should revisit these prognostications - because, of course, many of my initial speculations are looking profoundly wrong! I had, in fact, substantially revised these early expectations within just one or two more games!

I actually wrote this last week, before the Gameweek 13 round of matches had been played. But I didn't really see any reason to modify these opinions after the weekend's matches.

I'll start with probably my most controversial observation: I'm still maintaining a certain scepticism about Arsenal now being shoo-ins for the title. Although they have been superb over the last week of games (rather less so in the lucky draw against 10-man Chelsea on Sunday...), I fear that they might still hit the notorious 'Winter Wobble' - which has seemed to plague them every year under Arteta's reign. I think the return of Martin Odegaard from injury causes them some thorny problems, because Eze is much less effective out on the left (and Trossard and Martinelli and Madueke deserve time in that starting slot as well). I'm also concerned about how constipated Arteta seems to be in using squad rotation: he's not getting the best out of those left-flank players, or Mikel Merino; and we've hardly seen anything yet this year of Ben White, Ethan Nwaneri, or Myles Lewis-Skelly (players of that quality aren't going to be satisfied with token run-outs off the bench). It's also a bit disappointing - and potentially an area of weakness - that they haven't often looked likely to be very free-scoring; it would be a bit of a shame, I think, for our next champions to bore their way to the title on defensive solidity alone. I'd actually be very happy for Arsenal to win it; I've always rather liked the club, particularly in the peak Wenger era when they played such thrilling football; but I think it would be rather unsatisfying for them to claim the title by default, just because all of the other main contenders have proved to be so disappointing.

However, Arsenal's defensive superiority over everybody else is so massive at the moment that it will take a very strong challenge to topple them from the top spot, and I can't now see them finishing any lower than second. Currently, I think the likeliest team to deny them the crown are City. That's very largely down to the form of Erling Haaland, who's having his best season yet with the club (although his league form does now seem to be in a mini-slump over the last few games!): a forward who bags 30 to 35 (or 40...??) goals in a season can certainly carry you to a title. In the initial review, I said that I doubted that Pep could fix all of City's many problems and forge an effective new way of playing for them; but there are signs that he is doing so. They're still inconsistent, and often a bit careless defensively; but Donnarumma's formidable shot-stopping might possibly be salvaging some valuable extra points for them, and the more direct attacking style (long early balls to put the big Norwegian in behind to exploit his pace, and wingers actually taking on their full-backs and looking to play crosses or cut-backs into the box, rather than constantly checking back and recirculating the ball across the horseshoe) is tailored to Haaland's strengths. We still haven't seen the best of Foden (or only very intermittently....), or of Cherki, or Marmoush, or Ait-Nouri. And if Haaland picks up an injury, they're probably screwed. But at the moment, they are keeping Arteta's boys honest - and I think they might just pinch another title win.

Chelsea have been woefully inconsistent. They do lack incisiveness without Palmer pulling the strings for them, and Joao Pedro has rarely had the impact people were hoping for so far. But they are looking one of the best defensive sides, after Arsenal. And they finally seem to be on an upward trend again, after a very shakey spell over the past month or two, with Neto, Garnacho, and Estevao all looking very dangerous on occasions. With Palmer ready to play again, they might yet make a charge for the top. Although I think they probably don't quite have the experience and the strength-in-depth that they'd need to get ahead of City and Arsenal, they should be able to just about keep themselves in the conversation. However, the suspension of Caicedo for Gameweeks 14-16 could be a heavy blow for them in the run-up to Christmas.

The recent under-performance of Liverpool, Spurs, and Newcastle has enabled Bournemouth to become my highest-risers at the top of the table. I always thought they'd be able to do well this year; but at the moment, they're doing very, very well. Unfortunately, their final position probably depends more on whether those bigger clubs get their acts together than on anything they can do for themselves. But at the moment, I'm thinking that 'big club' revival might not happen, and Bournemouth might perhaps be able to cling on to a top four finish. They would be well worthy of it. I still give them a slight edge over Palace (although that's not how the table looks at the moment, after a string of disappointing/unlucky results) because I think their attacking threat is more diverse and consistent. Palace, though, may have the advantage in defence, and particularly with Henderson in goal, who's having an outstanding season. Adam Wharton is also starting to look very, very good as their central playmaker, and Yeremy Pino is proving a surprisingly capable replacement for Eze; it's only the patchy finishing of Mateta and Nketiah that's holding them back a little. Well, that and the burden of European football, which is leaving them visibly tired after each of their Conference League fixtures. (And you worry if Glasner's now coming out with open criticism of the ownership for a lack of investment in the squad last summer is an indication that he might soon be moving on.... If he departs the club mid-season, their prospects would suddenly be very much in doubt, I fear.)

Newcastle's poor start is threatening to stretch into a poor first half of the season. But I fancy that the return of Livramento and Hall from injury could be the catalyst for recovery. At least Woltemade has made an immediate impact for them. And they now finally have Wissa available to offer them some additional attacking options. If only Anthony Gordon could rediscover his best form, I think they could soon be challenging for the top six again. It would probably be a help if they could be eliminated from the Champions League as soon as possible next year.

I had major doubts about Liverpool's prospects right from the start of the season. I couldn't understand their transfer strategy over the summer - blowing huge sums of money on players for whom they seemed to have no obvious need: Wirtz, a playmaker who didn't suit their current style of play; Isak, a forward who didn't really suit their current style of play either, and seemed somewhat superfluous when they'd just bought the excellent Ekitike; and Kerkez and Frimpong, two defensively suspect attacking wing-backs who could only really be expected to prosper in something like a 3-4-3 formation. With Alisson out injured, Konate suffering a horrible dip in form, Salah now isolated out on the right flank and looking increasingly impotent, and even the great Van Dijk starting to show his age badly - the wheels have really fallen off for them now. It is such a spectacular reversal from the commanding form of last season that I'm now starting to doubt if Slot will be able to turn things around; or if the fans will trust him to be able to do so, even if he might. If the club don't start getting some good results again soon, I fear they might have to let the manager go early next year. It's very difficult to foresee where Liverpool's season will go from here: they've obviously got the quality to be able to get back into the top four, or at least the top six; but they way they're floundering at the moment, they could well slump even deeper into the bottom half of the table.

Brighton have been on a major uptick in recent weeks, with Welbeck enjoying an Indian Summer of a goal spree, and Minteh and Gomez on the flanks also being consistently dangerous. Verbruggen is looking very good in goal for them too. At the start of the season, I'd feared they'd be too inconsistent to climb into the top half, but I fancy their prospects a lot more at the moment. It's very difficult to choose between them and Sunderland (the most impressive and well-balanced promoted side we've seen in some years; although they'll surely suffer a bit of 'altitude sickness' - they're never a top four side, and will probably be lucky to hang on in or near the top ten) and Villa as the best of the rest in upper mid-table. Villa have a lot of good players, but are not playing consistently or convincingly (even when they put together a sequence of good results recently, I didn't feel they'd been playing all that well), and while the search for Watkins's missing lucky boots goes on, I don't have any great confidence about them being able to sustain their current position. Frankly, I don't quite understand what Emery's doing with them (lots of seemingly random rotations: sometimes he likes Buendia, sometimes not; sometimes he likes Maatsen, sometimes not; sometimes he likes Malen, sometimes not - it feels like the sort of desperate, unmotivated experimentation we see from Amorim rather than tactical finesse).

Spurs and Forest have been the biggest disappointments of the season so far. Forest were indeed very hard-hit by Evangelos Marinakis's foolish expulsion of Nuno Espiritu Santo at the start of the season, and the quirky, dubious choice of Ange Postecoglou ("Is it because I is Greek?") to replace him; that appointment did turn out to be an absolute disaster, but at least they rectified the error fairly promptly, and things seem to be picking up for them again under Sean Dyche. However, after such an horrendous start, and with talismanic striker Chris Wood having rather lost his way this season, they probably won't be able to drag themselves up any further than lower mid-table - where they can expect to be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Manchester United and Spurs. Thomas Frank just hasn't found his feet at his new club yet, and the injury roster certainly isn't helping; but there are worrying signs that he's finding himself out of his depth. The utterly abject performance against Arsenal the other week has tried fans' patience, and his job will be under threat if he can't start producing some wins soon. And I rather fear the turning-point of United's season was their surprise win over Chelsea in Gameweek 5. Amorim must have been on the brink of getting sacked at that point, and that one result might have saved him - which, as I said in the first prognostication, was not likely to be a good thing for the club; his rigidity of approach, insane tactical naivety at times, and the relentless, unmotivated rotations that allow the team no time to settle down with each other, are dooming United to another messy season floundering in the lower-half. Only the attacking form of Bryan Mbeumo is keeping them in mid-table at the moment; and they're about to lose him - and Amad Diallo and Noussair Mazraoui - to AFCON for up to a month, which is likely to be a massive setback for them.

Brentford, Fulham, and Everton are too inconsistent, and the first two too frail defensively, the last too limited in attacking threat, to get themselves out of the bottom third, although they shouldn't be in any danger of relegation. Curiously, Brentford and Everton and Fulham (and Leeds!) are the only teams whose ranking I have not adjusted in this second set or predictions.

As I said at the start of the year, I think Leeds are conspicuously the weakest side in the league this year, and absolutely assured of going down. I had initially had faith in the quality of Wolves's squad and in Vitor Pereira's leadership to turn around their wobbly start - but somehow things just kept getting worse and worse for them. Having thrown away points in all their early encounters with other lower-table sides, they're now facing quite a tough run of fixtures through December, and are thus unlikely to be able to initiate any sort of renaissance under Rob Edwards until next year. And they're surely too far adrift already to have any chance of survival. Avoiding the ignominy of finishing dead last, and setting a new record for the lowest-ever EPL points total, is about the most they can aim to salvage from this season now; I am still hopeful that they can achieve that. The other relegation spot looks likely to be contested between Burnley and West Ham. I'd like to see another promoted side stay up, but West Ham had the sense to get rid of the ineffectual Graham Potter fairly quickly, and their prospects are immediately looking rather better under Nuno. With Callum Wilson now coming back into scoring form, they could in fact shoot up towards mid-table. But I don't feel that their squad overall is really strong enough to deserve to rise above many other teams, and surviving-by-the-skin-of-their-teeth would be a pretty good outcome after the way they started the season. For now, though, I'm still going to have a sentimental bet on Burnley.

So,..... here's my revised set of predictions (with position changes from my original forecast shown in red):

I hope these hold up a bit better than my first attempt!!

They probably won't; football is such an unpredictable game. I'll return to this for a final review as we enter the run-in to the end of the season in late February.

It's NEVER a binary

 

Well, almost never.

Any time you think a selection decision comes down to a straight EITHER/OR choice - you're almost certainly being naive, superficial, way oversimplifying things.

You're probably missing something important - and perhaps relatively obvious; but you've somehow developed a blind spot for it!

Even if you think you've narrowed down the final decision to a choice between two alternatives, starting from a larger pool of options, there's a danger that you've dismissed some of those other options too easily, without giving them full consideration. And you've very likely to have overlooked some possibilities altogether.

We see this most commonly with the captaincy pick: people very often ask on online forums, "Should I give the armband to x or y this week?" And it should never be that simple. Even over the past few years, when Salah and Haaland have been so dominant, and mostly so consistent, that they have offered a strong captaincy option in almost every gameweek,.... they've actually fairly seldom been the best one. If you have a decent squad, there should almost always be at least 4 or 5 possibilities for your captaincy, often more; don't narrow your focus down to the 'big names' too quickly!

The field is usually even broader with transfers: there are almost always several members of your squad you might consider swapping out, and several new players you might consider to replace any of them. By all means, winnow these options down to a more manageable number; but don't be in a mad rush to do so. Keep your mind as open as possible, for as long as possible.

[Now, at the start of this season, we did seem to be faced with one clear binary choice: Haaland and Salah were the only two super-premium players in the game this year, but priced way too high for us to reasonably afford both of them (at least, at the very start of the season, when budget is a bit tight - and we all thought we'd want Saka, Palmer, Cunha as well,... and maybe even Watkins or Gyokeres,... and perhaps Isak too, before long....). But, given their propensity to both start the season really hot, we probably did regard having one of them as essential; and we had to choose between them.

That was a very rare example of a selection decision being a genuine binary. But..... even there, perhaps there were other possibilities we should have given some more thought to: maybe we could have tried to do without either of them??  Maybe we should have done without Saka, Palmer etc. instead, and beggared the squad to squeeze in both of them?? I thought not; but I did give it careful consideration.]

Triple unhappiness!

 

Oh dear, the great Triple Captain play on Erling Haaland this weekend (Gameweek 13 of our 25/26 EPL/FPL season) really went BADLY.

But in times of tribulation like this, it is good to try to mainain a sense of perspective.

For one thing, an awful lot of people were in the same boat: the great majortiy of still active managers in the game were probably playing the chip in this gameweek. 

And things could have been so much worse. He might have felt an injury in the warm-up and not even started. He might have got injured, or just been subbed off early by Pep, before the 60-minute mark. (And we should feel especially grateful every time a favourite player escapes a serious injury in a game, not for the impact that might have on our FPL points hopes, but for the man himself - and for the fact that we have not been denied the pleasure of watching him play for the rest of the season, or a big chunk of it.) He might have been given a yellow card, or perhaps even a red one. (Not very likely with Haaland: his disciplinary record is very good. But you never know.... Weird shit happens sometimes!)

It is quite common for captain and Triple Captain picks in FPL to register only 1 point or 0 points in a game - or even, occasionally, negative points.

So, the Haaland TC play this weekend, while very, very disappointing, was not an utter disaster. Those happen too; and this wasn't one of them. Perspective.

It was not even a particularly unlikely - and thus should not have been a completely unexpected - outcome. Captain and Triple Captain picks are going to return a blank somewhere between 1-in-2 and 1-in-3, even at the best.

When Fate shits on you like this, all you can do.... is hope that you're going to get a 1-in-3 unusually good outcome next year!

How did the Free Hit work out this weekend??

I've seen various figures online suggesting that between 1 and 1.5 million FPL managers might have played their first Triple Captain chip on Erling Haaland in this Gameweek 13 just past (although I don't think FPL has released an official total yet; these are all probably just estimates; I'm rather surprised that the number isn't much higher). But a very significant number of people - probably some hundreds of thousands at the very least - opted to play their Free Hit chip instead.

Did that work out for them??

Well, of course, your mileage will vary....

But on the whole, I'd venture.... NO.

Many GW13 Free Hitters online are just comparing themselves to the disastrous Haaland Triple Captain play. Of course, anything was better than that.

But that's not how these things work. You have to compare like with like (Triple Captain option against Triple captain option, Free Hit against Free Hit): how did the GW13 Haaland Triple Captain play work out compared to other gameweeks in which you might have used (or could still use) the chip on him, or on another high-scoring player; and how well did the Free Hit work out this weekend - in terms of the points-lift it gave you over the team you had anyway - in comparison to other gameweeks in which you might play it?

Quite a few people who did well from their Free Hit this gameweek have posted scores up in the mid-60s and low 70s, which is pretty good for this (very low-scoring) week. But as I scan around my leagues, I don't find the upper reaches of this week's ranking dominated by Free Hitters. A lot of people got scores in the 70s with their regular team. (And a lot of people don't even bother to do this elementary calculation. If their Free Hit team returned a pretty respectable points total, they feel satisfied with that; and they don't go to the trouble of working out what their regular team would have got - much less factoring in the possible impact of one or two regular transfers to improve that regular team for this set of fixtures. If your Free Hit squad didn't actually give you any more points than your unchanged squad might have done, then it was a bust!)

In order to get good returns from the Free Hit (or Bench Boost) chip - at least in general terms, for the majority of people playing it in a particular gameweek, rather than for just a few execeptionally lucky managers - you need plenty of high-scoring players and plenty of good player returns and match results that were fairly readily predictable. 

And, unfortunately, this gameweek just didn't turn out like that: a lot of matches followed an unexpected course. Brentford eventually got an anticipated 'big win' against Burnley, but really had to struggle for it, and all the goals only came very late in the game; City nearly lost to Leeds, Bournemouth did lose to Sunderland, and Spurs and Palace both lost at home to less formidable opponents, while Villa and Liverpool were lucky to beat their bottom-of-the-table opponents at all, and didn't rack up the margin of victory expected. Even Newcastle weren't predicted to get a win away from home, let alone a big win, against the usually defensively strong Everton. And almost no-one managed to keep a clean sheet.

So, most teams didn't get the sort of results that were generally expected, and few players returned particularly good hauls. In fact, of the most fancied players - both among existing selections and among those transferred in on a Free Hit - almost no-one produced a good return this week; most of them blanked. Only a few members of the 'Team of the Week' have any significant ownership, and probably weren't any more popular in Free Hit selections than they are in existing squads (while the best of this week's forwards, Igor Thiago, was in a lot of squads already, without a Free Hit).

So, unfortunately, this turned out not to be a great week for the Free Hit - because it wasn't easy to anticipate who would bring in good points, not very many players did bring in really good points; and there wasn't any major difference in points returns between 'Free Hit players' and 'regular team players' in this frustrating gameweek with such exceedingly low average scores.

That does not mean it was a bad week in which to choose to play the Free Hit. The combination of fixtures did look promising for it. But the eccentric and unexpected game outcomes and the low points returns from most of the more fancied players meant that it ended up being a bad week to have played it in - for most people. (But it might still prove to be better than nothing; it might yet end up having been the least worst option in a bunch of gameweeks that will all disappoint in various ways!)

There were, however, (as there usually are!) a few player choices that worked out pretty well - if you didn't have them already, but brought them in on a Free Hit. It's the managers who lucked into these picks who enjoyed the 70+ points returns on their Free Hit play this week. 

Liverpool, Villa, and Brighton were the only teams to keep clean sheets (rather unexpectedly, and in the case of the first two, really rather luckily), so taking a keeper or defenders from any of those three teams worked out well. Aston Villa seemed to be a particularly popular choice among the Free Hitters; although Rogers and Malen didn't work out for them, while Martinez and Cash did.

Cody Gakpo and Phil Foden were also strangely popular Free Hit choices - despite having shown few indications of likely FPL points-scoring in recent games; Foden, in particular, often now being played in a slightly deeper role, had recorded a long string of blanks and often been fairly anonymous in City's games in the past couple of months. But they both came up with goals - goals their sides scarcely deserved on the balance of play, goals in added-on time. That's LUCK right there! There was no compelling rationale for including either of those two players in a Free Hit selection. Honestly, they looked obviously rather less tempting picks than teammates of theirs in the most impressive form recently - Doku, Cherki, Szoboszlai. Brentford's Dango Ouattara was also up there among the week's most successful Free Hit picks; but there was a stronger rationale for fancying him against a defensively frail team like Burnley, especially given Brentford's strong recent home form - although, again, Schade or Damsgaard might have seemed the more promising midfield options from that club (and many FPL managers will have had one of those three already).

So, people who'd gone for Villa (or Liverpool or Brighton) defensive assets and Foden and/or Gakpo and/or Ouattara with their Free Hit changes did pretty nicely for themselves with the chip in Gameweek 13. But they were a fairly small minority. And even they didn't do conspicuously any better than a large number of good non-Free Hitters.

On balance, a Free Hit play this weekend certainly wasn't the abject disaster that the Haaland Triple Captaincy was, but.... that's damning with faint praise. It really didn't work out at all well either.