Dilemmas of the Week - GW16 (25/26)

Not many major new injuries seem to have emerged from this week's European games (but suspensions, especially for accumulated yellow cards, will be a hazard throughout this month), although there are a bothersome number of nebulous 'doubts' - which I feel are even more of a hassle than definite exclusions, because of the complete uncertainty about whether they'll start. Unfortunately, this is not feeling like a good gameweek for a Bench Boost (or even the Free Hit!) because of this. 

And although the European competitions are out of the way for six weeks now, there may still be an increased risk of rotations at Chelsea, Manchester City, Brentford, Newcastle and Fulham, who are all involved in League Cup Quarter-Finals next week, (Arsenal and Crystal Palace don't play their q-f until the Tuesday before Christmas.)

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 16?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Jurrien Timber supposedly picked up a knock last weekend which resulted in him being a late withdrawal from the midweek game against Brugge; very uncertain whether he'll be OK to start against Wolves on Saturday - and if he can't, Arsenal are getting stretched dangerously thin in central defence (is there a chance Rice or Norgaard might have to deputise there??). Declan Rice also missed the Brugge game because of illness, but the man is a tank and will probably bounce back straight away....?  Young Max Dowman has also picked up an ankle injury in training this week, which sounds moderately serious; he hadn't been getting many minutes so far anyway, but it's unfortunate that he now can't be involved at all until perhaps the end of January.

Emi Martinez suffered a recurrence of his niggling back-strain this week, and had to drop out of the squad for Thursday's game against Basel (and his understudy Marco Bizot really did not impress in that one). And Pau Torres suffered a calf-strain in that game, which looks likely to keep him out this weekend - Villa too are getting stretched very thin at the back; with Mings still unavailable, presumably Victor Lindelof will finally get a chance.

Marcos Senesi had to come off against Chelsea last week, feeling some tightness in his quad muscle - unclear how bad that is, Iraola was trying to be upbeat about it; but yet another 'doubtful' starter for this gameweek.

Liam Delap had to come off against Bournemouth last time after landing heavily on his right shoulder: nothing broken or dislocated apparently, but still likely to be out for a few weeks (he hadn't been playing very well anyway, and Marc Guiu really deserves a run of starts in his place; although if Palmer is now starting in the middle, Joao Pedro might shift back into a more conventional No. 9 spot). Wesley Fofana is also a doubt, having had to come off with vision problems after being kicked in the face in Tuesday's defeat at Atalanta; it sounds like it was bruising around the eye that was the problem rather than a concussion, but the 'protocols' might still be in play - and even the eye problem might not be trivial: another big doubt for the weekend. Cole Palmer was omitted from the trip to Italy, but that appears to have been merely precautionary, as he's feeling his way back from a long absence; he lasted nearly an hour against Bournemouth last week, and appeared to be moving easily.

Daniel Munoz had to have surgery on the 'minor' knee problem that unexpectedly kept him out of last week's game: probably just a cartilage issue, as he's apparently expected back in just a month or so. Jean-Philippe Mateta was omitted from Thursday's Conference League match in Ireland due to an ongoing knee niggle, but Glasner doesn't seem to think it will keep him out of the City match.

Ryan Sessegnon missed the Palace game last week because of a hamstring strain suffered in training; not too serious, but going to keep him out this week as well.

Cody Gakpo suffered a muscle injury of some kind against Leeds last week, and is now expected to be out for some weeks. At least this eases much of the uncertainty around Slot's selections: presumably Isak is now safe for a while as the No. 9 (and that might give him the confidence to rediscover his form of last year?), while the much better Ekitike can be guaranteed a regular start on the left, and Wirtz will operate more centrally - where he's likely to be more dangerous. Back-up midfielder Endo Wattara has also suffered an ankle injury in training, which will make him unavailable for a while.

John Stones has suffered yet another leg muscle problem, and is likely to be out for some weeks. He's only been a very occasional starter for City anyway; but this is an unfortunate setback for his England hopes.

Matthijs de Ligt missed last week with a back problem, and seems to be still not right now. Benjamin Sesko was apparently ready to be considered for a return after being out for over a month with a knee problem, but somehow came down with a bout of food poisoning this week. (The things people will do to avoid playing for Ruben Amorim...!!)

Joelinton had to come off in the midweek game against Leverkusen with a groin strain. Will that mean another start for Lewis Miley - or Joe Willock?

Matz Sels has also been suffering with a tight groin and was rested for the Europa League match against Utrecht - but Dyche is hoping he'll be OK again for the weekend.

Destiny Udogie missed last week's game against Brentford, and it's now been confirmed he has a hamstring strain which will keep him out for at least a few weeks.

Two of Wolves's more dangerous players, Jean-Ricner Bellegarde and Marshall Munetsi, both suffered muscle injuries in Monday's game against United, and look likely to miss at least the next six weeks.

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

Sunderland's Luke O'Nien is beginning a three-match ban for a 'serious foul play' red card last week against City. Moises Caicedo and Lewis Cook are serving the last part of their three-match bans this week. Burnley's Lucas Pires has a one-match ban for his 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' offence against Newcastle. And their occasional midfielder Hannibal has just received a four-match ban for spitting at Leeds supporters in a game back in October.

Riccardo Calafiori, Kyle Walker, Kevin Schade, and Conor Bradley are the latest players to be suspended for picking up a fifth yellow card of the season. Here are the other players now getting close to a 'totting up' suspension.

Mo Salah has reportedly had 'peace talks' with Arne Slot; but given the extent of the rift between them, it seems unlikely that these can achieve much. In fact, Mo's latest mutterings seem to be suggesting that he'll only be turning up at Anfield today to 'say goodbye' to the fans. He hasn't been remotely worth having for FPL this season anyway; but, sadly, it does rather look as if his time at Liverpool is over.

It was widely expected that players competing in the African Cup of Nations tournament would have to depart at some point during the last week; but, after much manoeuvring behind the scenes as clubs have lobbied hard for players to be allowed to stay with them as long as possible, FIFA seems to have decided that their clubs don't have to release them until Monday 15th December, less than a week before the tournament kicks off. (And Manchester United have crowbarred themselves a further dispensation that will allow their trio of Mbeumo, Diallo, and Mazraoui to remain with them for their game against Bournemouth on Monday evening.) So,... none of these players should be missing this weekend. But we'll lose quite a few for Gameweek 17.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

As I predicted some weeks ago, Ebere Eze looks to have been instantly marginalised by Martin Odegaard's return; he's much less significantly involved if having to start out on the left - and last week was so ineffectual against Villa that he was replaced by Trossard at half-time.

Jean-Philippe Mateta, as I also foresaw, has been pretty unimpressive of late; and there are certainly a number of far stronger forward options you might replace him with.

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

Fulham players are suddenly becoming very appealing assets, because of their upcoming trio of 'gimme' fixtures; Harry Wilson is the most-favoured option there, but as a possible alternative, I particularly like the prospects for Emile Smith Rowe - and also United's Mason Mount, and Newcastle's Tino Livramento and Lewis Hall.

Phil Foden is on a hot streak, of course; but those tend to burn out very quickly - and he has become rather over-popular. I still fancy Jeremy Doku or Rayan Cherki (although he was chided by Pep last week for his impudent Rabona cross to set up Foden's headed goal!!) as potentially stronger picks from City for the long-term.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

Picks of the Week (7)

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.....)

Now, these ideas for Gameweek 16 of this season are perhaps even more speculative than usual.... I reiterate that none of the prospects I tend to discuss in this series are categorically unmissable opportunities, they're more intriguing possibilities that are perhaps being unduly overlooked. And there may be more of those than usual this week because so many people are using up all or most of their AFCON Free Transfer bonanza straight away - making this one of the busiest weeks of transfer activity in the whole season (very probably the busiest!); and yet there are a relative handful of 'most popular transfers' dominating that activity so far, and it doesn't include any of these guys. I am not trying to say my trio below are 'better' than any of those many much, much more popular picks; but I do think they are worth some consideration.

So, first up, I give you Mason Mount. Of course, the reservations about him would be the fact that he's playing for Manchester United, who, though greatly improved this season, are still showing rather inconsistent and unconvincing form; that form might well get even worse when they lose their - so far - only consistent goal-threat in Mbeumo, and one of their most potentially game-changing creative talents in Amad Diallo to AFCON next week; and lastly, of course, his terrible injury record since joining the club has undermined a lot of people's faith in his being able to stay fit for any length of time (or his being able to inspire his manager to trust him with regular minutes). But to counter that, I would say that we know from his performances at Chelsea - and for United, whenever he's managed a start - just how good he can be; and he has looked absolutely on fire recently, scoring a goal in each of his two recent starts for United. Moreover, I think the AFCON departures actually work in his favour: the most obvious slot for him to slip into is as a replacement for Mbeumo in the right-sided 'deep attacker' role; and the only other person who can really fill that slot is Diallo. So, if he can stay fit, he's pretty much guaranteed a start, I think; and probably in the role that gives him the most opportunity to register attacking contributions. And the fixtures are quite encouraging: a very nice run of Wolves, Leeds, and Burnley over the holidays, but recently faltering Bournemouth up next could be a good opportunity too, and Villa and Newcastle aren't too daunting either: Villa have been 'over-performing' dramatically, and are due for a stutter, while Newcastle usually struggle a bit away from home.

Next.... I rather fancy Emile Smith Rowe from Fulham as well. As with Mount, the main problem with him is his poor injury record in the last couple of seasons, and his shortage of starts so far this year, which have raised questions not only about his resilience to knocks, but more generally about his stamina and fitness (it may just be an unfortunate quirk of his physiognomy that he almost always looks just slightly overweight for a professional footballer....). But also like Mount, he has looked absolutely on fire in his last couple of outings for the club, and has an opportunity now to get much more regular gametime, with Alex Iwobi about to head off to AFCON. Moreover, it would appear that he's likely to be used in a central creative role, the kind of 'No. 10' space where he really thrives,... and that he's also now looking to break into the box with late runs pretty often, which may give him the opportunity to pick up quite a few goals as well as assists. This might be only a short-term punt, and I do have worries about how badly Fulham's already precarious form may suffer with the sudden loss of not only Iwobi but also Bassey and Chukwueze to the Nigeria squad, but.... their next three fixtures look very inviting: Burnley, Forest, and West Ham. The most popular Fulham transfer in FPL this week has been Harry Wilson, and I can see the appeal: he's been a fairly regular starter this year, and has been in pretty consistently outstanding form - with slightly better than one attacking contribution per two starts, including a few absolute bangers of goals. But he's had 335,000 Fantasy managers buy him this week, compared to less than 13,000 so far for Smith Rowe; and that's an unreasonable imbalance - it implies that people are just jumping on a bandwagon without fully considering the possible alternatives. As I said in this key post on the real meaning of 'differential' back at the start of this season, it is a mistake to suppose that there's any advantage in simply favouring less popular, lower-owned players in FPL; but.... if there's really nothing objectively to choose between two possible picks, then ownership level should be the tiebreaker. And I really believe that Smith Rowe's prospects in the next few gameweeks look just about as good as Wilson's, and possibly just a little bit better - but no-one's on him at the moment!

Finally, with Arsenal currently missing their three first-choice centre-backs to injury (which makes their remaining defenders slightly less secure picks than before; and Calafiori's missing with suspension this week too!), and Palace likely to be without their hugely influential right wing-back Daniel Munoz for at least a month, there's suddenly the scope to try out one or two new options in an FPL defence - and Newcastle full-back Tino Livramento looks like a very appealing possibility. He has looked absolutely sensational since his return from injury a month ago, and has helped to transform the performances of the entire team; he hasn't recorded any FPL returns yet, but that's surely just a matter of time. I am hesitant to back his team in their next game, as the North-East derby can be particularly volatile, and Sunderland this year are looking a really solid team; but they then have Manchester United, Burnley, Leeds, and Wolves in the next 5 weeks - one of the better fixture runs for any team at the moment. I do feel, though, that it's really a bit of a toss-up between him and his left-back teammate, Lewis Hall. Hall, for me, can be even more of an attacking prospect, but.... he doesn't always get so far forward down that flank, because Gordon and Barnes like to stay wide in the final third; and he's more recently back from injury, might not yet be trusted with heavy minutes in the packed holiday schedule.

So - there you have it: my 'Early Christmas Present' - 3 rather less expected 'ones to watch' over the coming weeks!

A little bit of Zen (72)

 

"Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures."

 

Jessamyn West

“Friction reveals truths that lubricant obscures.”

GW

I am never one to back down from an argument...  'Productive dialogue' is always good, I feel; even if it leaves blood on the floor.

Oh, she said 'fiction'? That just makes the joke better.... Still TRUE, though.

[I know, I know: some of these weekly aphorisms are a lot less 'Zen' than others.]

Just because you CAN, it doesn't mean you SHOULD

 

This applies particularly to transfer decisions in FPL: even if you feel there's a really pressing need to use a transfer to make a change right now, there's very likely to be an even more valuable use of it a little later on. Being able to use 2 or more transfers at once can be enormously powerful in expanding the scope of your possible changes and allowing major reallocations of budget.

But this doesn't apply only when using 1 or 2 transfers; it's just as true when making multiple changes at once. You need to be really, really sure that they are all immediately essential - because they're almost certainly not! The possibility of saving some of them for a further multiple change a little later on should not be overlooked.

We are seeing a particularly striking instance of this phenomenon just at the moment, because of the FPL Gnomes' over-generous - pointless - Early Christmas Gift of extra free transfers (supposedly to help tide us over AFCON: a very minor problem for which such additional help is completely unnecessary), so that we all now have a full complement of 5 saved transfers.

Many FPL managers have immediately blown the whole lot in one fell swoop. As I have commented recently on a few of the forums: Some of these extra transfers will almost certainly be more useful at some point in the future. Unlike the first Wildcard (and the extra Free Hit we've been given for the first time this year), this AFCON 'mini-Wildcard' has no time-limit, it can be rolled forward indefinitely... into the next half of the season. 

And keeping at least 1 or 2 of these transfers short-term, to cover a possible winter injury crisis or bad weather postponement, would be more valuable than an immediate splurge of impulse shopping. The thing that saves most people from over-indulging in chasing last week's points through silly 'sheep picks' is that they only have 1 or 2 transfers to use at a time. Doling out 5 at once was an especially inventive piece of cruelty from the FPL Gnomes, a damaging temptation that will just lead a lot of people into making rash and needless changes.

Using up 2 or 3, or maybe even 4 of these windfall transfers straight away would have been fine; but not keeping at least 1 or 2 of them in hand for a rainy day (or a snowy one, or a windy one...), literal or metaphorical, is likely to end in regrets.

And of course, the problem with choosing instant gratification over the delayed alternative is that we know rationally that the delayed gratification will be better for us,... but we can't resist the emotional satisfaction of indulging ourselves right now.

This is a hazard in FPL with playing the Bonus Chips as well: it is very easy to drop them on the first vaguely promising fixture that comes along. But the further into the season you get, the surer you can feel about your players' form and prospects (whether your preferred Triple Captain candidate, or your entire team/squad for the Bench Boost), and about the likely form of all the clubs and the likely outcome of their fixtures. And the nearer you get to the end of the window of availability of use for a chip, the more confident you can be that there are unlikely now to be many - or any - better options in which to play it in the future. Picking an optimum gameweek in which to use a Bonus Chip is very, very difficult; but it's almost never going to be in the opening month or two of the season.

Try to learn the value of waiting....

A bad outcome does not mean it was a BAD DECISION

 

FPL managers have an unfortunate tendency to judge their decisions - and everyone else's - only by the points outcomes that follow from them.

But exact points outcomes are unpredictable, very largely a matter of luck: unknowable before the event.

Therefore, they offer no help to you in refining your decision-making process. And only by doing that, can you hope to improve at the game - and gain more satisfaction in it.

If you were careful, thorough, open-minded and self-aware, and above all well-informed in your deliberations about a selection decision - then it was a good decision, the best decision you could have made in the circumstances.... regardless of the outcome. THAT is all that matters.

Some 'good decisions' in FPL don't pay off; some can turn out wretchedly badly. It doesn't mean they were 'bad decisions'. Whereas many selections that are made hastily, impulsively, based on sentiment or superstition, made in disregard of contrary data or more promising alternative options,.... can produce big points returns: that does not retroactively make them 'good' decisions. They were terrible decisions.... that got undeservedly LUCKY.

It is the quality of the decision-making process, not its ultimate outcome, that is important.

Many will object, "But, oh, how can you say the outcomes are not important? The game is all about how many points you get!"  Yes, indeed. But the thing here is that we have to believe there is ultimately some justice in the game (and there is; not as much as we'd like, but some) and that good decision-making will, over the long run, be more rewarded than bad, impulsive, ill-informed decision-making.

So, you should concentrate on the process. If you become more self-aware about how you make your decisions, you start making better decisions. And better decisions, over time, mostly will produce better results.

If you just make wild bets, chase hunches, follow 'sheep' trends, back your favourite player even when their form has tanked, or succumb to believing in daft superstitions like "Haaland always scores on a Tuesday!" or whatever,.... you might do well occasionally; but you'll never get any better.

In fact, letting yourself get over-excited about poor decisions that brought improbably good results can lead you into further bad habits. That is something you need to be very wary of. All superstitions grow out of doing something dumb that worked once. And all superstitions are ultimately BAD.

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'

.

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.)