A little bit of Zen (17)

 

“Wise men don’t judge – they seek to understand.” 

Wei Wu Wei  (pen-name of wealthy English eccentric, and enthusiast of Taoism, Terence Gray)

The NEW United?

I had been thinking of doing a quick post on what I think United's lineup might start to look like under new coach, Ruben Amorim, but - as so often - I find I am in almost complete agreement with FourFourTwo's excellent analyst Adam Clery.

The only thing I'd add here is that I can really see Zirkzee thriving as one of the 'twin 10s' (at the expense of Rashford...).

But, as Adam points out, there's sufficient depth in the United squad that Amorim has the scope to try different players in different positions, and perhaps vary the selection occasionally according to his opponent. With this level of uncertainty, I feel it's hugely risky to take on any United assets at the moment, even the mercurial Bruno. (Onana might be the one exception.)

I had thought Amorim might have to move away from his tried-and-trusted '3-4-3' in order to better fit the personnel he finds at Old Trafford; but early training-ground videos apparently show him working on that formation. The main reason I thought Amorim might have to drop this approach, or only phase it in slowly, was that it might be difficult - undiplomatic - to drop Garnacho and Diallo, who have been United's two most dangerous players so far this season. They are likely to be the main casualties of the new tactical set-up, since it doesn't really have any place for conventional wingers. Although it's commonly billed as a 3-4-3 formation, it's actually more a 3-4-2-1, with the 'wide' attackers actually playing fairly narrow, dropping in behind the main forward as support strikers or dual 'No. 10s'; while the wide midfielders are wing-backs, for which defenders with some attacking capability will be favoured (although Antony, whose defensive numbers are very impressive, might get a look-in here).

I also wonder if Mazraoui might be somewhat at risk, since he's newer to United, and perhaps a bit less adaptable than Dalot (who has plenty of experience playing on either flank for the club), and a bit less of an attacking threat. The Moroccan's start looks safe for now; but when Shaw and Malacia are available again on the left, I can see Dalot switching sides and becoming the preferred starter at right wing-back.

This will be bad news for some FPL managers, since (until the recent surge of optimism about Bruno), Mazraoui and Garnacho are the two most selected players from United. Oops...

Sheep Picks (6)

 

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

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

Bruno Fernandes is a fantastic player, certainly. And he just bagged a goal and two assists against Leicester before the international break (and was unlucky that it wasn't 2 goals, 1 assist). But... that doubled his tally of attacking returns for the season! And even that monster 17-point haul only got him up to a fairly modest 50 point total (Salah, remember, is already past 100!).

He, and United, have had a really poor season so far. He's massively under-performing his expected goal involvements, and has seen his ownership drop steadily every week - until he got that goal against Chelsea at the start of the month. Now, suddenly, 300,000 managers have rushed in for him again.

As I warned here, sentiment plays a large part in a 'sheep pick' like this: Bruno is a very well-liked player (even when he isn't playing that well) and Manchester United continues to be a massively popular club worldwide (despite having become a comical calamity for the past decade-and-a-bit); so, any slight pretext to take some encouragement about their prospects is latched on to rather over-eagerly.

And when people wax lyrical about what a great FPL player Bruno is, they're allowing themselve to don the distorting, rosy-tinted goggles of nostalgia for a distant heyday. Yes, he was absolutely sensational in his first season-and-a-half at Old Trafford. But then he really lost his way towards the end of 2021: his productivity has fallen off a cliff over the following three seasons, dropping to literally half of what it was in his debut full season (OK, in points terms, down by about 40%). In some ways, it's even worse than that, because while his returns from penalties have held up pretty well, and he still gets the occasional pinger of a free-kick, his goals from open play have dwindled to almost nothing. (And he started to pick up a lot more yellow cards too...)

Bruno, has, unfortunately become one of FPL's  most notorious under-performers. He's in a similar zone to Son, whose occasional huge hauls make him sometimes a tempting pick, but whose lack of consistency can be very damaging: with Bruno, you have to be resigned to sometimes enduring long runs of poor returns. (In fact, he's rather less appealing than Son, because he generally manages fewer really big hauls in a season.... and almost never bags one in successive gameweeks.)

I discern two further reasons for this sudden flood of enthusiasm for the United captain:

1) The myth of the 'new manager bounce' - the optimistic delusion that a change of manager always produces an immediate improvement in form. NO, it does not; not always. 

And, in terms of a profound structural change to a more positive attitude and a more successful tactical approach, that's going to take weeks - at least - to bed in. People may point to how quickly Arne Slot has managed to get Liverpool back to the top of the table; but he did benefit considerably from having a very easy run of fixtures at the start of the season. And he'd had the whole of pre-season to work with his players. And he was starting from a good position, with Klopp having built a culture of success at the club - which he could seek to adapt and improve on further, but didn't need to rebuild from scratch. Manchester United have been building a culture of failure for the last 10 years, and it's going to be a much, much harder job for Ruben Amorim to start putting that right. (Frankly, they just don't look like they have the players to finish any better than 8th or 9th, even with a big uptick in performance. They don't even really merit comparison with the currently disappointing Villa or Spurs, or the impressively over-performing Brighton and Forest; they're more on the level of Bournemouth and Fulham.)

An immediate lift in performance, when it does happen, is usually very short-lived - and is probably more properly attributed to the sense of relief among the players at having escaped from an unpopular/unsuccessful manager than to anything the new man has yet accomplished. That being the case, Ruud van Nistelrooy has probably already reaped all or most of the likely benefit of any post-Ten Hag 'bounce'.

While I am quietly optimistic about what Amorim might achieve at Old Trafford (he is, by some margin, the best appointment they've made since Fergie retired), the transitional period might be protracted and painful. He doesn't have a great squad of players to work with, and they're not all a great fit for the tactical set-up he's used at Sporting. 

While new managers sometimes bring a short-lived boost to a team on first joining, they also bring a lot of uncertainty. So, the change of manager this week should really make people more cautious about buying Bruno, rather than more enthusiastic.

2)  An exaggerated optimism about how 'easy' a win they'll get against Ipswich (away!). Remember how that went for Spurs last week? Ipswich are a decent side, dogged in defence, and dangerous on the counter. It could be a very tricky baptism for Amorim.

Moreover, as with a number of these 'sheep picks' I've analysed already, people seem to be fatally ignoring questions of wider context in rushing for Bruno now.

First, United have a pretty daunting fixture run up until the winter break: Arsenal, City, and Liverpool in quick succession, all away; and Forest, Bournemouth, and Newcastle at home probably won't be any picnic for them.

Second, you might want to keep a squad slot and a chunk of budget for the returning Martin Odegaard or Kevin DeBruyne. They are much more consistent playmakers and part of title-challenging sides, and should clearly take priority over Bruno if they can recover even 60% or 70% of their best form.

BONUS CHIPS - who needs them?

 

I dislike FPL's 'bonus chips' - for me, they are an unncessary gimmick, just a further randomising element in a game that is already plenty random enough.

And they are a relatively recent innovation, only being introduced into the game for the first time in the 2015-2016 season.

Even the best players won't manage a double-digit haul much more than once every three or four games on average across the season; and they'll probably 'blank' (i.e., produce nothing beyond basic appearance points), or only return a very low score, at least one game in every three. So, you won't get a really good haul from your regular captaincy pick more than one week in three (unless you're very, very lucky). And even when you do, it's unlikely to be your best haul of the week - because, if you have a good squad, there are usually at least 5 or 6 potential candidates for the captaincy (and very often one of your other squad players will surprise you with an outstanding week, while all the 'usual suspects' falter....). So, even getting the captaincy choice 'right' for an individual gameweek is largely a matter of luck, something that only comes good for you perhaps 20% to 30% of the time.

Now, there are certain fixtures where you might reasonably expect your star player to have a particularly high chance of a big score (and a particularly low chance of a poor score); but in practice, it doesn't often work out like that. I don't think the 'soft fixtures' actually produce significantly better outcomes most of the time. The odds in your favour are, hopefully, slightly enhanced if you choose your fixture to play the Triple Captain chip wisely, but you're still probably more likely to be disappointed than pleased with the outcome; and things can go very badly wrong. (Last year, I bet on Haaland against Bournemouth. The Viking was in smokin' form, and Bournemouth had started the season dreadfully, were deep in the relegation zone and conceding goals every week. This week, of course, was the week they suddenly began to turn things around. And our Erling apparently picked up an injury mid-way through the first half, and didn't reappear after the break - although it looked very much as if he might have been carrying some problem from the start, as he was completely off his game. The most in-form player in the league at the time faces one of the weakest defences.... and comes away with 1 point! Shit like this happens in our game all too often....)

And yet, at the other extreme, you might once-in-a-blue-moon (I mean, once every decade... or two....) happen to pick the week in which your favourite captaincy choice produces a monster haul for your TripleCap!! Even more galling, there are some people who seem to play the chip completely randomly on some not particularly fancied player... who produces a blinder out-of-the-blue - like Noni Madueke in Gameweek 2 of this season. Yep, it all too often happens that someone can take a wild punt on a frankly idiotic choice for the chip, and come away with 50, 60 or 70-odd points. There's little skill in it, little justice, just a huge amount of randomness.... and LUCK!

The Bench Boost chip isn't much better. You can identify gameweeks which seem auspicious to play it because of their heavy density of unbalanced fixtures, and perhaps even a good number of double-fixtures ('big' Double Gameweeks can indeed offer a significant lift to your Bench Boost return; but there aren't many of them to aim for - well, only ONE this year! - and it's a risk to wait until the very end of the season for this chance to play the chip); and you might even carefully 'set up' for them, with judicious use of transfers in preceding weeks - or perhaps the deployment of the Wildcard - to try to ensure that you have a stronger bench than usual, and a full bench. But that's the main problem with this chip: you really need to be absolutely sure that all 15 squad members are going to start in order to take advantage of it - and that hardly ever happens. It has been as rarely as 3 or 4  times in the entire season for me (and not on weekends with many 'good' fixtures!). Last year I was geared up to play my Bench Boost 3 or 4 times,.... and every time I found myself undone by one or two last-minute injuries, unable to go ahead with using the chip on a bunch of good fixtures because I suddenly had huge gaps on the bench.

Even on a Double Gameweek, it is quite possible for all of your bench players to disappoint in both games and leave you with a single-digit return for the chip. If you have to use it on a Single Gameweek, you can easily end up with next-to-nothing. And a haul of 15-20 points is really about the best you can reasonably hope for; most of the time, you'll probably come out with a bit less than that. But, again, some people can get absurdly lucky with the chip, racking up 30 or 40 points or more on it.

It's just a roll of the dice!  Why do we need this extra gambling element in the game??  We DON'T. 

But gambling, alas, is addictive. Too many FPL managers enjoy this additional thrill of uncertainty, and would be loath to give it up.

At least these chips are still tied to the regular points-scoring structure of the game, still rewarding shrewd choices of players for the current fixtures. This season the game's controllers are threatening us with a further novelty, an as yet undefined 'Mystery Chip'. There has been much speculation online about what this new chip will turn out to be. There are a number of possibilities that aren't too wacky, such as additional points for one week for defenders or for forwards (encouraging you to switch to a different formation for that week). And I'm quite fond of the Super-Captain chip they have in Fantasy World Cup, which retroactively assigns your double-points captain bonus to your highest-returning player in the Gameweek (a rare example of a de-randomising chip; I like that!). Even the 'Limitless' chip they usually have in the international competitions (a Free Hit with the additional benefit of an unlimited budget) is harmless fun.

But I have a foreboding that the FPL overlords may be plotting something far more extreme for this new chip - something far more randomising, and far more remote from the normal structure of the game. I do hope I'm wrong; but I get a sinking feeling in my stomach every time I think about it. They're supposed to be announcing it just before it becomes available for use in the second half of the season, so we'll find out in a month or so. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

It is obviously too much to hope for that FPL would scrap the Triple Captain and Bench Boost chips. But we really don't need ANY MORE 'bonus chips' like this added to the game.

A little bit of Zen (16)

 

“What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.”

Kong Qiu (Confucius)

What is Trent FOR....?

I'm an admirer of the Trent Alexander-Arnold. Well, I used to be much more so, a few years ago. I acknowledge the case that he is a 'generational talent' - but I think he also has some serious shortcomings; shortcomings that have become more apparent in recent years. I rather fear that he has not developed much, if at all, as a player in that time. His gifts are still extraordinary, but they have not grown further; while his failings... perhaps have.

And, unfortunately, particularly from the point of view of the national team, I have become a bit of a sceptic about whether Trent really has a place in it. 

It is a common error - unfortunately shared by many England managers over the years - to suppose that in order to produce the best team, one must simply strive to incorporate all the most egregiously talented players. But I learned many years ago (I think this was the great secret of Brian Clough's extraordinary success in the 1970s) that creating a successful team is in fact a matter of finding an optimum balance between players with different skills profiles, different playing styles, different on-pitch 'personalities' - and that may often involve sacrificing some players who might in isolation appear much 'better' than those you might choose in their stead, because they just don't 'gel' with other players you want or need to make use of. (The great problem with the Gerrard/Lampard incompatibility which plagued the English national team through the Noughties was not that they were too similar in style [they really weren't!] or that they both wanted to play in the same position [it would have been perfectly possible to play them alongside each other in central midfield], but that they both expected to be the capo carismatico, the dominant personality on the pitch, the emotional heartbeat of the team - and there wasn't space for them both to be that. Successive England managers were afraid to leave out such popular and talented players, and so persisted in including them both - even though they evidently didn't function at their best when playing together. Thomas Tuchel, I think, is going to face a number of similar dilemmas; and I hope he will be braver in accepting that some talented players need to be omitted....)

The problem with Trent is that he is not really a full-back. He's not terrible at the role, he's got most of the attributes you need for it. But he's also lacking a few: most notably, pace. He gets skinned far too easily by nippy wingers up against him. And also.... I worry that he may be somewhat lacking in stamina, or desire to even try to get up and down the flank; he often just doesn't seem to be that bothered about recovering his defensive position quickly when he's pusheed a long way forward and his team have then suffered a turnover. And he has been encouraged in this weakness by having the Liverpool team built around this foible of his for the past several years: he hasn't needed to worry so much about the defensive part of his duties when he has such pacey central defenders as Van Dijk, Matip, and Konate alongside him, shoring things up. Indeed, for a long time the Liverpool approach was founded on having a very vigorous high-press which would often prevent turnovers in the opposition final third from leading to counter-attacks, and on having super-hardoworking midfielders - Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Henderson, Milner - who would stifle counter-attacks in the middle of the park,.... and move out wide to cover the space behind Trent or Robbo when they'd gone high up the pitch (sometimes even dropping back into the defensive line and temporarily taking over as the full-back). Trent, I fear, has been somewhat spoiled by this treatment. And it is rather unlikely that he'll find any other team - whether Real Madrid, where it seems certain he's bound next season, or England - who will be so extravagantly accommodating towards him.

What's more, it has become increasingly evident that Trent himself doesn't see himself as a full-back. Over the past year or so, he's done a number of interviews (like this one for the FourFourTwo channel) where he's suggested that he wants to play in areas of the pitch where he can "affect the play" more, where he can have a more decisive creative impact. He aspires to be a midfielder, probably a deep-lying playmaker in the mode of Andrea Pirlo or the later Toni Kroos. And he was transitioning to something of the sort last season under Klopp, when the sudden loss of the protective midfield screen necessitated some major tweaks in Liverpool's playing style - and it became too risky to allow Trent to maraud into the opposition half very often; instead, he started loitering in his own half, 'inverting' into midfield, playing just in front of his centre-backs and by-passing any attempt at a mid-block with his trademark long chipped balls over the top.

That's all fine when you're playing with Liverpool, who are a dominant team, almost always enjoy the majority of possession: Trent wasn't often put under pressure in that position - and would revert to the conventional full-back slot whenever the opposition did mount an attack. But if he wants to play in midfield permanently, he needs to add more elements to his game. He is excellent in his distribution, yes - one of the best long-passers in the world, no question. But a deep midifielder also has to take on defensive respoinsibilities: he needs to read the game well when the opposition are coming at him, he needs to be an incisive tackler, he needs to have a high workrate. Trent, alas, is rather lacking in those areas. When Southgate tried him out as a midfielder in the Euros this summer, it was a pretty unmitigated disaster. (That might have been largely a coaching failure - both in the specific game instructions, and in preparing him for the role. But still, he didn't cover himself in glory there.) I might question also whether he yet has the full range of attributes for the purely creative side of the job. Superlative long passing isn't enough; you need to excel in shorter passing options too; you need to be capable of dictating the tempo of the game by knowing when to play the ball early and when to hang on to it for a moment, by knowing when to play long and when to play short, by knowing when to play a risky forward pass and when to play it safe and keep possesion with a simple sideways or backwards pass.

Furthermore, even the sublime long-passing is very dependent on team context for its success. Trent has been able to forge a highly productive partnership down Liverpool's right flank with Mo Salah - who still has after-burners even in his thirties (and superb antiicpation, and a magical first touch!); and the Reds are also blessed with more similarly pacey and skillful players across the front line: Luis Diaz, usually on the other side, Diogo Jota, when he's fit, and Darwin Nunez, when he's on his game. Those early balls pinged over the opposing defenders' heads aren't going to work without such receivers racing in behind to get on the end of them (even Liverpool seem to be using that tactic much more seldom this year; perhaps because Slot regards it as too risky, preferring more patient progression through the middle). Certainly for England, Harry Kane just hasn't got the legs to chase balls like that any more (if he ever did; probably not...); Watkins might, but he's hardly a speed-demon either. So, for the national team, I fear that Trent's one supreme - just about sole - asset becomes largely worthless at the moment.

Trent, I feel, still has quite a bit to learn about the game - at least, if he is going to successfully transition to being an out-and-out midfielder. And I'm not convinced that he's got the right attitude to learn those lessons. One of the things that's alarmed me most about him in the last year or two is a suggestion of complacency, even sometimes of arrogance about him; he is starting to talk about himself as if he is one of the greatest players in the world - without having yet quite earned that status. And when - occasionally - he has a bad game, it can be very, very bad: it's as if his concentration deserts him entirely, or his motivation; sometimes, just once in a while, he really looks like he just can't be bothered to, as the pundits like to say these days, put in a shift.

Trent has some breathtaking skills: his long passing, his early crossing, and his deadball delivery are amongst the best in the world. But that's about it: he doesn't have that much else going for him - pace, stamina, workrate, adaptability. He's not really a full-back - not a great full-back, anyway. And he's not yet a great midfielder. He falls uncomfortably between the two stools.

I'm unsure how well he'll settle into the Real Madrid side next year. I suspect he might find himself used as an impact player in certain parts of certain games, but not be favoured as an automatic starter. And since neither England football fans nor the England manager watch very much of La Liga, I think there's a danger that - however well or otherwise he does there - he will drop off the radar of the national team.

I really hope I'm wrong about this. I would love to see Trent enhance the defensive aspects of his game, and start to look like a convincing world-class full-back.... or a world-class deep playmaker. And it would be a crying shame not to be able to make use of his talents in the national team. But at the moment, I just don't see where he fits. You can't select a player just because he does a few things supremely well (how I've rolled my eyes over the last year or two at the ludicrous suggestions that James Ward-Prowse ought to be in the England squad just for his free-kicks, or Ivan Toney for his penalties...!); you need him to be able to do an all-around job in his given position - and I'm not sure that Trent can.

Luck-o-Meter (11)

 

Gosh, I thought for a while that PGMOL might have actually managed to deliver us a 'Fuck-Up-FREE Saturday' at long last, but.... Well, once again, so near and yet so far. There were three dodgy decisions at Anfield, but all of them were somewhat in the grey zone... and probably wouldn't have changed the ultimate result (although they did, of course, have a huge impact on FPL points returns). At Wolves, though, there was one very contentious 50/50 decision (probably more like 60/40 in Southampton's favour), and one 'How the HELL did they let that happen?' Good grief.

Unai Emery, naturally, was a little pissed off that his side had two plausible penalty shouts turned down, with only the most cursory re-examination by the VAR team. I thought Konate's shove in Watkins's back was the more clearcut appeal; Bradley's brief tug on Pau Torres's shirt was minimal - and might have been argued to have been caused by the Liverpool defender being thrown off balance by the Villa man behind him (Rogers, I think?) having two handfulls of his shirt...  For me, these were both fairly soft 50-50 calls, not egregious miscarriages of justice. But the mere occurrence of such tight decisions in the game causes a flicker on the Luck-o-Meter. The more major controversy in this game should have been Bailey's avoiding an early red card for bundling Salah to the ground when clear through on goal. The fact that another Liverpool player (Nunez) got to the loose ball first, successfully creating and converting another goal-scoring chance immediately, does not alter the fact that Salah's initial opportunity was denied by the foul. Some people question if it was in fact a foul, but since a red card was riding on the decision, VAR should surely have asked the referee to look at it again, to be sure.

There were two penalty appeals in the game at Brentford too, but neither of them had any substance. Nathan Collins has developed a habit of throwing himself to the ground to try to win a decision, and this was one of his more theatrical iterations of the move. Evanilson's claim late in the game looked much more convincing at first, but TV replays showed he had merely tripped over his own feet (maybe there was a suspicion that he'd been thrown out of his stride by the slightest of contacts on his heel by Pinnock...?). I was more irritated by the VAR pondering on Wissa's first goal; there was a suspicion that the ball had bounced onwards to him out of the ruck of players at the near-post from the arm of one of his teammates; but surely there was a rather greater suspicion that that teamamte (didn't catch who it was) had been holding down one of the Bournemouth defenders - which was apparently not considered at all. And on either question, TV coverage only showed one view of the incident, which was not clear enough to allow any decision to be reached. VAR surely should have had access to more angles; but if they didn't, or if none of them provided a decisive view of the incident - they should have announced 'No determination possible'. My major frustration with VAR as it currently operates is the complete lack of clarity about what's going on; they should have very clear and simple procedures which everyone can understand and follow; they should always share the pictures they believe to have been decisive (or indecisive), and they should always announce which incidents have been checked, and WHY decisions have been reached. Sometimes, explanations of decisions appear to reach the TV commentators and are passed on to the public; but only sometimes, and usually only very minimal. Most of the time, we just don't know what's going on with this.

Smith Rowe owners can count themselves very unfortunate, I think, that he wasn't awarded a penalty early on, when Lacroix completely cleaned him out. Neither of the angles of the tackle shown on TV convinced me that the Palace defender had got anything on the ball at all; and even if he had, that is not an absolute defence when you take so much of the man! There was another rough break for Emile when he was adjudged offside by a kneecap as he stroked the ball home at the culmination of a thrillingly quick counter-attack. I couldn't see anything in the alleged 'handball' for Harry Wilson's second either (although it looked as though Andersen had won posession at the start of the move with a fairly horrific foul just in front of his own penalty area, so... ultimately all fair, perhaps). So, a bit more refereeing flakiness here. 

West Ham demanded a few outstanding saves of Pickford, and their Crysencio Summerville produced the game's two outstanding moments, in defence and attack, with a superb recovery run and last-ditch block to deny Everton a goal in the first half, and then cracking a shot of his own against the foot of the far post towards the end of the game

The disallowing of Manning's quick equaliser at Wolves was contentious - and could have swung the entire game. While we can see why it was given, there was a strong counter-case that Semedo had knowingly stepped across the Southampton player and was actually tripping him. And it again raises questions of what the threshold for a VAR intervention is (the ref appeared to have had a clear view of the clash, and initially thought nothing of it), and whether the instruction to review on the pitchside monitor overwhelmingly prejudices a referee towards changing his mind. But that arguable screw-up paled into insignificance behind the later double screw-up for Wolves's second goal. While one doesn't like to see such a stunning strike as Cunha's disallowed, Wolves had clearly won possession in the middle of the park via not just one but TWO really egregious fouls - both of which had somehow been overlooked by the referee. So, what was VAR doing? Checking for possible infringements in the lead-up to a goal is supposed to be a key part of their duties; and both of these offences were absolutely clearcut. It just beggars belief!

I had that misgiving about the definitiveness of video reviews again with regard to the disallowing of Solanke's effort against Ipswich: I couldn't see clearly on the pictures shown on TV that the ball had bounced off his left forearm; it looked as though it might have come off the defender's thigh instead; and the picture resolution and framerate were just not sharp enough to determine that unequivocally. Now, I feel very confident that that was in fact the correct decision because: a) Solanke looked a bit shamefaced about the incident, and raced back to the centre-circle without celebrating the goal; b) the Ipswich players unanimously and immediately appealed for the handball; c) none of the Spurs players complained when the decision came through. However,... we don't make these decisions based on reading the players' body-language; we make them based on what we can supposedly see on the TV pictures - and I don't think we could see anything in this instance. And Manchester United's second goal (eventually credited as an own-goal against Christiansen) looked far more as if it had touched Bruno Fernandes' arm.

Havertz's apparent opener against Chelsea was ruled out for a wafer-thin 'offiside': the 'right' decision, I suppose, under the current rules - but I hate to see goals diallowed for such tiny margins.

I did also notice this week (and I think, perhaps, it's been a rising trend for a few weeks now) an unusually high number of really bad line calls for goal-kicks, corners, throw-ins. These never attract as much public attention, as much censure from the punditry, as grosser officiating errors involving red cards or penalties, but they can still sometimes have a huge impact on a game's outcome - particularly with so many goals coming from corner routines this year.

There were a number of near-misses in the games at Chelsea and Spurs; Ipswich's Burgess crashing an early header against the crossbar was probably the one that wiggled the Luck-o-Meter dial the most.

Joachim Andersen's superb goal-line clearance was perhaps the one really outstanding piece of individual brilliance in defence this week, while Bruno Fernandes' and Garnacho's curlers from outside the box were the only exceptional goal strikes (although both probably should have been blocked off by more alert defenders).

Not too much in the way of upset results, either. Spurs fans will doubtless object that their undoing by Ipswich was a one-in-a-million freak, but it really wasn't; they have been looking for a while as if they could lose to anyone on an off-day. Similarly, no-one should have been expecting faltering City's trip to the Amex to be a pushover. However, I felt that Brentford's win over Bournmouth, and Wolves's over Southampton were a little unjust.

The 'Team of the Week' is again a little bit strange, with top players like Saka, Son, Palmer, Foden, and Jackson and Solanke failing to register any points, and Haaland not many. While Wissa and Cunha have both shown very strong form in recent weeks, these are still somewhat speculative and hopeful picks, given their teams' poor form; neither were clear favourites to win this week, even at home (and Cunha's goal should not have been allowed to stand!). While it might have been reasonable to fancy Pickford for a clean sheet against floundering West Ham, I cannot see how he also managed to garner 2 'saves' points; and the rest of the leading defenders are also very unexpected: Toti, Mazraoui, and Tarkowski??

Overall, not that much unexpected or out-of-the-ordinary in the play this week; but, I'm afraid, still enough egregiously awful refereeing decisions to make this a strong 5 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

GW11 - What did we learn?

Schadenfreude abounds as Pep slumps to a first-time-ever fourth successive defeat... (Though note, it's only his second straight loss in the EPL, and City are still sitting comfortably second in the table.... but allowing Liverpool to pull out a bit of a lead on them.)  Injuries, of course, are a large part of the problem - especially with the absence of a triad of absolutely key players, Rodri, DeBruyne, and Dias. But a lot of the rest of the team look strangely flat at the moment. Still, the result might have gone very differently if things had broken more kindly for them; they absolutely dominated the first half, registering an xG of nearly 2 in the opening 45 minutes (and still managed a couple of very good chances, but again unconverted, in the second half); if they'd managed to put 1 or 2 more goals on the board, there probably would have been no way back for Brighton. But this was the proverbial 'game of two halves', and Fabian Hurzeler deserves huge credit for the way he reorganized and revitalized his team during the half-time break: the introduction of the more combative and proactive Baleba at the break was the catalyst for a complete turnaround in the game. And Joao Pedro's return from a long injury absence for the last 25 minutes was also sensational. Although, really, just about every Brighton player was absolutely outstanding in this game, and if they can continue in this kind of form, they'll be worthy of a finish in the top six... maybe even the top four.

Bournemouth, as I'd feared, couldn't maintain the energy levels they'd shown against City last week; and there may be an argument that the chemistry of the team was unnecessarily disturbed by reverting to Kepa in goal, rather than staying with Travers, who has been in inspirational form in the last two games. Although I wouldn't necessarily hold Kepa to blame for the defeat - not for the goals, anyway (he did flap at aerial balls rather alarmingly two or three times...). I haven't seen Brentford's xG, but I imagine it might well have been less than 1.0; they just somehow came up 3 absolutely perfect finishes out of nothing. The result felt unjust for Bournemouth, who absolutely dominated the first half, and could have put the game to bed if they'd just been a bit more incisive in the final third. Brentford came into it more strongly after the break, and the game devolved into a ding-dong end-to-end affair; but still Bournemouth mostly felt like the more likely to score. But again - just astonishing finishing from Brentford! I had been sceptical about Wissa's value when he returned from injury, but his form in these last few games has been excellent. Damsgaard, after long injury woes, is emerging as a key playmaker for Brentford too. They are looking like they could challenge for the fringes of the top third - if only they could stop leaking goals so profusely! (Although, with this woefully flakey defence, and an extremely tough run of fixtures in December, they could very well be down in the bottom three at the start of the New Year.)

Crystal Palace, predictably, lacked much incisiveness going forward, in the continued absence of Eze (and Wharton, and Nketiah...); but they seemed to lack energy and organization everywhere on the pitch, and were played through far too easily. Fulham are a thrilling counter-attacking side, and were unlucky to have had two further goals dubiously chalked off; but they do look to be also lacking that little bit of a cutting-edge in the final third (Raul's hot streak appears to have run its course?). They can't rely on Smith Rowe and Wilson for all their goals; they need to start seeing more from Iwobi, Nelson, Traore, etc.,... and maybe Muniz again.

The Liverpool juggernaut rumbles on relentlessly. Emery whinges about a couple of possible penalties rather peremptorily denied to his side - but they were both 50/50 calls, and he would have been incredibly fortunate to win them both. And winning one probably wouldn't have made much difference, since Villa scarcely created a decent chance all game. But for Darwin Nunez's wayward finishing, Liverpool could have won this by 3 or 4 goals. (And I, for one, was glad to see Luis Diaz restored to his rightful starting place on the left flank, ahead of Cody Gakpo.)

West Ham started brightly, but quickly faded into mediocrity - playing an ubelievable number of sloppy balls. They still looked to have done just enough to deserve the win, though, with Pickford needing to pull off a few outstanding saves, and Summerville hitting the foot of the post late on. It wasn't surprising that Everton, without their creative lynchpin, McNeil, were a bit lifeless. And the reintroduced Branthwaite still looks half-a-yard off full match fitness. But really, both of these sides desperately need a forward. It is rather baffling that Lopategui doesn't make more use of Ings, rather than not-a-centre-forward Antonio, and that Dyche continues to prefer the woefully lacking-in-confidence Calvert-Lewin rather than moving the much sharper-looking Ndiaye or Beto up front.

I'm happy for Wolves to have finally broken their winless run. But they really failed to capitalise on their early breakthough from Sarabia, and the result ultimately felt unfair to Southampton (who are much better defensively than most people realise, at least in possession, but have a real problem scoring goals of their own). The disallowing of Manning's goal was a little harsh (although you can at least see why the decision was reached).  Cunha's goal - brilliant though it was - clearly should have been disallowed for two egregious fouls on Southampton players in the middle of the pitch preceding it. Although Cunha's in electrifying form, neither of these teams are currently looking good enough to cause that much trouble to any decent side, and both must still be relegation favourites.

Arguably another coaching masterclass from Eddie Howe here, though a more low-key one than the number he did on Arsenal last week. Newcastle for a while have struggled with poor away form; while Forest's City Ground has acquired one of the most daunting reputations in the League for the lift its team gets from its fanatical home support. And Newcastle started the game a bit flat, conceded the first goal; this is a match that could very easily have got away from them. But they were so much better in the second half, and really began to dominate, to look more like the home side. They found ways to disrupt Forest's usual development down the flanks, leaving Chris Wood - for just about the first time this season - completely starved of service. Even so, it was a bit puzzling that Nuno decided to take off his two most dangerous creative players, Gibbs-White and Hudson-Odoi, shy of the hour; if those changes had made Forest stronger defensively, you could see their value; but they conceded the two decisive goals after this. I've had a feeling for a while that Forest's impressive run may be about to run out of steam - particularly with the tougher run of fixtures they face from now till Christmas. Newcastle, on the other hand, are definitely getting back into their groove again.

I couldn't really see much of how the Manchester United v Leicester game went down in the BBC's very brief highlights. It looks like van Nistelrooy has got United playing in a much more cohesive and confident way than they usually did under Ten Hag; and new signing Ugarte is bedding in well, adding some needed steel to their midfield. The second goal looked to me like it hit Bruno's hand; if it did, then it should be no-goal; if it didn't, then it should be his goal, not an own-goal; the FA's decisions on these things can be quite baffling. Leicester were again thoroughly non-descript; I haven't seen anything about them to impress me this season (although, admittedly, I don't think I've yet watched a full game featiuring them). And, for me, they look like the weakest of the six sides in the relegation battle, not the best, as the current standings mystifyingly suggest.

I am feeling ever-so-slightly smug about having widely predicted on FPL forums this weekend that... Spurs were not showing the kind of form to be able to win any game easily; Solanke and Son were therefore not promising picks for the captaincy this week; and Ipswich are much better than most people think, and might even have a chance of winning this match. But damn, even I was surprised by how well the East Anglian team played here; their disicipline, focus, and intensity were all exemplary - keeping their shape superbly at all times, breaking very quickly on the counter, smothering Spurs with the eagerness of their pressing. And I lost count of the number of headed clearances they made from their own box; O'Shea and Tuanzebe, in particular, were absolutely magnificent. And you could see that every player had a head-on-a-swivel, constantly looking all around for danger, continously communicating with nearby teammates to assign marking responsibilities - it was like a perfect defensive 'How to...' coaching video (except for the moment when they fell asleep on the neat Spurs corner routine that allowed Betancur a free header to pull a goal back). Muric, who has worried me with his erratic play in recent weeks, was looking much better here; although he still had a few wobbly moments when playing the ball out of his feet, he looked confident and dependable whenever called upon to make a stop; and what especially impressed me was his claiming of high balls; again and again he'd pluck one effortlessly out of the air as if he had super-glue on his gloves. (Robert Sanchez should be made to watch videos of these catches for a couple of hours a day....)

The match had a Cup-tie intensity, with a lot of very physical - though also mostly just about fair, and certainly not dirty - challenges flying in. But Ipswich had a massive edge over Spurs in the amount of energy and aggression and desire they were showing. I suppose the match might have turned out very differently if Brennan Johnson hadn't spurned that early chance to toe-poke home a chance at the far post; but Ipswich really looked very well-deserved winners here. And Spurs have all sorts of problems. I've said a few times before in this series that, even when they're playing well, they look to me nothing more than an upper mid-table side who are slightly over-performing; when, as here, they play poorly, they look like a lower mid-table side. Something is not right with them this year; and I'm not sure that Ange knows how to fix it - not with the players that he's currently got.

It was hardly surprising that Chelsea and Arsenal largely cancelled each other out; but, for a game of few chances and goals, it was very entertaining. I was slightly surprised to see that Chelsea recorded the better xG for the game; I suppose Madueke and Gusto squandering perfect crosses from Neto early on was responsible for that; 'better' chances, though not quite so many of them. Both teams, actually, were a bit careless in the final third, with players repeatedly failing to find the right finish for a good chance. Arsenal, able to field their 'best eleven' for the first time since early in the season, will be very dangerous again now; the returning Martin Odegaard looked fit and sharp, immediately back to his terrifying best. 

Palmer too, had an excellent game - at least, when he could get on the ball, though that wasn't nearly as much as we'd like, especially in the first half (Partey did a pretty good job of closing him down). The decision to deploy him mainly on the left side was curious, quirky (presumably the thinking was that he'd find more space behind Odegaard... but that didn't really work out; and he's obviously more comfortable playing off the right) - and probably limited his impact somewhat. But the FPL Sheep will no doubt be griping that he didn't return any Fantasy points here; they never seem to learn that you can play well without producing for FPL (and you can sometimes get good Fantasy points without playing well!), And yes, although he otherwise had quite a good game, Sanchez definitely left far too much of a gap at his near post, giving Martinelli an irresistible invitation to lash in the opening goal on that side. I continue to think that Sanchez is a bit of a liability (he's not good at claiming balls in the air, either; and he's absolutely terrible with the ball at his feet), and needs to be replaced as soon as possible if Chelsea are to successfully press home their drive for a top four finish. Marc Cucurella had an absolute monster of a game, deservedly winning the 'Man of the Match' trophy. It is sadly indicative of the enormous shortcomings of FPL's bonus allocations that the BPS ranked him only eighth!

Dilemmas of the Week - GW11

 Every week, we need to take a long hard look at our squad, and ask ourselves if we want to make any changes....

And even if we do see a pressing case for a change here or there, we then need to weigh that against the possible advantage of saving our transfer - 'rolling' it over to use in a future week. This option achieves greater tactical complexity this season with the new rule that allows us to save up as many as 5 Free Transfers to use at one time. If we ever manage to do that, it would in effect be a 'mini Wildcard', enabling us to conduct a major squad overhaul in one fell swoop (particularly useful as there are a handful of 'premium' players who cost so much more than everyone else that you can't conveniently move them in and out of your squad without making multiple other changes as well).

Then, of course, occasionally multiple changes may seem so inescapable that we have to consider whether it's worth spending points on 1 or 2 extra transfers (a tactic which obviously deserves a whole post of its own one day).

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 11?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Well, no new problems arising in the European games this week, it seems. (Though it's too early to tell if any 'reactions' may yet set in after last night's Europa League and Europa Conference fixtures...)

Oh, Havertz is probably a doubt on 'concussion protocols', after being withdrawn after a clash of heads in the Inter game on Wednesday night.

Konate looked like he might have picked up a serious arm injury last week, but that little scare had blown over in time for him to start - and, yet again, be Liverpool's outstanding defender - in the game against Leverkusen on Tuesday. So, no worries there, hopefully.... unles he now needs a rest.

Cole Palmer has been feeling the effects of Lisandro Martinez's high challenge on the side of his knee at Old Trafford on Sunday, but it doesn't sound too serious (he has been 'spotted in training'?).

Richarlison apparently tweaked his hamstring last weekend; Rice is still suffering from his 'knock' and might again be a doubt; and Sancho has picked up a minor problem this week too. But these all probably have fairly negligible FPL relevance.

Odegaard and DeBruyne are said to be near a comeback, which could shake the FPL world up a whole lot. But my guess would be that they probably won't reappear as starters until after this next international break, will only get token minutes off the bench this gameweek (perhaps slightly longer minutes, if their teams are struggling to break their opponents down...).

Joao Pedro is back in training with Brighton too. Although there are now multiple claims for attention in the forwards-under-6-million category, he could quickly reassert his position among them (and there could be a negative knock-on for Danny Welbeck, if he reclaims penalty-taking duties from him).

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

Phillips and Alvarez are serving one-match bans for picking up double yellows last weekend.

And Raheem Sterling - still a Chelsea player, only out on loan - is ineligible to play against his parent club this week. (Amazingly, his FPL ownership is not quite ZERO; I suppose his mum still loves him.)

Luis Diaz remains the big head-scratcher in FPL. Gakpo seems to have been preferred over him for the past few weeks; but I've always felt that Diaz fits better into the Liverpool system, is a better finisher, and brings much more energy to the high press. (There might have been a fitness issue underlying his recent omissions. And also possibly a tactical one: teams are tending to target Liverpool's early build-up more aggressively while Kelleher is deputising for Alisson, and the stand-in keeper is often being forced to go long to escape pressure; Gakpo is significantly taller and stronger than Diaz, and thus has a rather better chance of claiming and hanging on to aerial balls down the left flank. If Alisson returns by the end of the month, I suspect Lucho's start will become more secure.)  And he just scored a stunning hattrick in Europe. So, my guess would be that Gakpo may get occasional starts in the central forward position, but mainly continue as a super-sub; Diaz surely has to be the preferred (though not, perhaps, invariable) starter on the left. Both of them - as well as Darwin Nunez - will face competition from Jota when he's fit again. The rotation uncertainty alone, unfortunately, makes any of Liverpool's attacking players - apart from the superhuman and undroppable Mo Salah, of course - rather dubious FPL prospects. (Diaz, despite having been on the pitch for barely two hours in the past four gameweeks, is still - by some distance - the fifth highest-performing midfielder of the season. Managers who've been quick to give up on him [myself included!], may come to regret that.)

There's also a lot of chatter around Rico Lewis, after he was dropped last week in favour of Kyle Walker. I'm not panicking yet. All City defenders get rotated sometimes; we know that - the infamous 'Pep Roulette'. And Pep is particularly anxious not to over-stress his younger players, had been saying for a while that he'd like to give Rico a bit of a rest. Also, he may feel obliged to give Walker the occasional run-out, just to keep his match-sharpness up.... and get some value out of his enormous salary. But the veteran right-back actually had a pretty unimpressive game; and City looked much more dangerous after Lewis came on for the last 20 minutes. Pep loves the way that Lewis can slot into midfield so effectively - not just being an extra defensive midfielder, as Stones usually was last year, but moving to the head of the box-four midfield formation; and, when City have sustained possession in the final third, pushing up even further, drifting to and fro along the attacking line around the edge of the opposition penalty area (he's actually playing much farther forward than Gvardiol most of the time). So, I'm reasonably confident that Lewis is going to continue to be an important - irreplaceable - element of the new City system, and will get pretty regular starts. And he's way the cheapest option from any of the top four's defences this year, so is probably worth hanging on to, keeping on the bench for a while, even if he does 'fall from favour' for a few weeks at a time.

March and Minteh (as well as the strangely out-of-favour-this-season Adingra) are back in contention for starts down the right flank at Brighton - which can't bode well for Ferdi Kadioglu (heavily transferred in by The Sheep after scoring that screamer at Anfield).

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Vicario continues to be in great form as a shot-stopper, but his 'assertiveness training' appears to have achieved indifferent success so far; Villa nicked their goal by successfully bullying him at a corner, leaving him off-balance, behind his goal-line, failing to make any attempt to claim the ball in the air, and then flapping at the first goal-attempt.... presenting a sitter to Morgan Rogers. And Spurs are likely to be even more vulnerable on the counter-attack while they're missing Van de Ven; so, I'd venture that those 3.7% of managers who've selected the Italian keeper at the moment... probably need to reconsider.  Son's early withdrawal shouldn't be too much of a concern; Ange insisted that he was only taking him off to avoid any risk of re-injury. It should, however, give pause to anyone who was thinking of making him captain (or Triple Captain - good grief!) for this week's appealing fixture against Ipswich. If his health is that fragile, the limited minutes are likely to go on for a few more weeks. And Maddison...? Great player, but somehow hasn't quite been clicking with Spurs at the end of last season and the start of this; and now his manager no longer seems to consider him an essential starter... Ouch.  (Maybe there was some undisclosed fitness issue behind his recent omissions or withdrawals. Or maybe there was some subtle tactical reason for them. Perhaps he'll be back in Ange's good graces soon....? But I wouldn't touch Madders with a bargepole at the moment.)

I've always felt Garnacho looks much less dangerous when playing on the left (he loves being able to cut inside from the other flank, so that he can have a crack at goal on his stronger foot - just like Saka). And his frequent disinclination to track back in defence was becoming particularly conspicuous in the Chelsea game - with teammate Casemiro berating him for his indolence near the end of that. And if Amorim wants to play anything like the system he's used at Sporting (although he's recently said that he won't...), I just don't see how Garnacho's going to fit into that. So, I'd suggest the optimistic Manchester United fans who've included him in their squads (over 10% of all Fantasy managers, incredibly; he's the third most picked player from the club at the moment, only a smidge behind Mazraoui and Dalot).... need to rethink that.

And there might be growing doubts about Emile Smith Rowe's minutes, or even starts, after Harry Wilson's spectacular return to the Fulham side on Monday evening. (I'm going to keep the faith a little longer. But it is another worrying uncertainty thrown into the mix...)

Not many people ever gambled on Enzo Fernandez; and it had slipped my attention that he's only got minutes off the bench in the last three games (and has failed to impress in those appearances). With Caicedo and Lavia now looking so formidable as the central double-pivot, it's difficult to see how the Argeninian finds any place in the regular starting eleven now.

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

Well, the whole of the Nottingham Forest defence!  And the whole of the Bournemouth defence (especially Kerkez and Zabarnyi).  And the whole of the Fulham defence (especially Robinson and Tete).  And even perhaps... the whole of the Crystal Palace defence (especially Guehi and Munoz).... although they still look very vulnerable at the back; and without Eze, they're not likely to create much danger at the other end, and will be coming under even more pressure at the back.

Gordon and Isak - and Newcastle in general - finally seem to be getting back to something like their best again, after a slight spell in the doldrums. And they've dropped in price by 200-300k after the recent period of general disillusuionment with them, so now seems an opportune time to buy them back.

Rutter and Ayari have looked outstanding for Brighton in the last few games. Kadioglu might be tempting, if he proves able to keep the start... Not because he scored a goal last week: that's unlikely to be happen again soon, if ever. But a cheap defensive player who plays a very advanced role for a decent mid-table side who have a great fixture-run (after this week) - that's definitely worth bearing in mind. (Although I'd rather have Welbeck, Verbruggen, Rutter, and maybe Joao Pedro from Brighton at the moment.)

Harry Wilson turned in perhaps the performance of the week, with his stunning late double to claim the points for Fulham against Brentford. But over the past year, he doesn't seem to have been a preferred starter for Marco Silva even when fully fit, and since he's only just back from a long lay-off, I wouldn't expect him to be challenging for a regular start too quickly.

The Sheep, of course, have been getting terribly excited about Dominic Solanke finding his scoring boots at last. But Spurs's inconsistency this year, and his tendency to drop quite deep in link-up play (while inevitably sharing the goals with Son and Johnson and a few others), and the tricky upcoming fixture run (City, Chelsea and Liverpool in the next six after this weekend, as well as far-from-easy Fulham and Bournemouth) make him look a very dubious pick to me. With the plethora of strong performances from low-priced strikers this season (a possibility I anticipated in my pre-season recommendations), there's really no reason to consider any in this upper-mid price category; and if you do, Solanke is not (yet) a convincingly better prospect than Mateta and Havertz, and a considerably less tempting pick than Isak or Jackson.

Although there's now a bewildering range of potential picks in this segment, I think Bournemouth's Evanilson is starting to invite consideration for a budget forward pick too.

Cunha is another Sheep favourite in this category, after a few very lively performances recently, and another assist last week. However, I can't help thinking that, as he mostly seems to be playing in quite a deep supporting role now, rather than as an outright forward, he is only likely to produce assists, not claim many goals of his own. Strand Larsen, as the primary goalscorer, looks likely to me to produce a few more FPL points - for quite a lot less money. Although all Wolves picks look very risky while their defensive form is still so shakey.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (15)

 

"The truth is a bully we all pretend to like."

Gregory David Roberts - 'Shantaram'

Sheep Picks (5)

 

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

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

Dominic Solanke had a very good season with Bournemouth last year. And his move to such an all-out attacking side as Spurs seemed to bode well for his chances of achieving an even higher goal tally this season. He's been a little slow to settle in at his new club, but now he's suddenly nabbed 2 goals (and an assist) against Villa, The Sheep are stampeding after him. Their fervour is no doubt heightened by the fact Spurs have leading relegation candidates Ipswich up next. There has been much chatter on the forums about him now being an obvious captaincy pick for that game (possibly even a Triple Captain punt?!). 

I rate Solanke highly as a striker, but you have to assess his FPL potential in context. His prime virtues are industry and stamina: he's great in his hold-up play, and in vigorously leading the high press (which is why Postecoglou bought him). However, that does mean he's often dropping deep to pick up early balls through the middle, or pulling out wide to create space in the middle for teammates. There are a number of other attacking players at Spurs - notably Son and Johnson, but also Kulusevski and a few others on occasion - with whom he'll be sharing the goals. And being such an unselfish 'team player' like this, he's probably not going to enjoy a particularly prolific season. It should also be noted that Emery's Villa have always been a bit shakey in defence; and they were really poor all-around in that last game, just didn't turn up for it. (But Spurs were even worse than them in the first half...)

Solanke's style of play and Spurs's erratic form (and the apprent fall from favour of James Maddison, who would probably have been Solanke's most productive provider) make him a very unpromising pick, regardless of how sharp his personal form may currently look.

And it is foolish to get over-excited about the prospect of facing Ipswich. They are a much better side than most people give them credit for - much the best of the promoted sides, for my money. They've had some very tough luck so far; but they've generally produced good showings against the top clubs (getting dogged draws against Brighton and Villa, and putting up a very spirited resistance in the opening game against Liverpool). They are well capable of causing an upset this weekend, if Spurs get complacent.

So, Solanke doesn't look a good pick within the context of Spurs's form and the way he plays in that team. But he also doesn't look a good pick from the point of view of the field of available forwards. If you want to go for an upper-mid-price forward (to support Haaland, or to take his place as main goalscorer in your squad), then Isak and Jackson are clearly miles better. But there are so many high-performing strikers this year in the 5.5-6.5-million category that it's really not necessary to have a high-priced forward at all.

Buying a player just because he got a brace last week is NUTS. Buying a player just because he's facing a promoted side next is NUTS. When that player is Dominic Solanke and his team is Spurs, such a decision is utterly BATSHIT INSANE!

BAD PICKS - Addendum

 

Following on from yesterday's review of my pre-season nominations of some of the most common Bad Picks in FPL this year, I'll offer one more.... that I've noticed in an awful lot of squads so far.

Harry Winks - Now, I like Harry as a player; I think Spurs were mad to let him go. And a few years ago, he was looking like he could be a decent back-up holding midfielder for England. But his career just didn't quite catch fire, and instead took a detour into the second or third-tier of porfessional accomplishment. Still a very decent central defensive midfielder, though: a good scrapper, and sometimes a decent passer of the ball too.

Just.... NOT for Fantasy.. While he is a fairly reliable starter (though he has missed a couple of games already, for some reason), and almost invariably plays the full 90 minutes, that's about it: he offers very little prospect of any other points. So far, a couple of assists (rather surprising: a strike-rate unlikely to be maintained across the season), 0 goals, and 0 bonus points. He is pretty much just giving you the bare minimum appearance points every week (most weeks...).

A lot of people went for Winks at the start of the season as a lazy squad-filler choice: they werre running out of budget, and he was the only likely starting midfielder available at 4.5-million pounds. But his ownership actually went up even further over the next few weeks!! (Perhaps some people hadn't initially noticed that there was a starting player this cheap?) And it still hasn't fallen off very much even now: it's still over 12.5% - which puts him among the Top 10 midfield picks! For someone metronomically returning only 2 points per game, that is just INSANE.

While there might be some excuse - not much, but some - for going for a player like Winks in your initial squad, while you're struggling for budget, there is absolutely NONE for hanging on to him this long. In FPL terms, he is an essentially worthless player; he may only cost 4.5 million; but that is 4.5 million being pissed away on NOTHING.

I think there are FOUR IMPORTANT LESSONS here:

1)  You can't afford to go light on your midfield. You can almost always get more points from a 5th midfielder than from a 3rd forward (or a 4th defender), and so in most weeks you want to be starting all 5 midfielders - and expecting good points from every one of them.  Really, you want to be looking for at least 5 points-per-game on average from all your midfielders (ideally, 6 points or over from at least two or three of them). Someone who can't give you a chance of that isn't worth your time

2)  Therefore, you CANNOT afford to carry midfielders on your bench.

3)  Even Bench players need to be offering a prospect of at least a little more than just appearance points. (I like to maintain an average of 3.5 to 4 points per game from everyone on my bench.)

4)  If you do find yourself with someone like this in your squad, you can't afford to be complacent about it. It is just as important - often even more imporant - to replace a completely inadequate fringe player (YES, even a completely inadequate bench player - but Winks should never have been accepted as just a bench player) than it is to swap out a star attacking player who seems to have hit a bit of a dip in form, etc. Selecting Harry Winks in pre-season I can, just about, forgive; still having him going into GW11 is absurd and self-harming.

BAD PICKS - revisited

 

I'd been thinking for a while that I should return to some of the likely 'Bad Picks' I highlighted in pre-season to see just how they're panning out so far. The first-quarter milestone in the season seems like an appropriate juncture to do that. But I was given an additional push towards this a week or so ago, when someone on a Facebook forum where I hang out quite a lot (too much) suddenly resurrected a pre-season post of mine from there - apparently mocking some of these predictions (in fact, he concurred that they'd been fairly prescient, and was just goading a response out of me...). On re-examining those selections, and my reasons for them - although some of them have proven particularly challenging cases, and the jury may still be out on one or two of them - I was pleasantly surprised to find that my comments had been well borne out so far.

So.... the really BAD picks I highlighted in this post were:

Matt Turner - He was dreadful last season, and had dropped down to third (possibly fourth...) choice at Forest at the start of this. He might perhaps be a bit nearer to a possible start now that he's been loaned out to Palace (though I imagine Remi Mathews is first back-up there). But even if you're taking the risk of having a non-playing second keeper to save a bit of money in your initial squad, it is so wasteful to go for someone as poor - and as far from any chance of starting - as Turner. There were some good reserve keepers priced at 4.0; and some of them, notably Fabianski (possibly also Valdimarsson - and maybe someone at Chelsea??), who had some prospect of being promoted to the start on merit, because of doubts about the form or fitness of the original No. 1 at their club. At least most of those who were dumb enough to get Turner in the first place have also been dumb enough not to get rid of him - so, his price hasn't yet dropped (god knows how: he's shed over 400,000 owners since the start of the season, including nearly 120,000 in a single week; but that somehow wasn't quite enough to trigger a price change?!); but that could still happen any day now. And the point is that he's a complete waste of a squad place, he brings ZERO value.

Mark Flekken - I think FPL's 'The Scout' bizarrely tipped him at the start of the season, and that may have got The Sheep stampeding... But it made absolutely no sense. Brentford's defensive form fell apart last year; and Flekken is one of the weakest keepers in the League. (And they had a horrible early fixture run, with at least three games they were bound to lose, probably heavily.)  A lot of people have stoically stuck with him, because at least he's doing rather well on 'saves' points! But that's just a measure of how bad Brentford's defence has been this season. He has zero clean sheets, zero bonus points, and has conceded more goals than any other keeper so far; and, most damningly, his goals conceded - as last year - is significantly exceeding his 'expected' number, which suggests that quite a few of these goals are his fault.  He's only third or fourth ranked keeper at his price point (and there are a number of others who look likely to do much better, after making up for injury absences or a short run of poor results early in the season), and doesn't make the top 10 overall. Just a horrible, horrible GK pick.

Ezri Konsa - Villa over-performed last season; they didn't do much to strengthen their squad over the summer, and were obviously going to struggle with the strains of a debut Champions League campaign. Their defensive record was fairly poor last year; it's looking even worse this time - with 15 goals conceded (and, as with Flekken and Brentford, that's significantly worse than their xGC - which suggests their defence is really bad), and only 1 clean sheet so far. There might have been some additional optimism for Konsa because he might have been starting some games at right-back, while Cash had a string of injury problems (though that's not his natural position, and he doesn't offer any attacking threat when he plays there); but he is a centre-back, and centre-backs rarely offer anywhere near as many points as attacking full-backs or wing-backs. There were several - 15 or 20! - potentially good defensive picks at 4.5 million this season; Konsa wasn't one of them. The Sheep got briefly excited about him again, after he picked up a goal against Wolves in Gameweek 5; but for a player like Konsa, that is a once-in-a-blue-moon event. With Villa's present form, he offers nothing for FPL. His ownership has been crashing for the last four weeks, and he must be due a price-drop.

Kobbie Mainoo - People got excited about him because he'd made such an eye-catching debut for England over the summer. But with Ten Hag's perennially fumbling, floundering United, he has usually been having to fight fires in the middle of the pitch, and very, very, very seldom gets the chance to push forward for a sniff of a goal. The lad looks set to be out with an injury for a while now. But he was never anywhere near an FPL pick; people were just getting him out of patriotic pride or something....

Kai Havertz - OK, this one is perhaps a little more equivocal, as he has started the season in fantastic form. But 4 goals, 1 assist, and 7 bonus points from 10 games is not a huge haul; he's only been around the fringes of the top 10 strikers for most of the season. Being essential to Arsenal doesn't make you essential for FPL!  In my original post, I argued that: it will be difficult for him to replicate last season's Fantasy points haul, because he's been reclassified as a 'forward' this year (YES); he is likely to get started in midfield rather than up front a lot of the time (YES); Arteta obviously doesn't fancy him as a full-time forward, since he's been looking to acquire someone like Gyokeres over the summer (YES); and none of the upper mid-price forwards really looked worthwhile this year, because the cheaper options were so many and so strong (YES!! - though I did not anticipate that Wood, Welbeck, Raul, Cunha, Delap, Wissa, Evanilson, Strand Larsen and Vardy would all be close to or ahead of all of them... except Jackson!). At least that transfer target failed to materialise, which may have boosted Havertz's prospects to continue mostly in the 'false 9' role; although Trossard's strong form is another reason why he's sometimes been withdrawn into midfield; and it does seem likely that they will again try to sign a striker in the winter window. Havertz is a great player, but not a great FPL pick.

Ah, but then I really tempted Fate... by nominating 5 more candidates - much better and much more popular players, who were bound to incite some controversy. Let's see how I got on with those...

David Raya - Well, he was for a while up at the top of the goalkeeper rankings - with 3 clean sheets in the first 4 games; but NONE since, as Arsenal have suffered a bit of a wobble. But even at the start of the season, Arsenal were not playing that well: the reason for Raya's ephemeral dominance of the goalkeepers chart was that he was also getting a lot of 'saves' points (last year, he hardly had to make any saves at all!). My argument, anyway, was not about his ability or his expected FPL points performance (though I did think it was unlikely that he could repeat last year's remarkable clean sheets tally, while he would probably continue to produce a fairly low number of saves); it was about value-for-money (I couldn't see him greatly out-performing the best 4.5 keeper options), and about the competition for Fantasy attention from his club (his defenders usually offer a bigger points differential advantage over other top defenders than he does over other top goalkeepers; and you might want to reserve some of your quota of three Arsenal slots for attacking assets like Saka, Odegaard, Havertz, Trossard...). I stand by that. I think Alisson, when he's fit again, will bring significantly better points at the same price-point; and Onana (or perhaps Pickford, Pope, or Leno) might do even better for only 5 million. But there are so many strong 4.5 goalkeeper options this year, I really don't think you need a premium keeper at all. I never said Raya was a bad player, or that he wouldn't bring good FPL points this year; I just don't think he's worth his fee.

William Saliba - I began my comments on the French phenomenon by acknowledging that he is Arsenal's - and perhaps the League's - 'best' defender... but pointing out that you don't get Fantasy points just for that. The argument here was that Gabriel is just as good for Fantasy points, probably just a little bit better, because he has quite a strong record for scoring from set pieces (YES). I also suggested that any of Arsenal's full-backs who got a regular run of starts were likely to substantially outscore him (YES - White, Timber, and Calafiori have all demonstrated their potential for attacking contributions; though they're all competing for a place, and have all had a string of fitness issues so far). And that, as with David Raya, above, you might actually want to keep one or two spots open for attacking players from Arsenal. You don't really want to double up on defence from one club, certainly not central defence; and Gabriel was clearly - if only fairly marginally - a better pick than Saliba from the Arsenal defence. Of course, the sending-off against Bournemouth has sent him crashing down the defender rankings now (a rare misfortune which I do not claim to have anticipated, nor do I rely on it in justifying my original prediction); but I don't think he's ever been ahead of Gabriel, or 4 or 5 others of this season's top performers. And I have to say, I don't think he's been playing quite as well for much of this season: he looks to be getting stressed by being so often the last line of defence when Arsenal lose the ball high up the pitch and fail to stifle the development of a quick counter (last year, this was very rarely happening to them; this year, it's becoming quite a common occurrence), and that's sometimes leading him to commit impetuous, over-anxious, unncessary fouls - like the one on Evanilson that got him the red card.

Josko Gvardiol - Another anti-recommendation that might still be up for argument...  Well, damn, he's just notched his third goal of the season, which has boosted him back up to the top of the defender rankings. But... he's only got 2 clean sheets, while conceding 10 goals, which must be far worse than almost anyone anticipated from City (even though their defensive record wasn't that good last season either). And he's produced NO ASSISTS yet. My arguments against Gvardiol were based on the unreliability of depending on points from goals from a defender (he is a much better finisher than most defenders; but goals are still a rare and unpredictable event from him - just because he's got 3 in the last 5 or 6 games doesn't necessarily mean that he'll bag any more over the rest of the season), and on the ever-present spectre of Pep Roulette. Now, Gvardiol has missed to start 1 game already this season. And I think the reasons why he's so far been just about an ever-present are the absence of competition for a start on the left of defence: Pep really likes what Rico Lewis can offer in an attacking midfield role, and in the past had generally started him as a nominal 'left-back', but this year has switched him over to the right; Ake is the only other natural left-sided defender they have, has played as a full-back occasionally, and is arguably a little better than Gvardiol in some of the defensive aspects of the role - but he's only just returning from injury. If Pep now decides to give Ake a run of games to get his match-sharpness up, or switches Lewis back over the left side in order to give some minutes to Walker, Gvardiol could yet be spending some time on the bench. (And with City's escalating injury woes in defence, there is a likelihood that he could be playing some games as a centre-back, where his prospect of decent points will be much reduced.)  I also think Gvardiol is bound to need a rest soon, as his pace means that he's generally being relied upon as the emergency cover when City suffer a counter-attack (which is becoming a very, very frequent occurence this season). In fact, as he's usually being required to play quite narrow, tucking into the base of midfield, he's not only often having to run back more than half the length of the pitch, but also often having to try to make up 15 or 20 yards out to the flank to close down a flying winger. That's leaving him often looking at fault for goals they concede (but he's not really to blame; Pep's just playing him in an 'impossible' position); and knackered from the amount of sprinting he's having to do in almost every game. Even if he was going to remain an invariable starter (and I'd bet good money that he'll be rotated a lot during the later stages of the Champions League - and possibly during the upcoming Christmas logjam), he is - as I predicted in that original post - not getting forward nearly as much.... because he needs to hang back to provide cover against the counter-attack, and because Rico Lewis is usually being preferred as the defender to push into advanced midfield positions. So, yes, Gvardiol has done outstandingly well so far; but I suspect we've already seen his peak points-per-game, there'll likely be a big tailing-off in his returns over the rest of the season.

[Now, if Gvardiol does end up playing nearly every game, and manages to bag another 2 or 3 goals for the season - which, on his showing so far, might seem like a fairly conservative aspiration - he could end up with 170-180 points. That would probably put him at the top of the defender rankings, or pretty near, and would thus justify his hefty 6-million price tag. However, given City's shaky form this season, I think that prospect is rather touch-and-go.]

Pedro Porro - Well, he has got 1 goal (a header?! VERY untypical!!); but that's probably much less than his owners were delusionally hoping for. Only 2 clean sheets so far, and quite a lot of goals conceded; and NO ASSISTS! That goal in the opening game against Leicester gave his owners much encouragement, and kept him up around the top of the defender rankings for quite a while; but he's fallen out of the top 20 now - and I don't see him getting back up there, with Spurs's flakey form this season. Spurs's keeper has a lot of weaknesses; Spurs's high-line tactic has a lot of weaknesses (they rely very, very heavily on Van de Ven's pace to provide emergency cover when they get caught on the break; while he's missing, they might concede a lot...); thus, none of their players look like very reliable sources of defensive points. But people were buying Porro because they thought he was an attacking powerhouse. Not so much. I pointed out that most of his attacking contributions last season had come during a fairly short spell when he was playing as an outright wing-back - almost a winger - because all of their usual wide creative players were injured; he doesn't actually get far forward in the attack very often. This year, in fact, even less so, as he's tending to hang a bit deeper (while Udogie is often the more advanced full-back), and invert into a central midfield box rather than push up the flank. A good player, certainly; but not worth 5.5 million.

Cody Gakpo - This one wasn't really that controversial. Some people (myself included!) might think it a shame that such an outstanding player can't get a regular start for his club. And some people (myself not included!) might feel that Luis Diaz is too inconsistent to be the invariable starter on Liverpool's left flank. Gakpo has replaced him a few times recently; but I still don't see any indication that that's likely to become a lasting change. 1 goal and 1 assist from 3 starts and 7 (mostly quite substantial) substitute appearances isn't that inspiring.

And I'll throw in a 'bonus' one, a player I omitted in these two early posts on 'Bad Picks', but have referred to a number of times since, notably here....

Morgan Rogers - Well, he's just surged back up the midfielder rankings, after bagging another goal against Spurs. But I don't think he's ever quite cracked the top 10; or indeed the top 3 - mostly, not even the top 5 or 6 - for the 5.0-6.0 price category in midfield. And although 3 goals in 10 games sounds moderately impressive, they have ALL been extremely untypical of his usual play. The first was set up for him on a plate by Watkins; and he'd only been drawn into a central attacking position at the edge of the box because Watkins had pulled out so wide to the left, dragging most of the defenders with him (neither of these things happens very often). His second against Fulham was a hopeful hit from outside the box that needed a huge deflection off a defender to wrong-foot the keeper (I'm not sure it should even be credited to him, as it looked as if his original shot might have been bound just outside the left post). And this week, the set-piece coach had come up with a special routine to exploit the eminently bullyable Vicario at a corner; when a goalkeeper stumbles backwards into his own goal, then muffs a clearance with his legs so that the ball falls at your feet barely a foot from the goal-line.... of course. you're going to score (but again, I haven't seen Rogers take up that kind of position on any other set piece so far).  Now, I actually rate Rogers really highly, I think he's a tremendous prospect. But he doesn't look that promising for Fantasy, because he mostly plays in central midfield (he's about the deepest 'No. 10' I've ever seen!), doesn't often get into the box, or even close to the edge of it; and he's too unselfish, always looking to lay the ball off to Watkins to try to score, or to Bailey or Ramsey or Philogene to try to get in behind on the flanks. He is mostly providing Villa with 'pre-assists', for which you get no FPL points, rather than assists or goals. Yes, he is very cheap; but there are at least 2 or 3 - arguably perhaps even 5 or 6 - other options at a similar price who look even stronger prospects. (And midfield points are so important, I really feel you ought to leave yourself more budget than that for your fifth seat.)

Please NOTE: I never said any of these guys were bad players (well, apart from Turner... and Flekken); far from it. They are mostly very, very good players. And in that second post, I explicitly acknowledged that these players would probably produce pretty good points, and that their owners might not feel dissatisfied with them. But the harsh thing about FPL is that just picking very good players is NOT GOOD ENOUGH; for the budget you have available, and the position you're looking at, you need to try to find the BEST POSSIBLE PLAYER - taking into account not just ability and form, but who they play for, and how they are being played, and what their fixtures look like over the medium-term.

And even that assessment of points-potential isn't enough; because you also have to weigh the selection decision in a broader context of who else you could spend the money on, or who else might be a more valuable pick from that club. You're not simply looking for the best player, you're always looking for the optimal pick in a given set of cirumstances. And, for me, none of these guys were that. And sorry, I haven't changed my mind.  (This a VERY unpopular opinion to voice, because a lot of people still have Raya in goal, and/or two or three of those top defenders  I cited after him. And yes, they're doing OK; they're just not the optimal picks.)