Dilemmas of the Week - GW17

Throughout this hectic December, the main uncertainties are likely to surround 'rest rotations' - and the sudden realisation of 'totting up' suspensions -  rather than injuries. These problems will surely intensify, now that we've moving into the crazily hectic holiday schedule.

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 17?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The big losses for FPL this week are Eberechi Eze (doubtful, with a sore foot), Ruben Dias (who has apparently suffered quite a serious muscle injury this week, and looks set to be out for at least a month), Ederson (who's picked up an unspecified 'leg injury' in training, and is now a doubt for this week at least), Nick Pope (who succumbed to a knee problem just before last week's game, and is also likely to be missing for at least a month), and Dwight McNeil (who's had another flare-up of his oingoing knee problem).

Danny Welbeck seems likely to be out for some time, with an ankle injury picked up in training just before last week's game. (The only surprise here is that he managed to last so long this time....  Maybe Evan Ferguson will get some regular game time now.)

Ethan Pinnock had to come off with a hamstring problem in the League Cup tie against Newcastle on Wednesday evening: not too serious, but will probably keep him out over Christmas. Sepp van den Berg suffered a groin strain in the warm-up for that match, so Brentford are looking very stretched in defence now. And Thiago looks likely to miss out again, suffering from a mysterious problem recently described by Thomas Frank as a 'joint infection'(??). This probably means that Schade (or Carvalho?) might get a start this week.

Romeo Lavia also picked up a hamstring problem just before last weekend's game, and doesn't look likely to be available for Chelsea this week.

Mason Mount had to go off early on in the game against City, and will apparently now be out for several weeks (although the injury is as yet unspecified). Victor Lindelof also had to go off in that game with a muscle problem and will be unavailable for a while. And Matthijs De Ligt is also doubtful, having missed Thursday's Cup game against Spurs with 'illness'.

Kenny Tete suffered a knee injury in an awkward collision at Anfield last week, and is set to be absent for 8-10 weeks.

Leicester goalie Mads Hermansen went off at half-time against Newcastle with a groin strain. Van Nistelrooy is apparently hopeful that he might be able to return this week, but that's very much a 50-50. I doubt if anyone is eager to take a punt on his deputy Danny Ward, though - even if he is the only potentially starting keeper at 4.0 million.

Murillo and Ryan Yates are both doubts for Forest, having had to go off with knocks last week.

Kyle Walker-Peters missed the League Cup tie against Liverpool on Wedneday night with a calf strain, but might be back this weekend.

Destiny Udogie (fatigue) and Timo Werner (illness) also missed the Cup game on Thursday, but should be OK for the Liverpool game tomorrow.

José Sá is still recovering from his minor shoulder injury, and might again yield to Sam Johnstone in the Wolves goal.

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

Marc Cucurella and Rayan Ait-Nouri are suspended this week, after getting themselves 'sent off' for second yellow card offences after the the final whistle in last week's games. (Cucurella's up to six cards now, so will miss the next game week as well with a totting-up ban.) Amazingly, Ait-Nouri seems to have escaped any additional punishment for the touchline fracas he got inolved in at the end of the Ipswich game last Saturday.

Daniel Munoz, Andreas Perreira, Joelinton, Liam Delap, and Carlos Soler all serve one-match bans for clocking up five bookings. At least Rodrigo Betancur has reached the last game of his 7-match ban at Spurs.

Armando Broja, on loan with Everton, is precluded from selection against parent club Chelsea (though he hasn't been starting anyway).

Mykhailo Mudryk is 'provisionally' suspended, pending further investigation into why he failed a test for a 'prohibited substance' this week (might just be that he's been taking the wrong cold medicine, rather than being a coke fiend... no details as yet). Hardly matters for FPL, since he hasn't been starting in the Premier League.

Matheus Cunha has apparently been spared sanction so far for his assault on an Ipswich staff member at the end of last week's game. A lengthy ban is surely inevitable (and indeed, the incident might also result in criminal charges against him), but the FA are dragging their feet on deciding on an appropriate sentence in this matter. It seems unlikely that they will announce a ban on Saturday morning - but new Wolves manager Vitor Pereira said on Friday afternoon that he was still 'unsure' if Cunha would be involved against Leicester.

And Dele Alli has been released by Everton this week. He hasn't appeared for them for two-and-a-half years, so hasn't been relevant in FPL; but let's hope he's now able to revive his career with the rumoured move to up-and-coming Como, newly promoted to Italy's Serie A.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Rasfhord and Garnacho were both dropped from United's match-day squad to face City last week. Amorim insisted that this was a one-off selection decision, that they would be considered for selection again this week; and he has subsequently added this week that everyone potentially "has a future" at the club. However, this decision was a pretty emphatic declaration of dissatisfaction with the pair. And Rashford has apparently acknowledged in an interview this week that he expects to be leaving the club in January. I would be very surprised if Garnacho does not join him, as he is the player in the squad most obviously unsuited to Amorim's style of play. However, at the moment, that's all still a bit speculative; and even if they are headed out the door, they might still get some starts over the next few weeks - and be eager to 'put themselves in the shop window', apply their maximum efforts to try to secure a better move for themselves. Though I really don't think they - or United - have been playing well enough to inspire anyone to give them a chance in FPL at this point.

Given that even fairly trivial 'violent conduct' against a fellow player during the match has routinely been punished with a minimum 3- or 4-game ban lately, I can't see Cunha get anything less that a 5-game suspension for roughing up a 'civilian'; and 8 or 10 is not inconceivable. I don't see that it makes much difference, though (except to a possible purchaser in the January transfer window!), since Wolves don't have another likely winnable game until around the end of February.. And, given that they've lost their last 3 'easy' games, it's difficult to fancy their chances even against Leicester this week. Definitely long past time to sell Cunha and Ait-Nouri (and any other Wolves assets!), I think.

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

Amad Diallo has been on the brink of becoming one of my 'Picks of the Week' for about three weeks now...  He single-handedly stole the late win in last week's Manchester derby. And he just had yet another stormer in the eventful League Cup quarter-final against Spurs on Thursday night. I still hesitate on him because it's not yet absolutely clear that he'll start every game (or what position he'll start in!) - nor indeed, if he is necessarily one the best three picks from United (Bruno Fernandes, Onana, Mazaraoui, Dalot and De Ligt are all popular picks at the moment) or if he is absolute leader in the crowded 'budget midfielder' space (Enzo Fernandez, Rutter, Iwobi, Kluivert, Schade, Buonanotte, Hudson-Odoi, and perhaps Szmodics, Jota Silva, Ismaila Sarr and Jacob Murphy as well, all making strong claims recently).

Newcastle, especially Gordon and Isak, and Lewis Hall (bouncing back strongly from an utterly horrible performance the gameweek before), were looking sharp again. But my enthusiasm is tempered by their likely loss of Pope for a month or so (they did look much less settled when they had to rely on Dubravka in goal through the second half of last season), and by the fact that their away form has always tended to be quite disappointing.... and their dreadful lack of consistency so far this season. All three of them are going to be worth having at some point this season - but maybe not quite yet. [Cue immediate hattrick from Isak! I think that was not reasonably foreseeable...]

A lot of people seem to have been getting quite excited about Ismaila Sarr's brace (nearly a hattrick!) against Brighton last week. But I still haven't seen any evidence of consistency from him; and he isn't likely to be nearly as effecitive with Eze out of the team.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

Let the Revels commence!

 

I've always been rather fonder of the Roman Saturnalia than any of the later - more piously theistic - winter festivals that have grown up since: just a solid week or so of heavy partying (and assorted debauchery, as often as not), to take one's mind off the grimness of the shortest days of the year.

The holiday schedule in the English Premier League seems to be even more crazily compressed than usual this year, with four full gameweeks shoehorned into barely more than a fortnight over Christmas and the New Year.... and then, after a rather token 'winter break', two more in the space of 5 or 6 days in mid-January.  Try not to get caught out by any of the FPL Gameweek deadlines.

They are as follows:

Gameweek 17:  Saturday/Sunday 21st-22nd December - DEADLINE Sunday 31st, 11am UTC

Gameweek 18:  Thursday/Friday  26th-27th December - DEADLINE Thursday 26th, 11am UTC

Gameweek 19:  Sunday/Monday/(Wednesday)  29th-30th December (and 1st January) -

DEADLINE  Sunday 29th, 1pm UTC

Gameweek 20:  Saturday/Sunday/Monday  4th-6th January - DEADLINE Saturday 4th, 11am UTC

Gameweek 21:  Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday  14th-16th January - DEADLINE  Tuesday 14th, 6pm UTC

Gameweek 22:  Saturday/Sunday/Monday  18th-20th January - DEADLINE  Saturday 18th, 11am UTC

I don't know about the players, but I think I'll need A REST after all that!

Happy Holidays to all (such few readers as I yet have here...)!!!  

And may the New Year bring us all better fortune in our dratted addiction. Fantasy Premier League!!!

A little bit of Zen (21)

 

"We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down."

Kurt Vonnegut

This is a fabulous short video - made as a Master's graduation project in computer animation in 2006 by Dony Permedi.  A little Christmas treat!

Not (quite) a 'Pick of the Week'

I had thought of nominating Amad Diallo as one of my 'Picks of the Week' two or three weeks back. I hesitated because 'Ruben Roulette' was always likely to be a problem in the new manager's early days, and United's fixture schedule didn't look great. And indeed, young Diallo was dropped to the bench for the first half of the defeat by Arsenal, while United were beaten by Forest next time out after that, and only just squeaked a late win against an ever-deteriorating City last week. So, I feel my caution was well justified.

However, he's now racked up 44 points in the last 6 games, and his price has shot up by 200k in the last week-and-a-half, and he might be due for another bump at any moment. I do rather fear I might have missed the boat on him. Indeed, with over 400,000 new owners piling in for him so far this week, he looks certain to receive the (usually ill-omened!) accolade of being the week's 'Most Transferred-In Player'. Now, that rush of enthusiasm for him might make him a candidate for one of my less laudatory 'Sheep Pick' posts; but as I said last week in regard to Enzo, sometimes a mass surge of enthusiasm is well justified. Diallo, for me, is looking much the most promising pick from Manchester United at the moment. While there have been some other impressive performances under Amorim so far - notably Mazraoui and De Ligt, and of course Bruno - I think they're all simply good players, doing what they normally do; and, although they might be playing in a slightly adapted role, a different area of the field to what they're more used to, they are essentially playing in the same style and making the same sort of contribution to the game as they had under Ten Hag.... as they would under any tactical system. Diallo is the only United player who looks like he's absolutely playing his socks off to impress the new manager.... and is actually thriving under Amorim's system of play.

And he only costs 5 million (well, 5.2 now... and counting...).

So, yes, he's definitely worth considering for a cheap fifth midfielder. However, I'm still slightly wary of getting him just yet.

Although the worst of United's December fixture speed-bump is behind them, I think Bournemouth this weekend won't be an easy game for them; and they still have to face Newcastle and Liverpool either side of the New Year. And they're really not yet playing all that well as a team. They're still adapting to Amorim's tactical ideas; and the selections are still all over the place - never the same lineup up two gameweeks in a row (Ruben, my boy, I'm afraid this is being dangerously overdone!).

Moreover, a lot of the boy wonder's new purchasers are getting rather over-excited about the (probably unfounded) notion that he'll be even more of an attacking threat 'now that he's being played as one of the 10s rather than as a wing-back'. Um, he's not. Not yet. That was a one-off experiment in the City game. Amorim wanted to try Bruno out in a deeper role (which he might not want to do again); and he wanted to deliver a wrist-slap to two of his more obvious No. 10 candidates, Rashford and Garnacho (which he might or might not want to do again...). Diallo might well be back at wing-back this weekend (on either side!). Or dropped to the bench again. With Amorim's selections so wildly unpredictable at the moment, you just can't have any confidence in who he'll pick or where he'll try to play them.

Yes, this sudden switch of position actually alarmed me, more than anything: it made me think that if the erratic new coach hasn't yet decided where to play Diallo, maybe he hasn't even fully decided that he wants to play him (regularly) at all....  And it should be noted that in a lot of his comments before and after that City game, he was stressing that it was unfair to ask too much too soon from young players. Now, he might just have been talking about the psychological burden of inflated expectations; but he might also have been thinking in terms of minutes, of physical stress and the drain on stamina. So, I don't think we can yet trust that Diallo is an absolutely nailed starter.

Competition for FPL squad places is also a deterring factor. Bruno Fernandes has also been in excellent form in recent weeks, and a lot of people (over 14%) now own him. United certainly aren't yet good enough for anyone to be doubling up on their midfield, so that's an either/or dilemma. Even more importantly, Chelsea's Enzo Fernandez, with his form and upcoming fixtures, has become clearly the best of the sub-6-million-pound midfield options for now. And, although I tend to feel that you shouldn't need or want more than one budget midfielder, there are a number of other very tempting options in that price bracket: Rutter, Kluivert, Iwobi, Hudson-Odoi.

So, I'll be keeping a very close eye on Amad Diallo. And I think I'll be moving in for him as soon as my current 5th or 4th midfield picks falter at all. (Or maybe as soon as he gets another double-digit haul, and his price threatens to jump even higher!)  But for now, I find him - just about - resistible. [Damn - he scored another goal last night in the League Cup quarter-final against Spurs. I am so tempted....]

The Thai commentators I have to endure for most of my live coverage at the moment rather amusingly pronounce his name as Armadillo - hence my opening photo.

I HATE the 'Assistant Manager' Chip (EXTENDED version)

When the FPL Facebook page first announced the new chip last week, I was so appalled that I left a comment likening the revelation to.... waking up on Christmas morning to find a turd in your stocking.

I explained briefly the other day why I didn't like the newly announced addition to Fantasy Premier League this year - the 'Assistant Manager' Chip to be made available in the second half of the season.

Today I thought I'd take the time to enumerate my objections to it more fully:

1)  It is a radical departure from ALL previous chips introduced in this, or any similar game, or even just mooted for possible introduction.... or dreamed of in jest! Fantasy games for international tournaments have typically had a chip where you can get a doubled-points 'captain' bonus without needing to designate a captain, automatically receiving the addition for your highest-performing player in the gameweek (I like that one...), or a suped-up 'Free Hit' where you can remake your squad for a single gameweek with the additional advantage of having the budget cap removed (just a slight riff on the two 'squad makeover' chips we're familiar with in FPL). Over the past year, FPL has been running occasional 'side games' under the 'Fantasy Challenge' banner, which have offered novelty points systems such as defenders getting more points, or forwards getting more points, or players from particular clubs getting more points - inviting you to consider a major squad makeover for one week, to adapt to this modified points weighting. And this has prompted many FPL managers on the forums to joke about even wackier new bonus possibilities.... such as extra points for players with beards, or players with double-barrelled names (Definitional problem: Does a double-barrelled name have to be hyphenated? Sorry, Emile, yes it does!). But the point about all of these is that they are just small modifications to the existing structure of the game, simply allowing you to earn more points - for one week only - for things you already earn points for.

Sometimes, variations in the rules might allow you to earn points in slightly different ways, for different kinds of game actions. In the last Fantasy Euros tournament, additional points were awarded for 'ball recoveries'; although it was rather unclear how this was defined or tabulated, it did add an interesting extra wrinkle to the game, potentially giving a big boost to the points returns from defenders and defensive midfielders. And the popular Swedish Fantasy Football game, Allsvenskan, does something similar, wtih additional defensive points available for actions like this, and additional attacking points awarded for every 2 'key passes' (rather than faffing around with the obscure and often perversely erratic 'Bonus Points System' that FPL inflicts on us!). But again, these are just small modifications to the points structure: we're still getting points for defined game actions by individual players week by week.

By offering points for team results over a number of weeks, this new chip falls completely OUTSIDE the current scope of the game.

2)  By extending the duration of the chip far beyond that of 'normal' chips (which have until now, without exception, been effective for one gameweek only), by adding in 'charges' for it (a sum of money to be deducted from squad budget and an impact on your club quota for players!), by making it variable from week-to-week (this wasn't mentioned in the early posts about the chip, and I think might be part of a series of subsequent 'revisions' they've made to the rules: you can now change your choice of 'assistant manager' in each of the 3 weeks that the chip is in play). by awarding points for such a swathe of different things (wins and draws and goals and clean sheets.... and additional bonuses for getting a result against teams 5 or more places higher in the table!!), they have made the new chip absurdly over-complicated - needlessly difficult to understand, difficult to evaluate (this alone may, I suspect, put many people off using the bloody thing at all).

3)  The imposition of a 'transfer cost' for your chosen manager is particularly irksome. Although the sums of money demanded are relatively trivial (from 0.5 to 1.5 million), you will - if you're making as close to full use of your budget as possible (which you should always be striving to do!) - find yourself obliged to make at least 1 or 2 transfers to free up some extra cash before you can activate the chip... and make do with a slightly suh-standard squad of players while the chip remains active. Moreover, they've added in (this feature appeared to be absent in the first published version of 'the rules') the provision that subsequent changes of manager choice within the three-week period of the chip being active will cost you a transfer.... so, that's a bummer too.

4)  The additional bonus for team performances against clubs higher in the table seems to me to be a particularly unnecessary over-elaboration. Originally, there was no explanation offered of how the 5-place gap between clubs was to be defined. It might have been at the time of kick-off of the game in question, at the deadline of the Gameweek in which the match is played, or at the deadline of the Gameweek in which the chip first becomes active,.... or at the moment that the chip is played (all perfectly possible, and all potentially very different!!). 

It now seems that they intend that the gap is measured at the start of the Gameweek in which the indiviidual match is played (although the wording still isn't absolutely clear on that point: "at the start of the Gameweek" isn't enough, when a number of different Gameweeks mght be understood as relevant to the applicaton of the rule; they really need a few more words in there to specify what they mean with absolute precision). And the (late added?) ability to change 'assistant managers' from one Gameweek to the next potentially gets over the problem that it would be nearly impossible to predict where or how big gaps in the league table would be more than one week in advance (particularly with the middle of the table so congested as it is so far this year: there are currently only 8 points separating 3rd and 13th positions, and only 5 points between 4th and 12th!). However, I think most FPL managers were originally expecting - and probably hoping - that this would be a set-and-forget deal where you simply chose one manager for the chip for all three gameweeks. (The 'club quota' rule will restrict the extent to which anyone can take advantage of this facility: you're not going to want to waste transfers on removing someone from your squad when you happen to have three players from the club with the most promising manager for that gameweek; you'll probably rather pass on that manager option than use a transfer, and sacrifice a top player [when you treble up on a club, it's because you regard all three of those players as extremely valuable....]. Hence, most FPL managers will have at least one, maybe two or three clubs whose managers are effecively excluded from consideration for this chip.)

And one final potential problem on this: the league's ranking is occasionally determined on alphabetical order alone. Now, this is really just a formatting convention; I believe there are 'tie-break' rules in place - even if it's ultimately just a coin-toss?! - for deciding the crucial European qualification and relegation places at the end of the season. And in practice, everyone considers teams with equal points, goal difference, and goals scored to be in a tie - even though one of them will be listed higher than the other. It would seem rather unfair, for the application of this aspect of the chip, if two such clubs were not to be treated equally - i.e., that they're not both regarded as 5 places above your manager's team, even though one of them is listed only 4 places above. It might be an unlikely eventuality, perhaps one that won't arise this year; but it is something that the FPL gnomes ought to have considered and clarified in framing the rules for the new chip - and they have omitted to do so.

5)  There is, I feel, a dangerous lack of proportionality about this chip. It is potentially worth 2 to 3 times as much as the other two bonus chips combined! And since it is offering points for team results as well as game actions, and over a number of weeks rather than just one, its minimum return will certainly be far higher (as the other chips carry a significant risk of returning zero points, or close-to-zero; the 'Assistant Manager' chip clearly does not); its average return is likely to be far higher too. And it's difficult to gauge what its upper-end might be; but certainly far, far more - perhaps over just one week, and certainly over its full three-week span - than the Triple Captain chip... and substantially more than the Bench Boost (unless you manage to get a very, very good return from that in a Double Gameweek).

Thus, it will be the single biggest determinant of FPL rank outcomes this year. (Well, after terrible refereeing decisions, anyway....)  And that, to me, does not seem FAIR.

6)  There are still a number of lacunae in the 'rules', unexplained gaps about how things are supposed to work with this chip.

They seem to have now added in a gloss about a manager leaving a club having no impact on the chip: you will continue to get the points from that manager's (former) club, unless you select a new manager. (Thus, it's not really a 'manager' chip at all, but a 'club' chip.) That seems somewhat illogical and unfair: if you're supposed to be getting points for the manager, you would expect to stop getting points for him if he loses his job... or start getting points for him from a new club, if he switches clubs.

And this still doesn't address the issue that there can be a number of other ways in which the manager may not actually be 'managing' the club, without having left it. If his assistant has taken over because he's absent with illness or a personal problem - why should you still get points for your manager? If he's serving a touchline ban and not able to coach the team directly this week - why should you still get points for you manager?  If he's been suspended because of allegations of misconduct - why should you still get points for your manager?  Most people would surely feel that you shouldn't (just as you shouldn't - but apparently will - when he's been sacked by his club!). 

However, at the moment, I suppose we must assume that the intention is that this is really a 'club' chip, and you keep getting points from the designated club, regardless of the status of the manager - but this hasn't yet been explicitly stated. And I suspect this has the potential to cause some controversy later on - particularly if we had a manager suspended by his club in a 'Me Too' case.

Moreover, the rules also fail so far to specify whether you can choose to go without an 'assistant manager' during one of the gameweeks that the chip has been activated for (if you perhaps decided that you'd just much rather bring a more expensive player into your starting eleven than continue with a manager that week). I suspect that the interface won't let you remove a manager without adding a replacement; but they don't appear to have said as much (yet). 

In addition, the rules appear to remain silent thus far on whether there is any possibility to cancel the chip before its three-week span is up. As I went on to elaborate more fully here, a raft of unexpected postponements could be devastating if you're not able to to use the Free Hit to create a workaround squad. And if you had your 'Assistant Manager Chip' in play in such a gameweek, you'd almost certainly want to cancel it, if you could. And to me, it would seem fair that you should be able to do so - voluntarily giving up the benefits of the remaining weeks of the chip (perhaps even all three of them!) for some more immediate advantage. However, I imagine that the absence of provision for this in the rules is intended to mean that it won't be possible. [This point was subsequently clarified; but it had not appeared in the first published version of the 'rules' for the new chip.]

I think there's potentially also some doubt as to whether you could choose to use the 'Assistant Manager Chip' for less than the full three weeks by playing it right at the end of the season. Again, I suspect the chip will cease to be available after Gameweek 36; but this hasn't been specified as yet.

7)  There is also - as yet - no reference to whether the chosen manager would be subject to penalties for receiving yellow or red cards in a game. The commonsense answer would be YES, since the chip is represented as making the selection of a manager directly analogous to that of your players. But since the rules omit to say anything about this, we should probably assume that the answer is in fact intended by FPL to be NO.

8)  For some unstated reason, the launch of the chip has been delayed until Gameweek 24, at the beginning of February (originally it was said that it would become available at the beginning of the second half of the season - i.e. from Gameweek 20). Because of the chip's bloated duration, this actually leaves fairly little time in which to take advantage of it; and it will be difficult to juggle it around other priorities for using the other chips. [I discussed this problem much more thoroughly in a further post a few days later.]  

Also, of course, with the late-season reschedulings around the League Cup Final and the FA Quarters and Semi-Finals, we often don't get three weeks' notice of the new fixture dates. So, trying to plan how to use this new chip alongside the existing ones is just going to be horrendous.

Again, there was originally no explicit statement as to whether the new chip would follow the usual rule that only one chip may be played at a time. Since it is utterly unlike any of the other chips in any other respect, it was not unreasonable to suppose that it might not abide by the one-at-a-time rule - and that is what many FPL managers seemed to hopefully assume at first. But now there has been a clarification that other chips will not be available during the three weeks this chip is active. And that..... is a HUGE pain-in-the-arse.

This 'Assistant Manager' Chip is just a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE idea - ill thought-out, clunkily implemented, unclear in its details, maddeningly over-complex, utterly divorced from the usual format of the game we so love. It actually threatens to ruin the game this year.

And I would strongly recommend people to boycott using this silly chip.... or to give up the game altogether, before it starts being spoiled by people using the chip - in Gameweek 23.  

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

I HATE the 'Assistant Manager' chip (Short version)

 

Last week, FPL unveiled its big innovation for the second half of this season: the new 'chip', previously identified only as a 'Mystery Chip', is now revealed as the 'Assistant Manager' chip.

In the intitial announcements on the FPL Facebook page, there was a terrifying lack of detail about how this - insanely complicated - new bonus was actually going to work. And although they rushed to revise and amplify the rules concerning it, I fear there are still a few holes in them. I think I will have a more extended rant enumerating the many insanities and inanities of this silly new gimmick soon; but I will try to keep this initial response to the news fairly brief.

What I love about this game of ours is its simplicity. It is closely tied to the game we love to watch every week, English Premier League football. It makes you a virtual 'manager', allowing you to assemble a squad of players and choose a starting eleven each gameweek, and to earn points for specified game actions by the individual players you've chosen within each gameweek.

I've said before that I don't particularly like the game's current 'bonus chips' (a relatively late introduction), as they are superfluous to the regular gameplay, and an irksome additional element of randomization (you only have about a one-in-three chance of getting much from them, and perhaps only a one-in-ten chance or less of doing really well from one of them). However, they do at least fit within the regular structure of the game: they simply give you more points for things you already earn points for.

This new bonus chip is something completely different, it falls entirely outside the points structure of the game as we know it. Instead of points for individual player performances in a single gameweek, it gives us points for team results over a run of gameweeks. So, it is essentially a completely separate side-game crudely grafted on to the game that we enjoy at the moment. 

Moreover, with the existing bonus chips that I don't like, there is at least some proportionality: the chips can be worth little or nothing if you get unlucky with them, and rarely yield much more than 15-20 points for each. This new chip is potentially worth such a HUGE number of points that it will completely distort the outcomes of the game - and will thus, alas, be impossible for most FPL managers to resist using (though I'd really love to see a mass boycott of this abomination).

To make things even worse, the new chip doesn't just offer points for one thing, but for a whole range of things: not just for wins or draws, but also for goals and clean sheets. And it offers yet a further set of potential bonus points for gaining a win or draw against a team currently well above your chosen manager's team in the league ranking. And, unlike any of the other chips that have ever been tried in this or any similar game, they want to impose 'charges' for it. You will need to give up a small amount of your player budget to play the chip, and also sacrifice part of your player quota from the club you pick for it - over-complication upon over-complication upon over-complication, all completely needless.

It might be an intriguing challenge, but... it has absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REGULAR GAME. It is a gimmicky side-game idea that would be better accommodated within the occasional 'Fantasy Challenge' series.

Luck-o-Meter (16)

Credit to Everton for frustraing Arsenal so effectively. Pickford played an especially crucial role (in denying those of us who'd given Saka the captain's armband for this one our expected points bonanza...), pulling off one especially smart save from Saka at the foot of his near post, and then, minutes later, cutting out a fierce square ball across the six-yard box from him that was destined to be a tap-in for Havertz. And oh my god, what was that penalty decision near the end?? Partey gets clattered by two Everton players, Mykolenko both tripping him with his extended front leg, and dangerously flattening his standing leg with the knee of his trailing leg as he dives in from recklessly far away, and then as Partey is starting to fall, Doucoure runs into the back of him - which should have been a foul in itself, even if the first challenge wasn't. Presumably, the referee and the VAR official felt that Mykolenko 'got something on the ball' - well, maybe (very, very doubtful in the initial challenge; he toe-poked it away after flattening Partey, in a separate movement, so that obviously can't count), but that's not an absolute defence if you completely take out an opponent's legs. That is one of the most obvious and unarguable penalties I've seen all season. (And I don't say that merely because my boy Saka would obviously have converted the kick, and earned 7 or 8 more points for the match, doubled.... Athough, damn, YES, that rankles.)

Credit to Fulham too, for - yet again - having the organisation and the desire to upset one of the 'big boys' (strange, though, that they're often so much less impressive against their mid-table peers...), but.... Andy Robertson should not have been sent off. And, as far as we could tell, VAR didn't even consider the referee's decision on the foul, only whether the whole passage of play might have been rendered moot by a possible offside against Antonee Robinson when the ball was initially released to him down the right flank. That was yet another of those that was decided on a ridiculously narrow margin, and the screen resolution on the still frames shared on TV just wasn't good enough to confirm a gap of an inch or two (as with so many of these calls we've seen this year, it was so close that the issue of the timing of the ball being played would be crucial; and it's highly doubtful whether the correct still frame had been chosen, or indeed whether any single frame could have been definitive). To the naked eye, he certainly looked offside; and it was impossible to see why the decision 'lines' had been drawn where they were. I strongly suspect that this one might have been swayed by an optical illusion, by a mere assumption that Virgil Van Dijk's toe was further back than it actually was - as you expect the defender's foot to be pointing towards the byline, but Virgil's foot was actually turned inwards quite a lot, so it was almost parallel to the byline. Anyhow, the decision on the foul was ridiculous: the ball was running away from Harry Wilson, he was chasing it towards the middle of the pitch, not directly towards the goal, and there was another defender in the middle who could have put in a challenge or a block if he had recovered it to have an attempt at goal himself; but the ball did break to Raul Jimenez, and the ref played an 'advantage' to allow him to try to score (and he really should have done) - so, clearly there was no question of a 'denial of a goal-scoring opportunity'. (And I'm really not sure of the rules on this any more, but doesn't an offence like that have to be 'deliberate'?? I honestly thought Robertson's 'challenge' looked accidental, as if he just ran into Wilson.)  So, yet another huge refereeing cock-up, which might well have turned the course of the game - and maybe even the championship. (Not that I have much sympathy for Liverpool: they've definitely enjoyed the 'rub of the green' so far this season, with a lot of dodgy decisions going their way; this really felt like a fair evening out of their luck.)

After a bright start to Van Nistelrooy's stewardship at Leicester, they're back to their old selves again, defending like a gaggle of old washerwomen...  It didn't help that they lost their outstanding goalkeeper Hermansen (to a groin strain, apparently) at half-time. Newcastle were somewhere near their best again, especially Anthony Gordon (another BPS travesty that he somehow missed out on any bonus points here) - although the absence of Pope will be a worry, since their form did drop off while they had Dubravka in goal last season. And although the BBC pundits were strangely criticising Bruno Guimaraes for a supposed 'dive' in the penalty area, I thought Westergaard clearly ran into the back of him - more than enough contact for a penalty.

Wolves did well to get themselves back into the game against Ipswich in the second half, but they should never have let a visiting team - particularly a fellow bottom-end struggler - get so on top at the beginning of the game. And they yet again got caught out at a set piece to throw away the hard-earned point at the death. Ugly scenes after the end of the game saw the ridiculously over-popular Ait-Nouri (still somehow at 14% ownership, despite just 4pts in 3 straight defeats prior to this match) receive a second yellow card after the final whistle for getting involved in a scuffle on the touchline (with whom? not sure!); and I suspect he might end up with more than a one-game ban for that. His teammate Cunha also piled in to some argey-bargey with one of the Ipswich staff and was lucky to escape a card - a red card. TV cameras clearly show him slapping the guy across the back of the head with his forearm, then shoving him in the face and ripping his glasses off; I think that will probably land him with a lengthy ban too. At least all of this isn't likely to be Gary O'Neill's problem much longer.

More controversy - and bad refereeing - at the City Ground in the late match. First off, we had Morgan Rogers's penalty appeal being rejected. That, I thought, was fair enough, on balance: the contact - the defender grabbing his wrist to pull him back - had started well outside the area; and Rogers should already have been penalised for grabbing handfuls of the opponent's shirt just before this. But the VAR determination of the incident on the basis that the holding 'did not affect play' was ridiculous: it clearly stopped Rogers reaching the ball. Villa fans are also probably a bit miffed - although, strangely, none of the players seemed to complain about it at the time - that Anderson had bundled over Cash to win the ball at the start of the move that produced Milenkovic's late winner. The referee was unsighted; but VAR is supposed to review potential fouls in the build-up to a goal, and conspicuously failed to do so here. That was a bit of an odd goal too, in that Martinez was perhaps a bit lucky not to have it credited against him as an 'own goal', since he caught it... and then dropped it over his goal-line. We don't like to see those taken away from the attacking player, and it was an awkward one to handle, a firm header directed into his midriff - perhaps never fully under his control as he fell backwards trying to gather it more securely; but we have sometimes seen those called an 'own goal'. Still, the away fans will probably pardon this rare bit of clumsiness from the Argentinian because he had earlier pulled off a truly remarkable instinctive save to claw a ball back from behind his goal-line. But good grief, yet another of those ridiculously tight - and unconvincing - offside decisions against Elanga to deny Chris Wood a goal! It's not just the technical shortcomings of VAR at fault here; we really need a radical rule change to make these incidents more effectively police-able - including the recognition that you simply can't make accurate determinations to a matter of inches, and shouldn't try.

Brighton, facing their 'derby' rivals, Palace, produced a strangely flat performance - and some more dreadful defending - to allow the visitors to get well on top. But for Munoz having a goal ruled out (surely correctly) for Sarr having pushed over a Brighton defender in supplying the assist for it (and what a surprising 'Man of the Match' he was!!) and Nketiah fluffing a late one-on-one,... and Guehi suffering a really unlucky ricochet to gift the home side a late consolation own-goal, this might have been a real landslde. Although Brighton did mount more pressure in the second-half, with Enciso being their main inspiration - and Henderson had to pull off a string of sharp saves to preserve the clean sheet for most of the game. Palace are finally starting to build some positive momentum, with the back three, in particular, now looking very robust. A knock for Eze could be a bit of a worry, though.

The only real excitement from the City v United clash came in the pre-match news, with Garnacho and Rasfhford being omitted from the squad (a chatter-inducing 'statement' from Amorim, though scarcely a 'surprise', as these were obviously the two players who least fitted his preferred system of play, and hence the two likeliest to be sold or loaned out next month; this development was certainly not as much of a shock as the abrupt falling-out with Dan Ashworth at the start of the week), and Ederson being suddenly restored to the City goal, apparently without a word of explanation from Pep. The game itself was a bit stale, an uninspiring clash of struggling 'mid-table' sides! United should surely have had an earlier penalty when Dias hung his leg out across Hojlund without getting anywhere near the ball; it was a weird challenge, more of an attempt to block the attacker's path than a trip; and Hojlund made it look as if 'he went down easily' - but there was definitely contact, and you can't fling your leg across a player like that and escape consequences. It didn't make any difference to the ultimate result; but a lot of FPL managers who were on Bruno this week can feel a little aggrieved that he only registered 1 goal rather than 2 (although perhaps the match's most surprising moment was him squandering a golden chance to grab the equaliser from open play when he was put clean through by a delightfully weighted reverse pass from Hojlund). Well, there was also, of course, a huge slice of luck in Gvardiol's opening goal, since DeBruyne's cross took a massive deflection (how does Kevin still get the assist for this?!) off Diallo's attempt to block it, and looped rather fortuiitously straight on to his head - even Pep looked dismayed, embarrassed rather than celebratory at getting the breakthrough this way. And then a superb late winner from Diallo!!! Lots of surprises here. And yes, there is a strong case that Walker should have been sent off in the first half: one yellow card for the petulant, violent shove on Hojlund, and another for then pretending that the Dane had headbutted him in response. It's a pity that kind of shameful play-acting can't earn a straight red; but a double-yellow here would have been quite justified.

Chelsea perhaps weren't quite at their best in the evening kick-off, but still dominated Brentford - and could have won more comfortably if Jackson hadn't muffed a sitter in the first-half. But Carvalho nearly got Brentford back in the game when he smashed a close-range effort against the underside of the crossbar. However, Chelsea should probably have had at least one penalty before that; there were a number of instances of heavy 'wrestling' going on in the Brentford box at set-pieces, one with Colwill being pushed to the floor (by Lewis-Potter, I think?) that looked a stone-cold penalty - but VAR, taking the weekend off, apparently didn't even glance at any of them. Cucurella getting himself a second yellow for an altercation with some Brentford players after the final whistle was a bitter pill for those who - like me! - have recently brought him into their squads. Palmer once again played a fantastic game, without picking up any FPL points for himself; this will no doubt precipitate another mass sell-off by 'the sheep' (I hope they will be duly punished by another huge haul from him against Everton next week!!). It was also a bit of a disappointment for many that Mbeumo was able to steal a consolation goal with a late breakaway - and so wipe out what had looked a certain Chelsea clean sheet (many managers now have Palmer and Enzo - or perhaps Madueke - and one of the defenders or Sanchez; so, that one little lapse by the Blues was a 6-point hit for them!!).

Spurs were not immediately missing their preferred central defensive pairing against largely toothless Southampton, and indeed felt able to field a 'B Team' for their visit to the south coast, with youngsters Bergvall, Gray, and particularly Djed Spence all having impressive games; and inspirational captain Son able to be taken off for a rest at half-time, with the result already safely beyond question. Southampton did rally slightly in the second half, managing to prevent any more leaks, and actually creating a few decent chances of their own through Tyler Dibling. But after this embarrassing demolition, it was no surprise that Russell Martin's departure was confirmed shortly after the game. No, the big surprise for me is that BBC's match report fan poll only ranks the outstanding James Maddison as Spurs' thirteenth best player on the night! WTF???  I wonder if some of the fanbase have turned against him, after his occasional benchings over recent weeks? He was clearly, by any conventional measure, the 'Man of the Match', scorer of two absolutely stunning goals, and involved in the creation of the others. This massive win made it a good week in FPL for Spurs fans (who often loyally hang on to the full quota of three of their players, regardless of the team's form or fixtures!). This was obviously a fixture that presented an excellent opportunity for some huge hauls; but the essence of 'Spursiness' is to constantly confound expectations, to surprisingly outplay better teams while often floundering against weaker ones. And their performances have been so flakey over the last few weeks, almost no-one other than diehard fans wanted to take a chance on their players this week - a reluctance we now regret!

A sharp performance from Lukas Fabianski in goal seems to have kept West Ham in the game at Bournemouth on Monday night (although match reports all seem to indicate slightly fewer than the '8 saves' he was credited with by FPL; and the highlights I just watched showed only 3!); however, Bournemouth's finishing was again poor, with a huge number of attempts on goal but most well off target. Apart from one neat curler from Bowen that hit the top of the crossbar, West Ham didn't generate much of an attacking threat, and their late penalty seemed unjust on the balance of play, as well as for the decision itself; the TV replays I saw did not even clearly show that the ball had touched Tyler Adams's hand; but the cross was fired at him from such close range, there wasn't much he could have done to get his hand out of the way. (And how does Wann-Bissaka earn an assist for that? That doesn't seem right, either! If a defender deliberately 'saves' a goal-bound shot, you deserve an assist for shooting, sure; but when you just play a hopeful ball into the box and it happens to hit someone's arm??) Fortunately for Bournemouth, they managed to win a free-kick a few minutes later, and Enes Unal managed to convert it from nearly 30 yards out, and bang in the middle of the goal.

Another poor week for refereeing, with the the denial of Partey's penalty one of the worst decisions of the season so far - but two or three other strong shouts ignored in other games as well; and the ridiculous sending-off of Andy Robertson changing the course of the Liverpool v Fulham game, while a couple of other red cards probably should have been shown elsewhere, but weren't; the penalty against Bournemouth probably shouldn't have been given, Forest's second goal should have been disallowed - but their earlier effort from Wood had been ruled out for a non-existent offside.....  Ugh!  Just a mess of really bad decisions.

There were some goalkeeping heroics from Martinez, Pickford, Henderson, and Fabianski - and also an almighty goalkeeping cock-up from Martinez. And some fantastic goals from Diallo, Cucurella, Maddison...

Everton's and Fulham's draws against the title front-runners, and also probably Palace's win over Brighton count as pretty major upset results this week.... and TWO post-game red cards (and a retroactive third certain for Cunha)... a very weird week. The three most fancied captains, Salah, Palmer, and Saka, all failed to produce very much. And the 'Team of the Week' was once again just ridiculous, with Ismaila Sarr becoming the expected-by-nobody 'Player of the Week', and among the rest, probably only Isak and perhaps Son featuring in more than a handful of sensible FPL selections at the moment.

Thus, I have to give Gameweek 16 another very strong 8 out of 10 on my Luck-o-Meter.

THIS is why you shouldn't TripleCap in December!

 

As I warned a couple of weeks ago, December is a very bad time to play your Triple Captain chip.

Fixture congestion and miserable weather (and perhaps even the distraction of the looming holidays: footballers too need to plan for family gatherings, and get their Christmas shopping done!) tend to reduce performance levels and increase the risk of unexpected, upset results.

And sure enough, here we are at the start of the GW16 weekend, with players like Salah and Saka the most favoured captaincy picks for the week, playing at home and facing much weaker opposition..... and both players produce not very much, both sides are surprisingly held to a draw. I now rather fear that Palmer will have a rare stinker today, and Chelsea will somehow get turned over by Brentford....

In addition to all the factors I listed in that earlier post which can make results at this time of year more unpredictable, we also have to endure the impact of poor officiating (does this get worse in December too? perhaps referees are also preoccupied with thoughts of their Christmas shopping??). Bukayo Saka (my captain choice this week!) was not only denied a goal and an assist by some excellent work between the sticks from Pickford, but, near the end of the game, was robbed of the chance to convert a penalty by possibly the worst refereeing/VAR decision of the entire season so far. The only small consolation I can cling to is that this injustice would have pained me even more if I'd had my Triple Captain chip riding on him....

This is a Season of Craziness, my friends. Hang on to your bonus chips until the New Year....

Dilemmas of the Week - GW16

Throughout this hectic December, the main uncertainties are likely to surround 'rest rotations' - and the sudden realisation of 'totting up' suspensions -  rather than injuries. Although, with the final round of European games for this year taking place in midweek, I suppose there are bound to be a few knocks and niggles complicating the picture. Fingers crossed for no major disasters (or last-minute postponements)!

It's still early morning in the UK as I put this together. I'll add updates as necessary if any major news breaks on Friday or Saturday.

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 16?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

Leon Bailey went off with some kind of hamstring strain in the match against Southampton last weekend; although described as a 'mild' injury, it seems it might keep him out of the reckoning for the rest of the month. And now Ollie Watkins has hobbled off with a knock in Tuesday night's game in Leipzig; he's a pretty resilient guy, and I suspect he'll be OK for Saturday - but this is probably the biggest FPL worry of the week, with around 24% of managers still owning him (despite his and Villa's iffy form for most of this season?!). Some, though, are no doubt getting excited about the possibility of a start for Jhon Duran in his place.

Of Brighton's numerous 'walking wounded', only Joel Veltman yet seems close to being able to feature this weekend; and it might be doubtful he'll immediately replace Tariq Lamptey, who was outstanding last week.

Marcos Senesi has just had surgery on his thigh injury, and is now likely to miss most of the rest of the season. (Good news, at least, for early adopters of his promising understudy, Dean Huijsen, one of my new 'Picks of the Week'!)  Marcus Tavernier also picked up a hamstring problem in Monday night's game against Wolves, and could be out for weeks at least. (This probably makes more room in the starting line-up for recently back-from-injury Dango Ouattara, and will perhaps allow more creative space to Kluivert and Semenyo to earn FPL points.)

Callum Wilson has reportedly picked up yet another hamstring injury in training this week, and could be out for a couple of months or so. (Presumably no-one owned him anyway; but the news could slightly enhance Alexander Isak's perceived value, by reducing his risk of rotation or 'managed minutes'.) Joe Willock also dropped out of last week's squad to face Brentford with a hamstring problem, but said to be 'minor' - and he might be available again this week.

Disasters mount for under-pressure Ange Postecoglou: his central defensive pairing of Cristian Romero and Micky Van de Ven, both rushed back perhaps a little over-hastily from lengthy injury absences last week, both broke down with new hamstring problems in last week's game, and both now seem likely to be out until at least sometime in January.

Michail Antonio seems likely to miss the rest of the season after suffering a broken leg and other injuries in crashing his Ferrari a week ago. (It is at least fortuitous for West Ham that Niclas Füllkrug has finally got himself fit at the same time.)

José Sá's unexpected absence last week was apparently only due to a minor shoulder problem picked up in training, and he could be back between the sticks for Wolves this weekend. Pablo Sarabia might also be able to take part again, after missing a couple of weeks with a calf problem.

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

Alexis Macallister, Yves Bissouma, Calvin Bassey, Emerson, Joao Gomes, Boubakary Soumaré, and Pedro Neto all miss this gameweek after clocking up their fifth bookings (which is going it some for Neto, given he's only registered 7 starts this season). And Southampton's Jack Stephens is starting a 4-game ban for a 'violent conduct' sending-off last week. Rico Lewis, of course, is also stuck with a 1-match ban for his ridiculous sending-off, because you can't appeal against double-yellow cases.

Alex Moreno, only on loan at Forest, is ineligible to play against his parent club Villa this week (although he hasn't been getting regular starts anyway, so this is probably of just about zero FPL relevance).

In better news, Alisson is now back in goal for Liverpool, and looked pretty much straight back to his imperious best in Tuesday's Champions League game at Girona. I just about never see a goalkeeper change as an urgent priority, though; and I'd probably wait a week or two, just to make sure he doesn't break down again - muscle problems like this have a habit of recurring. [His return is an unwelcome, though hardly unexpected, development for those who've been relying on Caoimhin Kelleher for the past two months.]

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

There's obviously something amiss between James Maddison and his manager, and I wouldn't be taking any chances on him - even in what is generally perceived to be the 'easiest' fixture in the calendar (I would argue that Wolves and West Ham currently look even weaker than Southampton); remarkably, some 7.6% of FPL managers still would.

And I would be tempted to say... the whole of the Manchester City team! (If anyone still had any of them anyway....)  However, I expect they'll rouse themselves to best efforts against their cross-town rivals, United; and they have a long run of pretty soft-looking fixtures from here. But damn - Foden is strangely out-of-sorts (and maybe out of favour with Pep?), DeBruyne is trying to play through a hernia problem, Ederson is unfathomably dropped, Gundogan looks hopelessly off the pace, Lewis is suspended this week, Walker's pace and stamina are failing him, and Stones and Ake and Akanji all seem likely to be missing again, while Gvardiol is starting to look desperately weary from constantly having to cover for everyone else. So, their prospects this week don't look that great.

And Wolves, alas, are on the 'highway to hell', and I find it impossible to fancy their prospects even against fellow-strugglers Ipswich (surely a last chance game for poor Gary O'Neill??). After this, they don't have another likely winnable game until the end of February. Cunha appears to have put his scoring boots into storage already anyway; and, as I predicted two months ago, Ait-Nouri is now mostly being held in a more defensive role and so rarely threatening attacking contributions even in games where they have been briefly able to get on top. Thus, I wouldn't be keeping these two any longer - or any other Wolves players, obviously.

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

Well, Minteh and Lamptey both came up with cracking goals for Brighton last week, but they're both 'minutes risks', uncertain starters. Sancho also looked very lively for Chelsea, but again isn't likely to be an invariable starter when Neto and Madueke are also competing for inclusion on the flanks.

I think the whole of the Bournemouth defence - even including Kepa in goal - are starting to look very promising, and they have a good run of fixtures through the rest of December. (Kepa might perhaps gain additional value if he gets recalled from his loan in January to replace the very unconvincing Robert Sanchez; but I suspect his bridges are well burned at Chelsea.)

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (20)

 

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

Bertolt Brecht

Picks of the Week (3)

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 thought I would start occasionally trying 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, I'll have nothing.....)

First up for Gameweek 16, we have.... Enzo Fernandez. Yes, I know, I am in danger of coming a little late to the party on this one, of making a fairly obvious and popular recommendation. Enzo started getting among the goals against Leicester three weeks ago, and his ownership has swelled by well over 400,000 since then - fully half of that increase just in the last few days! - boosting his price by 200k (though, at present, it's still only the very modest 5-million he started the season at - so, still a bit of a bargain!). Heck, he's looking set to be one of the most transferred-in players this week.... which might seem to make him a candidate for one of my 'Sheep Picks'. Why is he not?  Because people are right to be buying him in such huge numbers!  Suddenly he's got a regular start in the team again, and Maresca's found a way of fitting him in that gives him the freedom to get forward more and contribute in the attacking third alongside Palmer. And he's absolutely thriving on it: 3 goals and 2 assists in just 4 games; and his BPS numbers are through the roof - 150 in just those 4 games! In the space of just a few weeks, he has become clearly, unarguably, by far the most the most attractive pick in the budget midfielder category (in fact, he's been playing so well, he would probably still be one of the most attractive midfield picks even if he cost 8 or 9 million).

Why, then, have I been a little slow to acquire him? (And why do I still have slight reservations about doing so...?)  Well, there's a practical difficulty for many of us in fitting him into our squad. Palmer, of course, is indispensable at the moment; Jackson has shown much the best form of the higher-priced forwards this season; and Marc Cucurella has been in absolutely outstanding form over the last 5 matches; and some people like Sanchez (who's actually worked out quite well because of the kind fixture run, even though just about everybody now expects him to get axed next month) or Colwill (a bizarre choice, but a semi-popular one). So, we may already have our quota of Chelsea players, and be uncertain whether we want to sacrifice one of them; however good Enzo looks in isolation, he might still not be one of the three most valuable assets from Chelsea. (This is a problem with choosing players from Arsenal as well; for me, the decisive argument against Raya - great goalkeeper, but won't bring you as much of an edge over other goalkeepers as Timber and Gabriel or Saliba do over other defenders, or Saka and perhaps Odegaard do over other midfielders.) Also... I'm a little bit concerned that accommodating him with a regular starting place involves the 'convenient fiction' of starting Caicedo at right-back; and I think the Ecuadorian's distaste for this role - and/or the strong claims of Gusto and Reece James (well, if he ever gets fit again...) in that position - may mean that this is not a long-term or invariable formation. But we'll cross that bridge... if it gets built; for now, I'm joining 'the sheep' and rushing in for Enzo.

[Well, this recommendation proved a little disappointing at first. Enzo picked up an assist against Brentford in the first match after I published this, and a clean-sheet point in the following game against Everton. But he - and Chelsea - have been much more subdued over Gameweeks 16-18. As I'd feared, he hasn't been able to continue to play in such a free and advanced role - mainly because the absence of Romeo Lavia with an injury is requiring him to sit a bit deeper and help out Caicedo in the middle of the park. At least he's been continuing to start every game, and play the full 90 minutes; but no sign of any further goals - or any bonus points - in the last few games.]

No, I'm not just getting a rush of blood to the head because Bournemouth's teen prodigy Dean Huijsen scored a header in the midweek game against Spurs last week. He was bloody good at the defensive end of things too: absolutely outstanding, in fact - barely allowed Solanke a kick all game, won 'Man of the Match' in the BBC's online poll, and had the home fans singing his name at the final whistle. And again looked very, very solid in Sunday's game against Ipswich. With the Argentinian stalwart Marcos Senesi likely to be sidelined for several weeks with a serious thigh injury, the youngster is looking set for a good run of starts. I'm not suggesting anyone should immediately install him as one of their three preferred starting defenders; but his price has fallen to 4.3 million (from a rather ungenerous opening level of 4.5 at the start of the season, when, I suppose, it was imagined that perhaps he might be getting a regular start immediately; though I can't understand why anyone could have thought that when Senesi and Zabarnyi were so outstanding last season), which makes him a tempting budget pick for the rarely used fourth or fifth defender slots - particularly as Bournemouth now have a pretty kind fixture run through until mid-January.

[Young Huijsen has been one of the biggest successes in this series of recommendations so far. He didn't quite make an immediate hit, blanking in the turgid 1-1 draw against West Ham in GW16, but got a huge 14-poinr haul in the next game against Manchester United, scoring a header, keeping a clean sheet, and raking in maximum bonus points. As Bournemouth's defensive form steadily improved, he kept another clean sheet and again picked up maximum bonus points in the Boxing Day game against Palace - though he did also get booked in that one.]

And finally, as a slightly more left-field third suggestion this week, I propose Nottingham Forest's Jota Silva. The 25-year-old Portuguese attacking midfielder suddenly seems to have displaced Anthony Elanga in the pecking-order at the club, and has looked absolutely on fire in his three consecutive starts over the last couple of weeks (I find myself surprised that he hasn't yet registered a goal or an assist: he looks very, very likely to soon). Like Fernandez and Huijsen, his absence from the first team caused his opening price to drop a little; and at just 5.9 million, he's looking a very attractive prospect to me at the moment. Forest's little fixture-difficulty blip is pretty much behind them too: with the form they're in, they don't have to fear Brentford or Spurs; and while the New Year game against Liverpool is bound to be tough, at least it's at home - and they've already done them once this season! Apart from that, they don't really face anyone terribly formidable until City in mid-February. (Time to get back in on Sels and their defenders, I fancy... And, if you also have Wood up front - and why would you not? - that could again mean that your club quota is fully occupied. But if you do have space for one more Forest player, I think Silva is worth consideration.)

[Oh dear! Well, Jota Silva was more of a 'one to watch' than a strong recommendation. He had seemed to have become a nailed starter in the Forest lineup; but as soon as I mentioned him here, he lost his place to the resurgent Anthony Elanga. He's still getting regular minutes off the bench, and still looking pretty sharp - but he's obviously not an FPL prospect unless he gets a regular start again.]

Moving deadlines - needed or not?

 

In the wake of this weekend's late postponement of the first scheduled kick-off of the Gameweek, a few managers on the online forums were advocating for the FPL deadline to have been moved.... ostensibly to allow people a little more time to panic (sorry, I meant 'think'....) about how to address this unforeseen calamity.

Would this actually have been a reasonable or useful (or practical) idea?  Or a fair one?

I think not. Probably not reasonable or practical because - unless the FPL website has been set up with a straightforward back-end interface that allows fairly un-techie staff to easily implement a deadline change (which I doubt) - that kind of thing could involve quite a bit of programming... which probably wouldn't be easy to get done safely and accurately within just an hour or two, especially on a weekend (when I imagine only a skeleton staff are on duty at FPL Towers...?).

Probably not even that useful to anyone, since, as I've noted previously in the last few days, there's really not much that you can do about an 'Act of God' disaster like this; making multiple short-term transfers, or throwing your Free Hit at the problem, is only going to be counter-productive. If you happened to be on top of the weather news (and the likelihood of a postponement was heavily predicted over the preceding 24 hours), you had ample time to take whatever panicky and inappropriate 'remedial' action you fancied before the original deadline anyway; and if you weren't, a few extra hours of potential faffing time probably wouldn't have made much difference to you.

And a change certainly would not have been FAIR, I don't think - for two reasons:

1) Such a modification of the rules could only have been implemented for a postponement of the first match of the gameweek, not for any of the later ones. (And with a major storm like that slowly rolling across the country, and some gameweeks being extended over three or four days, it is quite possible that some matches may get postponed only after the gameweek deadline has passed; it happened a number of times during the Covid pandemic. Such an eventuality is really rough on any FPL managers with a lot of players affected by the post-deadline postponement; managers adversely affected by a postponement of the opening game already enjoy a slight advantage in that respect - why should it be made any greater?

2)  Far more importantly, in my view, the gameweek deadlines are set and advertised weeks in advance, and should remain fixed, for the sake of clarity and straightforwardness in the application of the game rules: everyone expects the deadlines to come into force at the originally advertised times, no matter what. 

Some people choose to finalise their teams for the week some way ahead of the deadline, and indeed may not conveniently be able to leave it until just a few hours beforehand. (When the first kick-off is at Saturday lunchtime, the deadline is in the middle of the night for managers in the Americas and Oceania!) Unexpected, last-minute changes to the gameweek deadline would disadvantage those in adverse timezones, and those with spotty Internet access who are not readily able to keep abreast of EPL news - or UK news more generally, or any news - hour by hour. And that accounts for a very substantial proportion of those playing the game (including myself): the USA, Malaysia, Australia, and Indonesia are some of the countries where the game is most popular, outside of the UK. It is unfair to FPL managers in countries like those to implement rule changes (which is what moving the deadline would be) at times when they can't readily be aware of and respond to them.  [The same argument would apply to another rule change often argued for on the forums, allowing manual substitutions to be made throughout the gameweek - as is usually the case with international tournament versions of the game, where the 'game days' for each round of matches are usually spread over two or three or four days. I find it a clunky and unnecessary over-refinement of the gameplay.... and very, very difficult to make use of from a timezone 8 or 10 or 12 hours distant from where the matches are being played.]

Moving a deadline unexpectedly - particularly 'late in the day', quite shortly before the original deadline - would unfairly disadvantage anyone who'd already made their squad changes for the week (perhaps shortly before the deadline change is announced, or as it's being announced... or even after its announcement, but still before the original deadline, because many people will have remained unaware of the change). We all plan for when the deadline is originally advertised to be; and if we choose to finalise our teams before that, we shouldn't be retroactively penalised for that decision by a late 'rule change'.

Perhaps a stronger case could be made for such a late change to the deadline, if - and only if - there were clearly defined circumstances for implementing such a change automatically (not just leaving it to the discretion of whoever's on the FPL Crisis Desk at the weekend.... and blindly trusting to the tech team to be able to put it into effect at short notice); and this provision is well-publicised to all participants. But even then, I think it's unnecessary (not actually that helpful to anyone), and unfair (it confers a privilege - albeit one that is probably not actually very valuable - on managers in or close to the UK, who are constantly on their phones....).  And at the moment, this is not the case: there is no established provision or precedent for automatically shifting a gameweek deadline in circumstances like this.

Therefore, I contend, the deadline should be treated as sacrosanct, and not moved for anything.