Luck-o-Meter (32)

Well, amazingly, no major new injuries appear to have resulted from this week's batch of BIG European games. But we still had quite a few problems hanging over our heads from last week... And with HUGE European second-legs loomng for five teams, the risk of rest rotations is a big hazard for this week.

This week also sees the long overdue introduction of the Semi-Automated Offside Technology, replacing the laborious, inaccurate, unconvincing manual placing of thick coloured lines on the freezeframe view with detailed computer graphic renderings of the players' relative positions. It's not going to be infallible (though the main problem with 'fairness' lies in  the framing of the Law itself; we shouldn't be seeking to make offside determinations to a fraction of an inch - if part of the torso is 'level', overlapping with a defender's, the position of an attacker's toe or a nose shouldn't matter), and it's going to take some time to convince us that it's even moderately accurate and reliable, but.... it's got to be an improvement, surely. [ESPN has quite a good overview of how the new system is supposed to work and why it's been introduced.]

Well, what an absurd bish-bosh of a game we had to start the weekend off - one of the best games of the entire season: not perhaps the greatest football, but the most entertaining end-to-end contest. There were so many potential 'turning points' one might argue the significance of in this (the xG numbers were ridiculous!): Henderson making a great early save from Marmoush, DeBruyne crashing a shot against the post shortly afterwards, KDB then squeezing a free-kick in off the inside of the post to launch the improbable comeback, McAtee spurning three excellent chances before finally converting one,... and, of course, the amphetamines with which Pep obviously spiked the half-time lemon juice. For me, the slightly harsh early booking of Kamada could have been a more subtly decisive moment, subsequently robbing Palace of some of their bite in midfield. (And the withdrawal of Mateta for Hughes by Glasner at half-time was a bit of a head-scratcher - was it 'tactical'? What was the idea??) But really the game swung on the new offside decision-making system: Eze's apparent second - which would have put Palace 3-0 up, and even a superlative DeBruyne and Marmoush would have struggled to inspire a comeback from that - looked onside, but he was adjudged to have been offside by the length of his boot (possibly the 'correct' decision, but it will be hard to earn fans' confidence in calls like this; and it obviously doesn't feel fair to chalk off a good goal for such a trivial infraction), whereas young Nico O'Reilly looked well offside in providing the pre-assist for the crucial third City goal early in the second half, but was apparently 'on'.... by the width of a ruckle on the shoulder of a defender's shirt - WTF? And although the decisions themselves are being produced fairly quickly, there may still be issues about the speed with which the justifying images can be rendered - or shared with the public: the graphic of the Eze offside didn't show up on TV until nearly a quarter of an hour later!  Sharing the images promptly is going to be a key part of winning public confidence in this new system.

S9, a wonderful spectacle at The Etihad, and a fine swansong performance by one of the all-time Premier League greats, but.... boy, oh boy, City dodged a bullet in this one; in at least half of the possible universes, they must have gone down to Palace's blistering start. (A uniquely FPL concern in this match was Eze taking a painful whack to the leg early in the second half, and looking like he might have to be pulled just shy of the hour. He was visibly slowed down by the challenge, and was withdrawn less than 20 minutes later - so, I worry he might now be a doubt for the Wednesday game against Newcastle.)

Leicester managed to score a goal for the first time in three months! Then they did it again. And they nearly nicked a win in the dying minutes when El-Khannouss cracked one against the far post. The visitors might also feel aggrieved that they didn't get a  first-half penalty when McAteer was barged to the ground by Estupinan in the corner of the box: one of those incidents that might be arguable, but at least deserved a good long ponder from VAR - and didn't seem to get it. There wasn't any doubt about either of the Brighton penalties at least; the mystery there was why VAR needed to intervene when they were both so obvious they really should have been spotted by the on-pitch referee straight away. But damn, Ruud van Nistelrooy very nearly pulled off a table-bonus win - which would have brought much joy to the 427 FPL managers brave or foolish enough to have chosen him for their 'Assistant Manager' this week.

Doucoure's late, late winner for Everton at Forest was just about deserved, in what had been an entertaining stalemate. With a few of their best players absent or compromised - Aina still in the treatment room, Elanga unable to start, Wood only just back from the troublesome hip injury, looking rather ponderous - Forest were inevitably a bit flat, but looked much more dangerous in the second half. I'm pleased I predicted the likelihood of an 'upset' here - Moyes keeps pulling off these results! Both Wood and Beto got tumbled to the ground inside the box; both might have been fairly light or 'accidental' collisions, but they were both the sort of penalty appeals that are often given - and they seemed substantial enough to merit far more than the apparently very cursory VAR attention they were given. And Jarrad Branthwaite was very, very lucky to escape a red card (actually, any card at all??) for blatantly shoulder-charging Jota Silva in the side of the head. It was an obviously deliberate piece of thuggery, and the kind of challenge which could cause a very serious injury (probably did cause a concussion - which is another issue; why wasn't Silva taken off the field for checks?). What was VAR doing here?

Villa were pretty lacklustre against Southampton, as they invariably have been after their big European games this year - only really starting to look much of a threat in the final half hour or so. Even then, they needed a bit of luck - with Watkins's smart volleyed chip for the breakthrough only just scudding in off the underside of the bar, and two very soft penalty awards breaking the home side's morale, even if they weren't converted (both incidents were blocks rather than challenges, where the Villa player clearly initiated contact with a defender's outstretched leg [actually, for the second one, Stephens played the ball!]: I wouldn't have given either of them; and what on earth was going on with Asensio taking the second, and hitting it in exactly the same place as the first, allowing Ramsdale to make exactly the same save??); and Emi Martinez had to make two very sharp saves, one early from Archer, one late from Fernandes, to spare Villa some potential embarrassment. FPL managers who rushed to bring in more Villa players ahead of their upcoming double gameweek are probably mostly a bit disappointed with their returns here... and they might be even more disappionted after next week.

Arsenal dropped points again against Brentford (again, not exactly unexpected). What was unexpected, in a fairly dour encounter, was that Rice would combine with Partey for a high-speed breakaway goal (far more of a Mbeumo-and-Wissa thing)! Or that Saka, on for the last 25 minutes, would fail to convert when presented with the ball on the edge of the box by one of the worst goalkeeping errors of the season (Flekken decides to step out of his box to deal with a long clearance from Raya which is obviously going to come all the way through to him to gather safetly in his hands... and then elects to try to control the ball rather than hoof it to safety - WTF???). The BBC pundits were outraged that Norgaard got away with a rash scissor-tackle on Martinelli - but he trapped the Arsenal man's legs between his own rather than making any heavy contact with them: only a yellow card, for me.

The most bizarre thing about the Chelsea game (well, apart from the hosts being carved open on the counter-attack by Ipswich twice in the first twenty-odd minutes!!) was the linesman flagging an offside against Ipswich's second goal, when no-one had been anywhere near offside (presumably he'd been looking at the wrong Chelsea defender, failing to notice that the one on the far side had been a yard or so deeper?); and then, even more bizarrely, it took VAR an agonisingly long time - 2 or 3 minutes - to correct this very obvious error. It would seem there are still some teething problems with the new SAO system, or with how it's being used. So, that was an assist and a goal for right-back Ben Johnson - how many people own him??  (1.7%!! I'm surprised it's that many.)  Chelsea were oddly toothless, apart from a lively start (the momentum was with them for 15 or 20 minutes, after Jackson smashed a shot against the near-post in the opening minute) and a spell of pressure chasing the win at the end (when Cole Palmer had his obligatory near-miss - fingertipped to safety by Alex Palmer - and Enzo Fernandes saw a fierce drive clawed away one-handed by the excellent Ipswich keeper in the closing minutes); it took two goals-out-of-nothing - a fast break down the wing from Madueke to set up Cucurella in the opening seconds after the restart (which somehow got credited as an own-goal??), and a brilliant solo effort from Sancho - to salvage a draw (and George Hirst had come within inches of putting the visitors 3-1 ahead). There is something still very not right about Chelsea.

West Ham produced a much better performance than they have for weeks, and provided Liverpool with quite a stern test - but the champions-elect still ultimately breezed through fairly comfortably. If things had just broken a bit more kindly for them, they could easily have won by a landslide: Luis Diaz might have had a hattrick, Macallister might have had 4 or 5, and Salah curled an early effort inches wide - which would probably won 'Goal of the Season' had it gone in. And VAR somehow decided to let James Ward-Prowse off for a particularly blatant handball in the penalty area (yes, the ball was coming to him very fast, but his arm was fully extended... and moving towards the ball, with apparent intent...).  As it was, they needed several outstanding saves from Alisson to protect a slender lead, and a late header from Van Dijk to clinch it (to atone for his dreadful own-goal a little earlier; a major piece of 'luck' in itself - he doesn't score very many goals, but here he managed to get one for both sides within the space of 3 minutes??!!). And even then, Fullkrug still gave the home fans palpitations when he looped a header against the crossbar in the dying seconds.

Oh dear, oh dear - Ange Postecoglou has been using his long injury-list as his excuse all season; but a lot of his key men are back now,.... and Spurs are playing worse than ever. Nicking consolatory goals through Tels and Richarlison - to almost get back in the game - really flattered them excessively; in truth, they were absolutely bulldozered at Molyneux, and provided one of the most shambolic defensive performances we've seen from any team all season. Things might have been even worse if the in-form Strand Larsen hadn't contrived to screw an effort a quarter-of-an-inch wide of an open goal.... but we can let him off for that one, as he was lying on his back at the time! If Spurs can't pull off a win against Frankfurt on Thursday to progress to the Europa League semi-finals, I imagine Ange will be leaving the club next weekend. Losing so comprehensively, to a club below you in the table, who were until recently deep in the relegation mire - that, I think, is a humiliation too far for the long-suffering Spurs fans. [Interestingly, I can't seem to find any current odds on Ange getting the sack - which may suggest that it's become such an overwhelmingly popular punt that the bookies aren't accepting the bet any more?! The Sun was apparently quoting him as being only 15/8 a week ago; strange, since he's been odds-on for three or four months now! If I could find odds like that anywhere, I'd definitely risk a fair wedge of money on it! The only thing that's saved Ange this long is the Spurs' fanbase's passionate dislike of their Chairman, Daniel Levy, who most of them want to blame for the team's dismal performances - rather than the flailing manager.]

Was Ruben Amorim being brutal or compassionate in dropping Andre Onana this week? The United keeper had been coming in for a fair bit of stick in recent weeks already, but might well be having a bit of an emotional implosion after the flak he received for his two costly fumbles in the Europa League game this week, His sudden omission is a blow to the nearly 5.5% of FPL managers that still own him (and he's actually not a terrible choice: he's still the 5th highest-returning keeper for the season; joint 4th for clean sheets, joint 7th for number of 'saves' points - and he picked up a massive 11 FPL points in last week's derby game!!). His deputy Altay Bayindir looked pretty sharp in protecting the goal, but often got rattled by Newcastle's relentless high pressing - and ended up giving the ball away to gift Guimaraes a fourth goal; that leaves quite the selection conundrum for next week! Manchester had started quite brightly, though, with Zirkzee contriving an early chance from a delightful quick interchange on the edge of the box with Bruno Fernandes that would have been a 'Goal of the Season' contender - but for a superb save from Nick Pope. Anthony Gordon was well enough to come on for the last 12 minutes; so the 8% who own him will be desperately hoping he can now start against Palace on Wednesday.

There don't seem to have been any wildly dubious refereeing calls in the Monday night game at Bournemouth, although there was some argument about whether Senesi should have received a straight red card for a high challenge on Andersen. The home side appeared completely dominant, despite only winning by Semenyo's solitary  goal in the opening minute (which must have come as a mighty relief to the 7.5% of managers who still - unfathomably - own him, despite his having only produced 2 assists and ZERO goals in the last 10 matches); Evanilson crashed a close-range shot against the underside of the crossbar, and Leno had to make two very sharp saves. Curiously, Kepa at the other end was credited with 7 saves, which - in a relatively 'uneventful' game - was enough to secure him maximum bonus points as well (he's only owned by 2..9%; surprisingly low, given his excellent recent form and fairly easy closing run of fixtures; but I'd bet almost all of his owners left him on the bench this week - ouch!); however, only ONE of those saves made it into the club's highlights reel for the game - and that was a relatively rroutine stop, from a long-range curler from Iwobi. Meanwhile, the outstanding Alex Scott got no love from the BPS at all...

Palace completely forgot to turn up for their second fixture of the week at Newcastle, surely their worst performance of the season. The scoreline wasn't at all flattering to Newcastle, as it was really one-way traffic, and they might have scored twice as many - although Isak kept failing to convert chances, Henderson pull off one superb one-handed save early on, and the home side needed a fair slice of luck to get things rolling: Murphy's opener was clearly a mishit cross rather than a shot, and Barnes's second needed a huge deflection off the unfortunate Guehi to slip past the keeper. The only moment of mild controversy came from the penalty decision - which was a tough call to make since VAR appeared to have only one view of the incident.... in which the contact with Richards was obscured by another Newcastle defender in front of him jumping for the ball. Given that the Palace man was laid out by the impact, I think the penalty award was probably fair enough - although we usually see keepers able to get away with clattering people in order to get to the ball... even if they don't actually get to the ball; and here, Pope did. So, a bit of an odd one: if it wasn't deliberate, it shouldn't have been a penalty; but if it was, he surely should have been sent off for it. As it turned out, the penalty award didn't matter, since Eze claimed the prize for The Worst Penalty Kick of the Season; really, one questions if Pope should even be credited with a 'save' for this, since Eze essentually just passed the ball to him. A cruel blow for Eze's FPL owners; and a huge piece of unearned good fortune for Pope's!!

A particularly topsy-turvy week then: a week of some great individual performances.... and some really poor team ones! A LOT of goals (41!), but most of them from fairly unexpected sources... After the weekend games, the 'Team of the Week' was one of the most eccentric collections we've seen all season, containing no-one that anyone would own - apart from Van Dijk and Air-Nouri, and maybe Joao Pedro; that didn't change much with the final two games,... except that suddenly 5 Newcastle players muscled their way into the lineup! 3 'penalty saves' is a very rare eventuality as well (though really all of them were down to utterly appalling spot-kicks rather than any great heroics from the keepers). VAR missed 3 fairly obvious penalties, yet 2 were awarded wrongly to Villa; while Senesi, Norgaard, and perhaps Pope were lucky to escape sendings-off, and Branthwaite definitely should have been dismissed; and a few unreasonably tight offside calls again...

This one's a 7 out of 10 kind of week on the 'Luck-o-Meter', with a few key decisions that were certainly highly questionable, if not wrong, and some ding-dong games, unexpected results. Not the worst refereeing week we've seen; but very far from the best, either.

DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  Most people will have played the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip by now; but if you haven't.... it's not too late to refuse to do so! I took the high road by quitting playing the game for the rest of the season when it was introduced in GW23. [I worry that, if people don't protest vociferously about it, the new chip may become a permanent feature of the game - and it will completely ruin it.]  If you didn't feel able to join me in such an emphatic gesture, I hope you at least thought about refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip (and still might refuse, if you've kept it till the last few gameweeks of the season).

Please also criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

Dilemmas of the Week - GW32

Well, amazingly, there don't seem to have been any major new injury worries arising out of this week's European games - although there'll still be a lot of doubts about precautionary restings ahead of the second-leg games next week; and there are, of course, still some doubts hanging over us from last week. So, this should be quite a short round-up this week.

I am trying to streamline these weekly round-ups, aiming to confine myself to just the injuries to players that are likely to have a major significance in FPL. [I currently find the 'Injuries & Bans' summary on Fantasy Football Scout the most reliable resource for this kind of information - go check that out for more comprehensive coverage.]

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 32?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The main concerns are at Arsenal, where Saka, Rice, and Timber were all taken off against Real in some discomfort on Wednesday and are now doubts. Although with the huge rematch at the Bernabeu only days away, I think we were all expecting they'd get bench minutes at best this weekend anyway. The risk of rest or injury after this pivotal game for their doublle gameweek following also presents a huge conundrum for us.

Villa appear to be all in good knick (even Ross Barkley's just about back...), but some rotations seem likely ahead of their return leg against PSG; although they've got a bit of a mountain to climb in that one, they have to try to climb it - so Morgan Rogers is probably favourite to be dropped to the bench this week, and Watkins too, I should imagine. Unfortunate, as a game against Southampton is usually almost as good as a double-fixture!

Kaoru Mitoma is suffering with a painful heel, and so a big doubt for the Leicester game today.

Phil Foden suffered a knock in the Manchester derby last weekend, and Pep doesn't fancy his chances this week. (But few of us have fancied his chances in FPL for a while now, alas....)

Forest are facing some problems, with Chris Wood's back-up No. 9 Taiwo Awoniyi going down with a hamstring injury ahead of last week's game against Villa, and recent hero Anthony Elanga having to be withdrawn at half-time in that game with muscle discomfort; it's looking like they could both be out for a few games at least. However, Chris Wood is finally back in training and might be able to return this week, while Jota Silva (who I fancied as a very speculative 'pick of the week' back in early December when he'd been getting a run of starts) has been quite the super-sub lately, and is a natural replacement for Elanga.

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

Marc Guehi, Eddie Nketiah, and Jan-Paul van Hecke all miss this weekend after their double-yellow-card madness (the two Palace men were lucky to escape straight reds and a longer ban for their second fouls!) in the 'derby' game last week. It's only a one-game ban, so Guehi and Nketiah will be available for the midweek game against Newcastle.

And Facundo Buonanotte, a loanee, is ineligible to turn out for Leicester against Brighton.

Matheus Cunha has completed his four-game ban, but might start on the bench this week, as Vitor Pereira has stated very strongly that he doesn't want to disturb his winning line-up.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Well, City still fail to convince, United, while looking decent at the back now, are still impotent going forward, and Spurs, despite getting the inevitable comfortable win against non-entities Southampton, still look pretty dreadful. (Although a case can be made for a rare representative of these faltering sides: Marmoush, Garnacho, Mazraoui, Johnson...)

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

Not really, no. People are getting excited about Ryan Sessegnon after his recent goal splurge for Fulham, but - as with Ismaila Sarr a couple of weeks back - that could very well be a flash-in-the-pan. Calvin Bassey was the real standout for Fulham last weekend; but I wouldn't be in any rush to buy him either - as Fulham's form continues to look a bit flakey.

And Jørgen Strand Larsen, of course, has been on a tear for the last few games - but they were three games against very poor teams. Howeever, I think his form looks really good, and that he can probably continue to produce for the rest of the season (especially with Cunha back to support him); probably the strongest budget forward pick at the moment.

Palace are favourite for an 'Assistant Manager' ploy this week, as they have a double-fixture (and another one next week, if you've still got more weeks live on the chip: another chance of an elevated return, without having to switch managers). However, it's not a particularly promising double-fixture (though both of this week's games and next week's visit to Arsenal could yield table-bonuses), and they're stretched thin in defence without Guehi for the City game. A lot of people are enthusiastic about doubling Newcastle too, but that looks a much weaker alternative to me, with no table-bonuses available, and a strong chance that, even at home, they'll drop points in one or both games. Others favour Villa's chances of a big win over Southampton; but again, no table-bonus, Villa haven't been a particularly prolific team (and Southampton have at least been picking up the occasional goal lately, so a clean sheet isn't a sure-thing either), and there are so many doubts about how tired they might be after the PSG game, and who might start on the bench. For me, the chance of Everton causing an upset against Forest or Brentford against Arsenal offer the only tempting alternative to Palace this week.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

DON'T FORGET The Boycott; the dratted new 'Assistant Manager' chip is in play now - and I am urging everyone to please consider quitting the game, or at least refusing to use this silly chip. 

And if you can't bring yourself to do either of those things, please do criticise the Assistant Manager chip as vigorously as possible on any relevant social media channels you use, raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip 

Picks of the Week - DGW32

 

Just a quickie this week, to run through the possible Double Gameweek picks....

As I often warn, double gameweeks are not the magical pot of gold so many people suppose they must automatically be - and this next one, GW32, is really a bit shit: two above-average but well below-the-best teams facing pairs of non-straightforward opponents, games whose outcome is hard to predict... but very possibly - likely - not going to go the doublers' way.

People are probably only going for Palace players (apart from Munoz, who's been excellent for a while; and Mateta who has shown some strong goalscoring form since the turn of the year, at least up until his recent injury) because they have another double next week (though that one's arguably even tougher than this week's!). Since their two games this week will be hard to win, and they almost certainly won't be able to keep a clean sheet in either, I'd suggest passing on any of their defence - even Munoz! And if you were going to go for one, I'd favour Dean Henderson, since at least a keeper can pick up some useful 'saves' points, even when his side take a battering. Mateta's sharpness and confidence are likely to be undermined by his sore ear for a while, so I'm not sure there's much value in him either (particularly with budget options like Evanilson and Strand Larsen, and the similarly-priced Marmoush doing so well at the moment). And Ismaila Sarr I have expressed my scepticism about before: good player, but not a great player, and not a regular goalscorer. For me, Eberechi Eze is the only attacking asset - and probably the only player at all - one ought to be taking from Palace for these two double-fixtures.

Newcastle have slightly better fixtures in the double, both at home, where they do tend to be much more formidable; and then a not-too-bad run over the next few weeks - including a strong prospect for a clean sheet against Ipswich in GW34. So, picks from their defence are rather more viable than from Palace's. It would be nice if we could be confident that Trippier was back to his best; but, alas, we can't. A lot of FPL managers are getting over-excited about Tino Livramento having just scored a goal; but history suggests that will be the last time he does that for a year or two! He has been playing superbly of late, but Fabian Schar and Dan Burn carry a much more regular goal-threat, so they would be my suggestions. Nick Pope I would pass on; his form hasn't looked that convincing to me this season - quite a few big saves, yes, but also far more errors than usual.

Alexander Isak is the only other strong pick from the Geordies at the moment; and everyone ought to have him already, because he's been the Striker of the Season. Anthony Gordon might be in contention for some, although it looks like he's still a big injury doubt, for the first game at least; and his form has been a little disappointing over the last few months. The recently excellent Jacob Murphy - again, quite widely owned already (now in over 17% of teams) - is also a tempting option; but, given the fixtures, I'm not sure he's tempting enough to be worth bringing in just for this week, if you don't already have him.

People flock greedily to a Double Gameweek for their 'Assistant Manager' chip as well. Some favour Newcastle and Eddie Howe, because they look the likelier to pick up two wins. But I don't think those wins are by any means guaranteed, and I certainly don't see either of them being big wins. And neither of them can earn the crucial table-bonus extra points.

Palace's Oliver Glasner would be more tempting for me, as the high-risk/high-reward option with two table-bonuses on offer: if he gets a draw against Newcastle, he'll probably do as well or better than Howe over the double; if he can get something against City as well, he'll slaughter him. But even if he does rather less well than Howe this week, he's still the better pick if you have more weeks to run on the chip, because there's also the chance of an elevated return for him next gameweek (with another double, and one table-bonus opportunity); being able to keep the same AM pick for successive gameweeks - not having to burn a transfer to swap them out, maybe at the cost of a 'hit' - is a huge plus.

But I think Everton's David Moyes or Brentford's Thomas Frank have really good chances of getting upset results against recently faltering and injury-hit Forest and Arsenal; with the huge lift of the table-bonus, these two look much more promising 'Assistant Manager' picks for this week.

A little bit of Zen (37)

 

"Some people say football's a matter of life and death. But it's much more important than that."

Bill Shankly

Shankly, a gruff Scotsman, was one of the great managers of the early modern era in football, the man who first set Liverpool on the path to sustained greatness during a long tenure in charge of the club throughout the '60s and early '70s. Although this line is generally attributed to 'Shanks', I have also seen it sometimes ascribed to other football managers of his time (including his successor at Anfield, fellow Scot Bob Paisley), and I haven't been able to find any definite citation as to when or where he's supposed to have said it.

The line has something of the cracked logic of the celebrated baseball coach 'Yogi' Berra, whose 'wit' was characterised by such apparently inadvertent paradoxes or tautologies (though one suspects that at least some of them were self-consciously crafted). 

It was probably just a stumbling attempt to express the extremity of his - and many fans' -  passion for the game, but....

I like to think there may be deeper layers of meaning in it: that perhaps he was suggesting that life and death are ultimately not that important after all, not as important as they are commonly supposed to be, that perhaps individual moments of experience matter more than states of being... or perhaps that all things are equally important, equally unimportant....

The Double Gameweek that never was....

"Double, double toil and trouble...!"

Or..... the Double Gameweek that isn't now going to be!

FPL enthusiasts have been brimming with excitement all year about the prospect of late-season Double Gameweeks - which have traditionally (though wrongly) been viewed as the best and only option for playing the bonus chips (an excitement exacerbated - and complicated! - this year by the appearance of the 'Assistant Manager' as a third bonus chip...).

But really, Double Gameweeks are only a big deal when there are a lot of teams with double-fixtures. And that would only ever happen if all, or very nearly all, of the games rescheduled from the FA Cup Quarter-Final weekend were placed in the same gameweek. Since this year, for the first time, the League programme was suspended on that weekend, and thus no fixtures were lost that week and needing to be rescheduled,.... there was never going to be a BIG Double Gameweek this season.

Yet people had still been fondly hoping that the rescheduled fixtures from the Semi-Final weekend would provide some compensation, create a Double Gameweek of some consequence.

Because the teams facing a Cup quarter-finalist or semi-finalist also lose a match in those weeks, and get a compensating double-fixture, the quarter-finals could produce up to 16 doubling teams (although, typically, at least one club from a lower league usually manages to stay in the competition that far; and occasionally some of the Cup teams may be drawn against each other in the League that week, reducing the number of teams affected by cancelled matches; in some years, only 10 or 12 teams might have got double-fixtures like this); similarly, the semi-finals can affect up to 8 teams (but in some years, only 4 or 6). In the absence of the traditional BIG Double resulting from the FA quarter-finals, everyone was pinning their hopes on a fairly big Double to come out of the semi-finals. And most years in the past, that would have fallen in Gameweek 36 or Gameweek 37.

8 teams having a double-fixture in the same gameweek would give you the chance to select an entire squad of doubling players (although it's not always worth doing: one good fixture is generally better than two tough ones, so there will almost always be some single gameweek players who will produce better returns than doublers). However, sometimes the League will assign the rearranged fixtures to different gameweeks. Heck, sometimes, even if all the games are rescheduled in the same midweek cluster, they may decide to attach the earlier ones to the preceding gameweek, and the later ones to the following gameweek - creating two small gameweeks rather than one big one.

And - oh, woe! - this year, Manchester City and Aston Villa made it to the semi-finals, but were drawn to play against each other in the League that weekend, so.... only 6 teams would have a double this year, rather than 8. And the reschedulings were split over two different weeks. And then, as a final indignity, the League, in its fathomless mischievousness, decided to deem that the Forest v Brentford game was still part of the FA Semi-Final weekend (GW34), even though it had been shifted to the following Friday. and thus wouldn't get a double-fixture after all. WTF??

Oh, and for the first time that I can remember, the bulk of the fixtures were moved forwards rather than back ('anteponed') - into the preceding Gameweek. So, the much-anticipated Double Gameweek 36.... isn't going to happen.

And in the forthcoming Gameweek 33, we have only 4 doubling teams. And of those, only Arsenal (ironically, the only one of the four teams not actually in the FA Cup round) has a good double-fixture. It's not only a very small Double Gameweek, but a fairly SHIT one - with mostly middling teams and unpromising fixtures. Nothing much to get excited about at all: certainly not for the Triple Captain chip (which should have been used long since by now, anyway).

For the Bench Boost, well.... there may be some prospect for getting something out of it. In general, you wouldn't bring in doubling players unless you thought they were going to do better than single gameweek players; and thus you wouldn't expect to have any doubling players on your bench unless your entire squad had double-fixtures (which is always hard to achieve, even if there are a lot of doubling teams to choose from). However, you tend not to get that many points from defenders and keepers, so even the small lift of 2 additional 'appearance points' for a second game-start can be a significant propoortional lift to them; but even with that possibility, you still might not favour them over your regular starters in those positions, even if they only have one match. Given that your bench almost invariably consists of your 4th and 5th defenders and your weakest forward or midfielder, plus the back-up keeper, it might be possible to find doublers for all or most of those slots - and legitimately claim that they still wouldn't be first-eleven choices, even with the extra game. And so your bench might be augmented slightly by the Double Gameweek. (Also, having at least a few doublers in your starting eleven as well slightly reduces your chances of having someone not play at all in the gameweek, and so drag someone off your bench as an auto-sub. That, however, is a very minor consideration.)

But really, whenever you choose to play the Bench Boost, the quality of fixtures is more important than the number of them; and even more important than that is the confidence that everyone - all 15 squad players - will start.... because if anyone is missing, your Bench Boosti s screwed.

Don't get hung up on the Double Gameweek Myth. It's not necessarily the best time to play the Bench Boost - never has been. Double Gameweek 33 looks like it could be a promising opportunity for the Bench Boost (not a great one, but better than nothing); but there may be better options for your squad - it depends on which fixtures you like most, and when you're most confident of having everybody start.

GOOD LUCK!

 

The Great FREE HIT Controversy

Every year, we get a few folks who take it into their heads to argue very vociferously for a weird - obviously wrong-headed! - position on some aspect of FPL strategy. 

The most common focus of contention is the optimal chip strategy for navigating the various blank and double gameweeks in the latter part of the season. (Though that perennial challenge has become hugely easier this year, now that we're no longer losing the FA Cup Quarter-Final weekend from the Premier League programme. Moreover, from this season we're enjoying the new luxury of being able to save up to 5 Free Transfers. If we are ever able to do so [a big ask!], that effectively becomes an additional 'rebuild chip', giving us greater flexibility on where to use our Wildcards and Free Hit. In all past years, when we generally only had 1 FT to work with each week - and never more than 2 - and multiple Blanks/Doubles to worry about, chip strategy was a lot more stressful,... although also somewhat easier, since the most essential options for playing the 'rebuild chips' were always pretty obvious and unarguable.)

There has always been a quirky minority of FPL managers who like to think that the Free Hit chip is better used in a big Double Gameweek, so that you can maximise your number of doubling players for it.

While I never like to rule any idea out of consideration completely, there are a number of very obvious flaws in this proposal:

1)  If it's such a big and good Double Gameweek that you want to go fully loaded on doubling players, then.... you probably want to play your Bench Boost on it! And that probably necessitates using your Wildcard to bring in the best doublers for it the week before.

2) The teams with the doubles are mostly the teams who've progressed well in the Cup,.... who are mostly the teams who are doing better in the League as well; and hence they are likely to be teams you'll already have players from (though you'll almost certainly want to bring in more for a Double Gameweek), and players you'll want to keep thereafter.

3)  Conversely, the (usually preceding) Blank Gameweek is generally one with mostly weaker teams left taking part, teams from whom you don't usually want many - or any - players.

Hence, while it might possibly - in exceptional circumstances - be conceivable that the 2nd Wildcard would work better than the Free Hit in the big Blank Gameweek for certain managers, it is pretty unlikely. 9 times out of 10, the players missing in the Blank Gameweek are players you want to keep; and thus you only want replacements for them for that one week. And similarly, most of the players you want for an optimum big Double Gameweek are players that you already have.... and/or that you'll want to keep for at least a few subsequent gameweeks as well. The Free Hit naturally works better with a big Blank Gameweek, and a Wildcard better with a big Double.

Yet last year, there was a particularly heated debate on this very topic on many of the FPL online forums. Many, many people - close, it seemed, to being the majority?? - had somehow convinced themselves that the Double Gameweek was such a rich fixture opportunity that year that one simply had to play the Free Hit on it. In most cases, this was compounded by a decision to try to navigate the big Blank without using a chip at all; these poor fellows clung obstinately to the notion that they were somehow being exceptionally clever in thus being able to keep their 2nd Wildcard to help them get around the smaller Blank/Double resulting from the FA Semi-Finals in April.

There was, of course, absolutely NO LOGIC behind that contention. They were  strangely in denial about the very basic points I outlined above, that you rarely want to replace your blanking players for more than that one week, and that you rarely need to bring in a lot of extra players for a Double Gameweek because you'll have plenty of players from the best teams already. They were also overlooking the fact that you can usually anticipate which teams are mostly likely to progress to the FA Cup Semi-Finals, and thus 'set up' for the later - much smaller - Blank/Double challenge when you play your Wildcard.

Furthermore, these folks had failed to consider the additional 'hidden costs' of their strategic choice. Most of them were condemning themselves to putting out a seriously short team in the Blank Gameweek. But they were also mostly having to use multiple transfers - and often a few 'hits' - to minimise the number of gaps in their lineup. Thus.... a) They were bringing in players that they really only wanted for the Blank Gameweek a week - or two, or three - earlier than they really wanted, at the expense of better players. b) They were also usually having to quickly offload some of these players in the weeks following the Blank, again at the cost of missing out on having a superior player available for a week or two - that all potentially costs you points! c) They were burning through transfers to do this (and even 'Free Transfers' have an effecive points cost...), which hampered their ability to make other changes they might have wanted or needed to carry out during those weeks. d) They were running the risk of going into the Blank Gameweek with an entirely empty bench, which again would have cost further points if they suffered any unexpected dropouts from their starting team. e) And in most cases, even after inflicting all this pain on themselves, they were stil mostly only fielding 9 or 10 players for that Gameweek - some only putting out a pitiful 6 or 7.  It was horrible to watch: UTTER INSANITY.

Now, as it turned out, that big Blank Gameweek turned out to be one of those rare shockers where all of the games wound up being low-scoring, and what goals there were came from unexpected sources; just about none of the big players produced anything. It was, in fact, one of the lowest-scoring gameweeks in FPL history!!  (Though this was also partly due to the fact that so many people had fielded short teams, the number of points available was exceptionally low.)  This, of course, massively ameliorated the negative impact of the rash 'No Free Hit' strategy: people who'd used their Free Hit - or otherwise managed to put out a decent eleven without needing multiple transfers - might have expected to get at least 15 or 20 more points than the folks who ended up with short teams, but most of them wound up with an advantage barely half that. However,.... 5 or 10 points is a huge lift. And, as I just outlined above, most of the 'No Free-Hitters' had also spent points on 'hits' and compromised their squad for a week - or two or three - either side of the troublesome Blank Gameweek; so, their actual deficit was usually somewhat intangible, but surely far greater than just the points-gap in that gameweek.

But you know how people who've just done something stupid love to cling to any excuse to persuade themselves that they haven't been stupid after all...?  The 'No Free-Hitters' suddenly started crowing about how they'd somehow anticipated what a terrible gameweek it was going to be, and of course they'd been right, and this was a complete vindication of their strategy. 

No, they'd been very lucky to only lose maybe 20 or 30 or 40 points on their more sensible rivals; but that wasn't any sort of vindication.

Oh, but then the following Double Gameweek proved to be a real humdinger, with oodles of points flowing in from every game. It was - bizarrely - one of the highest-scoring Gameweeks in FPL history!! Now, of course, those darned 'No Free-Hitters' went apeshit about what far-sighted geniuses they had been: not only had they done far less badly than might have been expected in their weak Blank Gameweek, but they'd done exceptionally well in the Double Gameweek! Their brave but shrewd gamble had sensationally paid off!

A few things:  1) They'd done not-so-badly, not well.  2) They'd been absurdly lucky to get away that lightly; no-one could have predicted two such extreme sets of points returns in the critical gameweeks.  3)  They still did bloody awfully in the Blank Gameweek (just not quite as badly as they might have done, relatively speaking...).  4)  Almost everyone did well in that exceptional Double Gameweek; many who had not followed the perverse 'No Free Hit' path did far better in that week than those who had. (I myself pulled in very tidy returns for both Gameweeks; and I'd been able to set up for the Double with regular transfers only - no need to use a chip or any hits. Hence, I still had my Wildcard to deal with the later Blank/Double problem.)

This whole bizarre story is a fascinating case-study in the kind of mass hysteria - and self-harming delusion - that so often grips the FPL hordes.  [I never searched into the possible origins of this curious 'No Free Hit' cult, but I imagine it must have been started by one of the online FPL 'gurus'....]

Maths!!

Joe Devine narrates this interesting short - posted the other day on The Athletic magazine's Tifo sub-channel on Youtube - about why football is intrinsically much harder to analyse than almost all other sports.

The killer quote in the middle of it comes from Christofer Clemens, the Head Analyst of Die Mannschaft when they won the 2014 World Cup, who once noted ruefully: "We are increasingly convinced that there's a lack of data that provides real information about the things that make you successful in football..."  Even the World Cup winners didn't know how they'd done it!

The main point of the video is that a continuous sport like football is much harder to analyse effectively than one which is more broken up, divided into a series of discrete, short passages of play. In cricket or baseball, for example, there are only so many types of delivery that the bowler/pitcher can produce, and only so many ways that the batsman/batter can respond; and once the fielding side have dealt with whatever happens, the ball quickly becomes 'dead' - the game is paused while the fielding side reset and the bowler/pitcher prepares to deliver the next ball. In football, the ball becomes dead far less regularly, less often; and while some teams will try to eat time off the clock by putting the ball into touch as often as possible, it is common for sequences of uninterrupted play in a field game like football to go on for a minute or two.... and occasionally even for several minutes at a time. The possible patterns of play are thus almost infinitely complex. 

The video points out that there are a few games that are arguably even more continuous in their play: ice hockey, for example, allows for substitutions to be made without pausing the game. What it doesn't go into, however, is that these games tend to have fewer players and/or shorter playing periods - again making the challenge of analysis just that bit more manageable. Most field games have settled on 11 as the number of players; a few, such as rugby have more - but again, they usually have rules which restrict the variety of play. In rugby because the ball can only be passed by throwing, there is a fairly narrow practical limit on how far and how fast the ball can be moved with each pass; also, the ball cannot be passed forwards in that game. In football, almost any part of the body is able to be used for controlling and moving the ball, and passes in all directions are allowed, and it is possible to move the ball when struck with the foot a huge variety of different distances and at different speeds - and even to shape the trajectory of the ball by deliberately applying spin to it. This almost limitless range of potential movement for the ball also means that in football almost every player on the pitch can potentially receive the ball next, whereas in most similar sports there are generally only a very small number of likely receivers. (Stick-and-ball games like hockey have similar fluidity of movement, but are much more heavily biased towards passing the ball in a particular arc of the field.) Thus, even a relatively short passage of play, just 4 or 5 passes, can move the ball enormous distances and involve almost the entire team. There are few other games - probably NONE - which have anything like this level of variety and complexity in their potential patterns of play.

The video notes that as statistical analysis has become more thorough in recent years, it has started to prove useful in some areas - particularly in identifying the 'skills profile' of individual players, and deciding if they might be a good match for a given squad and style of play (Brighton's business model is founded on this, and they've become very, very good at it). Where it still falls down, and probably always will, is in assessing the effectiveness of tactical approaches, and determining how far they contribute to a team's overall success.

I would suggest that this is not just because it requires one to look at an entire game (or a whole series of them) rather than just individual game actions, and at the team as a whole rather than just an individual player - although obviously that is a massive (and insuperable) part of the problem. Surely, it's also that it's impossible to define with any precision or consistency what team tactice are. They change from minute-to-minute, as players seek to adapt to shifting circumstances on the field; they change as the manager makes in-game tweaks, or galvanises his team to greater efforts with a rousing half-time pep talk; they change with shifting game-states. They change from game to game, as a manager seeks to adapt to a particular opponent. They change from season to season, and even within the course of a season, as managers seek to stay fresh - and surprising to the opposition. And however clear and consistent the tactics may be in the manager's vision, how cohesively and consistently and effectively they are realised on pitch by the players can vary drastically from game to game.... and within a game, sometimes even from minute to minute. Plus, of course, the effectiveness of the chosen tactics always depends not only on how accurately the team impements them, but on the response of the opposition. 

In a fluid game, like football, with an almost unlimited range of possible movement, and long uninterrupted sequences of play.... any attempt to statisticallly analyse success or failure in terms of the overall team tactics is usually going to be doomed to failure. 

Caveat: Unless the tactics are really, really bad! If a team has a really obvious flaw, like Ten Hag's United having such a huge gap between their midfield and defence, because they didn't have the pace in defence to mount a high defensive line, even though their high-pressing style really required that - then, yes, you can see why a team is losing all the time, and the statistical data will expose that flaw too. But when you have two very good teams going up against each other, it's far more daunting to try to disentangle the impact of the tactics from the importance of individual moments of skill from the players. [Maybe Pep's tactics have never been that good, and he's just been saved over and over again by the brilliance of his teams...??]

I'd go further and say that I think you can usually determine the tactical basis of a result in indvidual games via the 'eye test' - watching closely, and analysing multiple different interacting factors at once. It's much harder, usually almost impossible, to reliably draw such conclusions from data alone. And disentangling the impact of 'tactics' - amid the web of other elements: form, fitness, confidence, refereeing decisions, the 'luck of the bounce', the quality of the opposition - in overall results over a run of games.... that, i think, is a very elusive - probably illusory - Grail to be chasing with statistical analysis.

Food for thought.

Luck-o-Meter (31)

 

Almost everyone looked desperately weary and out-of-sorts in the last batch of midweek games: late-season fatigue is starting to kick in big-time,... and injuries are piling up as a result. Also, with the quarter-finals of the European competitions coming up next week, the teams involved in those are likely to be using a lot of 'rest rotations'. So, one of the largest elements of luck in a Gameweek like this is just correctly guessing which players are going to turn out. At the back end of the season, we inevitably find ourselves sometimes only having 9 or 10 players on the field.

Everton v Arsenal was a proverbial game of two halves: the home side strangely short of verve in the first half, but much more focused and aggressive in the second, really causing Arsenal some anxiety. The penalty award against Lewis-Skelly was unfortunate, perhaps even 'harsh' - but not, I think, incorrect: he did make slight contact with Harrison's leg as he fell over into him. The argument about the decision should properly rest on whether a free-kick should have been awarded outside the area instead, for the wrestling which had preceded this very minimal trip.

Brighton turned in a rather lacklustre performance at Palace, and were fortunate not to lose by more. Anthony Taylor didn't have a great game - booking Nketiah unfairly for 'simulation', when he should in fact have had a penalty for Estupinan's slight but unmistakable trip on him, which led to him getting sent off shortly afterwards - though that second challenge was probably worthy of a straight red; as was Marc Guehi's planting his boot in  an opponent's midriff, also unaccountably only drawing a yellow from Taylor (although also a second yellow). More 'funny business' here with the BPS too: although the system rated it close between Mateta, Welbeck, and Eze, it is unfathomable to me how Eze, who supplied both assists and had a good low shot superbly saved by Verbruggen, was placed third rather than first in that trio... and how Munoz wasn't better than all three of them!

Ipswich are starting to show more fight and cohesion, and Delap has always been dangerous for them up front - but it's all too late. They were made to work for it, but ultimately Wolves came through fairly comfortably for the win that all but guarantees their survival. And Jørgen Strand Larsen is cementing his claim as the best budget forward pick at the moment.

West Ham were woefully ineffectual in the first half, only started to mount a threat after Fullkrug came on 10 minutes into the second - but even then, Bournemouth still generally looked much the better team, and they will be kicking themselves that they twice fell asleep in defence to throw away the 3 points that should rightfully have been theirs here. There didn't seem to be any problem with the refereeing here; although it was annoying that VAR twice took quite a long time to confirm Evanilson's brace of goals - when he was nowhere near offside for either of them. 

For the second time in a few days, Villa came away with a win they scarcely deserved. Forest were brutally punished for their sluggish start; they were so bad in the opening 20 or 30 minutes that they might easily have gone more than 2 behind. But Nuno did an inspired reorganisation at half-time, and the second half - apart from inevitably being caught on the break a few times, through being over-extended; Rogers and Rashford both failed to capitalise on breakaways which left them with only Sels to beat - it was really all Forest in the second half. Forest were discombulated by the absence of their thus-far ever-present right-back, Ola Aina, and their talismanic striker, Chris Wood (still struggling to get over the hip problem he picked up on international duty), and his usual stand-in, Taiwo Awoniyi, late victim of a hamstring strain - obliging them to play Elanga and Hudson-Odoi rather narrower to try to compensate for being without a central striker. But the real problem was Nuno's somewhat bizarre decision to change to a back-five - which did not work at all at the start of the game. Ultimately, they created more than enough chances to have got at least a draw here; so, hopefully, this was just a brief blip for them, rather than the beginning of a wobble.

Curious decision from Maresca to rest Palmer and Jackson for the visit to Brentford. (He's really more worried about a visit from Legia Warsaw in the Conference League than securing Champions League qualification through a strong domestic finish?? It's more likely, I think, that there are still fitness issues of some sort with that pair.) We've seen over the last three months or so that without Jackson or Palmer, Chelsea really don't look a top third side; without Jackson and Palmer, they look a bottom third side. And so it was here. A few moments of excitement, a few good saves from both keepers, the inevitable near-miss with a curler from the edge of the box from Palmer when he got on for a half-hour cameo. His omission will be a sore blow to his faithful followers in FPL (he's still held by more than 40%, despite having been deserted by around 3 million managers since the turn of the year). At least there were no refereeing screw-ups in this one, it seems (although the Beeb seem to be trying to downplay those as much as possible these days; and, since they couldn't find many 'highlights' from this game worth showing, it's very possible that their brief rundown omitted some moments of controversy).

Speaking of wobbles,.... are Liverpool having one?? Kelleher, though very good, isn't Alisson. And Curtis Jones, for all his abilities, is not a right-back - and having such an obviously weak link on that side of the pitch clearly unsettles the rest of the back four,.... and leaves Salah starved of service. Liverpool looked immediately far more dangerous after Conor Bradley came on in the second half. Credit to Fulham, though, for putting on a superb, battling performance to unsettle the champions-elect. While Liverpool might feel they did enough to earn a point in the last quarter of the game, Fullham were really well worth the win; in fact, they should have taken the lead in the opening minutes, when two of their players were wiped out in the box in quick succession, by Kelleher and Van Dijk, but the referee saw nothing untoward in either collision, and VAR apparently considered the second incident an 'accident', and didn't deign to offer a comment on Kelleher's obvious foul (although the League apparently tweeted later that VAR deemed that one also just a 'coming together' - whatever they hell they think that's supposed to mean!). For the overall course of the game, the booking - or not - of your goalkeeper and/or your star centre-back in the third minute might have even more impact than a penalty award. Liverpool were outrageously lucky with this one; and they still couldn't capitalise on it! In the second half, too, Luis Diaz was very lucky not to be yellow-carded for a ridiculous dive in the box - not a great performance from referee Chris Kavanagh in this one. Macallister and Muniz both came up with 'Goal of the Season' contenders, and Harvey Elliott might have had one too - but his fierce curling effort late in the game smacked against the woodwork.

A particuarly astounding VAR screw-up at Spurs, where the home side's apparent second goal, a neat hooked volley from Bergvall, was ruled 'offside'; this bizarre call took nearly 5 minutes, and came as a gobsmacking surprise, since clearly no-one on the pitch or in the ground thought that it was; and indeed, the freezeframe selected for display appeared to clearly show all Spurs players onside rather than off - the lines having been somehow superimposed in the wrong colours....??  Not as calamitously BAD as the Luis Diaz decision last year, but possibly the worst one we've seen this season. Ramsdale might have been a bit lucky to escape a booking for handling the ball outside his area; but the view on TV was not definitive - it looked to me as if he had taken his hand off the ball just as he slid over the line with it. (Not a huge issue anyway; but these things do have small points impacts for some FPL managers....) The greater sense of injustice in this game comes from Brennan Johnson not being allowed to take the last-minute penalty to complete his hattrick - what on earth was going on with that? He looked very disconsolate at the decision to let Tel take it instead; and anyone that owns him would have felt even more so. (He got maximum bonus points anyway, but still....)

In the opening minute or so of the Manchester derby, Ruben Dias's bumbling into Garnacho to send him tumbling did clearly seem to occur just inside the penalty area - but, yet again, VAR seems to have just shrugged and said, "Yeah, whatever you think..." to the ref's initial, impulsive call otherwise. This is a case where it's surely clearcut enough for them to just overrule him (without any loss of face!!); or if not, because there's some 'subjective' element about where the contact took place or how decisive it was, surely he should be sent to the monitor to decide the matter. VAR just doesn't seem to be doing its job any more most of the time. United had much the better of a fairly drab game, but as usual, couldn't muster many decent efforts on goal; but City couldn't manage anything, apart from a couple of long-range fizzers from Marmoush - to me, they're really not looking like a top half team at the moment, or certainly not top-third; probably don't deserve to be qualifying for any European competition, let alone the Champions League. (Another BPS conundrum in this one: how the hell did Josko Gvardiol win the maximum bonus - when he wasn't namechecked in the TV highlights even once?! Now, admittedly, modern-day commentators aren't as reliable about identifying the player on the ball - regularly, promptly, correctly -  as they used to be in my distant youth; but since United appeared to have most of the game, and were attacking primarily down the left through Dorgu and Garnacho,.... it does seem highly likely that he wasn't directly involved that much. He shared top spot with Andre Onana, who similarly did fairly little in the game; I suppose everybody else just did even less....)

Newcastle did enough to breeze past Leicester on Monday night, and Isak - despite doubts and rumours - did manage to start (although he looked decidedly out of sorts, and came off 20 minutes before the end); Gordon, alas, was still absent. A brace for Murphy (now owned by just over 10%) was a nice boost for some, but many (well, 2.5%!!) are ruing the fact that Schar's inspired attempt to chip the keeper from 5 yards inside his own half crashed against the face of the crossbar (providing the assist for Murphy's second, so Schar wasn't completely unrewarded for the effort; but he would have got 4 or 5 more points if it had gone in directly!). Patson Daka was particularly unfortunate in the dying minutes to see his fierce shot hit both posts before rebounding perfectly into Pope's arms (but it might not have been allowed to stand anyway, as the linesman flagged for a very dubious offside against Jamie Vardy, who'd supplied the final pass to him).

A moderately terrible week from the officials, then (not the worst we've seen, by a long way), with United and Palace both being denied a penalty, and Fulham too (a particularly egregious one - twice over!), Spurs having a goal bafflingly disallowed for offside, and two Palace players luckily escaping straight red cards (although they were both second yellows, so it didn't save them from a sending-off or unfairly impact the match; it will affect the length of their suspensions, though).

'Form' and fortune are all over the place at this time of year: results tend to become more and more random, harder and harder to predict in the final phase of the season. This week, we had minor 'upsets' with Manchester United holding City to a draw, West Ham doing likewise with Bournemouth, and Brentford with Chelsea; a rather bigger upset with Everton holding Arsenal to a draw, and really quite huge upsets with Villa beating Forest and Fulham beating Liverpool (very comfortably!). While the few expected wins were not as comfortable as anticipated. The 'Team of the Week' again features a conspicuous absence of any of the big names - many of whom didn't play, or didn't start: no Wood, or Palmer or Saka at first; and nothing from Salah, Isak, Marmoush, Mbeumo, Bruno F., Son, Mitoma... The list of top returners is instead peppered with low-owned randoms like Andre Onana, Reece James, Pablo Sarabia, Illiman Ndiaye, Donyell Malen, and Southampton's Matheus Fernandes (who's owned by less than 5,000 people; although one might wonder why he's owned by more than zero...).  WTF???  Funny old world, indeed.

I think this is just about an  8 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter', with the combination of unexpected selections, a few bad refereeing decisions, and improbable game events and surprise results.

DON'T FORGET The Boycott.  The dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip is in play now. I took the high road by quitting playing the game for the rest of the season. [I worry that, if people don't do this, the new chip may become a permanent feature of the game - and it will completely ruin it.]  If you don't feel like joining me in such an emphatic gesture, please at least think about refusing to use the Assistant Manager chip.

Please also criticise and complain about it online as much as possible. And raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip

Dilemmas of the Week - GW31

Fixture congestion is taking its toll on player fitness now: we've had a fair old splurge of new player injuries ths past week (including the two most popular defenders!). And the 'business end' of the European competitions getting under way next midweek no doubt means that we're going to see a lot of 'rest rotation' - especially for key players, or anyone who's suffering some sort of fitness issue. I feel sorry for anyone who's recently used their Wildcard.... and now finds themself with 4, 5, 6 injuries occurring all at once. Life's a bitch.

I'm trying to streamline these weekly round-ups, as they had been getting dangerously over-long. I'm aiming to confine myself to just the injuries to players that are likely to have a major significance in FPL. [I currently find the 'Injuries & Bans' summary on Fantasy Football Scout the most reliable resource for this kind of information - go check that out for more comprehensive coverage.]

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 31?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The BIG NEWS of the week is that Gabriel - the highest-owned defender in the game - has suffered a serious hamstring injury and is likely to miss the rest of the season. Arsenal could be getting stretched a bit thin in defence as Ben White missed the midweek game with another problem in his troublesome knee, and Jurrien Timber had to come off in that game after suffering a knock to his knee. Arteta is hopeful they have 'a chance' of being available this weekend, but they're certainly doubts.

Leon Bailey missed the midweek game for Villa with a training knock, and remains doubtful. And Ollie Watkins has apparently been struggling with a knee problem - so seems likely to get short minutes ahead of the Champions League quarter-final next week.

Giorginho Rutter was absent in midweek as a result of an ankle problem picked up in the weekend's Cup game against Forest; and Hurzeler now thinks it could keep him out for the rest of the season.

Justin Kluivert was a last-minute withdrawal in midweek with a muscle problem, and remains doubtful for the weekend.

Chelsea's Romeo Lavia, who was finally set for a comeback after a long injury absence, succumbed to another muscle injury ahead of the midweek game and looks set to be out for a while again. (Indirectly relevant to FPL, I feel; while probably no-one would pick Lavia himself,.... Chelsea do play much better with him in the side, and that would improve the points prospects for Palmer, Jackson, Fenandez, etc.)  On a more positive note, Nicolas Jackson was immediately in excellent form on his return against Spurs on Thursday; and Noni Madueke is poised to come back as well, possibly this weekend.

Everton's Jesper Lindstrom has a groin injury, which sounds potentially quite serious. Again, that's one that could have knock-on effects: few people would own Lindstrom himself, but he has been a major element in Everton's recent success.

Attacking left-back Leif Davis, possibly the only Ipswich player anyone would still consider owning, was absent in midweek because of a leg injury suffered in training.

Alisson was yet another late withdrawal in midweek. Liverpool had originally been optimistic about him being able to play, but apparently he 'failed' a last-minute check under 'concussion protocols' (after taking a bang on the head playing for Brazil 10 days ago) - so is probably touch-and-go for this weekend too.

Matthijs De Ligt is doubtful, suffering a knock. But Mason Mount looked sharp on his return for United against Forest.

Many woes for Newcastle: Alexander Isak had to come off after just over an hour against Brentford, feeling discomfort in his groin; Anthony Gordon, three-match suspension now over, hasn't been in training because of a thigh muscle problem hi picked up playing for England a couple of weeks ago; and Joelinton is also suffering with a hip problem. Particularly worrisome news for anyone who was banking on some of these guys, or any Newcastle players, for their Double Gameweek next week.

Forest's Ola Aina (the second most-owned defender in FPL!) had to come off quite early against United, after straining a calf-muscle - likely to be out for a few weeks. (Harry Toffolo expected to come in at left-back, Nico Williams switching to the right to cover for Aina.)

Paul Onuachu, Southampton's goal hero against Palace, picked up an ankle injury in that game.

Mohammad Kudus missed the midweek game for West Ham with a hip problem, but Graham Potter is hopeful he might be recovered.

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

Well, Southampton's Flynn Downes has picked up a two-game ban for reaching 10 yellow cards for the season - but that can have no FPL relevance for anyone. 

Matheus Cunha is completing his four-match ban this weekend.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

With Spurs's continuing abysmal form and a make-or-break European tie against Frankfurt coming up, I wouldn't trust any of their players... even to get minutes; Ange is almost sure to rotate a lot in the Southampton game. (Pity - because you generally fancy anyone against Southampton!)

I'd be wary of West Ham too. They've looked pretty terrible of late, and are also likely to suffer a lot of rotations because..... constant tinkering is Potter's style.

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

Well, Chelsea look rejuvenated by the reappearance of Nicolas Jackson to lead the line. I'm not sure that he'd immediately be a promising forward pick (although Chelsea do have quite a nice fixture-run this month), but Cole Palmer - and perhaps even Enzo Fernandez - starts to look an appealing prospect again as a result of having a dangerous target man to look for. Palmer might get a further lift from the imminent return of Noni Madueke too.

Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford are continuing to look very lively and dangerous for Villa too - although I'm not excited by their overall team form, or their upcoming fixtures (apart from Southampton next week; although they tend to be dreadful straight after a European game, so even that one might not be the gimme it should be for them).

Frustratingly, Brighton's surprise home defeat by Villa in midweek means that their lead over Palace has shrunk to four places - denying 'Assistant Manager' players their most promising pick for a table-bonus win this week. Leicester against Newcastle, Southampton against Spurs, or West Ham against Bournemouth look very unpromising for a table-bonus return. Fulham have a good record so far for picking up these coveted table-bonus points; but I don't think anybody would give them much of a hope against Liverpool. Many people fancy Villa's chances against Forest (it's a Midlands derby, I suppose; they can sometimes throw up more unexpected results...), but I'd prefer Everton's chances of at least getting a draw from Arsenal; and Thomas Frank's Brentford are well capable of nicking a win from Chelsea (although there are signs that Chelsea are finally getting their act together again...) - so, they'd probably be my AssMan pick for the week. Or perhaps United can pull off a surprise in the Manchester derby (there's never been a better time!)?? I think you have to chase these table-bonus prospects, because even a draw can be so valuable; and none of the better teams playing a lower-ranked club this week look as if they can be relied on for a comfortable win.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

DON'T FORGET The Boycott; the dratted new 'Assistant Manager' chip is in play now - and I am urging everyone to please consider quitting the game, or at least refusing to use this silly chip. 

And if you can't bring yourself to do either of those things, please do criticise the Assistant Manager chip as vigorously as possible on any relevant social media channels you use, raise objections to it with any football or media figures you know how to contact, and - if possible - try to find a way to protest about it directly to the FPL hierarchy (and let me know how, if you manage that!).

#QuitFPLinGW23         #DownWithTheNewChip