So, farewell then....

 Alas - goodbye (at last), Uncle Erik.

Though few people, I imagine, will mourn his passing from Old Trafford. The overwhelming sensation, for most of us, is probably rather a sense of profound relief that we've all now been put out of his misery.

It had indeed become embarrassing, painful to witness this ongoing slow-motion train-wreck over so many months....  It is baffling that the board did not get rid of him last summer (an untypically brilliant performance to clinch the FA Cup scarcely compensating for another dismal season in the League); or during the last international break. Van Nistelrooy has recently been much-touted as at least an interim option; but I suppose they didn't fancy handing the reins to him for any extended period, and thus weren't willing to do so until they had a substantive replacement finally secured. And Thomas Tuchel taking the England job may have thrown a spanner in the works. Even if he wasn't their prime target, he must surely have been in the conversation, and other managers they'd approached will probably have thought he might have been their preferred option - and hence that his apparent spurning of their overtures presented an opportunity for them to intensify their own negotiation over the position.... and so drag things out for another week or two.

Once upon a time, it would have been just about inconceivable that any top manager would take a post in charge of a national team in preference to the Manchester United job. But this, sadly, is how far they have fallen - from being 'The Greatest Club in the World' 15 years ago.... to an object of general derision now.  And the real reason for Ten Hag surviving the last 5 or 6 months may not have been that unexpected FA Cup win, but the fact that the United job has become such a 'poisoned chalice' that none of the several managers said to have been tapped up for it showed any interest in accepting the offer.

I never felt Ten Hag was a good fit for the position. United's fans expect an expansive attacking style of play - exciting to watch, even if not consistently successful; but the Dutchman's attitude seemed to be more dour and pragmatic. And the United job - even more than those at the other top Premier League clubs - really demands someone who's very media-savvy, who cuts a charismatic figure in interviews. Poor Erik always came across as stiff and pompous. And, over the last year or so, he, not unnaturally, increasingly had rather a hunted air about him - which did not inspire general confidence.

Yes, he came to a club with all kinds of structural problems, a squad that was a total mess, with a long history of under-performance. And he has had some ridiculous injury problems to cope with. But even when players were fit, he seemed to be constantly chopping and changing between them - never sure what his best starting eleven should be: particularly in defence, where Lindelof, Varane, or Maguire could never seem to get an extended run of starts, even when they played well (Lindelof, I thought, was particularly hard done-by); but he also couldn't make his mind up about how to juggle his attacking assets - Martial, Rashford, Antony, Garnacho, Elanga, Diallo. There was never any consistency in the selections, nor any clear 'identity' in the style of play; and very often, his players on the pitch looked lost, as if they just didn't know what they were supposed to be doing. This might be tolerable on occasion, early in a manager's tenure; but with Ten Hag, this never changed across two years! And he rarely seemed to be able to adapt his tactics, or use new personnel off the bench, to improve matters when games were going badly for them. That remarkable FA Cup victory gave a tantalising glimpse of what he might have been, should have been capable of - a shrewd gameplan to knock City out of their stride, and his players fully invested in it, all giving 110%. Why did he scarcely manage to produce any hint of such effectiveness in the 85 EPL matches he led United out for??

One suspects that his high-profile spat - which seemed petty on both sides - with Jadon Sancho was just the tip of an iceberg of poor player relations. It seemed he might have long since 'lost the dressing room', as most of his players rarely seemed willing to really 'put in a shift' for him.

Above all, it seemed incredibly perverse that he persisted in a tactical set-up that could never possibly work with the players he had available. If you're going to pursue an aggressive high press, you need to compress the play in the opposition half by keeping a high defensive line; but in order to do that, you need at least one or two very fast defenders who can get back quickly to deal with counter-attacks (Nope), atacking players, particularly in the wide areas, who are willing to run their arses off to get back and help out with thwarting a counter (Garnacho, Rashford?? Nope!), and, ideally, a highly mobile central defensive midfielder who can usually snuff out such attacks at source (Nope). Instead, because of the chronic lack of pace at the back and in the holding role (Casemiro reads the game superbly, but has no legs any more), and lack of reliable forward cover down the flanks,... his defensive line tended to drop very, very deep - leaving 30 yards of open space for opposing attackers to canter through at will (poor Kobbie Mainoo last season often being left with the thankless task of trying to police 25-30% of the entire pitch on his own...). And on a related point - really, what was the point of buying one of the world's best ball-playing goalkeepers if you never let him leave his area?  All of fhat was just self-destructive lunacy. So, YES, he absolutely had to go. It was long, long, long overdue.

As usual, my man Adam Clery at FourFourTwo is largely in agreement with me. He's been very swift to put out a video on Ten Hag's departure.

He's done one on Ruben Amorim as well now - thanks, Adam.

Dilemmas of the Week - GW6

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

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

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

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 6?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The Sheep seem to be getting their collective knickers in a knot about Joao Pedro (owned by nearly 25% of managers! but surely only a third-choice for any of them...?) having picked up an ankle knock last weekend. It's said to be minor; he should only be out for a week or so. You don't waste transfers on problems like that.

Rodri, of course, is the only major loss this week. Though the pervasive rumour that he's done his ACL and might well miss the rest of the season is as yet unconfirmed by the club. I thought he didn't look to be in that much pain, and managed to hobble off the pitch unaided. With an ACL rupture, they just about always put a leg-brace on to stabilise the joint immediately, and take you off on a stretcher - so, I think it looks like something less serious than that. But we still don't know. He was probably only in a very small percentage of Fantasy teams anyway; but, given how badly City's form has suffered whenever they have been without him in recent years (win ratio way down, goals conceded way up.... resistance to the quick counter-attack, almost zero!), his absence probably diminishes the appeal of any City defensive assets you may have. I suspect this may tip the balance, in particular, against Gvardiol, who hasn't performed up to the absurdly inflated expectations people had of him when he became one of the most popular defender picks in initial drafts. On the other hand, the stock of Kovacic and Gundogan (and Rico Lewis?) may rise, as they can be expected to fill a more regular and prominent role in the Spaniard's absence.

In better news for City fans, Pep seems hopeful that DeBruyne, who picked up an injury in the Inter game last week, will be OK for this week.

Villa's John McGinn picked up a hamstring problem last weekend, and looks set to be out for a while; but he hadn't yet had much impact this year, and was very low-owned in Fantasy.

At Brentford, Norgaard missed the Spurs game last week with a minor problem, but Thomas Frank hopes he'll be back this week. Again, very low-owned.

Seamus Coleman's muscle injury picked up on international duty earlier this month is apparently much worse than originally thought, and he might now be absent for a while. Very, very low-owned.

The biggest injury news of the week is that Alisson (owned by more than 10%) seems likely to miss out again with his muscle injury, and is now joined by Raya with a similar problem (by far the highest-owned keeper in the game, at well over 30%). This probably diminishes the value of Liverpool and Arsenal defenders slightly; but it's a nice windfall for anyone who took a punt on Kelleher as their back-up keeper choice.... or anyone who omitted to ditch Neto when Bournemouth let him go. There's no reason to discard Alisson or Raya for short-term concerns like this. But goalkeeper injuries have been becoming more common and more serious recently. The temporary sidelining of the two top keepers in the game is a useful reminder that everyone needs a playing back-up keeper.

And, of course, Trossard and Gibbs-White are suspended this week, after getting themselves sent off last weekend. (Their owners should count themselves lucky it was only a one-week ban, as both offences might have been deemed 'violent conduct' or 'endangering an opponent'...)  [CORRECTION: Trossard was able to serve his ban in the mid-week League Cup game, so he is in fact available for this weekend's EPL game.]

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

Pep and Mikel love to give FPL managers sleepless nights, and they really outdid themselves with last Sunday's shock decisions to omit Rico Lewis and Ben White. I remain convinced that these guys are an indispensable choice for the roles they fill at the club, and have to be preferred starters every week (probably just being rested, or left out for a one-off tactical reason last time?). But who knows if our unpredictable super-managers will agree?  It is a worry for now. But I'd suggest a wait-and-see approach for at least a week or two before deciding to offload either of them.

Jota, of course, has been mysteriously dropped for two games, so apparently may have some sort of problem - or Slot just wants to share minutes between him and Nunez??  He's always - unfortunately - a dubious pick because of the high injury-risk associated with him; and he was always surely a distant third choice from the Liverpool attacking midfield behind Salah and Diaz. But yeah, if you have him.... might be time to say goodbye.

Did anyone have Mudryk?? I think Sancho is going to keep him in the Chelsea reserves this season.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

Well.... we might be developing collective worries about Arsenal, if Raya's going to be out for more than a week. Theyre struggling creatively without Odegaard (expected to miss at least another three weeks), and have been relying more than usual on Raya's accurate distribution to beat the press with a variety of passes into midfield - indeed, often trying to go long to get a quick counter-attack going (although that hasn't been working too well so far, as they don't have anyone apart from Havertz who can win an aerial ball up front). Arsenal also have a little bit of a fixture speedbump coming up, with Liverpool, Newcastle, and Chelsea back-to-back from the end of next month (although three much easier games before that); so, it might perhaps be a time to consider moving away from the likes of Trossard or Havertz... or maybe even Saka.

With a weak-ish clean sheet record and a high threat of shared minutes, I don't think any of City's defenders were ever worth 6 million; with Rodri no longer present to screen them, their goals conceded numbers are likely to get even worse, and they can't be worth 5 million.... or even 4.5 (nor Ederson either, of course). Though Rico Lewis might still be worth 4.5 because he plays more as a midifielder and can pick up good attacking returns.

The Sheep seem to be losing confidence in Isak - but that's just daft. Newcastle aren't playing that well, but they're still a dangerous counter-attacking side, and Isak is a world-class finisher. You might consider dropping him because someone else is in sensational form and/or has more promising fixtures... but not because you have doubts about Isak himself.

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

Well, I'm surprised to find myself saying this - after being a frequent detractor and derider for much of last season - but... Nico Jackson!!  For some time last season (starting after the one-off hattrick against Spurs!) he became an unjustifably popular pick in FPL-land, and the forums were often inundated with posters asking if he or any other random striker should be preferred for the coming week. I grew so exasperated by this that I was eventually prompted to come up with the once-and-for-all response: "There is NO 'Jackson or....?' question to which the answer is 'Jackson'."  But.... I'm sorry, Nicolas Jackson, you have redeemed yourself!

To be fair, his pace and strength have always made him a handful, and even last season his finishing was quite slick in certain situations - especially when he was able to race clear on to a long ball and get in one-on-one with the keeper (just like his 2 goals last weekend). It was only in more static situations, where he had more defenders nearby to worry about, wasn't unsettling the keeper with his rapid advance, or just had a moment to pause and consider his options... that he would go all Darwin Nunez and spack it up. But his greater weakness last year was his movement off the ball; we often saw his midfielders - Palmer, Gallagher, Enzo - throwing their arms up in despair at his odd choices or bad timing, often just giving the ball to someone else, or attempting a shot themselves. He seems now to be getting much, much better in this department (though there's still some room for improvement; he still gets flagged offside far too often). And his form is white-hot; he's playing with huge energy and confidence. Haaland, Watkins, and Isak remain the 'holy trinity' of strikers this season, clearly a class above the rest of the field; but I think Jackson currently edges out the best of the rest: Solanke, Havertz, Mateta.

Raul is suddenly looking very sharp at Fulham too, back to his pre-head injury best. But this might be a flash-in-the-pan. I'd counsel a wait-and-see, assess him for another few weeks before considering him for the third striker seat.

And I'm hesitant to jump on the Chris Wood bandwagon, since he has been notoriously inconsistent and injury-prone throughout his career, and Forest still don't look like a club who are going to be far away from relegation. But damn, he's in great form at the moment; and on pens too. I think the main argument against him is that, even at 6 million, he's a little expensive; there are several surprisingly good options even cheaper. But if this goal-streak continues, he's worth considering not just as a third-seat back-up, but as the second pick.

And for a couple of slightly more left-field suggestions, how about Lallana and Dibling at Southampton?  Their combination for the goal on Saturday was truly a thing of beauty. Dibling looks to be a very lively prospect, and an excellent finisher. And Lallana is playing as well as he ever has; I think he's likely to be providing the assists for the majority of whatever goals The Saints manage to score this season. Southampton are bound to be relegated; but they're not nearly as dire as Sheffield and Burnley were last season, and actually show quite a bit of threat going forward (so, they're more like Luton?). Both these guys are well worth considering if you're badly squeezed for budget on your last midfield slot.

Morgan Rogers is a conundrum. He was fantastic for Villa in pre-season, scoring a few goals. He has - slightly unexpectedly - become a regular starter, and a key player for them. He's been playing extremely well. And this weekend, he produced a couple of excellent assists. And he only costs 5.0 million! However, I don't see an argument for bringing him in.... if you don't already have him (around 17% do; but a lot of that was probably down to unthinking initial squad picks, just going for the cheapest available player to fill out the midfield roster). My misgivings are that he's playing as quite a deep No. 10, mostly quite central; unless he gets out wide more, or up around the penalty box more often, he's not likely to register any goals, or many assists (he's claimed a number of 'pre-assists' - but you don't earn any points for those); you can be a very good player without earning any FPL points recognition for it... and, so far, Rogers has been one of those.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

So long, farewell.....

 

I'm DONE for this season.

I have thrown in the towel - in protest at the introduction of the ridiculous, unnecessary, game-distorting 'Assistant Manager' chip.

However, since one of the many infuriating deficiencies of the FPL user-interface is that it does not allow you to delete a team without deleting your entire account, I am obliged to leave my team going as a dormant - or 'zombie' - competitor. 

[I'm not so concerned about losing my prior game history, as I've lost my account twice before for various reasons, so only have one or two previous seasons recorded under this one. I prefer to keep my own records of progress anyway. And I'm not keen on having a publicly available record published on the Internet - I value my privacy too much!

However,.... it seems I would also delete a couple of mini-leagues I administer, and I don't want to do that to the other participants. So, I'm stuck with having to remain nominally involved in a game I'd rather walk away from completely.  Sigh.]

Nonetheless, I am ever on the lookout for a new 'challenge', a new focus for my boundless curiosity.... So, I am finding myself quite intrigued to see what will happen to an unchanged team over the remainder of the season.

Last year, a competitor in my local mini-league had an outrageously lucky start to the season and was 200 points or so ahead of the field by Christmas. But sometime around January or February, he somehow got himself locked out of his account (although his 'form' had already started to crumble a bit while he was still active). I think it was only in the penultimate week of the season that I and another competitor finally managed to overhaul him.

I'm top in that league again at the moment, but without a very substantial cushion; so, I imagine it will not take my local rivals very long to outpace me. But it will be interesting to see.

I've set up what I hope will be a strong squad for the remainder of the season, and it should continue to produce pretty well - unless I get hit with a lot of injuries. But of course, I will get slammed by the blank and double gameweeks that I can't adapt to. And I won't be playing that 'Assistant Manager' chip, which is potentially worth a huge number of points....

So, farewell then, my friends.....

But, as Arnie would say..... "I'LL BE BACK!"

Time to say goodbye?

Cole Palmer has hit a bit of a lull in producitivity, and The Sheep have lost confidence in him. Actually, The Sheep were losing confidence in him after only one or two blanks: after only one return in his last 7 outings, and a 'missed' penalty against Leicester, they're positively up in arms about his supposedly 'awful form'. And there is, unfortunately, likely to be a big sell-off on him this week. In fact, he's already lost nearly 800,000 owners from his peak ownership level of nearly 7.7 million at the turn of the year, and slipped back in price from 11.4 to 11.1 million. However, that's still 600k higher than he was at the start of the year when everyone bought him, so.... you do need to be confident that you won't want him for the rest of the season. If he suddenly rediscovers his scoring boots, and you decide you want him back in a few weeks, you might have tossed away quite a bit of money. (Of course, there is also a possibility that if the stampede away from him gathers more pace, his price will soon drop below its starting level, or at least below what you're selling him for now, so the possible loss of squad value won't be a worry; that is a big gamble to take at this point, though.)

However, I think it might be worth holding on to him just a little bit longer, for these reasons:

1)  He's not 'playing badly'; his team is. But that might soon change.

Romeo Lavia's absence for the past few months has been devastating to Chelsea. He gives them much more security in the middle of the park, and allows Enzo Fernandez to play higher up the pitch, helping to give the high press more cutting edge and otten winning the ball back near the penalty area. Nicolas Jackson has also been a big miss: his finishing was vastly improved in the early part of this season, and he'd formed a great understanding with Palmer - frequently providing assists to him, as well as gratefully accepting several sublime assists himself. Noni Madueke also gives the side a much better range of attacking options - and is the other player who's most often assisted and been assisted by Palmer. All three of those players look like they could be back in action soon.

2)  He's still eager, busy, involved: there's no sign of a loss of energy or confidence.

I always counsel against listening to people who try to cite 'underlying numbers' in support of a position. But in this case, I believe it's justified. Although Palmer has had a few 'quiet' games, and a number of his stats have fallen a good way from what they've been at their best,... they're still not bad. Indeed, his overall involvement - number of touches, number of touches in and around the box, pass completion - is holding up pretty well; he's still central to Chelsea's creative efforts, on the ball more than any other player (and, if the BPS weren't such complete crap, he'd be getting 1 or 2 bonus points every week, even when they don't win; that's how influential he is in this team). He's still getting a fair few scoring chances as well. In fact, he's just been desperately unlucky on many occasions - throughout this season, really, not just during the recent 'slump': he's had efforts go narrowly wide, smack against the woodwork, or bring smart saves out of the keeper in almost every game.

3)  Chelsea's LUCK has got to change eventually, right?

Palmer didn't 'miss' that penalty. OK, he might have telegraphed which side he was putting it, and he didn't tuck it right inside the post, as he usually does; but it was cleanly hit, firm and low, well to the keeper's left - it needed a really good save to keep it out. And it was an illegal save: Hermansen was fully airborne before the ball had left Palmer's boot; the kick should have been retaken, but VAR seemingly didn't even look at that. Moreover, he should have had at least one other penalty, possibly two in that game. And Chelsea have had good penalty shouts mysteriously ignored by the officials several times this season. The overall number of penalties is well down on last year, mainly because of a more generous interpretation of the Handball Law favouring defenders. But Chelsea have been awarded barely a third as many penalties as they were last year; that is a freakish phenomenon - and very, very unjust. Surely, referees can't continue to be this 'biased' against them all season: the luck needs to start balancing out a little at some point.

4)  The fixtures are still looking quite good

Apart from Arsenal this weekend (and they've got problems of their own at the moment; I wouldn't write off Chelsea's chances of an upset win in this one), Chelsea have a pretty soft run through to the end of next month. If the team is soon back to full strength and starts firing again, there could be some big results in prospect.

5)  There's a shortage of really convincing replacements for him

Bruno Fernandes comes up with a great goal once in a while, but Manchester United's form is just awful: he feels like a bit of a risk even for the Leicester game this week, and certainly not a strong prospect for the remainder of the season. City are still looking pretty dreadful too. Arsenal are struggling in the absence of Saka and Martinelli: Trossard and Merino have not lived up to the hopes people had for their attacking potential. Brentford and Bryan Mbeumo appear to be going off the boil again (he was so anonymous in last week's game that I had to doublecheck the match reports to find out if he'd even been playing!), and they have a horrible fixture-run from now on. Son and Bowen haven't really been lighting any fires. Jota's perpetually injured, Diaz is too much of a minutes-risk. and Szoboszlai's a bit too up-and-down in his FPL returns. Though Iwobi, in particular, often looks dangerous, Fulham have been dreadfully inconsistent. And the hour of the Bournemouth attacking midfielders may have passed, now that Evanilson has resumed the primary goalscorer duties there (Kluivert still looks in white-hot form; but the argument in favour of Ouattara or Semenyo, or Brooks or Tavernier, has abruptly faded). Anthony Gordon's been looking jaded, exhausted lately; and now he's picked up a three-game ban. Only Mitoma, Eze, and Hudson-Odoi/Elanga/Gibbs-White have recently staked a claim to inclusion in FPL squads; but none of the 'big name' midfield prospects are looking any better than Palmer at the moment.

I confess I am really torn on this (well, I would be, if I were still playing; I quit in protest at the absurdity of the 'Assstant Manager' chip - that detachment perhaps enables me to view this situation a little more calmly). The drop-off in Palmer's points returns is certainly concerning, especially for such an expensive player. And I think that, if Chelsea don't start to turn things around in the next 2 or 3 games, the case for dropping him will become overwhelmng. But it's not quite that yet. I suspect people who've dropped him now might soon find cause to regret the decision.