GW1 Complete (Nearly): Mixed Feelings

We've pretty much finished GW1. Chelsea are still to play, and I have Joao Pedro, but he's so highly owned it's almost moot.

I don't know whether to see this week as a success or a lucky escape. Fernandes and Haaland both blanked, so my captaincy decision paid off. A massive three points earnt there. From the highlights it looked as though Haaland should've scored, so it feels a bit jammy. Though, saying that, Liverpool looked attacking in their highlights too. Both Isak and Haaland had chances but looked rusty.

In the end it was Szoboszlai that hurt me with the late penalty. (I'm really glad I was at work for that one, as I'd have been hoping it was Isak's and the disappointment would've wounded me.)

Generally people's bench boosts looked a bit underwhelming too, which was a bonus. (Except those with De Cuyper, who justified the bench boost on his own with 17 points.)

I can now just roll my team over for GW2, assuming no injuries emerge. Then, after that second round of data and observation, I can make a few decisions on my path forward.

Man City Midfield

Interestingly, the Manchester City midfield did end up being the talking point. With Guehi starting instead of Kovacic. The general consensus seems to be that Guehi did well, though I suspect that's largely a consequence of the bar of expectation being so low. It also helps that he scored a goal. Either way, it's hard to imagine someone who was a Crystal Palace centre half just a year ago suddenly becoming a world class midfielder. Sometimes these things happen in football, but the odds are stacked against it.

On top of this, Anderson now has a yellow flag. So central midfield is clearly an issue. I wish I'd seen the game and not just the highlights to get a better sense of the performance. For me this is the big question with Haaland. Ultimately it's the team he's in that justifies the price. We know he's going to score, but he's not going to get three or four in a game if he's only getting one or two chances. Thankfully we have another gameweek to assess things.

GW1: Team Reveal

First, I'll further flesh out why I'm going without Haaland.

[Note: This may be cope. Helping me to justify a terrible decision post-hoc.]

I mentioned the price in the last post. £15.5m is a huge price. I'm surprised he's an automatic default in so many teams given the price. It makes me wonder what price it would take to get his ownership below 50%. £16m? £17m? £18m?

Then there are the wider questions around Man City.

Pep gone. Rodri gone. (An underappreciated) Bernardo Silva gone.

How will Maresca do? I'm sure he's a decent manager, but at the same time I don't think Chelsea fans are devasted that he's gone.

I like Elliot Anderson - I actually had him in my first draft. Aside from FPL there's a big question mark over him in purely footballing terms though. A really good player, yes. A title-winning world class player? That remains to be seen.

What isn't in doubt is that Kovacic is a bit average. Again, a good Premier League midfielder. Certainly not a bad player. But not world class.

So, for me, that midfield, if that's the midfield two, has question marks. I think with Bernardo Silva gone a lot now relies on Foden. I think he has to start as the number ten. He's the one player who threads the midfield lines. So that's interesting to me.

Now I'm not saying City will become a bad team if the midfield is a touch subpar. I'm sure they'll still be impressive. However, there's a difference between being good and being really good. Between beating teams 2-1 and beating teams 4 or 5 nil.

What type of City will we see?

Perhaps they'll get a new manager bounce? Perhaps they'll be worse? Perhaps there'll be little difference to last season? It's hard to say. If I had to put my money somewhere I'd say slightly worse though.

Liverpool

With Liverpool there are similar questions. Though, in my opinion, it's hard to see Liverpool being worse than they were last season. So going Isak over Haaland is exciting for me. It's obviously a gamble, but one that pays off handsomely if it does work out.

I also have van Dijk. Which is another nice bonus made possible by not having Haaland.

Who I don't have is Szoboszlai. As with Haaland, this is a decision that could hurt me given how well-owned he is. He's easy to bring in though, given my midfield, so as long as I'm not too stubborn that shouldn't be a problem.

My Team

So, let's have a look at my team.

I'm well hedged on City with Semenyo and Foden in there. Can they cover Haaland? Probably not when taking captaincy into account. Almost certainly if captaincy is taken out of the equation.

It's interesting that their combined cost matches Haaland's single price.

I've also had O'Reilly in drafts at times. However, I don't like the uncertainty over his starts. On top of this, I think the easiest way to get Haaland in GW3 is to downgrade Fernandes to a cheap mid to upgrade Isak. So it's probably worth keeping that third spot free.

I have three Arsenal, which pleases me. Tzolis feels like one of those picks where a new player arrives in the Premier League and everyone gets excited. Then they fail to live up to the hype. I really liked the look of him in the Community Shield game though, and his goal involvement track record is pretty spectacular - albeit in foreign leagues (we've seen similar things before - Timo Werner springs to mind).  So my expectations are low and I see it as a fun little punt.

My Bench

My bench is very cheap - in classic FPL mode. With so many people bench boosting early it feels like a little luxury having a super cheap bench.

As I've noted before, I plan on saving the chips and using them on the fly as things unfold.

There's a high possibility that I could be wildcarding in GW3 if the Haaland decision proves to be a disaster. Which could in turn trigger a bench boost. Though that doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather use it later.

It's even less likely I'll be using the free hit early, as I don't like using it in the first five or six weeks. Mainly because I think it loses you a tempo. I'm using tempo in the chess sense - not that I'm a particularly good chess player. That is, it costs you a move early in the game when getting your pieces positioned on the board is important. If you use the free hit you don't get a free transfer for that particular week. So after four or five weeks you've had one less free transfer than everyone else. At a time when transfers are really important as you adapt to the new information those early weeks provide. (This is assuming you haven't wildcarded early, making it irrelevant anyway. Hence if I need a chip in GW3 it'll be the wildcard for this very reason.)

So that's where I am. Now it's just a case of (hopefully) enjoying the weekend.

As I finish up the one change I'm considering is a Gabriel captaincy. Hull do look like they'll be the whipping boys, but will they get thrashed at home on the opening day of the season? Surely they'll be a bit fired up for it. Likewise, will Coventry score away from home at Arsenal?

Plus, I'm off work today, but in over the weekend. So I'll get to watch this Arsenal game tonight. Why not truly roll the dice and go differential?

..Okay, let's do it.

The Smug One Returns

Oh, am I late again?

Surely it's perfect timing. There's still a week to go. Plus, I've at least got my badge sorted..

A smug little fox. I had my best season last year. I won my mini league. I'm the golden one. So I'm turning up confident.

[..hold on, I'll go and make another cup of tea, then I'll get to my actual plans. I was out last night, so I'm having a lazy Sunday morning. I'm listening to The Beekeeper by Tori Amos - an underrated album, ideal for such circumstances]

Haaland???

My plan is to go without Haaland. I won't share my actual team just yet as it's liable to change over the coming days. (Today's Community Shield should help to enlighten things.)

There are two reasons I'm planning on going without Haaland. Firstly, it's just my natural style. How can I resist being the black sheep? It's my natural tendency.

Secondly, that price difference! I can save 6.5m by going with Isak. Someone with near-Haaland like potential. Though, admittedly, much less likelihood of delivering that. He could do well. He (and Liverpool) could be unimpressive. Whereas Haaland kind of has a track record when it comes to these things.

Nevertheless, it's a gamble I like.

(No) Chip Strategy

I've been watching a bit of FPL content over the last week or so and it seems to be all about the chips. Early bench boosts, questions over when to wildcard, possible free hits.

Needless to say, I'm not thinking about any of these things. I discussed this at the start of last season and my thoughts remain similar.

Veteran FPL players are very used to planning chip use. It's ingrained. You saved your chips for the second half of the season (forward planning in of itself), then planned their use to navigate the blanks and doubles. Something with MASSIVE upside. Especially over casually players who either didn't know or didn't care about double gameweeks.

Now we have chips for the first half of the season as well, and that desire to plan remains. Yet the blanks and doubles aren't there to necessitate that.

So my question is: where's the upside?

And I actually think the upside comes in not planning. In using these chips as problem solvers or afterburners that you can turn on when an opportunity presents itself.

For example, let's say you have Gabriel, but he gets suspended for one game. You can use your free hit that week to navigate that problem. Instead of using one transfer to take him out and another to bring him back.

In turn, saving those two frees means you have more leeway to use the bench boost if you still have it. (I think if you have three or four transfers rolled you can bench boost whenever you fancy it - this is a big challenge for me, as I do find it hard to roll them.)

Enjoy The Bench Boost!

I totally understand how much of a headache the bench boost can be, but the whole point of the chips is that they add a bit of fun. I'm determined to just enjoy it. How many times did I say, "Wow, this would be a great bench boost!" in the days before we had two of them. Now I get to indulge that urge at some point during the first half of the season. I just need to be a bit chill about it and not be too much of a perfectionist. Just vibe it out.

Similar with the triple captain. In a way this is how the chips are supposed to be used. The blanks and doubles are an aberration of fixture pile ups, and it's almost a form of cheating to use these chips as get out of jail free cards. In an ideal season, with no out of place fixtures, the chips would just be fun things to use any particular week you felt an instinctive urge to use them. Like instinctively hitting the afterburner in a race around a Mario Kart track.

At the start of the season my instincts haven't fully kicked in yet. I've literally never seen a lot of these cheapie bench options play. So it feels like forcing things to even think along these lines.

Though, saying this, if Haaland scores a hattrick and the people bench boosting smash it, I'll find myself 50 points down after GW1. Therefore, take my opinions with a pinch of salt it you happen to be reading this. My badge should've definitely been a black sheep. Not a haloed fox with a golden crown.

FIFA Fantasy ..England, and the World Cup in General

I haven't been posting about World Cup Fantasy, but I have been playing it, and I've finished with a rank of 216.

Obviously, I'm just posting now to brag a bit, as I'm quite pleased with that. Especially given I took Messi out of my team before the England game out of sheer loyalty to the nation ..and the Falkland Islands.

It does give me a chance to pen my thoughts about the World Cup though. Overall I've really enjoyed it. I think having it in America has been good. The stadiums were fantastic, and seeing so many people that normally don't have an interest in football discussing the game was something I really enjoyed. In fact, I like seeing people come to something with fresh eyes. People immersed in football often carry all these mental clichés that cloud their basic observation. Low block, high press, false nine, game management, and so on. People love the jargon and technicality, and end up thinking in ideas. As oppose to just observing reality.

So I loved seeing Trump (and other American Twitter accounts) say things like, "Messi was well guarded ..then all of a sudden he's standing on the right ..he moved to the right and the other player was just standing there."

Because his head isn't filled with countless hours of analysis and punditry he sees the simple truth and expresses it in simple language.

Of course, those comments were in relation to the England game.

(Messi in acres of space before the second goal)

In fairness there was a small foul before this moment, but still that's a shocking amount of space to have in the final third of the pitch. Everyone's given their opinion on the England game - most people are probably sick of it by now - and normally after a tournament I'd say, "Oh well, maybe next time," but here I do think an inquest is in order, as it's such an easy problem to fix. It really is just about getting the basics right.

It doesn't matter what tactics you're playing, what substitutes you make, whether you're sitting back defensively to protect a lead, or going for a second goal. At the end of the day there always has to be pressure on the ball when it's in the final third. If someone's in a position where they can put a cross in, you have to put pressure on them. You can't just give them five or ten yards to have a free swing. I could put in a decent cross in a world cup semi final if there was no one putting pressure on me.

Likewise with shots around the box. If someone's within twenty-five yards of the goal there must be pressure on the ball. Whatever the tactics. You can't just let someone have this much time and space.

(The Enzo Fernandez goal)

Thirty-five yards out, not so much of a problem. Twenty yards out: criminal.

You could give me a hundred free shots at goal from thirty-five yards out and I probably wouldn't be able to stick it in the top corner once. It takes world class ability to be able to do that even a handful of times out of a hundred. Whereas if you give me a hundred free shots at goal from twenty yards out then I'm smashing a few goals in - and I'm just a non-professional that's played a bit of five a side.

So giving a professional player one or two chances like that is just handing them a gift. You might as well give them a penalty.

This is obvious stuff, but it gets lost amidst the jargon.

It's understandable why the players dropped back so deep and were scared to press. The pressure, the occasion, the fear of losing something so precious - an appearance in a world cup final. I don't blame the players as individuals. You never see these players play like this in the Premier League. I blame two things:

Firstly, the collective psychology. We've had this exact same problem in previous tournaments (though this was perhaps the worst example of it). Too much fear and not enough aggression. As an England player you should feel personally insulted if an opposition player gets an easy cross in or an easy shot at goal. If they do something special or clever to earn that half a yard then fair enough. But you can't just give them a free shot at goal. We gave the Argentinians opportunities, they gave us nothing. We had to earn our chances. Make them earn theirs.

I think that defeat hurt so much because it felt like we let them bully us. Like we just handed them our lunch money.

Secondly, we've forgotten the basics. Again, all the jargon and over-analysis means everyone's overthinking things. In the modern game we have the high press - as we see teams like Man City play - where teams press high up the pitch, even hounding the goalkeeper. I think because of this people tend to have this view that you either press or sit back. Like it's a binary. When in reality, for the most part, football isn't like that. There are times in games when you're on the front foot and you press high, other times when you're on the back foot and sit deep. However, even when you're sitting deep you still need to press the ball when it comes into your own half. Especially when it's in your final third, where a single shot or cross can hurt you.

So even when you sit back (either deliberately as a tactic or just as a consequence of the flow of the game) you still need to press the opposition when they reach your final third.

This is just the basics of football. It's literally doing the basics. The modern football brain can't process the contradiction of not pressing and pressing at the same time though. So we get all these debates about substitutions and formations and game management, when it's all irrelevant if you don't do the basics. There should always be aggressive pressure on the ball in and around the box whatever formation you're playing. Even if you're deliberately 'sitting back' to defend a lead.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

(You can tell I was riled up by that Argentina performance, lol)

Although I was annoyed I think by and large it was a great tournament. The game against Mexico was an unbelievable night. The day after we were all on cloud nine. Also, though I've truly hated Argentina at times over the last week or so you have to admire their fight and will to win. So now the tournament's over I'm happy to shake hands with everyone and get back to club football.

Spain deserved to win ..because they did the basics. They weren't anything special in the final third. I think France and England both have better attacking players. Nevertheless, they defended well, played as a team, bossed the midfield, and efficiently did the business.

I'll end with my favourite image from the tournament. From one of the first games in fact.

(Mike Myers watching Canada)

I've always loved Mike Myers and seeing him look so glum watching Canada (this was when they were 1-0 down in the first game) made me laugh. His ancestry is British and his face looks exactly like an annoyed British football fan. The charm and twinkle of Austin Powers or Wayne from Wayne's World nowhere to be seen. This is what football does to people.

Respect to Mexico, USA and Canada for putting on a very eventful tournament. There's been a lot of controversy and talking points, but world cups are watercooler moments for the whole of humanity. So that's sort of the point really. It doesn't matter if the half time show is good or bad (I actually thought all the little kids singing was cute - so that kind of won me over), what's important is that we're all talking about it. So ten out of ten in that regard.

Well done everyone. Let's do it again in four years' time.

Financial Fair Play aka Communism

This article will probably be a bit less focused. I'd like to have another whinge, but, to be fair, there are multiple sides to the argument. So though I know what side I come down on, I understand that it's not palatable to most people ..for one obvious reason.

That, in my world, football clubs would be allowed to go out of business.

I know. No one wants this. But the alternative isn't great either ..and it looks like the Soviet Union.

A little example..

I'll use a pub. (Perhaps an ironic example, as pubs are going out of business - every day - and the powers-that-be are not so bothered.)

Anyhow, let's say you own a pub. Now let's also say you have a little windfall. Let's say you inherit £30,000 from some distant great-aunt who's died. You then think, "Ah, I'll use this money to invest in my pub. To make it better. Expand the business."

However, then some bureaucrat comes along and says, "Sorry, you can't spend that money on your pub. No, no, no. It wouldn't be fair on the pub down the road."

You then say, "But it's my money. I want to invest it in something worthwhile. In my business - my life's passion. I don't just want to waste it on another holiday or leave it sitting in a bank. Plus, what about that mega-pub in town. They spent £100,000 improving their premises."

"Ah, yes, you see," replies the bureaucrat, "But the mega-pub makes a lot more money than your pub. So they can afford to spend more money."

"But I can afford to spend the money too," you plead, "I have it there in my bank account. How will my pub ever become a mega-pub if I'm not allowed to invest it?"

"No, these are the rules. You can't spend it. It just wouldn't be fair."

This is basically what the financial fair play rules say to football clubs.

Now, in defence of such rules, they did come about to stop clubs from going out of business. Plus, my example is obviously a bit of an oversimplification. We've seen countless examples of clubs going into administration over the years, so the problem is certainly real. Clubs were spending and borrowing too much money, in order to compete with other clubs, and falling into arrears. So, in this case, it's understandable that people were saying "Something Must Be Done!".

So the rules are partly there to make sure clubs don't spend and borrow beyond their means, but they're also there to stop clubs that have the means from spending so much that it's unfair on other clubs.

It sounds nice in theory, however, in my opinion, it's just not how the world works. Firstly, the world is always going to be unfair. You can't regulate that away. The mega-clubs (and mega-pubs in my example) already have a huge advantage that just ends up entrenched by the rules.

Secondly, it's competition and the fear of going out of business that pushes businesses to make good economic decisions. So, in the long run, though it seems fairer, it just makes it more likely that the entire footballing economy will tank. It's like comparing a communist economy, where the state manages everything, to a capitalist economy, where companies are free to take risks and potentially go out of business. Generally the capitalist economies do better overall. It's not nice when a company goes out of business, of course, especially for the employees, but sometimes things go out of business. That's life.

Sure, this is another oversimplification. There are arguments both ways, and most countries tend to have a mix of something in between, but still, football, and the Premier League in particular, was a very successful export long before these rules came about. We need to be careful not to kill the golden goose.

People talk about a football club going out of business like it's a hospital closing down. But they're not hospitals. No one's dying. It's not the NHS. It's a game. So a bit of perspective would be handy.

(I've ended up having the whinge I wanted to have 😁 Again, I'm being a tad unfair, as fans want their teams to be ambitious and to compete, yet they also get upset if that ambition leads to financial issues. So football governing bodies (and politicians that get involved in the debate) are trying to give fans what they want ultimately. A world where a club can never go out of business.)

I think I'm definitely in the minority on this one. The rules just seem insane to me though. As a child I used to sometimes dream of becoming rich and buying a football club. It'd be a bit pointless now. Why would you bother? Personally I think the super-rich owners have been good for football. Abramovich buying Chelsea (..and no, I'm not getting into the wider politics there, lol) turned a two horse Premier League title race into a three horse race. Likewise, the turnaround of Manchester City has been remarkable and memory-filled.

Newcastle could be doing similar things today with their Saudi owners, but, typical Newcastle, they got the money just as the bureaucrats turned up to stop them spending it. It would've been good for the north-east, but apparently it's fairer this way.

(Finally, there's an argument that the fair play rules weren't just brought about to save clubs, but also had the aim of clipping the wings of the Premier League - which was becoming too wealthy and dominant for UEFAs liking. I can imagine there's some truth in this, so it's worth noting, but I spend enough time bashing Europe when it comes to the EU, so I'll try to leave it out of my football whinging.)

The Epidemic of Defenders Diving

I said in my last post that I'd probably be back in August. However, here I am, back again after barely two days. This time it's not fantasy related though. It's just football in general.

I recently posted a few articles on Substack.

One on my recent trip to Wembley and the Southampton 'spygate' shenanigans.

https://cyprilocks.substack.com/p/i-travelled-to-wembley-hoping-my

The other about the handball rule.

https://cyprilocks.substack.com/p/the-handball-of-the-british-empire

My writing style is a little different on there. It's a bit more substacky, for want of a better word. Either way, the general topic of these articles is my annoyance with how bureaucracy is ruining our beautiful game.

Anyway, I have a little more to say, but as these thoughts are bit more meandering I thought I'd post them here. Where things can be a little less substacky.

Defenders Diving

The first thing I want to have a bit of a whinge about is defenders diving.

You see it multiple times every game. A defender's in possession of the ball, perhaps somewhere near one of their own corner flags. An opposing player is putting them under pressure. There's the slightest of physical contact (sometimes zero contact) and the defender drops to the floor. The ref's whistle blows. Free kick to the defender.

It's diving. Pure and simple. And it drives fans mad, as not only does it stop the game, it rewards cheating and punishes the hard work and tenacity of the attacker.

Contrast it to when an attacking player dives. Free kick to the defender. Yellow card to the attacker.

Even if there is a foul on the attacker the bar for a free kick in their favour is way higher too (partly because it leads to a penalty if it's in the box, which naturally changes the equation a little, but still, there's a massive double standard).

I don't want to sound like a "Back In My Day" old man, but it seems to illustrate how the game has became more dishonest thanks to all the modern rules, not less dishonest.

Attackers are generally a bit more clever and wily than defenders - after all, they're trying to unpick defences and sneak into the goal - so they're the sort of people you'd expect to cheat a little. Whereas defenders are supposed to be men's men. Tough, staunch, manning the barricades. Back in my day a defender would've felt embarrassed if they were even accused of diving. It just wasn't the done thing.

In fact, there was a time when it wasn't really something a striker felt too comfortable with either. I can remember when Jurgen Klinsmann first came to the Premier League (I was born in 1982 - so 'back in my day' was basically the 1990s. Not that long ago. Sort of the beginning of the modern era.) That he dived so readily was actually shocking to people at the time. He was hated for it. It was seen as foreign. Un-British. (Though partly thanks to his ironic diving celebration the British public ended up falling in love with him.)

Now we have a world where defenders dive constantly. Multiple times a game. With no shame whatsoever.

And where strikers still want to dive, but can't get away with it. (Unless they're very sneaky in doing it.)

The game's full of sneaks. Yet people talk about fair play more than ever before.

This brings me to my other whinge. Financial fair play. Actually, I've already typed a fair bit here, so I'll leave that one for the next article..

And in the end..

Well, season 25/26 done. Luckily, I had one final green arrow. So I finished at a rank of:

16,689

I feel like I need some fireworks around that number, as it's my highest ever finish. I won't go over how my team done, I think everyone's sick of it at this point. Salah got me six points, which was a nice little send off. So that deserves a mention.

Next season could be a struggle, as I can't imagine I'll have the same amount of luck. Twelve green arrows in a row on this final run in.

I'm not sure if I'll post anything on here over the summer, so it may be a case of see you in August.