GW4 The farce of VAR.
Gameweek 4 had its fair share of shocks and goals. Brighton produced the standout result of the round, thumping Coventry 5-0 away from home to underline how strong their squad depth really is. Arsenal kept their perfect record intact with a routine 2-0 win at Sunderland, and Leeds enjoyed their best afternoon of the season so far, hammering Newcastle 4-1 to pile more pressure on Matthias Jaissle. Elsewhere there was goalless frustration for Liverpool and Tottenham, both held 0-0 at home, while Bournemouth and Chelsea both had to come from behind to salvage draws against Brentford and Hull respectively, and Ipswich continued their surprisingly solid start with a battling 3-2 win away at Crystal Palace.
The headline act, though, was the Manchester derby, and it didn’t disappoint for drama. Phil Foden saw red just 23 minutes in after reacting to a Bruno Fernandes flashpoint, leaving City to play the vast majority of the game with ten men — and somehow they still found a way to win it. Erling Haaland struck the only goal of the game just after the hour mark, a contentious finish that survived a lengthy VAR check for offside, sealing a 1-0 win at Old Trafford despite United hitting the woodwork twice and dominating possession. It’s City’s fourth straight win to open the season and keeps them level with Arsenal at the top, while United will be left ruing missed chances and wondering how they came away with nothing from a game they controlled for long stretches.
DCL
Monday Night Football usually passes without much fuss, but last week was a different story entirely. Did DCL score, or was it Bogle? After OPTA (Stats Perform), our data partner, added the goal, removed it, then added it again, it felt like the whole saga deserved a proper explanation.
The goal was initially awarded to DCL, but after a closer review OPTA decided the final touch had actually come off Bogle, so it was changed to a Bogle goal with no assist. A short while later, once the game had finished, OPTA added a DCL auto-assist. To be clear, all of this came directly from our API feed with OPTA — we’ve had no part in any of these updates, as it’s all automatically managed through the feed.
The final twist came yesterday, when Leeds successfully appealed to the Premier League that the goal should be credited to DCL, so OPTA updated it in our feed once more. As we flagged on Twitter, though, this change landed after our Gameweek had already ended. So we’re sticking with the original end-of-game scenario: a Bogle goal, DCL assist.
Why take this approach? First and foremost, it’s what our rules say we do.
Our end-of-Gameweek calculations run at 4am on Tuesday, which feeds into our other games like Head to Head. Sticking with the Bogle goal, DCL assist outcome keeps our weekly scores consistent with the H2H matches that have already kicked off for some leagues. OPTA and the Premier League haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory with this one, but it was entirely outside our control.
Maatsen again!
An interesting one involving Maatsen again this weekend. Villa had already used all of their substitutions, so when he picked up an injury in the 83rd minute, they had no further changes left to make and had to play on with ten men. Forest then went on to score the winner in the 88th minute. Because OPTA treats Maatsen as having left the pitch at the point of injury, he doesn’t pick up the additional -1 point for conceding.
International Break
Rather than the usual separate breaks in September and October, this year sees the two windows merge into a single three-week gap for international fixtures spanning late September into early October. Countries will now play four matches across the two weeks, rather than the traditional two matches in one week.
This combined break runs from 21 September to 6 October. So after this weekend’s Gameweek 5 fixtures, the Premier League won’t return until 10 October.
Team of the week – GW4
The highest scoring eligible team (8+ teams, two players per club) last week was CFC (redacted), huge congratulations Joseph.
Manager name: Joseph
Team name: Young Guns
League name: LPL
League size: 10
Points: 39
