EPL recap: Tons of late drama, Ten Hag sacked

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I’ve been on a good run lately, but only +3 in England on the year right now, and -4 in the Champions League.

Thank you again to everyone who has supported us thus far.

— TK

Arsenal 2 - 2 Liverpool

There were so many storylines to this game. The biggest of them being: What a difference Bukayo Saka makes. Last week, I mentioned that Robbo may be cooked. A Liverpool friend of mine popped up in my messages, strongly agreeing with that take. Everyone probably agrees now after seeing Saka torch Robertson for Arsenal’s first goal and just being unplayable for a lot of the match. Robertson has had a great run at Liverpool, but he’s no longer a left back that can go both ways against the breadth of attacking talent that exists across the PL now.

It’s a lot easier to bet against the Gunners when Saka’s not around — he was less than 50% to be included on Friday — and I feel like I dodged a bullet in this one.

Another recurring theme in this column has been Liverpool’s dire performance on attacking set pieces so far. A great flick from Diaz to Virgil closing down the center of the goal made it 1-1. Luck or a sign of things to come as the season progresses?

But Set Piece FC are definitely keeping their title, backed by a wide free kick that they somehow got to do twice? When rewatching the highlights, I had to double check to see it wasn’t a replay. Same spot. Same delivery. Same player hit in the delivery, but instead of getting his body all wrong on the first one and clearing it for Liverpool, Merino gets a head to it at the end to thump it home.

Arsenal got a 4-man overload in the center of the goal, based off blindside orientation runs. Nico’s making it impossible for defenses to correctly defend these, just like we’ve been teaching people to do since 2019.

Ignoring the weekly controversy, Arsenal are one of the most mentally resilient and well-coached Gunners teams I can remember. If they ever get fully healthy, there will be a big run of wins in a row, no matter who the competition. But that’s a significant “if” right now. Saka only had a half of brilliance in him. Gabriel was subbed because he “couldn’t run” and may have a knee injury. They rushed Timber back to compete in this match and may have lost him for another big block of time.

The fact that they’ve had these results against City, Liverpool, and Spurs despite the issues is impressive, but right now it feels a little like the season after Liverpool won the title, where every player had been stretched to their physical limits and it took a whole year for them to get healthy again.

West Ham 2-1 Man United

Just as this was ready for sending, Manchester United announced the sacking of Erik ten Hag. This wasn’t a huge surprise, as it’s been brewing basically since the summer, though ironically United have played fractionally better in recent weeks, though that could just be variance. We’ll cover this more in the podcast and a focused piece later this week.

It’s not often that I sort of feel bad for Manchester United, but this match was one of those rare instances. Though they were utterly dominant in the first half, no one on the team could actually finish. Then they were hanging on for dear life in chunks of the second half, and just about to walk out the door with a 1-1 draw, when the ref gave an impossibly soft penalty to make it 2-1 West Ham.

In the betting preview Friday, I wrote this as a counterpoint to the idea of a Man United bet:

“Except they just got off a flight back from Turkey, where they played most of their starters in a 1-1 knife fight against Jose, and United played a fullback as a 10 and a centreback/DM as a left back, and their injury list is endless.

Yeah, no thank you.”

Chelsea 2-1 Newcastle

I was at this game and made some notes:

• The passing performance from Robert Sanchez was one of the worst I have ever seen at this level. I was getting flashbacks to watching David Button’s last season at Brentford where the only places he kicked the ball consistently were out of play and to the other team. The things Chelsea have to do in order to just start possession from goal kicks are bordering on the absurd.

• The ref had a shocker in this one, and between he and Sanchez, Newcastle were probably more in it than the performance deserved.

• Cole Palmer is a savant.

• Chelsea’s one major weakness was their right defensive side. Gusto couldn’t seem to do anything over there, and once Newcastle realised the problem, they were effective at pushing Barnes and Kelly to create huge issues, including the buildup to the Isak goal.

• Joelinton is HUGE. Like physically shrugged Reece James off, completely unbothered huge.

• Maresca was 7-10 minutes slow with all of his subs this match. Madueke was clearly gassed around the 60th and it was a very physical, busy game. They nearly let Newcastle back into things.

Crystal Palace 1-0 Spurs

I was on Spurs in this match on the basis that Palace have been poor at limiting shots from anyone, and Spurs have been pretty good at shooting this season. But Palace finally showed up, limiting Spurs to 11 shots and 1 xG.

“Showed up” is used loosely here. Palace were still not very good, but Spurs were fairly dire in producing their worst match of the season, and Palace did enough to get a result.

Saturday Matches

The theme of Saturday was Late Drama. The Brentford, Brighton, Villa, and Everton games all had goals after the 90th minute, and every single one of them affected the result.

Brentford 4-3 Ipswich

Brentford’s home games against bottom teams are Russell Brand coming off a month-long bender. They have put up 2-1, 4-3, 5-3, and 3-1 scores against the bottom four teams right now. At this point, you can smell them from across the Thames.

Ipswich opened the scoring and scored a second by 31 minutes on two very good finishes. They found ways to stretch the Brentford back line and make them pay.

Harry Clarke, however had a day to forget on his first Premier League start. 😬 He combined for an own goal to make it 2-2 (a bit harsh), a penalty conceded to make it 3-2 Brentford, and a second yellow card to get sent off. A former Arsenal academy kid, hopefully he goes on to have a great career, but that was one of the least auspicious starts in the Premier League ever.

Brighton 2-2 Wolves

Two-nil up in the 85th minute, at home against the worst team in the league. That’s it then, right? Job done.

(Cue the highlights. In particular, focus on the 4 v 1 Brighton had against Wolves juuuuuust before the Wolves equalizer going the other way.)

When we say Brighton play a little bit young and inexperienced right now, this is what we mean.

Aston Villa 1-1 Bournemouth

There were thirteen yellow cards in this match. I only noticed because I had to actually scroll the browser to get to the goals on WhoScored due to all the cards. According to StatsBomb, that’s the second highest number of cards given out for a Premier League match in the last decade.

Villa were good in this match, and only struggled because Travers had a good game in goal. I don’t like betting on Emery teams because of the unpredictable nature of his tactical choices, but I think he got this one right, and my bet on Bournemouth +.5 was lucky to pay off.

Everton 1 - 1 Fulham

Smith Rowe to Iwobi, just as the Arsenal faithful always dreamed it. Except now it’s for Fulham. Smith Rowe made the pass and actually created the space for Iwobi to shoot with his decoy run across the goal. Iwobi has always been an exceptional progressive passer, but he’s done it on teams with limited weapons around him, and the defensive side of midfielding was a thing he too often ignored. If he’d been a bit more full-featured in his skill set, who knows where he would have ended up.

I think Fulham shot themselves in the foot on this one. Only 4 shots after the 61st minute goal against one of the thinnest squads in the league is poor. And it let Everton stay in the game, where 39-year old Ashley Young redirected a cross from the other side of the pitch onto Beto’s head for the equalizer.

My betting was -1 across the full slate, but the combination of Brighton, Luton Town and Preston North End capitulations, crossed with Leeds and Burnley not covering felt like it was minus a million. (As noted above, there were other matches where I felt I got lucky, so it’s not just complaining. Objective analysis is key to making sure you end up on the right side more often than not.)

I’m +3 bets in England on the year, but -4 in Champions League, so -1 on 50/50 picks, and down a moderate amount (all in the Champions League) because of the vig. Meh. Gambling is hard. We grind on.

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