EPL weekend roundup: Saka stars, Liverpool deliver a paddlin'

Plus more on every game.

Author

Ted Knutson
December 02, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

Today’s recap is in chronological order. If you don’t like it, blame the Premier League.

22 shots to 10. 1.5 xG to .65. But 1-1 on the only statistic that counts, mate.

The Mitoma goal is, to my mind, a cricket goal, meaning a cross that bounces first and then is headed in. Weird, unusual, kinda fun if you are in the right mood… but not something you want to spend a lot of your free time on.

Southampton’s equaliser came at the end of a piece of catastrophic play by Brighton’s defense. If you can’t do basic things like clear the ball after the fourth or fifth try, you’re probably going to give up a goal.

This weirdo Brighton team now have five draws in 13 matches, despite not playing a particularly draw-y style of play. And Saints are rooted to the bottom of the table, having apparently chosen relegation with Russell Martin instead of actually competing while they are in the Premier League.

1 Shot
0 Shots on target
1 Goal

That’s Newcastle’s stat line for this match, and looking at the race chart, I literally had to go back and double check that I didn’t miss a red card.

Baffling stuff. I had a solid Palace lean because I don’t think they are as bad as their table position, but this is an oddity that can only be explained by Eddie Howe. Who said he could not, in fact, explain it.

So yeah, inexplicable.

Also a note to the Palace YT team… if your “highlights” package that is only 2:50 long in a game your team dominated doesn’t even start for 20 seconds, you can probably do better.

Can you smell that? It’s another Brentford home match against a bottom-half team. Even the fumes from this one will get you drunk and leave you with an amazing hangover the next day. It’s like standing too close to Jack Grealish on a trip to Ibiza.

Forest dominated this match, but it took a penalty for them to get their goal. Ipswich could have had one as well from a header that had to be cleared off the line.

I think Forest are legit good, but they do run the risk of not having enough attacking impetus to keep getting wins regularly.

There was a battle on for Bender of the Weekend, and I felt certain this would prevail. Four goals in the first half, six goals total, with three penalties for the same team? Drunk as fuck. Yet somehow West Ham and Arsenal only needed a single half to better(?) it.

The first penalty was obvious, but I’m not sure I’ve seen a VAR review like the second one. Sa goes to kick the ball, Evanilson sneaks up on him to close things down, and Sa wipes him out while trying to make the pass. No ref criticism here, it was just… odd.

Kluivert’s third penalty goal (the first time anyone has ever had a hat trick of penalties in the Premier League) came from a stone wall penalty technically conceded by Sa again, but a hospital pass from Dawson set it up.

Aside from the defensive catastrophuck for Wolves, Strand Larsen had two thumping goals in this one, one with head, one with feet from a throughball, and both nice pieces of forward play. He’s running hot vs xG because he rarely gets a chance to shoot, but he’s also a fairly serviceable Premier League big man. He’s the type of player you expect to float around the league for the next decade for any team that wants to employ that player archetype.

BENDER OF THE WEEK: The first half was delightfully dumb... Like your best friend that is relatively pleasant to hang out with normally, but once the shots start flowing they become a raging madwoman, abusively encouraging new levels of degeneracy from even your most staid compatriots.

You can watch the highlights to enjoy the fun (said friend passed out at half time), but we should talk about Bukayo Saka. Arsenal’s attack has been down this year due to red cards and a missing Odegaard, but there has been a sense among both Arsenal and England fans that Bukayo is one of the best players in the world, in an almost incredibly unflashy way.

Lack of eye-popping goals and assists stats have sandbagged this a bit, but I think my former colleague James Yorke — who is a Spurs fan — has an advanced metrics potential explanation for his value, much of which comes while being consistently double-teamed. And part of the importance of Odegaard is that he’s Saka’s release valve when the double-teams occur, making for a one-two combo that teams die to the moment their defense overcompensates.

I have previously described Arsenal’s StarBoy as an elite counterpuncher — he has the smarts to figure out which part of his game will hurt the opponent most, and then both the physical and technical ability to make that image a reality every match.

Zero flash, just the most efficient, versatile attacker around. Like peak Thomas Müller, with better wheels, and from from North London.

Those who subscribe to Variance Betting (the premium gambling analysis column I write here), know that I was not remotely convinced that Spurs + injuries + midweek added up to a winning formula vs Fulham.

…Which turned out to be a pretty good read, because despite being the away team, Fulham clipped Spurs in basically every stat that matters. I think these midblock teams might be a tough matchup for Postegoclu’s style generally, and especially when lacking some important players.

I’m not sure what to make of a 4-0 win at home over lowly Everton that only registered 11 shots and 1.42 expected goals. Is that good? Is it par? Is this the Amorimaissance?

Rashford’s goal is probably going to trigger a ton of copy cats off corners, and let me tell you… that shot is nearly impossible to pull off. The lead analyst at PSG was a friend, and he got interested in set pieces many moons ago. They tried to employ the concept with Neymar and Mbappe as the shooters, and basically never pulled it off. Your players are not good enough to do this successfully, honest.

United’s second goal was a high press blow-up from Amad Diallo off a bad decision from Pickford, and yay, free goal! (For Zirkzee even.) Zirkzee was involved in the release pass to Diallo that resulted in Rashford’s second, and then United’s fourth was another high press recovery from Diallo that gave Zirkzee another easy one. This was a great game for their front three.

Or uh.. front 2.5 with Amad as an extremely high wingback? Look, word conventions don’t conform to these new-fangled tactical styles — that’s why the Spielverlagerung dudes only wrote pieces 6000 words or longer.

Everton made some very dumb decisions to gift United these goals, but tactically, that’s literally why you employ the press. Diallo’s degree of meep is clearly enough to cause teams problems as United get more comfortable settling into the new style.

I noted Villa’s long dry spell on BlueSky last week, ducking a bet on this because of Villa injuries and the fact I have zero confidence in them. (With good reason!)

Chelsea finished moderately ahead in the expected goals numbers, and never felt particularly troubled in the match. Cucurella created the first goal off a counter-press and delivered the cross for Jackson, who had an amazing reflex finish off a deflection.

GK of the Year Emi Martinez should have given up the second goal off a spectacularly stupid kick straight to Jackson, but he scrambled to claim it back off his feet. High pressing teams are feasting this year from the endless desire of teams to play out from the back, and both GKs and CBs getting the yips.

Palmer set up Enzo Fernandez for the second, and then scored a gorgeous strike from the edge of the “D” for the third, and that was all she wrote. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but he’s real good.

Chelsea will likely have a dry spell of results at some point, but the talent is there. It feels like they are a set piece coach away from being able to challenge for the league next season. Except they hired a set piece coach from Brentford this summer, so who knows?

StatsBomb had the expected goals on this at 3.20 to .85, which is a proper paddlin’.

While there’s an argument that Saka might be the best player in the PL right now (see above before you start shouting at me, Liverpool fans), Salah on the gallop is certainly the most terrifying, and Liverpool do a great job of consistently getting him into space.

Create consistent high +ev situations for your weapons is an easy principal to state, but hard to execute.

Also notable in this one was Van Dijk having three headed shots. Arsenal consistently create chances for Gabriel off set pieces. VVD has been one of the most dangerous headers in the world for a long time, and scored fairly consistently in the Klopp era. It’s been a slow burn to start Slot’s term, but watch out if Liverpool really get the set pieces rolling too.

As for City, they now sit below a Brighton team with five draws in the table. Their PL fixtures through Boxing Day are: Forest, Palace, Manchester Derby, Villa, and Everton. Any other time, and you’d peg that for something like 13 out of 15 points. But this year… maybe nine? January can’t come soon enough.

—TK

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