Man City stumble while Spurs soar

Newcastle 1-1 Manchester City

Here’s a fun one… StatsBomb xG thinks about half the time, Newcastle actually win that one. They didn’t, but it was there for them. Yes, Newcastle’s goal came via a penalty. And yes, City had 16 shots. But they weren’t good shots, and the difference between Pep’s City teams and every other great PL team is that Pep’s lads have been the best in the world at creating high quality chances.

They have a lot of matches coming up, which gives Pep a lot of reps to find the right composite replacement parts for everything Rodri does. If he can’t, they might be underdogs versus the field to win the league.

OR… they might open the checkbook in January and sign a long-term replacement, which given Rodri’s injury + age and Gundo’s age + injury history is suddenly a priority.

Nottingham Forest 0-1 Fulham

This was a tight, choppy match between two teams that feel firmly ensconced in midtable this season, and possibly a touch better than that. Without relitigating the penalty, each team had a decent amount of chances, almost none of them good. The defences played as they were designed, but Fulham walked out 0-1 winners.

Arsenal 4-2 Leicester

“Remember how you said it would take months to fix Arsenal’s expected goals numbers? All it took was them facing Leicester!”

36 shots. 3.24 xG to .31. Easy match, right? Tell that to Arsenal fans’ hearts. After recent weeks, they were looking forward to a nice, relaxing tie at home to a promoted side to settle their nerves. Instead they got to watch the most beautiful strike of the weekend from James Justin tie things up in the 63rd minute. Then it was a spectacular sweat until an Ndidi own goal off a Trossard corner redirect (Set Piece FC) put them back up 3-2, with Havertz bundling home a fourth in the 99th.

I’m not sure “dominant, but sweaty” is a healthy footballing lifestyle, but it’s better than like 99% of the alternatives.

Brentford 1-1 West Ham

Brentford have injury issues, mostly in midfield, but went up 1-0 in the first minute for the third time in six matches. Maybe there’s something cooking there…

West Ham then had basically 95 minutes to try and batter the door down. They tied it at 1-1 in the 54th before both sides largely seemed to run out of gas.

West Ham are still bad. Brentford are still injured. More news as we get it.

Chelsea 4-2 Brighton

So remember last week when I mentioned how weird the Brighton v Forest game was, and how the Brighton goals against were the result of really bone-headed defending. Maybe a blip, maybe something to watch?

It’s definitely something to watch now. Funnily enough though, it was Chelsea doing something dumb in their own box that resulted in the first goal of the match to Brighton. Then Webster got pressed off the ball by Nico Jackson, who laid it off to Cole Palmer for the first of his four goals… all in the first half!

Kadioglu also got pressed off the ball en route to Brighton giving up a penalty for Palmer’s second. His third was an absolute rocket from a direct free kick that probably doesn’t beat the keeper without the two-man screen in the wall. Watch the hesitation from the behind-the-goal angle if you don’t believe me. “Screen goalkeeper sightlines to delay reaction times, and increase the space players can aim for that result in a goal.” My set piece playbook, but presumably implemented by the coach Chelsea bought from Brentford over the summer. Huzzah.

Brighton’s second was almost the same replay as their first. Chelsea were playing out of the back against a press. This time Baleba stepped in to intercept inside the penalty box, and bam, 3-2. But… Sancho had a perfectly weighted throughball to Cole Palmer off a great diagonal box run to give Chelsea a fourth and put the game away.

Lessons: Definitely throw intermittent presses at Chelsea on their short goalkicks, because they might do dumb things and give you not one, but two easy goals.

AND… Brighton have really bad decision making in their buildup out of defense, and choosing the right pressing triggers there can also result in free goals. These are fixable flaws, but it feels like we should be beyond this by October.

Everton 2-1 Crystal Palace

A comeback win from Everton? Is that even allowed? Palace edged it in expected goals and had 17 shots to 8, but Dwight McNeil decided Everton weren’t going to be beaten today.

I will say that one of the historic problems with Glasner’s coaching tree is that they don’t create enough good chances outside the press. This can lead to disappointing stretches where they defend fairly well, but aren’t moving up the table because they don’t reliably score goals.

Glasner is rumoured to be on the Palace hotseat, which seems like nonsense given the squad he’s working with, but stranger things certainly have happened even in recent times.

Wolves 1-2 Liverpool

Oooookay. So the two bets I had on this weekend that I was most confident about were West Brom (who lost 3-2 to an Own Goal and an 18-yard header), and Liverpool -1.5 against a Wolves side who are not only bad, but whose squad was allegedly ravaged by viruses in the run up to this game.

Yes, Liverpool only had 10 shots, but … well… look…

deep sigh

Just cue the highlights.

Ipswich 2-2 Aston Villa

Given recent data and result trends, I had convinced myself that Unai Emery had turned a new page as a coach, and was going to push his highly-talented team to attack with vigor, no matter the score.

Then came a bet on Villa, away against a league minnow.

And this absolute turd burger of a performance.

Four shots before the 2-2 equalizer.

FOUR!

With a Champions League squad against a promoted team. Which is exactly the type Emery’s teams used to produce on a regular basis, and made them treacherous to bet on.

Am I supposed to upgrade Ipswich now because they dominated a CL team? Is John McGinn that important to the lineup? How big should the downgrade of Villa actually be?

Get the fuck out of here with this.

Manchester United 0-3 Tottenham Hotspur

This was a match that felt like it would provide us with answers thus far lacking in the season. Answers to questions like:

• Can Manchester United string together a full 90-minute performance against anyone?

• Are the signs of life we’ve seen from Spurs recently real, or would they crumble against tougher competition?

• Which head coach is closest to getting fired?

The answer to the last question is almost assuredly Erik ten Hag, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s that close. We flagged in the summer than United were in an awkward tweener year, and it would take years for them to rebuild into a legit title force even with the best recruitment in the world. This is year 1 of “years.” Lower your expectations. And while you are doing that, be aware that United should only really move if and when their next long-term coach becomes available.

Maybe that coach is Michael Carrick after someone teaches him about shot locations, because his Boro team are genuinely good right now in an unusual way for the Championship. They just need to bump the xG per shot to more normal numbers than 7.5% and his style could potentially fly with better talent. Maybe it’s someone dreamy and bald who only really wants to manage Real Madrid and the French National Team. Or maybe it’s someone further afield right now that is unknown to basically everyone.

(Given the TTF Slack conversation this morning, I sense someone will be writing about this soon.)

Regardless of who, there’s no point giving ETH the boot unless they are available, when the real outcome of the season is still likely to be 6-8th no matter what they do.

But maybe cut down on the buccaneering runs from both opposing fullbacks and centrebacks. That’s probably a big thing to work on not allowing, no matter which competition they are playing in. Maybe.

Match of the Day statto Chris Collinson had this great nugget about the ETH era:

On the Spurs side… whee! How often do you get to go to Old Trafford and do that? Yes, it was aided by a gift-but-probably-correct-ish red card, but the lads certainly made the most of it from there. Spurs have been good on the break for years - the danger has always been facing teams that force structure onto that game. Thankfully United aren’t one of those teams, but half the rest of the league is.

There was even a textbook set piece goal from a near post flick into an easy finish for Solanke.

I think Brennan Johnson might be one of the more intriguing players in the Premier League right now. He’s approaching Darwin Núñez levels of discussion for is he/isn’t he actually any good/the cause of all of our woes in attack. He’s always on the highlight reels, but not always for things you want him to be there for, and he seems very divisive across the Spurs fandom, somewhat understandably.

Here you have a wide forward who doesn’t dribble, doesn’t win fouls, and doesn’t set up teammates for many good shots. That’s pretty unusual.

He shoots a lot right now (over 3.5 per 90). He scores… a bit. And he’s instrumental in carrying the ball forward for Spurs’ attack. I think the thing that makes me lean toward “he’s probably really good” is that last season he was in the 97th percentile for open play xG assisted in almost 26 Premier League 90s. Which is not remotely on display so far this year, but the club is in his bag, waiting to be pulled out.

I think Spurs are pretty good. I think United are exactly what we thought they were preseason (but a little more injured).

And everyone needs to chill out and accept United aren’t going to get much better this year. Which is very unlikely to happen, because the media heads love to shout about Man United. If these same performances exist 12 months from now, now THAT should kick off a lot of screaming and shouting.

—TK

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.”