Manchester City are spiraling

Since Pep Guardiola took over, “Man City in crisis mode” is only a sentence I remember seeing related to the Champions League and never really the league itself. The only time they struggled for real in the Premier League was predictable, so no real crisis. In Pep’s first season, he had a squad that was too old at fullback, a GK that didn’t fit the new style, and the squad was too creaky elsewhere. They finished third to Chelsea and… Spurs.

This year they rolled the dice on the squad depth and quality, aged another year with only one significant reinforcement/replacement (Savinho for Alvarez), then lost the world’s best midfielder to injury and are… spiralling.

Pep teams don’t spiral.

But Pep teams also don’t lose five matches in a row, ever. Except they just did.

The wounds are in the quality of the chances they are conceding. Pressing teams trade opposing shot quality for limiting the volume of shots teams take. So they usually give up higher quality shots, but far fewer of them, and when the press works… they dominate. But when it doesn’t, you get this.

The other side of the ball isn’t helping much. I felt like we were seeing a lot of City matches with 20+ shots and not enough goals, and chance quality from open play in attack is a mean 10%. At their best, City were notching 12.5% per open play shot in attack, while 10% is dare we say… average?

More interesting to me is that City are also finishing under their xG. Even with StatsBomb’s best in class data and xG model, City have never been under xG in attack. Elite teams almost never are, because player quality still matters. But City are under right now, and we don’t know if this is a blip or a trend.

All of the above helps explain — from a metrics perspective, at least — why City are an uncharacteristic tire fire, resulting in a walloping from Spurs yesterday. [That match was an art installation that should called Death by Transition.] But it doesn’t offer any advice on a path out of turmoil with this squad.

I repeat this regularly, because it is very uncommon wisdom: Sport does not allow you to stay still. Even when you make no real changes, changes happen to you. Time continues to march.

That’s why I have been saying for two months I expect they will be busy and active in January. Pep’s extension confirms that for me as well - the big questions are who? And how many?

Arsenal 3 - 0 Nottingham Forest 
It feels like it’s been a while since something went Arsenal’s way, but this match was efficient and relaxing for the home faithful.

19 shots, mostly from range, and some nice finishing meant this game was basically dusted when Partey finished from the edge of the box in the 52nd minute.

From a personal perspective, I’d love to see more play from Sterling and Nwaneri. Nwaneri might be a ++ finisher, which meant his little interplay into a cutback from Sterling created a couple of yards of space for him to be lethal. That type of play is exactly what Arsenal have been missing most of the season, and they are going to need a lot more of that in order to catch up with Liverpool and go deep into the Champions League.

Also… long live Martin Odegaard.

Leicester 1 - 2 Chelsea
Chelsea fans on YouTube seem to think Patrick and I are too mean to their team, while I feel like we’re being plenty fair. Chelsea are doing fine. They aren’t substantially better or worse than they were at the end of last season. And I don’t think Maresca SO FAR has managed to make this team significantly more than the sum of their parts.

Chelsea are going into the podcast time out box for a bit until they provide evidence they are something different than what we’ve already pegged them to be. YouTube commenters can sit in the corner for a bit and think about what they’ve done.

This match against one of the prime relegation candidates was in control the entire time, with Leicester only registering four shots, but thankfully for gambling purposes, they clawed one back late and saved me some money. It also gave us a candidate for miss of the season, as Cole Palmer had an open goal off a rebound in the 54th minute, only for his shot to bounce off Madueke and out for a goal kick. Whee!

Oh, and kids, watch how Nico Jackson plays CF. He’s a menace, a physical nuisance, and has a gifted chaos factor to his game that keeps defenders and GKs constantly guessing. His early shots feel particularly problematic for opponents so far this season.

Leicester, meanwhile… fired Steve Cooper this weekend. AFTER the international break? And AFTER losing to Chelsea? Metrics-wise, it’s probably justified, but why now? So weird.

Bournemouth 1 - 2 Brighton
I was glad I didn’t have a bet on in this one, because the concept of Bournemouth being actual small favourites at home against Brighton, while justified by the models, was doing my head in.

(I had a terrible gambling weekend, mostly due to Championship whammies like the double loss on Sheffield United and the Under, after they picked up first half red at Coventry.)

Anyway, Bournemouth technically edged the xG here, but that was mostly an artifact of game state. Brighton went ahead from a Joao Pedro goal on a rebound in the 4th minute, and Pedro was the architect of the second goal, with a staggering throughball on an angled run to Mitoma.

Carlos Baleba picked up a second yellow in the 59th, and Bournemouth were able to ramp up the pressure. A goal from David Brooks (remember him?) made it 2-1 in the 92nd, but there wasn’t quite enough time for Bournemouth to find a second.

Everton 0 - 0 Brentford
More boring Everton draws. Yawn.

Except they had 27 shots and over 2 xG in this nil-nil? Brentford had 1.25 xG as well, though any output was hampered by a 41st minute red to Christian Norgaard.

At this point, Dyche has to be wondering what they’ve got to do to notch a win. New look Manchester United are next, and then the scrappy Wolves team.

Aston Villa 2 - 2 Crystal Palace 
Just the 3.45 xG for Villa in this one. Palace had a 2-1 lead, but uh, yeah… can’t suppress shots, so can’t hold on to anything. And thus they are in relegation positions.

This is a team that desperately needs the transfer window to open up.

Villa, meanwhile… the league table is reflecting the fact that they are impossible to figure out at the moment, gambling-wise or football-wise. Those attacking numbers are rare and elite. But giving up 2 goals to an undermanned Palace team is not.

Sort yourselves out, lads!

Fulham 1 - 4 Wolves
Soooooo yeah. Losing at home to Wolves is full-on shit the bed territory, but this was more like “bad day at the office.” Expected goals were level between the two, and while I am sure Marco Silva and troops will have regrets about how they defended some of Wolves’ goals, especially after 1-2, in the immortal words of William Shakespeare, shit doth happen.

Meanwhile, while I don’t think it’s sustainable, no one in the Premier League is hotter than Matheus Cunha right now. 7 goals, 3 assists, and some outstanding creative passing for teammates has Wolves out of the relegation spots for now.

Southampton 2 - 3 Liverpool
I’m creating a new label called “Bender of the Weekend” that will applied to the drunkest, dumbest match of each and every EPL round. While there were a number of candidates this weekend (just look at the scorelines), this one definitely won both for the stupidity of Liverpool’s first goal, and the sublimity of their second followed by the tantric, slow-motion comedy of will it/won’t it actually make it into the goal?!?

Skint Liverpool fans are going to watch that highlight for years instead of paying for OnlyFans.

We once again need to mention Tyler Dibbling, who continues to torch some of the league’s best players, and won Southampton’s penalty from a mis-timed Robertson tackle, and created their second through some dogged work on the sideline. I have some questions about how his game will crystalise in the goals and assists stats as he ages, but it’s extremely unusual to see an 18-year-old left-footer be basically untackleable around the box in England.

The betting line on this was -1.75 for Liverpool, which was too steep for my blood, while I couldn’t bring myself to bet on Martin’s team because *waves in “you watched the highlights, you understand” motions*.

27 shots to 7, and a couple of moments of opposition brilliance didn’t seem like a lot to worry about for Liverpool, even if the result was in doubt until the end.

Ipswich 1 - 1 Man United
11 shots to 11. Basically identical expected goals. There’s nothing to draw conclusions from for United fans yet, even though that’s literally what every media outlet in the world was trying to do post-match.

(And the team-specific opposing content creators immediately went into talking shit mode, which is boring and beneath most of them, but whatever.)

Like, we know Hutchinson is a bad matchup 1v1 vs Jonny Evans. At this point, on the move, everyone is a bad matchup for Evans. And Amorim probably should not have started that midfield, but the whole squad is misfit toys, so it’s going to be weird for a while.

My main conclusion is that Ipswich deserve gambling respect at home. All these draws won’t keep them up, but it will win you wagers.

—TK

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