Manchester United just let fullbacks dribble through their whole midfield?

Hello friends, and thanks for reading. As we’ll regularly do on Fridays, today’s a bit of a grab bag with some quick thoughts on games and links to other people’s stuff we think is worth your time.

Friday is also when our premium betting content comes out, and you’ll need to be a premium subscriber to read that. Ted has the market implied model odds for all Premier League and Championship games, as well as a little story about long-term systems overcoming individual bad weeks. You can upgrade here for £10 a month, and you’ll lock in that price for the next year if you subscribe before the end of September. The price goes up to £15/month for those who subscribe from October onwards. —KM

If you didn’t see it on Wednesday, Manchester United gave up a completely ridiculous goal to FC Twente in Europa League. Twente right back Bart van Rooij went on a 60 yard solo run through 5 red shirts before Manuel Ugarte bothered to stop him, then Christian Eriksen dallied on the ball and got dispossessed, leading to Sam Lammers’ equalizer.

Man United’s biggest area of concern to address this offseason was how many big chances they conceded, and specifically their midfield’s role in letting people just walk up to their penalty area virtually uncontested. They definitely made an effort to address that by adding Ugarte, and to his credit, he’s the only guy who bothered to step to the threatening attacker here and won the ball. But they obviously are yet to really address how easy they are to play through.

United’s defense through 5 Premier League games is definitely better than last season, though that’s the lowest possible bar to clear. Like the bar was buried several hundred meters underground, it’s touching dinosaur fossils.

Hilariously, United are not any better at avoiding clear shots conceded, and their xG per shot conceded is much worse. If we don’t see a very clear improvement over the weekend against Tottenham Hotspur (who may or may not be good?), Erik ten Hag is not long for this job.

Games we’re watching

Paris Saint-Germain vs. Rennes — PSG got off to a hot start, but things aren’t going so hot lately. They had to rely on a late own goal to beat Girona in Champions League, and they drew Reims 1-1 last week while putting up a pretty pedestrian for them 1.59 xG. Keep an eye on Rennes playmaker Albert Grønbæk.

Chelsea vs. Brighton — This might be even more of a potential battle for 4th place than the Spurs-United game, and between teams I personally find to be more entertaining at the moment. As much as we clowned Chelsea’s transfer activity, Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson are making up for the new guys not contributing.

Bayern Munich vs. Bayer Leverkusen — Easily the game of the week anywhere in the world. The top two teams in the table right now, and likely at the end of the season too. Michael Olise has been one of the best players in the world to start this season, while Leverkusen keep pulling off inexplicable late game magic.

Torino vs. Lazio — Torino is top of the Serie A table with a negative xG differential.
They have 11 points, but Understat has them at 6.52 expected points. So this isn’t sustainable, but it would be funny if they kept it going against Lazio, who are on the other end of the spectrum as Italy’s unluckiest team so far.

Atlético Madrid vs. Real Madrid — The other game of the week contender, though I expect this to be more of a tactical chess match, while the Bundesliga fixture should be a bit more open. Madrid derbies are must watch, but honestly I’m expecting a 0-0 draw.

Times and TV/streaming for your region can be found on LiveSoccerTV.

Other people’s stuff we like

We didn’t get to the links last week, so there’s a lot of stuff we’ve liked recently to tell you about.

Neil Atkinson from The Anfield Wrap has a new book about Jürgen Klopp called “Transformer: Klopp, the Revolution of a Club and Culture.” There are a lot of great books about tactics and managerial philosophies, but this is the best you’re going to find on what Klopp actually meant to Liverpool as a person and personality.

Michael Caley’s Expecting Goals dug into games where players didn’t complete any passes after Kai Havertz and Jurriën Timber’s oddball performances.

Kyle Boas’ Tactics Journal presented an alternative idea of how Man City could have reacted to Arsenal going down to 10 men in that game.

Kurosh Moghtader at Total Football Analysis dug into how İlkay Gündoğan has been playing for City and how that might change after Rodri’s ACL injury.

Adam Rae Voge at Cannon Stats brought out a huge dose of copium to deal with Arsenal’s recent struggles. Just kidding, they make a good point about Arsenal having a harder schedule than rivals and playing well 11v11.

There were a couple very good takes out there about the issue of too much football ravaging players’ bodies and diluting the product. Grace Robertson’s Grace On Football made the case for why the FIFA Club World Cup and expansion of other competitions is bad for business long term. Gabriele Marcotti at ESPN suggested that the result of player strike threats and subsequent negotiations might be players agreeing to pay cuts in exchange for a reduction in fixtures.

The Athletic had a couple pieces I liked this week. Mark Carey pointed out 5 data-backed early season takeaways, and I especially liked the point about Nicolas Jackson’s improvement. Michael Cox dug into the trend of inverted fullbacks and why they’re not all doing the same things.

Sam Parry at Not The Top 20 wrote about how he came to enjoy the EFL much more than the Premier League.

Kieron O’Connor’s Swiss Ramble talked about the revenue groups of English football teams, as a good complementary piece to illustrate exactly what Parry was talking about with rich clubs.

Llew Davies and Jake Entwistle at Scouted had a nice notebook piece with a look at a handful of emerging talents, including Tyler Dibling and Isaac Babadi.

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