Premier League top 5 favorites barely hanging on

Normally, this would be the Monday roundup, written by yours truly. (Hi, I’m Ted. I founded this newsletter and other things, and if you don’t know me that’s cool, maybe there will be a book some day.)

But we’re NOT doing the normal roundup this week because I am kinda bored of the Premier League at this particular moment. Wait, maybe that’s too strong… I am perhaps less bored, and far MORE interested in the spicy meat-a-balls of the Champions League this week (the primary topic of this week’s Monday TTF pod) and the rapidly heating fires of the summer transfer market (the secondary topic of said pod!). So we’ll do some quick hits for the roundup and move on to things that interest me more at this moment like catching up on weekend transfer news.

But first…

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Ladies and Gentlemen… The Weekend

Yep, seems about right and exactly what the betting model predicted ahead of time. The subs helped, but the Chels are still firing on about half the cylinders during crunch time, which kinda matters?

This one is maybe more interesting…

That is a whuppin’ for a team that almost never get whupped. Villa are on a tear right now, which is hella-good timing on their part, because they desperately needed to start dominating games to get back into the CL race via the league.

But they DO have to face the PSG buzzsaw midweek, so I wonder if that’s the end of the road, or if we have another Unai masterclass/PSG monster capitulation in store for us.

Forest have a 6.5 point lead (sup, goal difference?) with 7 games left. That HAS to be unsurmountable, right? Right?

“I think Bournemouth at 16-1 might be the best sneaky bet to make that last Champions League place.” What idiot said that? 🙄 

Liverpool (losers at the weekend), Villa, Palace(?) and Wolves(?!?!?) are the best form teams in the Premier League across the last six.

Wolves? The same Wolves that have had their attacking talisman Mateus Cunha suspended for ages and who might not even play him the rest of the season? THAT Wolves? [They had 22 shots against Ipswich this weekend, which, you know, score effects but also, metric fuckton of shots.]

Meanwhile Spurs are so back! (3-1 over now relegated Southampton), Arsenal and Everton delivered the world’s most inevitable draw on Saturday, and the Manchester Derby was SO AWFUL that any fans who paid money to watch that in any shape or form deserve to be refunded. (You illegal streamers only have yourselves to blame.)

News and Rumours

• Kim would like you to know that the subject of her profile on Thursday had another goal and assist this weekend!

• I know people are kind of overwhelmed in the real world by All of the Things, but the Trump tariffs wreaking havoc on the stock market are also going to wreak havoc on the transfer market. PL teams are largely fine, but owners do not sanction big spending in times of uncertainty or crisis, and especially not when they don’t know how much the U.S. stock market is likely to crash between now and whenever something sensible and stable takes hold again.
  
  I’m just mentioning it because it was looking like it would be a pretty interesting market this summer, and now it looks like it will more likely be dull and boring… Unlike current events!

• Man City have “identified” Florian Wirtz as the ideal replacement for KDB (Romano reporting). First of all, City have known Kev was leaving for at least two years. Second, Wirtz is one of the most KNOWN young players in the world. This isn’t new news, it’s just grafting for clicks.
  
  Expect The Big Rebuild to continue this summer at City, and Wirtz would make a lot of sense, though City did themselves no favours in future pricing with what they paid for Marmoush in January.
  
  £100M? In this economy?

• Teams are a little bit interested in Crystal Palace striker Jean-Philippe Mateta, which we agree makes sense. Palace are weird in that they are overly sticky on price, but they seem to be quite good at choosing players these days, which means they should mostly be happily selling and restocking at will. Given his age, we would definitely sell at any reasonable valuation, but that doesn’t seem to be how they operate.

• Balague says Arsenal are tipped to make five big signings this summer with Berta at the helm. Normally this would be ignorable, but five is a lot and Balague is usually pretty solid at reporting Spain-flavoured news in England.
  
  He is notably less solid at defending Julen Lopetegui on social media.

• Villa are potentially selling their women’s team to [unknown, but presumably-related party] in order to cover any PSR difficulties because Chelsea did it, so it’s only fair.
  
  When it comes to Profit and Sustainability and Financial Fair Play rules in England, it’s lawyers, accountants, and turtles all the way down.

• Jadon Sancho at age 20 vs Jadon Sancho at "Wolves want Jadon Sancho in the summer at age 25" rumour.
  

  Cue: "y r u so cooked, bro?" comments on TikTok

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