Someone's trying to get fired on purpose

EPL weekend recap, featuring a lot of red cards, VAR, and the title race getting spicier.

Author

Ted Knutson
October 21, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

There were five red cards out of nine matches played so far this Premier League round. Justified or not — we’re not big fans of ref criticism around here — it makes for some volatile matches and potentially volatile results (looks at North London).

For those searching for gambling recaps from the weekend and a status update, I’ve put that at the bottom.

The expected goals numbers made this one look closer than it was. Part of that is because the Todibo own goal was fairly flukey, and part was because Spurs had some very nice finishing. Son’s always been a superb finisher — he not only hits it well, but he does it with both feet. I wasn’t really aware of it before, but Kulusevski is also a long-term +ev finisher, even if this season 11 of his 16 shots have been blocked outright.

From a West Ham perspective, this looks like most of the other games this season. The squad is decent, the results rarely are. I’d have Lopetegui in first for the managerial doomsday clock, but he’s definitely trailing the candidate who started actively asking to be fired this weekend.

A lot of goals were scored. The Saints took a 2-0 lead and then uh… well, yeah. They lost a match with a 2-0 lead to a goal scored by an Ayew. The shame, the shame.

The highlights above are IN-SANE because they don’t show the penalty incident (also off VAR review), only the penalty. I’d link the Sky ones to all of these for a more neutral perspective, but they are region-locked.

Team accounts are so weird.

More importantly though, Russell Martin is now doing the types of press conferences that coaches only do when they actively want to be fired. Blaming everyone else. Calling out players in specific. Doing shit to turn the dressing room against him so that the owners have no other choice but to send him packing. Presumably he wants a vacation, so he can pick up whatever the best Football League job available is whenever his contract runs out, he gets bored, or something juicy comes along.

I saw someone on Twitter ask how tolerant we should be of head coaches who won’t compromise their style, especially when being promoted to a different league, and my opinion is not very. Football teams are fluid. The players change, the competition changes, and the leagues can change. This is woven into the fabric of the game. Lacking practicality — especially when publicly being a bit of a dick about it — should rule you out of most football jobs.

And really, organisations need to have conversations with coaches about this on the push to promotion. “Hey, we’re going to be a tiny budget up there and will have a LARGE talent gap… but survival would be huge for the club. If you don’t want to adapt, let us know now so we can get someone who will.”

Southampton should have done this over the break. They certainly have to now.

I feel like the last two weeks, United have been the beneficiaries of teams paying them too much respect given how pants they have been the last couple of years. 24 shots is a lot to concede, and to some extent, that’s a tactical choice from Thomas Frank.

This is a United team that other decent squads have run through, and ETH even ran out the old, tired legs in this one, but Brentford chose to play it safe and mostly try to grind. I would have chosen differently.

Goals for each team on either side of half time kept it tight — actually, that’s unfair… the Rashford to Garnacho connection was a bit of magic — but the Bees were losing control of the procession coming out of half. Hojlund’s first goal of the season was the result of a wonderful flick from Fernandes, and finally Old Trafford had a lead and a pair of gorgeous goals to cheer about.

They nearly had a third from the rarely-spotted GK to FB throughball into a 1v1 with the opposing keeper, but that was thwarted.

For once, United were pretty good for an entire match and walked away deserved winners.

As I mentioned on my Twitter account, I think once someone hammers the concept of shot locations into Garnacho’s brain, he’s going to be very dangerous. All the other tools are there, and he’s still a baby.

Newcastle win this one just about half the time. They were able to create a real volume of chances against a team that rarely offers them. Isak missed a peach off a throughball (42% from StatsBomb — they will pry that big B out of my cold, dead hands), but DatBoy Danny Wellbeck had his own throughball to run onto just two minutes later for Brighton, and scored the only goal of the game.

Ignoring the outcome, this is one of Newcastle’s best process matches of the season against a good opponent, and the midfield in particular looked good. I’ve been tough on them earlier in the year for overperformance on bad metrics, but this game plus Isak looking healthy means an upgrade is coming.

Fulham games are an event. Jimenez scored a lovely route one solo goal to open. Then Morgan Rogers equalized (though it looked more like a butt-bouncing OG for me). THEN Fulham had a penalty saved by Emi Martinez on a fairly terrible take from Pereira.

Ollie Watkins scored a bullet header on a corner to put the Villans up (not a fan of whatever play design that was, but a goal is a goal), Joachim Andersen got a red card for a nice piece of crafty play by Watkins again, and the clincher for Villa was an(other) own goal. This felt mostly like a “shit happens” type of match than a real statement about either team.

Ipswich 0 - 2 Everton

Everton get a result here 72% of the time. 3 points might be a touch fortunate, but they put 8 shots on target to Ipswich’s 2, so it mostly felt fair.

The fighting Sean Dyches march on. Ipswich really need to find ways to win these types of matches if they are to have a chance of staying up.

Bournemouth 2 - 0 Arsenal

I don’t want to talk about it. I’m more irritated about not betting on Bournemouth in this match than I am about the VAR review of a yellow card a million miles from goal or anything else that happened. Arsenal’s third red in eight Premier League matches this season.

Don’t gamble, kids. It does bad things to your brain.

Wolves 1 - 2 Man City

Wolves went up 1-0 from a very early cross creating a very early goal. Semedo nearly made it 2-0 on another break in the 19th minute, but Ederson blocked the shot on a 1v1 with a bit of Gvardiol help.

If it feels like City have been trailing more than you might think, that’s because they have, as they’ve already conceded 9 goals in 8 matches. City are vulnerable this season. A bit of passing, a bit of meep-meep and you can get at them in ways that was rarely possible since Pep’s first season.

On the other hand… they only gave up 3 shots total to Wolves. But Wolves are bottom of the table and just wanted to defend and then break the whole game. This is where the tactics guys spend 6000 words describing what they think might have happened, given their imagination of the coaches and the suspected tactical systems at work, and the stats guys just throw up their hands and point at numbers.

Anywho, Gvardiol tied it up from a very nice finish at medium range, and then a 95th-minute header from John Stones off City’s EIGHTEENTH corner kept egg off City faces. They haven’t been beaten yet this season. But they feel there for the taking.

What a gloriously weird year. Like last year, but City are definitely a touch worse.

This was one of those classic modern Premier League ties where no one felt in control, which resulted in about ninety minutes of tension. Chelsea’s attackers are A Problem, and look how high the average touch locations were below. Liverpool were incredibly stretched the first 25 minutes of this one, but equally incredibly, there were no shots.

But as we definitely know, Liverpool’s attackers are also A Problem. There was one foul + potential penalty on Salah waved off in the first half, and then Colwill got dinged for another foul on Curtis Jones (who was really good, even before his actual goal), and Liverpool went 1-0 up.

VAR had a lot to do in this match, ruling out Sanchez up-ending Jones for what was initially called a penalty, and then ruling IN Chelsea’s equaliser, off a great throughball from Caicedo to Jackson.

Actually… there were a lot of throughball goals this weekend. High lines, so many fast attackers in the league, or just a reminder that they can always be lethal if you have players who can make the pass and others who know to make the runs?

Anyway, Liverpool are back atop the league off the back of a defense that is good, but not exceptional in terms of numbers across the past decade. City have a similar set of metrics, and everyone else kind of feels dangerous if you catch them at the right time. Maybe Arsenal are actually the best team in the leagues, but the breaks surely doth not breaketh in their way so much, so far.

Maybe this is the season where we have no great teams, with the Pep era maybe winding down, the Klopp era gone, Slot in bootup mode, Arteta a short a bit of depth, and Ange… well, let’s wait until Christmas before truly wading into those waters.

Betting Results

I am on Nottingham Forest tonight vs Palace, but it was a fantastic weekend of betting so far. (Praise lord baby jesus.) I am nearly break even in picks in England for the season, though not across my CL bets and the vig as well. It’s been a bit of a slog through the early part of the season, but processes require patience and it’s nice to see results.

EPL
Weekend Spreads: 3.5-.5 = +3
Weekend Totals: 1 half win = +.5
Season Spreads: 11.5 -14, 1 push = -1.5
Season Totals: 1.5-2 = -.5

Eng Champ
Weekend Spreads: 0-2 = -2
Weekend Totals: 1-0 = +1
Season Spreads: 10.5-13, 1 push = -2.5
Season Totals: 6-2, 1 push =+4

Look out for Tuesday and Wednesday analysis pieces for UEFA CL and Eng Champ on the premium subscription tier. —TK

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