We love a 9-goal game on mind-altering substances

Happy Holidays from everyone here at TTF. We just crossed 10,000 newsletter subs this weekend, and are creeping up on 5000 over at YouTube, having kicked off this shindig from nothing back in the summer.

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Holiday schedule notes:

• Today is the last day of the newsletter until Jan 2nd.

• We will also have the usual roundup pod with Patrick and I today, and then everyone is on holiday until the new year.

• The one exception here is I will produce a Boxing Day column for Variance Betting, so Premium Subscribers can keep an eye out for that one. Hopefully Santa will bless our picks as well.

Please enjoy the mad Christmas Football Festivities, and all of our love to you and your families.

BENDER OF THE WEEKEND (never in doubt)
Tottenham 3 - 6 Liverpool
Long-time analytics nerd and policy wonk Michael Caley likes to complain about teams desperately searching for control in their tactics and leeching the fun out of the game. But these days, Caley roots for a team (Spurs) that have largely eschewed the concept of control and exchanged it for the idea of flow and vibes.

Sometimes successfully!

And other times, like last night.

Spurs have no healthy centre backs. The total was 3.75 (a “normal” total is like 2.75) and it was clearly far too low for a Vibes FC match against the best attackers in the league.

They covered the game total IN BOTH HALVES.

(I didn’t bet on this match despite having a clear opinion in the VB Analysis on Friday because I am an idiot.)

So this match was always going to be insane, we just didn’t know how the insanity would present itself. I have linked the highlights, but there were NINE goals… do yourself a favour and watch the extended highlights when they are posted.

It opened with Trent doing his David Beckham impression with a wide early cross, and all the time and space in the world.

Wide crosses are usually bad tactically (this isn’t THAT wide). But they can be good if you take them early and the defense isn’t ready for them. You know, like this…

Liverpool saw something in the scouting tape and managed to create a 3v1 overload centrally, when the guy on the ball has both space and probably the best crossing boot in the world.

The second goal also came from a lofted ball and aggressive attackers in the box, and Liverpool were free and clear. Maddison’s goal came off a high press regain to make it 1-2, but that was all for Spurs until it Salah made it 1-5 in the 61st.

So many of Liverpool’s goals in this one came as a result of great timing on attacking runs and a failure to clear danger for Spurs. It felt like so many small area games you see on the training ground.

Aston Villa 2 - 1 Man City
It will probably never get boring for rival fans, but seeing City sliced apart by one or two passes through midfield and onto the feet of a running striker happens literally every week now.

The greatest league manager of all time has no idea how to win a league match with this group of players and tactics. It’s incredible stuff. It reminds me of when Paco Jemez absolutely refused to ever compromise his style, and the results were highly variant based on who his squad was any any particular time.

Pep’s results have NEVER been variant. And I guess they aren’t variant now, given the whole “can’t actually win a match” element of their current form. But this three-month period until the transfer window can deliver some replacements is an incredible footnote to an even more incredible career.

On the Villa side, Morgan Rogers announced his presence With Authority in the second match of the season against Arsenal. In the four months since then, he as become one of the most exciting and impactful players in the Premier League through the center of the pitch.

We know who he is now, we just don’t yet know how good he will be.

Manchester United 0 - 3 Bournemouth
Speaking of Manchester teams whose pain will never be boring for neutral fans… how about that United performance?

United actually had 1 xG more than Bournemouth in the match — there were 23 shots! for the Red Devils — but there were also a lot of game state effects in play.

The commentators mentioned United have been fragile defensively at set pieces. Huijsen’s goal is pretty bloody lucky (SB has it as an 8% chance, but it’s probably worse imo), but also, Zirkzee doesn’t even get a body on him so yes, there’s some blame to go around for goal number one.

There was A LOT of blame to go around on the Kluivert pen, where Mazraoui committed one of the most obvious hacks of the season.

The third goal had something glorious in the buildup that didn’t get shown in the replays. Evanilson has a filthy little turn in the center of the pitch that puts him into space and that was the catalyst for this beautiful goal. He then holds up the ball, waiting for Ouattara to make a great little vertical run, who then pulls it back for Semenyo at about 9 yards out.

United go into Christmas in 13th. Their metrics are better than that, but as we’ve been saying since the summer, this isn’t a short-term reclamation project.

Brentford 0 - 2 Nottingham Forest
17 total shots. xG of .89 to .89 for each team.

Brentford had the best of things early, but Forest are total buzzkills. They actually had a stretch where they limited the Bees to zero shots for 45 minutes in the middle of the match.

The first goal to open from Ola Aina was a decent finish off a late run into the box, and then the second from Elanga was from a nice piece of pressing against Lewis-Potter and another good finish.

Tidy. Unstressed. 4th in the table at Christmas.

Just like you’d expect from Nottingham Forest.

Crystal Palace 1 - 5 Arsenal
Arsenal dominated the scoreline without really dominating the game. Which is the opposite of what they have been doing against other bad teams recently, but with better results. Arteta went back to the well with Gabriel Jesus and a slightly less-controlled style that saw them clip Palace midweek, and it paid dividends in basically the same way at the weekend.

One of the things I noticed rewatching the clips is how many Arsenal players are in the box when they scored their goals. That’s definitely moved the dial from risk-averse to aggressive attack, and the Gunners not only had good finishing, they also always seemed to have players in position to clean up deflections and rebounds.

Raya’s had so little to do in recent weeks that it’s been easy to forget he has been huge for Arsenal at various times the past couple of seasons and he had a great game here.

(Only an 11 second intro and 14 second outro on Palace YT this week! Do you think someone sent a message?)

West Ham 1 - 1 Brighton
Brighton are clearly talented, but can’t figure out their attack/defense balance and have slipped back into midtable. West Ham are bad, but not as dire as some of the truly awful teams so far, and they keep eeking out just enough wins to keep them out of trouble.

This match was basically that. I was on the Over in this match, so obviously both teams managed to slow the pace to a relative crawl compared to season averages in shots and goals. Example: Sky showed exactly one highlight from the first half. fml.

The Kudus equalizer comes off the rebound from a Bowen shot, and the rebound exists because Bowen hits it so fucking hard. There remains benefit to being able to hit the ball “so fucking hard” and clearly it is a box that should be ticked if it exists in scouting reports.

Minteh then created a 99% chance for Mitoma, but West Ham got the slightest of deflections to knock it off the post and out. It won’t show in xG because of Own Goal process, but it was a monster that should have given Brighton the win.

The Estupinian absolutely should have been shown a red for a studs up challenge in the 84th, but somehow stayed on the pitch. Merry Christmas, I guess.

Ipswich 0 - 4 Newcastle
There are days where you give up a goal after 26 seconds. There are days where Isak is unplayable. Saturday was the same day for Ipswich.

Any “plan” was thrown out the window in minute 1 and they were never really in it thereafter.

The third goal does deserve special mention as yet ANOTHER example of really idiotic play out of the back from a Premier League GK to a player under immediate pressure. And it happened right before half time, making it that little bit dumber than it already was.

Fulham 0 - 0 Southampton 
.77 expected goals to .25 for Southampton.

Boring, practical football.

How dare they.

Juric seems like a pretty decent appointment, even if it’s too late to save this season. Given some time to let the tactical elements take shape, I suspect they’ll be very good in the Champ next year.

Everton 0 - 0 Chelsea
If a Sean Dyche team locks you down to a 0-0 draw near Christmas and Chelsea fans aren’t up in arms about it, did it even happen?

There were a couple of great saves and some fabulous goal line blocks in this one that make it worth the click, even if it ended 0-0.

Leicester 0 - 3 Wolves
Three goals on 8 shots and .78 xG. New manager bounce, baybee!

The story of the game is a fantastic bounce finish by Guedes to open the scoring, an idiotic leave by James Justin that made is 2-0, and another great finish by Cunha to make it 3, plus some nice work from Sa on Jamie Vardy to keep him off the scoresheet.

The result was one-sided, but the process is basically what you’d expect from these two teams and their table positions. Wolves could definitely stay up this year and this lucky six-pointer would be a big part of that story.

—TK

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