EPL recap: Upset alert pick comes true

Betting Update

Just a quick one here, because there is another very busy midweek ahead. Betting this weekend was +.5. If you either dodged Arsenal due to lineups or got the Brighton +1.5 bet in the Liverpool game, then you would have been +1.5.

On the season, England is +3.5, but the CL is down -4. To be honest, this is about as good as I was hoping for early in the year on my first year back. The gambling markets are definitely tougher than 10 years ago, but there’s value to be found even when betting the biggest market in the world, the English Premier League.

We’re not chipping away at player props, first goalscorer, or mispriced lines. We’re going toe-to-toe with the lines with the most liquidity and holding our own.

If you haven’t signed up yet, the Variance Betting premium upgrade is available here. You’ll get all my gambling analysis and bets for EPL, English Championship, and the Champions League. And if you have, thanks again for the support.

Newcastle 1 - 0 Arsenal

I failed to dodge my own bullet this week, in that I warned people to be careful about betting this game until the lineups came out, because Arsenal had a lot of unknowns on Friday. Then the lineups came out, the good players were in, and I bet on Arsenal.

And obviously lost.

I thought the first half was one of the worst I have seen Arsenal play in the past two seasons. Yes, they gave up a goal on a gorgeous cross and header from Gordon to Isak. But the thing that was notable to me was how easy it was for Newcastle to consistently attack Arsenal’s back line. That’s been a rarity since Arsenal turned good under Arteta, and a particularly dangerous thing to give up regularly in this season’s Premier League.

One of the problems with playing suffer ball as an elite team is that you leave yourself with no room for error. If you go a goal down, you either have to leave suffer mode and significantly change tactics, or you have to hope everything goes your way.

Arsenal never left suffer mode this match. It was a low-event defensive slugfest, with neither team cracking 0.8 expected goals, and the result was fairly justified.

On the Newcastle side, I’ve been discussing how their process looked better over the last month (minus the Chelsea match), even if the results were worse than the early season. They certainly look better and more resilient than earlier in the year, and are comfortably in that 7-10th range when everyone is healthy.

Bournemouth 2 - 1 Man City

It’s always fun when you call a potential upset alert and it comes true. This one closed +514 at Pinnacle, so a bit better than a spicy little 5:1 payoff if you bet the 1×2 on Bournemouth.

Kim talked about City’s injury crisis on Friday, but let’s not take anything away from the fact that Bournemouth are impressive.

Of the current top 6, they’ve beaten both City and Arsenal so far, and have draws against Villa and… Forest? Chelsea got away with one in their 1-0 down south, while Liverpool won 3-0 in a 20-19 shot game. The Cherries are for real.

Their fans now have stay present and appreciate the rest of the Iraola era, because he’s surely moving on to somewhere bigger and better next summer.

Ipswich 1 - 1 Leicester

Leicester have a MINUS NINE shot differential PER GAME, ten games into the season. And still aren’t in the bottom three. Here they benefitted from a 77th minute second yellow from Kalvin Phillips, and then bombarded the goal while Ipswich were down to 10-men, with Jordan Ayew finally getting the breakthrough.

The race chart is hilarious. (Unless you are an Ipswich fan, so look away now Ed Sheeran.)

Liverpool 2 - 1 Brighton

In the gambling preview, I had this as much closer than the 1.5 goal handicap suggested it would be, but the thing I was worried about was Brighton’s huge injury list, including Lewis Dunk. I still swiped a small bet on it, though it’s not in my results I track for Variance Betting records because I told people to avoid if Dunk and Minteh were out, while Kadioglu made the starting lineup, but… as a wide midfielder in a 4-4-2?

Hurzeler was cooking something, and Brighton deservedly lead at halftime.

A special note here to watch the highlights (click the link in the headline) for Verbruggen’s performance. The save on Darwin’s thumper was nice, but the one on Salah’s chip on the 1v1… masterful.

Gakpo’s goal was a bit of luck on a nice cross-cum-shot, but Salah’s was a monster. The space for it was created by Estupinan’s body shape being completely wrong to protect the cut across onto Salah’s favoured left foot though. Salah’s a lot more two-footed than Arjen Robben ever was, but as a fullback, you really want show him outside and make him beat you that way.

Anyway, two goals in two minutes, three points, and Liverpool are in the driver’s seat in the title race. They haven’t faced City or Villa yet, so the outright markets are a little skeptical, but Liverpool feels like the only team that’s the full package right now.

Nottingham Forest 3 - 0 West Ham

From the Variance Betting analysis:

We get to bet ON Forest and AGAINST West Ham. I am happy fucking Jack Nicholson Joker cackling right now. [The Todd Phillips abominations can fuck right off.]

Forest’s lofty table position rests on the back of the third best defense in the league. I don’t think Nuno was cut out for Spurs, but he’s certainly capable of taking a scrappy underdog with a good squad and making them hell to play against.

Southampton 1 - 0 Everton

Southampton’s first win of the season came in a match that might have been Everton’s best of the season. Football is fun, innit? And headers are particularly difficult to score, even when they are free of the defense. This was actually one of the earliest learnings of football analytics (headers vs feet), and then again when StatsBomb introduced Freeze Frames for expected goals (player locations on every shot).

Everton probably feel like they made a single defensive error in this match and that’s what cost them.

When Adam Armstrong was a wonderkid on loan at Coventry, we were all convinced he was going to be an outstanding player in England. He’s 27 now and yet to really make a mark on the Premier League despite multiple attempts, but it’s still nice to see him score.

Wolves 2 - 2 Crystal Palace

As a neutral, I think Palace games are good fun. Watching a pressing team that presses poorly often leads to entertaining and sometimes comical results.

Which is what happened here, at Wolves.

Unusually for Palace, it was the set pieces that saved their bacon here, with an especially textbook far post close out from Marc Guehi that made it 2-2. That type of stuff is going to be important as they attempt to stay ahead of Wolves and the three promoted teams, and out of the relegation cellar.

Palace are probably better than their league table spot, but defensive situations like the Chalobah brainfart that lead to Wolves’ first goal just happen too often right now to give me a lot of confidence in that assessment.

Spurs 4 - 1 Aston Villa

Funny match, this. If you look at the highlights, it was one way traffic after the Rogers goal. If you look at the race chart, things were a lot closer.

One thing that’s certain is Villa let Spurs play way too easily in the second half. It’s actually a recurring theme that players are getting time on the ball coming down Aston Villa’s right, which is leading to easy crosses for high skill players, and Villa are paying the price. In general, Villa’s defending those last 15 minutes was fairly rank, but the recurring issues thing is something that will have Emery worried.

For Spurs, I find myself chewing on what about their system allows them to create these transition waves? It’s something I coach into coaches and Directors that I advise based off what we cooked up at Brentford, but Spurs consistently magic them up in the second halves of most games. It might be something specific to Angeball, but if it’s not, expect to see (even) more of it in the coming years.

Man United 1 - 1 Chelsea

I think Man United got away with one here. Ugarte had about half a dozen fouls after he was already on a yellow and didn’t get sent off. Then you have the Martinez foul on Palmer that should have been a straight red.

With all the buildup the Premier League has been giving Palmer lately, you’d think they’d also instruct the refs to protect him a bit.

Palmer has deservedly received a lot of praise, but I feel like it’s Caicedo that makes everything work for Chelsea right now.

—TK

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