It’s WAY too early in the season to declare any particular team or coach fraudulent. But the first warning signs of potential fraudulence are starting to come through. We are Noticing.
We try to avoid discussing refereeing controversies around here, but that’s basically impossible when it comes to this match. First you got the Foden and Bruno Fernandes dustup resulting in a Foden red card. Then you got the Enzo Fernandes in a position of advantage on Haaland’s winner.
Otherwise, it was your normal, sparky Manchester derby. United had 16 shots to City’s 6, but all from range, which is why they put up under 1 xG. From a football analysis perspective, there isn’t much else to say, so we’ll leave it there.
There were four red cards given out this weekend, which feels like a lot. Coventry’s came after they were already two-nil down and sinking, so it probably didn’t matter that much.
The goals in this one were pretty fun, and you get an incredibly rare long-range strike from Lewis Dunk as part of the bargain. Brighton’s attack looks fantastic so far this season, and it’s particularly joyful for me to see Pascal Groß still balling out with two assists and a penalty in this match. He was our top midfield target in the summer of 2015(!) if Brentford had been promoted in that playoff run. We are both old now, bit he’s still hella-productive at the highest level.
The good news for Coventry fans is that they have already played three of the likely top six this season. The bad news is they also lost to Hull and have zero points and zero goals after four matches.
Bournemouth have been dominating matches and failing to get three points. For the long term, that’s a lot better than putting up terrible stats while sneaking wins, but how long can this go on for?
Brentford opened the scoring on a Kevin Schade header that originated with an Adrien Truffert giveaway in the corner.
Then Bournemouth immediately struck back with a high press regain of their own. The ball bobbled to Kluivert who controlled it well enough to finish it through about 8 players in the Brentford box and make it 1-1. The one thing Bournemouth have consistently done is recruit excellent ball strikers, an Kluivert, Kroupi, and Tavernier are all in that group, with Rayan likely part of it as well.
It was Tavernier that gave the Cherries their second, after a lovely bit of control and hold-up into layoff from Evanilson into an open shot.
But Bournemouth live by and die by the high press. In this case, Brentford were pushing up and forced a very dumb error from Petrovic, who passed it straight to Schade, and Schade immediately controlled and lobbed it home.
Another excellent game, another two points lost. 😬
The good news: Villa scored a goal.
The bad news: Villa’s opponent scored two goals, including one from Cardio Man (a banger from range, even), and Forest dominated the second half.
This is a bad sign.
YouTube Note: The forest highlights admin took FIFTY-EIGHT SECONDS to get to the football. IN THIS ECONOMY? Including some bumbling discussion of the kits that lasted way too long itself. What the actual fuck is going on over there?
Speaking of bad signs… Usul, we have bad signs the likes of which even God has never seen.
Welcome to Chelsea, the delightfully weird player trading hedge fund that masquerades as a football team on weekends.
It started well for the Blues, just like in the Arsenal match. Here Morgan Rogers (again) found a tiny bit of space out wide left and then beat the GK near post, which admittedly should have been better covered.
That lead lasted about 20 minutes until Chelsea’s defense gave up an absolute catastrophuck straight from a Hull goal kick. I can’t do it justice in a description, so you’ll just have to go watch the highlights. Hull actually took the lead six minutes later off a corner and more poor Chelsea defending (and some deflections). To be fair, the Tigers have proven to be adept at the PL set piece metagame so far, but United and Chelsea have both made things a bit too easy for them in their matches.
Then it was Chelsea’s turn to chase the game. They nearly gave up a third to Hull on a bad Martinez rebound, but Joao Pedro evened the score shortly thereafter with a roofed finish on a pullback from Cole Palmer.
In normal circumstances, you would think this was where Chelsea then took control and pushed on for a winner, but Hull were able to mostly stymie that while staying dangerous themselves and it ended 2-2.
My “Chelsea could be dark horses for the title” taek took less than four matches to disappear into dust. What an idiot.
It’s always intriguing when there are five goals in a match that had closer to 2 xG, so to the highlights we go!
Anan Khalaili opened the scoring for Palace off a simple ball from Pino wide in the box. He then put a sick strike into the far bottom corner where the ball travelled off his foot into the back of the net about six inches off the ground. Khalaili was hugely productive creating for teammates in that wingback role in Belgium and Israel, and we’re looking forward to seeing whether he can continue that in England
Ipswich equalised off a free header for Emersonn nine minutes later. Just because you thought the pass was offside (it wasn’t), doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play to the whistle, lads. Then Axel Disasi got a red card for a high tackle in the 34th and the wheels on the Palace bus flung themselves off again.
Just before half time, the rare “intentional headed assist” made an appearance as Emersonn was able to redirect a cross into the path of Leif Davis and Ipswich were in the lead.
Palace did okay even a man down, and equalised through a Jorgen Strand Larsen goal from a tight angle in the 75th, but the fightback was not to be. Zian Flemming finished them off by chasing down a rebound off the crossbar from a loooong header, and gave Ipswich their second win in the campaign.
Pierre Sage was great last season in France and Palace’s recruitment seemed largely okay, but their defenders seem to regularly lack focus right now and it is killing them.
15 shots to 10, but 1.26 xG to .67. After a very rocky defensive start to the season, these two teams set out to contain each other and they largely did just that.
Fulham will feel like it was a good point on the road, but there was some insanity versus a high press in the Liverpool box early that will make them feel like they should have at least had an early goal.
Special Note: Every Fulham match is now worth watching for the Josh King show. There were flashes last season, but my word, what a spectacular young talent he has already turned into.
Liverpool fans will be wondering why they couldn’t finish, especially some of the chances they had late, but Fulham played well overall.
RDZ was chirpy in his press conference, redirecting a question about Spurs not having scored a goal in the league this season into pointing out their back-to-back clean sheets would mean he’d be lauded in Italy.
Which, I mean, maybe… but it’s not like Spurs were actually good in this home match. In fact, the stats suggest Everton walk out of this with a win nearly 50% of the time.
Both home and opposing fans often chant “you don’t know what you’re doing” at managers during bad runs of form, but right now, Spurs don’t know what they are doing.
The £400m question is how quickly can they learn?
12 shots to 12. 1 penalty to 1. Basically 2 xG to 2. But 2-Nil to the Arsenal.
It was not a pretty game, but it was a very physical one and pretty thrilling to watch. The Bruno G goal plus the pass to Saka to create the late penalty show exactly why Arsenal valued him so highly this summer. Two moments of magic is enough to consistently turn the result of Premier League games.
For Sunderland’s part, they got a lot of joy off of set pieces. We’re not going to get in to the controversy around the Ballard/Konsa penalty, but we are going to highlight the truly absurd save of David Raya off of what looked like a nearly perfect penalty from Enzo Le Fee. Spectacular stuff.
If Sunderland play this well at home against most other teams, they walk out with significant points.
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