I'm going to cry if Sean Dyche ruins my godson

Hello and welcome to the Friday grab bag, Nottingham Forest are in hell. Less than two months after Nuno Espírito Santo was sacked due to philosophical differences with management and replaced by the more attack-minded Ange Postecoglou, the Australian Europa League winner has been unceremoniously canned himself and replaced with… Sean Dyche. Seems like you’ve got a real coherent process, boys.

If Forest are indeed in a relegation battle, Dyche is an obvious good choice to steady the ship and make sure they don’t finish below teams with much less talent than them. But I am personally worried that one of my favorite players to watch early in this Premier League season, Elliot Anderson, is going to stop being a god mode stat farmer.

Anderson currently leads all Premier League players who have played 300 minutes — not just central midfielders, all players — with 5.25 line-breaking passes completed in the attacking half per 90 minutes. Anderson also leads all players with 65.68 carries per 90, and has a 95% carry success rate. He has morphed into a ball-progressing machine.

Dyche notoriously does not play the type of football that lends itself to central midfielders putting up these kinds of numbers. But he’s also not an idiot, just a pragmatist who made the best with what he had at Burnley and a financially struggling Everton. I hope he can continue to get the best out of Anderson, but I’m concerned for my godson.

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Over on the betting newsletter, Ted is fading Liverpool once again. Despite their losing streak, the gap between their underlying numbers and their reputation has not yet closed, and their opponents keep getting +0.25-0.5 more than they should on the lines. Ted has 4 other Premier League bets and 4 Championship bets on this weekend, and you can read more about them if you subscribe to Variance Betting.

On the podcast, Pat and Neel had a suggestion for how Arne Slot could re-arrange his lineup to get Liverpool firing again. They also talked about the biggest stories from the UEFA Champions League this week, and closed the show with a long preview of El Clasico.

We’ve also launched a Patreon for people who are interested in getting even more podcast content from us. Every week, that will have a bonus episode with a deeper dive on a specific topic, plus the B-roll with the hosts having some casual banter.

The FPL Corner

Now that he’s back from injury and looking fully fit, Bukayo Saka is starting to make his way into FPL teams for plebs and pros alike. One look at his radar from so far this season suggests that he is inarguably an effective attacking player, but not currently much of a shooter at all.

However, I would not let the low xG numbers scare you off playing Saka if you rate him and have the budget for him in your midfield. Saka has been extremely unlucky not to get an assist so far this season despite making some excellent passes into the box, and being Arsenal’s left-footed corner taker.

You know that perfect ball onto Gabriel’s head is coming soon.

Saka has also taken and scored a penalty, and appears to be above Viktor Gyökeres in the taker priority order. I’m very comfortable projecting that his goal and assist numbers will be increasing if he stays fit.

Games we’re watching

Manchester United vs. Brighton — A pair of pretty fun? Teams in good form?? Fighting for a European place??? I think this is a pretty evenly matched game and I’m excited to see if one of these teams clearly looks better than the other.

Borussia Dortmund vs. FC Köln — It’s an admittedly light week in the Bundesliga, and this is the only matchup between two teams both in the top 8.

Napoli vs. Inter Milan — I could pick out any Serie A game given the 8-way title race that’s emerging, but this is the proper big club showdown. Napoli need to bounce back after back-to-back poor performances vs. Torino and PSV Eindhoven.

Real Madrid vs. Barcelona — A super evenly matched edition of El Clasico with no clear favorite, you love to see it. I think the Güler-Mbappe connection ends up being the difference, but crazy stuff always happens in this game.

Lyon vs. Strasbourg — We’ve entered a universe where Strasbourg are both the financially stronger side and the favorite on the pitch. Very normal.

Stuff we’re reading

Jake Entwistle at Scouted went looking for the England youngster who could eventually replace Harry Kane.

Kieron O’Connor at Swiss Ramble details the increasing importance of player sales to most clubs’ business models.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes at The Cutback wrote about the changes in the back line for England women.

Henry Bushnell and Melanie Anzidei covered the U.S. women’s shocking loss to Portugal.

Ali Tweedale at Opta Analyst celebrates Frank Lampard’s Coventry, who look on track to win promotion to the Premier League.

Matt Watts at Not The Top 20 takes a look at what Preston did right this summer and why they’ve started well in the Championship.

Kyle Boas at Tactics Journal provides a very funny and ultimately level-headed take on results-based analysis.

Ryan O’Hanlon at ESPN wants to bring back some classic Twitter wars and turn Mbappe vs. Yamal into a new Ronaldo vs. Messi.

Ed Maylon and Matt Hughes at FootBiz dig into the disaster that was La Liga’s abandoned game in Miami.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.” If you’re interested in football betting, check out this post on why we started Variance Betting.