Jérémy Doku has made The Leap: A Premier League recap

Plus bits on every other game.

Author

Ted Knutson
November 10, 2025

I’m back from a mid-season trek to New York and Las Vegas. I got to hang out with friends, handed out candy to over 1000 kids while sitting on a Brooklyn stoop, eat amazing food, and see some fabulous shows. And still made my connecting flight home despite getting daggered for a 2.5 hour delay due to the U.S. government shutdown, so hooray for margins of error!

In Variance Betting news, we finally had a losing weekend. The streak is over, but that just means we need to build a new one. (Remember, unlike with touts, we are honest about our wins AND losses, and I’m still hugely positive on the season.)

In the Premier League… well, that’s what you’re here for, right? Action! Goals! Jeremy Doku being unplayable again! This weekend kind of had it all. Except for goals in the Crystal Palace game.

Jeremy Doku is Super Saiyan this season. He’s the league’s most unplayable attacker right now, and despite how awesome his goalscoring teammate is, I don’t think it’s particularly close. That is quite the leap, and not one I fully expected him to make given his time at City thus far.

Doku is 1.5x better on Dribble and Carry On Ball Value than anyone else in the league so far this season, and he’s also fourth in open play xG assisted. (Behind Estevao, Garnacho!, and Jack Grealish, but that’s a newsletter for another time.)

This match basically ended up exactly as the expected goals models predicted — apparently they are good this season — but wasn’t as bad as the scoreline.

City are also good this season. Liverpool are… finding themselves, post-success. Maybe a desert ayahuasca journey during the break will help. Or Slot can fix their press and get the set pieces trained better and they’ll basically be the same as the other good teams, except with better attackers.

10 shots to 5.
.83 expected goals to .84.

2-2, just like we figured?

Spurs’ defending of their own box for the opener was horrrrrible. The Tel equaliser was nice (despite the deflection, that’s a great turn), but then the Richarlison goal was just funny. It’s off the second phase of a corner where Richarlison is definitely offside, except… Ugarte gets shoved off balance marking during the first phase and can’t get back in the defensive line fast enough to create the trap, so Richy is onside. Then United equalised off a lovely, high-detail far post corner routine, and that was all she wrote.

I enjoyed all of that, especially since I was busy travelling back from Vegas and only had to watch the highlights.

But also… according to Orbinho, Spurs have the second fewest home points this season next to bottom club Wolves. Which is weird, except… that’s what Thomas Frank’s Brentford looked like in the first half of last season too.

Which makes it more nor- no, no it’s still weird.

StatsBomb suggests Arsenal walk out of this game with three points 61% of the time, which is small consolation to Arsenal fans given the 90+3 equaliser to Brian Brobbey (and what a goal that was!).

Sunderland’s opening goal from Daniel Ballard came off a Brentford-style set piece, where the GK took the kick near the center circle and launched it into potential penalty box chaos.

We are truly in the era of “restart football” and I suspect everyone hates it right now, but the volume of rules that are needed to change this going forward would be LARGE.

Lesson across almost all sports: Don’t blame the nerds, blame the rulebook.

(Editor’s note: Daniel Ballard!)

Chelsea are back up to third in the league table, in emphatic style with a 3-nil over Wolves. Yes, Wolves are bad, but after a really bumpy mid-September run into the October international break, it looked like Chelsea could crater and the wheels would come off Maresca’s Game Control bus. Instead, they have managed to mostly take care of business against weaker teams, and have Burnley as the first match coming out of the November break.

Perhaps more impressively, their underlying numbers are deservedly third. Yes, this comes with the caveat that only three points separate third from tenth, but Chelsea mostly seem like they are doing fine?

Wolves are not.

I had Bournemouth in this match despite the model numbers being neutral. Score another one for the gambling models, I guess. Unai strikes again!

Buendia scored a perfect free kick over the wall to lead things off for Villa, but the foul that lead to it was idiotic and unlike Bournemouth. Then Onana scored a laser from just outside the D and it was very quickly 2-0 to the home side.

The best highlight in this match is probably the Emi Martinez save off a deflection that starts at 1:30 in the video. Deflections usually leave keepers for dead, but this was a vital tip over the bar that kept the clean sheet alive. Martinez ALSO saved a penalty in this match, which tells you how impressive the other stop was.

Ross Barkley scored the third off a Ross Barkley near-post header off a corner, and then Donyell Malen deflected a Tielemans shot home for the fourth.

It was simply a very bad day at the office for Bournemouth where nothing went right.

Meanwhile, Villa are up to 6th in the table, with five wins in six, which is kind of where we expected them to be?

What do you make of Newcastle? Tired due to CL fixtures and a squad that’s too small? Probably? Tactically inept? Sometimes? I’m asking because they got stomped in this match, 16 shots to 5.

Only three wins in the PL this season though… Maybe it’s one of those years where they do well in Europe, but end up punting the league because of it.

Carragher (who I genuinely like) trotted this nonsense out last night about Newcastle’s transfers, which is sort of like asking Eddie Howe why he keeps punching himself in the face, but while wearing a “Newcastle” mask.

As for the home team, the Bees’ long throws are SO dangerous. I adore them. Fuck a hater.

Two wins in a row for West Ham, one over Burnley and one over Newcastle (wince) have them up to… 18th (but tied with the team they beat!).

To be fair, you can only defeat what’s in front of you. West Ham are still the third worst team in the league and either need to improve fairly dramatically, or need one of the teams above them to fall off pretty badly. Weirder things have happened, and the Premier League loves some weird lately.

The keeping in this match on both sides was pretty terrible. Burnley definitely miss James Trafford.

Leeds scored the opener off a high press regain and a nicely-placed shot, but after that it was all Forest, ending in a fairly easy 3-1 win.

Friend of the newsletter Seewrap is considering adding Leeds to the Do Not Bet blacklist, because while the numbers might seem good on the surface, the results are gutter trash.

Maybe Leeds are the team that falls off?

On the Forest side, I put this gem in the Variance newsletter on Friday, but am repeating it here because it sparks joy:

Also, in case you did not notice, we got Sean Dyche in Europe action on Thursday. A nil-nil of 3 shots to 9. Sickos delight.

I have zero worries about Forest and relegation. This is the best and deepest squad Dyche has ever had access to. They’ll grind out results and stay up.

Oo, maybe Fulham are the team that fall off? (They won’t. They are average and boring.)

The defending on Everton’s first goal is worse than you’d see from lower league teams — Fulham just could not find the ball and get rid of it, which was a repeated theme throughout this one. Dreadful stuff and one that Marco Silva’s team will want to forget.

Fulham’s biggest problem is that they are toothless, but they are partly toothless by tactical design. They’ll be fine, but almost certainly not exciting.

.81 expected goals to .43. 10 shots to 7. This match had to exist so the Palace vs Bournemouth match could shine.

These two teams are currently 10th and 11th in the table, which feels like a bit of a missed opportunity if we’re honest.

—TK

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