Liverpool keep getting away with it: A Premier League recap

I lost on the Championship bets this weekend. Welcome to early season gambling. Sometimes it goes well, other times… notsomuch. MLS was THE WORST early season and then the best in the back half, but finished even on our run. Annoying.

One of the things I always promise is to be honest about how the gambling is going. I wrote about how I think about losing last year, and it has a lot of overlap with doing transfer business as well. The best in the world at betting on sports win about 54% of their 50/50s (on real lines — props are different animals). So losing is part of the game, just like football*!

Anywho… week 5 of the Premier League is in the books and it was good fun for almost everyone outside of Bournemouth and Newcastle. Those poor bastards… shakes head.

*Unless you are Liverpool.

Arsenal 1 - 1 Manchester City

Pep has gone practical, particularly when he plays Arteta’s Arsenal. I watched a lot of rigid 4-4-2 midblock from the blue team that looked utterly familiar because it’s normally the red team that does that when employing sufferball.

It’s intriguing, it’s different (for Pep), and it’s usually bloody effective.

Haaland looked like Usain Bolt on the City goal. Arsenal were caught overcommitting to the press, Thor sniffed a goal was possible, and he blazed past the Arsenal defenders to make himself available to get on the end of it. The player I remember doing this the most, and most infuriatingly, was Cristiano Ronaldo.

City limited Arsenal to 12 shots and .97 expected goals. But it came at the cost of 35% possession and just 5 shots for City, though they spent the bulk of the time with the lead. It’s tough to criticise Pep for being defensive given how bad they have been the last two seasons at limiting teams’ chances, but also… it’s hella hard to see out leads when your team doesn’t keep attacking.

It kind of felt like they were hoping Doku could magic up a second somehow, and he was definitely a problem. It feels like he’s been at City forever, but he’s just 23 — maybe this is his season to make The Leap, especially as they are getting him just a bit closer to the goal to start his madness.

For their part, Arsenal were patient and kept gently knocking on the door. Madueke was a handful in the first half, but was subbed off at half-time for injury concerns. The equalizer came via two pieces of Arsenal brilliance. Eze dropped deeper into midfield and played a loooong pass that found Martinelli making a run off the defense from the right(?), who then controlled it on the fly and gracefully chipped Donnarumma for the goal.

The draw was fair, though City just missed seeing this one out and escaping with the points.

Manchester United 2 - 1 Chelsea

Before the match, a United friend of mine suggested that starting Bruno and Casemiro together against a good team was Amorim asking aloud to be fired. It’s funny how things work out some times.

Last season I criticised Marseca a lot for his continued support of Robert Sanchez. This season, there will be no more Sanchez criticism — I am just appreciating the vibes.

Speaking of vibes, both of United’s goals were via headed assists. Headed shots are worse than shots with feet, but headed assists… what an unusual, beautiful creature.

There isn’t that much to say about this game as part of the bigger picture — the red card made it fun to watch, but doesn’t lend itself to much deeper analysis. I guess we should note that the difficult run for Chelsea has thus far yielded -doing maths on fingers- uh, one point, at Brentford. They have Lincoln City midweek, then host Brighton at home on Saturday.

Liverpool 2 - 1 Everton

You have to tip your cap on the Gravenberch goal, even if you’re an Everton fan. When the opposing DM makes a box run and cushioned finish like that, first-time half volley on the upward bounce, into the bottom corner… whaddayagunnado?

Gravenberch was the creator for the second goal, sliding Ekitike into the box between two defenders, and he slotted it home. Everton should have done better defending every bit of that one, and I’m sure Moyes will have grumpy things to say in Scottish during the film review.

11 shots to 9. .73xG to .63 for Everton. This was tightly contested, but the early Liverpool goals put a damper on the potential excitement.

The Everton goal was very pretty, especially the first time layoff by Ndiaye on an overhit Grealish cross that Gana Gueye leathered home.

Expect us to write more about Liverpool in the coming weeks. Their metrics have them about fourth best in the league and are way off where they were last season, but the record is flawless. There have to be bumps in the road at some point, right?

Brighton 2 - 2 Spurs

Brighton went two goals up in this one and I immediately wondered how dumb I would look mentioning a potential change for Hurzeler by the end of the 90.

My favourite adult son who does not play for Arsenal streaked out on a breakaway, rounded the keeper, and calmly slotted it home to make it 1-0 Brighton in the 8th.

Brighton’s second was a laser from a very wide angle that I feel like we still see regularly in women’s football, but almost never at the top level of the men’s game. I don’t know why Vicario didn’t pick that up and was leaning near post when it zoomed past him to the far, but GKs are usually better than that.

Richarlison’s goal to make it 2-1 came from Spurs dragging Brighton players all around the box on a mini-break and Spurs had a lifeline going into the half. The equaliser came from an own goal from van Hecke. Hard to blame him too much on this one — he’s unsighted by both a Spurs player and a Brighton one who missed their headers, and it caroms off his thigh and squarely into the back of the net.

Spurs are somewhere between competent and good. Brighton are somewhere between good and incompetent.

Wolves 1 - 3 Leeds

Five matches for Wolves, zero points. This is after they looked firmly midtable at the tail end of last season. I had tipped them as the most likely relegation candidates that were not a promoted team two years ago, but maybe it’s this year they go down?

Gambling markets are always a useful gauge of team strength — what do the people who have real money on these matches think about the quality of the teams involved? In this case, they felt Leeds were about equal to Wolves when facing them away, which means Leeds would be significantly better on a neutral pitch.

However, all is not lost for Wolves fans. Leeds scored three goals on six total shots and .42 xG. That’s just an awful day at the office. (Especially since Wolves took the lead early on, but Leeds’ finishing was 🧑‍🍳 😘 .)

Wolves are still one of the four worst teams in the league (sup, Villa?), but things could get better? It’ll still be a sweat, but doom is not guaranteed.

Fulham 3 - 1 Brentford

Brentford are not good this season. And they are really not good in attack, sporting the lowest shot output and third lowest expected goals in the league.

If you are not good in attack, then your defense needs to be a rock, and the Bees defense is… rocky.

The opening goal came via a gift — Damsgaard intercepted a blind square pass in Fulham’s defensive third from Josh King and immediately slotted it home into the corner. Chalk up one learning experience for the 18-year-old.

The Bees’ lead lasted all of 18 minutes. A calamitous clearance from Collins lead to a pinball that doinked off Rodrigo Muniz and landed at Iwobi’s feet to poke home.

Collins helped kick off the transition that lead to Fulham’s second goal as well. His poor control went to Muniz, who then found Iwobi in an acre of space. Iwobi then threaded the needle to Harry Wilson back on the far side, and he put the ball perfectly in the corner on a first-time shot with his left foot. It was transitional perfection and gorgeous to watch.

3-1 came off a Sessegnon cross from very wide and landed on the wide open head of… Ethan Pinnock? I’m not quite sure if it deflected off Collins’ head first or if he was just unsighted, but it doesn’t matter.

So yeah, three defensive mistakes from Brentford, three Fulham goals (one of which was brilliant), and Fulham get a hefty home win over London rivals.

West Ham 1 - 2 Crystal Palace

EVERYONE SING IT TOGETHER
Are Crystal Palace good at set pieces?**
It helps to play West Ham.

8 shots to 18. Palace put up 1.73xG in an away match, which is a huge improvement over recent times. Much tougher to draw with output up there.

The question for me is more about Graham Potter. He inherited a squad that was disjointed and couldn’t play his style of football. They made a couple of moves this window, but they were pretty cap-locked from last summer. Is he not good enough for the Premier League? Does he need excellent technical players from the start? Or is this a West Ham headache?

Anyway, West Ham feels like the perfect job for Dyche, even if he’s not one of the hottest names on the rumour mill.

**Probably.

Burnley 1 - 1 Nottingham Forest

My brain said this was a match between the two dullest teams in the Premier League, but that’s because I haven’t updated the code to remember Nuno is gone from Forest and Ange is at the wheel.

Forest’s players are also a bit stuck in the middle, as it takes (potentially A LOT of) time to imprint new tactical instructions, especially during the season. They took the lead in under 2 minutes when Neco Williams crushed a poorly-cleared corner and Forest were flying.

On the afternoon, they took 17 shots (good!), for a total of 1.25 expected goals (less good) to Burnley’s 1.03. Burnley’s goal came from a cross in the 20th minute that lead to a scramble in the box, and Jaidon Anthony managed to get just enough on the ball that it trickled over the line.

The rest of this match was basically “shots from range” + “goalkeepers doing things,” which is a tough way to get three points in the Premier League these days.

Sunderland 1 - 1 Aston Villa

Uh…

Just in case you were wondering how things are in Birmingham, Matty Cash gave Villa their first PL goal of the season in match week five.

And the promoted team (Sunderland), who had a red card in the 33rd! minute, still outshot the team that was in the Champions League last season.

Minus the Cash goal, Roefs looks outrageously good at the shot-stopping part of the job.

Villa still look terrrrrrrrrible.

Bournemouth 0 - 0 Newcastle

Did Newcastle get a red card?

Did Eddie Howe THINK Newcastle got a red card?

I feel bad for fans of both sides on this one. So much so, that I’m not linking the “highlights” in protest.

—TK

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