Man City on upset alert?

Before we get started, a lot of you have asked us how to get a job in the sports analytics space. Ted and Ravi finally answered all of your specific questions about that in a podcast this week, and it’s going to be an invaluable resource for anyone trying to break into the field.

OK, on to the Friday grab bag. —KM

Man City vs. Bournemouth is surprisingly spicy

A casual Premier League observer might glance at the schedule and expect a straightforward, boring victory for Manchester City this week.

What’s this headline? “Pep Guardiola: We are in trouble.” Huh, why?

OH GOD.

Pep admitted in his press conference post-EFL Cup defeat to Tottenham that he is straight up not having a good time right now.

Meanwhile, Bournemouth are pretty good. Understat has them 6th in the Premier League on expected points, underperforming their underlying numbers by 3 points at the moment. They have a nicely well-rounded attack, aided by the high number of shots they’re creating off high pressing.

The line at a lot of books is City -1 goal or higher. Over on the premium betting newsletter, Ted explains why he’s taking Bournemouth + that one goal. If you want to see all the numbers behind that (and all the other bets), you can upgrade here.

Games we’re watching

As always, the easiest place to find times and TV/streaming listings for your region is LiveSoccerTV.

Lille vs. Lyon — It seems pretty clear that PSG is the bes team in France, but everything behind them is a slow-motion car crash. But two other teams have to make Champions League, and these two are in danger of falling behind.

Borussia Dortmund vs. RB Leipzig — Nuri Şahin’s last stand comes against an opponent who has bad underlying numbers but keeps grinding out wins anyway. It’s too perfect.

Napoli vs. Atalanta — This one’s stupid early for Americans, but worth waking up for.

Tottenham Hotspur vs. Aston Villa — Villa has just been OK, but finding a way to win. Spurs have great looking numbers, but they are Spurs. The stoppable force meets the moveable object. But jokes aside, these are both serious top 4 contenders.

Athletic Bilbao vs. Real Betis — La Liga’s top 3 are going to be straight chalk, but the battle for 4th is wide open, and these two are very much in it.

The ten Hag postmortem section

This was the big news of the week, so there’s a lot of stuff out there related to this topic. Ted and Patrick gave their thoughts on our podcast earlier this week as well.

Ryan O’Hanlon at ESPN has 5 reasons Erik ten Hag was sacked.

Dharnish at Tuesday Night Football has a few more. There were a lot of reasons, basically. It was beyond time.

Grace Robertson at Grace On Football asks if Man United actually have a plan going forward.

On The Double Pivot Podcast, the Mikes lay out the evidence that United absolutely do not have a plan.

If you’d like a more Man United fan perspective on ten Hag’s sacking, Aaron and Kees from Devils in the Details are wonderful.

Stuff we’re reading

I don’t particularly care for individual awards, but Rodri winning the Ballon d’Or over Vinicius Jr. was big news this week. Aidan Smith at Tactically Speaking lays out the case for Rodri deserving the award, rather than it being a big anti-Madrid conspiracy.

Kieron O’Connor at Swiss Ramble busts out the big one: Barca finances.

Ralphael Adelugba at The Cutback digs into the big changes England women made against South Africa.

Seth Vertleney at Pro Soccer Wire spoke to Alyssa Thompson, one of the big breakout stars of this NWSL season and international break.

Jake Entwistle at Scouted dives into Savio’s great early season returns for Man City.

Mark Carey at The Athletic says we’ll be able to make some big inferences about Premier League trends and the final table after this week.

Ed Aarons at The Guardian has a wonderful story about Worthing’s owner George Dowell, who bought the club at age 22 not long after becoming disabled in a car crash.

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