Premier League recap: Pep misses his regista goalkeeper

Plus everything else that happened this weekend.

Author

Ted Knutson
August 25, 2025

It’s a bank holiday here in England, so you’re lucky you’re even receiving this email. That’s dedication from yours truly (and also the fact that I was jetlagged after my holiday and needed something to do while I couldn’t sleep).

Thanks to Kim and the team for holding down the fort while I was away, and also to Kim for putting in a great +3 in Variance Betting results on MLS this weekend. EPL and Eng Championship betting analysis will begin in mid-September after match week five, because that’s how long it takes for new season models to come online, and also because someone keeps scheduling an international break in September for no reason whatsoever.

Who knows whether we’ll get a chance to showcase these two teams for the rest of the season, so might as well put them up top while there’s some optimism in the fanbases.

Speaking of, the football in this one felt a bit more like Premier League and less like the Championship, which is a good thing for fans of both teams. Enjoy the time up here folks, even if you’re more than 50% likely to go back down this year.

Sunderland played some lovely football in the opening half, but ended up with nothing to show for it. Then a well-worked shot just inside the box from Josh Cullen found its way into the corner and the home side was 1-0 up.

Cullen was also largely responsible for the second goal, as Sunderland were pushing for an equaliser late on. A perfect throughball for Jaidon Anthony put him into space, where he rounded the GK and put the ball into an empty net from distance. StatsBomb had that one at .78 xG while Opta’s more widely available one was .58, once again showing the difference in data providers and clean defensive positioning.

Sunderland are in 7th right now. Burnley are in 10th. Exciting times for the up-and-comers.

Bogey team? Sure.

Bogey team with different head coaches each time? Kinda weird.

Bogey team that beats Pep away every season with different head coaches and a rotating cast of scorers? Bermuda Triangle level weird.

Welcome to City vs Spurs!

Regular readers of this here newsletter will know that while we lauded James Trafford’s shot-stopping ability, we had some concerns about his ability to pass in Pepsession.

Fast forward to match two of 38, and we see Trafford giving Spurs a free goal from a horrible pass (he clearly somehow didn’t clock the presser was there) to put the match away at The Etihad.

And this also happened, which could have been penalised any number of ways, but was instead penalised not at all. Hrm.

Goalkeepers with the yips are very, very dangerous to have in the Premier League.

Perhaps more interesting is the fact that Spurs basically played City dead even in xG and outshot them 10-12. I picked City to win the league this year and I have some concerns.

Speaking of concerns, West Ham fans have gone from “is it weird that smart people picked us as the most likely non-promoted team to go down” to “WE ARE DOOMED” and it only took two games. This league is amazing.

Paqueta scored a thunderbastard in the sixth to put West Ham 1-nil up, but a Joao Pedro equalizer off a corner (interesting…) made it 1-1.

2-1 West Ham was disallowed for offside, and then the floodgates opened. Pedro Neto had an easy far post finish when West Ham failed to apply enough pressure to Joao Pedro in the box. Then Estevao beat his man to the byline to create an easy goal for Enzo and this match was dead before the halftime whistle.

Caicedo scored the fourth off a corner (aided from a GK blunder, but if Chelsea are scoring set pieces… whooboy), and Trevoh Chalobah scored the fifth AND THIRD FROM A CORNER from a bit of box pinball.

Are Chelsea good now? It helps to play West Ham.

Are Chelsea good at set pieces now? It helps to play West Ham?

How often do you see a 5-0 win that makes fans sad? Welcome to Arsenal football club.

Rule 1* for Arsenal winning a trophy this season: Stay Healthy!

We’re two weeks in, and with Havertz, Odegaard, and (former) Starboy Bukayo Saka already out for “worrying” spells, that rule has been flushed right down the toilet.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Arsenal’s opening goal came from a corner.

The second was from a high-press regain that lead to an immediate vertical pass to Saka and a finish from a tight angle. More of that, please! [sad trombone injury music]

Gyokeres’ first PL goal came from something I feel like we rarely see these days - a CF on the dribble, cutting inside and beating his defender to finish with his dominant foot. Maybe it’s the summer layoff and COVID brainfog for me, but I feel like PL defenses have gotten good at smothering that type of goal in recent years, and this one had to make it through three defenders and the GK, so my brain isn’t all that addled, but ve shall see!

Arsenal’s fourth goal was corner pinball (boring, tbh), but the fifth came off a penalty won by Arsenal’s latest Starboy Max Dowman. They somehow didn’t let Dowman take the penalty he won in order to set a new record for youngest PL goalscorer ever - THINK OF THE RECORD BOOKS - they let Gyokeres take it, and the 5-nil was a little less cool as a result. (It was pretty soft too, but whatever.)

tl;dr: A great win, but at what cost?

*From the season previews

If you’ve been reading us since last season, you know we were pretty big fans of Dango Ouattara at Bournemouth. And now we get to be pretty big fans of Ouattara at Brentford too. He scored the opener from a GK-pass→centre circle flick-on from Igor Thiago→breakaway plus rebound vs the goalkeeper. I don’t know how repeatable it is, but I liked it.

Brentford looked like they had a second off a long throw, but it was ruled out from GK interference. The YT comments on it were very anti, but as someone who designs dark arts ways for getting away with fouls on set pieces, I thought the second body undercutting Martinez was pretty clear and the ref got it right.

I might be evil, but I am Lawful Evil.

Anywho, the Villa shots were pretty meh in this one, and new head coach Keith Andrews gets his first PL win for the Bees.

It’s been a while, so I forgot how insanely jarring Bournemouth home camera angles are compared to the rest of the league. I can tolerate this stuff when scouting League Two, but can’t we film this on drones with real angles yet?

Why don’t Bournemouth have a decent-sized stadium by now? They’ve been in the PL eight of the last ten seasons, yet still have a stadium that seats 11,300 people. Madness. (Ed. note: Bournemouth have released plans for stadium expansion, but they’re nowhere near starting construction).

The Tavernier goal might even have been off-target, but deflected along the way. Then Wolves got a red card in the 49th and that was all she wrote.

Should Wolves fans be worried? That’s a tricky one… I felt like they had stabilised very well after changing head coaches in the middle of last season. Then the first match against City was a write-off and this one was played down a man for the second half.

At least West Ham and the promoted teams exist! (Note: I have money on Leeds staying up, so those three teams are not really the same bundle in my eyes.)

Patrick described Hurzeler as a “fraudulent 90’s kid umlaut merchant” in the TTF Slack, so if you are wondering how he’s feeling about fading Brighton so far, there’s your answer.

Iliman Ndiaye scored Everton’s first goal at their new home off a fizzed Jack Grealish cross, which immediately had Grealish fans salivating at the prospect of him not only getting playing time with a team happy to feed him the ball, but also at the prospect he might be fit and good again? He had sixty touches in a wide left role, three key passes, and didn’t get subbed until the 93rd minute, so cautious optimism is warranted.

Everton’s second was one of the hardest hit screamers you will see anywhere from James Garner. It was a right-footed laser beam from the left back that could have trailed flames in its wake.

Brighton put up 13 shots and 2.27 expected goals (there was a saved penalty), so it wasn’t all bad, but the Everton YT admin was not interested in cutting what was quite a lot of danger into the new home highlight package. You’ll have to watch the Brighton package here if you want to see Everton be a bit ropey in defense.

If you read this column last season, you’ll know I consistently gave the Crystal Palace media people a hard time for weirdly long intros and outros smooshed into a 2:30 second highlight package every week.

THIS YEAR THEY HAVE EXPANDED THE HIGHLIGHTS TO 3:30. Which you may have guessed, leaves PLENTY of space for 32-second intros and 24-second outros. I am both amused and appalled at the problem-solving.

About the match… it was the eighth draw in the last nine matches between Palace and Forest played at Selhurst Park (I learned that from the outro). Palace’s last shot came in the 59th minute.

The CHO goal from a throughball is worth your while to catch the pass from Dan Ndoye, but it was a fairly uneventful match from two teams that pride themselves on defensive solidity.

I know we’re all high on the Glasner train, but Palace have two draws from two so far this season after notching fourteen last season (one behind league leaders Everton), and their transfer activity has basically been non-existent.

They’re a decent team who just lost part of their attacking impetus to Arsenal, already needed to find a way to turn more draws into wins, and who may be broke with a small squad heading into a long, busy season. I’m not sure it’s anyone’s fault really… just a thing to be aware of, especially given the hype.

New rule: Man United is going at the bottom of the roundup until they get a win.

There have been slightly positive signs from United’s first two matches. At the very least, they look more competent than most of last season. Not good, mind you, just competent… at least when in possession. Their OOP shape is - well, it’s not great. Which it should be by now, so you gotta wonder about the gap between Amorim’s tactical brain and what actually happens at the training ground.

Look, I’m not there at Carrington or New Carrington or whatever sponsor name United’s commercial team have ginned up for the location that they kick balls on non-game days, okay… I just have questions.

Bruno missed a penalty earned from a wrestling bout during a corner, and then Yoro appeared to score a header off a different corner (it was eventually given as an own goal off the back of Muniz), finally putting United 0-1 up. Is every team is a bit more Arsenal this season?

The good times only lasted 15 minutes before Emile Smith-Rowe redirected a bouncing cross to give Fulham the equalizer.

Two games in, Mighty Manchester United have yet to have one of their players score a goal. The summer attacking signings are, um, well, it’s still early, right?

—TK

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