Fans of both Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur came into this season full of optimism, and they’ve both been handed a dose of reality. United have slipped down to 12th after a disappointing performance against Fulham just before the international break, while Spurs are bottom and without a win.

If this weekend’s fixture produces a decisive result in either direction, the losing manager is going to be facing a lot of questions about whether or not he should be sacked. The honeymoon periods have decisively ended for Michael Carrick and Roberto De Zerbi, respectably.

United’s attack hasn’t been that bad, though it’s certainly boosted by an outrageous near-4 xG performance against Ipswich. The Red Devils have struggled mightily to get good chances over their last two matches. Spurs, meanwhile, are just not any good. Both teams have insanely low xG per shot.

Defense has been a big problem for both sides, and in entirely different ways. Spurs are a low PPDA team, as you’d expect from De Zerbi, but their press is not stopping opponents from getting the ball into dangerous areas like it did at the beginning of his tenure, when he saved the club from relegation. United are a bit more of a standard mid-block team, but they’re getting the same results. Both teams have been poor at defending set pieces.

We don’t really get any insight out of a Spurs trendline at the moment, due to De Zerbi having fewer games coached, and the team being so poor when he took over that it was almost impossible to not improve them. But we can see some more worrying signs in how United are trending under Carrick. They’re just a much worse defensive side than they were when he took over.

While I don’t think either United or Spurs are as bad as their current record, I think we do have enough information to know that these teams are both worse than they were expected to be, and that their managers are not currently doing a good job. If there’s a loser in this game, I don’t think that manager is making it to Christmas.

Variance Betting returns to gambling on English football this weekend, and Ted thinks there’s value in a lot of the lines. He’s got 6 bets on Premier League games, 9 on Championship games, and another 5 on MLS. That’s a lot more action than we usually see in a typical week at VB.

I found the Leeds vs. Arsenal bet to be an interesting one, since it goes against conventional wisdom. Generally people don’t like betting against that big of favorites at home, but that’s also where the value in these lines comes in, and thinking about things in those terms is why we’ve been consistently profitable.

VB is +15 on bets so far this fall. If you’d like to learn how professional betting analysts break down lines so that you can become a smarter gambler, you can subscribe to Variance Betting here.

On the podcast, the boys covered everything that happened over this long international break, including Cristiano Ronaldo having a classic egomaniacal meltdown.

Over the past 3 weeks, I have forgotten most of my opinions about FPL, and that might not be a bad thing. This break is probably going to be a proper reset for some players’ and teams’ performances, and there were quite a few players who picked up knocks on international duty.

As a result, it’s probably a good week to use your Wildcard or Free Hit, should you have either of those chips remaining.

If you are using one of those chips, you’re probably considering Fulham striker Gonzalo Garcia. He was a popular pick in FPL Mate’s 100 experts video, and he’s getting recommended to me by the Solio solver too. This is mostly because of his fixtures: Fulham play Ipswich (A), Hull (H), and Coventry (A) in their next three matches.

Garcia has been… fine, not great, so far for a very bad Fulham team. I mentioned a couple months ago on this newsletter that I think he’s a talented footballer who will help make space for other players, but not necessarily an FPL monster, because he doesn’t get a ton of good close range shots. He’s yet to prove that idea wrong.

I’m sorry, but I am just extremely skeptical that a guy with this shot profile is a good FPL pickup. I know the fixtures are great. I know any warm body playing center forward over those 3 games is going to score at least 1 goal. But this is not encouraging.

The only case for picking up Garcia is an extremely short-term one, and it’s helped by the fact that his alternatives don’t have great fixtures. Thierno Barry and Everton have Chelsea and Arsenal coming up, while Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Leeds go away to Arsenal this weekend. Those are better players on better teams, but opponents don’t score on Arsenal very often.

If you are going for Garcia, pre-plan to sell and replace after GW8. If he gets hot during these 3 games, don’t get tricked into keeping him.

And as always, if you want to keep up with the team news and meta strategies, the easiest way to do that is subscribing to LazyFPL:

The easiest place to find listings for your country is probably LiveSoccerTV.

Real Madrid vs. Villarreal — As a neutral, I recommend always throwing on the Villarreal match, consistently entertaining. I expect goals.

Como vs. Roma — By far the most interesting match of the weekend on the continent… and at 5:30 am local time for me 😭

Köln vs. Borussia Mönchengladbach — No big matchup in the Bundesliga this weekend, but a fierce local derby is a good substitute.

Liverpool vs. Manchester City — The actual marquee fixture of this Premier League weekend, with a whole lot of mystery attached. Will City players be demotivated? Extremely defiant? Will City’s games even count at the end of the season?

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.