It was another great weekend of Premier League action, with big teams dropping points and performances that were real stinkers. Part of that is the level of competition, but a bigger part of that may have been the gale force winds that whipped across most of the country this weekend, making passes hard to complete and keeping the goal counts way down.

As Mel Brooks famously said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when Man United falls in a hole and dies.” I think we’re here.

Bournemouth went up 1-nil with a perfectly executed wide free kick to an open Rayan at the far post. I would not choose to mark a free kick like this if I were United, but it took a great bit of technique on both ends to make it look so easy.

Speaking of easy, a Lenny Yoro slip fetching a ball near his own penalty box made it simple for Truffert to recover the ball and pass to Tavernier for the second. A case in point for why teams high press so much in the modern age — so many good things can happen.

As for the third Cherries goal, well… I don’t want to spoil it. You’ll just need to watch it in the highlights above.

Bournemouth weren’t impenetrable — they gave up 1.34 expected goals to United in one of their worst defensive games of the season. But when things run bad up at Old Trafford they always seem to snowball into catastrophe, and here we are again.

We warned about the defensive trending under Carrick last April, and United’s openness will likely be what does him in when they get around to firing him. Meanwhile, I cannot wait to see what the hierarchy in Manchester does this time when it comes to new coaches to take over midseason. Antonio Conte’s agent has been fanning the flames hot and heavy up there, which would be absolute chaos if United pay up and let him have his way.

On a weekend where Man United have once again fallen apart, their hated rivals seem to finally have pretty much everything going for them. My take, in this match at least, is they got a bit lucky.

For Brighton, there was a pullback for Yasin Ayari in the 14th that he skied over the bar. If that goes in, this match and Liverpool fans’ mood looks very different. Instead we got a Pascal Gross own goal three minutes later, followed by an Alexander Isak finish from a spectacular bounced cross by Bradley Barcola and that was it.

Neither of these teams looked outmatched on the day, and the expected goals were basically 1 to 1 for both teams. They should both be in the Champions League spots when May rolls around.

Nicolas Jackson is a bad man. Not only did he score both goals to give City their first loss in the Premier League, but he also gave us an all-timer goal celebration gif.

Did Aston Villa “deserve” to win this one? No, probably not. Did they also stop taking any shots at all and simply defend after Jackson’s goal in the 60th minute? Yes, yes they did. Is that normally a good idea? Well…

Welcome to the world of Unai Emery.

These two teams had 1.08 expected goals COMBINED, but the real story was Chelsea were dire. 7 total shots at home to Spurs, and none after the 75th minute while trailing. Not great, Xab. Every time I think Chelsea have found their feet, they regress with a performance like this and I have no idea what to conclude.

Spurs’ first goal came from a bad punch by GK Mike Penders that put it directly into his own net, which kind of feels like it sums up Spurs season so far. Absolutely zero Spurs fans I know would complain about their good fortune there, especially at Stamford Bridge.

Spurs’ second goal was a bit more to celebrate, with a great, dribbly run from Mathys Tel into the Chelsea half and then a perfect shot into the corner from the top of the ‘D’.

More good news for Spurs came in the form of a fantastic performance from Mateus Fernandes as a ball-playing 6/DM. That was a top notch performance against a tough midfield opponent and he played extremely well.

Are Arsenal even good? 20 shots and over 2 expected goals at home against Everton suggests yes, even if the goals were scored by centrebacks. Arsenal are good, the defense is good, and they seem to be able to magic up goals at the appropriate moments across the squad. 🤷

Booooring.

Forest walk out of this one with all 3 points almost two-thirds of the time. Palace were dominant with 17 shots to 7 as the away team and over 1 expected goal more than Ipswich. At some point the performances have to turn into wins for the Glasner Group, right?

Forest’s goal could have easily been stopped earlier in the play due to a foul on their striker in the build-up, but the ref let them play on and it resulted in a wide early cross that landed on Neco Williams’ foot at the far post.

Ipswich got a goal of their own just this side of half time, with Julio Enciso stealing the ball away from man mountain Nikola Milenkovic (and probably fouling him too), before putting an easy finish away in front of the keeper.

I don’t know why Forest can’t put in a complete performance yet, but they are close, and when they do they will rocket up the table.

I mentioned in the Variance Betting analysis on Friday that I did not like this bet on Hull, but we are professionals and betting on horrible teams to cover the spread is so often what we do.

There were 26 shots in this match, but they resulted in nearly 3.5 expected goals. Hull’s came from basically two shots, one the McBurnie penalty and then a late chance for Joe Gelhardt that he pushed wide.

For the Bees, Dango Ouattara was on one this game with four shots, the Brentford goal, and three key passes for teammates as well. I’m sure Brentford will be frustrated they didn’t walk out with more, but the mistake from Kelleher for the penalty was just dumb, and on the whole both teams got what they deserved.

I was talked into/talked myself into betting Palace on this one as small home dogs. It did not work out. Palace are basically unbettable right now and I probably should have overruled the model instead of merely vomiting on my shoes.

Did Newcastle deserve the win? Maybe. Palace had a bunch of xG at the start of the match from one mad penalty box scramble and then they were contained to longer shots the entire rest of the game. Newcastle’s goals came from William Osula off a very wide cross from Jacob Murphy and Harvey Barnes on a pullback from Amar Dedic before completely shutting up shop for the last 20 minutes of the match.

You know how above there was Hull v Brentford with 26 shots and 3.5xg? This one also had 26 shots and… 1.24 xg. Fulham scored off a bit of Oscar Bobb magic wide in the box and honestly, that’s about all the highlights for the whole match.

The win pushes Fulham out of the relegation basement, for now.

This match was an early reminder we all have to wake up and go to work on Monday.

—TK

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