The EFL Cup final is a matchup we haven't seen in a long time

Quite a few underdogs have made it to the EFL Cup final in recent years, but we get a clash between the Premier League’s two best teams this time around. Arsenal and Manchester City face off for the trophy on Sunday.

So much has happened since Arsenal and City met in the Premier League back in September that many readers probably don’t remember it. The two sides played to a 1-1 draw, with goals on either end of the match. Erling Haaland scored at the end of an impressive counter, and in very uncharacteristic fashion, City decided to sit on their lead for the rest of the game. This backfired in stoppage time when Gabriel Martinelli ran in behind the City defense and scored a spectacular chip.

Looking at their attacking stats since the new year, Arsenal and City have fairly similar attacks in overall quality, but they’re achieving the results in very different ways.

Both are good at set pieces, as is the meta of the Premier League at the moment, but City look a bit more like a traditional Good Team. They have a high volume of total shots, they’re not crossing much, they’re building out of the back, and they’re getting good chances off high pressing.

Arsenal, meanwhile, are much more willing to play long or cross. They also basically never take risks on the counter. Despite that, they’re so good at their chosen style of play that they’re still getting better xG per shot than City.

But defending is where the Gunners really shine. They’re the best defensive team in the world at the moment in pretty much all aspects of the game, and it’s not particularly close. No one’s figured out how to balance maintaining shape and being a pressing threat quite like Arsenal.

Between that defensive record and Erling Haaland’s downturn in form, the Gunners have to be pretty significant favorites on Sunday. Haaland started this season looking like he’d put together one of the great striker campaigns in Premier League history, but he’s been very average since the turn of the new year.

His goals drying up so much is a little bit of bad luck — Haaland has 1 non-penalty goal from 3.87 xG in 2026 — but that’s an extremely low xG total by his standards. He’s just not getting that many good shots.

Haaland potentially waking up and returning to form is the one big wildcard in this match. He’s the most talented player in any game he plays in, and can render opponent form and tactics meaningless with one run. It feels a bit silly to call one player the key to a match with so many other talented footballers, but I really do think that’s the deal here. City can win if Haaland is on his game, and if he’s not, Arsenal are the better side.

On the podcast, Patrick and Hayden recapped the Champions League Round of 16. They’re thinking that a resurgent Barca are looking like a serious threat to win the competition, and they’re pretty concerned about Liverpool’s chances against PSG.

This week’s Patreon episode covers how Vincent Kompany has transformed Bayern Munich, which isn’t bad for a guy who got relegated with Burnley. There’s a bonus episode on Patreon every week, plus behind the scenes banter from the free podcast episodes.

Over on Variance Betting, the bookies got the lines pretty much spot on this week, but Ted still found enough value to bet on three games. If you subscribe to Variance Betting, you get Ted’s bets every week, and this is a good example of why it’s different than all the touts you’ll find out there. If there’s no value in the lines, we’re not making bets.

The FPL corner

Well look who’s on top of FPL Mate’s 100 experts poll for transfers in. I will take a victory lap and say I told you so.

This is a weird game week with Arsenal and Manchester City blanking, which you ideally will have prepped for ahead of time. Most top players aren’t using a free hit or wildcard this week because they had another way to get to 11 players and want to save them for the upcoming likely heavy double Gameweek 33 and blank Gameweek 34. But if you messed up and are going to need to use one of those to field a full team, make sure you start planning ahead for the upcoming fixture chaos.

If you are using your free hit or just need an affordable striker, one slightly off-meta pick I like a lot is Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Solio has him as one of their most likely players to score this week:

And his shot locations this year are an absolute chef’s kiss 🧑‍🍳 👌 

If you were not on top of the blank gameweek situation and would like to avoid that problem in the future, you should probably subscribe to Lazy FPL. They send out a newsletter 24 hours before each game week with all of the info you need to avoid silly mistakes.

Games we’re watching

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

RB Leipzig vs. Hoffenheim — Huge match for Champions League spots. Places 3-6 in Germany are so tight right now, and these two are in that range. Keep an eye on Hoffenheim winger Bazoumana Touré, who I suspect will be a target for Premier League teams this summer.

Como vs. Pisa — With no marquee Serie A game on the schedule, I suggest you just watch Nico Paz and Martin Baturina.

Real Madrid vs. Atlético Madrid — Pretty much a must-win for Los Blancos against their rivals to keep the title race interesting.

Lyon vs. Monaco — Ever since we wrote about their sensational rebuild, Lyon have failed to win 4 in a row and are now in danger of dropping out of European places. Meanwhile, Monaco are white hot and now only 4 points behind them after a disastrous first half of the season.

Tottenham vs. Nottingham Forest — Sorry to recommend Spurs, but this is a massive relegation 6-pointer.

Stuff we’re reading

Ali Tweedale at Opta Analyst wonders if long throws are a fad and a waste of everyone’s time.

Barney Ronay at The Guardian reports on Millwall’s new 999 year lease and victory over wealthy property developers.

Grace Robertson at Grace On Football looks into how Spurs declined so rapidly.

Ed Maylon at FootBiz explains why Senegal were stripped of their AFCON title.

Josh Bland at Against The Run Of Play says it marks a new low for the sport not having much to do with what happens on the pitch.

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.