The We're Back Department has denied Liverpool's claim

Hello and welcome to the Friday grab bag. We’ve got a huge game in the Premier League this weekend, with Liverpool facing off against Manchester City. It’ll be a big narrative-defining match heading into an international break, but I’m not sure that it should be.

Liverpool managed to break their losing streak last time out with a composed 2-0 win over Aston Villa. It was far from spectacular, but they were never under serious threat either. Call it a professional performance.

While Dominik Szoboszlai deservedly got a ton of praise for his excellent all-around performance, the Reds’ attack still wasn’t quite clicking. Hugo Ekitike wasn’t much of a threat, and Liverpool’s entire left side was fairly stinky.

It was also a better performance from Mohamed Salah, but still quite a ways off the level we’ve come to expect from him. He’s performing at the level of a pretty good mid-table player right now, not Liverpool’s best ever forward and current highest earner.

Salah Stonks are neither trending seriously downward or upward. We’re pretty much flatlining at the moment. He’s fine, not great.

All of this is to say that I think the Reds should still be considered underdogs against Manchester City this weekend, and away from home, pretty significant ones too. City’s 0.76 xG differential per 90 is 2nd in the league behind Arsenal, while Liverpool’s 0.33 is behind Crystal Palace, and just a touch above Chelsea and Brighton.

The We’re Back Department will reconsider Liverpool’s claim if they manage to beat City. But ultimately, I cannot imagine that this individual game will alter my perceptions of either team, as fun is it may be to call Arne Slot and/or Pep Guardiola a bald fraud based on what happens. City are the 2nd best team in the league. Liverpool are the 3rd best team. Barring very dramatic injury luck, I think they’ll finish in those places this season.

On the podcast, Patrick and Neel reviewed the week in UEFA Champions League and declared a new potential favorite for the competition. It’s tight though — the current top 5 in the table kind of just look like the 5 best teams in the competition, even with a tiny sample of 4 games.

On the Patreon, the B-roll conversation from this podcast features a very fun roasting of commentators for mispronouncing players’ names. The Patreon exclusive podcast focuses on how clubs build their talent pipelines, often by focusing on scouting one undervalued market.

If you’re looking for the Variance Betting column, that’s on the way soon. Slight delay due to Ted traveling, but it’ll come out before the Friday night Championship game with all of the EFL Champ and Premier League bets.

The FPL Corner

This is looking like a fairly uneventful week for FPL meta shifts, though you’re probably selling out of Viktor Gyökeres if you had him before. Good news, there’s quite an obvious replacement.

It appears that the FPL pros are finally coming around to the idea that Igor Thiago is a useful striker to have in your squad. In FPL Mate’s poll, he was previously owned by 9 of the 100 players who participate in his videos, and 18 more transferred him in this week. Brentford might not have a top attack, but he’s clearly their main man up top, and they’ve got him on penalty duty as well.

6 goals in the first 10 games of the season is not bad at all for a player who can currently be had for £6.1m in the game, and I have no reason to believe he can’t maintain that pace. He’s consistently getting quality shots.

Meanwhile, following last week’s bit about how you should keep an eye on Tijjani Reinders potentially losing time to Rayan Cherki, that’s exactly what happened. Cherki started last week’s match for Man City and turned in a star performance, while Reijnders came on in the 72nd minute. Perhaps it would be wise to take the money you bank selling a more expensive striker for Thiago, and getting a more expensive MF than Reinders.

Games we’re watching

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

RB Leipzig vs. Hoffenheim — The new Leipzig forwards are killing it after the club yeeted €150m of talent in the summer. Hoffenheim are also performing well above expectations, currently sitting in a European place.

Espanyol vs. Villarreal — Another surprise contender for a European spot, Espanyol sit 6th in La Liga with a positive goal differential. Villarreal might be vulnerable after a bad showing in Champions League midweek.

Manchester City vs. Liverpool — Obviously.

Inter Milan vs. Lazio — While Lazio got off to a very disappointing start, they haven’t lost in their last 6. Inter remain my personal Scudetto favorites.

Strasbourg vs. Lille — Sorry, Lyon-PSG isn’t even headline stuff anymore. BlueCo’s got the real ballers.

Stuff we’re reading

Ryan O’Hanlon at ESPN disagrees with the We’re Back Department’s claim denial and thinks Liverpool are good again.

Michael Cox at The Athletic talks about the things we’re seeing less of in the Premier League this season (it’s all the fun stuff).

Ed Malyon and Matt Hughes at FootBiz cover a lot of things, but the part on how much Gianni Infantino loves sucking up to the President of the United States is what caught my eye.

Llew Davies at Scouted introduces us to Caleb Yirenkyi, a young Ghanaian midfielder who’s starting for Nordsjaelland.

Max Radwan and Ishan Shah at The Cutback preview the huge WSL match between Arsenal and Chelsea women.

Ryan Benson at Opta Analyst dives into the pitfalls of Barcelona’s high defensive line, and whether they should make any changes to it.

Kyle Boas at Tactics Journal breaks down the importance of winning second balls off headers and how that’s coming more into focus as teams get better at passing long.

Yonni at Total Football Analysis has a scouting report of Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, who’s starring for Frank Lampard at Coventry this season.

Huw Davies at Not The Top 20 wants to help you find some undervalued lower league gems in Football Manager.

Josh Bland at Against The Run Of Play professes his love for Bovril at the football in winter.

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.