Who should Tottenham fire: A Premier League recap

Living up to this newsletter's tagline.

Author

Ted Knutson
December 01, 2025

One of the things we promise in the first email you receive from The Transfer Flow is we will tell you when your Director of Football should be fired.

Today I am going to turn that lens toward Spurs because… well…

Look, we know many people were let go this past summer including iconic minority owner/CEO Daniel Levy. The Ange Postecoglou contingent including Scott Munn also moved on to, uh, weirder pastures. But there’s still the two-headed executive football monster of Johan Lange + Fabio Paratici that allegedly has had significant power throughout and is now officially in power again.

Yes, we know that Paratici was merely “a consultant” while serving a ban from football for shenanigans while at Juve, but he’s been there a long time. Things have been deteriorating a long time now too. Correlation? Causation? Levy apparently had a lot of faith in his ability but the record is spotty at best, especially while benefitting from the Magic Money Tree at the Evil Empire in Italy.

Meanwhile, Lange presided over the Aston Villa spending catastrophuck from summer 2020 through December 2023. The buying during that period was an extremely mixed bag, with various expensive blanks (Moussa Diaby, Diego Carlos, Coutinho, Danny Ings…? Danny Ings!) mixed in with some decent players like Jhon Duran, Morgan Rogers, and Tielemans-on-a-free. They did get to sell Jack Grealish during that period for a hefty fee, but that would have happened under anyone, so you’re not getting full credit from me.

Back to Spurs… they signed a well-regarded head coach this summer who can play defensively solid football and knows all the modern wrinkles for style of play, and then chose to run an experiment: What would happen if none of our central midfielders can actually pass the ball?

This was their most obvious need coming into the window, and it’s an even more obvious need coming out of the window. They signed Kudus from West Ham for a big fee (ball mover, not a passer, weirdly headless), Kevin Danso (fine), Kolo Muani (Poor CF - loan), locked in Mathys Tel (Future CF - on the fence), 2 CBs 20 years old or younger (good, actually, but v v young), and Xavi Simons also for a big fee and who IS a passer, but needs competent teammates to get him the ball.

Like, this is Simons two years ago versus Simons now. That stats profile is the hatchet of unrealised potential — but IT MIGHT NOT BE HIS FAULT. The system and players around him not only don’t help him, they actively detract from what he’s good at. But also… he might not be ready now (or possibly ever) for the physicality of the Premier League.

Oh, and desperate for midfield depth, Spurs signed Joao Palhinha on loan, who IS a midfielder, but about as definitively not-a-great-passer as anyone who made a move to a big league this summer. Which is a fact we told you about before it happened.

Spurs did sign two 18-year-old midfielders last season (Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall), and both have potential, but Bergvall is mostly an AM in Sweden converted to CM/DM at Spurs for now, and poor Archie Gray has PTSD from all the abuse he took last season while forced to play centre back.

The last fit-for-purpose DM/CM Spurs signed was Bissouma in 2022 (allegedly a discipline problem under multiple coaches and not likely to feature in the future), and Lo Celso + Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg in 2021. So it’s not like they have been trying and failing to find the right fit — I guess they just haven’t seen it as a proper need given *waves hands* all the other needs?

This totally bears repeating because it is easy to forget: this is a team in the Champions League.

Anyway, we don’t know who is really at fault because football teams rarely work like that, but firing the coach (again) isn’t going to get you anywhere because this squad wasn’t set up to succeed. My suggestion is to ride it out, reload, and then see what happens next year.

But also… hope those expected goals numbers get better and hope they start to win a few home matches, because both have been grim thus far.

(And yes, we were VERY early to sound notes of caution when the Spurs’ table position was very far away from their expected goals position. We did that with Liverpool’s hot start too! This could be a reason why the gambling results at Variance Betting are SO GOOD right now.)

One of my questions going into this match was whether Chelsea had improved this season. Yes, they were second in the table, but they were high in the table at various points last season and their off-season moves looked neutral at best. (I thought the business was good, but the footballing side was a slight downgrade.)

After 13 matches, Chelsea’s statline looks like this: 14 shots a match, 9.5 conceded. xGD .51 with 1.52 for and 1.01 against.

And last season? 15.5 shots for, 10.4 against, xGD of .49, nearly identical other numbers.

There are two caveats that might paint a more rosy picture than the above:

First, the variety of red cards this season mean their numbers might be undercooked a tad…

And second, Cole Palmer has been out injured for a while. But still… This is more a case of remarkable consistency than an impressive step up.

As for the match? You can check out detailed opinions on the podcast!

Leeds are on the Do Not Bet list because they never seem to cover despite having generally good metrics. Then they turned a 0-2 into a 2-2 AT Man City and became interesting again. Before, obviously, capitulating to the big team as expected. But covering the spread! But also dropping into 18th in the league table.

UPDATE: Leeds are still on the Do Not Bet list, and also on the Might Get Relegated in Spite of Solid Underlying Numbers list too. Santa’s having a strange one this year.

Foden’s goal to make it 3-2 was such a lovely piece of play — it makes the highlights worth your time by itself.

City are still deeply flawed… what’s not to love?

I feel like we have only either discussed Liverpool as OMG IN CRISIS or “guys… they are not actually this good” so far this season.

This match was classic “taking care of business away at a bad team,” which I suspect is a huge breath of fresh air for Liverpool fans and Arne Slot alike. They limited West Ham to .24 xG total, and Alexander Isak scored his first goal for the club.

I am interested… tell me more.

Speaking of, the Paqueta second yellow card was “interesting” and that is literally all I will say about that. Unrelated: Lucas Paqueta also has very good lawyers.

Was I worried about Sunderland facing an early 0-2 deficit at home? Well, no, but that’s only because I learned not to sweat the games I have bets on about a decade ago.

I could describe the goals in this one but it is a MUCH better use of your time to watch the highlights. They include one from Tyler Adams (who?!?) from WAAAAAAAY downtown, a gorgeous sequence leading to a Bertrand Traore goal (again, who?!?), and a Brian Brobbey winner. (I only mention the last because it makes Hayden happy.)

It also had six yellows and a red card after the 90th minute including a nasty forearm shiv from Lewis Cook.

A bit like Spurs, Bournemouth are aggressively regressing to their mean as the season progresses. They are fine, and the kids are alright, but it may take a couple of seasons for this group of players to gel into something more.

We’re a third of the way through the season and Sunderland are fourth.

Kim’s FPL tips have been crazy hot this season, so it almost wasn’t a surprise when Malick Thiaw scored off a header in literally the first minute of this match.

Did Kim ALSO forget to sub Thiaw into her team after suggesting the world do exactly that? We don’t like to comment on speculation.

Everton’s defense has not been great lately and they were terrible in this match, once again in the important area professionals call “around the box.” But Woltemade’s goal to make it 0-3…? Chef’s kiss. All the early season optimism around the blue team and Jack Grealish has evaporated into “yep, still going to be a grind.”

For the Magpies, this was one of their only non-grindy matches this season. Can it continue? Well, it helps to have healthy fullbacks!

SOMEONE who thinks they are clever suggested it might be time for Brighton to let Hurzeler go during the October international break. Since that time, they have four wins, one loss, and one draw in the Premier League.

Hrm…

In my defense (because obviously that someone was me), this match was a score-affected 19 shots to 17 in Forest’s favor. But that’s not much of a defense, because Brighton have been pretty good overall.

Looking at trendlines, the attack is largely static, but it’s the crucial defensive one that has been the bane of their existence the past two seasons, and it is finally headed in the right direction. Brighton are conceding the same expected goals defensively as basically all the good teams bar Arsenal. That’s a positive sign, and it may continue as they have Villa, West Ham, and Sunderland at home before we head into Christmas.

Is that a whiff of the Champions League spots I smell?

I liked the Hurzeler appointment originally, so I will happily eat crow on this as he rights the ship.

Speaking of Champions League spots…

Crystal Palace opened with a penalty and things looked bright for Glasner’s men. Then halftime intervened.

Joshua Zirkzee (no, really) scored from an impossible angle to make it 1-1 in minute 54 and then Mason Mount hammered a second touch off a free kick into the near post and United walked out 1-2 winners.

United did have decent chances overall — they win that match about 23% of the time, with Palace more like 51%, but the scoreboard is the only thing that matters, right?

United are only one win back of fourth right now, and probably more deserving of that slot than two of the three teams above them right now. I have been saying all season there are reasons to be optimistic around Old Trafford, and that remains to be true.

I got more questions about not picking Brentford this weekend than any other Variance Betting match so far this season. The line was -1.25 and I had some concerns about the Bees scoring enough goals to cover the extra quarter goal (so Brentford would need to win by 2 for me to win my entire bet. Only winning by one would lose half the stake.)

ANYWAY… this match ended exactly on the predicted gambling line in xG terms, but Brentford walked out 3-1 winners. Predictable, right?

Well, not really. The first goal in this match came in minute 81! on an Igor Thiago penalty (won by Dango Outtara). Then James Bond regen Zian Flemming made it 1-1 in the 85th. 🤔 

Igor Thiago got a scrappy right place, right time goal from Thiago to make it 2-1 and then finally Jordan Henderson threaded a pass to Dango to finish from a tight angle and make it 3-1 in the 91st.

I have no idea what to make of any of that, it’s simply a thing that happened.

I admit I would not pay attention to either of these teams if I didn’t write a weekly betting column.

Villa ground out exactly 1 goal (it was a left-footer from the top of the ‘D’) and nearly 1 goal of xG and Wolves did not. Emi Martinez was really good (again).

—TK

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