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Thursday, August 11, 2022
The new season kicks off in Europe without a peep from the BBTF cognoscenti. Are the fans turned off by the stratospheric player salaries? Dismayed at increasing stratification in domestic leagues? Bored with the prospect of more meaningless Champions League group games? Gearing up for a World Cup boycott? Or, you know, just kind of tired in general. Whatever the reason, we can’t go without a soccer thread, surely!
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Group rankings by overall quality? This is a bit subjective, as it depends what you are trying to measure (chance to win, chance to advance, most competitive, etc.)
We do have a group of death anyway, so that's fun. Liverpool won't have a walk over, while Spurs should.
1. C. Bayern/Barcelona/Inter/Pizen
2. A. Liverpool/Ajax/Napoli/Rangers
3. G. ManCity/Dortmund/Sevilla/Copenhagen
4. H. PSG/Juve/Benfica/Haifa
5. E. Chelsea/Milan/Salzburg/Zagreb
6. F. RealMadrid/Leipzig/Celtic/Shakhtar
7. B. Atleti/Porto/Leverkusen/Brugge
8. D. Tottenham/Sporting/Marseille/Frankfurt
Say what you want about United, but aside from Arsenal they might be the best team in the Europa group stage. PSV and Sociedad were probably in the top five or six teams as well. So these are the two most top-heavy groups in Europa certainly. That also means it's not the least bit hard to imagine one or both of Arsenal/United finishing second in the group, and having a very tough round of 32 match with a third place CL team.
Otherwise they are actually pretty similar. Within the Top 5 leagues, the only team that really looks different to 538 is Juve. 538 is also a little lower on Barca and Atleti, but it's not that notable.
Liverpool already has 8 with 10 minutes left.
For the other goals, the game also featured a very sweet volley on the run from a tight angle, and also a seeing eye rising rocket from outside the box that somehow avoided all the legs in the crowd between the shooter and the goal, giving the keeper no time to react.
Crazy draw, because not only were Arsenal drawn with PSV and United drawn with Sociedad, Roma was drawn with Betis. That's 6 of the top 7 teams by betting odds drawn in just 3 groups.
Clearly they stole Bayern's shooting boots.
I'ts almost all been over the last 1+ years, where Neves has now scored 5 goals on about 1.5 xG (4 goals in 1.3 xG from outside the box).
edit: I'm also seeing that Neves has taken few shots from inside the area, but when he has, he has been even better v xG than outside the box. So it's only like +25% from outside the box. With so few goals for Neves (8 total outside the box since this started being tracked 5 years ago), every goal makes a big difference. Before today he was only tracked at about 10-15% better from outside the box, well within the margin of error.
Apparently if you add in all the years not tracked by fbref and understat (i.e. , go back to the Championship and Portuguese league) than he does even better.
edit: none of this is to imply he should take more or fewer shots outside the box--I'm agnostic on that since they are low-xG chances and even if a player is good at it doesn't mean it's a smart choice.
The other team that is being given a decent chance this year is Middlesbrough--the last time they were up was 2016-2017.
Competition at a top 10 club is really tough, especially as a LW, which is probably the most competitive spot of top talent in the world.
Sometimes you see a similar play where the defender should have know the offensive player was there and had at least an equal claim to the ball, and yet still gets kicked inadvertently when the offensive player gets his leg in. Those seen fairly justified whereas this one much less so.
edit: spoke to soon, kinda. Brighton had a huge xG chance that was 2 yards offside, but the linesman somehow missed it! Since it went out for a corner ultimately it was never called back.
edit2: two huge xG chances on the same play, neither of which should have counted.
Fulham deserved to win this one, though xG won't really show it, especially if you count the penalty. Big win against an opponent playing very well before this game, and Fulham is now one of the best surprises of the season after 5 games.
edit: and with that win, Southampton passes Chelsea in the table (slimmest of margins, and all that). That was not expected.
I think if Kante and Kovacic are healthy, Chelsea's a very tough team.
Similarly, Liverpool are very tough if Fabinho and Thiago are healthy.
Just not sure these are things you can count on year-round from those guys anymore, and Jorginho, Milner, and Henderson I think have all lost steps.
Too many players are playing out of position too. Mount isn't a natural winger, James, possibly one of the best wing backs in the world, has had to play a bit at RCB. The offense has no gampelan. Reddit is convinced TT has lost the dressing room.
Well he is coming up on that 2 year mark in January, I think only Mourinho has survived longer.
I think Boehy is going to give him significantly more rope than Roman would have, though.
Though Tuchel needs to stop committing self inflicted wounds like playing Reece James at RCB instead of RB/RWB.
I think this is absolutely spot-on, but it makes me wonder (again) about how often managers do stuff that fans/observers consider obviously wrong. I'm torn between "this guy definitely knows more than me; I should assume he has a good reason" and "people do nonsensical stuff all the time in regular life, why not in football." There's no good way to study this or identify which situations are which, because there are too many unknowns and "soft" factors, but it sure is interesting!
(EDIT: This was after the second goal, for the record.)
edit: might have been held a bit by the offensive player, but mostly just blocked off 80% legally.
edit2: oh well, that woke up Arsenal. 2-1 immediately.
Bournemouth is just an absolute disaster though. Less than 1.5 xG through 5 games.
edit: Bournemouth has played City, Liverpool, and Arsenal though (0.5 xG combined...). So that was not easy.
Haaland already has 6.5 non-pen xG in 5 games.
edit: they were forced to have the keeper kick it down field off a back pass but were woefully unready to defend once he did. Four of the simplest passes and a goal--no defense to be seen.
edit2: to be fair to United, the passes and runs were very well timed, but there was also just so much space.
It doesn't take much to beat Leicester right now. They really only played one decent game, and that was entirely because they had a man advantage for over an hour. I give United 2 stars for beating them in a fairly dour performance.
They are away to Brighton next, with Brighton coming off their first bad game of the year. Don't bet on Leicester in that one.
Barca is clearly better with FDJ still there. They should never have tried to sell him in the first place, since in the end it's obvious they were never trying to get a fair deal that allowed FDJ to be compensated for his deferred wages. The only thing they achieved was making themselves look absolutely disgraceful.
We're stuck with another year of Ronaldo in the EPL. I think getting Ronaldo likely was the thing that really exposed OGS's limitations as a manager, and maybe to some extent you can say the same thing about Ragnick.
United was a fun team to watch under OGS when they played very tight defensive and swift counterattacking football, very well I might add. A style that gave even the very best teams like City fits. Yes, it was a limited style and not one that was going to win the league, but they didn't have the personnel or coaching for that anyway. Going into last year the team somehow believed they were ready for the big time, ready to switch up their style and play for titles and trophies. Getting Ronaldo was part of that overall change in perspective and approach. The whole thing ended up as a disaster and Ronaldo was just the cherry on top of the #### sundae.
I'm not sure what Ten Hag will bring ultimately, but am happy he is willing to have Ronaldo come off the bench and seems rapidly to have realized he needs to work within the team's limitations.
More than 50% chance either Arsenal or United fails to win the group and has to face a third place CL team. United hosts Sociedad Thursday, in one to watch. Lazio also hosts Feyenoord, if you are so inclined.
Both the prior Top 6 matchups were quite exciting, and there's good reason to think this one could be too, as the odds are just about totally even--United's deficit in quality made up pretty exactly by them having home field advantage.
edit: oh, except for the Bournemouth slaughter. Not sure how I could have forgotten that one.
We'll see if Sevilla has anything when they host City this week. They had zilch against Barca today.
Another underperformer that you would think should have more promise is Leipzig. They got shellacked by Frankfurt today though, no longer have any real shot at winning the league, and are starting to make their top 4 chase a little bit uncertain.
I think the West Ham one was rightly disallowed, much as it pains me to say it. Clear silly cheap shot by the offensive player--reap what you sow.
The one in the City game is stupid, but all the Villa fans complaining are also making too big a deal of it. The whistle blew and the players stopped defending, which is what gave Coutinho the yard of space he needed for the clear shot. Also Ederson was not fully engaged to stop it either. Yeah it's a dumb mistake by the ref, but there's no way to know if Villa would have scored without a whistle--odds are generally unlikely though.
As a broader point, this kind of thing has been brought about by fans and announcers just "knowing" when plays are offside, and demanding the flag be raised and whistle be blown sooner, which they have been trying to implement this year. This kind of result is going to happen on occasion under the new standards. Any fans that complained about this over the past two years should STFU now.
edit: it was the linesman not the ref actually, so it was really the linesman's fault, not the ref. That is, since the play was still in the middle of the field the linesman's flag signals to the ref that the linesman was fairly sure it was offside. (Alternatively, the linesman saw Coutinho running back to recover the ball and judged that it was a close play but was going "away from goal" meaning he should raise his flag anyway.) Regardless, it was almost certainly the linesman under pressure due to the new standards for calling offside which cause him to raise the flag in error.
Note, this was originally given, and overruled on VAR.
Also, you missed the red card tackle VVD didn't get in your roundup.
The VVD one is I'm not surprised VAR didn't overrule. It was an "orange" tackle, and VAR has been mostly staying out of those all year, and all last year too I think. If it had been red on the field VAR probably lets it go.
It was a bad tackle, but VVD may have been saved by the position of the Everton player's foot facing directly at VVD (protecting the ankle) and also being slightly off the ground so it was able to move back with the contact. Made it look a lot less bad than it probably was in reality.
Even so, I think the Everton player did have to come off not long after? He was hobbled for sure. A red definitely would not have been unfair.
Of all these plays, only one of these is on VAR (Newcastle).
The Liverpool play is the same thing we've seen repeatedly. Maybe those should be reds, but if so they will have to make a new standard to have either the refs call them tighter on the field or more leeway for VAR to intervene. The West Ham play was a foul all day if the ref sees it live. It's just stupid the way it turned out to bite West Ham badly. The offside goal was a mistake by the linesman but we're going to get a few of those this year due to standards the fans begged for, and anyway unlike the other three plays it did not reverse a goal or red card IMHO, just a potential chance for a goal. And it wasn't a VAR play anyway.
Arsenal are successfully keeping the ball after the first 10 minutes or so, which means United are mostly playing counter-attacking football. I doubt Ten Hag chose his tactics that way, but it does play to United's strengths.
By ELO, it's Arsenal, Villarreal, United, Betis, Brighton, and PSV, with Roma, Newcastle, West Ham, Sociedad, Union Berlin, Palace, Bilbao, and Atalanta as the next 8.
By 538, it's Arsenal, Villarreal, Brighton, PSV, United, and Sociedad, with Roma, Lyon, Bilbao, Atalanta, Newcastle, Feyenoord, Marseille, and Rennes as the next 8.
Most fancied team not to make the CL this year is clearly Arsenal.
Most fancied team not to make Europa this year is clearly Villarreal.
Most fancied team not to make europe at all by betting odds would likely be Newcastle, but ELO and 538 think it's Brighton. Lyon or Bilbao would probably be next by betting odds, maybe above Brighton or even Newcastle.
Least fancied team in the CL: Haifa (ELO has it as Copenhagen).
Least fancied team in Europa: HJK from Helsinki. This one is a unanimous choice, and not particularly close to second least fancied.
Least fancied team in the ECL is pretty fuzzy, there are solid contenders:
Ballkani (Kosovo), Vaduz (Liechtenstein, plays in the Swiss second division), Žalgiris (Lithuania), Shamrock (Ireland), Pyunik (Armenia), and Riga (Latvia) are the bottom 6 by 538 and betting odds, and all I think are bottom 6 in straight ELO except Vaduz. These are some true minnows on the European scene, but I think probably the biggest ones of all are Ballkani and Pyunik, not even the best teams in Kosovo/Armenia most years, and the teams with slightly worse betting odds than the others.
Zalgiris and Pyunik are in the same group, so maybe we can get a feel for which one is better when they face off head-to-head in back-to-back October Thursdays (the 6th and 13th). Be sure to mark those dates on your calendar!
For me, I think it's 100% a foul. Bowen gets there late and drags his left leg in, intentionally creating contact, raking Mendy's fingers and kicking him (relatively lightly) in the chest and shoulder. That was entirely avoidable and entirely on Bowen. Whether his motivations were to make a little cheap shot or to create contact in case there was a chance to dive for the penalty is not clear, but he was nowhere near the ball and could have avoided almost all the contact with Mendy with relative ease.
The much harder question is whether VAR should have intervened at all, because even if it is a foul I don't think they are supposed to get involved after the fact unless it's a red card offense (which it wasn't) or materially affected the play. Here it gets fuzzy, as you could reasonably argue that either Mendy was actually affected enough getting his body and especially fingers kicked that it would have affected his ability to continue with the play. (There was a fairly immediate reaction of pain from him before all the feigning of injury that came later.) Or alternatively you could argue that Mendy saw the contact coming, knew he would be fouled, and that affected his decision to parry rather than catch the ball.
Mendy's own actions not trying to continue with the play are something we constantly praise offensive players for--i.e., to get the refs attention when they are actually fouled in the box. It's not fair to blame Mendy for doing the same thing here.
I'm a little bit on the fence as to whether VAR should have intervened, but I don't think it's at all a slam dunk that they should not have. We see worse VAR decisions and non-decisions every single week IMHO. What seals this particular play for me, personally, has nothing to do with VAR itself--I just have zero sympathy for actions like Bowen's that are half dirty. Just jump over Mendy and you win the game. Trying to get a little cheap shot in you get what you deserve.
Draw the game, but yes. I'm similarly not very sympathetic. It looked like he could have avoided contact with Mendy without much trouble.
I think that play could have gone either way. I don't see how the Newcastle goal was waved off (bias alert, though I haven't seen many unbiased observers argue otherwise). The claim was the VAR only showed the referee one angle, which seems just bizarre regardless of how the call turned out.
If Chelsea had to lose any game, this was the one to lose. They need to win the ones at home and not lose to Salzburg and Milan.
Chelsea will finally fall out of the top 10 in 538 and ELO ratings after today. They haven't played like a top 10 team at any time this year (except maybe half the game against Spurs), so that's overdue.
edit: also, while this is a big upset, it's not any kind of historic. Zagreb is at least as good as the weakest few teams in the EPL, and they were at home.
1st 70 minutes: 0.62-0.32 to Zagreb
last 20 minutes: 0.00-0.55 to Chelsea.
*Cough, cough.*
So you're telling me just randomly buying players like it's a video game is not a great team-building strategy? (How this is Tuchel's fault is beyond me.)
Two upsets yesterday—two sackings.
But yeah I agree he deserves criticism, they should be better now and probably should have been closer to the leaders last year.
I'm probably blanking on an obvious answer to this, but when was the last time the oft-discussed "give (youngish overachieving manager at a small club) a big budget and see what he can do!" actually happened? Howe to Newcastle isn't quite what I have in mind.
Has Potter actually been offered a very high profile job yet? Coaches at this level are highly ambitious and rarely pass up the opportunity to take the next step up.
I think this is probably correct but there just aren't a ton of recent examples in England. Brendan Rodgers I would say moderately goes against this idea (though Liverpool were not nearly as good as they are now when he got hired). Sure he's been talked about for other bigger jobs recently but didn't get one, and sure as hell doesn't look to be on the path to one at the moment.
Poch is the only good one I can think of at the moment, but there are probably others.
EDIT: Moyes is another one that goes against this idea, and OGS will almost certainly not get another big job.
Moyes failed spectacularly yes, but he was hired at Real Sociedad immediately (before not doing very well and being fired again...), taking a year at Sunderland (getting relegated in the process), and now being at West Ham. That's kind of a worst case scenario and he's now basically back to where he was at Everton.
If Chelsea is a job doomed to fail from the getgo then yeah stay away from it because he will likely (but not certainly) get another shot in the next couple years. Do well for a couple years at Chelsea before things fall apart though and he will likely be a fixture in the big time.
Plus I'm sure the money is nice.
Yes, it's not an uncommon coaching trajectory in general, but in all 3 cases here it was starker than normal (both up and down) and over a pretty short time period.
As others have said, Chelsea has gone through a lot of attackers, and they've all failed. The odds of that happening, without it being on the tactics, are pretty low.
By transfermarkt Brighton is right near the bottom of the league, sandwiched between newly promoted teams Fulham and Forest in overall value, and only meaningfully ahead of Bournemouth. It's extremely hard to stay highly competitive with that resource disadvantage. (edit: and this is also why betting odds always seems "rosy" on teams like United and "negative" on teams like Brighton. There is such a thing as long term over- and under- performance relative to resources, and it's correct to factor in some regression in the odds.)
Potter's stock right now is high and might never get higher staying at Brighton.
It's almost the same with Frankfurt. This was a must-not lose game at home, where Sporting had done nothing for 60 minutes. Then boom 3 goals in 15 minutes and Frankfurt is now in a deep hole. Sporting with the big road win is now the clear favorite for 2nd in the group after Spurs.
Allisson saved though! Still 1-0.
Just have to say: this was an overrule on VAR and in many ways was very similar to the Bowen/Mendy play. There was a clear foul that probably had no impact on the play, given via overrule on VAR, maybe in part due to the player fouled staying down and rolling around. Will there be an outcry of "worst call evah" after this one? Doubtful, as it was early in the game rather than in extra time, because the PK was saved anyway, and, most importantly, because calling the foul gave a penalty (and thus a goal scoring chance, which fans generally like) rather than take away a goal from play (which fans absolutely hate).
If you want a common theme from the complaints in the EPL over the weekend it's this: fans absolutely hate it when goal are called back--it really doesn't matter what the rules say. This puts the refs and VAR in a basically impossible position. Yeah refs/VAR could be better, but I'm sorry--you can't be both always correct and never calling back any goals.
Truly, though, the midfield looks cooked and Van Dijk has been mediocre. I'd venture to guess that explains everything that's going on right now. They're vulnerable to counter attacks in a way they haven't been for the past three years and they aren't creating enough to make up for it. Maybe with Thiago back they can stabilize, but they're gonna have to find the desire and it looks like that's gone, too.
edit: to respond to the above, Liverpool was an extremely good team playing over its head for three/four years, making them look like a generational great team, which I don't think they ever were. Every year they surprised me a bit, so I'm not shocked they are worse than people are expecting now.
That said, nobody should expect them to be this bad. They are a better team than Napoli but not by so much that getting beaten on the road would be shameful. This is ridiculous though.
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