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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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This is just to say that teams that pretend not to care who they have to face next, because to win the tournament they have to be able to beat everyone, are most likely being disingenuous. Going out in the round of 16 and losing in the final are very different.
Setting aside the chances of winning the league, of that 60m guarantees CL qualification, it would pay for itself.
I had a similar reaction to their depth and I thought it would be an issue with getting top 4 going into the year. I figured they would sign Bissouma, Tielemans, or someone else who could rotate with Partey and Xhaka. Only having Elneny and Sambi Lokonga there does not seem like enough if they have even average injury luck.
Defensively, they have lots of overlapping players to get to their depth. Tierney and Zinchenko are both good LBs (and I'm a little surprised we haven't seen more Zinchenko in MF). Tomiyasu is good at RB and White has filled in well there. Gabriel and Saliba have been excellent and White is a strong rotation option there, too. But by that calculation, White is the primary safety net for 3/4 first-choice defenders. That can't work for an entire EL and PL campaign. Holding has played more than he probably should. Cedric is fine, but certainly isn't good enough to play regularly for a team with aspiration of winning the league.
The attack is similar. Martinelli, Odegaard, and Saka behind Jesus is great. Nketiah as the second-choice #9 is maybe a stretch. Behind the other 3, the options are Smith Rowe, who has been hurt a lot, Vieira, who they invested a lot in this summer but seems to need more time to adapt and develop, and Nelson, who as you said, is a giant question mark.
I guess the question is whether they can add a MF, a reserve CB, and a versatile attacker for a reasonable fee in the winter and whether those players would fit into their plans for more than just the next 6-18 months. I suspect they will invest in at least some combination of reinforcements in those areas.
At absolute maximum, considering Arsenal's current league position, $60 million would be worth maybe 15% of a CL spot (e.g., 70% spending $0 and 85% spending $60 million, or something similar). If maximizing return it would have made much more sense to spend the $60 million in the summer than now, b/c they came into the season with odds of 37.5% chance to make the CL. That's the sweet spot for spending giving you an extra boost.
Splashing the cash could still be the smart investment, of course.
This looks like a youth match where one team is an age group up. Sheffield is just so much bigger and stronger. This helps not just in the air, but with hold up play, press resistance, etc.
I’m not talking about 50-50 situations but when it is clear just get him in the book.
After all that, no upsets today--not even a draw. And yes, that Leeds game sure was something.
edit: Arsenal was pretty lucky that the corner went through a crowd of Chelsea player's untouched, but it hasn;t been a lucky performance overall. If they had brought their finishing boots today they'd already be ahead by at least 2 goals anyway.
That's not really what happened there, Azpilicueta was there first and Martinelli is the one who had come charging in late, he basically did it to himself. Agree that it's been a little dirty, and Oliver is a pretty bad ref who seems to mentally flip a coin when deciding to call a foul or not.
edit: yeah with some luck Chelsea could have gotten a goal somewhere, but that was not at all a close game. Arsenal was all over them in the midfield and Chelsea had no answer for it. They couldn't get string together passes or get anything flowing at all.
edit: with United very unlikely to win now, Arsenal's top 4 odds have just gone up.
It is nice when a player you've loathed for years finally starts showing his age.
Should be a fun one! No. Dull as dishwater at least by the stats. No shots from either side within miles of the goal.
And right now, for whatever the reason, Spurs can't be arsed to play more than the second 45, so ...
EPL Top 4 odds. Newcastle is now right in the mix.
Anybody else surprised to see how far Anthony Taylor set the wall for free kicks? Definitely more than 10 yards.
Considering how much the players yell bloody murder about everything else, I'm a bit surprised that there are so few complaints about the required wall distance. And this applies in either direction--too short or too far. There was that Spurs game a couple weeks ago where I swear the wall looked before the kick like it could not have been more than 8 yards away, and sure enough Son kicked it straight into the wall chest high. Not a peep by anyone on Spurs either.
Chelsea, Tottenham, Benfica, and Napoli are all pretty big favorites, and City is a vary big favorite.
edit: since teams rated 2-5 are facing off against each other, almost all the other teams odds went up slightly.
Brugge-Benfica
Liverpool-Real Madrid
Milan-Tottenham
Frankfurt-Napoli
Dortmund-Chelsea
Inter-Porto
PSG-Bayern
Couple of genuinely huge ties in there. Two of Liverpool, Real, PSG and Bayern will be out in the round of 16. If I'm City I'm over the (blue) moon right now. A very winnable tie with Leipzig and a pretty good chance that your quarterfinal opponent won't be significantly better.
If this doesn't end up with a Bayern-City showdown I am going to be extremely let down.
(As a Red Sox fan, I don't know whether to be worried about this or happy or something else?)
Thanks.
Easiest schedule to round out the first half is by far United, who have: palace, leeds, wolves, fulham, bournemouth, and forest. Chelsea, City, and Arsenal all have fairly hard schedules. Spurs and Newcastle probably average.
Tangentially related: did Chelsea end up getting sold to that consortium that owns the Dodgers?
Dortmund lost again today, so now the closest chasing team is being given just 2% to win the Bundesliga. Bayern is at 94% already.
Napoli and Barcelona are now pretty big favorites to win their respective leagues, but those races are far from over.
The less said about Ligue 1 the better.
Liverpool and Newcastle survive on penalties.
City and Brighton through at the expense of two of the teams above.
United plays tomorrow.
It seems like we've seen the same trend across the sports world--a better knowledge statistically of what provides an advantage, in particular efficiency in one form or another, being applied more consistently across the board.
I've mentioned it here before but one of the annoying things as a fan is seeing a team pass up the chance for a shot on the break to pull it back and set their offense, while letting the other team set their defense. This greatly reduces the chance of a goal on the offensive possession, but at the same time it's apparently what the coaches want. The advantage must be that setting your own offensive structure allows your own defense to be in place once the ball gets turned over, and reduces variance overall which is probably most helpful for the teams that are favored. ManCity is the probably the most paradigmatic of this. They want to reduce variability as much as possible as that favors them as the favorite in almost every game. Sometimes they do this to a fault, as being overly patient and reducing the number of possessions effectively shortens the game. With fewer possessions on either side there ends up being more chance of an upset, and we've seen City succumb to this on occasion.
I still think coaches are in general too risk averse. Soccer is especially interesting in that the chance of scoring on a controlled possession, 10v10, is way, way lower than the chance of scoring on a 5v5. To me the most fun teams, and the ones that maximize their talent, are the ones that are ruthless on the break and defend with 10. Spurs at their best in recent years are like this, and United the first few months under OGS. Atleti at their prime were great at it too, though they defended a bit too deep at times for my tastes for real enjoyment as a neutral. It's true that teams that are very overmatched also do this but they are a lot less entertaining to watch as their defense is usually just hanging on with luck, if at all, and their breaks at the other end generally ineffective. Of course, occasionally they get lucky.
Pep's City to me play often a little bit below their full potential because they almost always attack 10 v 10 and more often than you would like have to defend with less. That's partly a result of being the better team but also partly because Pep is inherently conservative in his approach to offensive possessions.
I'll grant that you know more about this than me, but I sometimes think Guardiola gets a bad rap on this. He gets lumped in with the tiki-taka Spanish style manager -- but if he ever was that, at City he's certainly embraced the high press and aggressive football that Bosque and his ilk never would have tolerated.
Honestly, I view this as less of a problem in possession-oriented games like football and basketball. Baseball really has become a sort of press-a-button, three-true-outcomes kind of game that is much less fun than either sillyball or 80s-style turfball was. But part of the fun of football and basketball is the skill of passing and possession, so it doesn't bother me that much.*
*In some measure. I found tiki taka deeply annoying, in part because of how effective it was.
Anyone suspect Liverpool might be facing some fallow years due to their age and contracts (or having to open the wallet to beef up the squad) and Henry is exiting ahead of the drop?
For sure. I think the writing was on the wall about that 2-3 years ago. But the squad was so good that you just have to roll with it, and they won the league and CL and could have easily won another league or two. Klopp at least sounds interested in sticking around after this core has fully aged out, which has to be appealing.
I find that Pep more than most managers molds his style to his team. It's very easy to be conservative with respect to possessions when you have players like KDB, Haaland, and Bernardo Silva who are hyper efficient at converting opportunities. As much as I like Gabriel Jesus as a player, this is why he was not a good fit in a central attacking role for this team... he gives himself opportunities but doesn't always create them. With the KDB/Haaland/Silva, they can strike rarely, but effectively.
To be honest, Kevin De Bruyne is one of the most amazing players to watch in the world right now. Probably the best player with respect to passing in the game.. everything thing he does is remarkably clinical, which allows for City to pick and choose their opportunities because it is rare that they don't realize scoring opportunities out of potential ones.
I think that Liverpool planned to turn their squad over a bit more proactively, funding some purchases with a sale of one or more of Mane, Firmino, Salah. The pandemic made that basically impossible, but winning the league is decent booby prize so I doubt anyone is complaining. Now that they have (sort of) turned over the attack, the midfield is about to be a real problem. Not sure there's a quick fix there.
My wild, information-less guess is that FSG isn't committed to getting out now, but wouldn't mind taking 10X money and going to play a different game. Even if they actually want out, I'd be surprised if missing the CL this year knocks much off the asking price anyway. But, again, I have no information, so I'm probably wrong!
A philosophy that took it way too far in the other direction was Bielsa, who seemingly believed that every single time his team got the ball the only proper action was immediate all out attack to take advantage of the other team not being fully prepared yet to defend. In a majority of cases the other team would collect the ball (this is soccer, after all, and goals are scarce) and rip right through his own team that was woefully unprepared for giving the ball back right away. That's certainly a recipe for mediocrity in the EPL, though it was fun to watch.
(It's been ages since I've posted -- the last thing I remember posting about was Jurgen Klinsmann leaving Landon Donovan off of the 2014 US World Cup squad in favor of *checks notes* Julian Green, but I've been following the thread still ever since!)
Dortmund is going out with a major whimper prior to the WC. Another loss and now even top 4 is looking a little bit at risk, as they have fallen to 7th in the Bundesliga.
Chelsea is going through their own struggles, but it's not too surprising they are still favored.
The xG chart shows the 10v10 on attack, 4v4 on defense, really well. City had tons of shots, but most from outside the box and very few quality chances. None at all from within 10 yards of goal. Brentford only had 10 or so shots, but 6 were big chances from inside the box.
Obviously this game was an aberration for City. Not so much an aberration on the offensive end where we've seen them win time and again with this amount of offense. It's that despite all their ball control at the offensive end they were a sieve today at the back. There is no advantage to playing this style offensively if it results in them giving up high quality counters repeatedly. We've City at their best give up absolutely nothing on the counter for stretches of games at a time, so it's clearly not merely a playing style thing. That said, sometimes I feel like it's kind of a knife edge style. When everything is working very well it's virtually unbeatable. When a few things are off it seems wildly suboptimal.
No doubt part of it is missing Kyle Walker, but if so that might just reinforce the point that the style is only near optimal if all the pieces are aligned. Keeping everyone healthy, motivated, and playing well is very difficult to do consistently in the EPL, and on days like today at least it's easy to imagine a more robust style would have been better.
The EPL is so helter skelter almost every game now since even the lower level teams are pressing and have money to have good talent, it's hard to win without legs in midfield. And I should know, because I watched Tottenham try for like 3 or 4 years.
Edit: Kind of wild, but before today, Understand has Chelsea's xGD as -4. That's so, so bad for a team with the talent and talented managers they have.
Chelsea didn't deserve anything from this game. They did absolutely nothing for the first 70 minutes of the game. They were completely suffocated. The weird thing is, once they were down, suddenly they found the ability to play with Newcastle. Just bizarre.
538 still ranks them as the 4th best team in the EPL, slightly ahead of Newcastle, United, Spurs, and Brighton (who are all very close to one another, in that order). But that is almost entirely on the back of their performance in the CL, where they have been very good since the opening round loss to Zagreb. Without the benefit of those wins they'd be a distant eight behind Brighton.
Betting odds very likely still has them as projected to be better than Newcastle and certainly Brighton going forward. I wouldn't be surprised though if they were now effectively rated 6th best.
The missed EPL games, including City at Arsenal, have not yet been rescheduled. If an early open date can't be found it's possible Arsenal and City won't face off until late in the season, at which point they would have to play twice. Arsenal at City is in late April.
Just an FYI I have a note to myself to set up a new thread on Monday morning for the World Cup.
Also, WT actual F happened to City today? Brentford? Not exactly the result I expected.
Side note: the goal differential, which has favored City hugely over Arsenal all season and has been the source of my certainty that the Gunners weren't going to win the league, has narrowed to 4.
Games on the EPL on the road aren't supposed to be easy. 538 had it as a very positive result for Arsenal.
I couldn't watch that much of the game today, but the difference between this one, which United were somewhat lucky to win, and the Arsenal one yesterday, which Arsenal were not the least bit lucky to win (both away games against similarly rated teams in the bottom tier) is that United gave up a lot of good chances today whereas Arsenal gave up very few, and almost none until they were up 0-2. 538 rated this as a neutral game for United and yesterday as a positive game for Arsenal.
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