Today's Football

[Kafkaesque]

I'm thinking, there's as good a spot as there's been so far this season in the first PL match tomorrow, with trading in and out of draw, for as long as the 0-0 holds, and possibly other similar spots after. No other major matches at the same time, so should be a ton of liquidity.

The matches in recent years doesn't really bode well, but conversely I'd say those matches are affecting the market too much.

Arsenal aren't really in a good place, with no captain and the whole gang war situation hanging around. Starting with an away win after last season's dreadful away form was good, but sneeeeeeeaking a win at Newcastle isn't all that imo. They'll possibly get three key players in from the first match, but should he start then with Ozil being Ozil, I cannot really see him being all there if things don't go seamlessly. Burnley will know that and take every opportunity to give him a whack.

Arsenal might sneak another win over the line in the end, and maybe even make it look easy enough once the dam breaks, but with the state of the two clubs and squads, I don't really see it being as straight forward, especially early doors, as the prices suggest.

Am I missing something?

[Archangel]

I didnt see the game but Arsenal were quite fortunate to win by accounts

Liverpool managed to get over the line, just. I think they will need to battle on until they get Allison back to calm things down

[Euler]

The stats seem to indicate they were a bit lucky today.

[greenmark]

Well done Spurs. 1-1. This is what I want LFC and Spurs disrupting the established order.

[Archangel]

In many ways VAR is adding an extra level of drama to games

[weemac]

Once again we see VAR as a good idea badly executed.

[Kai]

Great day of football, that last VAR call came out of the blue, the goal looked very clean at first.

[Archangel]

Do Betfair suspend the markets until VAR has been cleared now ?

[weemac]

Suspensions are intolerably frequent and unnecessarily long.

[greenmark]

That's that for Steve Bruce.

[SilentDave]

The stats seem to indicate they were a bit lucky today.

Yep. xG 2.29-1.45

[Kai]

xG is a great stat but has some flaws, one of them is getting a bit skewed when top level players are involved since they often don't need much of a chance to convert it. And yet the algorithms that they use counts every chance the same no matter whether it's Welbeck or Ronaldo taking the shot, but I'm sure that will be taken into account as xG further develops as a stat. For example Kane was consistently overperforming his own personal xG in previous years, meaning that he is much more clinical in his finishing compared to more average players, Salah in his first season as well heavily overperformed according to his XG.

[SilentDave]

xG is a great stat but has some flaws, one of them is getting a bit skewed when top level players are involved since they often don't need much of a chance to convert it. And yet the algorithms that they use counts every chance the same no matter whether it's Welbeck or Ronaldo taking the shot, but I'm sure that will be taken into account as xG further develops as a stat. For example Kane was consistently overperforming his own personal xG in previous years, meaning that he is much more clinical in his finishing compared to more average players, Salah in his first season as well heavily overperformed according to his XG.

Agreed, it is always dangerous to just take one stat in isolation but at the very least xG shows you who had the better chances and better weight of chances.
I think it shows that Liverpoool rode their luck a little and had better quality strikers who can convert when they get a sniff of goal.

The difference between the top teams and the also rans is often the quality of the strikers.

[Kafkaesque]

On the subject of next manager to go, while I don't really think, he'll be the next to go, I also cannot see Solskjaer lasting the season.

They've got two huge issues for me. Squad depth and structure/managerial presence.

The first 11 looks like top 4 for sure, but they look very, very light when you go just a bit beyond those 11. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

Which top, top level team ****ing stands around and decides on the spot who takes the penalty? Rashford seems a lovely man, but if Fergie was waiting in the dressing room at full time, he wouldn't have given the pen to Pogba (and shaken his hand no less), and Pogba wouldn't have asked. Well, Pogba might, but almost all players wouldn't and shouldn't have. Which goes to another point. Some of their decision-making in transition is atrocious and seems pretty much a case of we make it up as we go along. With Pogba the most guilty. I cannot imagine Pogba playing in these circumstances, if the man on the bench was Klopp, Pep, Poch, or most other top managers for that matter. The same goes for their set pieces where they make let's-try-this-out-decisions time and time, that would never, ever happen, if they had a manager, they fully respected. It just keeps happening, so either it's not being adressed, or OGS has lost the handle.

All this just go out and play stuff is great when everything's flowing, everyone's on song, and results going your way, as we saw during that initial run under OGS. But with the characters they have in the squad, this is imho going to turn toxic soon enough.

Maybe I should even have put this in the rant thread Thank god I'm not a United fan. I would truly be disgusted then

[Archangel]

So Man Uniteds penalty process is to have an argument on the pitch to decide who takes it.

Looks like Ole has a few problems on his hands