Premier League Recap, Week 10: Liverpool Go Nuclear, Villa Dominate Like European Sides Should and a Charmin Contest Between Bournemouth and Burnley
Table o’ Justice
Some no doubt hammerings this week with Liverpool and Arsenal at home against bad teams, it was unsurprising for those two to decimate Forest and Sheffield United. Aston Villa continue their progression taking care of Luton and City were all over United, in what was probably a surprise to no one. How you saw Chelsea, Spurs and Brighton’s performance probably varies a lot, those will be interesting to dive into.
Brentford 2, Chelsea 0
Chelsea did everything you’d expect in a really good performance except turn their territorial dominance into shots at a good tempo or with good quality. On the balance of the game though, there is not too much to worry about here: Chelsea generated a ton of offensive production without several key players (Disasi RB and Madueke produced decently here but I get the feeling Enzo/James or Gusto would provide a lot more. The problem was the leading shot producers were Thiago Silva, Deivid Washington and Marc Cucurella. The forward line were not efficient getting good shots off at all. Brentford did not create much at all, with something like 80% of their production coming on 3 shots in stoppage time when Chelsea were correctly sending everyone forward. Desperately chasing an equalizing goal is the clearly correct decision (and probably should happen more often in tied matches) but we often see teams leave the goalie and center backs in their own half in the dying minutes. Chelsea didn’t and cost themselves 1.6 xGA.
Cole Palmer racked up enormous numbers on the day (3rd most progression, 6th most receiving, most deep completions, but it did at times feel a bit like he was the good kid in a pickup game and everyone was just giving him the ball and hoping he’d do something against the other team with everyone behind.
This shot getting and shot quality problems are long-standing ones, last year Chelsea were atrocious at that and the opposite defensively. This year they are poor at getting shots off per deep completion and opponents are high on that list, but quality has not been a problem on either end.
You can see Brentford are on the opposite end of the rate of shots to deep completions on both ends, and generally do well on quality as well. Once again the Bees were 20th in defensive action rate, but this time they were unable to effectively high press. It really was not a good game for Brentford despite the win.
Tottenham 2, Crystal Palace 1
Palace’s top end attacking talent is out injured and the young exciting unknowns (Ahamada, Rak-Sakyi, and Franca) got thrown under the bus by Roy Hodgson, who said they weren’t ready and made the team worse. So we got basically volume seemingly 40 of the old gang together: Ayew, Schlupp, Ward, Clyne, erc with Will Hughes, Jefferson Lerma joining in. It was essentially what you’d expect from a capitulating Palace
They were actually quite effective at stifling the normal Spurs dominant attack: limiting progression and deep completions much more than normal Spurs opponent and allowing just over 1 xG total. Palace blocked 5 of the Spurs 10 shots, but their inability to keep the ball at all (Spurs 1st in high takeaway rate, Palace last in progression efficiency) meant there was not enough threat to actually win the game.
Spurs player with most defensive production? Cristian Romero. Spurs player with most fields gained? Cristian Romero. Spurs player with most buildup contribution? Cristian Romero. One of the most impressive center backs in the world for me right now, partially that’s because Spurs play so aggressively and leave their box open in dangerous situations a lot he gets called into action a lot so has more chances to impress. But impress he has.
Palace’s ugly-it-up approach did see James Maddison have one of his quieter games of the season. Spurs in general were just way further from goal and the league leader in Deep Completions wasn’t even inside the league’s top 90 players this week.
When you r players most involved with buildup contributions are Joel Ward, Will Hughes and Jefferson Lerma, you did not just have a high powered attacking game.
Newcastle 2, Wolves 2
Trippier looked really tired by the end of this one, another mediocre-ish game for him (still 17th in league in deep completions) after a struggle midweek against Dortmund. The guy is 33, Newcastle play 2 more games this week I can’t imagine he goes 90-90 again. A bigger problem was the guy in front of him, Miguel Almiron had 0 shots, 0 key passes and was at the bottom of every Newcastle’s offensive metric.
Schär is sneakily one of the best offensive central defenders in the league. Outrageous efficiency, buildup contributions this week and I feel he’s always willing to make an exciting run or get into position for an open play shot
Overall it was a game Newcastle edged, but clearly looked thin. Bruno Guimaraes was off his usual levels, Trippier faded and there were basically no attacking reinforcements off the bench. A lot of the vaunted depth has disappeared: Barnes, Tonali, Murphy, Anderson and Isak were all out with Willock only back for the first PL game. That’s more than a full complement of attacking players right at the busiest part of the year in terms of crucial games in all competitions.
For Wolves, it was a shame to see Neto go off. He and Hwang have been quite good together, though this game was Matheus Cunha’s time to finally have a good box score game after lots of impressive moments/touches that hadn’t added up to real good metrics in the early season. Cunha had 7 dribbles, 4 shots, and was a big factor as a receiver.
Manchester City 3, Manchester United 0
It was exactly what I expected, a thorough beatdown of Manchester United. City, who have rarely ventured out in transition, even got plenty of chances to do so against United in a second half that was absurdly open and I think would have conceded 4 or 5 goals in that half most of the time if we replayed it 10 times.
Man City usually have something like 3-3.5% of their passes in the danger zone (19th in the league), it was a league leading 6.8% against hapless United.
Which one looks more ordered? Bruno Fernandes, Eriksen and McTominay all basically played attacking midfield while Mount and Amrabat were essentially invisible offensively and the wings were left totally open when City had the ball. Of all the central midfield type players, only McTominay had a lot of successful defensive actions.
City usually keep the ball centrally at an extremely high rate, not so this week as United basically didn’t field enough players out there.
Brighton 1, Fulham 1
A pretty standard Brighton performance, you have to say. Over the last few games their ultra-transition type games have been toned down a bit. They and opponents had been regularly in the top 5 weekly in transition opportunities and production, maybe the loss of Estupinan has put the brake on both ways. Mitoma still led a brilliant left sided attack with a great performance from Igor Julio at left center back/left back. The desperation to try and find really anyone to play well in midfield led them back to Baleba and Dahoud without standout results and a surprise Adam Lallana start did not go well.
Evan Ferguson’s recent games have taken off some of the early season shine (remember we were the cautious ones after his hat trick vs Newcastle). His last 5 PL appearances have totaled 4 shots and .25 xG in 301 minutes. Joao Pedro’s limited PL minutes continue to confuse me, I do think Enciso’s loss was a huge blow. He was set to take the roof off this attack.
Fulham absolutely have to try Rodrigo Muniz at striker. The other guys simply don’t work and Muniz at least played amazing vs Spurs in the Cup. Vinicius and Jimenez have combined for 0.2 xG/90 so far.
Joao Palhinha was outrageous in terms of ball-winning in the middle of the pitch: 10 tackles won, 5 interceptions and 11 ball recoveries. Peak Kante numbers. He wasn’t one of Fulham’s top 5 players in any ball progression metrics, which I think is a near-requirement to be a positive player at a top, top club but for Fulham, against Brighton, winning the ball back 20-25 times is simply amazing.
Aston Villa 3, Luton 1
Villa generally aren’t so active pressing high and not among the highest in terms of long possessions but vs Luton they were. They tore apart Luton on the counter while allowing nothing at all in return, and wound up blocking half of Luton’s 6 shots anyway. A dismantling from Villa, who continue to bolster their stock.
Zaniolo took 5 shots and completed 6 passes before being pulled at the half…those are basically Callum Wilson numbers.
Very weird average touch location for Villa
Pau Torres is top shelf against teams like Luton generally, can you fully trust him when he goes up against Nunez, Haaland, etc when he will have to do more traffic defending in the box?
Everton 1, West Ham 0
An even, dull game between teams aware the other wants to bait the opponent into committing too much but in the end wound up with neither able to reach the Danger Zone with regularity. West Ham’s have yet to show any ability to dominate a game when they have more of the ball and this was no different. League Cup, Europea League, Luton Town and more make it a trend.
In a rarity for a Dyche team a CM led the team in progression, and in a double rarity also led in efficiency. Generally central midfielders don’t have tons of options in a Dyche attack, passing between CMs is usually frowned upon but Amadou Onana is putting together an impressive attacking season.
Arsenal 5, Sheffield United 0
Basically learned nothing from this game. Sheffield United are not even close to a competitive side and they showed nothing, Arsenal’s attack remains well off the pace for a team with their ambitions. Backup players like Havertz and Smith-Rowe got basically a helpless opponent to show their stuff and showed very little (particularly Smith-Rowe).
Liverpool 3, Nottingham Forest 0
Not much to learn here either, Forest’s recent mini-resurgence ran into a storm of transition attacking brilliance. Nunez is one of the best attacking forwards in the world, a force of nature and while Szoboszlai (deservedly, most attacking buildups in the league) got the midfield plaudits, Mac Allister works really well with him.
Tsimikas has basically been just a guy hanging out while his buddies get all the work done his first two games back.
Liverpool’s metrics have been so odd in the early going, they have remained a team tough to analyze at times. There’s a reasonable chance they are just the 2nd best team in the league and have one of the best attacks in the world.
Bournemouth 2, Burnley 1
In a battle of two of the softest teams in the league (bullied on sets and in the air, bad giveaways, losing duels, can be cut open on transition) it came down to an awful giveaway by Burnley for the opening goal and an awful giveaway by Burnley for Biling to score from 40 yards to win it. Enormous 3 points for Bournemouth for their season, but to remain 18th in progression efficiency against Burnley at home is not ideal.
Team of the Week
CB Cristian Romero, Tottenham (5)
CB Fabian Schär, Newcastle
CB Pau Torres, Aston Villa (2)
CB Jarrad Branthwaite, Everton (2)
CB Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool (4)
RB Kyle Walker, Man City
LB Oleksandr Zinchenko, Arsenal
CM Rodri, Man City (5)
CM Dominik Szoboszlai, Liverpool (2)
CM Joao Palhinha, Fulham
AM Cole Palmer, Chelsea
AM Bernardo Silva, Man City (2)
LW Kaoru Mitoma, Brighton (3)
RW Phil Foden, Man City (2)
FW Ollie Watkins, Aston Villa (3)
FW Darwin Nunez, Liverpool (2)
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