The English Football Thread

[Vesper 28,833]

On 22/09/2024 at 19:36, Sir Mikel OBE said:

City has won the league.

Perhaps not

Rodri out for the season 

He is, even more than Håland, their most important player, and perhaps the Ballon d'Or winner.

[KEVINAA 98]

Gareth Southgate to Everton

 

 

[MoroccanBlue 5,304]

23 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

And this is exactly what happened... Arsenal is really useless if they don't use this and take title. By far most important City player.

Arsenal are also losing their most important player for a few months though in Odegaard. 

[Vesper 28,833]

Manchester City’s bleating is laughable – did they expect Arsenal to just roll over?

Champions’ hypocritical complaints at title rival’s use of the ‘dark arts’ reveal how much Mikel Arteta’s side have got under their skin

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/09/23/man-city-bleating-joke-did-they-expect-arsenal-roll-over/

https://archive.ph/FsCqt

What is the appropriate response to the prospect of playing for 55 minutes against Manchester City, at the Etihad Stadium, with 10 men? 

In the eyes of Pep Guardiola’s players, it seems, the dignified approach would be to roll over and simply wait for the thrashing to begin.

 

To actually defend your own goal? To slow down the match? To do everything in your power to cling on to your lead? Based on the response of the City players to Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal, such tactics are nothing but an insult to the beautiful game. “There was only one team that came to play football,” claimed an indignant Bernardo Silva.

 

Evidently, Bernardo and his team-mates preferred it when Arsenal responded to a red card by staging a comical defensive meltdown at the Etihad, as they did in August 2021. 

 

On that occasion, Arsenal lost Granit Xhaka to a first-half red card and went on to lose 5-0. Safe to say, there were few complaints that day about Arsenal’s tactical approach.

 

Clearly, there is a belief within the City dressing room that Arsenal are morally compelled to play Guardiola’s side at their own game. To attack, to open up, to trade punch for punch and see who triumphs.

City players need to wake up to reality

It is a nice idea but it is not one that is rooted in footballing reality, where Mikel Arteta and his players must operate. 

 

From the moment Leandro Trossard was shown a red card on Sunday, Arsenal’s only obligation was to grit their teeth and make the second half as challenging as possible for their opponents.

 

 

In an ideal world, Arteta would no doubt have loved to play City off the park at the Etihad, to defeat his old mentor with a flowing passing game. This was not an ideal world, though. Not only because of Trossard’s dismissal, but also because Arsenal arrived in Manchester without Martin Odegaard, their most important figure and the playmaker through which their entire game flows.

 

At which point, City supporters will likely point out that Kevin De Bruyne was missing for the hosts. The difference here is that De Bruyne’s understudy is Ilkay Gundogan, while Odegaard’s deputy is 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri. Gundogan has the same number of trophies on his CV as Nwaneri has senior minutes on his.

 

As the debate has raged over the past 24 hours, Arsenal supporters have been understandably quick to point out that their team were, for years, accused of being too soft on occasions such as these. Now they are maligned for being too nasty. Those fans, and certainly Arteta himself, would much rather draw ugly than lose pretty.

City no strangers to the ‘dark arts’

The bleating of City’s players is especially hard to stomach because it suggests that Guardiola’s squad believe themselves to be the high priests of all that is right with the sport. Which, frankly, is a laughable notion. Yes, City play fabulous attacking football, but they are just as streetwise and cynical as any team in the division.

 

To accuse Arsenal of being masters of the “dark arts” is to ignore City’s own excellence in this field. One of the defining features of their success under Guardiola, for example, has been their ability to make tactical fouls. In 2019, Rodri said he had learnt “tactical fouling” under Guardiola’s management.

 

This is not to criticise City for such antics. All of the top teams are at it, all of the time. That is simply the nature of elite-level football in the modern game. Indeed, Arsenal have been on the other side of this particular stylistic fence, and will be again at various points of this season. Last December, at home to West Ham United, Arteta’s side lost 2-0 against a team who had just 26 per cent of possession.

 

The West Ham manager that day was David Moyes, who has always seen beauty in these spirited defensive stands. On punditry duty with BeIn Sports on Sunday, Moyes described Arsenal’s performance as a “brilliant, brilliant defensive job”. Moyes, lest we forget, was Arteta’s manager for six years at Everton.

 

From Arsenal’s perspective, the complaints of City’s players will be regarded as evidence that they have truly got under the skin of their opponents. This could be seen at the full-time whistle, when a furious Erling Haaland told Arteta to “stay humble” and then called Gabriel Jesus a “f------ clown”.

 

Haaland tells Arteta to 'stay humble'

Watch as City striker goads Arteta and argues with Gabriel Jesus

Read more

 

 

 

Gone are the days when City would patronise Arsenal after thumping them on the pitch. Now, there is genuine needle and pettiness in this rivalry, with Bernardo pictured making a “zero” gesture with his hands, seemingly in reference to the number of league titles won by Arteta’s Arsenal.

 

Whether that changes this at the end of this season, of course, remains to be seen. There is a long way to go. But the Arsenal of 2024 know where they want to be, and they are evidently willing to get there in any way they can - whether the neutrals, pundits or their opponents like it or not.

 

[Vesper 28,833]

https://www.vipleague.pm/football-sports-stream

• Аrsеnаl – Bоltоn Wаndеrеrs
  England. League Cup / 25 September at 19:45
• Lіvеrрооl – Wеst Hаm Unіtеd
  England. League Cup / 25 September at 20:00

 

https://top.soccerstreams100.io/

Edited September 25 by Vesper

[Laylabelle 9,359]

Easy win for both...Sterling and Harvetz on ole Arsenal's score sheets boo

[NikkiCFC 7,953]

About to start.

 

[Reddish-Blue 2,347]

Some decent fixtures:
Tottenham v City

Brighton v Liverpool

Wimbledon/Newcastle vs us 

[Strike 7,217]

Possibly away at Newcastle in the League Cup

Spurs v City, Brighton v Liverpool

[Vesper 28,833]

[Vesper 28,833]

wish to hell it was (if NUFC beat Wimbledon) not up in St James Park

that is a bogey pitch for us

and for away fans if is a fucking nightmare stadium

[NikkiCFC 7,953]

Well rotate attack and GK but we need starting midfield and defense for this one. 

[Vesper 28,833]

[Blue Armour 4,289]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

Ballack, Makelele and Carvalho. Chelsea were hard to beat during that decade they were there.

[Vesper 28,833]

Five tactical takeaways from the Premier League’s first five weekends

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5793283/2024/09/26/premier-league-takeaways-five-games/

It is unwise to draw firm conclusions about your Premier League team in the early weeks of the season.

While it might be premature to spot any statistical trends, that doesn’t stop us from identifying some fun quirks that have stood out. As luck would have it, each of the five teams in question finished outside the top five positions in the Premier League last season. Don’t you love the symmetry? 

From West Ham United’s woes to Fulham’s flanks and a word from the xG gods, let’s dive in: feast your eyes on five tactical takeaways from the first five weekends.

Arise, the kick-off kings

Brentford are known for innovation. The club is built on finding value where no one else can, and their latest unveiling has been their front-foot approach to kick-offs.

Thomas Frank’s side started at a blistering pace in their last two games, with strikes from Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo against Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur the fastest back-to-back opening goals in Premier League history. 

Brentford are the poster boys for set-piece creativity and Frank’s team have clear patterns in their sequences — from throw-in mastery to corner routines that would not be out of place in an NFL playbook. Now they can add kick-offs to that list.

This is shown below across those two games, where a near-identical pattern sees Mikkel Damsgaard pass to goalkeeper Mark Flekken, who plays a diagonal pass to Kristoffer Ajer to win first contact. 

GO DEEPER

How do Premier League teams kick off games in 2024-25?

Against both sides, this led to a scruffy battle for the second ball — hence the breaking of the sequence — but there is method in Brentford’s approach as they build from there.

“Of course, we work on kick-offs,” Frank said in the press conference after the Spurs game. “Some of it is the ball forward but it is also what we do on the second balls, where we position ourselves, and what we do after that.

“Every set piece we see as an opportunity, so it was well worked by the team and the coaches. It’s one of the more difficult to score from but we see it as a set-play situation we can set up and control as much as possible.” 

GO DEEPER

The shuffle, the smokescreen, the flick - analysing Brentford's creative corners

Surely, they couldn’t make it a third in a row against West Ham on Saturday? Keep an eye out from the first whistle.

Jackson benefitting from statistical variance

Last season, Nicolas Jackson’s output could have been filed in a similar category to Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez. Strong physical attributes but finishing needed refinement.

Fourteen league goals in Jackson’s first Premier League campaign was respectable. Only Erling Haaland logged a higher non-penalty expected goals (xG) figure in the Premier League than his 18.6. Unfortunately, that xG underperformance was used as a stick with which to beat him. Only Brennan Johnson of Tottenham Hotspur and Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin underperformed their xG more than he did, scoring nearly five goals fewer than his chances warranted.

Statistical variance suggests Jackson’s underperformance would soon return to typical levels — and that is exactly what has happened this season with four goals in his opening five games. Where last season’s one-v-one chances were previously being saved…

…this season’s Jackson is now emphatically slotting similar efforts with little issue.

Aggregating his shots across his Chelsea career, Jackson’s scoring rate is creeping closer to the quality of chances he has found himself with. Crucially, a 0.24 xG per shot — which measures the average quality of a given chance — is the highest among all players with 50-plus shots since Jackson arrived in the Premier League.

Those are the sort of numbers that make for a sustainable source of goals. The process has always been good, now Jackson’s output looks to be catching up at the same rate.

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Forest’s attacking patterns

Nottingham Forest’s unbeaten start in their opening five games was not on anyone’s bingo card, but Nuno Espirito Santo has established a clear way of playing built on the foundations laid by Steve Cooper.

In particular, the pace of Anthony Elanga, Callum Hudson-Odoi, and Morgan Gibbs-White provide a strong counter-attacking threat when Forest burst forward, with the trio able to drag their team upfield at speed when Forest regain possession in their own third.

It makes sense to utilise the strengths of such strong ball-carriers, but Forest’s sharp, one-touch passing has also caught the eye — enabling them to pierce opposition defences with neat “up-back-and-through” principles.

The pattern is simple but effective. The ball is played “up” to a forward who drops it “back” to a team-mate to play it “through” to a runner ahead of the ball. This can be seen in the sequence for Forest’s opening goal against Bournemouth…

…. and was on show again last weekend against Brighton. Note Chris Wood’s run towards the ball drags Brighton centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke out of position, allowing Gibbs-White to play the ball through to Jota Silva.

Good summer business and a full pre-season has helped Nuno instil his ideas in and out of possession, as Forest look to cement themselves as a Premier League side. 

GO DEEPER

Confidence. Trust. Details: How Nuno is transforming Nottingham Forest

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West Ham have lost their counter-attacking threat

In contrast to Forest’s approach, West Ham United’s new era under Julen Lopetegui has seen them stray from the counter-attacking style that was their biggest strength.

Fans often wrestled with David Moyes’ pragmatic-yet-effective counter-attacking football that would see their side stay compact for long stretches before springing forward with pace.

Last season, only Liverpool, Arsenal, and Aston Villa scored more than West Ham’s 12 goals from direct attacks — possessions starting in the defensive half and leading to a shot or touch inside the opposition penalty area within 15 seconds — as Moyes’ side packed a punch in those transitional moments.

However, that approach has all but disappeared. West Ham have attempted just eight direct attacks this season — the fewest in the league — as they search for an identity under Lopetegui.

Tough opening fixtures have complicated the transition towards a new style, but playing against Chelsea, Manchester City and Aston Villa should provide even more reason to keep a resolute, deeper block and exploit spaces when possible. Against elite sides, playing a high line with little pressure on the ball is nothing short of tactical suicide — as West Ham have found out in recent weeks.

It is the first time in their history West Ham have suffered three consecutive home defeats at the start of a league season. 

GO DEEPER

Julen Lopetegui is right - he and West Ham need to do better. This was another bleak display

Patience is required as the quality in the squad will undoubtedly shine through, but some of the early-season performances have highlighted that there is plenty of work to be done in transforming West Ham’s style, both in and out of possession.

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Fulham wide connections are strong

Fulham’s opening goal against Newcastle would not have been an unfamiliar sighting at Molineux circa 2019, as former Wolves pair Adama Traore and Raul Jimenez linked up for a well-worked crossing sequence.

Crossing has been a cornerstone of Fulham’s play under Marco Silva, with only Luton Town averaging more open-play crosses than Fulham’s 14.1 per 90 minutes last season.

Silva’s wide play has taken on a new form with Traore building a strong relationship with full-back Kenny Tete and midfielder Andreas Pereira on Fulham’s right flank. Having started only one Premier League game in 2023-24, Traore is building momentum and reminding fans of his quality with consistent minutes after an injury-played campaign.

Those micro-networks have been crucial for Fulham, as shown in their pass connection matrix below. Calvin Bassey playing it to Bernd Leno and Antonee Robinson, and Leno finding Bassey as an immediate option in front of him, stand out (highlighted in red shade). But the frequency of passes between Pereira, Traore and Tete is also clear to see.

The same goes for Fulham’s left wing, where the attacking threat of Robinson and Alex Iwobi has been supercharged by the arrival of Emile Smith Rowe. Two goals and an assist is a great start from the former Arsenal man, and the link-up between the left-side trio was on show again against Newcastle.

With Smith Rowe operating in the left half-space, Iwobi will often drift inside which enables Robinson to overlap (slide two below) and stretch the opposition back line. It was a perfect example of the combination in action as Smith Rowe ran onto Iwobi’s pass to stab home.

It is a pattern spotted by The Athletic earlier this season, this time with Robinson’s run being found by Iwobi who crosses deep to the back post. The man on the end of it? The in-form Traore.

If Fulham are to build on their 13th-placed finish last year, a lot of their success will be down to those networks and relationships forming on both flanks.

Edited September 26 by Vesper

[Vesper 28,833]

Premier League partner Sorare to appear in court over UK Gambling Commission charge

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5796141/2024/09/26/sorare-premier-league-charge-gambling/

Sorare, an official partner of the Premier League, has been charged by the UK Gambling Commission with allegedly “providing unlicensed gambling facilities to consumers in Britain”.

The company will appear at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on October 4 to face the charge.

In January 2023, the Premier League announced a four-year license with Sorare “to release digital cards of players from all 20 Premier League clubs as part of its free-to-play online fantasy football game”. Sorare features on the Premier League’s official website as a partner.

Sorare is a game in which players buy in cryptocurrency, win and manage a virtual team of digital player cards (NFTs, or non-fungible tokens). Its website says users can “compete for more than $15,000,000 in total cash prizes, VIP tickets, signed jerseys and more”.

“Sorare’s digital cards and innovative online game represent a new way for them to feel closer to the Premier League whether they are watching in the stadium or from around the world,” Premier League chief executive Richard Masters commented when the Sorare deal was announced.

The Gambling Commission said in 2021 that it was investigating whether Sorare provided a gambling service and if it therefore needed a license to do so. The Premier League is not commenting following the Gambling Commission’s charge.

GO DEEPER

Sorare: 'An unregulated timebomb' or a fantasy game that will revolutionise football?

Premier League side Liverpool have also previously been partnered with Sorare. The club posted about the partnership as recently as April, but they no longer have a relationship with the French company following the expiration of their deal in May.

Per its website, Sorare also has partnerships with MLS, the Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga, as well as the NBA and MLB.

Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappe is also partnered with the firm and has posted advertisements for it on his social media platforms.

Sorare was founded in Paris in 2018 and claims to have three million users across 180 countries. It also lists former footballers Rio Ferdinand and Gerard Pique among its investors and partners.

“We are aware of the claims made by the Gambling Commission and have instructed our UK counsel to challenge them,” a Sorare spokesperson said. “We firmly deny any claims that Sorare is a gambling product under UK laws. The Commission has misunderstood our business and wrongly determined that gambling laws apply to Sorare. We cannot comment further whilst legal proceedings are underway.”

[NikkiCFC 7,953]

From my understanding this trial has nothing to do with City punishment. It's separate thing.

[Vesper 28,833]

14 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

From my understanding this trial has nothing to do with City punishment. It's separate thing.

yes, completely seperate