Welcome to the double pivot the world's most agreeable soccer analytics podcast. That's really just about Manchester City I am Michael Kaylee and I was talking about different things. Yeah Chelsea pot on the way We're gonna figure out when to do that I think the evolution of their season has been interesting But fundamentally if you do analytics and you watch soccer closely and I'm sorry we do the latter as well Like there is nothing more interesting crazier going on in world football than man City playing badly as I said in my expecting goals newsletter We just haven't seen a Pep Guardiola team actually played badly for well over a decade The only time to kind of see the Pep Guardiola team play badly were when his Bayern teams had already won the league in March and were playing out the string That's it. That's it And they just threw it everton and it's an interesting game to talk about because like I think is trying stuff And it's not working and I just wanted to do it some more and that's what a podcast is certainly over the holidays That's what our podcast is.
So I'm joined by my good and we're talking about man City Let's do it the music around the way as well or please down subscribe It's about this is patreon.com slash double baby coming out in the discord where everybody is chatting about their various holiday stuff I've seen all sorts of threads about you know the books we got this Christmas and or Hanukkah classical cool stuff going on But not a cool stuff going on with the blue side Manchester who baby? I mean I'm happy it is really it is like super amusing though Like so I don't come through Manchester City Arsenal Chelsea with three draws three points absolutely brilliant I am thrilled but like especially Arsenal and especially especially Manchester City They were not like good at dacey and defensive performances. They were decidedly worse and they got away with it and against Manchester City It was an interesting day now because Manchester City were clearly significantly better than Everton and they have you know penalty saves by Pickford which is really sort of the the cherry on top everton's got way more value for their shots by getting a Gold than you would expect but also Manchester City weren't great But then also also they weren't great and interesting so I think you put all that together. We've more than enough to talk about Absolutely, but to continue our little bonus deep blue something pod and you can go to patreon.com That's not living in a full deep blue something everton pod Everton really did I think do the dish defensive thing against Arsenal and to a meaningful degree against Chelsea like they were not better than Arsenal There are many versions of that game that they lose I think they could see the 13 shots.
Yeah 13 shots one and a half roughly xg Like it was okay. It was like the problem is that they had two shots for 0.17 on the other end of the spectrum So like right they're playing Arsenal. They're decidedly worse than Arsenal But they were okay Yeah And so I think that the the interesting way in and you know We're gonna put a bracket on the Chelsea game because we're gonna come back around to Chelsea at some point in the near future Is that there are versions of talking about this match where it's where like it does look like a similar kind of match to those like you know they got 0.7 xg which is pretty the midpoint of the two and They only conceded like 1.3 non penalty xg and the penalty was just kind of a dumbass Stick your foot in tackle at the edge of the penalty here It's not like this was some huge chance. They had to stop at a foul.
No, I mean, that's true And you where it's different is you look at the shot map. I'm interested in 24 shots Yep, and having 24 shots for 1.3 non penalty xg is kind of fascinating Um, it is absolutely what Shondite wants his opponents to do when he's playing this way right that like everything dropped deeper and deeper and more contained and more contained and Back four turns into a back six and you are really really really trying to have a tight compact deep shape That your opponent cannot pressure cannot cannot pressurized and cannot pry apart And so they are reduced to taking shots from outside of that. Uh, it is very old school at the same time one notable thing about this game and this is sort of my you know pivot to city is that Everton had between 20 to 25% possession against arsenal and Chelsea They really just sat in their block the entire time They had 35% possession against man city This was a lot of it was in their defensive half But they had a fair amount of just unpressured possession in the middle of the pitch And that's not something that arsenal or Chelsea allow you to do And that's something that kept where the old is an end city team just allows teams to do at this point Yeah, I mean they are not a good pressing team Um We've talked a lot about rogerry. I'm part of it is rogerry Uh, look you put early on the top of the city of our house that great presser Um They are not an athletic team even when they put athletic wingers on the field and the interior of the team is not athletic and then You know, you have sort of every point on the team Chose in craft on the ball over athleticism and That's a choice that can work I think that choice has been aided by the fact that Teams have been very willing to be pressed by Manchester City when Manchester City was great over the last few years And they are no longer willing to be pressed And I think that that that There is clearly a deterioration of talent level at city but then On top of that, I think you have this sort of second order of fact happening Yes, average and completed about 80 percent of their pass against city while on the season they've completed about 76 percent Crystal palace completed about 75 compared to an 75 percent average night and forest likewise.
These teams are Men's city are making these teams play at their average possession level Rather than what you would expect from a team that presses You know driving it down forcing this team to have less of the ball and this is even in games where they were Like trying they were fighting for a result for most of the game And nonetheless their opposition was able when you would expect them to ratchet up the press at least one or two more Steps and they just don't have that ratchet with this with with this personnel and So One thing that's going on right now. I don't I think we're entirely before it's not clear to me that shows that that that city are pressing less So much as them getting punched in the face a couple of times Seems to have opened the Premier League's eyes to the fact that they aren't actually but they were never pressing that much It's been several years since this has really been a high pressing team It's tricky because like you would not describe them as a high pressing team How would you describe Manchester City defensive? It's right because like what you what we've had to experience for years has been you just don't describe Manchester City defensively That's right. Like Manchester City defensively.
Well, that's when they get the ball and they pass around the back forever That's how they defend but that starts with they get the ball and they just always got the ball And I think we're talking about it was during it was it was a covid era They were the first teams to really go struggle ball their pressures went way down their opposition pass completion went up And yet they still just got to have the ball when they want it And I think this is what we're getting at right like teams when when Manchester City would concede possession Teams would try to attack them quickly and directly because that's what you do You when you have a high possession team that has been attacking you for a long time They are theoretically out of position and you are supposed to go over the top of all those bodies and attack quickly and directly And what ends up happening here seems just over and end up like attacking into the teeth of the five guys Because they just have an extra player back because what they've been doing with their possession is creating chances without bringing those extra bodies forward and part of the the evolution to early Holland is that you Like in a really real way been building a broken team in which you use holland at the front end To create chances without extra people right and then at the back and but then holland doesn't have to press because there's no defense So the back and you just have the five guys waiting for the to receive the ball and cut out the outlet And there has been no real sense until the last two months of teams trying specifically to counter that Yeah, and the presents are plus plus to be fair Roger like Roger was the string between the two broken ends right and Now string gets cut and teams are like oh wait We can just like play three passes in our own half and keep the ball and then figure out what we want to do and so it can't stop it and Having that having happened seems like oh, you know We had really do this and then they can pick their spot to go right off the gut where there is no And so what city have mostly been doing is playing just incredibly controlled football They have been having they have really been You saw this especially against villa and united those those most those two most recent losses And you vey to a great degree as well in the champions league they Had the ball and they did fucking nothing with it and his team said though. They've been what he's been running out He's changed his shape a little bit. He's playing really as a four one four one And it's a four one four one where rico lewis talks from one of the full back possessions into midfield And what he's mostly been doing in most of these games is he's been playing one winner And this is something that pep has traditionally done looking for control in all sorts of different arrangements of talent You play Bernardo Silva as a winner and so you play Bernardo Silva as a winner And then he is doing a lot of defensive work and getting inside and he's not really available as a wing out He certainly isn't running behind the defense, but that's okay Because he helps you control the ball and full phone continues to play an inside role in those two behind the striker when he plays Then you have one winger whether it's greelish or folk or doku or savia you got one winner And that certainly does allow for control, but they've been doing nothing but the last two games against villa and united Each game they had just five completed passes into the penalty area Like they just haven't been moving the ball forward well at all They're not getting controlled passes into the penalty area Like this is like basic stuff like the whole you know You described have already all the football back in the like late 2000s and What it was was obviously there's all of that possession stuff But it's all geared toward getting lots of possession in really dangerous areas and getting shots from the center of the penalty area Getting high quality shots like is something I think it didn't it didn't come from the statistical revolution It came from these teams learning from pep and then in different ways from other managers that those are the valuable shots That sort of precedes people doing xg people focusing on high xg shots came first I think and his team is just isn't doing that at all up until I think this last week The other part of this is Look how it's been digging a ton of shots Until this last week and then all of a sudden the shots drop precipitously and maybe it's nothing maybe it's two games But it's like I think right so the the shift to this super controlled setup Is again is after the four o to spurs that you have the five nord match in the champions again That's the first match we tries to out the four one four one and in that match he's using I believe I don't know he had two wingers in that four one four one. That was a relatively uncontrolled four one four one Manus is one of the wingers, right, right, but you should actually playing To be fair it is hard to tell Whether he's playing as a winger because he's supposed to be playing as a winner or whether he's supposed to be doing something more controlled But you put me on the way Yeah, he's just not a controlled player like he made no sense for that team from the start given what they were looking for and They were as I think we talked about quite good in that game until they brought on the subs and then they got absolutely crush And like there's a mix two big mistakes They make just a couple of like they get punished really badly for them I think there was a fair amount of good in that match and then from there they dial back the control They dial into control and that's exact it's a fine or match is the last match where Erling Holland has a big game Since then it's been two or three shots bring in the last three matches He has two non penalty shots in three matches.
One thing I'd say here is It has been a very conscious choice by Guardiola To limit holland to doing like the goal getting and nothing else. Mm-hmm. You didn't do that You didn't do that. It sells right like he was a dominant player in the final third and every part of the game And I think there are legitimate reasons why why Guardiola decided to do this And you could see them over the last two and a half years when this team was sort of like flying at its highest But If you're not creating to get the ball to holland like the first thing you can do It's free holland to go get the ball And they have it like for all that peck is reaching around for answers and solutions and stuff.
That hasn't changed Yeah, and I certainly wonder to what degree that's also because holland is a risk-taking player when he gets on the ball Yes 100 percent if you get him on the ball in midfield, he's going to either try to run the man He's gonna try to take an aggressive pass I'm like he had big passing numbers in the Bundesliga because he made those aggressive passes and they came off But they are aggressive passes It's true, but like there's no reason why especially by the way He said you want to be playing without traditional like overlapping fullbacks Why there is no reason why they could not be relying more on harlins to do stuff like say harry gain is done in the latter part of this career Where you play in those athletic wingers or like the only real athletes they have on this team challenging a backlight Like you can just do that. Yeah, this is this is holland's role has not changed And and that that is interesting sort of what he's willing to to play with and what he isn't I do think the effort to match was different because the every match it was two wingers It was Savio and Doku and there's some really striking numbers here along with the 23 shots, which is you know They've not been getting that many shots. They also played 19 passes into the penalty So like almost double what they have in the previous two matches and here's a wild set This is one that sort of captured for me. What I felt I was seeing watching this game Is they had 2.3 expected assists That is not expected goals assisted but expected assists exactly and they and they had only 1.0 expected goals So the passes that they completed into dangerous areas would Be modeled to have produced shots worth 2 2 and a half xg And they produce only 1 2.3 expected goals assisted is the most expected goals assisted city it had since the South Hampton match Since this all went to cramp.
I mean I do think there's like There's like the unholy mixture here of Manchester City and Shandai just everton right because unquestionably a lot of those passes Were less dangerous than they would be on average because there were more ever to defenders behind the ball than you would expect on average Because they were made before the defense had been unsettled rather than after Because there are not a lot of teams that will drop as deep and as compact as Shandai just willing to let ever to drop So I think there's some of that But I do think that there's also some of like I mean, I do think that some of this was just kind of variants I think some of this was like Phil Houghton didn't really seem like he had a very good game for example I also think some of it is like I'm not sure how good those coins have been you are We gotta be careful with things like expected assists, right? We don't know like It's a little bit like like post-shot extreme We just don't really know how to pry it apart and analyze it and what's sticky and what's not just all of that but then Also, like they can do a very good job of turning those passes shots like talked about this is one of the first matches where It was like why isn't early Holland doing something here, man? Like some of the other matches and this we talked about this Before like what do you do when you're saying a striker isn't getting shots because the attack isn't getting there Yeah, and That's an interesting intellectual question of what we talked about Holland from the previous matches Here the attack got there. He didn't get shots Right I just kind of think that that will happen for a game especially against a team like Everton If they continue getting the ball in the penalty area and they continue not to be efficient getting shots like that Very worrisome, but I just kind of think that's what happened I mean one of the like benefits of being a good player on a good team is that usually you have a bad game And you have an opportunity to have a good game the next thing Heck you could have sort of a penalty One of the challenges of being a good player to bad team is like maybe you only really have an opportunity one out of every three games To have a good game And you still have to like to put up numbers like If you don't put up numbers in that game, you gotta wait a while for another check shot at it And those other games you're trying to put up the best numbers you can and less add into situations Now good players do that right like good players through it all You know, they get Better stats than bad players in the less advantageous situations And they get better stats than bad players in the more advantageous situations They do it And like Holland is still like one of the top couple of scores in the Premier League right like he's still putting up huge numbers by and large But it is a weird theme to be like oh, yeah, he had a bad he clearly had bad game against Everton Is he gonna have an opportunity to have a really good game next week or Saturday, right?
That's never been the question for Holland on city and now it is and that is gonna affect your stats downward As a result of city being not as well It's one of those hard things to piece apart and someone could try to write a newsletter on things like this I'm trying to Is the the team effects on player shot statistics? It is very obvious that when players go to teams that have more attacking firepower And then they are one of four guys getting shot instead of one of three and the ball is in the penalty area much more There's a lot more field till all of these different things it leads to on average more shots for those players and You expect this when you project players as they move teams and we want to be more tactical about it And so when we talk about players not getting service to something that's really really true, right? Like most all I get's more shots at Liverpool. They got at Roma and you got a lot of shots at Roma, but then you got more at Liverpool and this this happens relatively regularly but It's also the case that there is sort of a limit to this like one of the reason we talk about like a player not getting service as being Sort of a bullshit excuse is that you should be getting something right If you're not getting any shots off over a period of time That is a problem with you The team that has to be like if the team literally never has the ball in the penalty Like okay, like the other team is just being utterly swift.
That's not actually happened That doesn't happen in the game of football like there's always some amount of chances for players to cash in and so What we do when I talk about like oh, we don't like make an excuse out of not getting service It doesn't mean there are team effects. It means that at the very bottom end You're talking about something that's going wrong. I think that like the last couple games I use what's going on with Holland like Holland is really not has really not been performing for a couple of matches for city You know, I think we talked about like I think just a lot of his career is really interesting to analyze a long spectrum Right because he's at Fiorentina and he's throwing a bunch of goals And we're looking at him like he's like in that many shots. He's scoring a lot of penalties I understand that like there's there's some things to like here for sure But I would be worried that he's not there yet as a as a top level striker and even just go and buy him and he said good you bet this at all for about 18 months and one of the things People say at the beginning is well, you can't expect him to be good because max electric and it was like well Not really and if you can't expect him to be good because max electric Why are you buying him in the first place for like lots of money?
and then as time goes on it's still max electric and then it's still a mother who's like just as much of a terrorist and He gets more shots because he develops as a player and he gets better and you know the things that were there to like in the scouting Gets the ball really really hard like really really hard Turned into more and better shots as he became a older more to our better player and learn how to get more shots And like that's all that's like how it's supposed to work But it wasn't like downstream of service in that case, right? He develops despite the service issues such as they were remaining what relatively cost it for Holland at city Having a couple of bad names at the worst possible time is like the perfect expression of what's going on with city That sort of when it rains it pours I would expect him to do better The thing that I'm really interested in is whether pep persists with this less controlled Way of playing that they showed against Everton with this higher degree of risk taking I think it's more likely to be good I think that this was much closer to being good than what they showed against Villa and united and Juventus where it was really pretty sad the whole time But like is he just going to say well That was it is he either going to say well that didn't work back to control We gave up we gave up a couple of breaks and they really did give up several breaks every time It's not just an enjai goal Or was that simply something he would do against a shun nice team with very few good attackers And he's just not going to do that against other teams That's my guess But like we're totally uncharted completely uncharted technically I also sort of think there's like What I'm trying to figure out what Guardiola is going to do Part of me also is like Which of the players are going to start playing well under the various varieties of this right like Sifino And Doko Like they've now started to have limited moments of like two wingers like air it out a little bit guys Let's go and they have a play grid They play okay, but then you haven't seen a lot of performances from them that are like Insistent on being given free rain more Although conversely when they've played more controls Terrible here, right? None of the midfielders whether it's covid itch Whether it's it's it's um whoever comes in off whether it's we go Lewis sort of in this role like Whether it's part of someone who's also not really having great here Like when they play the more controlled versions none of them are like Stepping up to fill the Kevin de Bruyne in their shapes void despite Kevin de Bruyne technically not being hurt and available for selection So I part of me thinks that what's happening here is like Guardiola is searching for What's going to dictate how he ends up overing this team is like who is eventually going to elevate themselves in a role They are presented with and so far like all of it has been like kind of big wet fart toys Like there's just not a lot of anybody elevating their performances in the sort of injury driven opportunities given to that Body all might be the only exception to that. Yeah, and he's even sort of defensive like It's hard to see where it comes from de Bruyne is still producing shots when he plays But he's clearly like he must be very limited in the number of minutes that he can reasonably play And I do think everything about the shots seems really physically diminished You cannot think of a single time where he has picked up the ball and driven forward since he's come back from injury He is still incredibly effective in and around the final throw without a doubt, but like One of the things that they did when they in a previous iteration of struggles to get out of it Was basically played direct ball to de Bruyne at Holland as a top two And and to certain extent Julian Alvarez would fill in there as like the backup for either role And it does not seem like de Bruyne physically has that in him anymore Yeah, he could either stretch the back line running behind or pick up the ball and run a harder defender and beat them And it's already not remembered as part of his aim, but like He was incredibly good athlete and like strong like ox ball carrier If you just like look at him physically to ignore the fact he's a ginger he's like big for a football player That's the thing he's like 5-11 like in the role of like technical 10 He's bulky.
Yeah, I wouldn't say he's like he was like open field fast But he was very strong and agile on the ball and like it was really really hard to deal with him running at you And that just doesn't seem to be there, right? And obviously I am a broken record on this, but one thing they haven't tried is feel potent as a winner true it really is true and like part of me feels like You remember the Liverpool season where they got hurt and I had a straight to fourth and they had no centerbacks, right? And so what they ended up doing for a while was like to be new into a Henderson like started games as the center back pairing Because their backups were better and then eventually I was like enough of this garbage I'm gonna put the good midfielders back in midfield. I'm gonna play with play.
Don't be wrong Truly terrible centerbacks like leave one quality centerbacks But it is better to do that than have like good midfielders be bad center Exactly and playing worse midfielders at the same time, right? And like I wonder if that's like what's going on with voting and the way right now as you move here internally and like Maybe they'd be better off with playing like worse midfielder in midfield and feel floating on the way Or maybe not maybe like whatever's been going on with voting would affect him out there too I don't know He's just he's at point two xg and he's actually a bad finishing season, which is kind of funny after last season Like you're just not getting the shots from him and if he's not substituting shots and no one is substituting shots and Yeah, I don't know like it's just it's wild to watch them Do different things as Everton match was a different thing the like extreme control for one for one has been a different thing after Violinord and they keep that working and it's fascinating. I mean, it's like Whatever you have these things. It's a perfect storm, right?
And it's certainly a perfect storm of play bad run bad Crucial injury overall talent level stealthily declining like it's been all of these things But watching all of these things interact is like this unique and terrible beautiful flower Like like all of these interactions play off of each other in really fascinating ones Yeah And so we're coming into a transfer window office say this is you know This is double pivot sweet spot stuff And my guess is that they're going to do everything they can to find a new field controller I think they need two things. I think they need a field controller for sure I think you want a guy who can just play a lot of passes in the field um Ideally, right? You want somebody who like next jerry would play Possibly alongside rogerine as well as in addition to him, you know as well as as his replacement But then I also think they need a shotgun winner. That's the other thing um if it's not gonna be phone you need some right right now the options they have for wingers are controlled possession and Shot creating box attack They don't have a guy who can be a secondary shot getter And they don't have a guy anywhere on the field except for deprena in his limited minutes Who is really playing as a secondary shotgun?
Um, so like those would be the things I would be looking at them looking for Yeah I they really do need a mid field controller like we joke about pep just more control more control more control more like you know They are forced into playing rico luis because he can do ball control Even though he takes so much off the table elsewhere They I think that they're starting to give up on ylke gundewon being able to perform at the level he needs to and basically replacing ylke gundewon Somebody who can maybe play at the sixth and push kovich hip hop to do more control Or it's really funny when you think about it, right? Because the two things I said they need were a secondary shot getter and ball control the fielder And those are like the two things that gonna give you like at the end of his healthy career But like when he's on the field he's just not giving you either of those things anymore And I think that we'll learn a lot from what kind of attacker they target Like maybe they'll do a bad job, but I don't have a really clear sense of what kind of attacker they're going to want to get I assume they're gonna try to want to get someone I also just don't know how they do business in january They've never really done it before yeah Like the most like notable stuff they do is like gotten rid of council because he was being kind of a dick And they didn't want a barrier And they've actually done the thing where they like Me do with a guy for six months and then got him out in january Much more than they've ever like we need to like Qualitatively improve our team so we're going to add players like they give them money to do if they want to do it But yeah, maybe those ones like for make sense because kovich is a limited time proposition and boondewan is pretty cooked They're gonna need someone backing up and helping out rogeri so you'd think they'd do it But nothing's been clearly reported here. We're working off speculation Right. I'm saying yeah, I think we need to try our hardest to do something So I don't know man Yeah, I got my pep at minimum is signaling to manchester city authorities that he expects them to do something But it's like a weird time right because it's also like the front office is outgoing They're leaving big airstands out going and who knows where they'll be next season There's a very weird time for manchester city without a doubt Well, we we'll be back with more podcast We've got a couple of moose's planned on some interesting players and some interesting questions about player evaluation And yeah, more sotter comment more more That was Getting uh, you know, he's coming back this weekend too.
Some some big games in Italy as well You can get a podcast on on Syria. Ah, you can go back and check that out and yeah catch all of those cereal returning games off paramount plus Cheers y'all