My son just handed me a note that says we sold salonky question mark choose. Yes or no You're sold salonky. He thought that as for sold salonky. So is always listening kids man But they're here some stuff.
I was talking about born that's born that sold salonky to spurs hello and welcome to the double pivot The world's most agreeable sock right let's podcast. I'm michael kaley. We are back at you We are in that famous podcasting dead zone about 25 matches into the season where for normal podcasters You can just keep chasing whatever story is going but for us. We are really constrained by our stupid analytics focus The problem is that you add one more match on to a sample of 25 doesn't change it that much even if the forum has changed We're not gonna be chasing forum teams on this podcast Not that much and that makes it hard and so we're working on stuff We can feel the space with working on getting some interesting people on as guests Hopefully that's coming up soon working on like alternate things we can talk about within the larger world of football But today I've said with Mike you're like what are we gonna do?
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait we haven't done a podcast on the top four race. You know, while there's a top four race It's a top five race maybe either way. We've got actually a great sweet spot analytics podcast to do. So here It comes I am joined by my goodman are you excited to break down the Champions League race?
Let's do it the music for the way as well. There's please don't subscribe make us happy podcasters patreon.com slash double bit Come hang out and discord this week in the discord I got all sorts of tips about possibly traveling to Japan from the nerd gaming channel Because that is what we do at our discord. That is a great cultural connection between the the specific channel and the place to get information Yeah, it was wonderful I made a little mental note to myself that I was gonna have to put it in the intro I guess when I saw the discussion But yeah, we have like a pretty fascinating top five race as these things go for this podcast It is absolutely possible that the Premier League could fail to get that fifth spot based on their single season coefficient in the European competitions It is true that last season the Premier League did fail to get that fifth spot because of their performance in the European competitions But last season the German teams had an absolutely spectacular run in All of the competitions and it was only pretty despite that It was only pretty late that the Premier League got knocked out of five. The Premier League is doing better this season Yeah, it's really tough like the numbers are like north of 98 percent.
Yeah, and like last time it was in the low 90s I believe heading up to maybe 95 so it was very very unlikely what happened and if you look at what happened Dortman made the Champions League final it was in fact unlikely But it was significantly more possible even while unlikely last time around right and part of that is like There are already five because of the my system. There are five English teams who have don't have to get knocked Worry about getting knocked out this rat. Yep, six. I guess Chelsea as well in conference.
So that's like a major difference in just like you have The Romans of the world at risk the eventuses of the world at risk an extra time And only man City for England like only man City of all the teams in Europe failed to and maybe the list But like you've only lost one team in that if I remember my fourth the clinching Latin correctly I think the plural of Juventus is you ventus I Let's talk about some Believe that's correct. We will look this up over the course of the podcast and come back to you at the end So the other thing that we're using here along with obviously data from FB ref and some of my own data is that discord member The subscriber Simon tinsley has a great website analytic dash FPL dot stream lit dot app that does projections based on Expected goals numbers. You can you can look at the system that he has built. It is Crucially what I would say about it is it's better than optis and that's why we're gonna use it Nothing about that.
All right, so let's do it in terms of the table rather than in terms of our picks I'd say yeah I think that's probably the way to go. I do we want to just like spend a split second here on the title race Yeah, cuz I think it's just worth pointing out that for all of our civil struggles right now liver pool are not As my entire right or fantasy was like they're not in a great moment just a little bit longer and It is very unlikely that I say so it's very unlikely that our soul win the title It is more likely than people think right now that we will have what feels like a title race in the last six weeks That's sort of where I exactly like one thing that is very possible is that in the next month arsenal start dropping points Because they are so injured and they don't have their best players on the pitch What's happening so far is that also have been so good defensively that they're still not dropping points because they get like a goal Here a goal there and their defense which is still fit. They still have Basically first choice back line nearly and crucially first choice midfield and that makes them a spectacularly good defensive team Even if you put like third choice guys up at the top and that has kept them going It's very possible that the injuries are going to finally bite the points are going to get dropped And it's not going to be a time race But right now it's staying that way and liver pool are not quite pulling away and literally not playing at the same Spectacular level they did for the first several months of the season Yeah, some of the suggestions have about 83 17 and that feels you know sort of of a piece of what we're saying here Okay, but after those two teams all of a sudden we're just in a mess of of top five like contenders and I think You the reason for that as it often is when you have a like a wide open race is that third place nodding and forest in the lead right now on 49 points is the worst of the teams in this mix and Well, who do we think is the best of the teams in this mix? I think it's an open question probably Manchester City, but like I don't know and Simon's system Answer is clearly Manchester City, which I think is also interesting Data point City our team I think who are likely to be better over the back half of the season than they have been at the middle third merely By dint of adding healthy box And perhaps on my motion is very good like that seems quite reasonable exactly if you go by just non penalty XG difference It's pretty close between a couple of teams, but if you expand out to any data about beyond this season, you know History the history the thing about adding far is they just keep like putting points on the board and at some point the points You put on the board are more important than then the fact that you're underlying numbers are not great and we're 25 Gives it to the season and they have a six point lead on fifth place like nine forest are I think pretty clearly and it's not You know who you to trust the numbers or your line eyes like I watch not even for us play football right they play You know, it's not a football and their attackers are not as good as the attackers that he had at wolves And once Chris Wood stops running at two times his XG that attack will fall off a lot They were solidly and clearly outplayed by full on this weekend and the defense is quite good the defense is I think better than those wolves defenses and a number of individual players have been very impressive I think that obviously everyone is Enamored of Mario and I'm very excited about the idea that Rio might actually be good because he's also a lunatic I think Ola Ina has been really fantastic at full back for them play a really traditional Mostly defend but also be able to run up the wing full back while being pretty good at like maintaining possession in the times So they have to maintain possession, but Yes, it's a very good defensive team.
Yes. It's one of the best defensive teams in the league The other thing that has happened is that this defense has fallen off somewhat from being competitive with Liverpool and Arsenal to being Probably ish the third best defense in the league so the defense has fallen off as well I think there's an interesting question here about Horace about At what point they have to be chasing three points versus one point exactly and for a lot of this season You're fine Basically playing for a point against a team that should be better than you and then you fall into three points And then at some point you're in the fourth race and you need three points many weeks and They are not a team that is built to go do that so what if two things is gonna happen either they're gonna get worse as they adjust to the incentives or they won't Adjust to the incentives and they will not be sort of properly weighing winning gate now They couldn't win games anywhere on under that you know under that situation without a doubt But what you're looking at and sort of teams that are built to win games was built to draw and then win if the opportunity presents itself like not even far as they're the latter and I think that that's a problem if you're involved in a top in a race for top five the teams that were going to discuss on this podcast You know Chelsea have well over a thousand more touches in the attacking third on their opposition Manchester City have four thousand more touches in the opposition third on their opposition sure great probably too many honestly that is somewhat too many that is exactly correct and Born with and new castle are close to even in attacking third touches, but how about like small but significant 50ish penalty area touch difference Not even forest their opponents get fourteen hundred more touches in the attacking third than them and 180 more touches in the penalty area than them So they're averaging conceiting maybe like seven eight more touches in the penalty area to their opponent then they get And I think like on an absolute number. This is not a defensive issue defensively This team is very good. It's just they don't have enough attack to keep generating a number of goals that they've generated Which is what's giving them the points to be a third place team right now instead of Surprisingly frisky and didn't that and also Simon's projections have them fourth Right because they've been six point lead 25 games this season big freaking lead Yeah And as we'll get to the crucial thing is that this is a team that we expect of all that this is a team that will start playing worse Almost certainly has started taking fewer points But who's gonna catch them?
And that's where the race gets really interesting because it is not a situation where you look at the teams behind them And you're like well, I've got two teams are absolutely gonna peg them back. I've got one probably in Manchester City I think exactly there's question marks even there, but I mean I think I expect city They're already better than than forest and I expect them to be even better over the you know the remaining third of season than they have And I don't think we need to talk a ton about city We're gonna talk about them at the same way the other anyway We've talked about them a ton this season I think we all know what we're getting, but I think if you ask me who's gonna finish there in the Premier League this year I would say Manchester City and I wouldn't have to think particularly hard. Yeah, I think we can pass over them quite quickly It would be funny if they run into yet another crisis, but the crisis has more or less stabilized with them playing Solid top four five Premier League football, which is a crisis for a man City Pep Guardiola team But this season like no one else is playing solid top four five football in the aggregate and they are which I guess Who should we talk about next? Well, there are two teams on 43 points Both of whom you are surprised are playing borderline top four top five football, but for opposite directions.
Yes So where should we go first? I guess we follow the table. Let's talk about Bournemouth. They're good They're better team than having forest.
This is the version of a Nottingham forest like team Which doesn't have the talent to control matches. This is not a team that has a talent control matches What area has you realized relatively early in his tenure in the Premier League was that playing through the middle of the pitch with a talent? You can afford at Bournemouth is a mistake and you need to find a way to do something other than playing through the middle of the pitch And they've gotten very very good at advancing the ball quickly up the sides and playing a very chaotic back and forth match Where they get a few more touches in dangerous areas in their opposition does and when they get those touches in dangerous areas They're more likely to be getting them in transition than their opposition is and they are really really good at Not even forest are not good enough at at creating goal scoring opportunities from a limited set of touches for a top team Bournemouth conversely are really really good at turning moving the ball into the final third Which they do quite directly into good shots and they do this by overloading the wings and you watch them play It's incredibly apparent that they empty out the middle of the field and move guys over to the wings and then look to create cutback opportunities And it's really well constructed It's a clear plan and it is one that sort of takes advantage of the areas where they can maximize their talents It just works. We're far enough into the season now.
I'm confident. It just works It's coherent. There's nothing in the numbers that suggests. It's not durable.
It's good. It's very good And I think you know right now I would make them Like I think they're about being rich to finish fifth the question as to whether it is but if you buy city like clear third between Bournemouth Chelsea and forest first like those three teams are really really tight for fourth and fifth And then there are a couple of other teams that can climb into the mix and Bournemouth like you want to take a little bit of air out of their numbers I've got a plus five penalty difference again even with some of that air taken out is Just right there over the course of this season with Chelsea and City and even somewhat ahead of Newcastle And what we're doing here when we are projecting them a little bit worse is Regressing to pre-season projections. Yeah, this attack has been so good that like You worry a little bit about it and on top of that like there's a bit of a tactical regression teams that have played with so little control Do tend not to be top four top five it happens sometimes But usually there is a bit more control in these top teams Usually this is a riskier way to play when you need to regularly wrap up three points from the tactical perspective of we need three points verse one You would once again rather be this tactical mix they're not a far tactical mix exactly exactly They play with much less control than forest, but they also do not allow their opponents to play with control Right. I think the way to think of it is Their tactical mix doesn't necessarily increase their EV their point EV against their opposition as compared to forest But their tactical mix probably increases the total amounts of points per game in games.
They play verse forest. Let's trust. Yes What's those core and then they also have much better attacking talent? Clearly, but probably worst defensive what worst defending defensive out on balance Yeah, and obviously the the style that they play chaos maxing even if maybe you'd rather have their center backs Have to do a lot more defending individually than not even for a center backs ever have to do Well, one thing we can also say is In goal I don't know what to say about that, but it is just the case that this season Kevin has been quite good for one of the goal It's solid positive post shot xg in the numbers from from opta.
It Accords with what we're seeing there. They are these stopping shots And I think we talked about a number of their players I think one thing I think it's a little bit fun to mention is the with all of their injuries So they sold salonky they brought in evan ylson who Was pre-mid in portugal and then was pretty mid in the premier league I like which to be fair when you go for being mid in portugal to mid in the premier league you've successfully taken a step up or less Yeah, but then they discovered that dango watara is a good striker Yes, apparently gets lots of shots and then he also gets more touches and dribbles and Watara is a player that I liked as a kind of wing maybe quasi wingback talent because he did so much defending While progressing the ball reasonably well and getting shots and now he's like as a striker I'm very excited about dago watara as a solid champion's league level at minimum swad player for quite a while and based on the The taxle flexibility that he's shown now between striker and wingback ish wing like there's a lot to go for there Yes, absolutely. Um, it's a little bit like the evolution area in calantonia I guess we get to chelsey. Yeah, so we did a podcast on chelsey And what we said in that podcast on chelsey was that chelsey had fallen back to more the level We expected them to be at while at the same time developing a much more normal control team statistical profile And that made them a salt that made them solidly third at the time rather than being in the champions Being in the title race discussion and we said like this could go in a number of directions But we were just gonna bet on the aggregate and it's gone down since then it hasn't been good and I think there's a chicken and egg thing here with colpomer.
Yes, right Do we want to say that the chelsey's profile and chelsey's production have fallen off because colpomer has fallen off? Or do we want to say that colpomer has fallen off because of the general struggles around of the chelsey team around him and I think there are pretty fair arguments in both directions But clearly what you can see is as chelsey struggles have now elongated into a third month here is colpomer's production has decreased From one of the best five players in the world to nearly a pretty good player colpomer through the new year Was playing something in the range of ballon door level football He was getting striker level shots He was assisting superstars 10 level shots and he was doing a good amount of ball carrying ball progression He was not defending but you don't care when you've got a player doing that like and It was chelsey could have an attack that was colpomer colpomer passing the ball to nip jackson and basically nothing else Sometimes don't imagine a and they got more or less nothing from the back seven ends of gets a few shots like It didn't matter because colpomer on his own was enough to create all of the chances that they needed and this allows you to play very controlled football taking very few risks and having numbers back so you can defend and Since the new year colpomer has merely been like a 0.5 to 0.6 xg and xa 90 wing 10 which is excellent but it is a big drop off and you know how much is that caused but what is that caused by is he getting fewer opportunities in transition because Chelsea's whole system isn't working quite as well. So that was much to count to watch me I kind of think he's just playing somewhat worse because he plays particularly well and he's somewhat tired And he's just not quite like one of the five best players in the world But all of these things fitting together has led to chelsey's attack being much less dangerous and then Them having to rely more on non-colpomer players, which is a problem or having to advance a little bit further in possession Which means they get less control. They have less of a good defensive structure.
They get a little bit weaker that way You know, there's also injuries that play in here. These things are all a mix but Chelsea have now been playing at like borderline not quite top five football for a little while the aggregate still Simon the system has them has them fifth has them like fourth in quality I think that's right in the aggregate and it's an interesting question of how much do you think the Recent slope here we get is somewhat more picked. What do I mean? It's a form story and I circle back to What do we know about morisca as a manager?
You would want if you wanted to be confident in Chelsea right now to have a manager who Has had more than a season in charge of a team you would want a manager who has I'm not like Like a stickler from your league experience But if I'm going to assume That the aggregate will hold as it does for most teams I want a manager who has had most experiences that most managers of teams in this position have had and morisca has not And I just don't know whether or not this manager has the ability to correct for things as they've gone wrong Such that we expect the normal kinds of of regressions to me that we see in team effort team effort team Uh, maybe he does We shouldn't as we doesn't but we don't really have any proof of that one thing that I Wonder about with this team is and with morisca in particular is How that very strange early season start factors into the story when they basically have like two periods of time when they were playing You know top three football But one of those periods of time they were playing top three football while conceding a lot of space to their opponents And being incredibly effective at playing on the break And in the next period of time They remained very effective at playing on the break while not conceding as much space to their opponents and that was more normal And they were quite as incredible um getting transition opportunities, but I wonder to what degree They can continue to get the transition opportunities that get cold palmer and nick jacks and firing at this incredible level While being a control team and that like what degree was that middle period that was like the best one? Okay, I'm seeing I'm seeing classic classic five guys control football And the mid block press is winning the ball enough to set their their transition attackers free That's a very unusual mix team don't usually manage to do that And I'm wondering whether that wasn't so much that they actually had it happening as that one thing filtered into the other and they like The aggregate looked like they were doing both things, but you kind of can't do both things Yeah, like through one lens There's a sort of straightforward story to tell here Which is that morisca came into the league and was doing things a little bit weird And that's why the tactical stuff led to weird numbers And then the league adjusted and funneled them into a much more typical set of patterns defensively Which leads to much more typical numbers, but somewhat worse numbers And I think that's a pretty believable story right that what we saw at the beginning of the season where they're really generally quite weird was simply The league needing to adjust and that the reason you don't see weird patterns is that for the most part Offences and defenses are fairly constrained in the ways they are able to play against each other And as soon as the league was able to figure out Morisca, he was funneled into much more normal patterns and that led to somewhat worse numbers eventually Yeah, and there's also an injury story here. Fafana is injured again for sure It's not ideal and now Jackson who again the attack has been Jackson of Halmer is out until April with a hamstring injury when I sure how far like that's a significant period of time without one of their Two productive attackers, maybe three with my wifey I mean, yeah, that's that's true But if you want to tell me that justice is a very good team and they haven't cuckoo as a backup like Part of being a very good team is that in cuckoo steps in and even if he doesn't give you Jackson numbers He gives you very good numbers I mean, you can't spend what you're spending on guys like Christopher and Cuckoo and It's one thing when they're injured so they're not giving you production But when they are then healthy and the backup your pay you've paid A top level starter numbers for this guy. He's got to be able to deliver you stuff or it's just mismanaged one of the other morisca questions is That he has managed to build out of the pieces that he has a quite functional attack but he's got lots of pieces and Does he have the creativity to build a somewhat different functional attack out of somewhat different pieces When he doesn't have the pieces that he really really wants for the one functional attack that he's built That is that's the manager skill and that is what's going to be tested over the next couple of months Yeah, and then should we talk about I mean, which we talk about the rest of the teams here who are nominally in the race?
Well, we have a new castle new castle right there The problem is I don't have a ton to say about new castle They're pretty good kind of in the way as we expect them to be pretty good owls and resack is really really good And they are a borderline type of team and we've talked about any how's new castle a lot for a long time And how deeply confusing they were the first season, right? And what's interesting to me now looking back at that and being so confused by that new castle team Is that now what any how did that season is the paradigm for mid-table teams that are looking to be good? That is what eryola is doing that is what brinford are doing like this is they were the they were the pioneers of chaos max And this and then the next season which I think is a notable thing about chaos maxing They had lots of injuries and they were pretty bad when they were injured Yes, and like not number not chaos maxing But there's a similar kind of like we're going to sprit more than you and that's going to make us better that is Dubiously sustainable new castle this season are once again out of Europe And they are chaos maxing at a pretty high level and on top of that exactly as Mike was saying They've got a legitimate superstar center for now It's under esok which is something that neither none of those other teams playing this style can can have it I do think there's just like the chaos maxing idea It is not hard To make chaos maxing a somewhat negative ev approach It requires though your opponents to prioritize controlling the game And in effect it requires then prioritizing defensive possession and stability over trying to score goals and I really do think that you can't Chaos max as a good team that everybody knows is good as a plus cv strategy And the thing that I find really interesting about new castle is that while having had relatively small shifts in how good they are They have how relatively large shifts back and forth over the last three years in terms of the popular perception of how good they are And I think that that is that really makes a difference I think that the degree to which teams are happy to get one point versus planning to get three points against you really really matters um and This is an interesting thing on the horizon for bournemouth I think you can see it kind of within seasons with brentford as well when brentford are sort of like Gathering points at like a 15-fish place team like their Tactical approach works better than when they're gathering points is like a ninth place team and I think that Like there's almost among mid table teams. There's almost like a game of chaos maxing chicken that goes on Yes, because you very rarely see even two teams that like to do it a lot do against each other One of them sort of blinks and is like i'm gonna control the game And like that just seems to me to be a lot of the story of new castle over the past few years is how many other teams are blinking against them first not yeah, and I watch new castle this season and I see glimpses of another approach In particular what they have done since in the last like since they sort of got hot What they started doing was playing sander tonali as the nominal six But not giving him ball progression responsibilities because gimari will drop into pass and then run forward when the ball is moving forward So even more work and lewis hall would be their number two wall progressor from fullback They've been trying to use trip here out there and as a number two ball progress You can't defend at all the apps you destroyed by man city And it's a problem when they have to play him But they're playing in there because they need that other passer when you're pushing gimari up the field and you're using tonali in that space I think it makes sense and I think if any house career is any guy when they struggle you can see you will see them reaching for A solution like that any house has always been a pretty big believer in like reaching for tactical solutions when things go badly But not proactively changing things and you could I mean this is going back as born with it is where he quite frequent Like you would frequently see him over the second half of a born with season Like figure out what was working with his talent and his weird talent and whatever was healthy and lean into it And so I agree with you a hundred percent that you could have just a lot more control and control possession and carefully built attacks With a tonali gimari's midfield sort of as the base But I just don't think we may see that if they start to struggle but I don't think we'll see before that One reason I kind of like can cast a little bit is I think that there's more room for them to adjust to problems than there is for born Born with basically have to be this one thing and have to keep working Noting for us have to be this one thing and it has to work even better than it's been working or they have to run hot I like new castle a little bit more.
I think then You know simon's numbers have it forest because of the points. She'll see born with new castle like close but clear stepwise differences God it's just such a pick them for me because I like new castle a little bit more. It's such a pick them for me Which is what makes it fun. I just sort of still think it won't be nor not a forest Because I can't make myself think it will be I just sort of feel like they're gonna go four games where they get two points They get like there's no reason why that has to happen but I can't make like I'm just gonna pick a sign for us Yeah, like I mean the problem for me is that like I look at it and It is first and foremost like any arrangement of these four teams in these spots would not surprise me at all There's no ranking of third to six that would surprise me Somebody a little bit of fooling guy in there, but it could happen So it's a race that's right on the fault line between points acquired and my perception of these talents Which is what we do a great race, but like it means that when I just look at who am I gonna pick?
I am defaulting to my assessments of these teams abilities and just sort of downplaying the six point You know, I kind of know I shouldn't be yeah This is this is why it's fun. Yeah, and I think that we should definitely come back around talking about full limits on point Yes, because they are legitimately good. They're just like Like there's a lot of worlds were full of our not into bars this you're not in first of all Exactly full of just be not even for it looking like the better team Easier to see that working in some ways. No, I think a lot I mean I think for us that far is a bit worse Worse team than full of imbalances.
He's and full of have a have a tactical mix that also makes a little bit more sense there I think we should always love to have a Marco Silva podcast always love to do that deep blue something deep cuts, baby There we go. There we go. Maybe a little bit of Alexander Esak pod. I think he's worth He's really good worth another follow up.
All right, so that'll be more podcast you can get those at patreon.com so that double pivot We're looking at lining up a lot more interesting stuff for you there That's where you can join the discord and talk about video games. Um, I can't stop talking about books I'm Reading normal people. I don't know people for that book. It's quite good.
I'm really breaking the ground here. All right, we will see y'all later. Yes So I got one more thing to add at the end of the podcast Juventus is of course a third declension now not a fourth declension noun So it is not pluralized. You've been to to pluralized you've been to taste so if you've got more than one you vent us You've got you vent to taste end of podcast