People often refer to a team as “imbalanced” when it vaguely has better attackers than defenders, but this Real Madrid team is what imbalanced really is. They’re often so good it doesn’t really matter, but the positional layout of talent is far from optimal.

UEFA officials have just completely lost the plot on what the handball rule is meant to be. It’s absurd how strict these calls are.

I regret to formally declare the Packers do not have the juice

The Boring Team is Tottenham Hotspur also they are genuinely bad

Crystal Palace have been legitimately good this year, but I’d be shocked if they don’t collapse from exhaustion. It’s a ton of games to play the same 14 guys, none of whom have played twice a week before.

a new Expecting Goals newsletter! a brand new team ratings system, Premier League power rankings, and all the details about how it works, why it works this way, and what I plan to do with it next www.expectinggoals.com/p/expecting-...

Elo -- the almighty, inarguable measurement of team quality -- hath declared that current Arsenal are: 1. the best team in the world 2. the best Arsenal team since records began in the 1940s 3. the 10th-best team of all time clubelo.com

I regret to formally declare the Packers do not have the juice

Tottenham have broadly played better against a theoretically solid team, something I am not sure they can say any other time this season. People are gonna be mad about this game, which I think they’re ultimately correct on — Spurs have been bad this season — but not because of this game.

Great listen for all the soccer sickos out there

This is a window where RedZone should not be showing Tennessee-LV unless it’s a major play or both the other games are in timeout. My one complaint of RedZone is that they treat games too equally in relevance/interest.

It is remarkable the degree to which the combination of FIFA and Trump have made me resent the upcoming World Cup, which should be basically the most exciting sporting event of my lifetime. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Fascinating one from @dkthomp.bsky.social. I am most struck by the degree to which *social* media has entropy'd itself into atomized, mindless scrolling of inessential content from strangers. www.derekthompson.org/p/why-everyt...

Excellent ChatGPT use case I've discovered: my personal sommelier I've done many versions of essentially uploading a wine menu and telling it what I plan to eat, with various thoughts around preferences, budget, etc., and it does an excellent job of talking through the different options.

God, It's Brutal Out Here: lindseyadler.substack.com/p/god-its-br...

Manchester City followed up a classic chokehold first half with this

Brentford need to hire a set piece coach

Is that good?

Chelsea are now down their top 6 CBs

I still think Arsenal’s defensive abilities are somehow underrated. They hardly give teams a sniff.

For Arsenal, that’s two straight 2-0 wins on 3-0.5 xG. Pretty good.

Gyökeres is converging to my initial expectation of “not going to be a star but will be a useful player, especially against weaker teams” I’m still counting down the days until Havertz is back, if even for rotation to give CBs a relentless 90 to deal with.

Tottenham have been getting positive buzz and are high up in the table, but they have really been dining out on a combination of an easy fixture list and some fortunate results. They are consistently playing even-or-worse against teams with decidedly less talent, including today.

The difference between Van de Ven getting that foul call and other players on both teams not in multiple earlier similar insistences is refs always give a soft whistle on CBs getting dispossessed. The downside risk of getting that wrong feels too significant, so they default to calling it a foul.

Unfortunately, Leeds’s players are largely bad, but I like them as a concept.

That is the best Gyökeres proof of concept we have seen thus far. Good run in behind, bulldozes two guys, gets a big chance off that ends up a goal.

I beg commentators to have any awareness of Nick Woltemade's aerial prowess (/lack thereof) before perpetually declaring it his key skill that Newcastle need to play to. He is below average in aerial duels win rate on unremarkable volume!

Mad dash of summer 2026 concert presales at 9 AM this morning ✅ The Cure (+Slowdive and Mogwai) ❌ Tame Impala

Liverpool’s loss today was less alarming than some of their wins. Tough away game, and they largely played somewhere between fine and solid, conceded a silly penalty. You’d like to see a bit more attack while chasing in the last half hour, but I’m not concerned about this performance in isolation.

Incredible defensive midfielding from defensive midfielder Merino

I was busy yesterday so decided to hold out to watch MOTD unspoiled this morning. Exhilarating ride, as basically every moment shown is high-leverage. It helps that it was one happy result after another for my rooting interests.

Arsenal have a pretty smooth run through the November break, which helps -- but still frustrating as it's still 2 games per week, and you'd want Madueke to take a bunch of these easier minutes, especially with Saka's hamstring. Then, after the Nov break, it's straight into Tottenham-Bayern-Chelsea.

Ballon d’Or voting logic is basically the same as the Academy Awards introducing a “Best Popular Movie” award (before immediately scrapping it). There’s already a prize for being on the team that won the major trophy (/being the movie that made a lot of money).

Perhaps the most exasperating part of Michael Cox's latest yelling at clouds is its conclusion praising Liverpool, in whose most recent match relevant to the context of his discussion put up 9 shots for 0.5 xG at home against an opponent missing several key players.

Need an investigation into how one of Gyökeres’s locked-in attributes was pace and he doesn’t seem to have it at all

My hot take: Arsenal conceded because they were actually too eager to play on the front foot to set the tone and committed too many players to a loose ball.

Funny how everyone has slagged off Martinelli for months, but now the whole commentary is “why isn’t Martinelli playing???”

Arsenal just have nothing in attack today besides Madueke winning 2v1s

Aston Villa in the second half, up a man against perhaps the worst team in the league

Ruh roh www.wsj.com/opinion/im-b...

Elliott Anderson played 90 minutes both games for England. Seems like he might be the guy for that elusive spot next to Rice. …if he doesn’t first get run into the ground this season playing double the minutes he’s used to.

Nottingham Forest just signed an army of guys coming in expecting to play for Nuno, and before they even played a game, will now be coached by... Nuno's polar opposite.

This Trump / US Open situation is a disgrace

Why didn't you just try to win, Arne?

Ah, another winger who is slow and/or should not actually be a winger for Aston Villa

Newcastle going with one young and high-ceiling guy (Woltemade) and one veteran high-floor guy (Wissa) seems the right way to play their situation. I'm curious to see how it plays out between those two guys, with some possibility they both play a ton.

Ekitike and Trafford both got screwed in the ~same unique way, huh

Isak to Liverpool, two things can be true: Between Isak and Ekitike, it's an inefficient use of funds and suboptimal squad building -- but I think even they'd say that; it's just how this all played out The move meaningfully increases Liverpool's title odds, elevating them to favourites

Any critique of Arteta playing a cagey gameplan would have to be levelled at Slot, who did the same — except with all his best players, at Anfield. Anything else is post hoc fallacy.

It feels like so much of the conversation around Arsenal is coloured by a weird folk memory of the 0-0 at the Etihad. It’s now got to the stage where they can outshoot the champions at Anfield but be decried for their caution because of a Szobszlai screamer.