bbc sport website L to R, chaos->control->chaos:

So a weird 9 man defeat against Chelsea was where the wheels started to come loose for Ange. Call me crazy but seeing the life in the team in the last 15 makes me wonder if a weird 9 man defeat against Liverpool could have the opposite effect for Frank #analytics

Bring Wanyama on

There were 2-3 moments before the red card that Simons just didn't seem on the right wavelength with himself - and he's had games like that this season - hard not to see the challenge in the same light.

Wirtz redemption game written all over this, but no I'm not having fun

Oof can see why it's a red obviously, but don't see intent there, the way his foot snaps back shows he wasn't expecting the contact he made. You can also argue that no idea what he was tryna do since it wasn't a block or to cut off a pass. Anyway :/

Is there a good explanation for "defender passes goal kick to GK, ball in play so GK pressed and has to clear" vs "GK just takes the goal kick"

*since then they're unbeaten in 5*

Despite all the misery this man inflicted on me down the years with his goals, this is by far the deepest cut. Thierry Henry is 10 days older than me and is getting a "Lifetime Achievement" award. #old

Things I didn't watch this week: -any of day 2 or 3 of the Ashes test -the world cup draw Join me in the world of reading up afterwards :)

I'm curious what exactly has caused [a subset of] football managers in 2025 to value open play crossing highly. Is it a misread of outcome? ie. successful crosses into close areas can be high value chances - missing that it's hard to complete the cross in the first place. Answers on a postcard.

Couple of years ago I shortlisted and interviewed Yash for a role we had at Statsbomb around a large consultancy project; unfortunately soon after the project faltered and we had to withdraw the role, but I would have hired Yash - they were an excellent candidate.

Liverpool's metrics are still in the broadly fine range despite defensive numbers ticking up. Quick comparison of first 12 league games last season vs this is roughly 1.5 xG For (both seasons), 0.8 xG Against last season, this 1.1; goals going in at a high rate too. They'll be back winning soon imo

Two very different heavy Tottenham defeats away at legit top teams. A ton more value tonight than Sunday, to compete is table stakes and they did that tonight, at least

That was quite a day. Nice to see so many old faces and thanks to all the speakers and our Hudl team for making it happen.

I'm at the Hudl Performance Insights Conference today (it's past midnight here). If you're coming do come say hello, we have a great venue and great speakers down in Fulham (river views...) See you there

EFL crew assemble Coventry's game against Sheff Wed has single handedly extended the scale :/

Ye olde xG per game chart w/various lightweight takes: 1. Arsenal is the blueprint here, 7 good games, 4 ~equal, 0 bad 2. Man City no bad games recently 3. stacking up the bad games: West Ham (but 2 good), Wolves (0 good) and Burnley (0 good) and curiously Bournemouth 4. No "good" Tottenham game :/

Doku been unplayable today

"x is up[or down] this season" *compares 10 game sample to slew of full seasons* sure i've done this plenty myself in the past but also clearly flawed practice. Better to compare to any or all 10 game stretches

*doesn't watch game* palhinha assist for van de ven goal and romero assist for palhinha goal, set piece tottenham again is it

Football eh, thought Bentancur the other day was a red but not that from Johnson, for me anyway, Geoff

I don't really mind if an extra 10 seconds is spent waiting for a corner or a throw or watching a team recycle possession or teams play long or short. It's all part of the game, and it's fun to see the meta game evolve and people try to work it out.

Very odd PL season, the only thing i'm confident of is that Arsenal are really good

🧵 Thread: I recently explored a few ideas to analyze a team's press in more detail 👇 1️⃣ Pressing triggers ▫️By focusing on the opponent's pass before a 1st pressing action in a sequence, it's possible to separate different triggers 👇 The graphic shows an example, with the 8 triggers that I defined

Said goodbye to my dad today; true story: he played drums with the Beatles then knocked them back cos he wasn't sure they'd amount to anything. Good job really else i'd not exist ha. RIP Peter Reid - he was a good guy

Lennart Karl you say

In truth that was roughly the same Tottenham game as the others

ok, question time. name a musical artist with an extensive back catalogue of which you like zero songs at all, i'll go first: Rod Stewart

apropros of something, I went to Villa in the Holte End a couple of times as a kid (13-14) in the early 90s. Pre-match outside could be quite scary- if you weren't used to it, bit tense (this was vs Man City and Sheff Wed!) & when Villa scored you got absolutely annihilated by people celebrating.

Much as it pains me [fan perspective], Arsenal appear rock solid for the title this year [analytics, reality, depth of squad perspective]. Didn't quite expect Liverpool's wheels to come off quite this quickly after a fast start, but it at least makes it interesting.

I like this Tottenham lineup. Simons in midfield theoretically helps, and i'm somewhat invested in Tel and Odobert coming good; they can only do that if they're on the pitch. Udogie has been lively recently & i'm more positive than many that eventually passes will connect & the team looks better

Fun with pressure maps This is Richarlison in the Super Cup, with a neat pattern i've been looking for since:

1:42.77 gets you last place in the men's 800, a madness

absolute chills there before today two women in history had gone under 48 seconds for the 400m and they were in the mid 80s, now two more in one race

Prime Vision anyone? The game moves too fast for most of what they've got, but small points for the attempt, it's a lot

Duplantis: one of the most electrifying performers in sports entertainment eh

Men's World Championship Marathon had both a false start and a photo finish

Last 10 PL champions have lost 38 games total, so a team losing 2 before the end of August doesn't give much wriggle room

Gonna hype this up a bit. It's quite a unique position in European football (i remember only one junior de job post posted before) and there is a big project ahead that's gonna look very good in any tech cv, not only for football jobs. The team is full of specialists and we enjoy working together.

Current/recent lightning map of part of the UK with Grimsby highlighted

Think first: every time someone writes "completed 100% of their tackles (2/2) 💪" a random R session crashes on an analyst's laptop

Tip for every professional soccer club in the world, all levels: hire at least one person who *legit* understands data/analytics, and if you're hiring adjacent roles, pro-actively look for people who understand data/analytics. You will reap the benefit by broadening actual data knowledge in house

My daughter is ~two weeks younger than Max Dowman and some way off an Arsenal debut; i've asked her to up her game

An extremely "good players who don't know each other yet" half from Man City there

In a fairly wild, but not necessarily illogical piece of groupthink, every single pundit, alongside an AI and supercomputer submission (they should team up!), has predicted Liverpool, Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea as the top 4 www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Frank playing strong Frank-ball in his first game against a team as good as PSG with a cup on the line was entirely reasonable and largely worked well, will be curious what tweaks and other gears emerge as we progress

Stuff I'm not used to: crossing, taking time over restarts, being a team of man-mountains

Stoke weren't able to end their wait, although they'll get another chance if their game with Sheffield Wednesday goes ahead. I've written something on the longest waits for a team to sit top and bottom of a table here, and the latter is even more interesting: www.experimental361.com/p/which-club...