not sure why it's taken me 5 hrs to think of this and I imagine thousands of others already have but if VAR is ruling out the goal and sending off Szoboszlai shouldn't Haaland then get a second yellow too

clear win for the fun police lmao

Winter Olympics has been coming with some flair shots, but just a great camera angle from the Luge, with the town in the background

On Villa's long range scoring vs xG, I calculated every run of 100 long range open play shots (roughly what they've taken) in the PL since 2015-16 and their difference of goals to xG is the highest on record & their goal total is as high as it gets. As ever with shooting, variance has a big hand

Hawks pairing Trae with AD is the next step for the team #hyped

I'm been positive than most Tottenham fans recently. There have been positive signs for weeks now, despite half a squad & it's often manifesting in one good half per game. In amongst that Xavi Simons is on the classic "took 6 months to settle" trajectory and is doing a lot of good stuff every game

ICYMI

This chart was on BBC website today and obvious Q is "what happened around 2002" and the answer is an absolute classic data collection skew: there wasn't an actual spike in homicides, they just added all Harold Shipman's victims to the recorded list

PL non-pen xG difference since start of December (so 9-10 games) 👀

away to a bottom half team beginning with B and scrambling to draw 2-2? Tottenham 🤝 Liverpool... edit: OR NOT

Possibly only in the last hour has the sentence "Marauding attackers Djed Spence and Wilson Odobert instigate comfortable Champions League win" become viable in the universe

So easy to get behind Dortmund in wide positions, easier against 10 of course, but been the case all night

Sure different comps, whatever, but football not helping itself when Dalot the other day isn't a red and Svenssen is. To me the opposite

Quick take on the "Tottenham have conceded a lot from distance" discussion. Tottenham have conceded 4 goals this season in the PL from what I'd call "wide and long range" - Wilson for Fulham, Hudson-Odoi for Forest, Semenyo for Bournemouth and Ayari for Brighton...

With the way the squad's set up, Gallagher transfer to Spurs as a current *English* international about to turn 26 doesn't solve everything of course, but it's a damned useful stake in the ground, and not silly money either

Man Utd had 30 shots? That's super fun.

I'm extremely pro Mathys Tel, the boy has some magic in his boots (I've not measured this)

not your day when you go 2-0 up in ye olde six-pointer but lose 2-1

Stuff on minutes restrictions is interesting. Fairly normal in the NBA, but a typical argument in football where medical departments and managers/coaches clash due to potentially misaligned priorities. Clubs 100% should put power into the medical depts hands on this, and look to enforce

I was idly thinking: there must be lots of managers that are ideologically disinterested in set pieces, but at some point they kind of have to motion in the direction of it. So perhaps hire a coach, or task one of your current coaches to devise some stuff. Yet at that point...

Things nobody said in August: "by 30th December only Arsenal will have lost fewer games than Sunderland"

Reijnders at Christmas is it, try the veal etc

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