Big Questions for GW11
What's on our minds going into the eleventh week of the season?
Welcome back to the Overthinking Football Gameweek Preview. It’s Week 11, following midweek Carabao Cup action for a number of teams and we’re coming into another packed weekend of Premier League action.
We’ve been hard at work trawling through the upcoming fixtures, consuming player news and looking at our Overthinking Football Projections Model to make sense of what we’re likely to see.
As ever, I have questions. This week I’m asking:
Can the Everton renaissance survive a visit from Brighton?
What to expect from a game where both teams would like to counter-attack, as Brentford host West Ham?
Can Wolves score goals without Pedro Neto?
Can we trust last week’s hat-trick hero Eddie Nketiah against Newcastle?
Is this a week for resting Spurs defenders?
Is there anything to fear for Sean Dyche as Everton host Brighton?
We’ve already done to death the fact that Brighton are far less secure in midfield and defence this year. We won’t bore you with it again until at least the Roundup on Monday. They remain fairly prolific in attack, which balances things out nicely into a fun to watch, but maybe not Champions League level (as they often looked last year) side. On our favourite xGD / 90 metric, Brighton sit 9th in the League at the time of writing. One spot immediately behind them in 10th sit Everton. I know, I know. We’re used to Brighton being good and Everton being bad and no one likes change. But it’s true. We wrote a few weeks back about Everton starting to look pretty good. And although a particularly strange loss to Luton still blots their form chart, they otherwise look good value for their mid-table metrics.
In particular, Sean Dyche will be delighted that patience is paying off with his attacking group. They started the season with Neal Maupay up top, Alex Iwobi wide-left and James Garner wide-right for their 1-0 loss at Fulham. Even then, they comfortably out-played and out-shot Fulham, only to miss all their significant chances. Last weekend they played with Dominic Calvert-Lewin up top, Dwight McNeil wide-left and Jack Harrison wide-right. You don’t need stats to tell you that that is better. And, as a gift from the narrative gods, they outperformed their xG to beat West Ham 1-0.
With their first choice names healthy, this Everton side don’t look at any risk of relegation, even with a potential points deduction looming. I didn’t imagine I’d be typing that last Summer. In fact, in the Summer, we specifically predicted that Everton’s inability to trust in Calvert-Lewin’s fitness would lead to another season where no player in the squad made it to double-figure league goals. Calvert-Lewin looks healthy, appears to be being managed carefully conditioning-wise, and has 3 goals in just over 400 minutes. His centre-forward play is also continuing to support Fantrax relevant output from McNeil (12.24 average xFpts) and Abdoulaye Doucoure (13.24). The only thing Sean Dyche should truly fear in any given week is an injury to his talisman. And a visit from Brighton’s somewhat generous defence presents ample opportunity for points returns from all of the attackers here. They’re near set-and-forget anyway bar Merseyside derbies and games against Manchester City, but certainly don’t fade them here.
Everton vs Brighton - 3.00pm UK, 9.00am US kickoff, Saturday
Which of Brentford and West Ham will take the front-foot in this derby tie?
Before I get into the weeds of this one, I’ll start by declaring my belief that Brentford and West Ham are two very fun teams to have in the League stylistically. Despite operating with significantly lower budgets and fewer stars than the teams above them in the table, these two impeccably coached London sides are able to make things hard for their opposition every single week. Typically, that involves being defensively solid and being able to counter-punch with quick, direct and skillful attackers. West Ham in particular are content to concede possession of the ball. At the end of August, West Ham showed Brighton exactly what that looks like in practice, having just 22% of the ball when the two met at the Amex. West Ham ran out 3-1 winners that day, having turned 12 shots into 3.2 xG. That came just a week after bloodying Chelsea’s noses by the same scoreline at home. So far this season, they’ve averaged 40% possession. Brentford, whilst more willing to even things up possession wise, are also at their best when they can be direct. Their counter-attacking threat is summed up perfectly by the second goal they scored last time out, going 80 yards from their own corner to finish Chelsea off. But if neither side particularly wants the ball, what should we expect from this weekend’s game between these two mid-table sides?
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