Gameweek 34: What did we learn?

Apr 26, 2024

It’s always good to keep things fresh and we’re off the usual format this week.

The Double Gameweeks always force a bit of creativity in how we get things out, but this one had added peril in looking to get something useful written. Both of the small humans living in my house managed to pick up a fever, then pass it on to the rest of us. Germ factories, the both of them. But instead of dwelling, we’re going to spend some time looking at what we learned during this Gameweek, before jumping into a Transactions section for the Subscribers as usual.

1. The variance cold-streak couldn’t have come at a worse time for Liverpool

In gambling, it’s typically a good idea to appropriately weight ‘the field’. Until a couple of games ago, ‘the field’ for each contender had narrowed to just two other teams. But that’s still enough to not be confident in any one side breaking away. Unfortunately, Liverpool have been the unfortunate ones to falter and find themselves 3 points behind Arsenal, and potentially 5 points behind City (if they win their game in hand). There are 4 games remaining. They likely won’t mathematically be out of it for a little while yet, but it would be incredibly unlikely for them to score over a point per game more than City over the final games.

And it basically happened because the shots they took didn’t go in at the rate we’d expect (4 Goals from around 10 xG) and their opponents happened to score more than their expected Goals against Liverpool. They had also been worse in terms of xG conceded, particularly against Crystal Palace. But this isn’t a big sign of something different happening, or sides figuring out Liverpool. The ball just didn’t go in the net. It’s no comfort for their fans but it’s fine for us Fantrax managers. Mo Salah might not have scored in the Merseyside Derby, but he got 7 Shots and 0.64 xG. If he does that again against West Ham, we’d bet he’ll be right up there at the top of the Fantrax Points list.

The title dream may be all-but-gone, but we’re not expecting to see any let up from Jurgen Klopp through his last 4 Premier League games. Don’t change your evaluations of Liverpool much. Sometimes a bad streak is just a bad streak.

2. Crystal Palace are in for an almighty battle to keep Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise

Ok, arguably we didn’t learn this this week. But nothing puts the impact that these two have into hard focus like having watched Palace attempt to play without them, under the new manager. Since the two returned, they’ve beaten Liverpool, West Ham and Newcastle (and comfortably for the most part). They’re being careful with Olise’s minutes, which is sensible, given they mismanaged his return previously. But when they’re all on the field together, it’s mightily impressive. And it’s elevating their supporting cast too. Jean Philippe-Mateta has quietly put together an impressive run at times this year. Nothing like his last few games, though. A brace in each of the last two Games (4 Goals from around 1.2 xG) is reward for the hard-work he puts in for his team. He’s not changed, but the players giving him the ball make a huge difference.

It feels almost inevitable that Palace’s resolve to keep their two main men will be tested this Summer. Olise almost left last season, with Chelsea activating his release clause. Eze has somehow not really been subject to any confirmed bidding in the past, but his level of consistency must surely put him in the shop window too. Losing both would be a tough pill to swallow for Palace who, despite signing Matheus Franca presumably as a long-term option, haven’t really got anyone who can do the things that the duo do in terms of creating attacking output.

It’s been a really unfortunate season for Olise rosterers, in particular. He has started just 10 Games. But his output is up there with the very best and, if he is to leave Palace, he’ll improve any side that takes him. If he’s still in the Premier League, he’s got the feel of a draft steal about him already next season as people overweight the injury risk and under-rate the production.

3. Sorry Poch but you are Cole Palmer FC, for this season at least

Fresh off the back of pummeling Everton and finally looking like a coherent side, Cole Palmer succumbed to a similar malady to my two kids and missed out on the trip to the Emirates. That he was also joined by Malo Gusto and Ben Chilwell (both knee related) in not even making the bench meant this one had the feel of a massacre from the moment the team-sheets were announced. Our (my) evaluations of the Chelsea attack haven’t really changed much. Games like this just serve to provide extra evidence for the confirmation bias. Pochettino attempted to motivate his players by asking them to prove that the club can still win games without Cole. The only issue is: they can’t. Or they can’t without the rest of their crocked corps.

Yes, it would be nice for Chelsea if Nicolas Jackson was able to put the ball in the net more frequently and at times this year, that has been the difference between points and no points. It wouldn’t have made a lot of difference here, though. And despite the misses, he was also by far their best attacker in this Arsenal game. The issue Chelsea have is that Jackson is required to play the role of “best attacker”. Were all the other pieces around him functional in attack, he’d likely be perceived very differently by the fans.

But the reality is, despite slim hopes of still making a Europa League spot, this Chelsea season has been blighted by a mixture of injuries and signings that are not up to upper-Premier League level (we’ll say “yet” to remain optimistic). They’ve shut Enzo Fernandez down for the year to get his much-needed surgery. They’ve seen Christopher Nkunku, Reece James and Levi Colwill return to training. But you’d imagine the best thing for the long-term is if they just shut down some of these guys and focus on building them up to long-term conditioning over a pre-season. The fact Chelsea have 6 games remaining will make them tempting for Fantrax, but keep a reasonable expectation level in mind and expect lots of streamers - especially if Gusto and Chilwell do miss the rest of the season. Any stumble in the upcoming games against Aston Villa and Spurs and Palmer’s Golden Boot chase may be all there is left to play for anyway.

4. Roberto De Zerbi is crashing out of Brighton somewhat awkwardly

Yes, Brighton have had a lot of injuries this year. They’ve also only won 6 Games since the end of September. With Roberto De Zerbi all-but-confirming his intent to exit the club in the Summer, it’s going to be fascinating to see where he goes next and how he performs. It’s absolutely true that the Brighton lineups have often looked painfully shy of the talent that propelled them to the brink of Top-4 at times last year. But it also feels as though there’s almost no adaptation from De Zerbi, who asks his team to play the same way no matter who is lining up. It’s possible that it just doesn’t work so well when you’ve moved from Moises Caicedo and Alexis Mac Allister playing the ball through to Kaoru Mitoma and Solly March as it does when you’ve got Jakob Moder and Carlos Baleba failing to progress the ball to Adam Lallana and Joao Pedro.

If De Zerbi’s next move is to a club with enough resources, perhaps this is a moot point. Fading a player absence is a lot easier when your team is two-deep at every position. Anywhere else and we’re pretty intrigued if there’s just a natural ceiling to what he’s going to give you.

With 5 Games left, Brighton appear to be out of the conversation for a second season of European football. A few weeks back we recommended trying to ship out the Brighton players you might still have rostered. It’s only going to be tougher now, but we’d still recommend it. Their fixture list is not particularly pleasant reading.

5. Nottingham Forest went too far down the rabbit hole

This is a quick one: refereeing discussions aren’t something we particularly go for here. Mostly because they’re usually uninteresting. But it feels as though Nottingham Forest crossed a line last week in publicly calling out the officiating team for their game against Everton. It was a really bad look.

We doubt anyone at Forest is reading this. But for anyone else worried, repeat after us: there are no refereeing conspiracies. Referees are just human and can get things wrong.

6. It’s finally clicking for Brentford

All year it feels like I’ve been writing some combination of ‘Brentford were really good in this game’ only to then finish with ‘and on another day would’ve expected to at least take a point’. I was bored of writing it, I imagine you’d be bored of reading it. So it’s refreshing that they’ve finally decided to move past it. Yes, a run of games against relegation-level sides will help. But so will getting back the likes of Ethan Pinnock and Ivan Toney. They’re not injury free, by any-stretch. But they’re certainly looking far healthier than they have for most of the year. That’s perhaps demonstrated best by the off-bench impact once again of Kevin Schade. He was a dark-horse draft name in the Summer and the last couple of weeks have provided us glimpses that we perhaps missed out on a player who could’ve had real impact in Fantrax had he not suffered a painful injury in a pre-game warm-up (undoubtedly just the worst way to go).

There are four games left this year for Brentford and none are particularly easy ties. But Brentford are clicking in a big way. A top-half finish feels far beyond them (sitting 10 points behind Bournemouth). But momentum here could do wonders for next-season and help us to make sense of Brentford assets ahead of draft day, after a really disrupted year.

7. Sheffield United are going to hit a magic 100 number but not one they want

Derby County in 2007/08 are held up as being the worst Premier League side of all time (well, in 38 game seasons, anyway). And that’s arguably fair. They got the fewest points, they let in the most goals (89) and they were totally out of their depth. The only team to have conceded more were Swindon Town, who conceded 100. But they did it with 22 Teams in the Premier League, so played 4 more games than Derby.

Sheffield United have already breezed past Derby. And with 4 Games to go, they are starting down Swindon’s unwanted record. They’re perhaps doubly unfortunate that they’ve been in the League this year, where the number of Goals per Game across the league has leapt by almost 0.5, despite having been mostly static since 2009, and that they shipped 8 in a single game to Newcastle.

They’ve got four games to try to prevent taking the record. One of them is the reverse of that 8-0 game, at St James’s Park this weekend. They also face Spurs on the last day of the season. And in between that they have to play Everton and Forest, both still looking to secure their Premier League survival. We’re not hopeful for Chris Wilder and team.

That’s it for this week. Look out for the Preview article towards the end of the week.