The Overthinking Roundup: GW26
In which it's nice that we have Premier League football to save us from the Carabao Cup results.
Welcome to the Overthinking Roundup for Gameweek 26.
This is our guide to the week that was. In it, we go game by game to break down the notable stories and performances, before diving into transaction advice for our Paid Subscribers.
As ever, if you enjoy what we do, please share and encourage others to subscribe!
Aston Villa 4 - 2 Nottingham Forest
Long-time readers know that Douglas Luiz (21.5) is a favourite of mine. And he’s only gone from strength to strength over the last few years, to the point where it seemed almost a foregone conclusion someone would prise him from Villa Park. Mild flirtation with Arsenal apart, he’s stayed loyal to Villa and they’re really reaping the rewards. He’s a key man under Unai Emery and, after Ollie Watkins (21.5), we’d say he’s probably their most important player. Now we’ve talked at length about something we’ve got right, maybe we could skip talking about our “Nottingham Forest could be frisky” prediction?
Fair’s fair. We got this one wrong. Forest did have moments in this game. In fact, they ended up with 2.5 xG (Moussa Niakhate (8) being a big part of that, as he would’ve had to try very hard to not score his chance just before half-time). But really the game was never out of Villa’s control. It’s tough to pick a Forest defender or midfielder who will be keen to watch back the tape when they get back to training on this one. They get an opportunity to bounce back fairly quickly, with a midweek FA Cup tie against Manchester United, before Liverpool come to town in Gameweek 27.
One man who probably couldn’t wait to get home for Match of the Day was Jacob Ramsey (13.5). It’s been a long road back, with injury set backs and tough competition for places seemingly preventing any kind of momentum. But this was his third 90 minutes in a row and, quite comfortably, the best of the three. He had an Assist from 3 Chances Created, took 2 Shots without hitting the target and was effective in defence too. It’ll be a huge boost for Villa if they can get him back to the sort of form he was in before his injuries, particularly as hopes of a deep-Europa Conference League run start to test the depth of the squad.
Brighton 1 - 1 Everton
In the spirit of openness, I watched this game last of the entire slate. And it was not a classic. We probably could’ve seen it coming, given their previous meeting was a pretty dire 1-1 draw back in November in which the teams combined for just 1.22 xG. This game was slightly better (1.7 xG combined for a start), though fell into a similar pattern of Brighton having most of the ball and Everton stifling them for a lot of the game. That said, Everton took the lead and, given Brighton also went down to ten-men when Billy Gilmour (-4) picked up a red for his challenge on substitute Amadou Onana (0.5), they’ll feel disappointed that Brighton were able to get the 95th minute equaliser. Twice now this season, late Brighton goals have deprived Everton of valuable points. In both cases, you’d probably say it’s fair in the balance of the game but frustrating for Sean Dyche regardless.
Brighton’s performance, as it so often does, ran through Pascal Gross (21) who, once again, had an obscene number of Key Passes (6) and an Assist to show for it. Since the turn of the year, he’s the 5th Overall player in Fantrax points. Year after year he’s underpriced in drafts, seemingly because we think something is going to change. Year after year, it doesn’t. The other notable thing was Facundo Buonanotte (11.5) who also got himself 5 Key Passes. The combined expected assist value for those 5 shot-assists was only 0.19 but it was still nice to see him score points. We imagine he’ll be back out for Kaoru Mitoma for the next game, though.
Everton are a funny team for Fantrax, given they don’t need to have that much of the ball for their players to do well. Normally we’d say you want possession and you want volume of attacking moves. Sean Dyche doesn’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with us on that philosophy. If they weren’t having a historically bad xG conversion year, there’d be a lot more Goal and Assist points going round for this bunch. Things are looking up with a reduction in their original points penalty this week. But another points deduction for the second charge isn’t out of the question and would be a difficult pill to swallow on Merseyside. If Everton did find themselves relegated, most of this squad will have no shortage of offers to stay in the Premier League. Jarrad Branthwaite (17.75) could easily be at the top of that list. His Fantrax numbers are also starting to align to what we’re seeing on field. He gets a matchup with West Ham next, in a game where presumably both teams may agree to just leave the ball on the centre circle for 90 minutes.
Crystal Palace 3 - 0 Burnley
All hail the new-manager-bounce, I guess. Setting aside the fact that studies have shown little evidence that the new manager bounce is actually a thing, this is as perfect an anecdotal example as you could want that it is real, right? Or… maybe it’s just sub-optimal as a team who have to play at 100% to compete in this division week-after-week to shoot yourself in the foot like Burnley did here. They were not necessarily finding it easy to compete in the first-half as it was, but when Josh Brownhill (-7) responded to losing the ball (from something of a hospital pass, it should be added) by dragging down Jefferson Lerma (12.5) the referee put Burnley down to 10 and it was inevitable from that point on that Palace would go on to win.
It took them a little while to get there still, but patience is a virtue. And it wasn’t for a lack of trying. When it eventually came, via unlikely goal-scorer Chris Richards (23.25), that inevitability only grew. And the manner in which Palace improved their lead is notable. Matheus Franca (16.5), who was not a Roy Hodgson favourite, first setting up Jordan Ayew (33.5) for an easy finish at the far post, before winning a penalty with a dart into the box that was too sharp for Vitinho (0). Signs of life for the young Brazilian.
Burnley did get the ball in the net late in the game. David Datro Fofana (1.5), who otherwise had nothing to work with all day, was played in after a good run from Vitinho (desperate to make-up for his earlier challenge, you imagine). But it wasn’t to be, as Lorenz Assignon (4) had run into an offside position early in the move.
Manchester United 1 - 2 Fulham
I watched this game in real-time, though in a bar after having played 90 minutes of my own. Having been distracted for a lot of it, my impression was that every time I looked up, Fulham seemed to be breaking away into the United side of the pitch with three or four players trying to run behind. Re-watching didn’t hugely change that impression. The phrase ‘two steps forward, one step back’ comes to mind often with United this year. They’d been steadily closing the gap to 5th place and the coveted Champions League spots, even if their season looks like a fair few things have bounced their way (wild to say, given how often we seem to be criticising the output this year but they are only 11th in xGD/90 and so rarely control games). We’ve no doubt that Erik Ten Hag will point to Rasmus Hojlund’s absence. But this team should not be this open game-after-game. And Fulham could just as easily point to missing both Joao Palinha and Willian and they were still able to take the three points.
Harry Maguire (20.25) did briefly look like rescuing them a point from the chaos with his 89th minute equaliser, which would have looked like their season in microcosm. But in stoppage-time United, once again, allowed Fulham to just run in numbers at their defence, spear-headed by Adama Traore (8.5) (remember him?) who found recent-transaction-tip Alex Iwobi (22) in the box. Despite the attention of both Diogo Dalot (0) and a sprinting Amad Diallo (1), Iwobi had time and space to just pick a corner. After the game, the broadcasters discussed that it was Fulham’s first win at Old Trafford since 2003. Those stats are mostly junk, given how many different combinations of players / managers you see over time but Old Trafford just isn’t a scary place for teams to travel this year. Tottenham didn’t play this weekend, so they do remain just three points behind 5th (Spurs with a game in hand) but it’s very clear that there’s a lot of work to be done if they’re to bridge the gap to the Champions League level sides.
For Fulham, this was a pretty good result, from a reasonably good performance. But there was certainly a hint of wastefulness from them. One thing we were glad to see was that Rodrigo Muniz (8) had another 5 shots. They weren’t all particularly great shots, but his xG total was 0.33 which is broadly fine. We said in our subscriber-only piece last week that with young forwards, shot volume is an excellent sign. We weren’t discouraged here. Short of an injury, you can probably drop Armando Broja if you gambled on him.
Bournemouth 0 - 1 Manchester City
This was almost textbook second-half-of-the-season Manchester City. Even with a changed lineup, they just got an early-ish goal and then just rode out the game, not really allowing an opposition glove to land. Many Fantrax managers would’ve been frustrated by the team-sheet, given it left out Kevin De Bruyne (-2.5), Julian Alvarez (0) and Jeremy Doku (1). And the alternatives selected were not names you were going to rush to stream. Mateo Kovacic (4) and Matheus Nunes (7) may have occasionally flirted with Fantrax relevance but not consistently (and mostly at their previous clubs). But still, Phil Foden’s (26.5) Goal put them ahead early and that was that.
Bournemouth did test Ederson (18.5) with a few shots, particularly in the second half. But they weren’t overly good shots. They finished the game with 0.93 xG, which is respectable enough against City. But when you’ve played most of the game from behind, that’s not a tally that screams “we are going to take something from this game”. It also doesn’t help for Fantrax points that 9 of their 13 Shots didn’t find the target. We’re far higher on Bournemouth at this point in the season than we expected to be, so this isn’t intended to read as overly negative. They just got Manchester City-d. Lots of teams get Manchester City-d. Key for them is that their next two games include a trip to Burnley and a visit from Sheffield United. Bournemouth players are hot commodities for the next couple of games.
Arsenal 4 - 1 Newcastle
For those keeping count, this is the third Arsenal ‘paddling’ in three weeks. They’re normally really non-exciting things to write about (as you normally just end up describing a whole lot of goals), so we’ve not dived into them particularly the last two weeks, but I’m worried Arsenal fans are going to think we’re short-changing them, so we’ll talk a little about it. Perhaps the most interesting recent thing to talk about for Arsenal has been the changed role of Kai Havertz (22.5). The German has looked an occasionally awkward fit starting as a central midfielder for Arsenal, though things have improved from a rough early-season. In this game, as he did against Liverpool, Havertz lined up in the striker position that we got so used to seeing during his time at Chelsea. It worked pretty well for them here (arguably better in terms of team structure than any specific output, though Havertz did get 1.28 xG from his 2 Shots which is pretty impressive work). We’ve been critical of Kai all year here in terms of his Fantrax output, so it’s been a nice 2024 for him so far (February in particular). The impending return of Gabriel Jesus is likely to shift his role back once more, which has us hesitant to declare him ‘back’ but there’s a pulse at least. Somewhat strangely, the rest of the Arsenal output is fairly muted. They beat Newcastle so comfortably, yet only 5 players hit double figures. And one of them was Jakub Kiwior (14.25). Nothing to worry about here, though. And they get Sheffield United next. Could we be in for a fourth wielding of a paddle in a row?
For Newcastle things are looking particularly brutal right now. We talked in the Preview about just how bad they’ve been defensively. This was a vacuum on both sides of the ball. Without the late consolation goal, they’d have had just one player over 4 Fantrax points. Something has to change here or Eddie Howe is going to find himself under a lot of scrutiny. They face Wolves next and on recent form, you’d make Wolves the favourite.
Wolves 1 - 0 Sheffield United
Speaking of Wolves, this partial clash with the Carabao Cup Final was not a barnstormer. But it was another Wolves win. They’re up to 8th in the table, overtaking Newcastle and sitting just a point behind Brighton in 7th. We’ve said it before but it bears repeating: this is one of the managerial performances of the season from Gary O’Neil. They’ve had to play with a next-man-up mentality thanks to injuries for much of the year and they have rarely missed a beat. Pablo Sarabia (18) continues to show up week-after-week on the stat sheet and it was his header that ultimately won Wolves this game. And it was nice to see Rayan Ait-Nouri (18.5) continue his post-AFCoN form, with another double figure points tally (his third in four games). Those who have been with us for a long time may remember the brief period where my solo-work became an Ait-Nouri fan-blog for a short time.
1-0 might imply that this was a tight game but Sheffield United didn’t really threaten at any point. They had 12 Shots for just 0.58 xG. We’re at Week 26 of this. I’ve not really got anything insightful to add. A few of the Sheffield United players did manage to rack up defensive counting stats. Jayden Bogle (12.25), Jack Robinson (8.5) and Auston Trusty (8.5) all joining Vinicius de Souza Costa (9.5) in hitting decent replacement level tallies. But it’s really not a data point you can do anything with. You’re certainly not risking streaming any of them against Arsenal.
Bonus quick take: West Ham 4 - 2 Brentford
We don’t often talk about MNF games. But this one we just wanted to talk about one thing.
Lucas Paqueta (4.5) started you say? Oh and West Ham won it fairly comfortably? Some things are just comfortingly obvious. Emerson Palmieri (38.75) scoring such a wild score, even without a Clean Sheet, is maybe a little less predictable, but Jarrod Bowen’s (33.5) long overdue bounce-back is hopefully the sign of a return to normality. With a run of nice-ish games in March, we’d assume that this is real.
Another week, another set of transactions for our subscribers. As usual, we’re not going to shout out long-term injuries or suspensions in here. We recommend regularly using a resource like PremierInjuries to keep on track of potential stash-ahead guys as we get closer to their expected availability dates.
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