The Overthinking Roundup: GW30
In which we petition the Premier League to ban future Manchester City vs Arsenal games, Chelsea and United continue to be basket-cases and relegation remains tight
Welcome to the Overthinking Roundup for Gameweek 30.
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!
Newcastle United 4 - 3 West Ham
A wise blog somewhere talked up this game as a tough spot for a Newcastle side who have had open-play creation challenges. And to a certain degree, they did continue that trend in the first half. They went in at the half 2-1 down and with 0.65 xG from open-play. And it wasn’t long after half-time that West Ham went up another goal and it felt like this one might’ve run away from Newcastle. Their day had started well, but a succession of goals conceded and injuries suffered, in this case losing Jamaal Lascelles (1), Tino Livramento (-1.5) and Miguel Almiron (5), had this looking like a pretty ugly day. So they deserve credit for turning it around. Antony Gordon (24) is a divisive figure in terms of his output and his occasional (or in the case of this match, frequent) theatrics, but he’s having a career-year output wise. Here he won two Penalties and set up Harvey Barnes (29) for the winning goal, before promptly picking up a second Yellow Card for dissent. He’s definitely going to be an interesting player to talk about this Summer—stay tuned. The final half-hour for Newcastle here was like watching a completely different side. And it was great to see Elliot Anderson (7.5) on the field again as part of that. In just 30 minutes, he was heavily involved and he could have streamer potential in the minutes he’s able to play between now and the end-of-the-season. And with each additional injury they pick up, the higher the chances are that he’ll be playing. It’s a Fantrax silver-lining, at least.
When you’re 3-1 up and see it evaporate in the last third of a game, you’re always going to be disappointed. That it was at least partially self-inflicted will sting even more. Kalvin Phillips (2) has struggled at West Ham (ever since he left Leeds, really) and unfortunately his troubles showed no signs of easing here as he conceded the second penalty not long after coming on. Truthfully though, their lead was fairly smash-and-grab, with 3 Goals coming from 1.42 xG on the day. It didn’t hugely matter for Fantrax, given their trademark points funnel continues to push everything through the usual names. In a lot of seasons Mo Kudus (32) would be a pretty strong contender for best FAAB impact signing of the year. This season there are a few other names we might put above him, but he’s certainly got an X-Factor about him that gives West Ham the sort of special moments that that fanbase have historically loved from the likes of Dmitri Payet in the past. West Ham have a tough game against Spurs next and will have at least one eye over their shoulder as they look to hang on to 7th place over the next few weeks.
Bournemouth 2 - 1 Everton
There was a point in the season when this would’ve looked like a really intriguing matchup between two dark-horse performers. It’s reasonable to say that some of that enthusiasm has lessened at this point as it’s become clear that Bournemouth will remain inconsistent and that Everton just seemingly don’t like scoring goals. And this was not the most eventful game ever. Just 7 Shots on Target from the two sides combined and only one each that classed as a ‘Big Chance’ by Opta’s definition. That’s the sort of thing that always puts a cap on likely Fantrax production. That the final goal was an OG also doesn’t help.
So the reality is that we’ve got pretty similar looking points distributions across the two sides. Dominic Solanke (13) and Beto (13.5) both finished with little more than their Goal points. Beto was a late substitute, so that’s fairly expected. Solanke was a little more muted today than we’d have hoped. His Goal came from his only Shot of the game and he was credited with a single Chance Created. It’s a sign of the season he’s having that that stands out as disappointing, I guess. Also notable for Bournemouth (and for our US readers) was that Tyler Adams (11) started a game, played a full 90 minutes and played well. It’s been a good fortnight for him. Everton were forced into playing without their first-choice full-backs in this one and it was the unfortunate veteran Seamus Coleman (-2.25) who ended up credited with the Own Goal. It wasn’t a vintage last few minutes in this one for defenders or Goalkeepers.
Everton really could’ve done with banking at least a point here, with some tough fixtures down the stretch. But they do at least know that with games against all four of the sides below them, they control their destiny. It’ll need to look better than this, though. Bournemouth would be forgiven for already being on the beach, given their position in the table. But an unlikely push up the table into the top half is possible and we’d imagine there’ll be at least a few in the building who want to see them leapfrog ex-manager Gary O’Neil’s Wolves side. It’s Palace next, then Luton for them.
Chelsea 2 - 2 Burnley
A lot is written about Chelsea’s transfer business. Most of it is still speculative. But one thing that is for sure is that this club would be in a dire place had they not signed Cole Palmer (38.5). What a strange state of affairs that the 21 year-old who joined with 3 career Premier League starts is so crucial to the squad. There’s lots of things he still needs to develop (particularly in defensive off-ball situations) but he’s electric on the ball. He had 8 Shots (3 On-Target) and 2 Goals, as well as 5 Chances Created for others on the day. Against a Burnley side who looked well off-it defensively for an hour of this game, that should’ve been more than enough. It wasn’t, though. Post-International Break games are always strange because coaches have to assess how much energy is left in the legs of their players after various travels. But Chelsea went into half-time in control, in the lead and seemingly able to carve through Burnley at will. Then with each additional change, their control of the game lessened and, by the end, it wasn’t clear which side should’ve been disappointed with the draw.
We don’t care about it a huge amount directly for Fantrax, but there are two things Chelsea really struggle with (in addition to being truly awful at set piece defending): ball security in possession and off-ball defensive work. This is why you get things like a huge points haul for Mykhailo Mudryk (26.5) in the same game where he turns the ball over to Burnley 25 times. That’s not really meant as a dig at Mudryk specifically, who actually had one of his best days (and was definitely not the worst culprit defensively), but a side can only carry a certain number of attacking players who lose it a lot and then don’t win the ball back well. Chelsea seemingly wanted to play all of their players with that profile today. And it’s why you can track Burnley’s second equaliser through fairly lackadaisical defending by multiple Chelsea players. Pochettino called out the defensive effort post-match but the bigger issue he has is that, given his (questionable) unwillingness to put academy names in the frame, he’s only got the same collection of awkwardly-fitting names to choose from. When it’s a good day, it’ll be good. When it’s a bad day, it’ll look like this. They’ve also got a worry about Malo Gusto (17.5), who has been a real bright spot the last couple of months, as he left the game with a hamstring problem late. Alfie Gilchrist (0) would be the presumptive next man up, but he’s not likely to have any real Fantrax impact as an attacker.
For Burnley, they looked incredibly ropey in defence early. But Arijanet Muric (24) carried them through that early period with goalkeeping heroics. They rallied well though and, particularly once Chelsea withdrew Moises Caicedo (1.5) and abandoned central midfield entirely, they were able to create chances. Josh Cullen (28) will attract most of the attention, given his long-range finish and Assist for the equaliser, but this was a whole team effort. Yes, on another day (one with a less inspired Muric), this could’ve been comfortable for Chelsea. But it’s hugely to Burnley’s credit that it wasn’t. Their recent form has been pretty good. It’s almost definitely too little, too late. But you can learn a lot about a set of players in how they play in those sorts of circumstances. There’s still fight in Burnley.
Nottingham Forest 1 - 1 Crystal Palace
Guess which game I watched last this week.
I have to admit these are two sides for which I find it very difficult to come up with interesting insights. You all know that Eberechi Eze (19) is very good at football. You all know that Chris Wood (13.5) exists to taunt us into reckless streaming decisions. And you all know we’ve got a man-crush on Callum Hudson-Odoi (8). And it pretty much played out that way again.
Because Palace’s new manager prefers a conservative tactical set-up, the early hope that Adam Wharton (3) would be a Fantrax asset has faded a little. And there wasn’t much to talk about for typically reliable Jordan Ayew (1.5) for the third game running. I will be honest in saying that I’m pretty underwhelmed by the new set-up for Palace. Other than a game against a self-destructive Burnley side, they’ve looked pretty pedestrian in attack and haven’t prevented the opposition from scoring in exchange. It’s early days and fair to ask whether there’s been enough time for Oliver Glasner to make the changes that he wants to make on the training ground. But we really hope that this isn’t what it’s meant to look like.
We’re similarly unsure if Nuno Espirito Santo has had the impact Forest would’ve hoped when they brought him in for Steve Cooper. He can’t be blamed for the 4-point deduction, but he’s also done little to separate Forest from the chasing pack. He’s also got a fascination with Divock Origi (3) that I’m not sure I particularly see, personally. There are 8 games left to show signs of life. And they should be favourites over Luton. But until they start to separate with actual points, it’s going to remain tense in Nottingham.
Sheffield United 3 - 3 Fulham
There was a moment, however brief, where this was lining up to be a good day for Sheffield United. They were 3-1 up against Fulham and Chelsea were a man up and winning against Burnley. Sheffield United could’ve gone even on points with Burnley with a game in hand. Getting out of the relegation spots is very much not on the cards, but finishing above 20th still is. Unfortunately, Fulham and Chelsea conspired in neighbourly fashion to ruin it for United. You all know I’m going to want to talk about Fulham’s eventual equaliser. But before we go there, let’s talk a little about Sheffield United’s two-man show in attack. Ben Brereton Diaz (30) and Oli McBurnie (26.5) are an unlikely pair of Premier League strikers. Here they looked like a veteran strike-partnership. We’re a little shocked where it came from, we’re not confident it’ll happen again. But if this is the pairing that’ll be spearheading their push to return to the Premier League next year, there’s reasons for optimism.
Ok. Now lets talk about Rodrigo Muniz (20.5) some more. We like 7 Shots. We like 0.59 xG + xA. But all of it can just pale in comparison to the piece of skill for that goal. It’s not the first time we’ve seen Muniz attempt the spectacular. He clearly respects his heritage. It’s the first time we’ve seen it connect like this. He’s going to be hard to keep hold of for Fulham this Summer. We’d like to imagine him getting one more year at Craven Cottage but with each passing week, we can only assume his agent’s phone is buzzing with greater frequency. It should be said that this was not a particularly vintage week for Fulham. Not content with jinxing West Ham’s defence, we did also talk about Fulham’s centre-back pairing in the Preview. Naturally Tosin Adarabioyo (-4) went on to drop probably his worst game of the season. Sometimes things just break that way. At least we got the good attacking output. With Forest up next, there’s plenty of bounce-back potential for Fulham next week, before their schedule gets a little tougher.
Tottenham 2 - 1 Luton Town
Game by game, Luton’s starting lineup is looking more and more depleted. And, despite their early goal in this game, it shows. Ross Barkley (10.5) remains good at football and his ability to spot Tahith Chong (12.5) in his peripheral put Luton in pole position. But it felt like a matter of time before Spurs would come-back, even as they continued to miss a collection of good chances. Timo Werner (8.5) and Brennan Johnson (21) in particular were seemingly taking turns to put Shots wide of the goal. Thankfully for Spurs, Luton were on-hand to help, with Issa Kabore (-0.5) the unfortunate scorer in his own net from Johnson’s delivery. Werner and Johnson are not lethal deadeye strikers, but they do give you remarkable directness on the counter and it was a combination of the two who combined to set up Son Heung Min (17) for the go-ahead goal after the ball broke-loose from a Luton set piece. The early season ‘everything we touch goes in’ vibes for Spurs have faded a little but what’s left is still a very impressive team. Ange Postecoglou deserves a lot of credit, given he’s done it with a number of players that weren’t obviously ‘fits’ in a Top-4 Premier League side.
Luton do still hold onto hope that they can pull themselves above Nottingham Forest. The two sides are separated only by Goal Difference at this point. But Luton’s fixtures are not easy. And they sustained another injury today, this time to Alfie Doughty (9). We’ll await information about the severity but that would be yet another big blow, given how important Doughty is to this side. From a Fantrax perspective, it would also likely mean a significant volume of set piece opportunities that would come open in this Luton side. It would be more appealing were half the team not missing, but given Doughty had weeks where he was taking double figure numbers of set pieces, it’s not something to totally ignore. They face Arsenal in midweek and we’ll be hoping for some information on Doughty ahead of that tie.
Aston Villa 2 - 0 Wolverhampton
Aston Villa kept up the pace in the race for 4th spot here. But, before we talk about them, we’re just going to spend a minute talking about how Wolves, who started (just) 18 year-old Leon Chiwome (0) and Mario Lemina (8) in attacking positions in this game somehow still generated 1.5 xG against Villa. Whatever magic sauce Gary O’Neil cooks with, it seems to work with this Wolves squad. They probably should have taken the lead in this derby on 15 minutes when Rayan Ait-Nouri (2) found himself with the ball six-yards from goal after a misplaced Villa header. They didn’t. And football is a cruel game, so Villa punished it emphatically when Moussa Diaby (22) was given a chance to shoot from just outside the box. Diaby has been in and out of this Villa side, but this was a reminder of the dynamism he brings with a Goal and an Assist on the day. And they may need his explosiveness, as they saw Ollie Watkins (0) leave the field at half-time with an injury after a quiet first half. It’s not a good sign ahead of a visit from Manchester City, so we’re hoping that it was precautionary, with that game in mind. Villa’s run-in is among the tougher sets in the league and they’ve still got European competition to navigate, so there’s likely to be a need to rotate a little regardless.
For Wolves, they’re comfortably clear of relegation. They sit just below the Europa Conference League spots. But truthfully it would be fairly incredible if they do hold that position, with their key absentees. But a lot of their season has been incredible. They are very much running on fumes, though. Just Pablo Sarabia (12.5) and his set-pieces remain consistent for them at this point. It makes them fairly easy to write up, if a little repetitive. They travel to Burnley in midweek.
Brentford 1 - 1 Manchester United
Depending who you ask, some version of stoppage time has near enough always existed in Professional Football. In a hypothetical World without it, Brentford would be happy owners of a 1-0 win at Old Trafford and would have taken another point at home in a scoreless draw. In the Preview, I talked about this game, the fact it was in a horrible time-zone for me, and how I hoped that I wasn’t going to have late-drama FOMO. Sure enough, these two decided to leave the actual goal excitement late. But this was an interesting game, regardless.
When forgotten man Mason Mount (11.5) came off the bench in the 80th minute, most United fans probably (fairly) assumed it was about trying to stem the tide. Some of you will have seen the statistic floating around Social Media that Brentford had 84 touches of the ball in the opposition box. That’s a wildly high number (the highest for a number of seasons by any club) and it led to 3.29 xG from a, frankly obscene, 31 Shots for the Bees. But 80 minutes in, there was no breakthrough. And Mount was on hand to turn a decent chance into a Goal with an excellent finish. He’s had an incredibly rough and injury-plagued start to his time at United so it was nice to see a reminder of why he was deemed worth a huge transfer fee. But in taking the lead, United were threatening a heist Danny Ocean would be proud of. Erik Ten Hag disagreed post-match but this was another control-less game. Kobbie Mainoo (4) made his England-debut during the International Break and lots of the conversation online was back-and-forth between ‘well how good is he right now, actually?’ and ‘how good is he likely to become?’. The latter is unknowable, but exciting for England and United fans. But one thing that is clear, though, is that this United side isn’t putting anything like a support structure around him in terms of midfield support right now. To let you behind the curtain a little, I’ve considered a United deep-dive several times over the last couple of months but I’m truly at a loss to try to describe what is actually going on there. One thing that definitely is contributing to some of the chaos is injuries and we had a bunch more here. They, like a number of others, are operating a one-in, one-out policy in the physio room which no doubt hurts their rhythm as a squad and makes them something of a Fantrax-streamer nightmare.
Thankfully, for our belief in a sort of universal karmic justice, Brentford did finally get (a VAR allowed) goal of their own via Kristoffer Ajer (20.25) in the 99th minute. But, in the same way we’ve criticised United all-season for a lack of control, Brentford once again just couldn’t make the chances count. 30+ Shots turning into just 5 On-Target limits what could’ve been an obscene ceiling. That said, they still had 7 (seven) outfielders hitting double figure points. If you were one of those who started Zanka (15.5), then we salute your foresight. Be honest, you just forgot to take him out after last week’s failed stream, right? The good news for Brentford (on top of how well they generally played) is that no one below them picked up any ground on them. With games remaining against Sheffield United, Luton Town and Everton, they know that they can play their way comfortably clear of the chasing pack. It’s wild they’re even anywhere near the bottom. But if you wanted to understand their season as a whole, you could do worse than to watch this game!
Liverpool 2 - 1 Brighton
With this game coming ahead of City Arsenal, this was an important chance for Liverpool to put points on the board and dial up the pressure on their title race rivals. Naturally they conceded within 2 minutes. But from that point on it was all Liverpool. Brighton put up 0.4 xG in the remainder of the game, whilst Liverpool piled up 30 Shots for 2.83 xG. Mo Salah (21) had 12 (twelve!) shots. Be still our collective beating hearts. On his 9th Shot, he scored. Third third time lucky, as the saying goes. Liverpool’s sustaining of their title race is hugely impressive, even if I have to admit it through a slight veil of jealousy, as they’ve ably retooled around various player injury crises. Even before Luis Diaz (20) scored the equaliser, it felt like this one would turn Liverpool’s way. It was just a matter of time. And it’s not like Brighton are any slouch. When you can lose Trent Alexander-Arnold and just have Conor Bradley (17.5) pop up out of nowhere, you know that someone’s watching out for you.
Brighton’s good vibes last year seemingly really did use up all the wishes on the monkey paw. Not only have they spent much of this year battling injuries, but it looks as though manager Roberto De Zerbi intends to depart (likely a sensible move to cash in on his current status in the managerial hype cycle). It was always going to be a tension for Brighton as to whether they were willing to spend the capital required to turn their form in recent league seasons into sustained pressure for Champions League football. Football’s new PSR rules likely make it impossible for a club of their size to spend equivalently to the more established big-spenders and it’s really hard to maintain any kind of transfer edge over a long period of time. That said, they’re still not out of the running for Europa League or Europa Conference League football through their league finish. And the various injuries might actually help them hold on to some of their attacking talent. The recent form isn’t great, but there’s still plenty to be positive about. Almost no one outside of Lewis Dunk (14) and the goalscorer Danny Welbeck (10.5) were worth talking about in this one, but they get to play Brentford next, which should be a better matchup all-round.
Manchester City 0 - 0 Arsenal
Theycan’tkeepgettingawaywiththis.gif. Seriously. These are two of the best teams in the World. Some might argue they are the two best teams in the World right now. It shouldn’t be this hard to enjoy when they play each other. You may accuse me of hypocrisy, as a Chelsea fan who watched enraptured throughout the 2000s Champions League matchups between Jose and Rafa. All I can say is that I feel for anyone neutral who had to cover it and find something to write about.
How about all them passes, huh?
There’s nothing to say for Fantrax here that’s overly useful except: consider benching the attackers when these two face each other next year. And maybe go for a walk instead.
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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