The Thirteen Days of Football

We hope you got to take in a game or 12 over the last few weeks.  We certainly did.  So how did your team fare in this congested period?  Once again we turn to the BFS exclusive holiday period rankings based on the following scale.

	You got a Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time - and you didn't even ask for one!
	It's A Wonderful Life
	Nice enough but how many times can you watch White Christmas?
	The Grinch stole your Christmas
	Only Hans Gruber had a worse Christmas than you

We have added a new feature this year - percentage of expected points collected.  We used the 538 predictions to get expected points.  For example, on New Year's Day, Burnley were given a 50% chance of winning, Aston Villa a 25% chance, with a 25% chance of a tie.  So Villa's expected points were .25*3 + .25*1 = 1.  It's a way of adjusting for the degree of difficulty given each team's schedule.  The table below shows both the percentage of total possible points and percentage of expected points for the matches between 12/21 and 1/2.

Points  % Available        % Expected Southampton 10 83% 235% Watford 10 83% 185% Wolverhampton 6 50% 154% Liverpool 9 100% 132% Everton 7 58% 129% Sheffield United 4 33% 128% Leicester City 6 50% 121% Aston Villa 6 50% 110% Arsenal 5 42% 104% Chelsea 7 58% 97% Crystal Palace 5 42% 96% Manchester City 9 75% 92% Manchester United 6 50% 89% Brighton and Hove Albion 4 33% 82% West Ham United 3 33% 80% Newcastle 3 25% 70% Burnley 3 25% 61% Tottenham Hotspur 4 33% 54% Norwich City 2 17% 46% AFC Bournemouth 1 8% 19%

Looking at sides of particular interest at BFS:

Newcastle   

Totally worth a yellow for removing the jersey
Photo: Richard Sellers/Getty

Yes, my expectations were low given the matches with Man United and Leicester but they probably should have been able squeeze a draw out of a home match with Everton.  The good news is that the three points they got in a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace came on Almiron's first goal as a Magpie. The timing couldn't have been better as Newcastle were looking at a draw - at best - until this bolt from the blue.  We'll make it one of this week's multiple YouTubeableMoments.  What I like about this video is you get a sense of how much the St. James' faithful really want this guy to succeed.  The silver lining about this streak is that hopefully Newcastle management are under no illusions about the quality of this team and will take steps accordingly.  I note with alarm that despite their 25 points, 538 still lists the Magpies with a 25% chance of relegation.  

Aston Villa 

Dennis might disagree given their schedule and how awful they looked but they actually did a little better than expected.  Probably doesn't feel so good because relegation rivals Southampton and Watford did have an awesome holiday period, partly at the Villans' expense.  No doubt they looked awful versus Southampton and Watford and frankly weren't that good even in victory over Norwich.  But the 2-1 win over Burnley at Turf Moor was like finding a wrapped present behind the Christmas tree after you thought you had opened everything.  Might have been a pyrrhic win given that forward Wesley and keeper Heaton were injured.  Another side that needs the January transfer window.

Tottenham  

I originally had two here but upon further review, this was a disastrous stretch for Spurs. The holidays included a big loss to Chelsea when fourth place was in view, a sloppy draw to Norwich and an even uglier loss to Southampton.  They did get three in a win over Brighton but the total haul for the four games just won't cut it for a team with Champions League ambitions.  Also, the Special One got a yellow on New Year's Day.  But he was "contrite" about it:   

“I think the yellow card was fair as I was rude, but I was rude with an idiot. But I clearly deserved the card I was rude.”

And Harry Kane got hurt as well.  Yeah, this was a one-Santa holiday.

Man United 

Jeff H abandoned their match against Arsenal to watch the dog show; that sums up the Red Devils holiday action pretty well.  So they beat Newcastle and Burnley but fell to Watford and Arsenal.  They looked very pedestrian against Arsenal, like they could have played for another 90 minutes but still might not have scored.

Arsenal 

Very mixed results for the Gunners and I'm slightly puzzled by their 104% score on just five points.    They were minutes away from a big win over Chelsea before losing 1-2 but they were underdogs in that one.  And draws with Everton and Bournemouth?  They were road games so expectations are lower.  Clearly the 2-0 win over Man United on New Year's Day rescued what would have been an awful holiday.

Other noteworthy performances

Southampton 

They got three wins and a draw, beating both Chelsea and Tottenham in the process.  They moved out the relegation zone all the way to 12th in the table.  Ralph Hasenhuttl, hanging on for dear life at one point, now slips way down in the managerial sack race.

Watford 

The Hornet's road might have been a touch easier but it included wins over Man United and Wolves.  That they still sit 19th in the table is testimony to how wretched their season had been to this point.

Wolves 

The value of risk adjusting the results becomes evident in evaluating Wolves results.  With just six points, including a road loss to Watford, we might otherwise conclude it was not a good holiday for a BFS favorite.  Closer inspection shows they did well given their fixture list.  Yes, they were expected to beat Norwich but they were only prohibitive favorites on the road for that one.  They were huge underdogs hosting Man City but took all three in a thrilling come-from-behind win.  They were huge underdogs at Enfield so the 0-1 loss was hardly unexpected.  And surprisingly, they were very slight underdogs on the road at Watford, meaning the 1-2 loss wasn't totally out of the blue. Same thing for Sheffield United - they did okay with a brutal schedule that also included Liverpool and Man City.

Bournemouth, with one point, clearly got a lump of coal in their stocking.


Random Takeaways

I took a few notes along the way and can look back on some texts, but with so many games, the whole thing becomes a blur.  I am left with random thoughts.

Best game of the holidays - Wolves come back from 0-2 to beat Man City. Rather than a single moment, check out the highlights here. City go down a man, get a goal after Patricio twice stops Sterling on a PK.  I think the link is from Wolves network so the excitement of the comeback is captured well.  Honorable mention to Arsenal - Chelsea.  I'm sure Gunners fans would just as soon forget this as Chelsea score twice in the final minutes to take a 2-1 win.

Watford survive being down a man for 33 minutes against Villa, scoring twice after the sending off and again for 19 minutes against Wolves, holding on for a 2-1 win.  As Dennis says, a goal on the scoreboard is definitely worth more than a man advantage.

There was a spate of offside calls in which the attacker was off by no more than a millimeter.  Dennis and I offer two options to address this.  Dennis says don't allow the VAR to use those lines.  If it's not obvious without the lines, than it can't be an egregious error.  My suggestion is that they use the lines but thicken them by a percent or so; if the two lines overlap, than the margin of error is too small to overturn the call on the field.  Or as we say in the trade, there is insufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis.

If offside is based on the position of body parts that can score a goal, then I could never be flagged for offside, because there's no way I could score a goal with any body part.

Leicester kinda failed their big test, losing to both  Liverpool and Man City in consecutive matches. And yet, they still occupy second place and look better than any of Chelsea, Man United, Tottenham or Arsenal.

Brighton stole a point from Chelsea with Alireza Jahanbakhsh's amazing bicycle kick; check out the video here.

The opening game of the holiday period - an Everton-Arsenal 0-0 draw - was like opening the first present on Christmas morning to find out it was a pair of socks.

The New Year's Day fixture between Man City and Everton featured Pep Guardiola and Carlos Ancelotti managing against each other.

David Moyes was hired at West Ham and the side celebrated with a 4-0 thrashing of Bournemouth.

Speaking of Bournemouth, Eddie Howe - the longest tenured manager in the EPL - is now listed at 3/1 as the next manager to be sacked.  The Cherries have four points from their last 10 matches.


Christmas Presents

Scott, who gifted me Football Manager some Christmases ago, gave me "The Football Manager Guide to Football Management."  Key quote:

We are all football managers. It's just that some of us haven't been appointed yet.

Ellen and Anna gave me "Encyclopedia Blazertannica: A Suboptimal Guide to Soccer, America's Sport of the Future Since 1972."  In the first entry, the Men in Blazers pose this question:

"...why are so many English-accented broadcasters immediately afforded respect based solely on their accents?"

Are Your Streaming Services Up to Date?

After the glut of holiday games, we now face a virtual viewing blackout.  Unless you have ESPN+, you're out of luck for this weekend's FA Cup matches and the mid-week I Don't Carabao It Cup semi finals.

For the background on the FA Cup, we direct you to this old BFS post.  This weekend's schedule can be found here.  Newcastle are at Rochdale; injuries might make the decision for Steve Bruce as to how many regulars sit this one out.  Aston Villa are at Fulham, Spurs are at Middlesborough, Arsenal host Leeds and Man United play Wolves.  One of these is not like the others.  That is the "beauty" of the FA Cup - that you can get a difficult, Premier League-level match-up in the third round while others around you are playing League One or League Two opponents.  Also note there is a Merseyside derby as Liverpool and Everton face off.  Crazy.

Then we have the first leg of the Carabao Cup semis midweek.  First up is a Manchester derby on Tuesday with United hosting.  Wednesday is Leicester - Aston Villa.  Both are at 3 pm on ESPN+.  Don't miss these matches in what Men In Blazers call the Cuppity Cup Cup, in honor of how many different sponsors it has gone through in its short history.  They also suggest it it the "fifteenth or sixteenth most important trophy" in English football.

But, as the saying goes, everything looks like a meal to a starving man so we will take in more than our share of these matches, because that's all there is right now.