Good Stuff

As we had hoped, just about every match this weekend was eminently watchable.  Not all will be happy with the results but there were wins for Newcastle and Aston Villa.  As of publication, Frank Lampard was still manager at Everton.

Ball Don't Lie

As we feared, Fulham was more than happy to give Newcastle a hard time.  Statistically, the Magpies were running over them but through 64+ minutes, the match was scoreless.  Then there were two PK shouts for Fulham in the space of 30 seconds.  Real time, the first looked troublesome, the second like  embellishment.  Replays suggested the first wasn't so bad and that the second was indeed embellishment.  So VAR of course passed on the first but sent referee Robert Jones to the monitor for the second and the on-field no call decision was reversed.  Incredibly soft and re-refereeing for me.  Mitrovic took the PK and appeared to have converted it, though it looked odd.  Turns out it was odd because he had slipped and kicked the ball with his right foot into his left foot.  Since the kicker cannot strike the ball a second time without an intervening touch by another player, the goal was disallowed and the kick not retaken (like a 15 yard penalty plus loss of down).  You can see the bizarre play here as this week's YouTubeableMoment.  Given the questionable nature of the penalty award in the first place, Dennis immediately texted me the immortal words of Rasheed Wallace - "Ball don't lie."

Welcome back Isak

As much of a break as that was, a match that Newcastle should win was still scoreless. Off the bench and to the rescue was our most expensive transfer, Alexander Isak.  He calmly headed in Callum Wilson's cross from the goal line in the 87th minute for the game winner.  The three points catapulted Newcastle past Man United and to within one point of Manchester City.  Mid-week results changed things a little but let that statement sink in anyway.  

No doubt Fulham are a pesky side right now but the hard fought 1-0 win makes clear what will determine Newcastle's potential fate as a contender for European football.  The finishing is just not consistent enough.  Don't fully understand why so many of the best chances are falling to Longstaff, who is a good defensive midfielder but clearly not our best attacking option.  Wilson has been inconsistent, when he is not injured.  Same for Chris Wood.  More playing time for Isak and Saint-Maximin might be the answer, as might some help in the January transfer wire.

Blame the Rule, Not the Call

Man City took a 1-0 lead late into Saturday's derby.  Then, Bruno Fernandes appeared to level things at 78 minutes with a well taken shot from the top of the box.  Except the initial call was that Rashford was offside on the play.  However, after a relatively short discussion between Stuart Atwell and AR Darren Cann, the goal was allowed to stand.  Cue outrage.  You can see the play here. I will admit that my first thought was how is that not offside.  But if you read the rule carefully, you will be hard pressed to conclude that Rashford violated the letter of the law.  

Once again, here is the relevant language from Law 11:

A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched* by a team-mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by:

• interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate or
• interfering with an opponent by:
  • preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
  • challenging an opponent for the ball or
  • clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or
  • making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball

Passive my ass: Rashford never took himself out of the play

Well, Rashford didn't touch the ball.  Under the heading of interfering with an opponent, points one and two are out.  Did he clearly attempt to play the ball?  No.  So we're left with the last point.  He certainly looked like he played the dummy on the pass.  He also ran alongside Fernandes and could have easily been the one to take the shot instead of Bruno.  Except he didn't.  And did his actions affect "the ability of an opponent to play the ball?"  No Man City defender got close enough to play the ball so I think the answer is no.  All we are left with is that Rashford's position could have easily put questions into the minds of Man City defenders as to was he going to play the ball or shoot.  As in, how could that not have affected the City defenders' actions?  But that is not addressed in the law.  Though it seems massively counter to the spirit of the offside law, the call appears correct.  Several former referees have weighed in with exactly that opinion. 

Think about the hypothetical situation where there's an attacker standing on the corner of the six, say 20+ yards ahead of the next to last defender and the ball so clearly in the offside position.  But he's not blocking the keeper's vision and not moving.  If the ball comes into the area and he makes no move toward the ball, it is not offside.  The keeper is supposed to ignore that attacker, secure in the knowledge that if the attacker takes a step to play the ball, he'll be flagged for offside.  That explanation never sits well with keepers and coaches but it is 100% correct.  But let's push that hypothetical a little.  Suppose that instead of being 20 yards offside, there's a defender standing close to that attacker.  How is the keeper supposed to know if the attacker is offside?  The referee courses pound into our head that the only way to know for sure is if you are positioned exactly in line with the next to last defender, so it is impossible for the keeper to know.  

I fear that a major rewrite of the law would probably just create additional problems.  BFS Keeper Consultant (and a referee himself) suggests that maybe the lawmakers can provide us with some additional examples as to what constitutes "interfering."  

To his credit, Guardiola, while clearing registering his disagreement with the ruling, said City's bigger problem was conceding a second goal a mere four minutes later.  As in, the call sucked but we made mistakes too.  Rashford's game winner was pretty good, made possible by a great feed from Garnacho.  This was a big win for Man United, pulling them to within one point of their cross town rivals, at least for the moment.  And a fun watch too.

Hugo Ll"oyy"ris

The other big derby -Tottenham vs Arsenal - wasn't quite as good viewing, especially for Spurs fans.  An incredible howler of an own goal from Tottenham keeper Hugo Lloris, seen here, spotted the Gunners an early goal.  A second from Martin Odegaard doubled the lead at 36 minutes.  So yet again, another frustrating first half performance for Spurs.  Given their recent history of strong second half performances, the game still felt in reach.  True to form, Spurs were better in second half but never broke through and the final was 2-0.  The loss leaves Tottenham 14 points behind first place Arsenal.

Odegaard is getting a lot of attention.  People are asking how could Real Madrid have let him get away for a mere 35 million?  He has 8 goals and 5 assists in 17 matches and an average rating of 7.52.  Check out his stats here at whoscored.com.  He has seven matches with ratings over 8.0.  Note he also has eight matches below 7.0.  To be fair, most of those are between 6.6 and 6.9 so it's not like they were awful, just not as good.  Only three data points but in the three matches in which Arsenal have dropped points, his ratings were 6.79 (draw with Newcastle), 6.77 (draw with Southampton) and 5.98 (loss to Man United).

Another Anecdote

We can add another data point in the argument that Unai Emery is making a difference at Aston Villa.  They were facing a pesky Leeds side in a match that would hopefully dispel any notion that Villa were going to be dragged into a relegation battle.  They passed the test, though not necessarily with flying colors.  Leon Bailey got them on the board with a third minute goal.  The quick start seemed to fade away and there was too much action in Villa's third of the field.  Leeds certainly know how to attack and they got their chances.  Great work from Martinez in goal and Alex Moreno (nice January pick up there) at left back to deny two likely goals.  A second goal from Buendia provided some cushion but a late goal from Bamford meant 12 minutes or so of squeaky bum time.  The stats (especially xG at .9 - 2.0) suggest maybe Villa were a bit lucky.  Yeah, except that's why you get a good keeper and defenders plus Villa converted their chances and Leeds didn't.  You can't help but feel this was a draw or loss under Emery's predecessor.

Blue Bloods at the Bottom

James Ward-Prowse: he can take our free kicks anytime
but not so about his golf game

A busy week down in the relegation zone.  Aston Villa's win over Leeds kept The Whites perilously close to the drop zone.  Nottingham Forest got some breathing room at the expense of Leicester, who sit just two points above 18th place.  Brentford's 2-0 win over Bournemouth has the Cherries just one point from the bottom three.   The Everton - Southampton clash was tight as expected and turned on two second half goals from James Ward-Prowse.  Check out his game winner of a free kick here.  I am baffled as to how, after losing at home to a relegation rival, Frank Lampard didn't get sacked.  In the other big relegation contest, Wolves bested West Ham 1-0, putting David Moyes in perhaps as much jeopardy as Lampard.  Both those contests were exactly what you'd expect from six-pointers.  Tense, maybe not always the best football but highly watchable.

Heading into the weekend, the bottom three in order are West Ham, Everton and Southampton.  All are on 15 points with the order determined by goal differential.  

In Other Action

Chelsea eked out a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace.  This was as close has the score indicates but also really nasty.  There were seven yellow cards (five for Palace) and 27 fouls (17 for Palace).  Regardless, the three points must have been welcome sight for Graham Potter.  In what might not be a surprise any more, Brighton blasted Liverpool 3-0.  I didn't see the match but everything in the stats make it look like the right score.  Possession was 61/39, shots 16/6, shots on target 9/2 and xG 1.9-1.2.  Yikes.

The two Manchester sides were in action midweek.  United surrendered a late goal to Crystal Palace and could only manage a 1-1 draw at Selhurst Park., foiling any chance to pass City.  Tottenham actually scored two in the first half but then allowed Man City four in the second half in a 4-2 loss at The Etihad.  So the weekend begins with Arsenal top of the table by five over Man City, Man United are three back of that and Newcastle sit fourth.  One of these is not like the others... 

FA Cup 3rd Round Clean Up

Actually, they're not done yet because the Accrington Stanley - Boreham Wood replay was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.  Liverpool and Leeds did win their replays.  The Championship sides did pretty well too.  Here's the composition of the next round, pending the last replay

Premier League - 11

Championship - 12

League One - 4

League Two - 3

National League - 1

Accrington Stanley would add one to the League One tally while a Boreham Wood upset would add on to National League numbers.

That'll Leave A Mark

BFS Executive Chef Laura O. sends along this clip of a defender giving his all to keep the balls ball out of the net.

The War for Football

BFS PSG Correspondent Kathy S alerted me to the Apple TV documentary on the first failed attempt to set up a Super League.  Details are here.  I watched the first installment and learned some additional less than savory aspects of the effort, including what looks like the outright betrayal of the UEFA head (Aleksander Ceferin) by Andrea Agnelli (at the time head of Juventus and also the European Club Association).  Ceferin thought he had worked out revisions to the Champions League format to satisfy the bigger clubs' concerns.  As he was driving to a meeting to announce it, the news of the Super League broke and Ceferin realized that Agnelli - who he thought of as a close personal friend - was involved.  Looking forward to the next three installments.

In the paragraph above, I said "first failed attempt" because the idea is not going away.  Some of those behind the first effort took UEFA and FIFA to court arguing that their monopolies were illegal.  In December, the European Court of  Justice found that the federations' actions were "compatible with EU competition law."  Despite that, I fear we are not done with this issue.

It's Always About the Miles

BFS 100 Meter Record Holder Bob S sends along this clip about how much EPL players run during a match. Some good stuff in there that I may need to follow up on.  Most interesting is his initial observation that total team miles may not correlate with success.  

More Six Pointers

Though not quite as fascinating as last weekend, still a pretty good list of fixtures.  Biggest would be Man United - Arsenal at 11:30 on Sunday (NBC).  Although United's midweek draw to Crystal Palace took some of the luster off this, it is still big one as they could find themselves 11 points back with a loss.  Then there's the Saturday 7:30 match featuring Liverpool - Chelsea.  Even though that's 9th place Liverpool vs 10th place Chelsea, a loss here for either means Champions League, already 10 points away, is that much farther.  

Big match on the relegation front is West Ham hosting Everton at 10 am Saturday on USA; you have to wonder if the losing manager survives this match.  Despite some recent wins for Forest, we have to put the Bournemouth - Nottingham Forest contest in the relegation six-pointer list as well.  That's another of the Saturday 10 am Peacock matches.  Also at 10 am is Leicester - Brighton, which doesn't really offer much of interest right now.  

A not so obvious six-pointer is the London Derby between Spurs and Fulham on Monday at 3 pm (USA).  The two are 5th and 6th in the table, separated by just two points.

Newcastle get Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park as the NBC feature match Saturday at 12:30.  This is usually a good contest so we think the schedulers chose well.  Aston Villa get to play the opposite of kingmaker as they face last place Southampton Saturday at 10 on Peacock.  Though we expect a close contest here, our 10 am slot is probably taken up by the West Ham - Everton match.  

For your early Sunday 9 am morning viewing, we would recommend Leeds - Brentford (Peacock) over Man City - Wolves.  The former could be a close and watchable contest while the latter could be a blow out.  

For those who might still be following, the first legs of the two Carabao Cup semis are the only mid week action on tap.  Newcastle are at Southampton on Tuesday at 3 while Nottingham Forest host Man United in the other on Wednesday, also at 3 pm.

Just one day (Thursday) without football this week, which is fine by us.