Holiday Football

Thanks to some inspired work by teams from the lower half of the table, the holiday fixtures turned out to be a bit better than expected.  We certainly enjoyed checking in at about 2:45 for some mid-week football for the last two weeks in addition to the regular weekend action.

Conspiracy Theory

Before the 11 Days of Football kicked off, Dennis suggested a conspiracy theory in which the Power Six clubs were given decidedly easier schedules after the World Cup.  That the FA requested no important clashes before the World Cup is a matter of record.  Dennis argues that the policy seemed to have continued in the weeks immediately after the World Cup as well.  Here's the list of holiday fixtures for the Power Six:

Arsenal - West Ham, Brighton, Newcastle

Chelsea - Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest, Man City

Liverpool - Aston Villa, Leicester, Brentford

Man City - Leeds, Everton, Chelsea

Man United - Nottingham Forest, Wolves, Bournemouth

Tottenham - Brentford, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace

There is only one clash between the group (Man City - Chelsea).  Of the 18 fixtures, in only two cases was a team's predicted chance of victory less than 50% at 538 (Arsenal at Brighton and Chelsea against Man City).   At least one part of Dennis's point is confirmed - this was a relatively easy set of fixtures for the Power Six.  Was it intentional or just coincidence?   If it was intentional, it didn't work out exactly as planned as we discuss below.  If it was just a coincidence, it was a big coincidence. 

Degree of Difficulty

Sort of following up on the previous point, you really can't assess a club's performance over this holiday period without taking into account the quality of the opposition.  Sure you got five points in three matches but did you out- or underperform expectations?    Using the 538 projections, we constructed the table below that includes expected points per 538 compared to actual points earned in the holiday matches.  We'll use the first match of the festive period - Brentford v Spurs - as an example.  Spurs were 50% to win, Brentford were 28% to win, with a 22% chance of a draw.  Spurs' expected points were 3*.5 +.22=1.72 and Brentford's were 3*.28+.22 or 1.06.  Note that while Spurs were solid favorites here, the expected points aren't as high as you might think.  Certainly this partially reflects that it was a home match for Brentford.  But it also shows how what looks like a massive advantage in a projection isn't as big as it seems.  Remember that next time you are reading election polls.  Here's the table:

Surprise winners are Fulham and Brentford.  With matches against Crystal Palace, Southampton, and Leicester, Fulham certainly went in with a reasonable expectation of grabbing some points.  Probably not all 9 though.  Brentford had a somewhat tougher road, facing Spurs, West Ham and Liverpool; they were fortunate that only the West Ham match was on the road, so their expected points were 2.91.  But seven had to be a bonanza for them.  The draw with Spurs was actually a -.06 but the wins over West Ham and Liverpool were +1.94 and +2.21. 

Down at the other end, Southampton were forecast for 4.12 and got none. Zero.  Lost to Brighton, Fulham and Nottingham Forest.  That last one was the killer.  Leicester did not distinguish themselves either, losing to Newcastle, Liverpool and Fulham for a -3.32.  Hard to believe they sit 13th in the table until you realize that they are only three points, or one bad weekend, clear of the relegation zone.  Bournemouth also got washed out.

How did the Power Six do after adjusting for their degree of difficulty?  Man United did just fine thank you, with the third highest performance over expected; winning all three will help with that.  The draw with Newcastle ate into Arsenal's tally a little but they were still better than expected with seven points for a +1.34.  Man City got seven points but was forecast for 6.71 so they barely ended up positive; the unexpected draw with Everton kept that number down.  Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs all had stumbles that left them negative.

Newcastle came up just a little better than expectations.  The 3-1 win at Leicester was solid.  They proceeded to drop some points in a 0-0 against a stubborn Leeds.  Fortunately they grabbed a surprise point with a 0-0 draw against Arsenal.  We note that on one hand, this ended a 10 game pointless streak at The Emirates but on the other, still haven't scored there since December 2014.

Curiosities in the Table

Almost to the halfway point of the season, the table is loaded with interesting surprises.  Arsenal, Man City, Man United, Spurs and Liverpool holding five of the top six spots is not one of them, although Liverpool in 6th seven points out of the top four might qualify.  Newcastle still at third is a surprise.  How about Fulham in 7th, level on points with Liverpool?  Or Brentford at 9th, a notch above Chelsea??  The bottom three are currently Everton, Wolves and Southampton.  West Ham are 17th, outside the relegation zone only on the basis of goal differential.  A mere five points separate 13th through 20th.  A lot of stories to follow for the second half of the season. 

Slippery Slope

Newcastle's rapid ascent into the top four has been unfortunately accompanied by a gradual descent into the sense of entitlement (dickishness) that I associate with the Power Six.  Late in the Leeds draw both Wilson and Guimaraes got yellows basically for showing their frustration that Leeds kept playing hard.  Throughout the Arsenal draw, the Magpies deployed what BFS Sevilla fan Bob K called "epic time wasting tactics."  Guimaraes was in the face of referee Stuart Atwell for any real or perceived (usually the latter) Arsenal transgression.  Special recognition has to go to Jamal Lascelles, who got a yellow card for interfering with a throw-in while he was on the touch line warming up as a substitute.  We note that this is the second time he's done that this year.

Kick save and a beauty - Nick Pope stops a shot in the 87th minute

For the most part, Newcastle have so far been mostly fun to watch.  The Leeds match was highly
entertaining, with the Wilson/Guimaraes nonsense at the end a minor distraction.  The Arsenal match was not pretty to watch; Dennis was turned off enough that he walked his dog in the middle of the second half.  The ugliness might be a factor that they were playing the top team at their place.  In fairness, Newcastle did not park the bus and had their own chances; xG advantage was just 1.4 - 1.2.  Really hoping that this trend doesn't go much farther.

What Is Christmas Without Jesus?

Ironically, Arsenal have had to navigate this holiday season without the services of Gabriel Jesus, who suffered a knee injury during the World Cup.  He is expected to return in three days months.

The Season of Giving

Wout Faes - Belgian St. Nick

We all know that it is better to give than to receive, but Leicester's Wout Faes took it to a new level this holiday season.  The Foxes were carrying an unlikely 1-0 lead over Liverpool late into the first half.  Faes then proceeded to play Santa, deflecting a shot over his keeper's head and into the goal; you can see the play here.  A short seven minutes later, Faes gifted the Reds another own goal, this one even unluckier than the first, as you can see here.  The really bad news is the final was 2-1.

Surprisingly, he is the fourth player in Premier League history with two OGs in one game.  I would guess that it happened many times before the Premier League was formed but didn't see any stats on it.  The other three were Jamie Carragher, Michael Proctor and Jonathan Walters.  All three had long careers and Carragher and Walters played internationally for England and Ireland respectively.  Hopefully Faes will recover.

When Do Anecdotes Become Data?

I can't profess to know exactly where that is but we must be getting close to concluding that the issue at Aston Villa was in fact Steven Gerrard.  In five league matches since Unai Emery took over, Villa have three wins (including victories over Chelsea and Tottenham), one draw and one loss.  And, aside from  the results, they just look like a better team.  Even the 1-3 loss to Liverpool felt more like a 2-2 draw to me.  The statistician in me knows that five observations aren't enough but I'm going to bet the difference holds up for the rest of the season.

Where Did You Get Those Kits?

What time does CBGB close?

Player is down where you grab the flag

Nottingham Forest showed up for the contest with Chelsea wearing what looked like flag football uniforms.  They got a 1-1 draw so we might see them again.  And Brentford wore jerseys that looked like they were from a New Year's Eve party for their match with West Ham.

Art Imitates Life But Only Sort Of

It is 12/31/22 in my Football Manager virtual reality.  Argentina have won the World Cup, beating the Netherlands 1-0.  Portugal defeated England 1-0 in the third place match.  The other quarterfinalists were Italy, Switzerland, Nigeria and Peru.  So half the teams that reached the quarters in real life did so in FM.  However, we need to remember that though FM and reality were tied together in fall of 2019 when I started the game, everything in FM since then has been based on computer generated results.  I realize this is like saying I have been divorced from reality since then but many would argue that happened long ago.

My Forest Green side is punching above their weight as the English would say it.  We are sitting 8th in the Premier League with 23 points through 15 matches.  The weird part is that we seem to be drawing against teams that we should beat and drawing against teams we should lose to.  Case in point: somehow we managed a 2-2 tie with Chelsea despite being outshot 31-3, with shots on target at 15-1.  Sharp eyes will note that we got two goals with one shot on target.  Yes, we benefited from a Chelsea own goal.  The weird part was that we surrendered the equalizer in the 94th minute.  We were so lucky to be up at that point that it was hard to be too upset about the draw.  I do feel like overall fortune has smiled on us so far and that a slide down the table is inevitable.  On the other hand, we were a consensus pick for relegation and that doesn't seem too likely at this point.  And, one countervailing thread is that our marquee signing - Pedri on loan from Barcelona - has only recently started to play at the level we expected.

Transfer News

Ah, it's late, we'll get to it next week.  But the January window is now open.

FA Cup Weekend

We are all about efficiency here at BFS so rather than drafting new material to introduce this year's FA Cup, we will simply drag out this this old post.  It should tell you what you need to know about this venerable and quirky competition.  

As discussed in the post, there is no seeding in the FA Cup.  The only advantage offered to the higher tier clubs is that they get to enter the tournament at later stages.  For this round, the 20 teams from the EPL and 24 from the Championship Division join 20 teams from the lower tiers that have survived to this point.to make up the field of 64.  The make up by tier is 20 EPL, 24 Championship, 11 League One, 6 League 2 and 3 National League.

Using teams' current place in their respective table, we can essentially establish what their seedings would be and then examine the interesting fixtures this no seeding approach yields.  Strangest of all may be that Chelsea and Man City face off on Sunday; so with 64 teams you have the No. 2 and No. 10 teams playing each other.  I count four other fixtures between EPL sides; that means top 20 sides have to face each other.  On the other hand, Newcastle get to play League One Sheffield Wednesday Saturday, or No. 3 playing No. 45.  Arsenal have it pretty good, facing No. 51 Oxford United.  So do Spurs (No. 5 vs No. 49 Portsmouth), Aston Villa (No. 11 vs No. 56 Stevenage) and Leicester (No. 13 vs No. 61 Gillingham).

The three sides from the National League (5th tier) are Nos. 62-64; their opponents are ranked 29th, 34th and 53rd.  Arguably they should be facing 1-3 so they got off really easy.  By the way, one of those sides is Wrexham United, the club owned by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney; they play Coventry at 12:30 on Saturday.  Two of the "luckiest" fixtures have to  be Hartlepool-Stockport (58 vs 60) [correction: It was 57 Walsall vs 58 Stockport] and Burton-Grimsby Town (54 vs 59).

Ah, but it is a magical competition and there will be some fun upsets, as well as a chance to see some of the quainter venues of English football.  For me, there's also the occasional glimpse of some of my FM Forest Green players.  As far as I can tell, there could be up to five appearing this weekend - Matt Clarke (Middlesborough), Gavin Bazunu (Southampton), Will Norris (Burnley), Louis Thompson (Portsmouth) and George Tanner (Bristol City).

In short, we do make fun of the competition but we still dive in and watch as much as we can.