Looking Like Last Year

Just one match week to report on so that means just one Newcastle loss to discuss.  We're here a day early since FA Cup action starts on Thursday.

Newcastle's one loss was a strange one for sure, notable for perhaps the least positive of reasons.  Since they started keeping track of expected goals in the 2010/11 season, this was the highest xG ever recorded by one team - 7.27.  As noted here, it wasn't by a narrow margin either - the next highest is 5.87.  Newcastle were scrambling from the opening whistle.  One goal was called back for offside, Salah missed a PK so the halftime score was incredibly 0-0.  Salah took care of that early in the second half but surprisingly, the Magpies struck back in less than five minutes.  Two goals in rapid succession by Jones and Gakpo opened up a 3-1 gap but Botman got one of those back.  A dodgy PK call (not clear if Dubravka actually touched Jota but if he did the contact was minimal and Jota didn't go down until about an hour after the contact) gave Salah another chance from the spot and he didn't miss this one.  Liverpool had 34 shots, 15 on target.  It's really hard to complain too much about Taylor's PK calls given that the match should have been a blowout.

To their credit, for all the time that they spent defending, Newcastle didn't really park the bus.  They weren't afraid to press forward in those rare moments when they had the advantage.  It was a car crash that you really should have looked away from but were too fascinated by what was happening.  Newcastle are rapidly spinning towards irrelevance, the place where a side is out of contention for Europe but in no danger of relegation.

It Wasn't Supposed To Be This Hard

Ollie Watkins is puzzled that Villa are level with 
Burnley despite a man advantage

Already up 2-1 against 19th place Burnley, Aston Villa got another boost when Sander Berge was sent off in the 56th minute.  Game over, right?  Um, no.  The Clarets proceeded to level the match in the 71st minute so it dragged toward stoppage time all square.  Fortunately, the Villans got help from a former teammate when Aaron Ramsey kicked Jhun Duran in the box.  Not the most egregious of fouls but not a clear and obvious error.  Douglas Luiz dispatched the PK and Aston Villa came away with a 3-2 win.  Once again we are left with how to spin this.  Is it that Aston Villa are living on borrowed time and aren't quite as good as they seem or are they simply figuring out how to win with less than their best?  I guess both is possible.

Beleaguered Managers

Checking in on the managers under stress, we see that Roy Hodgson's Crystal Palace got a 3-1 win over Brentford so that might take some of the pressure off for him.  On the other hand, Man United 2-1 lost at Nottingham Forest, putting Erik ten Hag back in the driver's seat for the sack race.  Eddie Howe's situation is a bit more nuanced.  No one expected a result at Anfield so the 4-2 loss doesn't really change anything.  But six losses in seven keeps him on the hot seat.  His fate may rest with the FA Cup match against bitter rival Sunderland on Saturday.

BFS Jinx?

After writing glowingly of Everton's results after the points deductions, recent performance hasn't been so good as the Toffees have endured three straight losses.  To be fair, the streak includes a 2-1 loss to Spurs and a 3-1 loss to Man City so we'll try not to overreact in the other direction.  However, we note that they have slipped back to 17th place, just one point out of the relegation zone.  Further, there doesn't appear to be any specific timetable on the appeal of the 10-point deduction.  Stay tuned for a bumpy ride.

Top to Bottom

Arsenal stumbled badly at Fulham, losing 2-1 and managed just three shots on goal.  That meant both Aston Villa and Man City (2-0 winners versus Sheffield United) slipped past the Gunners into second and third respectively.  Spurs, after a tough 3-1 win over Bournemouth, sit just one point out of the top four.  It's a bit of drop to 6th to find West Ham, who have four straight clean sheets. 

 All three clubs in the relegation zone lost so there was no change at the bottom.  

I Miss 538

They had so much good data and much of it was downloadable.  A prime example is looking at the holiday fixture performance for every team.  I could download results (and expected points) to a spreadsheet and have a calculation of who over or under performed during the holidays in a few minutes.  This time I had to do it by hand and the "expected points" are my own guesses.  With that said, here's the table:

Teams are ranked from highest to lowest based on the percentage of expected points they actually got.  Rating the holiday period, adjusting the schedule for degree of difficulty as it were.  It does offer a different perspective.  Sure, Man City grabbed 11 points but they dropped points they should have gotten in a loss to Aston Villa and a draw with Crystal Palace. Nottingham Forest grabbed only seven points but realistically were looking at just two points in a fixture list that included Everton, Fulham, Wolves, Spurs, Bournemouth, Newcastle and Man United.  Luton Town at the top seems a little strange since they only got six but they were looking at a bleak Christmas.  Speaking of Man United, they surprised me in exceeding Newcastle's underwhelming holiday, with losses to Bournemouth, West Ham and Nottingham Forest. Brentford weren't projected for all that much joy and they got even less than expected.  

Managers Who Can

BFS Artistic Director Laura O. sends along this link showing that sometime those who teach can also do. 

FA Cup Weekend

This is the weekend that Premier League sides enter the FA Cup.  Always looking to recycle, you can click on this BFS post from 2014 for a some explanation and history on the competition.

Newcastle have an interesting draw as they will travel to Sunderland for their first match of competition.  This is a long and bitter rivalry which has been dormant due to the two sides not having been in the same division since 2015/16.  The oddsmakers have the Magpies with 56% chance of winning and 22% chance of a draw.  Sounds encouraging but it's away and it's the FA Cup and it's Sunderland.  

The quaint format of no seeds, as described in the old post, gives us with the ridiculous third round match up between Liverpool and Arsenal (1st and 4th respectively). This is like Purdue meeting UConn in the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament.  That fixture is 11:30 on Sunday.  There are three other matches between Premier League sides - Crystal Palace vs Everton (Thursday's match), Tottenham - Burnley (one of the Friday fixtures), and Brentford vs Wolves (also Friday).

The make up of the remaining sides is 20 EPL, 24 Championship Division, nine League 1, seven League 2, three Vanarama National League and one Vanarama National League South.  Spoiler alert for Wrexham fans but they play Shrewsbury Sunday at 9.   The full schedule is here.  Looks like this is an ESPN+ only event.

Though we've been known to rag on the FA Cup, you know we'll be watching.