Have You Tried Being Luckier?

Plenty of action this week, including the favorite of semi-retired and work-from-home people - midweek Champions League action.  Newcastle and the Union both had moments where being lucky was more important than being good.

Wolves Forget To Close The "Barnes" Door

Except for maybe the opening 10 minutes, Wolves were easily the better side in the first half at Molineux and fully deserved the 1-0 lead over Newcastle.  By all accounts, Eddie Howe lit into the squad in his halftime talk (see treatment, hair dryer).  He also made some pointed tactical substitutions, swapping out Longstaff for Tonali and Barnes for Joe L. Linton.  The changes did ramp up the intensity of the Magpies' effort but they were still short on creativity in the final third.

Schar: You cannot score if you do not shoot (Getty Images)

So Fabian Schar decided to take matters into his own feet.  He launched an audacious shot from 30 yards out that deflected off of Craig Dawson and into the goal. Schar explained his thinking here in a post-match interview.  Possibly emboldened by his teammate, Harvey Barnes decided to have a go from about 25 yards out.  His shot, only slightly less audacious, was this high quality curler that needed no help from Wolves' defenders to go in.  Arguably, the Wolves should have done a better job closing Barnes down but he did make the most of the space they gave him.  So Newcastle grabbed all three points after looking like they'd come home with none.

Hopefully, they don't read too much into this great early start - 10 points from four matches.  The offense is just not all that potent right now.  A couple of late unconverted late chances made the xG against Wolves look reasonable for the result (1.43-1.24) but for long stretches you wondered how they would ever score.  Also, one could have looked at the first four fixtures (Southampton, Bournemouth, Spurs and Wolves) and concluded that 10 points was not an unreasonable expectation.  As in, I'd say the jury is still out on this team.

 

Exception To The Two-Goal Lead Rule

As you know, BFS does not buy into the idea that a two-goal lead is the most dangerous in soccer; a one-goal lead is.  However, we are considering something called the Everton Exception after watching the Toffees snatch consecutive 2-3 defeats after building a two-goal cushion.  Their latest folly was against Aston Villa.  Goals by Dwight McNeil and Dominic Calvert-Lewin had Everton up 2-0 by the 27th minute.  Villa tend not to be rattled by deficits anyway and this was Everton so there was no reason to think this was a lost cause.  Sure enough, Ollie Watkins got things level with goals at 36 and 58 minutes.  Tell me that brace didn't go a long way to calming fears about his scoring prowess.  The comeback was completed in the 76th minute with this YouTubeableMoment of a goal from Jhon Duran.  Three minutes before the goal, Dennis had texted me that manager Unai Emery had said earlier this week that he expects Duran to be one of the best strikers in the world within 12 months.  I could only respond "I guess it wasn't hyperbole."

North London Dullby

The Spurs 0-1 loss to Arsenal was disappointing, at least to the neutrals and Spurs fans.  For two teams that supposedly hate each other, that was remarkably tepid.  Biggest surprise for me was the lack of an intense response from Spurs after they went down 0-1.  As Dennis put it "put the ball in the goddamn box."  

In other news, Michael B announced that he no longer follows the EPL and quickly fled the country after the final whistle.  He is pursuing a career on the senior cycling tour in Italy.

We Got Your Homefield Advantage Right Here

Well we certainly oversold the home field advantage this weekend.  After noting that the 10 am matches looked like walkovers for the home sides, only one (Man City over Brentford) managed to get all three points.  Brighton drew 0-0 with Ipswich.  Didn't see it but that one reads like must-miss TV.  The Seagulls dominated the stats but couldn't score and there were 30 fouls between the two sides.  This is not my beautiful game.  Crystal Palace rescued a 2-2 draw with Leicester on a stoppage time goal.  Fulham probably weren't too dismayed with a 1-1 draw with West Ham.  But at least those three got draws.  Liverpool crashed out Anfield 0-1 to Nottingham Forest (that's undefeated Forest to you); my guess is that maybe they did walk alone after that one. You can see the game winner from Callum Hudson-Odoi here.  On any other weekend, he might have gotten the YouTubeableMoment but he's third behind Duran and Barnes; also he got a two-tenths deduction for an incomplete celebratory slide.

All those who had Man City, Arsenal, Newcastle, Brighton and Nottingham Forest as the unbeaten sides after four weeks, raise your hands.  Yeah, sure you did.

If They Can Make It There...(apologies to Frank Sinatra)

They might be able to make the playoffs. After a somewhat frustrating 1-3 loss in Miami, the Union came up really big in the city that never sleeps at the stadium that should never be used for soccer.  Ironically, both the Miami score and the 5-1 win over NYCFC are misleading.  Against Miami, Messi's brace negated Uhre's early goal so it was 1-2 for most of the match before Suarez got a stoppage time goal to pad the margin.  But the U had more shots, more shots on target and a better xG (2.3-1.4); this was a surprisingly close contest.

Baribo scores again

In NY, they were outshot and out xGed (3.1- 2.4) but took advantage of every NYCFC miscue (and
there were several) to fashion a 3-1 lead by halftime.  City then proceeded hit the woodwork or flat out miss golden chances while the Union added two more in the second half. Not every goal was pretty but this one by Glesnes off a Wagner corner was pretty good.

So this one easily could have been a draw too.  But math tells us that a win beats two draws (0+3>1+1) and we are fine with the results.  Even though Atlanta picked up an unexpected point in Miami, this win catapulted the Union into 9th place (albeit on goal differential), the final playoff spot.  However, nothing is solid here with DC level on points, Atlanta and Nashville just one behind and Montreal only two back.  This Sunday at home vs DC United is huge.

This Week in Refereeing

1) Consider this scenario.  White team takes a corner kick that goes directly to a blue defender in the box, who deliberately takes a shot on his own goal.  Blue keeper makes a save but white score on the rebound.  After the ball goes into the goal, the blue defender then punches the blue keeper.  What is the correct call?

a) Goal counts, red card for the blue defender, restart with a kickoff for blue

b) Quit this league because it is totally nuts

c) Suspend the match because the blue team forgot to reserve the field and a U12 tryout takes over the pitch

d) Proceed to the nearest bar and discuss the incident over pitchers of beer                       

e) Both b) and d)

Though a) is the technically correct call, turns out c) was what actually happened.  I could make a strong argument for b), d) or e) though.  Not giving away too much but the guy's name who took the corner for white rhymes with "tennis."

2) I got to call a U12 player for holding when he grabbed an opponents shirt in the box. Teach 'em early as Dennis says.  It sort of played out in slow motion in my head.  The shirt pull happened right in front of me but it took a few seconds to blow the whistle.  I say that's holding on red.  Then I look down and notice the foul occurred in the box.  So I announce it's a PK.  My co-ref (two man crew for this match) said it was interesting watching the call unfold.  

Taylor must be thinking "I'm going to get a lot of shit for this"
Image: Catherine Ivill/AMA)

3) The EPL set a bunch of records related to yellow cards.  Anthony Taylor doled out 14 cards in the Bournemouth Chelsea match, which breaks the old record of 12 set only last September.  Note that the count is really 16, as two coaches were cautioned as well.  By my count, there were 51 yellows issued in the eight matches on Saturday.  As far as I can tell, that breaks the previous one day record of 44, also set last year.  For the match week, there were 65 cards across the 10 matches, which also breaks the previous record of 57.    I saw a bunch of them and have a sense that the jump is due to reduced tolerance of shithousery.   

As noted here, some pundits are racing to the fainting couch.  Also, Anthony Taylor is taking incredible abuse on social media.  Enough abuse that he will only work as a fourth official this weekend; to be clear, I believe this is about safety concerns as opposed to a reprimand for his performance.  If I were omnipotent, I would send anyone who posted abuse or threats to a deserted island for the next version of Survivor: Mole People Who Shouldn't Be Allowed Near a Computer.

Oy, where to start?  The EPL said they wanted to crack down on the shithousery so Taylor was refereeing as directed.  If you have a problem with this, your beef is with the league, not the referees.  Second, there is a simple solution to the "excessive" number of yellow cards and that is for the players to stop being dicks out there.  This kind of bullshit has been tolerated for so long that it may take some time for players to adjust but to stop the campaign to cut this crap out now would be sending a mixed message.  Do you want it to stop or not?

4) Conversation That Could Have Taken Place and Did

Dennis - Equal shirt pulling means no shirt pulling?

Steve - Please, the correct term used by VARs is "mutual engagement"

Champions League

With the new format of eight league play matches instead of six and no groups but one unified table, each match isn't quite as critical as before; as in a opening day loss in your group could mean you'd be scrambling through the rest of the group stage.  For the EPL sides, this wasn't a problem as all four managed to get results.  Aston Villa handled the Young Boys 3-0 (maybe rephrase that?), Liverpool fell behind to AC Milan but ralled for a 3-1 win, Man City could only manage a 1-1 draw with Inter and Arsenal drew 0-0 with Atalanta.  They have a week off and return for matchday 2 on 10/1 or 10/2.

Keep It Coming

Reffing and a lot of Peacock are going to make this weekend's viewing tough and unfortunately, it's an intriguing set of fixtures.

Easy choice for the match of the weekend - Man City hosting Arsenal at 11:30 on Sunday (USA).  Opta does not see this as particularly close, putting City's chances of a win at 52% compared to 23% for Arsenal (25% chance of draw).  

Yes, it's early but there are some key fixtures down at the relegation end.  You can check out Leicester (2 points) hosting Everton (0 points) or Southampton (0 points) versus Ipswich (2 points); both are at 10 am Saturday on Peacock.  We loves us some relegation six pointers so these could be interesting.

Newcastle have a very tricky fixture as they travel to Craven Cottage to face Fulham (10 am Saturday on Peacock).  If the Magpies don't find some offense, they could easily find themselves getting just one point, or even nothing out this.  

You could get up early Saturday to catch the London derby featuring West Ham and Chelsea on USA.  Both are somewhat hard to figure out so far.  The 10 am TV game on USA is Liverpool hosting Bournemouth; after last week's stumble you have figure the Reds will take it to the Cherries.  Of course, that's what we said last week.

Feature TV match at 12:30 on Saturday is Crystal Palace - Man United.  The visitors are favored but not by as much as you might think.  Rounding out the schedule is a sort of Midlands derby between Aston Villa and Wolves (10 am Saturday on Peacock), Spurs - Brentford (a not obvious London derby at 10 am on Peacock), and Brighton - Nottingham Forest (two of the undefeated sides) Sunday at 9 on USA.

Sunday is a big one for the Union as they host DC United at 6:15.  The TV people see this as big too, as it will be on FS1 and "free" Apple TV.  I tried framing this as only a must-not-lose match but with so many teams chasing them and some tougher matches waiting for them in October, this really is a must-win for the Union.  Montreal have Chicago at home, though both Nashville (Cincinnati) and Atlanta (Red Bull) have tougher opponents.  

No Champions League this week but we do have Europe League.  Man United host Twente on Wednesday and Spur are home to Grab Bag Qarabag FK on Thursday.  

Are we there yet?