That's A Wrap

Maybe not quite as much drama for the last day as we'd hoped for but still a fun watch.  Heading out tomorrow so posting Tuesday night.

Spurs Stay, Hammers Down

I started with West Ham - Leeds on the TV and Spurs - Everton on the phone as that seemed like the most interesting story line at the start.  Both were scoreless for most of the first half, which meant Spurs were in.  A late first half goal from Palhinha put Tottenham up, giving them a two goal cushion since all they needed was a draw.  West Ham did break through for some second half goals and beat Leeds 3-0 but Spurs put up a clean sheet to hang on to 17th place by two points. So the West Ham loss last weekend to Newcastle proved fatal.  The other 18 losses didn't help either.

Down to the Final Whistle

An all too frequent sight for Chelsea
Photo: Getty Images

With the relegation battle somewhat decided, at halftime I switched to Sunderland - Chelsea on the phone and Liverpool - Brentford on the TV, as the battle for European spots was on.  Sunderland were up 1-0 at half, which meant the Black Cats had moved up to 7th and a spot in the Europa League while the Blues were out of the picture.  Things got worse for Chelsea as Gusto put in an own goal at 49 minutes.  But wait, Cole Palmer gets one back for Chelsea at 55 minutes and there's a long way to go; since they only need a draw, this could be interesting.  Then, Fofana does a very Chelsea thing, which is to get a second yellow at 61 minutes and leaves them a man down (more on Chelsea's disciplinary record below).  The final 40 minutes or so (a lot of stoppage time) are still quite competitive even after the red card but no equalizer is forthcoming so Sunderland are in and Chelsea out.

Meanwhile in Liverpool, Brentford are battling the home side and things are all square at 1-1.  Liverpool's interest may be waning as they no longer have a realistic shot at fourth place.  Brentford however are all in as a win here will vault them into 7th place.  The game is an excellent back and forth affair with multiple scoring chances for both sides, including a stoppage time header for the Bees that was agonizingly close.  No game winner is to be had though and the 1-1 draw leaves Brentford in 9th on goal differential and out of the European money.

A Season Best Forgotten

Eddie Howe: Next year has to be better, right?
Photo: Getty Images

Watching the matches that mattered, I did not see any of Newcastle's 0-2 loss at Fulham.  Apparently, I didn't miss anything.  The loss leaves them 12th in the table on 49 points.  On the surface, several things stand out as factors in the disappointing season:

1) The pre-season Isak transfer turmoil that created an unstable situation before a ball was kicked

2) The replacements for Isak (Wissa, Elanga, and Woltemade), who on paper looked adequate, were mostly failures (see this article which ranks them 183, 136 and 57 out of 189 transfers)

3) The Magpies were somewhat overwhelmed by their schedule, which included three decent runs in various cup competitions, including reaching the knockout phase of the Champions League (season highlight?)

4) Injuries (especially the long stretches without Guimaraes) were problematic given 3) above

5) An infuriating inability to hold onto leads

We await what we expect will be an active offseason with significant goings and comings of players.

Never in Doubt

Mostly anyway.  Though Aston Villa were losing to Man City through the first half, at no point did they actually fall to 5th.  Two second half goals from Watkins ensured that the result in Liverpool was irrelevant.  So Villa, even with an inconsistent second half of the season, finished 4th.

The Rewards

Champions League

Arsenal

Man City

Man United

Aston Villa

Liverpool

Europa League

Bournemouth

Sunderland

Europa Conference League

Brighton

maybe Crystal Palace depending on Wednesday's result

Bad Boys

Chelsea finished the season with eight red cards and 88 yellows.  The next closest was four red cards (Spurs and Everton).  Their yellow tally was third behind Spurs (97) and Bournemouth (89).  Full stats for the league are here.  I have the Blues' record in those eight matches as 1-2-5.  Since they missed out on Europe by just one point, those five losses were quite damaging.  

Looking at Spurs, who were second in this area with Bournemouth a quite distant third, this may be something they want to focus on for next season too.

How'd They Do?

Not as good as last year.  Here's the spreadsheet outlining how the various prognosticators did predicting the table this year.

Based on Sum of Squared Errors, this year's winner is Ninad Barbadikar, a free lance writer who works on the Premier League website and SPORTbible and other publications.  Silver went to the Average while bronze was shared by The Athletic and Adrian Kajumba, another writer for the Premier League website.  By contrast, last year's winner - Opta - had an SSE of just 380.

Biggest trip ups were Sunderland and Spurs, for opposite reasons.  Sunderland, who finished 7th, were no higher than 15th on anybody's list and 12 of 16 had them going down.  In contrast, Spurs, who finished 17th, were consensus top 10 and most had them 6th or 7th.  Burnley and Man City, again for opposite reasons, were the two that most were close on.  


How'd They Do - Part II

We've been pretty clear in this space about our general dislike of mid-season managerial changes, especially when decisions are made based on small sample sizes.  Looking at the chart of teams that made changes, maybe sometimes they work out.

A clear winner for the New Manager Bounce Award is Michael Carrick; Man United were .74 points per game better after he took over.  DeZerbi deserves some recognition too as Spurs definitely responded in time to avoid relegation.  However, note that bounce isn't anywhere near as big when you compare his record to Frank's, though it is an improvement.

West Ham improved by almost half a point under Santo as did Wolves under Edwards.  But wait, Nottingham Forest did better under Pereira.  Yes, but not by much.  

Chelsea did not see any new manager bounce, getting worse after Rosenior took over.  Hmm, Chelsea averaged 1.59 points per game under Maresca, the second highest figure for anybody in the table.  Burnley got no bounce either, though the sample size there is really too small to draw a conclusion.

I should be clear that I do recognize that sometimes a mid-season change is necessary.  What I object to are sackings based on limited results and replacements that reflect little thought about the long-term consequences.   Based on that, I'm generally okay with the West Ham, Wolves and Man United actions.  Of course, the changes at Wolves and West Ham did not save those teams from relegation even though results did improve.  The Man United switched paid off big time; the Red Devils probably do not make the Champions League based on the numbers Amirom was putting up.  

Others don't pass the tests.  Nottingham Forest did stay up under Pereira.  However, at 1.22 points per game, they probably stay up under Dyche (who only got 18 matches in charge) as well and certainly would have been okay with Santo (a personality driven sacking?) at the helm the whole season.  With sackings after three matches (Santo), five matches (Postecoglu) and 18 matches (Dyche), clearly nobody got a serious chance and/or the choices were suspect.

Chelsea's decision to cut ties with Maresca may have been more about team politics than performance .  The Rosenior selection seemed based more on hope than solid credentials.  But then they only gave him 13 matches before he was sacked so it doesn't look like it was about developing managerial potential.

As for Burnley, I don't fully understand why Parker didn't wait until the season was over.

That leaves me with Spurs, the one that has me wondering what the f are they thinking in that front office.  Yes, it worked out, if you consider a team of Spurs' stature avoiding relegation with a 1-0 win over Everton on the final day "working out."  Note however, at 1.12 points per game under Frank, they would have finished with 42.56 points compared to the actual 41 they actually collected.  The panicky and completely unfathomable decision to put Tudor in charge nearly got them relegated.  It's like they couldn't see past the next match.  Tudor got to manage just five league games before he was sacked.  So these changes fail the tests on multiple levels.  I will say that the DeZerbi hire does seem a little more thought out.  But are they better with him than they eventually would have been with Frank, who got just 26 games with an injury-riddled side?

Speaking of Managerial Changes

We should be planning for different faces next year.  Pep Guardiola announced he was leaving Man City with Enzo Maresca slated to take his place.  Bournemouth has hired Marco Rose to replace Andoni Iraola, who declined to sign a new contract when his current deal expired.  Xabi Alonso will take the reins from interim head coach Calum McFarlane.  Oliver Glasner had already announced he would be leaving at the end of the season; Crystal Palace have not named his replacement yet.  Marco Silva is out of contract at Fulham and rumors abound that he is heading to Benfica.  That's 25% of the jobs right there.

Both Eddie Howe and Arne Slot were frequently mentioned as possible casualties of disappointing seasons but right now the betting money is that both stay.  

And, we not even counting changes happening at the relegated clubs. Nuno is very possibly leaving West Ham.   At Burnley, Mike Jackson is serving as interim manager with no permanent manager hired as yet but expect a new face there too.

What Was That?

Not sure if it's a good or bad thing that I missed the Union's slugfest in Miami that ended in a 6-4 win for the home side.  The first half might have been the wildest 45 56 of soccer this year.  The scoreline went, 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 1-3, 2-3, 3-3, 4-3, 4-4.  The U were up two, then down one before getting their second PK in stoppage time to level things.  That one came after Miami had a 5th goal chalked off for offside and then a VAR review for handling that had occurred at the other end minutes before.

The second half was calmer.  The U actually kept it level until the 81st minute.  Miami tacked on another in stoppage time for a 6-4 win.  The xG was 4.9/4.2 favor Miami but the Union had two PKs worth about .8; still, 2.6 is an improvement.  But, Miami allow almost 2 per game so is it that meaningful? They go into the break in last, trailing Atlanta by four points.

More Hardware for Armetta Financial Services (aka Sportif Allentown)

The trophies keep piling up for Dennis's club team.  This time they defended their Friendship Cup title, their third win in four years in this competition.  Here's the trophy raising video picture:

Dennis was given the honor of actually raising the cup because, well, he built it.  The wooden base part of it anyway.  

Last Acts

Just two more matches for this season:

- Europa Conference League final between Crystal Palace vs Rayo Vallecano on Wednesday at 3 pm

- Champions League final between Arsenal and PSG on Saturday at noon

With travel, likely to miss both.  Oh well.

First WC matches are Thursday June 11.  We'll be taking next week off but figure we'll be back with some thoughts on the WC right before the competition starts.