24/25 Match Week 15 Recap

It’s Harder Than It Looks

Most sports have things that look easy, and when NOT under pressure are easy. Yet even the best in the world can “muck it up”. This week we saw two great examples of that.

In Today’s CleanSheet:

• Headlines 📌

• Current Situation📈📉

• Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥- CFP

• Off Island 🏝️ - Europe Leagues are Back This Week

• Best Bets 💰

Headlines 📌

• CS Match of the Week. Tottenham 3-4 Chelsea. Spursy - AGAIN. Another 2-0 lead lost. For more on where the term originated, check out the CS archives here in the Hot Topic section. Hoping all the Ausie CS subscribers are ok out there - Ange is in trouble.

• Lots of great matches this weekend but this London Derby (North hosting West) had great energy and goals, early and late, and another 2-goal lead lost for Spurs. What statement was made in this match? Enzo Maresca is getting through to the “unlimited” talent Chelsea has and has given them a balanced identity. Ange Postecoglou plays one way, and while the players seem to enjoy playing for him, they do not seem to have the flexibility to take a lead and hold it.

  • Spurs 1-0. 5’ Solanke, off a Cucurella SLIP.

  • Spurs 2-0. 11’ Kulusevski, off Cucurella ANOTHER SLIP.

  • Tire Change. 11’ Cucurella changes shoes mid match.

  • Chelsea 1-2. Sancho 17’ with the accuracy, game on.

  • Half.

  • Chelsea 2-2. ❄️61’ Cold Palmer❄️. Pk for number 2. For Spurs, you CAN’T take that penalty.

  • Chelsea 3-2. 73’ Enzo Fernandex, off a deflection.

  • Chelsea 4-2. ❄️84’ Cold Palmer❄️. Pk for number 4. For Spurs, you CAN’T take that penalty.

  • Spurs 3-4. 90+6’ Sonny.

  • Good analysis from NBC Sports coverage (2 min).

  • That’s just 1 win in 7 for Spurs. For Chelsea it’s 5 wins in 7.

• 90’ Magic. 

  • LCFC 2-2 BHA. Jamie Vardy, that’s it, that’s the statement: goal & assist.

  • Ipswich 1-2 Bournemouth. More late magic for the Cherries at 87’ and 90+7’.

    • 🚜The Tractor Boys have dropped points giving up goals in the 90+4’ to LCFC, 90+6’ to Brentford, and now again to Bournemouth.

• GTech Stadium. Brentford 4-2 Newcastle.

  • 6 more. That’s six more goals at GTech stadium and 40 goals for the season. That’s 11 goals more than any other stadium this season.

  • 22 points. The Bee’s have taken 22 of a possible 24 points at the GTech this season, 7W 1D 0L.

• Data Analytics. Brentford and BHA are known for extensive use of their analytics to build their teams, pricing players to buy and sell. They are considered some of the best at it in the world. Both club’s owners started their careers in the gambling industry and are very “secretive” of the approach and algorithms they are using. Add the analytics to excellent managers and two traditionally small clubs are punching way above their weight, sitting in the top 10 of the EPL.

• 30 Years. Man United 2-3 Forest. Forest stunned United at Old Trafford winning there for the first time in 30 years. Amorim has his work cut out for him while Nuno has his Tree’s playing with GREAT confidence.

• More United Movement. So United have their new manager, Amorim, but they have decided to get rid of Sporting Director Dan Ashworth after JUST 5 months from Newcastle. It was clear that leadership at Man United were not happy with Ashworth.

• PKs.

Current Situation 📈📉

NOTE: Green Up Arrow means a club jumped UP 2 positions in the table or moved into a European spot. Red Down Arrow means a club moved DOWN 2 positions or more in the table for fell out of a European spot.

• Forest made a claim that they want to stick around the European discussion with the win at Old Trafford.

• Lots of room for Forest, Villa, BHA, Bournemouth, Brentford and Fulham to take advantage of Spurs, Newcastle and United struggling.

CleanSheets Counter & Goal Tracker

Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥

College Football Playoff

For those in the US, the first ever 12 team college football playoff was released over the weekend and as expected not without controversy. So here is CS’s opinion.

The “controversy” is between SMU being included and Alabama being left out. The argument is Bama’s strength of schedule is better than SMU’s and therefor SMU would have more losses than they do if they played a tougher schedule. So now even the Alabama AD is saying they will need to look at their future schedule to make it easier since SOS doesn’t matter.”

CS TAKE & Picks

• Bama fans need to drop it. You lost 3 games this season: Vanderbilt who finished 6-6, Tennessee who is a good team at and Oklahoma won 24-3. You finished tied for 4th in the conference with 5 other teams. Sure, you’re a good team, but so are the others and you had your chance to win your way in, you didn’t.

• Parity. It feels like there were a lot of upsets this season, and that there isn’t 1-3 completely dominating teams. Maybe because of NIL, maybe the fact players move teams way more. What it does mean is the team that won the SEC championship (Georgia) snuck out an 8-overtime win at home against the ACC’s 6th place team (Georgia Tech). SMU won the ACC regular season

• SOS is a crap stat. Strength of Schedule can be a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you rank all the teams from one conference higher than another, then all those teams in that conference have a “better” SOS then teams from another conference. Were the teams in the higher ranked conference better? It’s subjective. How much better? SMU lost in week two to BYU, who is now ranked 17. Point is, its should be called SSOS - Subjective SOS.

• Did you know, Arizona State was picked to finish LAST in their conference out of 16 teams (the Big 12) and won the conference. Did you know last year’s 5^th best team in the country, Florida State, finished LAST this year in their conference out of 17 teams (the ACC).

• Keep Champions In. For the major 5 conferences, the Champions get an automatic bid. Clemson would have been out of the playoff if they hadn’t beaten SMU in the ACC Championship game. Again, some would say it should only be the best 12 teams. But it shouldn’t. It should be teams that won a championship and the next best teams.

You can get ND at +1200, that’s CS pick for the team to raise the trophy.

Latest Odds

Off Island 🏝️

Champions, Europa League Match 6 of 8 with EUFA Conference League on match 5 of 8.

(all matches on Paramount+ cst)

• Liverpool travel to Girona (Spain) Tuesday, 1145am. A rested Reds head to Spain where Girona sit 9^th in La Liga.

• Man City travel to Juventus (Italy) Wednesday, 2pm. Juve sit 6^th in Serie A and get a wounded City side.

• Aston Villa travel to Red Bull Leipzig (Germany) Tuesday, 2pm. Leipzig sit 4^th in the Bundesliga.

• Arsenal host Monaco (France) Wednesday, 2pm. Monaco sit 3^rd in Ligue 1.

Europa League kicks off Thursday.

• Spurs travel to Rangers (Scotland) Thursday, 2pm. A big trip for Spurs north.

• Man United travel to Viktoria Plzen (Czech) Thursday, 1145am.

EUFA Conference League kicks off Thursday with match 5 of 8.

• Chelsea travel to Astana (Kazakhstan) Thursday. Yes, Astana, Kazakhstan.

Best Bets 💰

Couple no plays with Liverpool and a nice up week.