24/25 Match Week 7 Recap

-3450

As a reminder, you would have needed to bet $3450 to win $100 on Alabama. If you took Vandy at +1350, a $100 bet would have won you $1350. 97% of the bettors on the money line took Bama. 72% took Bama to win by more than 23. Just a reminder - It’s why you play the game.

In Today’s CleanSheet:

• Headlines 📌

• Current Situation📈📉

• Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥- Spursy

• Off Island 🏝️ - Pulisic & Sargent

• Best Bets 💰

Headlines 📌

• CS Match of the Week. BHA 3-2 Spurs.

  • Two Different Matches. Spurs completely dominated the 1H at the Amex with 2 goals and it could’ve been much more. But, in typical Spurs fashion, not only did they give up the lead in the 2H but they got completely out played to lose the match.

  • 1H all Spurs.

    • Brennen Johnson. Johnsons scored in his SIXTH straight match for Spurs.

    • James Maddison makes it 2 for Spurs.

  • 2H All Seagulls.

    • Game On at 48’. Minteh gets one back for the Seagulls.

    • Rutter makes it 2 at 58’.

    • Welbeck with the header for the lead at 66’.

  • 10 Blown Leads.

    • Spurs have made history - they are the first PL team to lose 10 matches after leading by 2 goals or more. See Hot Topic 🔥🔥Section for more.

• Assist of the Year. Raul Jimenez with the best assist of the season, by far. The question is, did he know someone was there.

• Forest & Fulham. Two clubs with minimal expectations heading into the season are playing some GREAT soccer.

  • Forest, who many had competing for relegation have played some of the best defense of the season allowing just 6 goals on the season, second fewest (2 Liverpool). This weekend they slowed down high-flying Chelsea drawing 1-1 at Stamford Bridge. They are the only side to beat Liverpool this season and have now taken points against Chelsea and BHA. All three of those matches were on the road.

  • Fulham. After an opening weekend loss at United, Fulham were unbeaten in their next 5 until this weekend’s 2-3 loss at City. No points for moral victories, but FFC looked good at the champs and can take their recent run of good form with them into a “light” part of their schedule.

• Worst EVER.

  • United have 8 points through 7 matches, the fewest EVER for United in the PL and 1 point worse than last season’s worst ever 9 points.

• Missed It by THAT Much.

  • Brentford had scored in the first minute in 3 straight matches, but it took them 90s to score their first goal this weekend against Wolves. So that is 4 matches in a row of score within 90s. Amazing.

  • Here are all 6 1H goals in the Brentford 5-3 Wolves Match.

• City v Premier League. While the financial fair play rulings are being reviewed a second legal matter has been decided between City and the PL. There were questions on the legality of the PLs rules around sponsorship deals between a club and their owners. What if an owner of a club also owned a large business who then sponsored the club at 5x the normal going rate, so teh club could increase their revenue which woudl help them in their financial fair play calculations. It’s complicated, but bottom line is the PL will need to rewrite some fo their policies. Here is more from BBC Sport.

Have yet to attend a match in England - here’s a little taste of the experience.

Current Situation 📈📉

• Fulham, Forest and BHA seem to be ready for a full season of challenging.

• Wolves and Southampton are going to need to change their ways to have a chance.

• Goal Differential is starting to tell a story. The relegation battle will be interesting all season. Every point matters.

• <20%. Long way to go, things will change. Not even 1/5 of the way through the season yet.

CleanSheets Counter & Goal Tracker

Goals are DOWN X this season over last, clean sheets are DOWN by 1 over last season.

5 of 7 MWs have had goals of 30 or more but MW1 and MW4 have brought the total goals way down.

Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥

Spursy

By no means is CS against Tottenham, but this week’s 2-3 loss to BHA after leading 2-0 has brought the topic of being Spursy into play.

Etymology - Consistently finish near the top of the PL but have not trophies in quite a while, since 2008.

Adjective - Having a promising team but finding ways to lose.

Urban Dictionary - “It was so Spursy” - To be really good, flying high, but then for no apparent reason you couldn’t get across the finish line.

The term seems to come from a Spurs fans’ forum known as The Fighting Cock around 2013. The term was meant to describe what Tottenham’s manager Harry Redknapp wrote about in his book - that Spurs had a reputation for being “fragile”. He went on to write, “when we go, we really go…as a coaching staff we did everything to try and tackle it. You look at the mentality of players and whether they began to disappear in matches…We have great players….but with a soft underbelly.”

Famously, in 2014 United was hosting Spurs and Sir Alex Ferguson gave a very short but direct pre-match speech - “Lads, It’s Tottenham”.

What’s amazing is there have been GREAT managers and players over the years and yet the “Spursy” culture has continued. Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte were both accomplished managers who were each brought in to bring a ruthlessness to the club, and yet Spurs continued to find ways to falter. On his way-out Conte called out ownership, “The players don’t want to play under pressure, they don’t want to play under stress…..It is easy in this way. Tottenham's story is this. Twenty years there is the owner, and they never won something but why? The fault is only for the club, or for every manager that stay here." Ouch.

Current USMNT manager Mauricio Pochettino recently took Spurs the farthest, just missing out on a PL title and losing to Liverpool in the Champions League final but even he could not avoid the culture.

Here are some great examples of the Spurs being Spursy…..

• On the final day of the 2005-06 season, Tottenham needed to match Arsenal's result at Wigan to secure a top-four finish. But 10 players were struck down by food poisoning on the morning of the game against West Ham. They lost 2-1.

• Allen noted a 2-0 lead at Old Trafford in April 2009 only to lose 5-2 as United scored five times in 22 second-half minutes.

• In a 2012 north London derby Spurs led 2-0 before Arsenal won 5-2.

• The closest Spurs came to winning the Premier League under Pochettino was in 2015-16, but they faltered in the run-in, drawing at home to West Brom before blowing a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 at Chelsea in what became known as the "Battle of the Bridge."

• Spurs were 3-0 up at home to West Ham in October 2020 with 82 minutes played. They conceded three times to draw 3-3.

Current manager Ange Postecoglou has addressed the term, “The Spursy tag is schoolyard stuff. All I need to know is that the club hasn’t won anything for 15 years. That’s the reality.”

So, what’s happened this weekend? Another 2-goal lead blown, this time at BHA.

If you want to see some good memes on X, just head out there and search on #Spursy.

Off Island 🏝️

Pulisic

Think it’s time to highlight Christian Pulisic’s season so far - many considering him a top 10 player in the world right now. Agree or disagree, one thing is certain, he is playing his best soccer of his career, dominating in a top league and is arguably on the best run of any American player in Europe ever.

• Italy’s top player of the Month of September.

• 6 goals and 2 assists in 9 matches across all competitions.

• This goal over the weekend was BRILLIANT.

Now he needs to bring his quality and leadership to the USMNT who are playing two friendlies this international break, their first under Mauricio Pochettino.

• Saturday, 10/12 USMNT v Panama in Austin, TX.

• Tuesday, 10/15 USMNT v Mexico in Guadalajara, MX.

Don’t sleep on Josh Sargent

For those that don’t follow closely, there’s a player who is having a GREAT year - just not in the big clubs or with the USMNT. Josh Sargent has battled injuries over the years that has limited his USMNT exposure. Sargent, from O’Fallon Missouri, plays for Norwich City (owned by Mark Atanasio who owns the Milwaukee Brewers), a team that has had some good runs recently in the Championship (the league below the PL) in England.

• Since January 1 Sargent has 17 goals in the EFL Championship, 3 more goals than any other player.

• Sargent has 4 goals, 3 assists in 9 matches this season.

• Here’s his latest goal for the Canaries.

• Keep an eye out for Sargent this International Break.

Best Bets 💰

Two 0-0 draws were not in the plans.