24/25 Match Week 8 Recap

Getting to the end of October - and this has been CS’s go to of the fall. Highly recommend it.

And it sounds like Asheville is starting to open up a little and the next time you have a chance to go there check out the Sierra Nevada Brewery…. It’s awesome.

In Today’s CleanSheet:

• Headlines 📌

• Current Situation📈📉

• Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥- Seeing Red

• Off Island 🏝️ - Champions & Europa League

• Best Bets 💰

Headlines 📌

• CS Match of the Week. Liverpool 2-1 Chelsea.

  • Energy. Amazing atmosphere at Anfield. Just a GREAT game. Red hosting Blue. Both played well. Maybe the best atmosphere of the season so far.

  • Fast Paced. This match was back and forth with lots of chances, penalties, no-calls, and changes in momentum.

    • 1-0 Reds. A penalty on Jones in the box led to a penalty conversion for Salah.

    • VAR. This was originally called a penalty, then overturned by VAR.

    • 1-1. 2-1. Chelsea (Jackson) got one right out of HT after a lengthy VAR review for offsides, but Liverpool (Jones) answered immediately to stop the momentum.

  • Curtis Jones. You may know Salah, Van Dijk, Alexander Arnold, Gakpo, Diaz, even Nunez - all key pieces to Liverpool recently. Yet the youngster who grew up through the Liverpool club was directly involved on both of Liverpool’s goals

  • Midfield Future Stars. Cole Palmer (Chelsea) - Curtis Jones (Liverpool). Both part of the future of the England National Team. Jones with a goal and forced penalty, great defense on Palmer, and the Win. Liverpool manager Arne Slott said of Jones - “Very good. Very good individual performance. I think the whole team worked very, very hard. Curtis had a difficult job. He had to control Cole Palmer, which is not easy because this player has some quality. It’s a team effort, but Curtis was mostly responsible for this.” Jones wins this one.

  • 169. Liverpool have not lost a match when leading at HT in 169 matches.

  • Audio Only. This is a great 3 min of audio, probably only Red’s fans will enjoy.

• Bookmark This One. Wolves 1-2 City. This “last” place team in the table after 8 matches may be the best last place team at this point in years and they just can’t catch a break this season. Wolves took the lead 1-0 at 7’ on a Jorgen Strand Larsen goal and Molineaux erupted. City equalized at 33’ on a GREAT Gvardiol goal. City took it to Wolves in the 2H, it seemed the ball was in the Wolves half 95% of the time. But at 95’ it was still tied 1-1. That’s when THIS happened. City scored off a corner, it was ruled offside/goalie interference, but then VAR overturned the no goal to a GOAL. City get all 3 points, helping them keep pace with Liverpool and Wolves are stuck in last when every point matters.

  • Blocking the Goalkeeper. The big question on the review is a player blocking the keeper, which if you are offside you cannot do, but because he was onside when the corner was taken and then moved last minute it counts. Excellent analysis here from skysport.

• No 2-0 HT Lead Is Safe. Last week Spurs led 2-0 at HT only to lose 2-3. This scenario played out again, this time when Southampton took a 2-0 lead into HT only to let Leicester City back in it. LCFC got one back at x’ and then the game changed when Vardy was fouled in the box, converted on the penalty and Southampton went down to 10-men. At 98’ the Foxes converted a last second corner kick to complete the comeback and earn all 3 points. Southampton 2-3 LCFC. And away Foxes fans let the home fans know it. (language)

  • Doesn’t have to be pretty - Ayew at 98’ for the win.

  • The three goals.

  • Great scene from the away fans.

  • Interesting comments from Russell Martin, Southampton manager - calling out one player. 🤔

  • Southampton have now lost 21 consecutive PL matches, the longest streak in their history.

• Fat Thor. The Hammers last 29 matches, dating back to last season, have resembled Avengers: Endgame. For those who are not familiar, Thor was having a really tough go of it at the start of Endgame and was very fat. Thor’s superpower was his Hammer (Mjolnir), and he just wasn’t swinging it. That describes West Ham - 5 wins in their last 29 matches. The latest, Spurs 4-1 Hammers.

• Royal Dyche. Fun listening to Sean Dyche’s post-game comments (4 min), CS would play for this guy. Ipswich 0-2 Everton.

  • This one’s for the Everton Fans - “you’ve never shone so brightly” 🎶🎶.

• Another One. That is 3 red cards for Arsenal in 8 matches and it again cost them points. This time, giving up 2 goals 10 men on 11 at 70’ and 78’ on a penalty. See Hot Topic 🔥🔥 for more on this red card.

• 5 Red’s. There were 5 red cards on Saturday, 2 directly impacted the match, 1 might have impacted the match and 2 did not impact the outcome. See Hot Topic 🔥🔥 for more on red cards.

Current Situation 📈📉

• No Draws this week, first time this season.

• Long way to go, but Arsenal need to get healthy and not fall too far behind Liverpool and City.

• Still just 8/38^th of the way through the season and a lot can change.

• It feels like Southampton and Ipswich are going to struggle to get out of the relegation race.

• BHA seems like they will be around looking for a European spot all year.

• The difference between 9^th and 16^th place is 1 win.

CleanSheets Counter & Goal Tracker

Goals are DOWN 33 this season over last, clean sheets are EVEN over last season.

5 of 8 MWs have had goals of 30 or more and MW1, MW4, MW8 have brought the total goals way down.

Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥

Seeing Red - Clear Goalscoring Opportunity

You can get a red card several ways.

• 2 yellow cards in a match.

• Straight red for a dangerous play in action.

• Straight red for fighting or attacking a referee. Here is an example from West Ham this weekend.

A player can also get a direct red card for illegally stopping a Clear Goalscoring Opportunity.

This happened twice this weekend.

• LCFC’s Jamie Vardy was fouled on what would’ve been a goal (at 25s of video) at Southampton.

• Arsenal’s William Saliba took down a Evanilson from Bournemouth and the ref ruled it a break away. (Sound On)

  • AND - it impacts the next matches. Saliba will now miss Arsenal’s matches against Liverpool and Chelsea.

Off Island 🏝️

Champions & Europa League Match 2 of 8

(all matches on Paramount+ cst)

Some great matchups for EPL teams mid week in the CL.

• Arsenal host Shakhtar (Ukraine) Tuesday, 2pm.

• Aston Villa host Bologna (Italy) Tuesday, 2pm.

• Red Bull Leipzig (Germany) host Man City Wednesday, 2pm.

• Man City host Sparta Praha (Czech Republic) Wednesday, 2pm.

Here are all the matches and the Table. Still don’t like at 36 team table, but some great matchup’s this week!

Europa League kicks off Thursday.

• Man United travel to Fenerbahce (Turkey) Thursday, 2pm.

• Spurs host Eredivisie (Netherlands) Thursday, 2pm.

• Just Christian Pulisic doing his post-match interview in Italian, brilliant.

• Speaking of Pulisic, he is having a SEASON at AC Milan.

Best Bets 💰

Let’s Keep the Momentum Going

Missed out on some long shot bets but that is betting soccer, 4 winning picks but up $.