24/25 Match Week 2 Recap

Looks like Season 4 of Ted Lasso is in the works!

If you have yet to see Seasons 1-3 - definitely worth your time - ENJOY!

(It’s on Apple TV+, you can get a 7-day free trial and binge it)

In Today’s CleanSheet:

• Headlines 📌

• Current Situation📈📉

• Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥- xG

• Off Island 🏝️ - Basque

• Best Bets 💰

Headlines 📌

• CS Match of the Week. Wolves 2-6 Chelsea. Arsenal’s 2-0 win at Villa Park lived up to the billing of two top four finishers from last season, both sides looked dangerous and could’ve won. Great match, great watch - big win for the Gunners. BUT Wolves-Chelsea match takes MW2 center stage. A wide-open game with several highlight plays, scuffles, and a shocking 4 goal 2H by the Blues. Is Chelsea figuring things out under Enzo?

  • Open Play.

    • Chelsea score 1 min in, 1-0.

    • Wolves respond, 1-1.

    • Chelsea retakes the lead, 2-1. Brilliant from Cole Palmer.

    • Wolves respond at the half, 2-2.

    • Half Time

    • Chelsea’s Noni Madueke hat trick in a 14 min window, 5-2.

    • This is what Chelsea fans are excited for - the buildup and goal 6-2.

  • Interested in a Deep Dive? If you’d like a detailed analysis on what Chelsea did play-wise, this is a great breakdown from @ibzsmo3k (X).

  • Story behind the story.

• Speaking of Hat Tricks. In City’s 4-1 win over Ipswich Town, Erling Haaland got his SEVENTH hat trick in his 67th PL match, this one came in a 4 min window.

  • Sergio Aguero, who also played for City, has the most hat tricks in PL history with 12 - he averaged 1 hat trick in every 23 matches. Haaland is currently averaging 1 in 9.7.

• How TO keep a CS. 🤩

  • Brilliance from David Raya for Arsenal. Raya led the PL last season with 16 clean sheets and picks up where he left off.

• How to NOT keep a CS. 🫣

  • Pickford for Everton - it was only 1 of the 4 scored.

  • Ederson for City - as the Tractor Boys get their first goal in the PL since 2002.

• Nuts and Bolts. Looked like Bournemouth scored at the 94’ to beat Newcastle on the last kick of the match, but after the goal was awarded, VAR stepped in and said, “no goal, handball”. It wasn’t a handball. Final score 1-1.

  • Good analysis. (SkySports)

  • Great comments after the match from the Cherries Gaffer Andoni Iraola.

• Speaking of VAR. This play was not reviewed when Joelinton of Newcastle clearly had bad intentions when nearly taking the head off of Bournemouth keeper Neto.

• On a more positive note. You a Liverpool fan or new to their traditions? What a great walk out version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Beautiful.

  • Speaking of beautiful. This counter attacking goal off a corner by Luis Diaz to put the Reds up 1-0 on Brentford in the 12’. They went on to win 2-0.

• Not again. That’s what Man United fans were saying as the Red Devils conceded at 95’, losing at BHA 1-2. This was the sixth time United have lost a match in extra time since 2002. Is that a lot you ask? MU had lost by conceding in extra time just TWICE in the THIRTY YEARS prior to 2022.

  • Here’s the goal by BHA’s Joao Pedro that did in United, and it was a clear loss of focus.

  • Easy Come Easy Go. Last week Zirkzee scored the winner for United, this week he touched a ball clearly heading into the net, from an offside position that took this go-ahead goal away. (No Goal)

Current Situation 📈📉

CleanSheets Counter & Goal Tracker

Last season (23/24) clean sheets were WAY DOWN and goals were WAY UP.

• 155 Clean Sheets, 54 below the expected 209. The PL averages 5.5 clean sheets per Match Week.

• 1,246 goals, 3.28 per match and 32.8 per match week. The highest ever in the PL.

CS will track the clean sheets over the season as well as the number of goals scored compared the last season.

Last Season had ZERO match weeks under 30 goals scored. This season started with a 21-goal MW. MW2 had 31 goals, above that 30 mark but 2 goals under the pace of last season’s average.

Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥

xG & the new xGOT

Are you a baseball nerd? If so, you know that the traditional stats of AVE (batting average), RBI (runs batted in), OBP (on base percentage) are soooo old school. Now you need to talk about WAR (wins above replacement), BABIP (batting average on balls in play), Exit Velo (exit velocity of the ball hit).

How about a US Football nerd? Yards, turnovers, and red-zone conversion % are all interesting. But are you aware of 8+D% (8+ defender in the box), CAY (Competed Air Yards), xCOMP (expected completed percentage).

Well - in soccer you may be hearing a lot of advanced stats as well. And one that has been getting lots of attention this last weekend is xG - Expected Goals and the newer xGOT - Expected Goals on Target.

Here’s an example of the discussion from this weekend:

• Wolves 2-6 Chelsea.

• xG 1.92 - 1.56

So it looks like the score should’ve been 2-2 or 2-1. How did Chelsea score 6? Maybe they were more efficient, have better finishers, maybe Wolves GK was bad, maybe it was luck. Maybe xG, when standalone, is a shite metric.

Below is more detail on where xG comes from.

A couple examples of how it’s used:

• Bookies can use xG to set over under lines and final score lines.

• Teams can use xG to look deeper at what is and isn't working in attack or in defense.

• A team’s xG difference (xG minus xGAllowed) might indicate a team is creating chances but not finishing, or vice versa. Making the most of their chances, or not.

• Looking at specific player xG may indicate the quality of chances a player is creating for themselves.

For a deeper dive on what xG means:

• The Analyst

• xGscore Football Predictions

Off Island 🏝️

Basque

The specific area of Basque Country straddles the border between Spain and France. It is an area with 7 districts where the Basque people lived. Bilbao is its largest city. There have been many attempts for this area to be autonomous, free from Spain and France rule, Basque nationalism. As recently as 2010 there have been violent acts in an effort to achieve more self-empowerment.

Why are we talking about Basque in the Clean Sheet?

Soccer is the main sport in the region - not surprisingly as it is across all of Spain. Athletic Bilbao has a policy of hiring only Basque players while their main rival in the Basque region, Real Sociedad, followed that policy into the 1980s. But, what’s most interesting about the region is how many of the top soccer managers in the world are from this small little region. The area is <2% of Spain’s territory and <5% of its population, yet 4 of 20 current PL managers are from Basque Country.

• Mikel Arteta - Arsenal

• Unai Emery - Aston Villa

• Andoni Iraola - Bournemouth

• Julen Lopetegui - West Ham

It’s not just the PL with successful managers from this tiny region. Imanol Alguacil is successfully leading Real Sociedad in La Liga and Xabi Alonso won the Bundesliga last year with Bayer Leverkusen.

One reason for all the success might be the “tradition”, “allegiance” and “deep roots” the people have with the independent culture of the region. Just recently Liverpool was in discussions to acquire Martin Zubimendi, who is from the region and playing for Real Sociedad. It was a chance for Zubimendi to go to one of the biggest clubs in the world and for more money. But he cited his very close ties to his hometown of San Sebastian and feeling very “loved” by the community as reasons he turned down the offer. Here’s a good article from the Anfield Index through Yahoo!Sports if you’re interested in more.

There are currently 5 Spanish managers in the PL, and while the best is Pep Guardiola (Man City) the other 4 are all from a region with its own unique national culture and is the size of an area smaller than the state of New Jersey.

Best Bets 💰

Again. Another promising start to the betting weekend turned into what is basically a wash. The only side to win with “+” odds was BHA. Good news is laying the big number did pay off. Will be looking for more winners next MW3.