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25/26 Match Week 4 Recap
Park the Bus, 19 Goals & The Dixie
nick lochner
September 16, 2025
Ted Lasso In the House
Looks like Ted Lasso and Coach Beard are scouting as they were at the Arsenal v Forest Match this weekend.
Coach Beard and Ted
If this means nothing to you - where have you been - check out the show on AppleTV+ as season 4 is currently being filmed and set to be released in 2026.
In Today’s CleanSheet:
Results 🏟️
Current Situation📈📉
Quick Kicks ⚽
Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥- Parking the Bus
Off Island 🏝️ - Europe Comps
Best Bets 💰
Results 🏟️
90+! Impact
 | Most exciting match of the weekend. Chelsea owned the stat line, yet Brentford found a way to take a deserved point in this West London Derby. The Bee’s took the lead into HT with a Schade goal at 35’ but The Blues took the lead after 61’ and 85’ goals. Yet, as Blues manager Maresca said, “…we have to manager better…” referring to taking such a late lead but letting it slip away. |
 | Heartbreak for the Whites as a great effort at Craven Cottage goes unrewarded as the Cottagers were gifted an own goal at 90+4’. Was there a foul on the play? VAR said no. It was a very strange goal, as the defender looked shielded from the ball that got on him so fast, he didn’t adjust fast enough. FFC will take the luck, they may feel owed it after the call went against them in week 1. |
 🟥= Red Card Impacted the match | Heartbreak for the Clarets as their stout defense finally yielded at 90+5’ goal on a tough hand ball penalty in the box that Mo Salah finished off for Liverpool. Burnley “parked the bus” and withstood 27 Liverpool shots until the final minute of stoppage time. Ugochukwu took a second yellow, meaning a red card, for Burnley at 84’ and 10’ later Liverpool got their chance. All three points to the Red’s. |
3-0 Scorelines.
 | This Derby was all City - 68% possession, 19 shots v 6, 612 passes completed v 278. While the HT score of 1-0 kept it close it never felt close. United defense allowed way too many opportunities.
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 | Not really fair to pin this on Ange in his first couple days at Forest. That manager move is a long terms season move. Yet this one felt like Spurs last season, an Ange led team that held their own early and then were leaky in the 2H. Gunners are good and have yet to really click this season. |
 🟥= Red Card Impacted the match | A pretty even 1H turned to all Spurs in the 2H as Tottenham took the lead at 47’ and then Tomas Soucek took a bad red card that put the Hammer’s behind it. 3 minutes later Spurs went up 2 and it was all over.
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What Americans Struggle to Understand - a Good Game ending 0-0.
 | While both sides created chances Palace’s were better as Sunderland’s six shots never were on target. Palace has yet to lose this season, with 3 draws but this feels like one they should’ve gotten on three points in. The Black Cat’s will be happy to get out of South London with a point. |
 | Villa have yet to score this year, 4 matches. yet it is their second point. Everton outshot Villa 20-7 but neither side had great chances and even possession. It was a physical match with 32 total fouls and 6 yellows. |
A Solid Three Points for the Winners.
 | An excellent set piece that Newcastle scored on at 29’ was all they would need. Wolves had some good early chances that goalkeeper Nick Pope stood tall on. Both sides are struggling to score, 3 for Newcastle and 2 for Wolves on the season. |
 | What a great start for the Cherries. After taking Liverpool to the wire in MW1 they’ve strung together three 1 goal wins. They deserved the three points in this one, taking a 1 goal lead into HT, allowing BHA back into it early in the 2H but then grabbing the lead back in a PK. A deserved 3 points. |
Current Situation 📈📉
MW4 30,000 Foot View ✈️✈️✈️
Liverpool looks like they are head and shoulders ahead of the pack, had a great transfer window and are significant favorites to repeat and challenge for multiple cups.
All 4 Liverpool wins have come AFTER 83’ - here are all four goals.
Manchester is Blue.
10 Clean Sheets this weekend, the most since CS started a newsletter.
Goals are way down this season.
Villa still have yet to score.
Wolves have yet to earn a point and are true relegation contenders.
How is Bournemouth, the smallest club in the EPL, doing it. They are good.
FFC were screwed by a call earlier in the season, they are now even with an OG.
First true case of “Parking the Bus” on the season - see Hot Topic 🔥🔥 for more.
Standings
Current Table 
| Season Clean Sheets by Team  0-0 Matches This Season - 3 |
Goals & Clean Sheets
How does the current 25/26 season compare to EPL averages for goals and clean sheets.
Goals 19 Match Week 4 24.3 25/26 Season Average (G/MW)
| Clean Sheets 10 Match Week 4 8.0 25/26 Season Average (G/MW)
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Goal Scorers
Haaland (City) leads with 5 on the season, Semenyo (B’mouth) and Gyokeres (Arsenal) sit at 3, 7 players have 2.
1 Goal Scorers (players season goals if more than 1)
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2 Goals
| 3+ Goals
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Quick Kicks ⚽
Hill Dickinson Stadium at Bramley Moore Dock. Everton’s stadium is getting great early reviews, and the experience should only get better as the plans for the area around the stadium should only improve the experience. But the current name is RIDICULOUS. CS has yet to hear of a stadium nickname except for “The Dixie” - in honor of club legend Dixie Dean. What about The Hill? The Dick? What do CS subscribers think? Check CS out at @CleanSheetEPL (X) and/or @cleansheetepl Instagram and put your best nicknames out there.
Amorim. Ruben Amorim continues to feel the pressure at United. After the Manchester Derby he was criticized of his tactical approach. Amorim doubled down on his philosophy, stating he won’t change his system to accommodate the players and emphasized the players must adapt. “When I want to change my philosophy, I will change. If not, you have to change the man.”
CS Opinion. Been an Amorim fan but this approach will not get him anywhere. Where does United go and how long do this give Ruben this season if the losing continues.
Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥
🚌🚌 🚌Parking the Bus🚌🚌🚌
In 2004, famous manager Jose Mourinho was coaching Chelsea against Tottenham, and he got pissed off because Spurs played all 10 players in their own final 1/3 of the pitch and focused solely on defense. After the match Mourinho said “Look, if you have a team with buses, you park the bus. You need to have a bus to park it in front of the goal.”
Interestingly, Jose Mourinho adopted the parking the bus tactics after Spurs used them on his team and used them very successfully. When coaching Man United in 2017 against Liverpool Mourinho said “People talk about parking the bus like it’s a crime. It’s intelligence, it’s organization, it’s winning.”
This week Burnley Manager Scott Parker employed the tactic at home to Liverpool and did so very well. Burnley had 30% possession, really frustrated Liverpool and created 3 chances of their own. And to bring this full circle - Scott Parker played on Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea team in 2004.
More on Parking the Bus. Fans who love the “beautiful game” for the free-flowing action can’t stand this tactic. Yet it’s a pragmatic approach focusing on organization, discipline and counter-attacking opportunities. Teams that play a match this way are fine with 20-30% ball possession. It can be a winning strategy for sides that may not be as skilled as their opponent. Data shows that teams that have over 50% possession in a match win 60-70% of matches. Yet, teams with possession under 40% have win rates of 30-45%. In the Premier League, teams with season average possession below 40% have historically avoided relegation in part by conceding 20-30% fewer goals than the average.
Off Island 🏝️
European Competitions Heat Up
All the top Leagues across Europe have their best teams qualify for an ALL EUROPE League that is played in parallel to each respective countries league. Here is how the qualification works.
The are 3 European League are the Champions, Europa and UEFA Conference. If you know how NCAA Basketball works, think of them as the NCAA, NIT and CBI in that order.
This week kicks off the first of 8 “pot” matches for each club.
Best Bets 💰
Season - Up $202
MW1 ($14)
MW2 $183
MW3 ($10)
MW4 $43
Match Week 4 Results
UP $43
W $22 - Arsenal to Win v Forest v CS +112. $20
L ($21) - Chelsea to win at Brentford AND over 1.5 goals -105. $21
W $24 - Tottenham to Win at West Ham +120. $20
L ($10) - Man United to Win at Man City +360. $10
W $28 - Bournemouth to Win v BHA +140. $20
L ($20) - Newcastle to Win v Wolves AND over 2.5 goals in match +104. $20
W $15 - Arsenal, Newcastle, Liverpool to Win +153. $10 (3 favorites)
L ($10) - Palace, Fulham to Win +217. $10
W $15 - Cole Palmer to Score (Chelsea) +147. $10
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