PL Gameweek 2 🎮⚽

1. Match Pointers ⚽
   • LIV 3-1 BOU
   • TOT 2-0 MUN
   • MCI 1-0 NEW
   • WHU 3-1 CHE
2. Guardiola The Genius 🧠
   • Attributes Of The Inverted Full-Back System
3. City’s Foot Of The Gas? ⛽🏎️
4. A Scandal In Manchester ⚖️
   • On A More General Note
5. A Saudi Arabian Blockbuster 🎥🍿🎟
6. The Master And The Disciple 🧑‍🏫🧑‍🎓
7. A Problematic Pair ? 🚩
8. Fantasy 🔮

Match Pointers ⚽

LIV 3-1 BOU

• Exactly the same lineup as last week against Chelsea.
  
  
• Szoboszlai played like a cheat code. There are hardly bigger upgrades than Henderson to Szoboszlai.
  
  
• Diaz good, but his running style and playing style makes him prone to injury.
  
  
• Defensive mistakes by TAA… again. Still remember his mega defensive shift against a red-hot Leroy Sane in the CL (The Oxlade-Chamberlain game). Is he really unable to work on his defensive game? If this still continues, another right-back is critical. Konate does very well in covering up the cracks for TAA on the right-side of defence, but that’s not a long-term solution. May also put a drag on Szoboszlai’s offensive role.
  
  
• Liverpool dominant in the 2nd half. even with 10 men.
  
  
• Shocking decision to give a red card to MacAllister. Even the Iraola, the opposing manager, said it wasn’t a red card. In the PL you practically never see opponents objecting to a refereeing decision which helps their team. Liverpool looked like they were going to run riot in the 2nd half if not for the dubious dismissal.

TOT 2-0 MUN

• Tottenham lost their best player, haven’t found a decent striker and still beat Utd convincingly.
  
  
• A day to forget for Lisandro “The Butcher” Martinez, who registered an assist and a goal… for the opponent.
  
  
• Bissouma was excellent. Beats me why Conte refused to utilise him. He’s both midfield destroyer and smooth custodian who thrives under pressure. Has much better ball control than Hojbjerg and maybe even Bentancur. Seemed to enjoy himself playing against the Utd midfield. Nutmegged Casemiro with a backheel.
  
  
• Vicario is a magnificent shot-stopper. Saved everything thrown at him, including offside shots!
  
  
• Maddison gets to play closer to the penalty box at Tottenham than at Leicester.
  
  
• Postecoglou looks promising for Tottenham. A manager of this profile suits them more than a big name like Mourinho or Conte. Postecoglou has a very contrasting style to that of Conte.
  
  
• Richarlison being their starting striker is an issue, however. He can’t link-up play effectively. A Nicolas Jackson or a Welbeck would be of great service. Son and Kulusevski have more weight on their shoulders now, but they didn’t appear to be clinical and decisive enough around the penalty area.
  
  
• Spurs look much more robust because they have attained much better completeness, by shoring up defence, and finally acquiring decent full-backs and a creative midfielder. Bissouma is better than Hojbjerg, and Sarr is better than Skipp. Spurs fans can afford to be more sanguine now, after suffering so much in recent years.
  
  
• Onana is much more confident and adept on the ball than De Gea, who still hasn’t found a new club.
  
  
• Woeful body language by the Utd players. They look like they’ve given up, even the substitutes! Martial and Sancho, bought expensively as young stars, looked worse than average. Eriksen also lacked energy.
  
  
• Martial has been looking washed and unmotivated for a long time. How is he still at Utd? Does he perform well in training? Or is here just around for squad depth?
  
  
• Mount and Fernandes are not CMs in a 4-3-3 at all. With Utd lacking a natural striker, I would have played Eriksen over Garnacho, then set up a 4-2-3-1 with Rashford on the left, Fernandes in the CF role (on paper), Mount behind him, and Eriksen beside Casemiro. This system improves the positions of Rashford, Fernandes and Mount. It also gives a higher and more focal attacking role for Fernandes. Rashford is too one-dimensional a player to be able to fulfil the centre-forward role.
  
  
• Mount never struck me as a Liverpool or Man Utd-type player. Doesn’t help that similarly-priced but lower-waged Szoboszlai has impressed. Mount has no position in a 4-3-3. While he is definitely not a CM, he’s not good enough to be the CAM in a 4-2-3-1 or one of the forwards in a 3-4-3 too. Like James Rodriguez, Isco, Alli and even Joao Felix, Mount’s type of role is losing relevance in the modern game. A player of this profile needs to be good from deep like De Bruyne and Ødegaard to remain viable. De Bruyne is also good enough to play as a forward in a 3-4-3, which he did under Roberto Martinez’s Belgium, especially in the 2018 World Cup.
  
  
• I don’t know how one can look at Chelsea’s bloated squad, and arrive at the conclusion that 60M will be best spent on Mason Tony Mount. There is no aspect to Mount’s game that sets him apart in the top-flight. Crazy how he wears the No. 7 shirt, whose previous owner was Cristiano Ronaldo! For a midfielder to wear No. 7 on his back, he has to either be extremely outstanding or extremely respected.
  
  
• Roy Keane said Man Utd are the new Spurs. They’re not, and will never be. Utd have spent hundreds of millions more on players, and will spend hundreds of millions more than Spurs to spend themselves out of any rut.
  
  
• Man Utd are one of the only few teams whose owners can countenance such appalling profligacy. Utd will never be Spurs, because Utd will always be able to top the tables for Transfer Spend and Wage Bill (and then blame their supremely more well-run neighbours of “ruining football”). It confounds me how Utd fans can take their club seriously and be genuinely happy when they win, and how Utd are not the most despised club in the land. Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool are overly antagonised relative to Man Utd in popular media.
  
  
• How can a team that has the highest net spend in the past 5 years be so atrocious. Imagine if Liverpool’s owners were willing to spend more on transfers than Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa…
  
  
• All this being said, we should not overreact to one poor result by Utd against Spurs away. Utd looked uninspiring, but they significantly underperformed their xG.
  
  
• Perhaps the Greenwood-saga is rocking the club’s morale. It is very hard—almost impossible —to make a resolution that would not be controversial. Antony has had a 70-page police report filed against him by his wife too.

MCI 1-0 NEW

• Man City’s bench looked atrocious. They didn’t make a single substitution, while Newcastle made all five. West Ham’s bench looks formidable compared to City’s.
  
  
• With a deficit in attackers, Man City may emphasise defence and play more safely this season. They have done well to limit chances for their opponents so far.
  
  
• Man City do not have a single LB nor a single RW. De Bruyne is out for months.
  
  
• Foden filled in the creator role superbly.

WHU 3-1 CHE

• Massive overreaction by fans and media after Chelsea’s loss. Chelsea looked good and I see them struggling less at breaking down mid-table sides.
  
  
• Debut howler from Caicedo but the remarks on him are also overreactions. He was plunged into a Chelsea team that had sacrificed structure to chase a goal. He looks very comfortable carrying and playing the ball.
  
  
• Sterling was electric. Mudryk is a insanely quick dribbler. He terrorises full-backs. His end product was dreadful, but I wouldn’t write him off. Like Darwin Nunez, once he becomes more mature and refined, he can rip apart the Premier League. On current form I would take Sterling and Mudryk over Antony and Garnacho, that’s for sure.
  
  
• Chelsea looked energetic, and Pochettino is someone I would trust with this young Chelsea team. He developed an entire generation of Spurs players, leading them to a CL final, in an era when Spurs’ spending was at its trough.
  
  
• Paqueta is a superbly well-rounded player. No wonder Man City were interested in him. Probably the move would have been made already if not for his infractions of betting laws.

Guardiola The Genius 🧠

Interesting to note that Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham are playing with inverted full-backs. Guardiola is setting the tactics meta of the league.

Attributes Of The Inverted Full-Back System

• Allows a natural defender to be part of the core resistance against counter-attacks, rather than leaving a full-back stranded on the wings and having to cover more ground.
  
  
• Frees up the No. 8(s), of which there are usually 2 in a 4-3-3, from defensive responsibilities, allowing them to push higher up, and make more frequent entries into the penalty box, like how Gündoğan has done so expertly.
  
  
• Relieves pressure on the single DM, which is useful even if your DM is Rodri or Partey.
  
  
• Shores up the midfield numbers, suppressing the midfield swarm of teams playing a low block.
  
  
• Permits a more even spread of the area of a pitch each player covers. Traditional full-backs often have to cover the full length of the pitch.
  
  
• Makes the role of a full-back less one-dimensional. Traditional full-backs are rather linear.
  
  
• Better exploits the passing prowess (Zinchenko, TAA) and attacking abilities (Porro) of full-backs who possess these offensive traits.
  
  
• Could suck in the opposing wide player into the centre, leaving more space for your own wingers to attack.
  
  
• Results in lopsided formations.
  
  
• Less able to overload the flanks.
  
  
• Greater responsibility on wing players to cause havoc in the attacking wings.
  
  
• Inverted full-backs could congest spaces where inside forwards operate.

City’s Foot Of The Gas? ⛽🏎️

Man City may have won the treble last season, but trophies were never reliable indicators of performance, due especially to the large variance in single-elimination knockout tournaments. City won the league with 89 points last season, a scant total for their standards. City are regressing, and it is difficult to see how they can reach their past heights looking at their thin squad.

After the high of their treble, it is probable Man City will perform more poorly this season. Last season Liverpool were abysmal, following a campaign where they played the maximum possible number of games and lost the quadruple by their fingertips. This undoubtedly takes a toll on players’ motivation. Man City will suffer the effects of a similar “2nd-season syndrome”, which manifests as an altered psychology. Guardiola and his team will surely be aware of this. Man City’s biggest challenge in this campaign, may ironically be that they were too successful last season. If Guardiola can pull another trophy-laden season off with this squad, we must applaud his ability to relentlessly maintain high standards and motivate his players. Man City would find it vey beneficial to harness the catfish effect by reinforcing the squad with first-team players, which Liverpool failed to do last season.

Arsenal are not yet the complete article and have to manage the demands of the Champions League this season. Chelsea and Tottenham are in transition. Utd and Newcastle’s squads are not strong enough to handle all their competitions. Liverpool would be stupid not to capitalise by breaking the bank this season. Failure to do so would further underscore the satisficing ethos of the upper management. Time is running out.

At least I can be consoled by Klopp’s explicit public statements that Liverpool are actively looking to purchase. Endo is a very astute signing, and it seems he will be immediately thrown in as a starter, not a rotation option. Even though he shores up a critical gap, Liverpool fans cannot be optimistic. The team is still looking short. The buffer against injury trouble, even a relatively minor one, is slim.

A Scandal In Manchester ⚖️

Man Utd have at last made a final and unequivocal decision on Mason Greenwood, who has had all charges (rape, coercion and assault) against him dropped. (Man Utd’s internal investigation began a whopping 6 months ago!) Now, Greenwood is having a baby with the victim of the previous charges. Man Utd were heavily censured for a previous statement which expressed sympathy towards Greenwood and implied a possibility for his return. The release of the preliminary statement before the ultimate decision was likely intended to test the waters.

And test the waters it did. The intensity of objection to Greenwood’s return was far greater than that of support. But from the start it had been clear to many that the most expedient, non-controversial and business-sensible choice was for Greenwood to be axed.

Man Utd showed some 情义 to Greenwood by sort of compensating him through asserting explicitly in their statement that the club believes in Greenwood’s innocence. While of course Man Utd cannot allude to the contrary as that is an obvious legal blunder, they could have taken the more “political” path of ambiguity, avoiding the expression of a clear verdict altogether. So, saying Greenwood is innocent is likely an act, possibly a final one, of solidarity and support to a player who has been with the club since the age of 7.

I’m not comfortable with judging if Greenwood is guilty, because there is not enough information about his case to make a verdict of reasonable credence. I believe “social media justice” has gone too far. It doesn’t make sense to arraign someone so harshly when even the English prosecution finds insufficient evidence to bring a case to court, let alone land a conviction. The offences are very reprehensible if true, but shouldn’t we respect the presumption of innocence?

On A More General Note

The main reason why most people are so hostile to Greenwood is the recordings and photos circulated on social media. Trial by public opinion is frighteningly influential, and it could distort justice. Social media can act as a vehicle for inflating a wrongdoer’s punishment beyond what is considered proportional to his/her crime. It is worse if the suspect is truly innocent.

Greenwood’s case makes it seem rather tempting for people to conjure false accusations for extortion. Rich and high-profile individuals have a large ability to give in to monetary demands and a high willingness to do so because they have a lot to lose. From the Greenwood incident, it may be inferred that as long as there is evidence sensational enough posted on social media, it’s almost impossible for one to mend his/her reputation, career and private life following an exposure of alleged wrongdoing, even if that evidence is insufficient for a trial. Big names like Ronaldo, Neymar, Benzema, Ribery, Partey and Mendy have been subject to and cleared of sexual crime allegations. Who knows if, and how much, money has been transferred under the table? Did these players actually commit offences? Surely, there are similar cases that have stayed completely private and never emerged into the public realm.

A Saudi Arabian Blockbuster 🎥🍿🎟

The Saudis should pitch 2 All-Star teams of European players against each other. This would generate interest, even among the virtue-signallers.

European, or especially UK culture is hostile to All-Star events. It’s such an “American” thing, they might say with disdain. But the rest of the world largely would not take issue with this. If anything, Europe’s repugnance of such an event could motivate the Saudi-billionaires more, in their derivation of pleasure over riling up the establishment, who would be getting worked up to little avail.

Traditionally, clubs are reluctant to release their players for All-Star matches, because the players risk getting injured, and the clubs have little to gain from their players’ participation in such games. But the Saudi Arabian clubs face a different set of incentives—they have a strong interest in enhancing the appeal of their league. The increased attraction would trickle down to the respective clubs.

The Master And The Disciple 🧑‍🏫🧑‍🎓

2 weeks into the season, there are signs of Guardiola-esque tactics in Arteta’s Arsenal set up. Timber and Tomiyasu at LB. Partey at RB. Gabriel, thought to be rotation-immune, falling victim to “Arteta-roulette”.

Guardiola likes squads with a number of mixed (e.g. Bernardo Silva) position players. Arteta seems to be adopting this from his mentor, signing mixed position players, or at least players receptive to positional training, such as White, Trossard, Havertz and Timber. This gives Man City and Arsenal the advantage of tactical flexibility. Tactics have to be modified frequently, tailored according to the strength and style of opposition, the match situation or specific attributes of certain opposition players. Such a squad makeup also provides depth laterally by having multi-functional players, rather than vertically by having like-for-like backups, allowing for a more compact and cost-efficient squad. Other teams do not have such a high number of “mixed” first-team players.

Aside: Recently, the highly-coveted Bernardo Silva signed a new contract at Man City. He embodies this Pep Guardiola Man City era very well, and is arguably more crucial to his team than De Bruyne. De Bruyne is unparalleled at some of the things he does, but he is more of a luxury player, not an essential piece. Man City don’t need, and should not need De Bruyne to win games, as his increasing rate of injuries will only make him a more peripheral player.

A Problematic Pair ? 🚩

A strategical innovation by Arteta is buying another first-team goalkeeper of similar ability even though the incumbent one is young and performing well.

I wonder what the considerations behind this are. Is it failsafe engineering, abetted by the enticement to Raya of CL football? An unavailable starting goalkeeper is a low-probability but often devastating occurrence.

The traditional and prevalent practice is having a clear No. 1 and a clear No. 2. Often, the hierarchy among the back-ups is unambiguous too.

As Gary Neville pointed out, having 2 goalkeepers in competition can create instability, as questions will be raised whenever one of them makes an error, however major or consequential the mistake is. It may also undermine the steadiness of the back 4 as they have to partner different goalkeepers.

When Man Utd had both de Gea and Henderson, de Gea was overwhelmingly preferred despite some expectations that they would share gametime significantly. Henderson is now likely on his way out as the dual-goalkeeper model did not turn out well. Pressure from Henderson didn’t seem to improve de Gea’s performances by much either.

Fantasy 🔮

• Took a big punt by captaining Salah over Haaland. It paid off in the end in FPL terms, though it took a slight toll on my nerves. I had enough confidence in Newcastle to inhibit Man City’s attack. Haaland looked very poor against Arsenal 2 weeks ago, while Liverpool put 9 past Bournemouth in the same fixture last season. The stats backed my decision—Salah’s xPoints was ~11, Haaland ~4. Salah needs to work on his penalties—he has been missing a lot recently! Milner and Fabinho are gone, but MacAllister and Szoboszlai are penalty specialists too.
  
  
• Udogie got his first ever FPL return. Seems like a nailed starter but could often be substituted by Davies/Perisic.
  
  
• Enciso put in a great performance. Joao Pedro doesn’t seem very attractive anymore as he appears to be a significant rotation risk.
  
  
• Jackson looking very lively so far. He plays very direct football. Could he be on penalties with James injured and Enzo F. missing one?
  
  
• Chilwell again looking very involved in the attack. Chelsea have a delightful run of fixtures coming.
  
  
• West Ham’s Areola may be a better 4.0M goalkeeper option than Forest’s Turner.
  
  
• FPL players got bamboozled by Douglas Luiz and Ødegaard, as they took over penalties from Watkins and Saka respectively. Wissa, Alvarez, Jackson and Semenyo are replacement options, and Nkunku when he returns. Arteta said he was not aware Ødegaard was going to take the spot-kick, and thought Saka was going to take it. So it’s a decision among the players. Maybe this is just a one-off occasion for Ødegaard to open his account for the season.
  
  
• Gabriel benched again. Arteta has to sacrifice one of White and Gabriel to fit Rice and Partey in the same lineup. Both players are practically undroppable.
  
  
• Did 2 early transfers using my FTs as I would not be able to afford them when price changes come around: Gabriel to Chilwell & Joao Pedro to Alvarez. Both players are rotation risks, but looked good and have great fixtures. Alvarez at greater risk once Doku settles in.