by Player of the week
Phil Foden is in the middle of the biggest heat check since Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things. He was the best player on the pitch in City’s 3-1 win in the Manchester derby, finishing with two goals, including his now trademark stunner from the edge of the box.
Sometimes you can tell a player has taken a mini-jump, even if it doesn’t show in the numbers. While others have been in and out of the lineup this year, Foden has been City’s constant. He has played more games for Pep Guardiola this season than at any other time in his career.
By advanced metrics, this was a standard season for Foden, although the number of shots increased. But he is delivering key performances with more pressure on his shoulders. With Erling Haaland missing big chances, Kevin De Bruyne missing time through injury and others being cycled in and out of the team, City have regularly turned to Foden to find talent.
The focus on Foden’s End Product™ has (slightly) obscured the development of his all-around game. As a player, Foden’s greatest strength is his unpredictability: you never know whether he will zig here or zag there. He can drop into space and feed players ahead of him; he can zoom in behind it. No other player in the City has refined such skills.
Controversy of the week
Isn’t it fun to have another weekend defined by an official decision? If you want a full account of the class disaster at the end of Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest, we’ll direct you here.
In short, a referee Paul Tierney He gave Liverpool the wrong ball in the eighth minute of added time at the end of the game. Liverpool went up the other end of the pitch and, two minutes later, Darwin Núñez scored a winner in the second. From there, bedlam.
We can debate the merits of Tierney’s decision on the winner – after all, Forest had a few chances to clear the ball before Liverpool put it in the net. But for those in non-Liverbird tinted glasses, it was probably enough. Former referee Mike Dean he described it as a “monumental error.”
What we can all agree on: Forest’s handling of the situation after the match was truly reprehensible. The club sent out their newly appointed ‘referee analyst’, Mark Clattenburg, to flood the airwaves with his side of the story. It is a damning indictment of the league that a former official has now been hired by a club to go after Malcolm Tucker when a decision they disagree with goes against them.
When Clattenburg was first appointed, it was sold as a job based around data analysis and internal communications – all common for Premier League clubs, although it’s usually done by data scientists. We were told Clattenburg would help teach the rules to Forest coaches and players and compile dossiers on the various reference teams. Clattenburg’s was obvious to anyone with eyes and ears true His role would be to give the club the opportunity to take shots at officials without having any responsibility for the manager Nuno Espírito Santo.
“I won’t comment on the referee,” Espírito Santo said after the game, leaving it to Clattenburg to do the heavy PR lifting.
This was Clattenburg’s first rodeo as a front runner. Here’s hoping it will be the last.
Save the week
On the flip side of Forest’s controversy was a result that kept Liverpool at the top of the table. “If you told me 12 days ago we would have won all four games,” Jürgen Klopp said after the Forest game. “I would have said no chance.”
If Liverpool win the league, people should focus on the young substitutes further up the pitch who have succeeded in the absence of senior pros across the pitch. But it has been Kevin Kelleher’s the ability to keep Klopp’s side in games that have provided the platform for their recent form. It is now five wins on the turn for Liverpool in all competitions. Over the last three, they have conceded a cumulative xG of 5.76 but have not conceded a goal.
Here are the top three goaltenders in the league right now in shot stop % who have played at least 600 minutes:
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André Onana, Manchester United
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Alisson Becker, Liverpool
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Kevin Kelleher, Liverpool
How wonderful to have Kelleher as your goalie. Since stepping into the starting lineup due to Alisson Becker’s hamstring injury, Kelleher has been as productive as any keeper in the league. Make any measurement you want – stop percentage; expected targets after shooting; actions outside the box – and you’ll find Kelleher at or near the top of the list. He is saving a cheerfully high number of shots that should be submitted. His best Alisson impression is saved for one-on-one stops, though.
Klopp’s wide style puts pressure on his goalkeeper to be quick off his line. Midway through the Forest game, Kelleher delivered another crucial save, swinging out to him denied Anthony Elanga, who was running clean through on goal.
If Kelleher had played even at a league average level in the past month, Liverpool’s title would likely have dropped. Instead, they have maintained a title challenge despite being plagued by injuries. They have lost one of the best goalkeepers in the league and, it seems, they have found another.
Goal of the week
This, oh Marcus Rashfordis football a high art:
“If you bring me back, good,” Rashford said this week. “If you doubt me, it’s even better.” There’s no better way to answer critics than to blast one in from 30 yards in a hometown derby.
Despite Rashford’s effort, however, it was disappointing from United. They conceded three preventable goals and finished with three total shots, only one of which (Rashford’s) was on target. The issues that plagued them all season returned against the best league. They finished with 26% possession – City finished with more total shots (27) than United’s percentage of possession. Had Rashford not struck, City would have won another routine.
Song of the week
Chelsea left it late to draw Brentford 2-2. It was another frustrating afternoon, with Chelsea controlling the first half and then cringing when Brentford applied pressure early in the second half.
A hounding defense is built into Brentford’s DNA, and Chelsea were unable to maintain their composure when their opponents began to crank up the pace. Chelsea fans let their manager know how they were feeling, offering a a round of anti-Pochettino chants and chanting the name of former manager José Mourinho – and this on Pochettino’s birthday, no less.
Pochettino is one problem among many. But it is a problem. Chelsea’s performances have been in tatters all season. They have no organizational purpose, they have no structure, they have no trouble when a game gets tight. Pochettino was hired to mold the offense of players into a team – and Chelsea are no closer today to having a plan for the next 12 months than when he first took the job.
The hand-wringing over Chelsea’s $1bn spending spree has (rightly) drawn a lot of vitriol. The club’s biggest problem has been the scattered approach to the transfer window. All of that is baked into the adjustment period. But the confusion and despair still erupts at times. Pochettino is approaching almost the full season’s worth of games but the list of questions is growing: Where is the development? Which of the young investments are much better today than when they first signed on? What would Pochettino’s Chelsea debut look like?
As we approach the final stretch of the season, Chelsea are in the bottom half of the table. They have won just once in their last five league games. They lost a cup final for the taking. They now hope to win the FA Cup and get enough points to finish in the top half of the league table. Reminder: they won the Champions League through seasons ago. By the time next season is over, it is unlikely that there will be any European football at Stamford Bridge.
Team building is about incremental improvement, sure. But under Pochettino, Chelsea showed none. The dubious experiment feels more doomed.
