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“I agree with your assessment that Raheem Sterling is more widely effective,” says Keshava Guha. “But I’m not sure if his ending is the cause. He’s someone who has had some more memorable nasty mistakes than being a consistently poor goalscorer. In his past five seasons at City, he’s scored 75 goals without penalty, for a predicted total of 69.6 (stats via FBRef) So if anything, he was *a little bit* above the average scorer.”
Eh, I see what you’re saying, but I’ll need to know how the data was collected before committing to it. Let’s say Sterling scored some really tough goals, could they raise eve xG if he’s missing others he should score? I also wonder if there was a difference in that, while playing for City, he got a lot of chances, giving him room to score a lot and thus improve his numbers, whereas if he’s feeding on junk he might be wasting more. I don’t know, maybe I can speak in words.
I tried to justify it beforehand, But I am still very surprised to prefer Conte Hogberg over Bosuma. I can’t see one aspect of the former’s game being superior to the latter, nor do I understand why you wouldn’t want to settle for new players.
“That game.” Matt Donnie begins. “He was often (and deservedly) hated, but this match should always be judged by Mark Clattenburg. His best times.”
Love Clatz. The reference we all know we’ll be.
It’s a funny thing with Chelseatruly. Thomas Tuchel did brilliantly to win Gazprom after coming in mid-season, but there weren’t many noticeable improvements last season. With the guys out there they have it, it’s hard to see them getting close to the top two, and given what they’re spending, they’re going to want it.
Yes, Forest beat West Ham 1-0 – that’s a massive win. Declan Rice’s horrific punishment helped them, but they didn’t care.
I guess/guess what Chelsea She has three attackers capable of improvisational intelligence. I’m not sure they have the kind of mix that will make them as irresistible as Son-Kulusevski-Kane can be, and they haven’t smashed yet either, but they have enough to fine-tune any defense on a good day.
I imagine Chelsea want the top three at Spurs to come from extraordinary regions. They do not have a suitable striker, so they will rely on clever movements and passes to open things up.
Looking at the squad, I kind of imagine Spurs. Both teams are a bit slow in midfield – or have a slow midfielder – but I think Spurs have more dynamic in attack. You can easily see them coming in behind the Chelsea defense during this Chelsea You don’t have fast enough players to manage that.
in city land, Nottingham Forest led West Ham 1-0 and, to add to the fun, Dean Henderson played Blinder. Capture the end of that with Rob Smyth, here:
Unusually for a match with so much history, its greatest iteration has come in recent times. Oh my days this was glorious. Enjoy!
As for Tottenham, they are unchanged after last week’s finish at Southampton. This means that Antonio Conte’s major summer acquisitions – Ivan Perisic, Yves Bisuma and Richarlison – are once again on the bench. I’d be interested to know why Conte is doing this – is he asserting his authority and telling the players that places must be won? Or is he saying that the new boys don’t know what he wants from them yet? That old better?
Below, I’ve also given Chelsea’s method at 3-4-3, but 3-4-2-1 might be more accurate. I’m not quite sure why you would want to play Raheem Sterling in the middle – his movement is excellent but the finishing touches aren’t much. I think he might be able to take on Kai Havertz, but the balance of the front three doesn’t seem to be writing to me.
two changes to Chelseawho first brought Mark Cucurella, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek; Cesar Azpilicueta and Ben Chilwell withdraw. My instinct is that Reece James plays on the right of midfield with Cucurella on the left center back and Loftus-Cheek on the left of midfield, but they could all turn in the first round, with James at the back, Kukurila on the left and Loftus-Cheek on the right.
difference!
Chelsea (3-4-3): soggy. Silva, Coulibaly, Cocurella; James, Kante; Jorginho, Loftus-Cheek; Mount, Sterling, Havertz. Subs: Kepa, Pulisic, Chalube, Brugga, Ziyech, Gallagher, Hudson-Odoi, Chilwell.
Tottenham Hotspur (3-4-3): Loris. Romero, Der, Davis; Royal, Bentancourt, Hojburg, Sisson; Kulusevsky, Ken, Son. Subs: Forster, Doherty, Sanchez, Gill, Perisic, Richarlison, Mora, Tanganga, Bisoma.
Rule: Anthony Taylor (Withhenshaw)
Preamble
On December 16, 2007, Arsenal played Chelsea Manchester United visited Anfield, an oddity in the match calendar which magically allowed Sky to keep eyeballs on their channel for almost an entire day. This strange coincidence stopped after a while and that was much better – but somehow, it seems to be relevant this afternoon.
Chelsea vs Tottenham is one of the greatest matches of English football, and it oozes animosity and history. And with both sides now in so much good shape, it comes fraught with even more tension, making Saturday afternoon in August quite the wrong place for it. He needs gale-force winds, thrusting rain and soul-coagulating cold, visible breaths in the night air, and grown-ups performing some kind of funny antics that the sun and summer don’t like.
But since we’re back to playing matches randomly, where you belong is where you are, and that should be a nice thing. Just a few months ago, things looked superficial for Chelsea, the origins of Roman Abramovich’s money – and the glory he bought – finally caught up with them, and their future as a power appeared to be in jeopardy. Except for Todd Boyle and his teammates, so far, they’ve kept their promises, tossed money like scraps of paper and bolstered the team that was already on hand. It remains to be seen if he’s good enough to contend for the league title – we’ll tell a little more about that this afternoon – but good enough to beat any team any day, and he’s a decent place to be.
Meanwhile, Tottenham were also taken over – but by a manager, not a consortium. Antonio Conte read his situation and played with his hand perfectly: a manager of his origin, having accomplished the work he had done, decided to leave because the board of directors would not support him? The job becomes toxic, the players demand to leave and the club’s value drops – not what Daniel Levy wants, and certainly not what Joe Louis wants. So they’ve had to invest and – and almost contrary to their better judgment – now have a team that looks ready to do something. It’s a pretty silly case, but here we are.
Although both sides are stable and have managers who are unwilling to take risks, the chances of an extended confrontation are slim. But the intensity of the two, coupled with the mutual hatred in the stands, means they should treat us on a disguised afternoon though – however wrong I may feel.
Kick-off: 4.30pm GMT
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