Checking in on our preseason predictions
At the halfway point of the season I'm taking a look back at my preseason predictions and see how we're doing
We like accountability around here. You have to own what you say. We’ve hit the halfway point of the season and work has been crazy slow this week, which makes this the perfect time to look back at our preseason predictions and see how they’re coming along.
Manchester City
Here’s what we said back in August:
City have played one fewer match thanks to the club World Cup. They’re sitting in fourth place but they’re still only five points off the top with a game in hand. A few things have happened to City this season that have put them in this position:
Erling Haaland is scoring fewer goals
Rodri missed a few games
Kevin de Bruyne has missed all but 22 minutes of the season
Number 3 might be having an impact on number 1
Nevertheless, I don’t think anyone expected City to be this poor (which is pretty relative). Or is that exactly what they want us to think before they go on a run in the second half of the season?
Liverpool
Transparency is important. I cut out the first paragraph because the screenshot would be too long. The first paragraph was all about how I expected a more settled Darwin Nunez to really be banging in the goals. Swing and miss there.
As for Liverpool, they didn’t quite rebuild their midfield but they’ve sort of made it not matter? They’re top of the league at the halfway point, they’ve scored the third most goals but more importantly have conceded the fewest. And they’ve done that without really replacing Fabinho?
They’re only third in expected goal difference, so a legitimate title challenge may be a bit too much, but they’re well on their way back to the Champions League.
Arsenal
The jist of what I wrote about Arsenal was they may not have gotten much better over the summer but, it’s really hard to improve on 84 points. Their improvements are going to come from incremental gains from their own players.
Turns out, concerns about Declan Rice moving from a counter attacking side to one that dominates possession were unfounded. He’s really really good.
They have also gotten incrementally better. They’ve gone from an expected goal difference of +0.79 per game to +1.02 per game - the best in the league. They’ve done that by getting much better defensively - 1.0 NPxG per 90 to 0.72. They control the ball and dominate territory much more than they did last year, which protects them at the back, but it’s all come at the expense of the attack which doesn’t generate as much as it did a year ago.
If you’re an Arsenal fan, your concern is twofold. They’re 10th in the league in NPxG per game. At the moment they’re scoring enough goals because they don’t concede, but there’s also how often they leave it till very late before grabbing the winner. It’s fair to wonder if they can sustain this the whole way for a title race?
Nevertheless City’s drop off in form and Arsenal’s superb defense should keep this title race alive through May1.
Brighton
Brighton won five of their first six matches. They followed that up by winning just three of their next 13.
They’ve had some injuries, but they remain a great example of how coaching will only get you so far, you need talented players. So are Brentford.
Tottenham
Spurs shocked everyone when they busted out of the gate with seven wins in their first nine. They were always around mid table in expected goal difference and they’ve since started coming back to the back.
Ange Postecoglou is fun and great vibes, but since the hot start the same questions are still present. Where are the goals going to come from? On paper Son seems to have rediscovered his form to lead the way, but five of his 11 goals have come in two games and there’s no secondary scoring.
Spurs have also been decimated by injuries, which would should have seen coming considering this happens to every single team that goes from a manager who doesn’t press to one who wants to press high and run alot.
The good news for Spurs is that hot start got them the most important thing. Points on the board. They can’t take those away from you2. If 70 points is the target for a top four finish, they’re already more than halfway there.
Do I think they’ll get another 36 points over the second half of the season? No, but they’ve got plenty in the bank for a European spot.
Newcastle
Here’s the question about Newcastle this season. Can they replicate what they did last year? I don’t think they’re getting 18 goals out of Callum Wilson again, but I do think they get much more from Alexander Isak.
It’s easy to see a drop off coming for Newcastle but it’s also easy to see the path for taking a step forward. Newcastle drew 15 matches last year. Seven of those 15 draws ended 0-0. Add just a tiny bit of goalscoring and you can convert those seven 0-0 draws into some wins. Cut the total number of draws in half down to seven and turn those other eight matches into say five wins and three losses6, and right there you’re looking at at least seven more points.
For the Magpies it all comes down to whether they’re going to runback their Atletico Madrid level mastery of the dark arts to keep the ball out of their net - or are they going to try and play more football?
I guess I didn’t really make a prediction here did I?
It’s hard to make anything of Newcastle this year. They’ve added some goal scoring, but it’s come in bunches. They’ve had four matches with four or more goals, including hitting Sheffield United for eight. They’ve had far too many others where they’ve gone barren.
They’ve had injury issues. They’ve had to deal with Europe. Perhaps that’s contributed. They’re still fourth in the league in expected goal differential so perhaps being out of Europe will see them make a run up the table in the second half, but will it be enough to get back into the Champions League?
Chelsea
Pochettino is actually doing a much better job than I thought he would. It just shows how much a complete mess Chelsea’s squad is.
Chelsea are fifth in the league in expected goal difference but 10th in the table. Their biggest issue has been they can’t score goals. Chelsea have the third highest non-penalty xG but have scored 8.5 fewer goals than expected. They’ve also conceded three more goals than would be expected. Neither of that is a recipe for success.
Aston Villa
August prediction:
I guess if I threw Brighton in here I have to throw in Aston Villa. Unai Emery may be able to do something in the Europa but as for this team making a step up to the Champions League. Just no.
No one saw Villa hitting the halfway point of the season third in the league. That’s in addition to topping their group in the Europa Conference League.
They’ve done that by winning eight of their nine home games. Away from home though they’ve only won four of 10.
If they want to finish in the top four they’ll need to keep playing at this absurd pace at home and probably improve just a tad away from Villa park. The latter is far more realistic than the former. That’s not going to get it done.
Manchester United
The “too long, didn’t read” of what was said back in August was United overachieved to finish third, and would need to improve just to stand in place. It wasn’t unfeasible for them to make those improvements, but it also wasn’t unfeasible for them to get worse. While I did think the way the squad was structured meant a colossal collapse was inevitable in the Ten Hag era, I thought we had at least another year before we got there.
I can’t post the August prediction here because I wrote far too much but we’ll pull up the same metrics and look at how they compare.
Let’s start with the deep completions3 allowed.
In the last seven years only six teams have allowed more than five deep completions per match and finished in the top four. Prior to last season none of those teams finished in the top four again the following season. That trend was likely going to be bucked this year because bizarrely three of the six occurrences happened last season. As of now, only one of those teams is still in the top four picture.
As for United, they have not gotten better in this area. They’ve gone from 6.66 deep completions allowed per game to 8.26. Last season they had nine matches where they allowed 10 or more deep completions. They’ve already done that eight times this year, making it 17 times under Ten Hag - it only happened 15 times in the entire Ole Gunnar Solskjaer era.
The next stat we looked at in August was fairly similar. Box entry differential. Stands to reason that teams that get the ball into their opponents box a lot more than the ball goes into their box are going to find themselves higher in the table.
Last season United became the sixth team in the last six years to finish in the top four with a box entry differential lower than +5. Four of the previous five teams failed to finish in the top four the following season.
Again United have declined in this area, though not greatly, going from +2.87 to +2.32 but that’s still very far off the level expected of a top four team.
Finally there’s the last and usually most reliable metric: expected goal difference. Last season United had an xGD of +0.45 per game - sixth best in the league. Their third place finish made them just the third team since 2017-18 to finish in the top four without being among the top four teams in expected goal difference. You can guess how many of the previous two finished in the top four the following year.
United’s regression in this area has been severe. At the halfway point of the season United’s xGD per 90 stands at -0.18 - 11th in the league4. The fact that they’re somehow sixth in the table is a sign that they’re so talented they’re managing to win in spite of their manager.
The reasons for this decline have largely been structural. I’ve spent most of the first half of the season breaking down the various structural issues on The Busby Babe. You can check it out there so I won’t rehash it now.
United have had injury issues but the effect of that has been overstated. Time and time again we’ve seen players who should make a difference come back only to not make much of a difference. It’s true that United have played much of the first half of the season without many of Ten Hag’s key additions but the reality is those guys weren’t exactly mainstays in the team last season either!
The lack of contributions from new signings speaks to how poorly United have been recruiting. You have to go back to the summer of 2019-20 to find a transfer window where the majority of the newly signed players were good enough and available enough to play significant minutes over the next two years.
We also can’t ignore the elephant in the room. Part of the reason United have struggled this season is because for at least four games5 Erik Ten Hag has been willingly leaving his best players on the bench. Ten Hag has given various reasons for this but too often the responses he’s given at press conferences don’t add up with his actions.
Simply put, this is a poorly coached team and the numbers reflect that. A better structure would garner more from this group of players. If Brighton are an example of how good tactical systems can only get you so far without talent, United are the opposite, showing how bad tactical systems can only drag good talent down so far.
The first half of the season has served up plenty of excitement and things no one saw coming. And yet as we hit the halfway point, we see that it’s also been pretty form-full.
Funny how that works.
And don’t forget about Liverpool
Ok I guess they can if you’re Everton
These are defined as passes completed within 20 yards of the opponents goal and the numbers are from understat
Their non-penalty xGD is -0.26
Which constitutes a fifth of the current season, and it’s arguably been more than four games
Great read!