Stottie

Sofascore gave us 0.36 xG. 7 shots, three were blocked and two were off target. I can barely remember any of them and the club may struggle to get 10 minutes of extended highlights. Not good enough. My frustration watching it was us being bullied and continually giving it back to them.

Chelsea score well on xG, which suggests they should have won more games. They've played pretty much the whole season without Nkunku who looked the most promising of their forwards. I'd expect them to be back next season, esp if they stick with Poch.

Ooh, we could have three players in double figures again. Wilson needs three more. He goes in the shop window too, if the idea is to replace him.

Haha Arsenal! Watkins deserves it, but that looked like an own goal to me. Deflected in off Smith Rowe.

Sorry if someone said it in pregame, but Arsenal have conceded four goals in their last 11 PL games.

Curtis Jones aside, I don't think any of them are "misses". They're all good blocks and saves. Five minutes into the analysis and no mention of Palace having half the ball over the goal line before Robertson cleared it.

"Full credit to Crystal Palace" but we're now going to talk about Liverpool for twenty minutes.

What a clearance! It contrasts with the goal where Palace just walked it past Bradley on the other side.

Great physical strength on the first goal when it looked like he'd lost it. It adds another dimension to his game and opens up more potential for him playing down the middle when needed. Or at some time in the future, hopefully around 2030, when he's not as quick as he is now. Isak too is much stronger than he looks. The goal Gordon scored himself started with him forcing the keeper into a hurried clearance.

We went something like 26 points from 14 games and have now done 21 from the last 11. In between we lost 6 out of 7, and only got 3 points. That seven game nightmare started when the ball slid under Trippier's foot against Everton. I thought we were on top in that game and half expected to go on and win it. A Trippier error also cost us in the Carabao. During those games we underperformed xG for by five goals and also let in four or five more than xG against. We also had some phenomenal misses during that time, Gordon squaring it to Isak at 0-0 at Spurs and the Almiron one cleared by Tomori in the CL about one yard out. Stuff wasn't going our way on top of the injuries.

Spurs keeper leads the league in stopping high quality shots, a stat called "post-shot expected goals". He probably deserves some of the praise that was going Van Der Ven's way. Spurs have had a good season, but have ridden their luck to have 60 points after what was 31 and now 32 games. We just tonked them with a new formation and a few second stringers in there.

Villa don't have easy games either. If the gap were six points with six to play, I'd quite fancy it. Ten just looks too many. https://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=england&tid=10

Bruuuunoooo!

My guess about all this is whatever happens will be the league jumping before they are pushed, i.e., before legal action from the clubs.

Much of the doubting of Barnes was of the "I know he scores goals but what does he actually DO?" nature. In fairness, if the subject were Callum Wilson and not Harvey Barnes, I'd almost agree with them. Just a fwiw, but Barnes also came on and got our fourth against Luton, the other match where we came from two goals down. Liverpool and Villa come from behind very often and its an ability we need to improve on.

Nice graphs! Thanks for telling us about them. Here's my offering to the nerds. Its our xG vs. goals scored and conceded based on the scoreline at the time. The one to focus on is our xG and goals scored when leading by one goal, here listed as game state "+1". From xG (chances created), we should have scored 13 and conceded 7. However, we've managed to score only 8 and somehow concede 13. On precise xG, its an 11 goal swing, quite possibly equivalent to 12 points or more. On a minutes basis, we've conceded over 2 goals per 90 to teams we were able to take the lead against, once again off not that many chances created by the opposition. This strikes me as bad luck (uncharacteristically missing chances at pivotal moments in games), compounding the bad luck we've already had through injuries.

Yes, points from losing positions is a stat "The Other 14" on Twitter often put up. The points difference between us and Villa is pretty much the difference in this stat, with them top and us third bottom before today. Some of it will be bench quality, and ours has been crap in many matches due to all the injuries. It was a sub who won it for us today.

Great performance, with a bonus bit of center forward play for the winner. Goal number three was a fine slice of #10 from Isak. Gordon played false nine for England U21. Isak's been playing #10 for Sweden. It makes you think should we ever go 4-2-3-1. Just work on them headers young Anthony.

I'm half surprised its only 4 with the Gordon header and Isak and Longstaff shanks. What a game! Craziest since the Arsenal 4-4. Harvey's now got 4 goals and an assist in 380 PL minutes.

Have two subs ever been subbed off before? What a mental game.

Its hard to sympathize with Forest after them buying in two dozen players. This rule putting an effective sell-by deadline on players though will simply force down prices and make this thing an even bigger racket than it is already. Spurs getting Johnson for say 30m not the 47m they paid just because Forest have to jump through an arbitrary hoop by a time set midway through a transfer window, not the end of the window, would not make football fairer.

Breaking news is Forest docked four points. Their defence is that they would have been okay if they had firesaled Brennan Johnson, but they waited to get more money in for him. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/mar/18/nottingham-forest-docked-four-points-premier-league-financial-rules-breach-profitability-and-sustainability

Can we blame Harvey Barnes for not starting in place of our player of the season? Someone who many fans themselves thought was a "waste of money" or "not a priority" when we bought him?

Disappointing and vexing game. When we've had a strong team out and not been knackered this season, Plan A has worked well as before, but when key players are missing, our tactics have left us as open as the goals against column suggests. Chelsea being there for the taking merely adds to the frustration.

Dunno, possibly best for us that they have other fish to fry. More chance of them resting someone. Them at full strength and in clinical late-season mode, I'd give us very little hope, much of that dependent on "the bounce of the ball" and other random factors.