Manchester City trampled Tottenham into the dirt, Crystal Palace and Benteke ended lengthy goal droughts and Bournemouth were too kind to Liverpool.
Tottenham are a very good team. Over the last two completed seasons, Mauricio Pochettino’s side won more Premier League points than anyone else.
Yet Manchester City made them look like fools, with a 4-1 hiding which could’ve been worse. For starters, Gabriel Jesus hit the post with a penalty, and Raheem Sterling missed a pair of clear-cut chances.
Hugo Lloris was under the cosh like he has almost never been in his time in England. The French international made seven saves in this match. That’s more than he has in any league game this season, and it’s 20 percent of his total saves this season.
The key was the speed and accuracy of City’s attacks. They’ve prospered in big games at home under Guardiola when they’ve completed fewer final third passes than normal. The champions-elect completed 88 here, to go with 75 in their 5-0 win over Liverpool and 96 in their 3-1 victory against Arsenal.
The big teams do all tend to have more of a go than the lesser sides, but City can pick them off at will. Winning the ball high up the pitch is key; City only won four fewer tackles in the Tottenham half than Spurs did.
The man of the match was Kevin De Bruyne, who was simply superb. The best teams for final third ball recoveries average three per game, yet the Belgian did that himself. He also created six chances and lashed in a superb goal. Not a bad evening’s work, was it?
At the end of the game, City had scored their 37th goal in the second half of league matches this season. Only Manchester United and Liverpool have scored more in total this season. The record breaking stats keep piling up for City and show no sign of letting up.
Crystal Palace’s continued rise is deserved
‘Regression toward the mean‘ is a phrase that gets bandied around endlessly when discussing sports statistics. Going into their match at Leicester, Crystal Palace hadn’t scored a single away goal in the Premier League.
For Christian Benteke, it was even worse. The former Liverpool striker hadn’t scored anywhere in the league in 2017-18. To compound matters further, Benteke demanded to take a last-minute penalty last weekend, then delivered one of the worst spot kicks you’ll ever see.
The big Belgian put both his and the club’s goal drought to bed in the 18th minute. Further goals from Wilfried Zaha and Bakary Sako gave the Eagles a 3-0 win. Was this regression toward the mean all round?
It obviously was to some extent, but they still have a long way to go. If Benteke was really reverting to form, he’d have converted the later chances worth 0.37 and 0.46 expected goals, rather than the header worth 0.18 that he did.
It’s a similar story for Palace themselves. They are still the lowest scoring away side in the division, but they have had more expected goals than eight teams. Perhaps their biggest regression is still to come though.
This will sound absurd for a team that lost their first seven games, but Palace have the seventh best expected goals difference in the Premier League. No, really. Beyond the usual big six, they have been the best of the rest. And to be fair to their ex-manager, they were comfortably in the top half in Frank de Boer’s time, too.
Palace’s issue has been a bottom five performance for goals scored compared to expected goals at both ends of the pitch. If both continue to improve, then the Eagles might soar to a top-half finish.
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Bournemouth were perfect opponents for Liverpool
In their last three matches, Liverpool have had a total of 10 clear-cut chances. Only Manchester City, with 14, have had more in that period. The Reds’ issue against both Everton and West Brom was that they had three but didn’t score any of them.
They also missed two against Bournemouth, but following Philippe Coutinho’s marvelous opening goal, Liverpool netted their other pair of golden opportunities. Jürgen Klopp’s side were helped by the fact Bournemouth like to actually play soccer. In the last two matches at Anfield, Everton and West Brom did no such thing.
While the Cherries are obviously not at Tottenham’s level, there were distinct similarities in the way City and Liverpool prospered this weekend. The Reds took great delight in winning the ball deep in the Bournemouth half of the field.
Like City, Liverpool had more of the ball but also made more tackles than their opponents. There were 14 tackles made in the Bournemouth half, but only eight of them were by the home side.
Perhaps if Jermain Defoe had converted the Cherries’ one clear-cut chance of the match when the score was 0-2, it might have been different. Liverpool famously crumbled from a 3-1 lead to a 4-3 defeat in the corresponding fixture last season.
But despite the occasional meltdown, the Reds’ defense is usually made of sterner stuff these days. The fact is, Liverpool have only conceded two goals in open play in their last nine league games, and one of those was a Willian cross which floated in.
Since their last car crash defensive performance in the league (at Spurs), the Reds have only allowed 0.8 expected goals per match to their opponents. When excluding penalties, it has never been more than 1.0 in any of the nine games either.
It seems the key to Liverpool defending well is for the players at the front to do the hard work. Klopp wouldn’t want it any other way.