Spooky Friday Preview

Wolves v Palace: two reasons for me listing this one. a) It's televised, and there's not much else going on this Friday afternoon/night. I mean, the weather's going crazy again, most people lost their minds months ago, my foot's still healing from the splinter last week, might as well stay in and watch this game. b) I want to see who has more possession. I'd put money on the team with less of the ball winning this game. I'd even say 9 outta 10 times it'll happen. Same with the last game I'll talk about. Neither team is any good on the ball. It's disgusting. I hate watching both of them. Truth be told, I might watch the Hamburg derby instead. Although, if fans aren't there, it'll be kinda lame. Idk. Even looking at the xG numbers, both are "overperforming" at this point. I've explained before the flaw with xG, so I won't get into that again, but the fact is, these teams take advantage of the few chances they create. Ugly, defensive football.

Gladbach v Leipzig: Decent contrast to the previous game in the preview, two teams that actually try to play football. It's early in the season, but one thing I noticed looking at statistics is the teams at the top of the table also have the most possession. I reckon it's because many teams play high lines or are completely dysfunctional (Mainz, Schalke), so the best teams control the games and it works for them. Both of these teams come off less than satisfactory midweek results. Gladbach blew a two goal lead in the final 10 minutes against Madrid, their second blown lead in two group stage games, and they now realistically could miss out on even the Europa League. The underlying numbers for that game, to be fair, weren't that amazing, and a draw is a "fair" result. Part of that, however, is at 2-0 Gladbach went defensive and Madrid were doing all the attacking. That was a good 40 minutes of football, which will skew the numbers a bit. Leipzig had a humbling result, losing 5-0 at Old Trafford. Now, I know I'm meant to preview this game, but this is a trend I've noticed for a while now, since I've been properly analyzing football matches. Basically, people don't recognize patterns and how games will go. Take United. They're crap in the league because a) fitness levels were varied wildly at the beginning of the season; they had no preseason due to the Europa run, and b) they scoring the vast majority of their goals on the break, meaning they get results against teams that retain possession. It's that simple. You can say Ole this, Ole that, but it's the typical Premier League issue nowadays, aside from a few teams, having the ball actually means lowering one's chances to win. Of course, part this result came from the penalty. Long story short, Leipzig don't do well when they go behind. Well, many teams struggle to win games conceding first, but Leipzig also play a high line and don't have a clinical finisher. Think Man City, for the PL-centric folks. The game-plan goes out the window when the opponent can just sit back and counter. Getting back to this matchup, it'll come down to who scores first, simple as. If Leipzig do, they'll have the chance to pour it on. If Gladbach do, they'll sit back and do their thing on the counter, which Marco Rose will love.

United v Arsenal: Much like the Bundesliga match I rambled on about. I won't go too in-depth here. Both teams struggle to penetrate, though they can be lethal on the break. Whoever's allowed to implement their preferred sit back and counter playing style will win. Neither has a set formation or XI. I can see Ole getting a bit cocky and feeling himself, going for the possession approach, knowing Arsenal will sit back, and it comes back to bite them big time. Or, Arteta will do a Pep and overthink things, not going with what's been working, and they'll get hit on the break over and over. I won't be watching unless I find it free somewhere, as NBC is on that BS again, but I'm a little bit intrigued to see how this one goes. I'm probably more interested in the Monday games, seeing as one's a "relegation six pointer" and the other is Leeds-Leicester, two teams I like watching.