It’s December 29th and we have reached the half way stage in the season’s Premier League.. Welcome to the latest edition of our show. I’m Paul and I am joined by Justin. We’ll talk about Arsenal and Burnley, and we’ll look ahead to Newcastle at home.
Part One - Arsenal 1-1 (xG 0.98 vs 0.9):
Solid performance from the Reds or a Rice, Saliba masterclass (London newspaper ™)
Solid commitment to overselling Rice at the expense of the other 21 players (Barney Ronay). Quietly misses how effective Waturu Endo has become.
Arsenal create very little - apparently half of their goals have come from set pieces, Saka is the leading scorer with 5, Martinelli has 2.
Arsenal had the better of the first half perhaps - but then there’s the Odegaard handball, what a strike from Mo Salah (202 - 149 fro Liverpool in the league).
Martinelli has an open goal(?), Konate effectively blocks this shot and pretty much everything else he did.
Second half - Liverpool dominate the game till the Trent miss at 72 - Salah, Diaz, Gomez and Elliott have chances but we don’t always seem as composed.
53 - foul given against VVD - what have you been drinking says Virg to Kavanaugh. 82 Kavanaugh books Mo Salah! For what looked like an Nketiah slip.
Strange chummy interaction between Arteta and Kavanaugh
Part Two - Burnley 2-0:
Surprisingly low xG - 0.74 vs 1.98, but that’s without the 2 disallowed goals.
Feel like their chances might have been inflated - VVD and Allison moments
Tierney and his big chance reputation shows up again. Books TAA for what probably wasn’t even a foul. The canceled out goal changed the game - after 53. Felt like Tierney was going to rule out anything we scored, gave them real hope.
Oh his name is Diogo
Part Three - Newcastle and any other business:
Poor Newcastle, but they could sit deep and try to frustrate us.
Formation and predictions
Theme - Liverpool have given up as many fouls as a bottom half team - before the Arsenal game, we were at 202 and City and Arsenal were at 162. Just looks like they find it easier to give fouls (and soft yellows) for us.
Andrew Beesley - 5 teams have gone unbeaten at home since 2016
FOOD BANK support and community
We will be back after the Newcastle game. Thanks to Justin. And thank you dear listener for joining us.
If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic
