The Double Pivot: Soccer analysis, analytics, and commentary

United have a new manager and a new... consultant? We look at Rangnick's limited but striking statistical profile over the last decade and the style of pressing that is evident in the numbers. And then we ask, what will he do with a United squad that is significantly but also clearly not entirely a good fit for this pressing style?

Things finally went so bad at United that Ole is out but it's not clear any of the underlying problems are solved. Arsenal got whooped and we're on the aggregates beat again. And have Chelsea turned it around (yes, we know they're in first place but unlike with Arsenal, there's a real underlying stats story here).

We know a lot about quality of teams in the Premier League. We also know there's a lot we don't know. Trying to nail down our questions and our uncertainties about Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham and Manchester United.

Tottenham have a new manager. He's real good at managing. What do we expect to see from Conte at Spurs (hint: he's not precisely a "defensive manager" as many PL fans have known him) and just how good is this Tottenham talent that will suddenly have an elite manager in charge of them?

Is this, finally, the moment that United's leadership realizes they've effectively been in crisis for years? They lost 5-0 to Liverpool and the performances on the pitch really are worse than they've been in a while, but are things going to change this time?

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Opening from Really??? With Mike & Mike

The Premier League season resumed and every game seemed to encapsulate a different narrative and statistical issue we've been following. Liverpool, Chelsea, Brentford, West Ham, Newcastle, what have we learned so far?

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Newcastle are now owned by the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. What is the KSA government trying to buy? Everyone calls it "sportwashing" but what exactly is that, what different forms can it take, and what will this mean for how Newcastle gets run in the next few years?

Two parts of this podcast: what's going on in the NWSL as the players, league and fans negotiate a crisis of abuse of power by management and ownership, and then the big game between Liverpool and Man City.

Meg Linehan, "This Guy Has A Pattern": https://theathletic...

Barcelona's crisis just keeps rolling. Is the manager the problem? Could anything solve the problem in the near term? And then we stay in La Liga where there is no obvious Real Madrid crisis but it remains unclear that they're, like, particularly good. And while Atletico don't find the theme, Mike has takes y'all.

It's five matches into the season and everyone knows the table is lying... but is the xG table lying? More specifically, what can statistics tell us this early in the season, what does it mean that statistics "become reliable" after a certain period of time, and how does this inform how we're thinking about Tottenham and Chelsea and Arsenal and Everton?

Caley's R2 charts: https://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation...