The Double Pivot: Soccer analysis, analytics, and commentary

Solidly beaten by Leverkusen in the top of the table clash at the weekend and then a shocking loss away to Lazio in the first leg of their Champions League knockout. So what's wrong? And separately, how impressive were Leverkusen? Support the show

The Champions League will kick back off in a week, and we take a look through the top teams remaining and whether anything has changed since we last considered them. And at the same time, two of these teams are playing potentially title-deciding six pointers (Bayern against Bayer Leverkusen, Real Madrid against Girona) and we preview those matches as well.  Support the show

It's another Trivote episode as Grace from the Grace on Football newsletter joins us to discuss Klopp leaving Liverpool, how we expect the search to proceed from here, and why this situation resembles the period leading to Brendan Rodgers' hiring. We've also got Goodman and Grace taking on the question of Thomas Frank. Subscribe for Grace's takes at https://www.graceonfootball....

We take your questions on Andre Onana and Mark Flekken, goalkeeper stats, why financial regulation has come so late to European soccer, and expected goals modeling. And because the questions came from the Double Pivot discord, many of the questions have already been answered so we also discuss some answers.  Support the show

Jordan Henderson has found his way out of the Saudi Pro League and Karim Benzema is hunkered down in Mauritius searching for his own escape. What's gone wrong with the Saudi Pro League? And how is it implicated in much larger economic and geopolitical dynamics and the broad political outlook of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Support the show

There is not much hopeful that can be said about the present Manchester United side. But the club is still massively wealthy, a nearly unparalleled cash generator, and they have a new part-owner in Jim Ratcliffe who will now control football operations. What do we think is coming next for United? Subscribe to Grace's newsletter: https://www.graceonfootball.com/ Support the show

The big bets of Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali on their new and innovative methods of running a football team have been tested by another half-season of Premier League football. Where do they stand? What do we think they should do in the January window? Support the show

For the holiday, an unlocked premium episode on the European Court of Justice, the Super League, and the future of the business of European soccer. Support the show

City keep dropping points. Liverpool also dropped points against United in one of the most tactically bizarre matches of the season. Arsenal did not drop points. But now they're both ahead of City, and we take a look at the three teams most likely to win the Premier League. Support the show

The launch of fbref.com has changed public soccer analytics, and we sat down to interview Sean Forman, the president of Sports Reference, about the website, how it came to be, what he learned about soccer analytics from building it, and about their new Stathead feature (stathead.com).  Support the show

The Premier League is holding serve so we're talking about a more general subject. Where do you go if you want to progress up the table as a manager? Thomas Frank has done an excellent job at Brentford, but exactly where does he go next and what is likely to be open to him? Why and how has the managerial market changed in the past decade? Support the show

The relegation race, such as it is, is defined by the historic weakness of the promoted teams and the 10-point deduction taken by Everton. We put the weakness of Sheffield United, Luton Town and Burnley in recent historical context and talk about how we remain relatively unconcerned about Fulham, Bournemouth and even Everton despite those teams being in situations that would make them serious rele...

We are joined by Semafor's Liz Hoffman, who has broken all the big 777 Partners news in the last week, to talk about what she discovered, what her business and finance reporting means for Everton Football Club and what we still have to learn. Read Liz's reporting (and sign up for her newsletter) here: https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/11/15/2023/777-partners-bought-sports-teams-with-ins...

Roman Abramovich hasn't been owner of Chelsea for a while but he's back in the news with a big leak of documents from Cypriot banks where he did his shady banking. We take stock of what these stories actually mean, what they tell us about how oligarch football team ownership functioned, and whether there will be any consequences for Chelsea. On the Video International "trade":...

Everton, Brentford, Arsenal, United, Bournemouth, West Ham, Brighton, Liverpool and more. Support the show

The Derby gives us the opportunity to do the United pod that's been needed. An impressive win for City (who attacked!) but the real story coming out of it is how bad United were and how fully in line with their performance this season that is. Why is it so bad and can it get better? Support the show

Their numbers are so good. Drill down a little and their numbers are so weird. And this was true last season too except they were weird in a completely different way! What are we to make of this? Support the show

We asked for your galaxy-brain ideas to fix the game of football and you delivered. We discuss proposals to fix video review and the offside rule, as well as the multi-ref system. Support the show

The best team in the world lost again. Does it mean anything? We talk about how City and Arsenal approach their weekend clash, what we can glean from the data about City's attack not quite clicking, and how we think it could get fixed. Support the show

They got a big call wrong in an unusually straightforward way in Spurs - Liverpool. So what's to be done? We talk about what this means about refereeing and VAR, the prospects for positive change and the profound structural limits on organizing toward it. Support the show

Spurs and Arsenal played to a more or less fair draw, but given our priors this leads to different kinds of questions about Spurs and Arsenal. Why isn't Arsenal's attack quite clicking? Can Spurs keep taking these risks in possession? And we talk about the tactics of the game and stuff. Support the show

Caley did an analytics. Talking about Chelsea, Newcastle, Brentford, Brighton, Forest and the bottom of the PL table in terms of their schedule-adjusted numbers. And stick around for the appendices. For reference, Caley's xG table: https://twitter.com/MC_of_A/status/1703908497543356705 Support the show

There's some interesting stuff going on under the hood at a few Premier League teams. Have Crystal Palace's young attackers taken the leap? Can Man City really be this conservative? Have you seen Brentford's xG difference? And is Ange Postecoglu magic? Support the show

Looking back on the window that was. How PSG ended up doing reasonable business, the disaster at Fulham, and all the maybe / maybe not business at the top of the Premier League including Liverpool. Arsenal, United and Spurs. Support the show

It's just three weeks in and there are too many takes about the Premier League. We walk through most of the top teams in the Premier League, look at some numbers, and consider whether there's anything here to be learned just yet. Support the show