And there are secondary sites like second spectrum, pbpstats, etc that professionals pay for but their website has had so much cool data on it for years. It’s not all very easy to access but they are still way above European soccer leagues imo for a layperson who wants data

Leagues should publish this data or compensate the Optas of the world to do so. Look at how much more easily accessible MLB and NBA data is now from their website/APIs. I and many others will interact a lot less with PL (and the other big 5, but esp PL) data now. That isn’t good for their business.

Super League already happened

Years ago

Just so hard for a manager to survive a long time when they're under Double Secret Probation, so he'll get a chance to impress, well, someone else. Though I expect we won't have a real manager until the summer and he'll want to see everyone in person and time is a flat circle.

Their data suggests high levels of crossing, preference for medium/long balls (direct play). It doesn’t feel demonstrably different besides when a team plays someone worse than them there will be a natural increase in possession usually, and when equal/better teams faced, a decrease

I find many freelance tacticos at a clear amateur level. There are so many moments in a match and a season that you can randomly splice moments to tell any story and frankly I think most such analysts are doing that, consciously or not. Plenty of tacticos dont view that squad as progressive either

I look at tactics analysis but my perspective is that if it’s meaningful it should show up in the data somewhere. City for example. It’s clear Liverpool are an outlier in style this year from data, Palace, Brighton styles are clear in the data.

Brentford’s possession/passing stats were above average but weren’t dominant. When you consider the talent advantage and difference in tactics in Championship (less pressing/challenging of midfield by lesser teams) I see it simply as the players finding their level

Randomness and chaos in life scare people, which goes well past sports

Think bringing Poch back is a fairly big risk. He had an incredible squad at the absolute nadir of the PL, and his time at Chelsea and PSG weren't awful, but you wouldn't call them good either. At least we'd press again.

Firing Frank probably puts Lange on shakier ground so I’m doubtful he’ll advocate for it