Podence deserves that today. If he played like this on a regular basis, he'd be some player. But he doesn't. Once in a blue moon.
And just above us. Looks like it might be a battle for the order of 9-12th. Gap between 8th and 9th looking a little too big especially with games in hand I think Palace are kind of looking over their shoulders based on form (and what their fans think) as well as everyone below
I'm still not convinced Wolves are that good TBH. Every time I watch them play they bore me to tears. I will be amazed if they finish higher than 7th. And I think they are catchable.
Agree on the not higher than 7th. But 8 points and a game in hand is sizeable. If we were 8 above the relegation zone with a game in hand I would think we would feel confident about not being caught i guess the difference there is that teams down that low are poorer and less likely to put together a run We’d need a very good next five games - likely with no defeats and probably 3 wins. And away to Burnley and Leeds look like they are going to be different prospects than a few months ago
Their game in hand is Arsenal away on Thursday. Then they travel to West Ham on Sunday. If they lose both and we beat Norwich the gap is down to 5 points. I'm not saying we will catch them, just that we could.
They aren't that good. They are a good example of what can happen if you create low-incident games, similar to Burnley a few years back: less goalscoring opportunities for both teams means higher result variance, which can either end up very good or very bad. They're getting extremely lucky defensively (Jose Sa having a good season is helping), and as a result they're exceeding their xPoints by a very large margin. The flip side? Palace. For every match Wolves wins when being out-chanced, Palace finds a way to lose one.
They are: https://understat.com/league/EPL Palace is both underperforming its xG and their actual GD strongly suggests that they shouldn't be anywhere near the point/game level, so they're getting some bad goal luck but they're also just getting really bad results variance, because being on pace for 39 points with a GD of -6 is not a thing that generally happens. Brentford's just getting utterly miserable goal luck on both ends...their numbers suggest they really should be scoring a fair bit more than they are, and giving up far fewer goals.
Leeds are looking like relegation candidates to me. No quality on the ball or off it in the first half. Raphina comes on and its a different game but their injuries have hit them hard and the decision to not recruit in Jan was foolish. Having said that, Firpo and Dan James have been two of the worst signings in the league this season for me so it may not have helped. Firpo in particular is embarrassingly bad. Literally gave the ball away and walked back up the pitch as ManU ran away and scored. Shameful.
The thing about games in hand are that they are very much a double-edged sword. As the chances to actually play the games get compressed into a shorter time period, the teams with a couple of games in hand could find themselves playing twice a week for 2 or 3 weeks running, at a time when injuries and suspensions begin to thin the squads out.
