The Double Pivot: Soccer analysis, analytics, and commentary

The Double Pivot: Soccer analysis, analytics, and commentary episodes:

• 04.15.2024

  In Which We Refuse To Construct Narratives

  A big weekend in the title race, Liverpool and then Arsenal lost winnable home matches in succession and it was highly dramatic, but it seems far from obvious to us that we learned much from the drama.  Support the show

  
• 04.09.2024

  If We Ran Everton

  The club is in an odd spot. They're at risk of relegation, and worse, relegation would probably be a death sentence for Everton Football Club as an operation. But they're also pretty good? With some valuable assets to sell? And...

  
• 04.04.2024

  Mailbag: Castles in the Air

  We take questions from the mailbag on how we watch games, on Jeremy Doku and Brennan Johnson, and then we end up building an entire theory of the intersection of player development and modern tactics in the development of really...

  
• 03.18.2024

  Chelsea and PSR with Skanda Amarnath

  Part Two of our conversation with official Double Pivot Financial Shenanigans Correspondent Skanda Amarnath (@irvingswisher). And while there are a lot of important details, there's a simple takeaway. Chelsea's PSR crunch is significantly worse than has been generally reported. Support...

  
• 03.12.2024

  Understanding PSR with Skanda Amarnath

  There has been a lot of news about the Premier League's PSR with the Everton points deduction, reports of violations at Nottingham Forest, and all the stories about how clubs are seeking to get into compliance with these regulations. But...

  
• 03.06.2024

  Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City

  A little check-in on the ol' title race.  Support the show

  
• 02.27.2024

  Barcelona Finance with Jon Sindreu

  We finally have the guest who can help us do the Barcelona finance pod we needed. Jon Sindreu of the Wall Street Journal (@jonsindreu) helps explain the books, the league rules, the levers, and even what the heck Barca Vision...

  
• 02.15.2024

  Bayern in Crisis

  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?...

  
• 02.07.2024

  Big Matches in Germany, Spain and the Champions League

  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...

  
• 01.31.2024

  Klopp Out (with Grace Robertson)

  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....

  
• 01.24.2024

  Mailbag Asked and Answered

  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...

  
• 01.18.2024

  Escape from Saudi Arabia

  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...

  
• 01.12.2024

  The Future of Manchester United (with Grace Robertson)

  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...

  
• 01.04.2024

  Chelsea January Check-In

  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...

  
• 12.28.2023

  The Super League

  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

  
• 12.19.2023

  Premier League Title Race and Liverpool - United

  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...

  
• 12.12.2023

  Soccer Data with Sean Forman

  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...

  
• 12.05.2023

  Thomas Frank and the Path to a Big Managerial Job These Days

  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...

  
• 11.28.2023

  Just How Bad Is the Bottom of the Premier League Table?

  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...

  
• 11.20.2023

  777 Partners and Everton with Liz Hoffman

  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...

  
• 11.16.2023

  Shady Cypriot Banking and Chelsea Football Club

  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,...

  
• 11.07.2023

  Premier League Lightning Round

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

  
• 11.01.2023

  How Bad Are Manchester United?

  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...

  
• 10.24.2023

  He Can't Keep Getting Away With This: The Newcastle Story

  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...

  
• 10.17.2023

  The Double Pivot Discord Fixes Football: Part I

  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

  
• 10.10.2023

  Man City Lose Again

  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...

  
• 10.03.2023

  Referees

  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...

  
• 09.27.2023

  North London Derby

  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?...

  
• 09.18.2023

  Schedule Adjustments and the Premier League

  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

  
• 09.14.2023

  Early Season Statistical Trends

  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...

  
• 09.06.2023

  Transfer Window Roundup

  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...

  
• 08.31.2023

  You are neither over, nor are you back

  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...

  
• 08.21.2023

  Premier League Midfields Get Weird

  We're only two matches into the Premier League season but it's already clear that the new midfield/fullback tactics are creating some wild, Bundesliga-esque matches. What's going on, and is this why midfielders have gotten so incredibly expensive? Support the show

  
• 08.18.2023

  World Cup Semifinals Recap / Finals Preview

  Arielle Dror is joined by Kieran Doyle to talk through all the questions before the final. Have Spain been as good as their stats suggest? How many questions do we have about England's path to the final? How will the...

  
• 08.15.2023

  World Cup Quarterfinals (with Arielle Dror)

  Arielle is joined by her colleague Casey Thayer, a former collegiate goalkeeper, to break down the World Cup quarters -- in which there was more than a full share of goalkeeping drama. How Sweden keep rolling, the vibes watching Australia,...

  
• 08.08.2023

  Premier League 23-24 Preview: Part I

  The every team Double Pivot Premier League preview is back and we are working alphabetically so that means Arsenal through Fulham make up part 1 -- the Premier League is quite profoundly alphabetically unbalanced. Support the show

  
• 08.02.2023

  Barcelona and Real Madrid

  We expect a close race in La Liga this season between the two Spanish megaclubs, but in the medium term one trajectory is angled down the other, way up.  Support the show

  
• 07.25.2023

  World Cup Begins (with Arielle Dror)

  Double Pivot women's soccer correspondent Arielle Dror has the reins of the pod from Australia to talk about the first round of group games. She is joined by Arianna Cascone (@casconearianna) and Kieran Doyle (@KierDoyle) to break it all down....

  
• 07.19.2023

  Women's World Cup Preview with Arielle Dror

  We are joined not only this week by Double Pivot Women's Soccer Correspondent Arielle Dror for a World Cup preview but Arielle will also be providing regular coverage on the ground in Australia and New Zealand for Double Pivot listeners...

  
• 07.14.2023

  Two Approaches to Running a Midsize PL Club

  Brighton and Aston Villa will be competing in Europe next season despite revenues clearly outside the big six (or financial backing outside the big seven) clubs. We break down the traditional Villa approach, the more modern Brighton approach, and the...

  
• 07.06.2023

  The Rise of the Eights, the Fall of the Fullbacks

  Szoboszlai to Liverpool, Havertz to Arsenal, Mount to United -- we're seeing a clear trend of top Premier League teams looking to move to systems with more attacking eights. What's going on? We take a little tactical and statistical tour...

  
• 06.22.2023

  Chelsea Find a Buyer

  After a lot of worries about how they might plug the ffp gap, Chelsea found buyers for Kovacic and Havertz in the Premier League and for a bunch of their excess salary in Saudi Arabia. How did this happen, was...

  
• 06.16.2023

  Mbappe Drama

  The best player in the world, question mark, is one year from being out of contract at PSG and we've got drama. Where might he go, how might he fit, and just how good in Mbappe right now? Support the...

  
• 06.08.2023

  Messi to Miami

  Big day! Lionel Messi rejects both Barcelona and Saudi Arabia to go to MLS. We offer context -- why couldn't Barcelona afford him? why couldn't Saudi Arabia land him with an impossibly large salary, and what does that tell us...

  
• 06.02.2023

  Football, Finance and Politics

  Barcelona's bond offering, Saudi Arabia's current account balance -- we talk about the global financial and political context of European football, and why these contexts weigh harder on the game than they do in American sports. Support the show

  
• 05.23.2023

  Will Bayern's Title Streak End?

  Drama! Bayern's Bundesliga title streak could end on Saturday. We talk about the frankly bizarre Dortmund team that has a chance to do what no one predicted this summer, and what's gone wrong from Bayern over the season and recently...

  
• 05.18.2023

  Pep City Marches On

  The Champions League semifinals were a dreadful anti-climax. But it's interesting why they were such. And can anyone stop City? Like, ever? Support the show

  
• 05.11.2023

  Media, Arsenal and Analytics with James Benge

  Mike Goodman is joined by CBS soccer correspondent James Benge (@jamesbenge) to talk about all things media, analytics and yeah a little bit of Arsenal. Support the show

  
• 05.03.2023

  Relegation

  We got one really live race going but it's a good one. Leeds collapse, Forest bad, Everton bad, Leicester also in trouble, we talk through the teams at the bottom.Support the show

  
• 04.25.2023

  Spurs Collapse

  Bad game by Spurs. We break down the set of bad decisions that brought them to this point.Support the show