Leicester City fired Steve Cooper a few weeks ago, and this weekend the two managers in 19th and 20th place in the Premier League, Gary O'Neil of Wolves and Russell Martin of Southampton, both got the sack. We take a look at the very different stories of these three clubs, what we expect from the relegation race this season, and the trend of defensive possession at the bottom of the table. 

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Jim Ratcliffe sacked his Sporting Director Dan Ashworth after a pretty short term. It is not a hopeful moment for the new football system at United. We discuss what we know about how their football operations work and then move from there to talking about new manager Ruben Amorim, his system, and how the players are fitting together. 

Adam Crafton and Laurie Whitwell in The Athletic on Ashworth: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5978018/2024/12/08/dan-ashworth-manchester-united-exit-reasons/

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It's a very exciting season in Italy, with multiple teams in touching distance of first place and no obvious favorite yet in December. We walk through Napoli, Atalanta, Inter, Fiorentina, Juventus, Lazio and Milan. 

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Five losses in a row, three in the league. And it's not really a five-match thing, the losses are somewhat fluky but performances have been down badly at City ever since Rodri got injured. We break down what's (relatively) wrong with City and why we're skeptical it can be wholly fixed. 

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We are joined by official Double Pivot English Correspondent Grace Robertson to discuss the new England manager Thomas Tuchel (who is not actually managing England yet) and what to expect from this team over the coming World Cup cycle. 

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(This is a subscriber episode from October, now unlocked for all listeners.)

Poker pro Jonathan Jaffe joins the pod to talk all things stats and the practical ways we think about using probability to make decisions.

See the GTO LAB podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@GTOLAB

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The first manager sacked in the Premier League is Manchester United's Eric Ten Hag. He has not done a particularly good job, but there are few hallmarks of good process in his sacking. 

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We talk about Liverpool - Chelsea, City's struggles, Arsenal's, well, you know, and whether there is truly a big three in the Premier League as we expected.

And then on to the real stuff: the Netflix romantic comedy Nobody Wants This, on which we have so many takes. 

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We take questions from the Double Pivot discord on these topics, we remember some center backs who scored goals, and we fight the urge to throw out the script and do a pod on Nobody Wants This. 

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It's in our wheelhouse.* What exactly did a legal review panel find in relation to the Premier League's "associated party transaction" rules, why are City and the PL spinning this ruling so aggressively, what is an ownership loan anyhow, and what's to come next for the financial regulation of English soccer?

* we also learn the etymology of 'wheelhouse'.

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In the Premier League this season, a number of the most striking team stories appear to be, when you dig into the data, fundamentally tactical stories. This means we're talking about Ten Hag and Ange and how Spurs and United have been playing, but also we look at the major shifts in style of play at Chelsea and Crystal Palace and what Fabian Hurzeler appears to be doing at Brighton. Plus our favorite Klopp story. 

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