This week we mainly talked about robots. Premier League players as emotionless Androids, unable to think independently and are unable to break free from their programming.
That is what the aimless Manchester Derby Gary Neville led to explain. Too structured, too script, too boring.
But what do we mean by boring? Slowly pace, no end-to-end action, no danger? Or are it just the Manchester clubs as good as before?
Football has long been flooded with tactical ideals: from total football to the defensive Italian 'Catenaccio', Pep Guardiola 'Juego de Posiciono' Positional game, Jose Mourinho's Low-Block bus park. They all still had rules. We are just in an era in which we have more tools and understanding how they can make them work.
So here are five reasons why the robots have not suddenly taken over – but even when they are in charge, football makes less boring than ever.
Goals, goals, goals
The most obvious referee is goals. That is what we go to football matches to see. If goals are our guide, football is less boring than ever.
Both previous two seasons produced most of the goals once seen in a 20-team Premier League campaign with 1084 in 2022-23 and then no fewer than 1246 in 2023-24, which even surpassed one of the three years with two extra teams with 462 games instead of the current 380.
In the current rate, including the Manchester Derby Dross, we are on track for around 1,118. Ten seasons ago, only 975 goals entered.
A series of styles
So is it how they are scored, that's the problem? Teams trying to give the ball in the net instead of just giving him something like Tony Yeboah.
We see that less. In the XG era, head coaches know that the chances of scoring from 25 meters are much smaller than the ball in a more dangerous area. And in a game of increasingly finer margins, those percentages count.
That is why 20 years ago almost half of all shots were taken from outside the box in the Premier League. Now it is less than a third.
It is a reason why we don't see many free kicks scored nowadays. Kevin De Bruyne's Against Crystal Palace was only the 11th scored this season. More than 40 went in in the top season of 2007-08. There were in the euros. Even Declan Rice revealed that he had to defy orders from Arsenal's Set piece coach Nicolas Jover to beat a few around the Real Madrid wall.
Passen have increased in recent years, until 941 a match last season of only 874 in 2015-16, because the Guardiolaphic Football took its stranglehold. Goalkeepers go shorter than ever. Dribbles also fall, because players take on their opponent less and less.
Things change, however. The days of wholesale ownership obsession appear behind us. The number of passes per game This term has fallen below 900 for the first time since 2016-17.
Neville speaks about cheap Guardiola falsifications, but we have rarely seen such a tactical variety. Nuno Espirito Santo is forest deep to launch counterattacks. Anthony Elanga of 85 meters in nine seconds to beat Untied, was just as exciting and inhumant as you would like to see.
Brighton and Bournemouth are relentlessly pressing. Eddie Howe and Unai Emery have Newcastle and Aston Villa changing shapes and styles. Oliver Glasner and Ruben Amorim fly the flag for three at the back, although one does much better than the other.
Counter attacks, or 'fast breaks' as opta they call, go up. There has been more this season than the last and double the number of 2017-18. Teams that move the ball up and down bloom the field. Lace are so much better at insisting that even City cannot faint from the back of their hearts like before. In the past they had more than 70 percent, now they are only 60. Misses that lead to shots and goals are high all time and it means that teams have to change.
A stronger middle order
Maybe it's because this season feels like it's already over? Liverpool goes to the title. The three promoted parties go down … again. United is still nonsense.
That feeling of a growing wave is misleading. This variation on styles and fearlessness of these middle teams means that rarely had so many parties good enough to mix it with the European regulars. Nottingham Forest is about to finish in the top four. Villa could do it for a second season in a row. Fulham and Brighton are also not out of the running.
At least 30 points separated the teams that finished fourth and 10th in three of the five seasons from 2013-14 to 2017-18. The gap has only hit 20 points since then.
Only eight points separated Chelsea in the fourth and Bournemouth in 10th for this weekend.
For the first time in a quarter of a century there was only one member of the so -called Big Six in the quarterfinals of the FA Cup. Admittedly, when Man City inevitably wins, it will be boring.
Comeback kings
It also means, more than ever, it is not over until it is over.
When Fulham defeated Liverpool from Marco Silva last weekend, it was the 51st time this season that a team came from behind to win. This is only the fifth campaign since the founding of the Premier League, which has seen at least 50 comeback victories. Four of them have come in the past five seasons and we are on schedule in the current rate to match the record of 63 last season.
Boring things.
The No. 9 is king again
This ever-changing tactical landscape has seen the Renaissance lost of one of the most loved and thought, figureheads of the football-the traditional center-forward.
Not so long ago, with parties obsessed with possession, we saw teams such as City and Liverpool playing without an out-out striker.
'False Nines' as Roberto Firmino fell in midfield and did the dirty work, while Wide Forward did most of the goals.
Only three seasons ago only three Center-Forwards-Cristiano Ronaldo, Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy-De Top 10 goal scorers formed.
Wingers such as Mohammed Salah, Heung-Min Son, Sadio Mane, Wilfried Zaha and Raheem Sterling helped the rest.
This season it was six for this weekend.
Erling Haaland shot the city in the title in its first two seasons, Alexander Isak leads the Newcastle line with Aplomb, Chris Wood brings Bos to the Champions League, while Yoane Wissa, Ollie Watkins and Jean-Phillipe continue the Comeback.
Liam Delap from Ipswich is just outside the list and is the player who wants to buy everyone.
Salah is still at the top. Seeing how he flies along the wing is anything but boring – and under Arne Slot the chains has released.
He may print less than ever, less sprint, run fewer kilometers. He has never been less robot -like and he has never been so better.
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