It feels like Ferran Torres was scoring the winning goal for Spain at the Meadowlands and Argentina's Leandro Paredes was paying homage to Lawrence Taylor just yesterday. But guess what? The World Cup is over, and so is the first month of the Premier League season.
We've already played more than 10% of the current season, and the 20 Premier League teams will chip off another 3-plus percent after this weekend's matches.
A month, 10% -- those are both nice, round quantities. And thus, the bylaws of the internet allow us to spread our arms wide and assess everything that has happened already. It's time to bust out the red pen because we've got grades for all 20 Premier League teams to hand out.
Arsenal: A
They won the Premier League last season. They lost the Champions League final on penalty kicks. And it seems as though they might be even better this year. Just ask Napoli:
Without the injured William Saliba, the defense remains dominant, and the attack is already hitting heights we didn't see it get to last season.
Aston Villa: F
I wrote this about Villa when we did these grades last season:
They have two points from four matches. They've conceded four goals. They've scored zero. And they still haven't played Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea.
It's also not as if they've been unlucky ... only two teams have worse [underlying] numbers. This was a team that thought it could challenge for a Champions League place again. Instead, it already looks more like they'll be in a relegation fight than a chase for Europe.
Given how easy their schedule has been and how they are not suffering through any kind of injury crisis, it's really hard to think how Villa could've started the season off any worse.
That was all true -- and then they finished in fourth place, ahead of, among others, Liverpool, a team that had won all of its matches at that point and received an "A" grade. Yes, the point I'm trying to make here is that you should ignore everything that you're about to read.
I'm kidding. The point I'm getting at is that Villa have been even worse this season. Here's how they stand in adjusted goal differential, a blend of 70% expected goals and 30% goals, that tends to be the best simple measure of team strength:
So, uh, yeah, how'd they do? Last. They've scored once and conceded seven goals. And though they have played Arsenal already, they still have both Manchester clubs, Liverpool, and Chelsea home and away.
If we look at the points projections from Sporting Index, Villa's end-of-season total has dropped more than any team (9.5 points) since the start of the season, due to a combination of awful performances, terrible results and the continued departures of multiple key players.
At least last year, when Villa were struggling, it was the same group of players who we'd already seen qualify for the Champions League in the past. This year? It's a group of players we've barely seen play together.
Coach Unai Emery has defied the odds, algorithms and just about everything else in his nearly four-year tenure at Villa, but getting this squad back into the European mix would be his greatest trick yet.
Brentford: A
Based upon the wage estimates at FBref, only the three promoted teams have smaller payrolls than Brentford. But rather than fighting to stay up for another year, it already looks like the Bees might be in the mix for a Champions League place.
The projections from analyst Simon Grayson give them a 28% chance of finishing in the top five.
Brighton & Hove Albion: B+
It's convenient that the two best clubs in the Premier League sit one after the other, in alphabetical order. By "best clubs," I mean if every Premier League team had the same spending power, Brentford and Brighton are the two that would be duking it out for the title every season.
AFC Bournemouth: C
They've been a league-average team, but they've gotten below-league-average results through four matches.
What does that mean for the rest of the season?
Marco Rose's side is one of three teams whose preseason projection from Sporting Index hasn't even moved a full point.
Chelsea: C
They've been so freaking weird and unconvincing through four matches, but they've basically held serve while several teams that are supposed to be in their same tier have coughed away points over the first month.
They're the favorites to finish third now; "not being a disaster" gets them an average grade.
Coventry City: D-
It has been an absolute disaster: no points, no goals and now easily the team that's most likely to finish in last place. But almost every promoted team struggles in the Premier League, and Coventry City have already played Arsenal, City, and Brighton. The loss to Hull was really bad, though.
Crystal Palace: D
Only three clubs have seen their end-of-season projection drop by more points over the first four matches, and Palace appear to have possibly the worst defense in the league, with the most xG and the most touches in the box conceded.
There's still time for new manager Pierre Sage to turn it around, but there's a very real chance they get pulled into the relegation battle this season.
Everton: B-
Their preseason points projection: 48.
Their current points projection: 48.
Fulham: D-
With just one point through four matches, the saving grace here is that you can squint and see some signs of future success. They're outshooting their opponents. They're controlling more of the ball in the attacking thirds. And they're generating way more penalty-area touches than they're allowing.
But should a team with Fulham's talent even be trying to do any of that?
Hull City: A+
You probably could've guessed this, but Hull are the team whose projection has improved the most over the first month of the season. It has jumped by a barely believable nine points already, which tells us a couple of things.
The first: Hull were barely expected to get any points from their opening four games against Manchester United, Coventry, Aston Villa, and Chelsea. Instead, they have eight; only Arsenal and Manchester City have more.
The second: As you might have noticed, the number nine is more than the number eight. So how could Hull have improved their end-of-season projection by more points than they've already won?
Well, as you've probably seen me say too many times already, Hull were supposed to be one of the worst teams in Premier League history. And we're steadily gathering evidence that they're not.
You think?!?!?! They're in third place, genius.
Well, you don't really have to play all that well to fluke into eight points from four matches. And if we just look at Hull's expected-goal differential, it's a long way off from third-most points in the league:
At the same time, it's also a long way from "worst Premier League team ever" or even "worst Premier League team right now."
Hull are still among the betting favorites to get sent back down, but their incredible start and competent-ish underlying play mean that there's a very real chance that they make it back to the Premier League next year.
Ipswich Town: B+
Give that chart a quick look again. Through four matches, Ipswich are not only slightly positive on the xG ledger, but they're slightly ahead of Chelsea on the xG ledger.
Similar to Hull, they have a very real chance of sticking in the top flight for another season.
Leeds United: B+
Why not a better grade? They're currently in third, and they're backing it up with impressive underlying numbers.
But Leeds haven't done it with the shot dominance or territory control we've seen from Brentford and Brighton. Plus, Leeds still have to play Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea.
Liverpool: C-
New coach Andoni Iraola has already transformed Liverpool's playing style.
This chart compares the speed at which a team moves the ball upfield (in meters per second) with how aggressively it presses (passes allowed per defensive action):
Iraola wants Liverpool to press, but not to then control the ball like City or Arsenal; he wants them to press and then immediately spray the ball forward. That's happening; it just hasn't led to improved results or performances yet.
Manchester City: A
Given how they were still adding to the squad up until the close of the window, it's hard to say what notably finicky tactician Enzo Maresca wants City to look like. But even amidst that transition, they've been excellent. Despite playing 70-plus minutes down a man, on the road, against Manchester United, they've pretty much been Arsenal's equals through four matches.
Elliot Anderson, in particular, has been fantastic in the do-everything Rodri midfield role. Through four games, per the app Futi, he has been involved in 15% of City's phases of play, leading all Premier League starters through the first month. He has made 51 high defensive actions (in the opposition half), which also leads the league. And he has backed it up with a nice blend of progressive passes and carries:
There aren't a ton of question marks about City on the attacking or defensive ends. They've restocked their center backs, figured out their fullback rotation, signed a new goalkeeper and have the most attacking talent of any team in the Premier League.
But both starting midfielders from last season, Rodri and Bernardo Silva, left for Barcelona and Real Madrid, respectively, over the offseason. If Anderson can go from anchoring Nottingham Forest to doing the same job for City, then there's no reason this team can't win either of the major trophies on offer this season.
Manchester United: C-
They haven't been that bad, and they're unlucky to have only four points from their first four matches. But they've played a really easy schedule so far -- especially when you adjust for Phil Foden's red card -- and weren't able to build up a cushion on their competitors.
Now, they have to play catch-up, right as the schedule starts to get a lot tougher.
Newcastle United: D+
How you feel about them depends on how you feel about winning a match at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Because other than the win over Spurs, they've been outplayed in their three other matches. After hanging on for draws with Liverpool and Bournemouth, the bottom fell out in a 4-1 loss against Leeds on Monday.
Nottingham Forest: B-
Much like Everton, Forest's points projection hasn't budged since the start of the season. After last season's 16th-place finish, it seems as though they should stay out of the relegation battle -- at least until owner Evangelos Marinakis gets bored, decides to fire Oliver Glasner and replaces him with whatever manager is the exact opposite of Oliver Glasner.
Sunderland: B
Sunderland had the underlying performance of a relegated team last season, so perhaps I came into this year with different expectations for a team that finished top half of the table.
But even though the results have been worse so far, the performances have been encouraging: more xG created than conceded, more shots attempted than allowed, more touches in the box than their opponents.
Tottenham Hotspur: F
It has been a while since we've said something nice about Tottenham, and with good reason.
They're one of the richest clubs in the world, they have one of the highest payrolls on the planet, and they've finished 17th in their own domestic league in consecutive seasons and are winless and goalless through four matches after spending $400 million-plus on what were supposed to be low-risk, Premier League-proven talents this past summer.
So far, Spurs look like the classic example of a team whose manager wants them to control possession but just aren't equipped to do it. You can see it in the cascade of effectiveness as you move up the field:
-Final-third possession: 63.1%
-Share of touches in the box: 56.7%
-Shot margin: minus-10
-xG margin: minus-3.2
They're able to control the ball higher up the field, but they're unable to turn that into the requisite share of touches in the box and then despite having more of the ball in the most dangerous areas, they're still getting outdone by their opponents in shot quality and quantity.
So, where's the good news?
To start, they've created 3.45 xG despite scoring zero -- that won't continue. And then 22-year-old Sávio already looks like he's the best attacker on the team -- an actual winger who you can play the ball out to and then reasonably expect a decent chance to be created. That's not something Spurs have had since Son Heung-min was converted into a forward.
There's reason to believe that this attack will get a lot better, from simple regression to the mean and from improved overall performance. And it has to if they're going to avoid a repeat of last season. Though Spurs have been unlucky not to convert all of that xG into even a single goal, all of that xG is still just the second-lowest total in the league.
