A few words about Chelsea v. City.
Pundits and fanbases are so fickle. What have you done for me lately is everything, and we all tend to overreact to what we have just seen. Recency bias is strong among football watchers.
Thus, we should be unsurprised that Chelsea is currently the fashionable choice to win the Premier League. And, to be fair, Chelsea are an excellent football team. They beat Man City head-to-head in both the CL final and the FA Cup semifinal last season. Since Tuchel’s arrival, Chelsea’s defense has outperformed everyone in Europe. And, so far this season, Chelsea has both looked better than Man City, and has dropped fewer points.
But City is still City. Pep is still Pep. KdB, Sterling, Jesus, Ederson, Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Walker, Stones, Dias, and company are still a lineup that should strike fear in any rational opponent. And, despite dropping points against Spurs and Southampton, City’s underlying stats have continued to be extremely good. Fivethirtyeight.com’s algorithm still has Man City as relatively strong favorites to win the Premier League, and the same algorithm gives City a better chance of winning the match tomorrow.
I am certainly not immune to recency bias, and at the moment I fear Chelsea nearly as much as Man City. I continue to hate Man United more than anyone (indeed, Ronaldo’s presence only heightens that emotion), but I still don’t fear them as a title contender.
Based on the current position of the teams and my own emotional state, I’m hoping for a draw tomorrow. But my second-most preferable result would be a Chelsea win. If Man City were to lose tomorrow and we could also win against Brentford and City next Sunday, then City would have a major hill to climb in the PL. They would not be out of it by any means, but I would very much relish their handicap.
But, given what I want, I’ll expect the worst.
My guess: Chelsea 0 – Man City 1
