There are just a few Premier League teams left in the Say Something Challenge and one of them is Arsenal. Why they're obviously the title favorites and why, seriously asking why are they playing football like this? Plus we fight our way through to having something to say about Burnley, Wolves, Brighton and Forest.

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Caley wrote a newsletter about the origins of the set piece revolution, whether it's all Mikel Arteta's fault, how teams actually score off throw-ins, and why set pieces didn't take over the game earlier. This pod talks through the newsletter and some of our theories of how the set piece side of the game is interacting with larger open play tactical trends.

Newsletter link: https://www.expectinggoals.com/p/the-origins-of-the-set-piece-revolution

Also newsletter link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/origins-of-set-154510725?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

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We are joined by Sam Greenwood, high-stakes poker player and the writer and publisher of the Punt of the Day newsletter (to which Mike Goodman also contributes), to talk about poker and some questions we've been thinking about in sports and analytics and, well, publishing a podcast and recording a newsletter, about the world of optimizing and making money by clicking buttons on the computer.

And because Sam is not only our Gambling Correspondent but also our Canadian Soccer Correspondent, we also turn to discussing the Canadian Men's National Team and the upcoming World Cup.

Check out Punt of the Day: https://www.puntoftheday.com/2026/

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We take up a challenge from the discord to say something about even the least interesting teams. This podcast series will take us through the international break and begins with Fulham, Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Everton, Chelsea, Manchester United, and Leeds.

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We are joined by Leif Weatherby, author of Language Machines: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism, to talk about artificial intelligence: what these new technologies do, but more than that how the fact of their existence can teach us more about how language works. And then we continue down a variety of paths talking sports analytics, optimization, and other topics.

https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517919320/language-machines/

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Why the "Premier League disaster" narrative doesn't really make sense, plus some capsule summaries of the eight matches and why there was not that much to learn from the second legs. City-Real and Chelsea-PSG matches were over too early, Liverpool and Arsenal held serve at home, Bayern continued walking, why would anyone have expected more than this from Tottenham, and Barcelona-Newcastle was a fascinating watch with more to discuss but not necessarily representative of any larger dynamics.

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There is so much football to discuss that this podcast could not contain it all and part two will be a subscriber episode. Here we get to the acknowledgement of Tottenham and a much more in-depth discussion of both PSG - Chelsea and Real Madrid - Man City, two matches that were much more similar than the scores and the ensuing narratives might suggest.

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We discuss the Round of 16 and why it seems like there are fewer and fewer new matchups in the Champions League knockouts and what might have to be done to address this.

And then, it's time for the return of Bible History Corner and, neither a review nor a summary of Jason Staples new book Paul and the Restoration of Israel but a preparation for it with extended background first on the history of Pauline Studies, and second on the history of Ancient Judaism, the Kingdoms of Israel, the Babylonian and Assyrian conquests, and tying all of this back around to Paul so we can talk about the book.

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