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Bob Hayes

@bobhayes.bsky.social

Yank in London who trained myself to say "football." Analytics professional and hobbyist. Used to write things, many of which are still relevant, here: https://fromthebyline.substack.com/

1,653 Followers  |  204 Following  |  561 Posts  |  Joined: 20.09.2023  |  2.1879

Latest posts by bobhayes.bsky.social on Bluesky

I regret to formally declare the Packers do not have the juice

19.10.2025 21:49 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Chelsea had 6 big chances, only converted 1. Could’ve been a lot worse for Spurs with simply better finishing from Chelsea.

01.11.2025 19:33 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

The Boring Team is Tottenham Hotspur

also they are genuinely bad

01.11.2025 19:29 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Also basically just as simple as Woltemade is scoring goals and the large majority of people don't have a sense of how to predict future goal scoring beyond "has he scored goals?" (and have yet to see him not score goals)

Your forwards are the optimal 3 IMO

31.10.2025 12:37 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Crystal Palace have been legitimately good this year, but I’d be shocked if they don’t collapse from exhaustion.

It’s a ton of games to play the same 14 guys, none of whom have played twice a week before.

29.10.2025 20:33 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Expecting Goals Premier League Team Ratings A new method for evaluating soccer teams in the major European Leagues, and an opportunity to discover whether I am biased against your favorite team or not.

a new Expecting Goals newsletter!

a brand new team ratings system, Premier League power rankings, and all the details about how it works, why it works this way, and what I plan to do with it next
www.expectinggoals.com/p/expecting-...

28.10.2025 12:18 β€” πŸ‘ 25    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 2
Football Club Elo Ratings

Elo -- the almighty, inarguable measurement of team quality -- hath declared that current Arsenal are:

1. the best team in the world
2. the best Arsenal team since records began in the 1940s
3. the 10th-best team of all time

clubelo.com

23.10.2025 11:34 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Professor Gerez knows ball

22.10.2025 17:45 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Getting the yellow today so he misses the trip to Prague was part of the masterclass 🧠

21.10.2025 22:09 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I regret to formally declare the Packers do not have the juice

19.10.2025 21:49 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I can’t recall a single thing he did today

19.10.2025 15:10 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Tottenham have gone with the West Hamian attack plan of β€œhope Kudus doing something cool is actually productive”

19.10.2025 14:54 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Tottenham have broadly played better against a theoretically solid team, something I am not sure they can say any other time this season.

People are gonna be mad about this game, which I think they’re ultimately correct on β€” Spurs have been bad this season β€” but not because of this game.

19.10.2025 14:49 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Yeah, for me they net out as a decent striker platoon, both overpaid for their production (give or take in either player's direction) but not enough to be TOO worried about.

Add in Jesus (of course bad luck there) and it is A LOT of money to have tied up for the level of production in that spot.

17.10.2025 13:02 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Ha! I just posted this in their Discord.

I think they’re correct that the Havertz/GyΓΆkeres combo is collectively a bad platoon of contracts, just depends how you want to apportion the blame. It’s also fair to think Havertz is great (as I do) but also think he’s overpaid.

17.10.2025 12:50 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Great listen for all the soccer sickos out there

17.10.2025 12:39 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

This is a window where RedZone should not be showing Tennessee-LV unless it’s a major play or both the other games are in timeout.

My one complaint of RedZone is that they treat games too equally in relevance/interest.

12.10.2025 21:00 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I don’t get it at all either. The whole point of podcast consumption is it’s done while multitasking. I’ve seen people online say they like it as a second/third screen, but I don’t see how that appeals.

11.10.2025 18:57 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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FIFA are absolutely taking the piss by advertising the β€œaffordability” of the Category 4 tickets, and this is what they look like

11.10.2025 14:56 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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A World Cup preying on Fomo: Fifa’s 2026 ticket scheme is a late-capitalist hellscape NFTs, dynamic pricing and double resale fees have turned the 2026 World Cup into a fintech carnival where fandom meets late-capitalist absurdity

It is remarkable the degree to which the combination of FIFA and Trump have made me resent the upcoming World Cup, which should be basically the most exciting sporting event of my lifetime.

www.theguardian.com/football/202...

11.10.2025 14:53 β€” πŸ‘ 10    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
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Everything Is Television A theory of culture and attention

Fascinating one from @dkthomp.bsky.social. I am most struck by the degree to which *social* media has entropy'd itself into atomized, mindless scrolling of inessential content from strangers. www.derekthompson.org/p/why-everyt...

10.10.2025 13:15 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1

Excellent ChatGPT use case I've discovered: my personal sommelier

I've done many versions of essentially uploading a wine menu and telling it what I plan to eat, with various thoughts around preferences, budget, etc., and it does an excellent job of talking through the different options.

10.10.2025 11:43 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Please keep this up and/or post here each new piece! It's very hard to stay on top of your stuff otherwise

08.10.2025 08:10 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

God, It's Brutal Out Here: lindseyadler.substack.com/p/god-its-br...

05.10.2025 14:27 β€” πŸ‘ 125    πŸ” 35    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 15
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Manchester City followed up a classic chokehold first half with this

05.10.2025 17:26 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Brentford need to hire a set piece coach

05.10.2025 16:51 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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lol I forgot the last one. A full picture:

05.10.2025 15:08 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Nah, when you zoom out, in the PL Arsenal are on 14 goals to 11.9 xG. No reason to be concerned at this point.

05.10.2025 14:58 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Is that good?

05.10.2025 14:46 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Chelsea are now down their top 6 CBs

04.10.2025 17:55 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

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