The Double Pivot: Soccer analysis, analytics, and commentary

The various rules that the IFAB implemented to speed up play across soccer appear to be working. The ball is in play more, there are shorter delays before restarts from throw-ins and goal kicks, and there are many fewer delays for treatment on the pitch. But that last rule, which disincentivizes treatment by forcing players who receive treatment to stay off the pitch for another minute, is creating a strange situation where teams have a massive one-minute advantage, effectively a power play. We discuss just how large this advantage is, why it's even bigger than expected, and how this could become a big story soon.
Expecting Goals blog: https://www.expectinggoals.com/p/new-rules-football-injury-delays-xg-advantage
Note: some of the numbers in this podcast were scaled too high because of a clumsy miscalculation. The advantage in shots is about 20 to 3 over a match and the advantage in xG about 2.1 to 0.2. All the ratios and the overall advantage are still correct. 
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The Liverpool-City match threw this problem into relief. Everyone knows some kind of punishment is coming for Manchester City, and probably an enormous one. But what happens to the 2026-27 season that is now being played under the conditions that will be set in part by that punishment? We discuss the institutional features of the Premier League that put it in this predicament, the impossibility and yet the necessity of placating fans, do another round on fairness and injustice, and what we think maybe kinda sorta should happen. 
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People expect that Harry Kane, Lamine Yamal, and Kylian Mbappe are the favorites to win the Ballon d'Or. We go into some depth on what that means: how do you win the Ballon d'Or, who votes on it, and what criteria they are encouraged to follow? We discuss what we might wish the Ballon d'Or would be and who our picks would be, and our best breakdown of a semi-coherent thought processes by which the actual Ballon d'Or will be decided. 
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It is reported that the Premier League's indepedent panel has ruled that Manchester City committed 114 breaches of league rules. The Double Pivot has been covering this story for nearly a decade and we do not plan to stop. We explain under what exact legal auspices this investigation and now verdict were issued, why and how the Premier League came to a point where maximal punishments for Man City are on the table, the underlying rules and their relation to competitive fairness, the unknowable timeline of what comes next and all the ways this could still spiral further. 
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We have tables to sort and Caley has a toy model and some thoughts on regression. It is time to talk about City and Arsenal at the top of the table, why they're the best teams in the league but what concerns the early numbers reveal, and then... Brentford and Brighton. Because it does seem like the Premier League midtable starts at third. 
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