GM football fans. This is Route One, the football newsletter that makes you feel as satisfied as when you perfectly flip a pancake.

Today’s briefing is a ~3 min read:

1. Aston Villa’s captain bans the ‘T’ word 😬

2. Around the world in 60 seconds: you won’t believe this NFL stat 🏈

3. ChatGPT predicts Yaya Toure’s infamous attacking team 😆

Morning Brief 🗞️

BANNING THE ‘T’ WORD 😳

What a week for Aston Villa fans.

In the space of four days, they beat…

• Treble winners Manchester City

• Last season’s second-place Arsenal

It now means that Villa sit third in the league, and two points away from first place.

Remember… it has only been 13 months since Steven Gerrard was sacked by Villa for sitting outside the relegation zone, only because of goal difference.

Still not impressed? Well here’s some more for ya:

• Only City have more league wins (26) in 2023 than Villa (24).

• It’s Villa’s best start since 1980-81… the year they won the title!

• Emery has led Villa to their 15th straight home league win… a club record.

Clearly, something’s in the air at Villa.

And while they might be breathing fumes of success, it hasn’t gone to their head.

Club captain John McGinn refuses to entertain talk of Villa winning the title.

“I’m banning the T-word”, McGinn told Sky Sports. “It’s gameweek 16 so there’s a long way to go.”

He’s right… it’s still early days.

But why not get a little excited? Heck, this sh*t doesn’t happen all the time.

If you’re interested, the bookies odds for Villa to win the league is 16/1… not too shabby.

AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

🇪🇸 Jude Bellingham now has 16 goals in 18 games. This is the same amount of goals Michael Owen achieved in his 45 games for the Galacticos.

🇺🇸 Soccer has the highest percentage of match time (50%) per TV show compared to all other major American sports. An NFL show only has 5% action time in any broadcast.

🇩🇪 Harry Kane fans look away now… Bayern Munich lost 5 - 1 to Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday and go second in the league behind Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

🇫🇷 PSG owners have agreed to sell up to 12.5% of shares in the club to Arctos Partners. The deal values PSG at €4.25 billion. 💰

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Aston Villa have won 15 consecutive home league games for the first time in their 149-year history. Goals: 39, Conceded: 7, Clean sheets: 8. Fortress.

AI PREDICTS YAYA TOURE’S TEAM FINISH 🤷‍♀️

No one was prepared for Yaya Toure’s best XI. 

And we mean no one. 🤣

Once upon a time on Monday Night Football, Yaya revealed the ultimate XI of players he’s played with during this career. 

And he created the greatest team ever… on paper.

What’s even crazier are the players who missed out on getting into Yaya’s team. Here are just a few names:

• Xavi

• Kevin De Bruyne

• Gerard Pique

• Aguero

• Dani Alves

• David Silva 

Yaya once said that Xavi was top five players he’s ever played with. But the Spanish midfielder didn’t make it into his ultimate XI. To be fair, a defensive midfielder wouldn't make sense. Would it? 

Anyway, we couldn’t help but put Yaya’s novel team to the test.

So, we asked ChatGPT (AI) how this team would perform. 

The AI prediction is an estimation based on historical data and players’ peak performances. So, when the players are in their prime. 

And it turns out that Yaya Toure might be an absolute genius. 

Let’s dive into the results.

Goals 

With so many world-class attackers in the team, it’s expected that they’d score a lot.

According to ChatGPT, that’s true. 

Based on the AI’s estimations, Yaya’s team would average 3.4 goals per game. That’s the highest average of any English team, ever.

To put this into context, Manchester City’s 2022-23 treble-winning squad averaged just shy of 2.5 goals per game. 

Defence 

OK, so we’ve established that Yaya’s team would be prolific. 

But, as with any team, defence is often the best form of attack. So, how would this team - with four defensive players - perform? 

Apparently, quite well.

Carlos Puyol, Rafael Marquez and Vincent Kompany were all part of strong defensive setups in their prime. Collectively, they conceded roughly 0.5 to 0.8 goals per game. 

ChatGPT predicts that, if they played together, they’d concede around 0.6 to 0.7 goals. That is almost the best of any English team, ever.

Chelsea’s 2004-05 squad conceded the least amount of goals (15) in a Premier League season, with 0.4 goals conceded per game. 

Not too shabby, considering Yaya has opted for a three-back formation, with no defensive padding.

Verdict

Based on these estimations, over a Premier League season (38), Yaya’s team would:

• Score between 110 to 130 goals

• Concede between 23 to 27 goals

• Have a goal difference of between +87 or +103

The largest goal difference previously recorded in the Premier League was +79 (Manchester City 2017/18). 

In other words, they would be the greatest team of all time.

But, in reality, we’re not convinced that playing six strikers would work… and tactically, it might be one of the worst teams we’ve seen.

Or… maybe not? 🤷‍♀️

Yaya said on Monday Night Football he wants to become a coach. And if he does dive into management, that’ll be the true test of whether there is a method to his madness.

But with his current favourite formation including six strikers, we can’t imagine his interviews for manager roles going too well.

We don’t see Yaya becoming a coach anytime soon. But, for the sake of entertainment, we hope he does.

EXTRA-TIME ⏱️

Ronaldinho’s first goal for Barcelona looks like an all-time great Nike advert. Phone footage from 20 years ago shows his first goal from a never-before-seen angle. Enjoy.

Even Kylian Mbappe can learn a thing or two from Thierry Henry. The Premier League legend gives the PSG forward a masterclass.

'F**k it, I'll hit that’… 17 years ago this week Matty Taylor scored his famous volley for Portsmouth. The cleanest strike ever.

Scoring a last-minute winner can make you do strange things. And that is exactly what happened to Harvey Elliot when he celebrated his goal against Crystal Palace on Saturday.

We know Kate Abdo is talented but three separate language translations in one show? Wow. Neville and Carragher have some work to do because Monday Night Football might have some competition.

MEME 😆