🤔 How Good Was Becks, Actually? 📊

Gm football fans. Route One here.

I sound like a broken record at this point. But, with so much growth over the past few weeks, I want to say a huge thank you to those tuning in each day.

Now, enough of the soppy stuff, let’s get this show on the road.

Here’s what we got today:

• Just how good was David Beckham in the Premier League? 🤔

• FA Chief: Grass-Roots Facilities ‘Embarrassing’ 😬

• Stat of the Day: the team with the most consecutive Premier League wins 📊

🗞️ Morning Brief

David Beckham’s Doc Is Out… But Just How Good Was He? 🤔

David Beckham’s docu-series is on Netflix and it’s caused a storm.

Does his stardom = his talent?

The jury is still out but data that was pulled a few years ago gives us a good picture…

The graph looks at each player’s best season, along with the season before and after to form a 3-season average.

Two things are important here:

• David Beckham’s 0.78 G+A is really, really good.

• And, god damn, Theo Walcott deserves more credit, especially for the earlier part of his career…

This data is interesting if you ignore modern players.

So we ran the numbers and compared Beckham to Salah and KDB. Two players that play in a similar position to the big man.

The data looks at goals and assists (minus penalties) in their prime.

This is a more revealing picture of just how good Beckham was.

A bit of context:

• The modern game is different… goals and assists have never been more important.

• Beckham, in his ‘prime’ years, played a wider and more defensive midfield role than Salah and KDB.

Yet, he still puts up some decent numbers - and in some cases matches KDB for G+As.

Do I think Beckham was one of the best players to play in the Prem? No.

Is he up there? Kinda… on his day he could compete with the best.

Either way, Beckham isn’t just a highly marketable player. He had a lot of ability and (more importantly) inspired a generation of haircuts along the way.

FA CHIEF: GRASS-ROOTS FACILITIES ‘EMBARRASSING’ 😬

Yesterday, Uefa confirmed the UK and Republic of Ireland will host the Euro 2028 tournament.

Tournaments are a good way to attract moolah and a whole lotta eyes.

• Fun fact: the tournament is expected to be worth £2.6 billion to the UK and Ireland’s economy.

But, there’s another benefit for the host nations: increased investment into grass-roots facilities.

FA chief exec Mark Bullingham didn’t beat around the bush when he said yesterday: “We know as a country our facilities are an embarrassment.”

You said it, not us…

The government’s announcement that £550 million will be issued for facilities will be a warmly welcomed by the football community.

So, there you have it, dust of the old boots and meet us on the pitch…

STAT OF THE DAY: CONSECUTIVE WINS IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE 📊

Here are some of the top takeaways from the data:

• Manchester City were unable to equal the record for most wins by one Premier League team against another when they lost to Arsenal on Sunday.

• Arsenal streak vs City ended in 2005 after a 1-1 draw at Highbury. Oh, how the tables have turned…

• Manchester United’s joint-top vs Wigan Athletic. The run ended after Wigan won 1 - 0 in April 2012, the beginning of the end of United’s title challenge in 2011-12.

• Chelsea hold the record for the most consecutive wins vs one opponent in English Top Flight with 15 against West Brom. City currently have 3 ongoing with Fulham, Bournemouth, and Watford.

We’ll see if City can break both records…

😆 MEME