Chelsea

It’s been something of a rough summer for Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois with regards to getting chummy with his shot-stopping peers. Back on June 29, Belgium defeated England 1-0 thanks to a marvelously taken goal by Adnan Januzaj. A weird spat then commenced between Courtois and England No.

Chelsea kept pact with Liverpool and Watford at the top of the Premier League table by defeating Newcastle United 2-1 Sunday after an entirely forgettable opening 75 minutes sprang into life over the final quarter-hour.

For Newcastle supporters, the approach from Rafa Benitez harkened back to last December’s visit of Manchester City. The Magpies sat inordinately deep and ceded 81 percent of possession to the visitors while playing with five at the back and an incredibly grafting midfield pairing of Mohamed Diame and Ki Sung-Yueng. 

Chelsea defeated Arsenal 3-2 on Saturday at Stamford Bridge in London. But the Gunners repeatedly shot themselves in the foot with some shocking wayward shots, chief among them the first Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang miss.

Arsenal, under new coach Unai Emery following longtime boss Arsene Wenger’s departure after last season, lost its first two matches of a season for the first time since 1992. Much of that comes down to some poor finishing.

ESPN released a Luck Index for the EPL, a joint project with tech company Intel that supposedly examines “how the Premier League would look if luck were not a factor.”

Conducted by England’s University of Bath, ESPN aims to both galvanize the beautiful game with this pseudo-scientific study and pollute the culture of football by turning it into a maniacal math project.

The index states the following metric as the definitive measure of luck: