🦁 Bridge-ing the gap

IN-THE-INBOX: 2-MINS

Read this carefully…

Last season, Man United finished 8th but won the FA Cup, meaning they got to play in the Europa League, giving them a route to Champions League qualification this season, despite coming 14th in the League.

That’s some sort of perverse inversion.

If the trend continues, they’ll finish 20th next year and lift their 3rd Champions League… 🤪

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🗓️ Friday 2nd May

1. The Bees’ away sting! 🐝

2. Why this weekend matters for Chelsea… 🦁

3. FOUR big tips 💰 
   
   

No joke – the baby below is Lamine Yamal. Genuinely. We are living in a simulation.

THE BIG FACTS

Pub Ammo

🐝 Brentford have the most away wins (6) and the most away points accumulated (19) of any Premier League side in 2025.

👺 Man Utd have scored 39 goals in 34 games in the Premier League this season (1.1 per game) but 31 goals in 13 games in the Europa League (2.4 per game).

❌ Arsenal haven’t scored in any of their past six semi-finals in all competitions (L4, D2).

🐾 Cody Gakpo scored 7 Premier League goals in 2022/23, 8 in 2023/24, and is currently on 9 in 2024/25. 10 next season?

🏟️ Spurs’ Stadium has a higher capacity (62,850) than the entire population of Bodo (42,831).

🫡 Chelsea will give their FIFTH Premier League guard of honour this weekend — comfortably more than any other team.

THE BIG TIPS

Kevin’s at home

THE BIG OPINION

Bridge-ing the gap

Chelsea’s record against big teams this season is diabolical.

In fact, scratch that.

This is their record in the last four seasons, spanning 26 games:

— haven’t beaten Liverpool since March 2021
— haven’t beaten Man City since May 2021
— haven’t beaten Arsenal since August 2021
— beaten Man United just once since 2020

Granted, they’ve been a shadow of their former selves since the Tommy Tuchel days, but this is damning.

The issue fundamentally lies with their buying/contract strategy.

There’s financial logic in tying down your assets on long contracts, IF the assets appreciate.

What Boehly and co. didn’t factor, was the psychological effect of overpaying young footballers who aren’t being coached properly and aren’t getting game time.

The hunger isn’t there. The players are losing value. And their star man, Cole Palmer, looks constrained.

As Jurrien Timber was caught (see below) saying to Maresca, perhaps the players just need to “Try harder”.

However, this weekend presents an opportunity.

With four games to play, and a Champions League place in the balance, they face a presumably overfed Liverpool side who are on an end of season victory lap.

Win this weekend, and they can show the world they’ve got a bit about them. Break the big team curse and they could have something to build on for next season.

Maybe even the Champions League glitter those young players need to perform!

THE BIG FANTASY

Delap of honour

Our team is now ~283,000th.
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Most of you will have played all of your chips, so now it’s just a moment to look at the table and ponder which teams will end on a high.

Quite hard to plan long term but we’ll give you a player from four clubs we think will fly at the end of the season, one for each position…

Ipswich have their easiest run of games, and can play without pressure now, Man City are back to form, Forest will be keeping things tight, and Brentford have turned a corner.

Big Six picks
✅ Delap £5.6m (striker)
✅ De Bruyne £9.4m (midfielder)
✅ Aina £5.2m (defender)
✅ Flekken £4.4m (goalkeeper)

THE BIG QUOTE

THE SOFA SCHEDULE

FRI
20:00 Man City vs Wolves Sky Sports

SAT
12:30 Aston Villa vs Fulham TNT Sports
17:30 Arsenal vs Bournemouth Sky Sports

SUN
14:00 Brighton vs Newcastle Sky Sports
16:30  Chelsea vs Liverpool Sky Sports

MON
20:00 Crystal Palace vs Forest Sky Sports

If you want to receive all the tips AND regular Champions League editions, you can upgrade to The Big Six Club for just £6.99 a month.

All the best,
The Big Six