The international breaks baked into a given soccer season are intrusive and far too frequent. They break the rhythm of the club season, and apparently they've been in the mood to claim some ACLs this time, too. Even FIFA company man Arsene Wenger thinks there are too many breaks, but we continue onward with them all the same.
Really, there are only two positives I can really take from having these frequent breaks in the schedule: They offer more opportunities for first-time call-ups, which I love, and they give me a chance to play in the stat sandbox for a bit and ask some questions I've been meaning to ask for a while.
Just how ridiculous are Harry Kane's scoring rates at the moment? What can interesting stats like xPV tell us about player value? Who has been particularly lucky or unlucky this season? Who has been bitten particularly hard by the injury bug? And are matches really longer this season as promised?
So consider this a grab bag of sorts: five mini-pieces on topics or stats I've been meaning to explore for a while now.