The9

Maybe choose a classic Jack Cork pose? You'll need a bench.

My coup de grace, front page of the Echo in 2010.

It's because the last time I did it THIS happened, hindsight has ruined it.

Bielsa's ideas are already a bit passe, it's been repeatedly seen that the physical toll his pressing game takes on his sides usually leads to a rapid drop off in results in the second half of the season. It's got to be managed either with smart rotation or a big squad with plenty of depth, neither of which are our strengths.

Absolutely, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with his likelihood of getting seriously injured from a tackle that would break anyone's leg in the same situation. Oh, and incidentally I don't think posting one response to your point is "not leaving it".

Hammill was with Blackpool in the Championship in 2008 immediately after Saints (I think he played against us in the FA Cup?). Having just left Huddersfield having been on loan to fellow Championship side Rotherham, if anything he'd be a bit of a coup for them at the bottom of L1. As for Guly, he can still do a LOT better than that but he does need good players around him to shine, he's not going to drag a side through it on his own.

No, I do not want to build a snowman.

That's a very dated concept that isn't true in modern football. Hiddink, van Basten, Advocaat, Van Gaal and Rijkaard have all had the Dutch job and gone on to manage club sides afterwards. Blind is nowhere near the end of his management career, either. Not to mention all the England managers who went back into the club game - Hoddle, McClaren, Eriksson, Peter Taylor, Robson, Graham Taylor - Capello is basically the only one since Venables who managed more than 2 games who hasn't managed a club team since.

Caulker looked spooked by other teams attacking and showed panic clearance signs associated with a beleaguered defender at a relegated club. What he didn't do was remove that hoof-tendency completely from his game prior to us signing Van Dijk, so unless he's suddenly become a cultured passer from defence he's going to be more of a Gardos replacement than Alderweireld one. He's clearly behind Van Dijk and Fonte, and if he remains a hoof merchant he's not even challenging Yoshida unless we're playing a strong aerial team - as he's clearly better in the air than Yoshida whilst worse on the ground. His passing was showing some signs of improvement at Watford (at least in terms of choices, if not execution) but he didn't do enough with his opportunity to justify challenging the starting two - though as his preferred side is the same as Fonte's he's probably not competing with Van Dijk anyway. I do think he's better than Gardos though.

FWIW I think it'll be fairly close but I can't see us winning, so either a draw or the usual Man U one goal win.

Maybe you could change your settings to browse without seeing avatars if you're sensitive about it? I find doing that makes it a lot easier not to form preconceptions about people. In fact I have no idea if I even have an avatar, because I always browse without. It's in your profile in the settings somewhere, it's years since I set it up though. As for the other stuff, it is a shame we couldn't sign Eriksen for not much, though whether he'd have been the same player if we had, and indeed whether Wotte isn't just being unrealistic about our opportunities are a different matter. Also, to clarify the stupid argument earlier, because Wotte specifically said money was the limitation and we had signed Schneiderlin, so the question if someone would prefer we signed Schneiderlin to Eriksen, because we'd have only been able to spend on one of them, was indeed valid and fair. The fact Batman didn't answer it is interesting, but entirely in line with his previous posts, which tend to be over-simplifications from an opposing view to the OP, frequently missing the point or any nuance to the argument. FWIW I wouldn't change the way things worked out, it's a hell of a stretch to think we could have made a better decision than signing Schneiderlin when we did, when you consider his contribution to our revival and the profit the club made when he eventually became good enough to get out of our wage scale. Also, I think you'll find "putting right what you see wrong" is in fact, MY thing.

No different from the past 3 years, adidas do plenty of prints with a wide central stripe. Umbro also had at least one design like it. The club has chosen not to use it. Can't argue with you on the sash front, it's unique in English football - but Saints wear stripes.

First time I've ever heard it.

Pointless argument with yourself given that most of the Prem top 6 starters over the age of 21 will have already earned more than most people do in their entire lives, so of course they're perfectly entitled to retire. They're also entitled to get a job talking crap about football on tv, so careful what you wish for... The fact they're also incredibly valuable assets and the PFA does its job also means they have excellent pensions nowadays whether they get injured early or not.

Ryan Giggs was injured every single time Wales had a friendly match AND Ferguson made him change his car due to his endless hamstring issues. Bad example. In case anyone wasn't getting the point, the point is that whether a person gets regular non-contact injuries and is generally sickly the rest of the time, contact injuries, especially serious ones from high-speed collisions have nothing whatsoever to do with being "injury prone".

I'm not sure you can draw any conclusions about defensive balance from attacking stats only. We set out to not concede goals whilst trying to score them, the balance of that varies depending on the opposition and (when we don't have 5 defenders) two nuances in central midfield; whether we play 1 or 2 DMs, and if we do, who they are. I don't think anyone would say a back 4 with one DM is particularly defensive, but it is still fairly defensive if we pick JWP and Davis in the middle instead of one of them and Mane, for instance. I would say basically fielding a back 7 against Watford was pretty defensive.

Appropriate for a Man U thread after the times we've failed to convert chances and lost to Man U from them scoring from a couple.

Only 5 matches worth of data, plenty of video out there, not many goals to research, someone could probably determine the relationship between shots and quality.

Also, "the trouble with Arsenal is they always try to walk it in" is still a thing.

Man City, Swansea, Spurs and Arsenal all have more Shots on Target, so 4, but the rest of the point stands. Lots of shots on target - but then that's got to be taken in context of last season when we seemed (and I don't have the stats to hand) to be reluctant to shoot.

That's certainly A question... I'd say one of many. Look at West Ham in those tables - hugely effective at scoring goals from shots on target, but pretty crappy at actually creating Shots in the first place, and basically average at making the shots they take into shots on target. A quick look at the goals themselves (from what is admittedly a small sample size of only 5 league games this season) will probably show they've scored a few goals into empty nets or something similar.

As if by magic, percentage of Shots on Target from all Shots. Team SOT% Swansea 43.84 Everton 42.31 CPalace 39.34 Man C 38.71 Tottenh 35.53 Arsenal 34.82 Stoke 34.69 Leicest 34.33 West H 33.33 Norwich 32.88 Man U 31.03 Sundrl 30.43 [b]SAINTS 30.12[/b] Bmouth 29.41 A Villa 29.09 Liverpl 29.03 N'cstle 28.57 Chels 28.57 WBA 26.42 Watf 25.00

Basically we're 14th ranked in number of Goals 3rd ranked in number of Shots (and Shots per game, obviously as everyone has played the same number of games) 5th ranked in number of Shots on Target (and SOTpg) 14th in number of Shots taken per Goal (16.6 shots taken for every goal) 15th in number of Shots on Target per Goal. So we're doing well in taking shots, but not that great at converting them into goals. Sort of suggests that our efforts on goal aren't very good...

Lots of people have been saying we're not scoring enough, but are we not converting chances or are we not creating? Here's a little thing I ran through a spreadsheet just now, happy to entertain any kind of shots/goals/stats-based findings: Quick fact - we're by no means the least effective at converting shots on target to goals - Liverpool and Spurs are worse than us. West Ham have mental conversion rates, but that won't last. R is Shots taken ranking. Team, Goals, Shots, Shots On Target, Shots per game, Shots On target per game, Shots per Goal, Shots On target per Goal, Team R Team Goals Shots SOT Spg SOTpg SpGl SOTpGl 13 West Ham 11 57 19 11.4 3.8 5.18 1.73 West Ham 8 Leicester 11 67 23 13.4 4.6 6.09 2.09 Leicester 19 Sunderland 6 46 14 9.2 2.8 7.67 2.33 Sunderland 17 Bournemouth 6 51 15 10.2 3 8.50 2.50 Bournemouth 14 Aston Villa 6 55 16 11 3.2 9.17 2.67 Aston Villa 16 Everton 8 52 22 10.4 4.4 6.50 2.75 Everton 6 Norwich 8 73 24 14.6 4.8 9.13 3.00 Norwich 11 Crystal Palace 8 61 24 12.2 4.8 7.63 3.00 Crystal Palace 12 Manchester Utd 6 58 18 11.6 3.6 9.67 3.00 Manchester United 4 Chelsea 7 77 22 15.4 4.4 11.00 3.14 Chelsea 2 Manchester City 11 93 36 18.6 7.2 8.45 3.27 Manchester City 7 Swansea 7 73 32 14.6 6.4 10.43 4.57 Swansea 15 West Brom 3 53 14 10.6 2.8 17.67 4.67 West Bromwich Albion [b]3 Southampton 5 83 25 16.6 5 16.60 5.00 Southampton[/b] 20 Newcastle 2 35 10 7 2 17.50 5.00 Newcastle United 9 Watford 3 64 16 12.8 3.2 21.33 5.33 Watford 18 Stoke 3 49 17 9.8 3.4 16.33 5.67 Stoke 10 Liverpool 3 62 18 12.4 3.6 20.67 6.00 Liverpool 5 Tottenham 4 76 27 15.2 5.4 19.00 6.75 Tottenham 1 Arsenal 5 112 39 22.4 7.8 22.40 7.80 Arsenal