Ex Lion Tamer

Mara was signed as one for the future. We were intending to sign another striker to score goals this season. Also those are bargain basement prices in today's markets, albeit Adams and Armstrong were going out of contract so we thought they were worth more

Maybe he'll be better playing in a deeper line under Jones

Personally I hated the model where we bought crap, injury-prone older players like Ripley, Kanchelskis, McCann, Hirst, Speedie, Groves, Dixon, Howells

Get McGoldrick in the team FFS

It's his potential that makes him worth £30m. He's obviously not the finished article but when he turns it on he looks world class

I see it the other way. Lavia has only been with us one season and may well feel he wants another season of regular gametime before going back to a big club. If JWP gets a good offer he'll no doubt feel the time has come for a new challenge

Sounds like the sort of thing that goes down to deadline day

They seem like quite strong opinions to have about a statistical calculation to me. But ok 😃

It comes across that way when people get emotional/aggressive about it

That's a very interesting and valid point but I think it only reinforces the need to be thoughtful in the way we interpret xG, rather than an argument that xG is a load of bollocks

IS xG now a culture war issue alongside female pundits and taking the knee?

Which is exactly why we have stats to help us explore the vastly different opinions people have from watching a game

if I was describing a game to someone that wasn’t there, I wouldn't take my clothes off and jump in the shower, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't wash 🙂

I for one hadn't clocked that City actually had the best chances in that game so the stat was useful. Doesn't take away from the fact that we finished better and deserved to win

The whole point of it is you see how well a team has performed without taking into account worldie saves and bad finishing

I think you're underappreciating how much he still had to do and what a great finish it was

Yes that's exactly what it is. Why is that problem?

XG may or may not be useful but when people get so angry about it, it makes me think this is more about some sort of personal insecurity

I've defended Adams on the basis of him playing alongside a goalscoring striker but if we're moving to one up front then i think he needs to be a bench player

Is it possible that Jones got Luton vastly over achieving because he's actually quite a good manager?

It's this sort of thing which makes me think KWP is a good egg who wouldn't leave us in the middle of a relegation battle

He has rejected us

It was a slightly flippant comment but in fairness my original post was "since Neil McCann", which rules out most of these. The Scottish league has gone down a lot in quality since the 80s and earlier when you could easily pick up quality players. Nowadays a player has to be really excelling to be good enough for the Premier League. Wanyama and Van Dijk were outstanding prospects. Armstrong got 15 goals in a season. Davis got 13 assists and 5 goals. Maeda is nowhere near this. Neither was Aribo. Also you missed Skacel 😀

Southampton have been overrating players from the Scottish league since Neil McCann