TWar

If Broja only trained yesterday it may be a bit short notice to start Friday. I think he'll probably come off the bench.

Rule 2, if you make bold claims and they don't come off people are likely to take the piss.

When you spend what they did I don't think "keeping them in the Premier league" should be the goal. They invested an absolute fortune over those 5 years compared to what we spend. Their football was attractive, yeah, but that doesn't pay the bills.

Others too, Cash, Ben Johnson, Ben Godfrey, Lampety all have the potential to be knocking on the door in the next few years (EDIT not cash, he's polish now apparently). At lb we aren't nearly as stacked unfortunately.

I think he's still a way off the world Cup, James has also been incredible as has TAA and Walker is pretty dependable. Getting past those three will be pretty impossible. Should be in and around 4th choice though, if we have a couple of injuries could happen. I doubt he leaves saints this summer, but if he keeps it up for two seasons £38m back to Chelsea is a steal.

He did well in lower leagues imo, not suited to the prem though. It, for me, is what we would have likely looked like if we had retained Adkins instead of being ambitious and bringing in Poch. Ambition over sentiment is the way to go in this game.

Up for prem player of the month at 18. What a signing he has turned out to be!

Hes worth more than £50m fullstop, add in a January premium for mid-season disruption and the fact he'd be harder to replace, I think we'd want way higher than that.

Being a good manager in the small leagues isn't really a good measure of how likely he is to succeed in the prem, plenty of managers can smash lesser opposition (especially with generous spending) but not hack it in the prem. In the prem he spent an absolute fortune and never crested 50 pts. Ralph spent an absolute fraction of that and managed on his first attempt. Eddie Howe is like Atkins, great for guiding a team with too much talent/money for it's league position upwards but not a "top" manager. And he showed that when he actually got funding and competed against other top managers.

Did he do a good job at Bournemouth though? Seems to me like he spent a fortune and got relegated. Also is he considered a good coach within the game? Seems if he was any good he wouldn't have been unemployed for too long. I grant he is probably cheap and keen, but so are a lot of people. And it won't be cheap if he gets us relegated like he did Bournemouth. Maybe you are right and we are clamouring to downsize on our manager spending (although Ralph is reasonably cheap too compared to the rest of the league) but I don't personally believe it just yet.

Yep thats the one. He's pretty reliable. Don't think much of these "I know/my family knows/my friends know JWP" ITKS. I remember one this summer said he was going to force his way to villa and had visited the training ground and that.

How do you know this? It feels like most of the ITK's we've had have been pretty wrong for years now (last good one I remember was someone broke Angus Gunn signing early). Also why is "that pretty obvious"? I can see him wanting to go to us because of geography (I get it, I lived outside of the south too for a bit and its not as nice) but why the other way round? Why would we be interested in Eddie Howe too? Going from Ralph to Howe is like going from a well engineered BMW to an old bicycle with a puncture.

If this is true might want to be a bit more careful about putting this info out there. Could get Dave Hill in a spot of trouble.

Is it common for pro footballers to spend their sundays coaching random children? You think they'd be too busy for that. And for them to blab high profile club secrets to the dads of these boys that are so well kept otherwise not a single journo has a sniff? Seems a little farfetched to me, no offense mate.

It's like the ending of Calamity Jane.

Your definition of poacher is very very narrow. Basically just rebounds. Not every ever, any which require beating a man, a shot from outside the box, a shot with defenders in the way, a run in behind which beat an offisde trap, a shot when marked wouldn't count. Most goals really. Brojas other goal doesn't really count I guess as there is a defender in the way, albeit a poor one who didn't get nearly tight enough to get a meaningful block in. You don't find many where someone is given just the keeper to beat in the box on a plate, and I think people would call that a poachers goal. Either way, it is getting towards just semantics at this point.

Exactly the sort of signing we should be making, great age range and probably well priced. I imagine bigger fish will have an eye on him though.

Technically neither were pens, it was a rebound. I'm aware this is very pedantic!

No English, a couple of Scottish fellas have won it.

In fairness this bit was an analogy. Some older people pretend younger people don't know how books work because they don't get how computers work and they assume it works both ways. This is analogous to you thinking I don't watch games so can't perform the "eye test" as they call it, as you don't/can't use stats and assume it works both ways. You quite obviously can use a computer, you are on an internet forum.

Yeah exactly. As I said in the other thread, I think poacher is a bit contentious a phrase. Allow me to rephrase as "player who excels at getting in the right position and finishing but not necessarily at creating the chances for himself or others atleast in the premier league, he has shown himself to be more well rounded internationally albeit against weaker opposition". I think that's more fair.

Can a poacher not run half a pitch to get in the position to finish? Is a poacher rooted to the spot? I thought a fairly important part of a good poacher was getting in the right position? Also, if that isn't "fairly close range" what is? It was like 10 yards out at most?

There is data on the manager bounce available here: https://www.docdroid.net/8r5Csa2/ib-math-studies-internal-assesment-pdf Warning! This is proper hardcore stats, makes my end of season posts look like they were put together by Duckhunter! Careful those who click! (Although, as a piece of academic literature is proper crappily written, no offence to the fella) It seems there is a correlation between new managers and a change in form although this guy is using a pretty small sample size. There is also not any data on repeated sackings, for example I notice teams who cycle through managers experience a significantly smaller new manager bounce anecdotally. I could test this using this guys methods but even I have limits 😅 There are a lot of other articles from various sites saying it is a myth but I can't see their working so this dude is the one I trust for now, regardless of his crappy sample size and average chi-squared correlation

Thanks! I doubt he comes in before Friday though, luckily.

Where are you seeing this?