TWar

It's not snobbery to say someone who is doing badly is doing badly. Moyes is now doing well, and that's great for West ham, but it isn't fair to retroactively criticise those who assessed him before he turned things around. They were working with the info they had.

Some stats I posted in the other thread regarding Broja, Redmond, Armstrong, and Adams: Broja is doing rather well on this front, he has both the best xG per 90 (0.51) and the best overperformance of xG per 90 (0.23). Armstrong and Adams have an xG of 0.34 and 0.2 respectively so combined their xG is about that of Broja. Armstrong is underperforming xG by 0.21 whereas Adams is performing basically bang on xG. One thing worth noting is Broja is not at all creative (with regards to assists), with an xA of 0.02 per 90. With Adams and Armstrong racking up 0.2 and 0.15 xA per 90 respectively. The upshot of this is Broja gets the most chances and is most clinical but doesn't really make chances. Armstrong and Adams are a lot better providers but less clinical and receive less chances. Redmond is more creative than both Armstrong and Adams (0.29 xA/90) but gets very few chances (0.17xG/90) and is finishing about as poorly as Armstrong (- 0.18 G-xG/90). My take away from this is Broja requires Redmond to play with him as he doesn't make enough so he needs a pure creator. The combination of Redmond + Broja is pretty level on most stats to Armstrong + Adams. Mixing and matching probably wouldn't work as Broja doesn't contribute creatively. This also answers those who wonder why Redmond starts so much.

Broja is doing rather well on this front, he has both the best xG per 90 (0.51) and the best overperformance of xG per 90 (0.23). Armstrong and Adams have an xG of 0.34 and 0.2 respectively so combined their xG is about that of Broja. Armstrong is underperforming xG by 0.21 whereas Adams is performing basically bang on xG. One thing worth noting is Broja is not at all creative (with regards to assists), with an xA of 0.02 per 90. With Adams and Armstrong racking up 0.2 and 0.15 xA per 90 respectively. The upshot of this is Broja gets the most chances and is most clinical but doesn't really make chances. Armstrong and Adams are a lot better providers but less clinical and receive less chances. Redmond is more creative than both Armstrong and Adams (0.29 xA/90) but gets very few chances (0.17xG/90) and is finishing about as poorly as Armstrong (- 0.18 G-xG/90). My take away from this is Broja requires Redmond to play with him as he doesn't make enough so he needs a pure creator. The combination of Redmond + Broja is pretty level on most stats to Armstrong + Adams. Mixing and matching probably wouldn't work as Broja doesn't contribute creatively.

Sign young, recruit well, sell well, repeat. Certainly seeing us line up with Salisu and Livramento is a world better than Vestergaard and Bertrand (I know different side, but KWP has moved across)

Great shout this, or move Djenepo over. Two fast dribbling players in Livra and Djenepo against Targett, they will have a field day.

No, but we have him this season and we'll make good money off him so positive really. And the guys spending the money also brought in Salisu, as well as other quality signings like Tino, KWP, Diallo, Adams, Armstrong, Broja, et al. so I'm confident we'll spend it well.

Looks like we may be losing our true manager to Newcastle. A real "one that got away" situation. We'll have to make do with Ralph, a man who wasn't relegated with Bournemouth

Apparently a very lazy squad too, won't work hard in training, never takes responsibility. If they do get Conte it will be one hell of a clash as he is famously very strict and demanding.

I suspect he will have the latter. CL isn't as hard to achieve this season, united look dreadful. West Ham and/or Arsenal could be their biggest competition for it if Ole stays. If they spend big money in Jan and get Kane firing again it could be doable.

IIRC Spurs said he couldn't hire as many staff as he wanted and wouldn't release transfer funds so he walked away. Looks like Levy tried to cheap out and get Nuno whilst not selling Kane hoping he would carry them and his value would hold up another year. Nuno is miles out of his depth and Kane, of course, is fuming (arguably even moreso with playing under a mediocre manager) and playing like wank accordingly. Sounds like Levy realised what a mistake he made and called Conte pleading and offering whatever he wanted, like he should have done in the first place.

I did you one better, have a colour coordinated table!

I respectfully disagree with this. The data as I see it for last season is: For this I have highlighted the best as green, the second best as orange, and third as red. The aggregations are conducted by assigning 3 points to a win, 2 to second, and 1 to third and adding up total scores. I encourage you to take the aggregates with a MASSIVE grain of salt as not all metrics are equally valuable and the picking of the metrics massively sways the aggregate. For example, if I had chosen to include tackle % as well as actual tackles and not included touches in the final third then Romeu would be higher in the "overall" than JWP. Eitherway, I think it is clear JWP is most valuable going forward with a slight weakness with dribbling, Romeu is second but not a close second and Diallo is third. Defensively Romeu is an absolute tank, bossing most metrics. JWP has some respectable 2nds and some more distant ones, and Diallo is third. The table doesn't make great reading for Diallo but this was his first season and I expect him to improve. JWP is most valuable with the ball and Romeu is most valuable against it. Data obtained primarily through OPTA stats with a fantasy football scout subscription. Pressures, prog. passes and passes leading to shots were obtained from FBRef as fantasy football scout doesn't carry this info. Other data sites are available and may vary!

Newcastle will be fine imo. They will spend stupid money in Jan and it should be enough to get above Burnley, Watford, Norwich, and one or two of Palace/Villa/Leeds/Brentford/Us. I think it is one of the more predictable seasons though imo, Burnley, Watford and Norwich are way behind their competitors (aside from newcastle) and Newcastle are about to spend enough money to buy basically each of their respective whole starting 11s. Also Newcastle may get Tark which would really hurt Burnley.

Or honestly most managers outside Watford.

Feels unfair on Smith. That team was wank without Grealish last season and the season before they were almost relegated. Now they sell their best player by a mile, have a positive net spend, and expect him to push on? Seems unrealistic to me. I think Grealish made a lot of players look better than they are in attack and Martinez having a freak season statswise made them look better defensively. They are no better than us imo.

This is unfortunately legally true, but silly imo from an ethical perspective when it comes to making up news but that's the way it is.

I go to a good number of our matches, and it is generally pretty highly agreed JWP is quality among pundets, analysts and our manager

Our best player, captain, one of the best players outside the top-6, incredible injury record, still 26, and English. The bidding starts way above £50m for me, the guy is amazing.

Probably our best player (alongside Tino) this season, absolutely brilliant footballer. Will be gone in a season or two so make the most of him!

That and quantity. For some reason Echo/HampshireLive have a mad publishing schedule where they try to put out multiple stories a day at times, or atleast a few a week. Even if Ralph himself was writing for these papers and he knew literally everything that was going on there is no way you'd have enough content for that schedule unless you resorted to reporting what Romeu had for dinner or what Smallbones favourite colour is or whatever. They need to fill pages, and one thing there will always be an infinite supply of is baseless rumours from nothing sources who are just trying to get clicks. It's juicy, it's abundant, and when it inevitably is shown to be fully untrue it doesn't effect the echo in the slightest as they reported it as "just a rumour". Would be nice if they put out one good article a week but I guess in the internet age that just isn't a profitable model. Especially a shame as they both have good journos in Blackmore/Leach who break big news and have good analysis but it is diluted with nonsense reposted from absolute wind up merchants like Football Insider.

No Broja I think our choice becomes clear for our best front 4. For me it is Elyounoussi, Armstrong x 2, Adams. Redmond is Stu is not fit.

Getting started a little early ay lad? 😂

I mean, I guess, not speaking legally on the balance of probability it is probably made up. The guy posted so many stories, basically daily, and I have literally never seen one actually be accurate. Either he has the worst sources in the world or he is making them up whole cloth in my opinion (the "in my opinion" stops it being libel! What a work-around!)

Traditionally speaking, the burden of proof is on the Journalist to prove they haven't made the story up rather than the consumer to prove they have. As a consumer, you are perfectly within your rights to suspect a story (or multiple) are made up. It doesn't qualify as libel unless Versey can: A) Prove that it was infact not made up B) Versey can prove MLG caused material harm to him, ie meaningful sales were lost due to MLGs comment I suspect this doesn't pass those two thresholds and most would just consider it criticism of a product by a consumer. EDIT! Don't listen to me, discussed this with legally trained partner. It could, in fact, be libel. The law is silly. There is now precedent for suing people for tweets accusing journos of not knowing what they are on about. I assume it's the same for football forum posts! Morally speaking though, I think MLG has every right to call someone out for making things up if they can't prove credibility but when was the last time the law operated along moral lines?!

You'll want to be careful bringing facts into this conversation. Riles up those who don't think he's manly enough.