verlaine1979

Watching those few highlights, it's noticeable that in most cases he start sprinting into space immediately after playing the pass. We've needed more movement in the final third for ages, so hopefully he can bring that to the team and encourage more early return passes from the rest of them.

Lovely finish from Beto today. Can't see it happening though. Mudryk is expensive but a fantastic talent. Hope Chelsea don't ruin him.

We looked solid for the most part and played some decent stuff through the middle again (having 3 in midfield has made such a difference). But I hope we replace Adams in the starting line up soon, not least for the fact that it would hopefully remove some of the temptation to just launch it at him. He did well with the assist for the first goal, but Everton backline were running back towards their goal, and the header wasn't contested. When he was up against their CBs he got very little out of them aside from a few that skimmed off his head straight into the air. He does some good things when he comes deep, but I think our attack would be transformed if we had a focal point with more mobility and anticipation (and the ability to finish, obvs). Alcaraz looked nervy and I was surprised he came on, but I guess the Lavia yellow was a concern. Likewise, I'd be surprised if Armstrong has anything over Orsic in terms of pace or workrate, so hopefully we'll start seeing him as an option on the left soon if he isn't starting. If we do secure a starting striker and our other additions become established in the first XI, we could be a totally different proposition without weak links like Adams, Elyounoussi and Diallo in the lineup.

I'd go with similar to what worked against City, but with Orsic instead of Armstrong (assuming he's ready). I just really, really hope he doesn't put Che in. Everton defenders will have him in their pocket, just like every other physical CB pairing he's come up against. Need pace against movement against their backline.

Stats like xG are useful for weighing up the strengths of potential new players and future opponents. But I suspect for most fans, they aren't that revealing for analysing your own team, especially not compared to the accumulated evidence of watching games. Adams and Kane being excellent cases in point - the gulf in their xG>Goals performance isn't going to shock anyone who has regularly watched either player over multiple seasons. But for scouting purposes I'm all for it. Especially if it helps us keep away from dire finishers like Adams and Armstrong in future.

Surprised Mara's goal had such low xg. Once he made space, he had a free strike from about ten yards at a ball already traveling with pace. It seems to me that the other major weakness of xg is that it doesn't account for things like Adams being offside or on his heels in the six yard box, when any competent striker would be alive and alert to the defensive line. Very difficult to watch that game and conclude that statistically we deserved less than one goal.

Hope he doesn't do the conservative thing and bring back Adams. When he came on the difference in energy, pressing and movement was absolutely stark. He's just not a good enough target man to make up for the way he trundles around at 5mph. And as others have said, no way he sees or makes Mara's run behind Walker yesterday, let alone finishes in that sliver between the keeper's glove and post.

Aside from his finishing, Che's movement and anticipation are rubbish. He works hard to hold the ball up, but he's generally got no idea where he should be or where to run ahead of the ball.

Lol

I'm taking the fact that he still looks cheerful after a transcontinental flight is a good sign about his character in general. I'd be scowling like a c*nt.

The cautionary tale of looking at goal return from young players is Rafa Silva. When we were linked with him back in 2015 he was 22 and had 12 goals and 2 assists in about 50 starts for Braga. Modest stats and most (myself included) weren't bothered when we didn't get him. That said, I don't see the same level of technique and control in either Jackson or Doku (though the latter's pace is incredible).

Seems a bit reminiscent of Oscar who used to play for Chelsea?

I assumed since Udinese only bought Beto this summer that there's no chance they'd sell him. But according to Wikipedia it was an obligation to buy after his loan year, so possibly less of an about-face if they do cash in.

Hopefully Alcaraz is the creativity and drive through central midfield that we've badly needed since... a depressingly long time ago. It's a gamble, but we can't afford south american talent that's already proven in Europe, so if we want those gems we have to find them ourselves. Sign a striker, and suddenly the team looks well balanced for 4-2-3-1

I guess that makes sense, though I wonder if there are any metrics in football beyond an attacker's chance conversion that correlate as closely with the outcome of a game/xG as each individual players metrics do cumulatively in baseball.

It's the fact that each incident of throwing, hitting or catching is much more closely correlated to the outcome of the game. Football has a lot more potential datapoints as it is a vastly more random and unstructured game, but not many of them are as directly related to the outcome as whether you can reliably connect bat and ball, whether you can steal a base effectively, or your fielding accuracy. Baseball was always much more data-driven than football, going back decades - the innovation of Moneyball was that Beane and co. realised that a bunch of previously under-appreciated or under-calculated metrics were more predictive of game outcomes than the ones everyone else was using at the time.

Eh, the near-unanimous dislike is what I find interesting. When thousands of people highly motivated to pay close attention to you immediately decide you're a twat, chances are you're a twat.

The universal dislike of Jones is quite something. He's just so unmistakably small time. I wonder if the reason Ankerson didn't pick up on it is cultural. All the Jones signifiers - the clothes, the thin-lipped smirk, the shouting and pouting - they're all distinctly British. The stench of loserdom just radiates from him, but maybe Rasmus couldn't smell it.

Just goes to show, you can't take anything for granted in this game. I had "mincing", "sons in law" and "in the mixer" on my Lord Duckhunter bingo card. Felt sure of victory, ended up with nothing.

Could be, but I'd be astonished if this was a data-driven decision. Are there enough top-level clubs playing 5 at the back to give you confidence in any statistics about the success of that formation vs. a more traditional back four? With all the other noise inherent in a non-structured sport like football, it seems unlikely. Maybe just based on the fact that they think we have a higher degree of quality in our CB recruitment than in any other area of the pitch? That said, since it sounds like we went for Jones based on his points/budget ratio (a completely inappropriate metric for comparing performance between levels of the game where financial power is highly stratified) maybe this lot really don't know what they're doing. After all, the person who did all the actual analysis in Moneyball was a Harvard-educated economist.

Just staggering. Playing long ball football to a 5'9 target man. Jones is every bit as thick as he looks.

This is dire. We've got absolutely no control of the ball at all. Hit and hope from the back every single time.

Suspect Jones' thinking on this is as simple as "surely you always pick the Brazilian player". I can't think of a more plausible explanation.

I think you have us mixed up with Brentford. We're led by people who made their money in cable/telecoms (Solak), investing (Kraft) and as far as Ankerson goes, he's actually spent most of his career in football. There's also a common misconception about "moneyball", insofar as the process described in the book can't really be applied to football as the game is too unstructured for the kind of statistical analysis used in baseball. As for whether data is useful in identifying players for the scouts to take a closer look at - well of course it is. There's a lot the stats can't tell you, but in many cases, they tell you everything you need to know. For example, comparing Danny Ings and Che Adams chance conversion data would immediately show you that one of those players is an unusually effective finisher, and one of them is unusually terrible.

I guess we'll never know, but lifting top players from Benfica and PSV always seemed like we were kidding ourselves. When was the last time we signed a starter from a first-rank European club? Udinese, Zagreb and wherever that Argentinian kid plays are all more our speed.