coalman

We've missed KWP so much

Brooks on the bench because he wasn't well, ok. Not sure about Sulemana preferred to Fraser and Edozie though.

Over the last few seasons we've been terrible so if you were to look at any point of the season then it's likely we were going to be pretty terrible.

It's entirely possible for the Government to be corrupt liars and Matt le Tissier to be guilty of repeating comprehensively debunked conspiracy theories to both be true.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences for what you say.

Matt le Tissier isn't stupid. He says a lot of stupid things in a stupid way. And for whatever reason he's gone down the social media rabbit hole and come back with these views. I'd lean more towards it being the influence of social media than anything else. I thought the biggest tragedy of his career would be not getting picked for France 98 after putting 3 past Russia in the B international. Seeing this is something else 😞

Finances in football are just nuts. When the Glazers bought Man Utd they simply shifted to cost as debt to the club and have done that every year with dividends. They're over a billion in debt. Abramovich wrote of something like £1.5 billion in debt to Chelsea when he sold. The whole thing seems to be based upon the premise that they'll be able to pay it off later as TV revenues spiral upwards. And that's before the "fair play" rules to prevent anyone but the top clubs spending money. Never mind the points deduction. If you breach it should be down to League Two with you. No questions asked.

That's not how xG is calculated. It's a human subjective measure of the quality of opportunity which differs between every stats outlet based upon the people calculating it and likely to be inconsistent over time. AI has nothing to do with it. Also, there's no such thing as a "crazy AI algorithm". AI is a set of methods for training a model towards a desirable set of outputs from a (hopefully) useful data set. You can get a crazy model but a model is not an algorithm. At its best case, xG is a potentially interesting measure subject to a high degree of human interpretation. As a signal for any kind of AI model it's little better than noise.

The thing that bothers me is that we've dropped to the Championship and he's not absolutely terrifying considering his attributes. Last season I couldn't believe we barely played him after signing him. This season I've yet to see him show up and be the difference. What I have seen is him flatter to deceive and make some really poor decisions. If we didn't have Brooks, Edozie and Fraser playing well I'd say give him a run. But right now, Adam Armstrong is preferred in one of our wide roles, Brooks is our most creative player and Edozie is fulfilling his potential. If Fraser wasn't injured I wouldn't even have him on the bench. And that's before even talking about Sam Ame-Ameyaw who is a serious prospect.

He's solidly 4th out of our wingers in terms of end product. Ryan Fraser 1238 mins 6 goals 2 assists Sam Edozie 1204 mins 6 goals 3 assists Kalmadeen Sulemana 824 mins 0 goals 3 assists David Brooks 385 mins 2 goals 3 assists Brooks is out front though has played less so his numbers might be skewed however is creating more for others (2 key passes per game which puts him out in front). Almost nothing between Edozie and Fraser. Then back in the distance is Sulemana. Due to his pace and close control he may become the next Mane but right now we have more effective options.

Strangely I'm ok with that

The lad can shoot. And gets his second. Bring me my humble pie

But but but Manning 😭

Rothwell is not the answer here unless the question is - how can we make our midfield less effective.

Well, piss

Time for Mara and Edozie for Armstrong and Adams

There's Sulemana's end product

Bednarek is really throwing himself into tackles here

Get in

Last man and in on goal. Why not red?

I'm sure he could use the shift key if he wanted to.

I see Martin is saying "bet you can't attack down your right wing" again to the opposition. At least we get Manning's assists and creativity up front.

I'm sure they'd let us play the game at Fratton Park if our stadium is toxic.

I think there's a player there with Charles too. We were spoiled with how good Lavia was so quickly. This time last year Edozie was written off but he's really blossomed. Charles is still a kid who'll get better. And I think a midfield of Charles and Downes in would give Smallbone a real platform and also leave us a lot less open.

There are some real positives in there as a player. He takes up great positions to receive the ball and is tidy in possession. Rarely misplaces a pass. Makes space for other players in the attacking third. Can receive the ball and move it quickly which is a prerequisite for Martin's system. In contrast Rothwell feels like a liability when he's receiving the ball in his own half. There are times where it feels like he's not as committed to the out of possession work as, say, Downes. So when we don't have a natural defensive midfielder it can feel like he's not involved. That's something he can add to his game though. There were times on Saturday where some of his tracking back felt a bit half hearted. But then there were also a couple of really committed challenges in there too. I'm hoping this is something that comes with more consistent game time because he'll be some player if he can really take the game by the scruff of the neck. Whatever your feelings on a player, no one deserves that degree of abuse. The Internet really does bring out the worst in humans.