shurlock

Kettlebell workouts included?

Agree.

Is he a striker, though? Alot of assumptions and perhaps wishful thinking here. Just because the mongboard has stomped its feet and decreed we need a striker doesnt mean RK thinks we need one. Perhaps RK feels we need some more creativity, a 'proper no.10'. Certainly, reading up about this fella, he doesn't strike me as an out-an-out striker; by the same token, goals may not necessarily the best way to judge him.

Must be watching different vids. Either way, interested to see what he offers (if the deal happens)

Doesn't sound anything like Long. More of a languid, creative type, a playmaker who can pop up with the odd goal. Surely someone's seen him get sent off or score an OG in one of their odysseys around Europe?

You'll be saying that about Star Wars Battlefront next...

You make Xmas decorations?

Yep, odd substitution.

They're completely different from Pelle who complements our willingness to be direct. Whenever we've gone with a pacier option up top, we've struggled and not played to their strengths (Long's appearances as a lone striker being an example).

Finally gave up on CoD after Ghosts (the various Black Ops releases weren't too bad for a franchise that's been squeezing blood from a stone for years). Waiting for Battlefield Hardline - beta launching next week it seems.

As a piece of art, it's brilliantly done but the actual history is infuriating, bordering on misleading. Steve Coll's very readable and meticulously even-handed trilogy (the Bin Ladens, Ghost Wars and Exxon Mobil) does a much better job in this regard.

Yep, seems more like competition for JWP, Davis (and even Tadic). Also allows RK to shuffle things - for instance, play JWP in a deeper role (as he did in the second half on Saturday).

Surprised MLG hasn't tweeted Longy yet, demanding that he covers up.

Was my understanding too.

A bit different: Lallana probably meant what he said, partly because he couldn't have dreamed of a big move 20 months ago whereas Delph has been playing consistently well.

Oddball

Watching RK's interview, pretty surprised how open he was in his criticism of Gardos. Don't often see that from managers.

Baseball is arguably different from football, though. Football is more dynamic (yet there are fewer goals scored etc), making it difficult to isolate variables and come close to a controlled experiment. By contrast, at-base situations are fairly limited - if there is one aspect of football that has the nice cosy and tractable simplicity of baseball, it's probably corners and setpieces, though it is a small part of the game. The article discusses some interesting, very nascent approaches (network theory) which might be more at home with the complexity of football: let see if they can uncover things that tika taka and its understanding of possession and pressing, which is pretty sophisticated, cannot.

Come on, Football Manager has more in common with FIFA 15 than not.

Never said it was to be divided up equally; only saying that when others have made similar arguments in Yoshida's case, you've been pretty scathing of the idea of collective effort or responsibility.

In your defense of Forster, you point to our defensive record which is a collective effort; yet in the past have been almost at pains to suggest that it was inspite of Yoshida, not partly because of him. It's either a collective effort or not.

Changed your tune since you were knocking Yoshida - now everyone deserves credit for our defensive record.

Not every assist is created equal - some owe more to the finish or the way the team sets up than the quality of the assist. JWP's assist for Mané's goal doesnt stand out whereas Tadic's backheel for Clyne against Liverpool does.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/mar/09/premier-league-football-clubs-computer-analysts-managers-data-winning Whenever anyone talks about stats, including our own salt-of-the-earth Les Reed, am pretty it's just glorified benchmarking. Of course, there maybe good reasons for this as I don't think the use of advanced stats -say for predictive purposes- would generate much insight above what managers have intuitively understood since time immemorial.

No it isnt. In other sports, there are examples of players playing through punctured lungs.