Smirking_Saint

The irony of those that shout this yet blindly following the lies and exaggeration of accounts looking to take advantage of the outube algorithm is not lost here

Saw his sons Mrs had sold a story to the Mail recently about effectively them both being swingers, but mainly that she is endorsed to.. playing their open relationship out so publicly can’t be reducing any stress he is clearly under

Tbh this, and the guy is very intelligent, he’s just been taken in and overwhelmed by the conspiracist crew He doesn’t need to withdraw from public life etc, he just and in fairness probably has, needs people around him to refute his nonsense unfortunately i think pre covid (exceptions granted) we lived in a time where life was comfortable and people don’t accept a change to that reality, they’d rather believe covid was a control mechanism then accept the reality that life isn’t as under control for the human race as we’ve come to believe

There is another thread on it elsewhere but its arguments like this that over simplified the situation, it wasn’t really a case of lockdown/cancel appointments vs not.. and the narrative around ‘we’ll live with the cost of lockdowns etc etc’ is flawed because you never really knew or imagined the total impact of the virus if left unchecked Correct it was highly survivable but the fact it is/was SO contagious and a high(ish) percentage of those affected required hospitalisation, so in essence IF we didn’t have lockdowns the potential long term damage due to an overwhelmed NHS would of potentially exceeded the long term damage done by lockdowns themselves We’ll be living with the fallout of Covid for years to come because it was a global pandemic

Yeah I agree, but as far as stats go its certainly one of the better ones to use as a guide. Stats like completed passes, interceptions and tackles per game are ‘ok’ but again then are only really relevant if you compare the tactics adopted and if, say you compare the pass stats from an RM system to a Warnock system etc then the comparison doesn’t fit But at the very least xG and xGA are pretty consistent in how they are modelled, I think the ‘tagger’ is more some AI algorithm rather then some spotty oink filling in a spreadsheet… still like any stats I think needs to be backed up by the ‘eye test’ but they’re a pretty fair assessment of teams attacking/defensive output *Ours are sat at an xG of 2.15 and actual goals are 2.. so we’re slightly underperforming that *Rather worryingly our xGA is 1.25 (which comparatively isn’t bad) but our acual is 2.40 which is shocking, so we’ve either been slightly unlucky, or we’re letting in goals we frankly shouldn’t * Both per 90 stats from footystats.com

Not really sure how xG isn’t relevant, as I explained and you ignored

Whoever it is I don’t think he’s had much of a coaching back ground

The only goal we’ve conceded by passing out at the back was Holgates fuck up, and there was plenty that should of happened to address that and it ended up with a 20-30 yard effort going in The rest is purely due to terrible team shape and largely not because we get caught on the ball, if we set up defensively the way we do now but playing Ralphs way or Koemans, or Poch… the result would be the same

I appreciate you don’t like stats, and I do understand the dislike for them, but they are important, which is why you see pretty much every high level sports team using data to a hugh degree, some more than others I also agree that you can’t base everything on stats alone, you have to look at the bigger picture xG is expected goals, its a relatively easy metric, but basically if you’re matching your xG then you’re doing well and taking chances, equally if you have a high xG its an indicator that you’re doing well from an attacking perspective, and we’ve been praised for that So… Im tackling the ‘we’re too pedestrian’ narrative here… if we’re at the top of the xG charts than attacking isn’t a problem, and as such moving the ball in a quicker and less controlled way isn’t going to improve this, it’ll probably wreck team structure even more than it is.. we need to get better at taking our chances of course, but I think getting Stewart or Adams on the pitch addresses it Our problem is defending… or more pertinently IMO being able to stop counters, now in my mind, atleast in theory and more slow and controlled possession game ‘should’ allow us to remain in a relatively solid structure, certainly more than a quicker counter type game style would… so again.. the issue for me isn’t the possession game, its the way we’re set up when we lose possession So really im trying to get to the crux of what people’s issue is and it seems to me that they just don’t like possession football but I think, given a chance it can be very effective.. again though, he needs to ensure we’re defensively sound on the turnover and Ill want to see improvements

So you’d rather a quicker possession game, leading to ultimately less possession and possibly less efforts on goal ? Considering we currently lead the xG table ?

And yet in recent history the most dominant sides have been coached by Pep Guardiola… an advocate of possession based football And currently, Brighton.. a team rightly lauded for punching well above their weight… play possession based football Burnley won this division playing.. you guessed it.. possession based football Ive not seen the figures this week yet but last week we had the best xG in the division, so from an attacking perspective we looked the best side in the Champ.. the issue isn’t about possession based football.. the issue is team structure

In fairness, the Sara (whatever his name was) and the Colback efforts.. even the Sunderland 3rd were all pretty special efforts and Im not really overly critical of what happened there, Im much more annoyed about the fact that we were all at sea for basically every other goal Sunderland scored Overall Im happy with what RM is building, its a system that will work I think, Im sick and tired of hearing we need to pass it with ‘pace’ and ‘urgency’… no.. we don’t, overall our ability on the ball and his possession tactics are fine The two glaring issues are based around how we react, or more pertinently, how we’re set up to react when we lose possession, we don’t press particularly well for a start, but more importantly we need to do two things; 1. Better organisation IN possession.. in the ball we’re incredibly fluid positionally.. thats fine, it creates plenty of options, but when the ball is turned over our structure is tragic, we simply need a bit more rigidity in atleast the CBs and No.6 to help curb counter attacks, we’re far too open in that regard 2. Players need to work harder in defence.. we’re lazy and it seems they just pass on responsibility to others… possession football isn’t hugely taxing when done right, so RM is right, when the ball is turned over they need to put the running in to get back behind the ball Again you can argue we defend our flanks really fucking badly… and I honestly don’t see that changing so we need to get better at defending crosses one way or another but ultimately actually marking players might help….

Ill bet you £50 he doesn’t

I agree with the lineup, I think it’s probably our strongest unless Sully fancies giving it a go any time soon Pace isn’t really an issue for me though, as we don’t really utilise it

1. A combination of things really, we don’t ‘counter attack’ to any real degree, so we need to be slow and methodic and attempt to pull the backline apart to create space, its why we’ll end up seeing so many touches in the final third but with no penetration. We need a mix of good distance shooters and technical dribblers, I assume thats why we were happy to release Tella and pushed for Roberts as the former isn’t a good dribbler 2. You just need more organisation really, players need to be drilled in that they have to track back immediately, we’re lazy at that. But equally you need your CBs and No.6 to be behind the ball if it breaks.. we weren’t on Saturday, both Downes and Smallbone were in and around the opposition 18 yrd box. Those three need to be good 1 v 1 defenders too, to slow down the attack, we probably aren’t really Lastly.. the wingbacks are, like you say supposed to aid in stopping an attack, the issue is when you invert them you give up the wings, and thats why we see SO much come down our flanks and it unfortunately exaggerates the fact that we’re piss poor at defending crosses

This is exactly it for me, I think its a good system in theory and is/will be conducive to a good season but so far what I have seen is a team that over commits too much People have talked about how he is trying to emulate pep, and to an extent he is, but Peps sides, although agreed are brimming with talent, tend to be a bit more patient and will have enough bodies behind the ball if and when turnovers occur Far too often the only men back for us are our CBs, and even then one of them eventually progresses with the ball… I think I said as early as the reading game that I was worried we over commit at times… and here we are He needs to add more resilience and fast

We’ll have a goal difference of -50

Pretty much… I was going to sit and do a bit of an analysis of our conceded goals today for my own sanity, really cause I’m sad enough to like the tactical side of things. But to be honest after today, I just absolutely cannot be bothered. I think my main takeaway from today, and I’d actually noticed in previous matches, but we got away with it, is that we play far too fluidly with the ball. Now that means from attacking point of view, and also a possession based point of view, that we have plenty of options all over the pitch. Unfortunately, though is that does mean that there is just absolutely no structure when we get turned over and we do get turned over too much. For instance, if Flynn was supposed to be our effective number six today, then far too often I see him popping up on the right wing or left wing and he just wasn’t in a position to stifle any transitions when it did break, now I’m not sure if that is a tactical thing or just the way he likes to play, but I didn’t see it so much from Charles in previous weeks. I think if we can get better from a structural point of view and slightly less fluid in our possession based play, then okay, we may see a little less of the ball, but ultimately we should be in a better position if and inevitably, when the opposition turns us over. To put it frankly, I really like Russell Martin, but unless he gets the team in a better defensive structure and more importantly, the players need to be aware of the defensive positions, we won’t be getting promoted

Money will always be the issue, we aren’t going to carry 3 keeper on 30k+ wages

Yeah probably, unfortunately however decided to sign McCarthy up (Semmens) on increased wages messed up any flexibility we had there Bazunu needed to be the backup really… but nobody wanted McCarthy who is somehow worse

I agree he isn’t good enough, and he doesn’t have competition which doesn’t help But I feel he does get overly slated at times, and that third goal IMHO wasn’t a ‘huge’ error

It wasn’t

Fair point 😂

At fault for the third but its not a horrendous error, the critique of that is just overly biased He’s been largely ok this season, if you’re going to blame him for that you have to look at the four (?) players around Ekwe (sp) that failed to cut or block the shot

Im not going to write the guy off but this was dreadful Im not going to lie I watched the training footage mid week where Sully had him on toast and did worry