SaintPete
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Posts
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Joined
Posts posted by SaintPete
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I've not been on Saints Web for a fair while, so apologies in advance if this has been covered many times before. I wanted to say something before (what seems like) the inevitable happens ...
I've not been following the transfer speculation up until now, but I see today that Liverpool are odds on favourites to sign VVD. Can we as fans have a say in stopping this from happening? I understand that we might struggle to keep hold of a player of VVD's quality but it would be an absolute farce that we would sell yet another player to Liverpool and our best player to them two years in a row.
I can't recall any club ever selling as many players to the same side (and in the same division to boot). This constant selling of our players to Liverpool is turning us from a well respected team into a laughing stock and it is miserable to see as a fan. In my humble opinion, if the board even countenance selling VVD to Liverpool it shows a complete contempt for the fans.
Last season we finished above Liverpool and yet couldn't wait to sell them our best player, hastily in a cut price deal while we didn't have a manager to complain. Why strengthen your rivals (at the time) while weakening yourselves? Even this season Liverpool have looked decidedly average without (their player of the season) Mane.
What's the point in supporting a team if you're just acting as a feeder team for another club in the same division? A club who openly mocked us for selling them some players a few seasons ago.
Enough is enough, I say we vote with our feet and threaten a walk out if VVD ends up at Liverpool this or any season.
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If referees hadn't made "mistakes" we'd have finished 3rd :-)
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So had the second penalty appeal (against Allen) been given, would it have been a red card (assuming a fair referee)?
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Now this really is a must win game, even a draw is no good. Their defence is awful, play like we did today and we will create enough opportunities to score a couple. If we lose, that really is it as far as the top 4 is concerned
Yep, there'd be no chance of the top four if we find ourselves three points off fourth with 14 games to go
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Did anyone on here bet on; Saints to finish Top Four ..at 80-1 , at the beginning of August (after the Fab Five) had jumped ship and were were amongst the favourites to be relegated.?
I tried to put £30 on at 100/1 when I saw how easily we were beating Newcastle in the third game of the season. It wouldn't let me while the game was in-play. After that game the odds dropped to 50-1. I decided I'd wait for the odds to lengthen a bit again before placing the bet, but they just kept dropping and dropping!
Missed the boat -
I'd take that now without too much feeling of loss.
Don't really understand this mentality. I'll be gutted if we don't make the Champions League. We've shown we're good enough over 22 games, why not over 38? Will we ever have a better chance?
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Bony-less Swansea will still be difficult, but their form is pretty dodgy at the moment. 1-1 or 1-0 Saints.
QPR half decent at home and scrapping for their lives... Though we should start to get our injured players back by then. 1-1 or 2-1 Saints.
West Ham a dangerous side now they've hit their stride. Good attacking options so we'll have to keep it tight. 1-1 or 2-1 Saints.
Liverpool also hitting some form now and now blobfish face has figured out Coutinho is their key player. Sturridge could be back by then too. That said, this game is sandwiched between their Europa league games. Would be great to smash these tests though. Don't see a draw, it'll be decided by a goal either way. 2-1 Saints or 0-1 Liverpool.
West Brom... Will be a lot tougher now Pulis is in charge. Will be tight and I suspect they'll test Forsters weaknesses. 1-1 or 2-1 Saints.
We should be far too good Palace and if they're midtable by then, then perhaps we might roll the over comfortably. 2-0 Saints.
Having said that, we could still conceivably post 6 losses such is the different permutations, flash points and randomness of this year's Prem.
So somewhere between 7 and 18 points then ... or maybe even 0
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West Ham looking very strong. Some nice finishing and they won't be a push over when we play them at home in a few weeks.
Now as Saints fans do we be sensible and go for a City win in the knowledge that this will keep Arsenal at bay and City are still very likely to finish above us, or do we hope for an Arsenal upset which pegs City back so we are only 5 points adrift of them.
Better for City to win this one and then drop points against the likes of Burnley!
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There is no evidence to show that luck evens out over time.
Agree with everything else you say and a football season is too short to allow for luck to properly even itself out but luck does even itself out over time. If you toss a fair coin a million times then there's a 67% chance you'll get between 499,500 and 500,500 heads.
Also, while tossing a coin an 11th time after it being heads 10 times is indeed 50:50, getting 10 heads in a row in the first place is only a 0.098% chance. Even getting 1 head and 9 tails is only a 1% chance and 2 heads and 8 tails a 4% chance.
I'm fun at parties
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It seems to have cut out my 'tabs' that made that table more readable
The numbers after the W, L, D are the current positions of the teams played in those games, the second last number is the average (current) position of the opposition, the last number is the average current position of the opposition played in 2015 (relevant as it shows which teams have had tougher second round fixtures)
As a summary:
Saints' opposition's average current league position over the last six games is 7.8
Liverpool's is 13.7
Man City's is 15.5
Chelsea's is 7.7
Arsenal's is 9.7
Spurs' is 11.7
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Saints are top of the form table in the last six games (which is an amazing achievement in itself). What's even more impressive is that we're top of the form table having played some really tough fixtures. I was wondering whether our fixtures were the worst of anyone's in the last six games so geekly spent the last half hour looking into the current position of the teams that each team had played and using those to work out an average league position of the six teams played.
Using this criteria, it turns out we had the second most difficult set of fixtures over the winter period but still came out on top. Chelsea had the toughest fixtures by a small margin. Liverpool are just behind us in the form table but they had the second easiest Christmas fixtures in the whole division.
We've had a fair share of injuries but still been winning games against tough opposition. Awesome stuff Saints!
POS CLUB RANK LAST 6 MATCHES PTS CURR LEAG POS OF OP AVG AVG 2015
1 Southampton W W D W W W 16 13, 12, 1, 6, 4, 11 7.8 7.0
2 Liverpool D W W D W W 14 6, 17, 9, 20, 16, 14 13.7 15.0
3 Man City W W W D W D 14 20, 12, 15, 17, 16, 13 15.5 15.3
4 Chelsea W W D L W W 13 10, 8, 3, 5, 11, 9 7.7 8.3
5 Arsenal W D W W L W 13 11, 7, 19, 8, 3, 10 9.7 6.5
6 Spurs W W D W L W 13 17, 20, 4, 1, 12, 16 11.7 9.7
7 Stoke L W W D L W 10 1, 13, 15, 4, 6, 20 9.8 10.0
8 Man Utd D W D D L W 9 14, 11, 5, 10, 3, 19 10.3 10.7
9 Crystal Palace L L D D W W 8 2, 3, 19, 14, 5, 17 10.0 12.0
10 Swansea W W L D D L 8 18, 14, 7, 19, 8, 1 11.2 9.3
11 West Brom W L L L D W 7 14, 19, 2, 10, 8, 18 11.8 13.0
12 Leicester L L W D W L 7 8, 5, 18, 7, 14, 10 10.3 10.3
13 West Ham D W L L D D 6 16, 20, 1, 6, 8, 9 10.0 8.5
14 Hull L L W L W L 6 1, 9, 16, 20, 13, 15 12.3 14.0
15 Burnley L L D D W L 5 5, 7, 2, 11, 19, 12 9.3 14.0
16 QPR W L D D L L 5 15, 6, 12, 9, 17, 4 10.5 10.0
17 Everton W L L L L D 4 19, 3, 10, 11, 18, 2 10.5 10.0
18 Newcastle L L W D L L 4 16, 4, 13, 17, 1, 3 9.0 7.0
19 Sunderland W L D L L L 4 11, 18, 14, 2, 7, 5 9.5 4.7
20 Aston Villa D L D D L L 3 4, 9, 16, 12, 20, 7 11.3 13.0
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As others have pointed out we're doing pretty well without him scoring. We've got 19 points from the last 7 games and 3 of those games have been against top 4 contenders where goals are going to be at a premium. He's been a key component. The partnership with Mane was just starting to take shape before the AFCON. Obviously it's a worry if he gets injured, but if not he's doing just fine.
Just realised it's 16 points from our last 6 games (or 16 from our last 7 games), not 19 from 7, but the main point stands!
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Can't see one, so here goes.
Wouldn't expect much change from the Newcastle team. Maybe Long for Tadic, just possibly bringing in Targett in a 3 5 2?
Even if any of the invalids recover, can't see them being risked.
Won't be an easy game.
I don't get to every game but I've got a pact with a Palace supporting friend that we'll go to all the Saints Palace matches (started when we were both in the Championship). Since then the league results have been H 2-0, A 2-0, H 2-0, A 1-0, A 3-1. They haven't beaten us in the league for years and their only goal against us in the last five games was when we were 3-0 up already. Every game has been pretty comfortable for us. Think we're a bit of a bogey team for them.
Admittedly we did lose in the league cup during that time but it was pretty much a reserve team game when we were both in the Championship. We've got a much stronger squad now. Can see them resting players too.
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No goal in last 7 games an only 2 in last 15.
Time to start getting worried?
Our only other recognized striker, Long, has 1 in his last 13.
Signing a striker is crucial in the next few weeks.
As others have pointed out we're doing pretty well without him scoring. We've got 19 points from the last 7 games and 3 of those games have been against top 4 contenders where goals are going to be at a premium. He's been a key component. The partnership with Mane was just starting to take shape before the AFCON. Obviously it's a worry if he gets injured, but if not he's doing just fine.
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Looking back over those games of the 16 goals we've conceded 4 have been the worst kind of defensive howlers or horrific bad luck (Newcastle away, Man U home, Aston Villa away, Burnley away).
I can only think of Hull, Chelsea and Arsenal that conceded defensive howlers to us (although they were more a combination of our good play and their mistakes rather than being laid on a plate).
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Remarkable to think that had Everton beaten us just before Xmas (likely many of us predicted) they would have been within 2 points of us, yet less than a month later there is a 20 (yes 20!) point gap between the teams.
That is remarkable! It shows how quickly it can change
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Don't forget the huge luck element in football.
I've done a scientific(!) and (attempting to be objective) study into our "luck" in games so far this season and have concluded that we're two points worse off than we "should be". Therefore if we continue with the same luck we've had so far we would end up on 72 points. If the luck "evens itself out" over the course of the season we'd end up on 76 points. Keep it up Saints!
Calculations:
Chelsea -1 (even though they only had one shot on target we had our backs to the wall for the whole second half)
Man City 0
Man Utd 1 (should have won at home, great away performance but can see how it could have ended a draw)
Spurs 0 (Mane should have equalised but think they just about edged it)
Arsenal 0 (we had terrible luck with injuries but think they deserved the win on the balance of play despite the way they won it in the end)
Liverpool 1 (thought we edged it, but they were clinical, we definitely created enough chances to draw)
West Ham 0 (maybe we were lucky to play them with some of their star performers out but it was comprehensive)
Swansea -2 (Bony getting sent off changed the game entirely - they were on top beforehand)
Stoke 0 (fairly comfortable)
Newcastle -2 (think they deserved a draw yesterday despite us creating the better chances and the fact the penalty incident was irrelevant because of the handball two seconds earlier)
Crystal Palace 0 (fairly straightforward win other than a bit of pressure after we scored our first)
Everton 0 (comprehensive)
Aston Villa 2 (have they even scored since we gifted them that goal?!)
West Brom 0 (dour 0-0)
Sunderland 0 (
)Burnley 3 (had Tadic scored that penalty pretty sure we'd have won with relative ease - their goal resulted from a freak set of circumstances)
Hull 0 (they never looked like getting back into it after Wanyama scored from the half-way line (poetic license
))QPR 0 (perhaps we were lucky to score a wonder goal minutes after they equalised but we were on top)
Leicester 0 (relatively straightforward even though it took a while for the goals to come)
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also, liverpool have had a good run of games and have been picking up points in the last month or so
that changes soon when they play Everton (a), Spurs (h), Saints (a) and City (h) in february
that is with the Europa league games in between
will see if they have turned a corner or not
I noticed that they're second in the form table for the last six games (guess who's top
). However, the average league position of the teams they've played in those six games was 14th. For us it was 7th! -
By my rough reckoning there's 38 points to be had at worst. No idea if that will be enough though.
So 12 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses? If that's a worst case scenario I'll take it right now! That'd be 80 points - champions league by a mile and would have been enough to win the league in 2010/11!
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Ah, it wasn't just me thinking I saw that then...
Me too! It was almost identical and happened about three seconds before. Ridiculous that it didn't get picked up by anyone on MOTD
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Looking at that list of fixtures we've already won our hardest home game and our third and forth hardest away games for the second half of the season. On that basis we should be looking at a minimum of 14 wins and 2 losses, 84 points
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...Nobody believed it was possible.... I did, so I put a tenner on us at 50-1. Will pay for the trip to Barcelona anyway
I believed when watching us during the 4-0 win against Newcastle (third game). Tried to put £30 on at 100-1 but it wouldn't let me bet 'in-game'. After the game the odds went down to 50-1. I thought I'd wait for us to lose a game for the odds to go back up, but they just kept plummetting
. Now my £30 would win me about £50 rather than £1,500 - £3,000.I put a £25 bet on us making the Champions League at the start of last season at 125-1. Didn't work out too well but we must have underachieved last season ...
Had a minor success on Sunday though. £23.50 bet on us to win at 7/2 paid for my ticket and trip to Old Trafford to see us win in their own back yard!
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Unfortunately you mentioned the word "statistics". Any second now someone will be along to tell you this is meaningless...
Hopefully most people can get the idea that the closer you are to the goal when you shoot, the greater chance you have of scoring
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http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com/2014/2/12/5404348/english-premier-league-shot-statistics
Some interesting stats here. Only Man City have had more shots in the danger zone (the danger zone is classed as in the area between the goalposts) and only Chelsea have conceded less shots in the danger zone so far this season. Maybe we're unlucky to only be in fourth?
These stats seem to suggest Man U and Tottenham are over-achieving at present and Saints and Arsenal under-achieving! There's better to come!
Summary:
Shots in danger zone
139 Man City
129 Saints
127 Chelsea
122 Arsenal
118 West Ham
104 Liverpool, Man U, QPR
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87 Tottenham
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59 Crystal Palace (lowest)
Shots conceded in danger zone
63 Chelsea
65 Saints
76 Liverpool
79 Man City
83 Arsenal
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96 Man U
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98 West Ham
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102 Tottenham
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128 QPR (highest)
Missed the boat 
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Don't sell VVD to Liverpool
in The Saints
Posted
I understand all of this, however we do have a choice in not selling him to Liverpool. I would be very surprised if much bigger clubs than Liverpool aren't interested in VVD and also be surprised if Liverpool are the height of VVD's ambitions anyway. Don't sell to Liverpool!