Luton Town 2 Chelsea 3

[east lower]

44 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

But no I will never forget.  Quite staggered at how many have though.

I’ve not forgotten or forgotten who was ultimately responsible for the systematic violence handed out. I’ve also not forgotten his post match interview either.

[chara]

@Sabrina F....Your excellent posts felt like they were from someone familiar with the "rhythms" of OUR Forum!

Welcome back ..I'm sure you are aware of the amazing work done by many to get the Forum back up...a real grass roots success story!

[kev61]

9 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

Instead of slagging off  our team wouldn't it be better to give some credit to the Luton players for coming back into the game?  It would have been easy for them to have completely crumbled and gone on to lose by 5 or 6, instead they fought like a pack of mad Tigers. They were a credit to themselves and their club, so it's no wonder their manager and fans were proud of them. Also must be added that they've given better teams than us a real battle this season.

 

As for the owners and Poch. 

Everyone accepts TB & co made some big mistakes and that Poch isn't a top class manager. However, only those with a grudge will refuse to admit there are not some positive signs starting to emerge now.  Instead of complaining about how bad everything is, how about accepting there's a big job ahead and start getting behind this young set of players and for once give our manager the time needed to improve these young players. Man Utd have been showing for a decade that changing managers all the time gets you nowhere fast.

 

I really don't know where to start.You think we should give Luton praise?

How do you stop a team from scoring when a player   has the space to create havoc?...You stop the player creating havoc!

I don't "slag off players" or anyone else.I highlight the stupidness of what we are doing according to what I believe.

Let's give Poch another season and give even more money to a manager that at best is treading water.

 

[ROTG]

47 minutes ago, kev61 said:

Let's give Poch another season and give even more money to a manager that at best is treading water.

Kev it not Poch's squad or any other managers/coaches squad - its a Billy Beane squad created by Statisticians, Lazy scouts and Owners with Egos 

Edited January 4 by ROTG

[kev61]

1 hour ago, ROTG said:

Kev it not Poch's squad or any other managers/coaches squad - its a Billy Beane squad created by Statisticians, Lazy scouts and Owners with Egos 

I've tried to explain - I judge a manager/ coach on what he has available to him.

There is a disconnect between the manager and  the americans.Again I judge a manager what he has available to him.

Roman would have sacked him by now.We really don't need a forensic  analysis. 

[ROTG]

44 minutes ago, kev61 said:

Roman would have sacked him by now.We really don't need a forensic  analysis. 

You cannot compare apple to oranges, because Roman would have not allowed the squad to be decimated by a bunch of unqualified amateur scouts.

[ROTG]

1 hour ago, kev61 said:

I judge a manager what he has available to him.

Then you should be over the moon at the end of the season, should Poch gets 54 or more points out the current squad

[paulw66]

On 02/01/2024 at 15:25, Dwmh said:

It does for me.  Luton average 36.5%.  Before this game we averaged 60%  

We dominated this game for 3 minutes - the minutes we scored.  We really created nothing else.

interesting idea.  But what you mean is that it can be a good reason to explain that you have lost despite not actually doing that badly.

But Luton lost.  on xG they "won" 2.64 - 1.57.  
That would have been even wider but Cole's Palmer 2nd goal is given an xG of 0.93 (better than a penalty) because it is taken from the final tap in, but as far as most are concerned it was a much tougher chance than just a tap-in.

It is fair to say we are overdue some luck, and have had plenty of better performances that didn't result in wins.  Yes this was payback.

But quite false to say we played well against Luton - they were much better than us.  By xG, by my subjective eye as well

If it is useful to understand the game when a team loses it has to be useful when the opponent loses too.

And we've won the most games of ANY team by Xgls in the PL this season 

So either we agree we could / should have not beaten Luton, AND  we agree there are many, many other games we didn't win that we "should have" using this metric, or perhaps it is not quite the science you sometimes (depending on how you want to forge the argument) make it out to be. 

 

[My Blood Is Blue]

Petrovic named on the shortlist for save of the month for his excellent save against Luton. 

 

[Dwmh]

1 minute ago, paulw66 said:

And we've won the most games of ANY team by Xgls in the PL this season 

So either we agree we could / should have not beaten Luton, AND  we agree there are many, many other games we didn't win that we "should have" using this metric, or perhaps it is not quite the science you sometimes (depending on how you want to forge the argument) make it out to be. 

 

No one says xg means you win, it is just a measure which estimates the avlue of chances created (and fortunately trumps all those I know what I saw arguments and forces people into "I know the score" and out of "we played well")

So either we agree we could / should have not beaten Luton, AND  we agree there are many, many other games we didn't win that we "should have" using this metric,
Well obviously - should go without saying.
We should be entering the discussion - why do we have this goals < xG trend and why was this an exception [and I have put my pov].
Clearly for Luton we outperformed because of some amazing finishing quite out of character for us this season.

Whether we are now a fantastic finishing side that doesn't play so well, or whether we are likely to go back to the reverse  is I guess a logical question.  But I'm pretty sure I know the answer - we will revert.

The alternative - we had something like 19 very random games and one true to character seems rather unlikely.

[Dwmh]

4 minutes ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

Petrovic named on the shortlist for save of the month for his excellent save against Luton. 

 

I've said this before - he had a clear view of a header from 11 yards away on the corner of the 18 yard box and it went above his head, no jumping required.
He has done well, but this is a conventional save - miss that and Kepa or Sanchez get demolished on here.
Arguably he near fluffs it by pushing it onto cross bar and not over.
[It is where the head hits the ball that counts, not where Morrison lands on the ground.]

[boratsbrother]

13 hours ago, kev61 said:

I really don't know where to start.You think we should give Luton praise?

How do you stop a team from scoring when a player   has the space to create havoc?...You stop the player creating havoc!

I don't "slag off players" or anyone else.I highlight the stupidness of what we are doing according to what I believe.

Let's give Poch another season and give even more money to a manager that at best is treading water.

 

My main point is about all of us getting behind the team, manager and owners for as long as they are here. Btw. I never wanted Poch or these owners so I'm not standing by them out of any kind of favouritism. 

We can't undo the money spent. Can't hire one of the two only true elite managers. No point in going back to the old guys we've already hired and fired. Let's not forget that Carlo flopped bigtime at a struggling Everton. 

Also, there's nothing to back up the opinion that these players are under performing. With the exception of James, Chilly, Sterling and a 39 year old Silva, none of our squad have proved anything at a top Premiership club over a significant enough period of time. So with James and Chilly constantly injured we playing with two players of any proven quality.  Poch and Potter before him, are playing with a hand never dealt to any manager of a top club in the history of the Premiership.  It is plain nuts to expect any manager available to us to come in and improve all the players and team in six months. But as some of us have said, there are already clear signs of improvement in some players ( not a more improved player in the league than Gallagher) and real hope for the future in others.  

Despite the numerous downs, I'm actually enjoying watching us trying to rebuild on a scale non of us have ever seen before. It'll be all the more sweet if it works out over the next few years. 

 

 

 

[Dwmh]

50 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

Despite the numerous downs, I'm actually enjoying watching us trying to rebuild on a scale non of us have ever seen before. It'll be all the more sweet if it works out over the next few years. 

Yes Jackson is threatening to emerge from a dark tunnel.  It will be quite fun if he really does.

[boratsbrother]

55 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Yes Jackson is threatening to emerge from a dark tunnel.  It will be quite fun if he really does.

He might not make it to the level we need but I see enough potential to make it. Same with Mudryk, Gusto, Badiashile, Colwill (only as a CB) Petrovic and maybe Madeuka. Sterling is OK and Gallagher and Palmer are already quality and could go on and become top quality.  If James and Chilly could stay fit, that would be a very promising  group to move forward with.

See where we are in 18 months time. If we've not significantly improved by then, then i'll start to worry.

[Dwmh]

5 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

See where we are in 18 months time. If we've not significantly improved by then, then i'll start to worry.

This Luton game aside (where for once the result exceeded performance) the players have never been the problem.  I can't help thinking that if we were going to turn it around then it should happen sooner not later, and should have happened already.

Sorry to be a downer, but you are looking at it as though players are now happy and will get happier.  I'm looking at it as though the next defeat will be hugely depressing for players and fans alike - much like all the other defeats of the past 18 months.

Dead Cat bounce   I reckon (let hope the dog lovers on here don't care as much about cats.  Its only an expression.)

[Sabrina F.]

It's fair to be optimistic about some of these players, absolutely. The Luton game just was not a good performance, maybe it's reflective more of coaching than squad quality (but certainly squad profile does have its contribution).

Here are some stats that I consider good signs for players:

Nicolas Jackson has the 2nd highest npxG in the league after Haaland. That's pretty damn impressive for his first PL year (and again, just the 2nd full year at pro level). He's 4th in xG, only Haaland, Salah and Solanke and those all take penalties. He is the youngest in the Top 15 list for most npxG.

Both Cole Palmer and Jackson are in the Top 10 for goals, and they are the 2 youngest players on that list.

Palmer is also Top 10 in xAG (assisted xG), the youngest on that list.

Very small size, but Nkunku's  underlying numbers suggest he will carry his career xG average in the Premier League, which would be a significant boost.

Malo Gusto has been one of the better attacking FBs in the league while Colwill, even playing FB, has been one of the most progressive but also ball secure, aerially dominant and excellent 1v1 defenders.

Caicedo is slowly coming into form and back to featuring in some of the better CMs in terms of ball retention stats, aerials, and progressive/forward passes. 

Gallagher is one the most active, do-it-all  CMs in all of Europe. Gallagher, Jackson and Sterling are some of the best pressers in the league.

Sterling has been of the better dribblers and most threatening players in the  league. Yes, he's not young, but the fact he's still at this level athletically suggests plenty of good years ahead if those have to be at Chelsea.

Now that we know Enzo was bothered by the hernia, it explains his dip, but at the start of the season Enzo was shattering the number of progressive passes, final 3rd passes and chances created.

-- 

All of this is certainly an improvement on last year's individual numbers, and it seems obvious what the solution is: sort out your core, focus on them, reinforce them with immediate contributors who can relieve them of the constant burden, send the rest of the kids on an external developmental path, and you got yourself a squad a top coach will gladly want to coach. 

It's common sense, but common sense has rarely prevailed in the past 18 months.

 

[Dwmh]

1 minute ago, Sabrina F. said:

It's common sense, but common sense has rarely prevailed in the past 18 months.

But (Luton aside) 
Player price > Player quality > player performances > team performances > xg - xga > GF-GA > points achieved

I agree the players aren't bad at all.
But there are some serious issues well beyond the quality of the players or even their performances.
I don't think we can really know what is going wrong amongst a squad of 25 or more.

We can only guess.  I'd say the manager (poor) is only a small part.  (I thought Lampard first time was rubbish but that probably only cost us 6-8 points comparing seasons before and after).
The age and experience balance is probably more important.
The reason so many players ran has an explanation which we can only guess (the 6 month pause in contract negotiation could only partly explain that).
(maybe the effective end to a fully fit Kante - 9 games all season - was bigger even than I had imagined - maybe we had always been 10 average players + Kante - though the success of so many players since is against that)
 

 

14 minutes ago, Sabrina F. said:

All of this is certainly an improvement on last year's individual numbers, and it seems obvious what the solution is: sort out your core, focus on them, reinforce them with immediate contributors who can relieve them of the constant burden, send the rest of the kids on an external developmental path, and you got yourself a squad a top coach will gladly want to coach. 

This is certainly a good description of the most obvious things that the new board got wrong.  Whether it is a solution now I am not so sure.
It begs the question - why were we so bad last year with Azpi, Kepa, Kovacic, Ziyech, Mount, Koulibaly all on board.  I agree that getting rid (letting them go) has left us without proper experience.
Would you bring Zakaria and Felix to the club this season?  (Both start a lot for their new clubs, 3rd placed Monaco and Barca)
It is a partial fix, but there seems to be a lot more bad stuff, toxicity behind the scenes.

I said this a while ago, Baseball, like cricket, is very much a sum of the players = the team.
Football has much more internal chemistry about it.  I'm wondering if TB is missing some of the non-moneyball factors.

[Sabrina F.]

1 hour ago, Dwmh said:

But (Luton aside) 
Player price > Player quality > player performances > team performances > xg - xga > GF-GA > points achievedI agree the players aren't bad at all.
But there are some serious issues well beyond the quality of the players or even their performances.
I don't think we can really know what is going wrong amongst a squad of 25 or more.

I agree with that.

The squad post-January last year was part of that. We knew that were way too  many players, that it was an issue (that infamous  Thiago interview), that Potter felt the need to play Ziyech a day after his failed loan to PSG, that some of the older guys were reportedly perplexed by how raw the new arrivals were, that there were so many players, individual tracking and monitoring was impossible for the coaching staff.

And let's not forget - the medical teams had changes mid-season, including doctors and physios the "old guard" trusted, who left. A "mental coach" was brought in, supposedly to root out "dickheads", injured players were probably not injured, and players were more focused on reaching out to their agents than anything pitch-related.

In US sports, coaches and players use the world "culture" a lot - they don't mean players who care, who fight etc like the UK pundits often talk about, it's used about the standards set by organizations. When a player is traded from a bad organization to a good one, he'll say candidly the difference is: 

"Just the culture, the vibe is a lot different. I definitely know I’m in a building with winners. The spirit in the locker room. The spirit of the coaches. It’s just different. Kind of like the same thing at Ohio State where you’re expected to win. It’s just like vibe of, ‘We’re going to win.’"

It's not platitudes. We were expected to win with Roman, that was the culture of the club, sometimes it exhausted coaches and  managers ("creative tension" - indispensable to success according to Bill Walsh). Bad form, bad results, you're expected to turn it around, get a Top 4 spot, compete in the Champions League. Starts out from the top: owner will say to the manager, we will provide anything you need, just win.

Not exactly the vibe players get when they get  8 years contract and have to compete with an 18 year old kid with 20 top level games.  That's an environment for complacency, and knowing you don't have winners around so when you lose, you lose all shreds of confidence. There's little urgency. 

1 hour ago, Dwmh said:

We can only guess.  I'd say the manager (poor) is only a small part.  (I thought Lampard first time was rubbish but that probably only cost us 6-8 points comparing seasons before and after).
The age and experience balance is probably more important.
The reason so many players ran has an explanation which we can only guess (the 6 month pause in contract negotiation could only partly explain that).
(maybe the effective end to a fully fit Kante - 9 games all season - was bigger even than I had imagined - maybe we had always been 10 average players + Kante - though the success of so many players since is against that)

Well, Kanté for TT was often the difference between Top 6-4 and Top 4-1. Remember that 2-2 draw vs Spurs last season, that was arguably one of the best displays of TT's era, the issue: Kanté by far the best player on the pitch, James the 2nd best. with Harry Kane. That was going to be an issue all season, you're in a pickle if your 2 best players are often unavailable. 

1 hour ago, Dwmh said:

This is certainly a good description of the most obvious things that the new board got wrong.  Whether it is a solution now I am not so sure.
It begs the question - why were we so bad last year with Azpi, Kepa, Kovacic, Ziyech, Mount, Koulibaly all on board.  I agree that getting rid (letting them go) has left us without proper experience.
Would you bring Zakaria and Felix to the club this season?  (Both start a lot for their new clubs, 3rd placed Monaco and Barca)
It is a partial fix, but there seems to be a lot more bad stuff, toxicity behind the scenes.

Maybe, though I wasn't quite high on Zakaria and Felix (I did have a sentimental bias towards Felix but admittedly, he is the typical all flash no substance type of player that seems from another time) but instead of say, Ugochwuku & Broja (or Deivid Washington, Alex Matos etc on the bench), I would.

Certainly, I think even Top 8-6 levels of squad player, who would provide just a stable, reliable floor of performance (availability, tactical discipline, just technically solid nothing fancy) supplementing a core with a high upside, would be a massive improvement. Let's just say, your average West Ham player as a squad player.

That's probably too simplistic. There is a shrinklation in football too, in particular the PL. Players are more expensive for lesser talents. The average WHU player is expensive.

But those are the buys where the guys at Brighton or Brentford should be proficient in getting at value. Yes, your Enzos and Caicedos are very expensive, blockbuster deals, but Brighton built on recruiting Lallana, Adam Webster, Veltman etc who supported their gambles on youth from South America (Caicedo, Mac Allister).

So, it should be their area of expertise, their most familiar aspect of the job. Maybe they're not asked of doing that enough (your Badiashiles & Disasis if anything - just a lot of experience no matter the age).

1 hour ago, Dwmh said:

I said this a while ago, Baseball, like cricket, is very much a sum of the players = the team.
Football has much more internal chemistry about it.  I'm wondering if TB is missing some of the non-moneyball factors.

I did read this book "The Best Team Money Can Buy" in the summer of the takeover - which was about the Guggenheim Group takeover of The Dodgers. They did a lot of the same things, same huge gambles, difference is: Dodgers were not very good and also, the gambles paid off. 

Difference:

MLB, of course, has its own farm system. The flexibility there promoting and downgrading from and to the minors, gives ample time for prospect development. A prospect can spend 3 to 4 years in the farm system developing before being promoted. Meanwhile, there is no plan for Andrey Santos or Deivid Washington. They should have been bought by Strasbourg and/or Sporting.

Other difference: Dodgers had one mantra, recruit the best moneyball brains and give them a blank check.

Did we get the best moneyball brains? We got one guy from Brighton, and no one knows exactly if there's one mastermind at Brighton outside of the owner. Newcastle got one very good Brighton guy, Brighton continue to do fine without either of them.

But also, are there really a lot of brains in football? It's not so much about the smartest guy in the room, sometimes it's about Does Whatever It Takes guy in the room in football - Florentino Perez, Peter Kenyon etc etc. 

There are no Ivy League guys with an expertise in analytics and scouting in football, just a lot of "street smart" guys, and for every successful football story, 10 guys will claim they were the secret sauce, and no one knows if that's true. Lots of liars, lots of agent BS talk, lots of poseurs. 

Final difference: Dodgers developed an edge in analytics, by digging deeper in R&D - they started fixing pitchers, find the new moneyball egde and so on. Just like in Moneyball the book the edge was getting on base and for Liverpool it was players undervalued by the market on goal production but with high xG etc. Have this lot any idea on the new, future footballing edge? Were they even prepared to hunt for that in football? Because the takeover was a matter of months, possibly the fastest in the history of the sport at this scale, that's hardly enough time to develop an expertise in football analytics. 

The funny thing about baseball moneyball? 

The Dodgers have found the edge, the trick, the formula to game the game ... in the regular season. They hit 100+ wins a season with ease (maybe that's where the Build A 100 Pts Team claim from the typical The Athletic heavy-PR articles comes from).

But they can't win in the post-season to save their lives. They won in a shortened COVID season, but other than that, they're now a bit of a laughing stock for chocking in the post-season after amazing regular seasons.

Of course, they've gone for the jugular this off season and signed the best free agents available. Notably, Shohei Ohtani, the best 2 way baseball player possible ever. $700 millions for 10 years with a bit of creative accounting ...

I've been following a lot of US sports recently, certainly watching Chelsea is still a part of my life but it's nice rooting for a contending team. The NFL structurally is very different to football (closed league, guaranteed revenues, draft), but as a sport/game, it's probably the closest out of all US sports: analytics are important, but it's all about scheme, coaching, talent advantage and matchups. Analytics help, smart teams can compete but ultimately it's the teams with the best players and best coaches who win.

Here's a funny 2023 story: one of the most remarkable stories is that of the San Francisco 49ers, they made one of the biggest trades in any US sports to get a highly touted but very raw QB prospect (just one season of college football, tall, strong, big arm ... like buying a Mudryk), it was a complete failure. Ended up one of the worst trades of all times, one of the kinds that would set a franchise back a few years - in the year that followed they had also drafted a QB with the last pick of the draft: injuries happened and he started.The 3rd overall pick QB was traded for peanuts, and the lack pick of the draft is now their starting QB and playing at MVP level. Turns out, he was small with a weaker arm but had played 4 years of college, developed instincts, experience and was polished, and turned out a better fit for the NFL, where everything is faster than in college and where you can't just outrun the big boys.  

Draft is a crapshoot they say, buying prospects is similar. There's no MLB farm system to sort through a bunch of prospects (actually maybe something Marina & Roman had hacked ... the 2 year loan plan was remarkably successful, it's a shame anything 'Russian' about the club had to be uprooted just so we could be a fully Americanised football club, a bad sign when ideology trumps innovation). 

Just to end this: one thing I find funny is football fans clamouring for moneyball in the sport - smart scouts, smart analytics people etc. Of course in baseball, this all happened 20-30 years ago. The Oakland A's have become one examples of why baseball fans now hate moneyball. An excuse from owners to not spend money on talent. The Red Sox fans boo John Henry in Boston, and the Oakland A's from the Moneyball book/movie are moving to Las Vegas as their owner no longer wants to spend anything on the team.

Edited January 4 by Sabrina F.

[Dwmh]

16 minutes ago, Sabrina F. said:

I agree with that.

Well I like any reply to me that starts like that, but there was a huge amount of interesting material there.  Thanks. 
Or did you mean "that was the bit of your long post I agree with"  🙂
On Kante I'm increasing thinking he lifted us even more than we thought and his absence cost more.  685 mins last seasons in all comps and they weren't near his usual standard; effectively he was not here.

One other idea:  1 year contracts really mean the player owns his performances and both next years extension and the amount depend on how he plays.  8 year contracts mean the club own the performances.  Next years pay is independent of how you play and even if you play.  "Incentivised contracts" sound good, but does Jackson get paid bonuses on excess goals over xG or on team position and cup wins?
I note one of our best performing players seems to be playing for a new contract (perhaps away).  The other only arrived at Cobham in September so has yet to catch up with the team mood.

21 minutes ago, Sabrina F. said:

"Just the culture, the vibe is a lot different. I definitely know I’m in a building with winners. The spirit in the locker room. The spirit of the coaches. It’s just different. Kind of like the same thing at Ohio State where you’re expected to win. It’s just like vibe of, ‘We’re going to win.’"

As a young man my sport was rowing, in eights.  Not at a very high standard but rowing involves a lot of training (6 days a week then) and not much actual competition.  When you are in a crew that really wants to improve and takes every session as an opportunity to go faster for further with everyone listening to words of wisdom from the coach, it is a wonderful experience.  When people stop caring and even turn up late for the 6.30am training session in the rain, then it can be quite miserable.
Only thing that I know of which has more extremes than rowing in such crews is coaching them.
 

[Bones]

7 hours ago, paulw66 said:

And we've won the most games of ANY team by Xgls in the PL this season 

So either we agree we could / should have not beaten Luton, AND  we agree there are many, many other games we didn't win that we "should have" using this metric, or perhaps it is not quite the science you sometimes (depending on how you want to forge the argument) make it out to be. 

 

It is as long as there is scientific proof that xG correlates with winning or losing. It could be semi irrelevant metric due to the way it is currently calculated and you could argue team deserved to win with higher xG in some matches and deserved to win with lower xG in other matches.

[Bones]

8 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Well I like any reply to me that starts like that, but there was a huge amount of interesting material there.  Thanks. 
Or did you mean "that was the bit of your long post I agree with"  🙂
On Kante I'm increasing thinking he lifted us even more than we thought and his absence cost more.  685 mins last seasons in all comps and they weren't near his usual standard; effectively he was not here.

One other idea:  1 year contracts really mean the player owns his performances and both next years extension and the amount depend on how he plays.  8 year contracts mean the club own the performances.  Next years pay is independent of how you play and even if you play.  "Incentivised contracts" sound good, but does Jackson get paid bonuses on excess goals over xG or on team position and cup wins?
I note one of our best performing players seems to be playing for a new contract (perhaps away).  The other only arrived at Cobham in September so has yet to catch up with the team mood.

As a young man my sport was rowing, in eights.  Not at a very high standard but rowing involves a lot of training (6 days a week then) and not much actual competition.  When you are in a crew that really wants to improve and takes every session as an opportunity to go faster for further with everyone listening to words of wisdom from the coach, it is a wonderful experience.  When people stop caring and even turn up late for the 6.30am training session in the rain, then it can be quite miserable.
Only thing that I know of which has more extremes than rowing in such crews is coaching them.
 

Oh I love rowing. Still have some medals from my teen days!

Stopped playing Sunday league football due to injuries and currently enjoying a lot of heavy workouts on the indoor rowing machine 🙂 you are competing with your yourself here mainly! You know the time you need to beat and then aim for it, somebody insulting you on the side does not really so much effect!

[Dwmh]

36 minutes ago, Bones said:

It is as long as there is scientific proof that xG correlates with winning or losing. It could be semi irrelevant metric due to the way it is currently calculated and you could argue team deserved to win with higher xG in some matches and deserved to win with lower xG in other matches.

1.  I'm certain xG does, but no so well as xG - xGA
Just as goals for correlate with winning but goal difference correlates better.
2.  Try this page:  https://understat.com/league/EPL/2023
You can order the league by goals, xg, or wins and see the correlation.  And check any other season.

3.    There are some issues with xG.  But far less than with what we always used to talk about on hte old site say 10 years ago.  XG is far superior to shots or shots on target as a measure,  It used to be that corners were the favourite measure of some.
XG is by far the least imperfect measure of attacking strength.

4.  The point is not to use xG as a kind of alternative game like winning the spotted red Tour de France jersey for being King of the mountains or being best team with an average age <=24.
The points are:  a) to identify which games we played better  or worse than the scoreline suggests
                                   b) to understand why the under or over performance (luck, finishing, saves,both ours and opponents)

because if we are going to start telling the manager what he should do (which we do nonstop) then we should at least base it on performances, not the randomness inherent in games.

5.  But not refereeing.  So if we hit the woodwork 5 times that will show up in high xG low goals and xG will match the spectators opinion of performance.
But if we have 3 marginal penalties denied and 3 goals scored but ruled out for offside (rightly or wrongly) that won't show up in xG at all despite most fans thinking we were very very unlucky.
Not that that would or should stop anyone talking about them.
 

[Dwmh]

1 hour ago, Bones said:

Oh I love rowing. Still have some medals from my teen days!

Stopped playing Sunday league football due to injuries and currently enjoying a lot of heavy workouts on the indoor rowing machine 🙂 you are competing with your yourself here mainly! You know the time you need to beat and then aim for it, somebody insulting you on the side does not really so much effect!

Yeah I had a rowing machine in my 40s and used it a lot - still use the one in the gym (but old Concept 2s are still better than the newer ones my gym has).  Struggle to get to 1000m now but I used to do 30 min pieces. 
After Uni I went to row in Greenwich on the Thames which could be seriously wet.  We sank once as the Bow Trader charged past us not looking (sister ship to the notorious Bow Belle)=
(they only row in the docks now).
Some Uni friends tried to persuade me out in a boat again and I said no way - I'd meet up for the beer but I'm not going in a boat again too wet and too unstable even on small rivers.  Machines for me.

[kev61]

9 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

 

Despite the numerous downs, I'm actually enjoying watching us trying to rebuild on a scale non of us have ever seen before. It'll be all the more sweet if it works out over the next few years. 

 

 

 

You'r enjoying the Zombie like performances at times?.

I don't see any improvement in the way we play.It's not Poch's fault entirely,in fact he is less to blame than the owners  and player's attitude -but  Poch is not the right manager at the present time.He has no charisma,no passion and shows little personality. 

[xceleryx]

35 minutes ago, kev61 said:

You'r enjoying the Zombie like performances at times?.

I don't see any improvement in the way we play.It's not Poch's fault entirely,in fact he is less to blame than the owners  and player's attitude -but  Poch is not the right manager at the present time.He has no charisma,no passion and shows little personality. 

So who is the "right" manager then Kev?