Pata

Should allow VAR to give a booking for these.

Those are actually worse than I thought when the news initially came out. Think he can be happy it’s only 8 months, could have been way worse.

Manquillo is a perfect example of the apathy during the Ashley era. He's been here for six seasons and has made 110 apps but if someone asked me to write couple of sentences to summarise his time here I've no idea what to write. Can't remember a single moment even though I watched most of those 110 apps.

I'm not saying Manquillo is good enough for our level anymore but he's played a lot more as RB than LB in his career.

I did some very basic stat scouting on some names and was a bit surprised by the results. These are all non penalty xG+xA per 90 on Understat: Wilson 0.96 (third in the league only behind Nunez and Haaland) Isak 0.55 Willock 0.50 (he's been really unlucky/poor finisher, expected 7+7 but only 3+6 in reality) ASM 0.50 Murphy 0.48 Almiron 0.41 Then some rumoured targets: Maddison 0.52 Bowen 0.42 Barnes 0.40 Marcus Thuram 0.73 Diaby 0.61 Szoboszlai 0.50 Wirtz 0.47 Kvaratskhelia 0.55 (surprisingly low when everything seemed to go through him for Napoli) Balogun 0.73 David 0.69 Ekitike 0.53 Raphinha 0.89 Nico Williams 0.40 Chukwueze 0.46 Some conclusions, Almiron seems to have the weakest numbers on most stats of our regular attacking players. Seems like a possible opportunity to cash in on his purple patch due to his age but we would miss his workrate. Willock has to remember how to shoot again, think it's a mental block. I'm still a bit terrified about Bundesliga players and none of these outside of Thuram really pop out considering the rumoured prices and the state of defending in that league. Raphinha would be a dream signing but the wages would be a problem.

His non penalty xG+xA per 90 is 0.50 this season, was between 0.35 and 0.39 in his previous seasons for us. You can see a significant rise in his expected assists, from 0.17-0.23 to 0.36. He's top of the league in Markstats fields gained by carry per 90 minutes and third in carries to penalty box per 90 behind Mitoma and Grealish. I honestly think upgrading him wouldn't be easy or cheap, just need to figure out how to keep him fit.

That could still be a red.

Same pot.

I like the idea of Tierney, he's probably the closest player to Burn with his experience as a LCB in a back three. Would expect heavy rotation with Burn if we do end up signing him.

Seems like the Dutch clubs would be up there are as bad destinations. @Unbelievable What's going on with your fanbases?

ASM has started most games when he's been fully fit. Started first four before injury, then had a run of eight starts in nine games (including the cup final) between West Ham home and West Ham away, only on the bench for Man City away during that stretch.

We are arguably better than Inter or especially Milan, no need to be shy about the UCL campaign. Obviously need a good draw to go far but it's not impossible.

Yup, would be so shite.

You could see the lino doing the 'he's on!' thing with his flag and not just letting it play out so was expecting him to be on but the first replay was still a relief.

Less worse imo.

Sunderland look toothless and can't even cross the ball to the giants' box.

Fair enough, maybe for a season but could see it getting tiring really quickly.

Luton would be a horrible team to have in the PL.

I really struggle to even understand your point so we just have to agree to disagree. You think giving probability to a football result is impossible and I think you can give probability to absolutely anything and it being off a few percents doesn't really matter in the long run. gg

I’m using the multiplication to show how unlikely something that’s deemed very likely is to happen 9 times in a row. I didn’t realise that it doesn’t somehow apply to football. I have no idea why you think the outcome probabilities were so badly wrong when Liverpool have won seven games in a row and still need help from other teams. Seemed a pretty long shot then to begin with? Bookies saying Liverpool winning a game 6 times out of 10 is just stupid and thick and in reality it’s something like 98-100% due to their experience and stuff? Somehow no one else in the world has noticed this with their thick models and bookies are still raking it in when in reality everyone could be millionaires just by betting on Liverpool? I urge you to start betting as you clearly know better than the rest of the world.

I try to make this as basic as possibly. Let's make Liverpool 80% favourites in all those remaining 9 games. It's way too high but I'm trying to keep it simple, for example they were 60% favourites today against dreadful Leicester. As 80% favourites the probability of them winning all those 9 games is 13.4%. Let's lower that to 70% which is still way too high and the probability drops down to 4%. This is very basic probability math that works in anything in life. All the bookies in the world know the history of Liverpool and how good they can be but that doesn't make it anymore likely to happen. Them winning 9 in a row in the past doesn't make them winning 9 in a row now anymore likely and their defense and midfield are nowhere near as good as they used to be few years ago. I also have trouble understanding why your 'football is chaos' theory doesn't apply to them. It's still about coinflip that they win their two remaining games, fair play if they do win 9 games in a row but it was still massively and extremely unlikely to happen even if it happens.

It’s fucking probabilities man. If something happens that has a 5-10% chance, it doesn’t change the fact that it was 5-10% chance initially instead of likely to happen. Even if Liverpool win next 20 games in a row it doesn’t change the fact that winning 9 games was never likely. The whole forum can go ’told you so’ on me, doesn’t mean I was wrong. That 5-10% might have been 10-15% in reality but it’s still massively unlikely to happen. I’m sorry if I’m offending people but this is honestly very basic stuff.

Yet no one has a chance against Liverpool or Man United ffs.

I know I'm not the fool if the bookies gave you an opportunity to 15-20x your money on something that you deemed likely (let's say two times out three so 1.5x) and you didn't use the opportunity.

No idea but I believe he made some decent money in the process in any case.