The College Dropout

Can't see City winning the CL at all. Man U might jam their way through the Europa though. Doubt it. Maybe Spurs might. Really wanted Villa in the play-offs. This run and the Duran sale will give them a big PSR boost. Good chance of making the QFs. This season I can't see them finishing top 5 (not discounting them) but European football is still on. Next season they will be very serious imo. They should be able to invest well.

You've proved my point. We are closer to Bournemouth in revenue than Spurs. Successive bad decisions will put us closer to teams like Bournemouth than teams like Spurs for a medium term. As bad as Spurs have been these last 3-4 years they've finished 4th & 5th among them.

Villa straight into the last 16. Massive for them. City, Real, Bayern, Juve, Dortmund, PSG all in the play offs. Half don’t make it to the last 16 most likely.

Villa straight into the last 16. Massive for them.

City 3-1. Probably for the best. Think they might be playing Real Madrid or Bayern.

Duran goes and I probably get him in at some point

Ederson lad we were linked too with a banger.

Watkins has a poor penalty record. Don’t know why they were hyping him. Isn’t Tielemans the regular taker?

Aye. Thats the biggest problem. A lack of dynamism in midfield. It’s transition upon transition with the old boys in there

Will enjoy them going out too tbf. Just would prefer another 2 games and then going out.

A lot of ppl complaining don’t actually watch football. City aren’t a top side atm. They are 20 something in this format for good reason.

City in a play off is better for our chances of top 4. More games for their old boys less prep time for the league.

Agreed. I also use it to question my beliefs or assumptions. Like the Miggy purple patch vs the Murphy purple patch. The expected data indicates one was a purple patch and the other isn't.

Believe most Xg models take this into account. Personalising it to particular players doesn't make sense and loses the value of Xg. The Xg of a penalty is 0.8 let's say. It being a .95 xg for Ivan Toney and a 0.6Xg for Michael Owen ruins the value of the metric. The standardisation is what makes it powerful. A 0.4 Xg shot is a "big chance". That goes in 1 every 3 attempts. Most hat-tricks are scored from an Xg of under 2.25. In a low-scoring sport, scoring 3 in a game requires an element of a "hot hand" that is a little improbable Aye. It's either meant "the team isn't creating any chances at all and won't score all night" or... "The team is creating and missing loads of chances and this will keep happening". In both instances, there's a loss of belief that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that everyone can see and feel. It's why teams like Real Madrid don't lose that belief and when they score it's "they always find a way". But it's all narrative.

Brest vs Madrid for me. Winner qualifies for the R16 straight. Loser in the play offs.

PSG didn’t look like scoring…. Because they kept missing.

PSG missed a number of chances against us. So many that you knew they wouldn’t score from open play. It was one of those games they were never going to score. BUT they did create a lot. Poor finishing, good goalkeeping and desperate defending kept us in it. It was wave after wave of attack and chance. Arsenal league cup game was similar but not so one sided. A couple great chances, a few good ones. Eventually you knew they wouldn’t score but if the score was 2-2 we couldn’t complain.

Also need to align to the new squad cost rules.

The Felix signing is a bad one though IMO. Not even like for like.

It's a risk but given FFP - one I would take myself.

Agreed. Duran might implode as a player though.

Sustained sporting success and financial success are intrinsically linked. The bolded needs to happen over a sustained period. Both clubs have finished above us in 1 of the last 2 seasons. Man U winning 2 trophies in the process.

True - I mean, it's not like they are selling a player in their spine Martinez - Pau - McGinn - Watkins He's been a big player for them this season but it's not like us selling Isak or Bruno

He doesn’t really need replacing though. He’s not part of that core spine. It’s like losing a superior Harvey Barnes or a young Trippier.

It does bur a lot of their transfer business is with a FFP hat on. This will give them some free rein to go again with a player that didn’t drive their success.