The College Dropout

Boy Arsenal have been shit

He also said it wasn't going to happen

Don't think he's said loads wrong to be fair. Surely just playing hard boil. Madrid are trying to force him out but they know salary is a major issue. Bale is just making sure he’s paid in full when he does leave. He’s entitled to every last penny. I can see Madrid subsidising his wages at any new club.

Spurs probably pay the 6th highest in salary. Therefore 4th is good going. The 2 clubs that pay more than them that they’re above are run poorly though.

At 1-1 I said they would bottle it. In the stroke of half time. Nerves set in. And they aren’t actually better than Derby ability wise. Probably really inferior. Then the pressure and expectations kick in. Fair play to Leeds fans. Excellent throughout.

Leeds willl bottle this.

No, Leeds. Leeds please. feel like we had a good record at Elland Road. Don't like Villa (or Leeds) but those are clubs that should have good ambition at this level after a few seasons. I like how they've been run. I like their style. But can't see Bournemouth ever feeling maybe they should challenge for Europe. The other 2, if they get their acts together could be something.

Ended up with red arrows in the last week. Top 200k overall barely. Top 50 in N-O league, should've finished in the top 40 which would've been good. Lots of lessons learned this season so my aim next season is to just improve. Until GW 35 or something I didn't take more than 2 hits in the entire season. On reflection, my biggest mistakes was taking out quality players due to patches of bad form or being swayed by the good form of others. Examples, I was early on Laporte when he was worth 5.2 or something but dropped him during the 6 game no cleansheets run. That was never going to last, they would get back to CS for that money never worth taking out. Likewise, Deulofeu playing upfront as a in-game midfielder with good Xg - took him out the week of his hat-trick. I thought at the start of this season Mane and Sterling would excel. Next season, i'm going early with Ings / Southampton attackers. Low value but they will score goals next season. Brooks. Missed loads of games. First season in PL. Fancy him to be good value.

Goodbye sweet prince. Deserves a better club anyway. In terms of who is running it.

I think overall wage bill is a better metric regarding where a team should finish and how well a manager is doing. Net spend is hugely defined by how much teams receive from outgoing transfers. LFC have the worlds most expensive GK and CB because they received what? The 3rd biggest transfer fee of all-time for a player that isn't close to being the third world best in the world. I'm confident that Wolves and West Ham have a significantly higher wage bill than Brighton. Spurs, Watford, LFC, Soton and Leicester too. Interestingly, Liverpool have the highest second wage bill in the league. Higher than City's https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/8386507/liverpool-man-city-prem-wage-bill/

I think for Brighton they look at us. Probably invested less but there’s a clear gap between us. We have a manager with a higher ceiling. A relegation battle looks Hughtons level.

Any football club is only as good as it’s ownerships abilities and ambition. Liverpool and Spurs are the best run teams in the league and it shows. Under Levy it’s been 15 or so years of progress.

It’s tough on Hughton but that team is stagnating. He’s not shown he can make a mistake PL team. Some awful transfers too. He’s no track record of being able to maintain mid table like a Hughes. This is one of those that could go either way for Brighton. Could easily sink or they properly become a mid table side. As for Man Utd. problems bigger than a manager. LVG laid some decent ground work for a young side. Then went opposite end of the spectrum with Mourinho who wants 27 year old players all the time. Undoing a lot of LVGs work without allowing him to build a solid foundation of his own. Awful in the transfer market for some time. It’s been years since Liverpool made a bad signing.

I thought he wasn’t good enough a PL footballer. I was wrong. He can physically dominate opposition.

Few years in the championship and some new owners has changed the game you say?

It’s not like. Arsenal fans have a superiority complex with Spurs. Many would have never expected in their entire lifetime to be better then Arsenal or for Spurs to be in the CL final or for Spurs to be the first to bring the CL to North London. Plus they’ve already won 2 European competitions that isn’t the big one. You have to say Levy’s done a spectacular job in the last 10-15 years. Spurs are giants now.

Liverpool have been tremendous in the transfer market and every deal for the last few years looks like a good deal. Excellent business all round. But they do have the most expensive GK and CB in the world. City have bought welll but they haven’t been as smart. Liverpool have made sure to sign their first targets no matter the cost. But sometimes their first target is £10m and severely under rated with a high ceiling. City spent 60m on Mahrez. He’s a top player but they barely use him. He’d be closer to Liverpool’s XI

It’s hard being a NUFC midfielder. The quality is always lacking. We could have 3 ex midfielders in the CL final and all 3 had some very rough patches here. I go Faye. Anita. Butt Smith Colback Bobby wanted to sign Carrick rather than Butt but FS wanted Butt Dyer Jenas Carrick Robert. Could’ve been decent for us.

I’m enjoying hating Liverpool rn. They are so good. Barcelona are a shambles. No legs. Any leaders? Coward I’m the dug out.

Aye conceded the most from set pieces in the league. Disappointed that Lascelles was beaten 1v1 against Origi mind.

I think the average across players makes it a more interesting and meaningful stat. Me and my Arsenal mate were discussing Laca vs Auba. He said Laca was a better all round player and I agreed. I said Auba is a better goal scorer because he’s a much better poacher, better instincts in the box (likely to have more chances). He agreed but made the point that he thinks Laca is a better finisher and that Auba wasn’t a great finisher at all. I wasn’t sure about that but the xg backs up his claim. Laca has 13 goals but an expected xg of 11.2 or something. He’s scoring more than you should expect but his xg isn’t that high. Auba’s Xg is something like 19.8 and he’s scored 19 goals. So he’s getting much better chances (pens included) but he doesn’t tuck them away above average. My friend said 1v1 with the goalie he’d take Laca and I think those stats bolster his claim. This is why I was so mad when I dropped Deulofeu from my fantasy team the week he scored a hat trick. For the season he’s been trending an xg of .35, 1 in 3 which is excellent for his price and position. But he wasn’t scoring. Didn’t score in the 5 games I had him. Dropped him ‘this lad can’t finish’. Scores a hat trick. Goes back to something closer to his xg. The stats indicated goals would eventually come.

I don't think that makes sense as the sample size would be too small for most players under 25 for it to be effective. Lots of the goals Cisse scored in his purple patch might indicate he could score goals for fun forever. But when you look at it, he was scoring goals with a very low chance of going in - in terms of the wider game which is an indication he was over-performing and you can expect his goal return to reduce. Some players e.g. Kane and Messi tend to consistently over-perform their xg and that's fine. They're tremendous finishers and score goals others don't. I think a penalty is 0.8. 4 out of 5 penalties go in and I think that works well. Adding in how many a GK saves or the history of the shooter doesn't help imo. Also as an older metric, shots within the box was a good indication rather than shots in general. Shots in the box tend to be of a higher quality than outside.

Did we sign Perez in the same window as Riviere? That little purple patch with Ayoze kept us in the league. I think that was the worst team we put out that season. Absolute bargain basement shit.

Yea, if you score early in games you are likely to have less shots as you try and defend the lead etc. Biggest issue is the quality of chances. This stat would suggest City are over achieving in terms of goals scored. Man City create quality chances. A lot of their goals are ultimately tap-ins. Shots from within the 6 yard box. They don’t take that many speculative shots from distance. Expected goals is a better indication of fret.

He’s got 4 assists which might put him first in the team for them. Most of them seem to be from pressing the opposition high up the field and winning it.