Happy Face

After 9 or 10 games of every season I like to look at who has had the easiest and hardest start. It's a quarter of the way through, so it's enough time for the league to settle, but each team has only played half the other teams, so there's the opportunity to look at which teams have over-underperformed and place some bets based on those teams either dropping, or improving. I've been preparing my spreadsheet already, so here's a sneak peak of how it stands Aston Villa have had the hardest start bar none. Categorically. Played all of the top 5 and only one of the bottom 10. The average league position of their opponents so far has been 6.5. http://www.statto.com/football/teams/aston-villa/2013-2014 By comparison Arsenal, have had the easiest start. They've only played one team in the top 10, their average opponent position is 13.9, so it should be no surprise they top the league at the moment. http://www.statto.com/football/teams/arsenal/2013-2014 Similarly Southampton's impressive start has the stench of fortuitous scheduling about it too... http://www.statto.com/football/teams/southampton/2013-2014 Here's the average position of opposition for every team in the league... Aston Villa 6.5 Norwich 7.3 Cardiff 8.5 West Ham 9.0 Swansea 9.3 Man Utd 9.6 Sunderland 9.6 Crystal palace 9.7 Newcastle 10.4 Hull 10.5 Everton 10.6 West Brom 10.6 fulham 10.9 Stoke City 11.0 Man City 11.5 Chelsea 11.6 Tottenham 11.8 Liverpool 12.8 Southampton 13.1 Arsenal 13.9 So I reckon.... Norwich will be ok if they stick with Hughton, who's had a helluva start. It's difficult to say Arsenal won't win the league, because they may very well replicate their form against the top teams when they play them. But Chelsea/Man City look like they're performing against the whole league, where Arsenal haven't had a chance to show that as yet. Man U will improve. Not that I think they'll do enough to win the league or owt, they'll peg back Spurs and Liverpool though. Unfortunately there's not much value in any of that because, it's largely what we all thought anyway and the bookies agree. Fulham and Stoke to be relegated at 3/1 and 4/1 respectively might be better bets. Newcastle to stay in that meaty part of the curve, although the teams we'd expect to be mixing it with have had bastards compared to us. Villa, West Ham, Swansea....all performing reasonably considering their harder starts than ours. Before the moaning starts, I'm not pretending this is in any way scientific. There is obviously a huge degree of circularity and I'm not factoring ANYTHING other than league position, whether games were home or away or whatever would over complicate it for me. I've had a little success with it in the past, so like to try it every year, that's not to say it's not proven to be completely balls other seasons too.

What's Pardew blamed the fans for? Anyone got a link please?

Oh god, I sense a pie chart of some sort to come out and disprove this post as not true won one more lost one more scored 2 more conceded 2 more one more point 1 place better off. It's testament to Pardew that we've managed such a massive improvement with only Remy, Sissoko, Gouffran, Debuchy etc and the lack of that goddamned Europa League assisting him. ... and the loss of Ba. I've said before that the first 10 games last season were about the standard I would expect from us, despite others insisting the entire season was a disgrace. We've repeated it again early on this year. Question is if we can keep it up through to Christmas and beyond.

Oh god, I sense a pie chart of some sort to come out and disprove this post as not true won one more lost one more scored 2 more conceded 2 more one more point 1 place better off.

yet most think we actually have a decent group of players... I don't think anyone can really argue otherwise after today, although I'm sure Happy Face and Haris will have a go. What today showed to me was that we have players who can look good against the best in the division if they are properly organised and motivated. But different teams will provide different problems and we'll need to be able to adjust accordingly sometimes. Straw man there. I'd say we have a decent group. Liverpool aren't the best in the division by any stretch though. Certainly not yesterday, and we clung on valiantly. All I have said is there is a degree of hyperbole in this thread about our "team full of internationals". Where is this hyperbole? If someone said on here that we have a team which should be challenging for a CL spot I must have missed it. What we have asked for is a team with some shape and direction with a game resembling the successful teams in the premier league. You can have shape and direction based on Fat Sam's philosophy as well obviously, but that's not what most of us mean by the term. Yesterday's football - that's what we want. We have the players, now let's see it delivered consistently. What's remarkable is that you would try to turn yesterdays performance into a point scored against me and Haris. Same old story though. Good performances come thanks to our team full of internationals, bad ones are attributable to Pardew. Notwithstanding the fact that I think only 4 of our 14 players yesterday actually played in their countries most recent internationals, half of them as late subs.

"Our fans were brilliant - Steven Gerrard coming to take a corner and being applauded by our fans and stuff like that" Haha...only after we booed the shit out of him.

Our support was excellent yesterday. Best it's been in a long time at home. It was only when he took Cabaye off. Pissed off folk that our goalscorer and assist provider was being replaced.

I sit in the strawberry corner and heard both. The criticism was lone voices scattered about tbf. The support was a proper chant.

yet most think we actually have a decent group of players... I don't think anyone can really argue otherwise after today, although I'm sure Happy Face and Haris will have a go. What today showed to me was that we have players who can look good against the best in the division if they are properly organised and motivated. But different teams will provide different problems and we'll need to be able to adjust accordingly sometimes. Straw man there. I'd say we have a decent group. Liverpool aren't the best in the division by any stretch though. Certainly not yesterday, and we clung on valiantly. All I have said is there is a degree of hyperbole in this thread about our "team full of internationals".

What did he get wrong with Ben arfa? Should have took him off sooner? I was annoyed he took off cabaye and left Goufran on, who looked fucked. But I was more annoyed at the people that booed and and chanted "you dunno what ya deein" as we sat on a point against apparent title contenders with minutes to go.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tall_infographics.png

No offence but the graphs/pie charts/stats are just horrendously tedious. We all watch football and draw our own conclusions based on that. There is no stat for team cohesion, attacking intent, fluidity. You just watch the games and make up your mind. A while ago James perch got a 100% pass completion rate for us. Does that mean he's a great passer? No. The data does not show any situational factors . It's not match related data. It's some websites opinion on squad values. I said I place no credence in the data whatsoever. But if people ARE going to quote it as evidence of managerial short comings, then it's fair game to contextualise it in response. I never went and got a load of boring old data and made an argument and backed it up with a graph. Someone else sourced the (make believe) data and used it to criticise Pardew with little objection. Only when i look more closely at it does there seem to be a backlash against how boring it is. I meant the tedium of the graphs/stats in general i this thread. Its becoming mind numbing Infograms are lush. Love the guardian data blog. Their interactive bar chart for the types of arrests at football grounds is lovely... http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/oct/09/football-related-arrests-by-club-offence

Remy's a loan so not included. Steve Taylor cost nothing and they have Ryan Taylor as a free transfer (swap deal).

You can use stats any way that you want. The Cabaye valuation at £4.5m is a case in point. Somewhere down the line you have to use some common sense to draw a conclusion from it, and this is where there is disagreement and in some cases deliberate distortion to support a viewpoint which flies in the face of what we are all seeing with our own eyes. By the same token, there are players whose value has reduced. Obertan, Cisse, Gutierrez, Coloccini....Anita and Mbiwa? It could be, but then I still believe there's more than enough good quality players for a shrewd manager to forge a side which should be finishing around 7th/8th this season. I also believe there's enough quality players to put together a side with a coherent game plan and style which can put on decent displays for 90 mins. I believe 7th/8th should be the very most anyone should expect of any manager of the players we have. I think 9th to 12th is acceptable as there's 6 teams there or thereabouts. 13th or lower would be a disappointment from these players/manager..and was last season.

My mistake leaving that one in... Fabrizio Coloccini £10,300,000 Papiss Demba Cisse £10,000,000 Jonas Gutierrez £7,000,000 Vurnon Anita £6,700,000 Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa £6,700,000 Hatem Ben Arfa £5,750,000 Mathieu Debuchy £5,500,000 Davide Santon £5,300,000 Yohan Cabaye £5,000,000 Ismael Tioté £3,500,000 Gabriel Obertan £3,000,000 Moussa Sissoko £2,500,000 Massadio Haidara £2,000,000 Yoan Gouffran £1,200,000 Gael Bigirimana £1,000,000 Mike Williamson £1,000,000 Curtis Good £400,000 Robert Elliot £100,000 Total £76,950,000

They report our squad value as £83m, but that doesn't tally with the squad page where they list prices. Who have i missed that cost £6m? Fabrizio Coloccini £10,300,000 Papiss Demba Cisse £10,000,000 Jonas Gutierrez £7,000,000 Vurnon Anita £6,700,000 Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa £6,700,000 Hatem Ben Arfa £5,750,000 Mathieu Debuchy £5,500,000 Davide Santon £5,300,000 Yohan Cabaye £5,000,000 Ismael Tioté £3,500,000 Gabriel Obertan £3,000,000 Moussa Sissoko £2,500,000 Massadio Haidara £2,000,000 Yoan Gouffran £1,200,000 Gael Bigirimana £1,000,000 Mike Williamson £1,000,000 Sebastian Bassong kk £500,000 Curtis Good £400,000 Robert Elliot £100,000 Total £77,450,000

Gotcha. I hadn't read the blurbs. I don't think the argument is happening in the Pardew thread for no reason though. Clearly inferences are being made from the fact Newcastle have the 8th biggest spend on current squad.

You can use stats any way that you want. The Cabaye valuation at £4.5m is a case in point. Somewhere down the line you have to use some common sense to draw a conclusion from it, and this is where there is disagreement and in some cases deliberate distortion to support a viewpoint which flies in the face of what we are all seeing with our own eyes. By the same token, there are players whose value has reduced. Obertan, Cisse, Gutierrez, Coloccini....Anita and Mbiwa?

What on earth are you talking about? Do you live in your own world like? None if this happened ffs. Here is what happened: 1)Haris Vuckis laughed at the suggestion that we probally have the 8th most valuable squad in the league. 2)I called him out on it 3)He said "we def dont have the 8th most valuable based on spend, we spend nothing" 4)I provided sources valuing us as the 8th most valuable based on an objective estimation and based on transfer fees paid. Helps my argument a little the argument I was having has been 99% won already unless HV gets some sources valuing our squad at well below eight. And that source puts us at 50 odd million ahead of Sunderland in 9th, a bit more that "slightly" above them. Your sources disagree wildly though. In one case Everton have the 7th most valuable squad. In the other they're 12th. Similar story with villa. How much stock you can place in that is debateable.

No offence but the graphs/pie charts/stats are just horrendously tedious. We all watch football and draw our own conclusions based on that. There is no stat for team cohesion, attacking intent, fluidity. You just watch the games and make up your mind. A while ago James perch got a 100% pass completion rate for us. Does that mean he's a great passer? No. The data does not show any situational factors . It's not match related data. It's some websites opinion on squad values. I said I place no credence in the data whatsoever. But if people ARE going to quote it as evidence of managerial short comings, then it's fair game to contextualise it in response. I never went and got a load of boring old data and made an argument and backed it up with a graph. Someone else sourced the (make believe) data and used it to criticise Pardew with little objection. Only when i look more closely at it does there seem to be a backlash against how boring it is.

Strange that so much credence is given to the Pardew bashing numbers saying we should be 8th best according to the value of our squad, but put those numbers into the context a graph offers, that challenges the extent of Pardew's advantage, and they're dismissed as tedious.

Terrible post, you've lamely skirted around all the issues I raised with your "point" Here look : http://www.transferleague.co.uk/ on the front page there is a table of premier league squads valued by transfer fees paid. Funnily: Were 8th. So even by your own conditions you are still wrong. Looks legit Ehh yeah. Oh look: transfermarkt rates our squad as the 8th most valuable too. http://www.transfermarkt.com/en/premier-league/gruendungsdaten/wettbewerb_GB1.html A whole 50 million ahead of Sunderland in 9th. What's an acceptable source to you, just HappyFace? I used your source man!! Your new source helps your argument a little, putting Newcastle and Everton on a plateau well below the top 6, but slightly above the rest of the league.... http://i43.tinypic.com/2l9jviv.jpg I'm disinclined to give much credence to either though, given the discrepancy between the values they place on Everton and Villa for example.

He said starting 11, not squad.

"Just" refers to the fact that £72m separates 12 places. An average of "just" £6m per place. That's much smaller than the £89m that separates Arsenal from the next most expensive squad which is Villa.

That's all well and good, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the argument I was having with Haris Vuckic so I'm not sure why you quoted what you did. Btw the difference in the amount of spend used to describe and Is "just" 17 million. Seems like you are putting some (unjustified) spin on your argument here, as usual. eh?