Kaizero

Sat in silence for what felt like forever as neither mind or body knew what to do with themselves, then I just broke down in tears – took a few seconds for me to shake off the PTSD from past horrors before realising the tears were tears of joy.

This. It's perfectly okay to disagree about a subject and still remain cordial, never felt this was anything other than two people with two different viewpoints about him discussing Murphy.

If scouts used your method for comparing players, it'd be pure chaos. The ranking method utilized was combining a data set consisting of chances created for team, big chances created for team, goals scored, assists, xBuildUp90 and xChain. Then weighing and averaging those values for a player acting as a winger, before combining them into an average weighted score. I'll give you that I did not include "successful take-ons" in the data set.

You need to combine relevant stats to get a genuine insight into what a player delivers in total. Can't cherry pick one stat, that's why most people hate when people reference xA and xG as something definitive. A take-on attempt is when a player makes a decisive move to pass a player in front of them. It doesn't include a successful dribble as that counts as an attempted dribble, not a take-on attempt – even if the dribble means the player gets past the opposing player. If the singular stat showing that Murphy's not had success with decisive moves to pass a player brings you comfort, I won't take that away from you. I do recommend you look up how many take-on attempts Murphy's made, so you at least get some context regarding the actual importance of that stat. At the same time, look up his attempted dribbles (this is the stat for more advanced take-on attempts). I also recommend you use something more accurate than FBRef as they don't even have the correct amount of minutes played. There are decent free alternatives out there, UnderStat and FootyStats being two of them.

Palmer, Kluivert, Saka and Elanga. Salah is at the top if we're to count him as an out-and-out winger, which I didn't as KaKa was on about only comparing Murphy to wingers, and in my mind Salah is more a striker than winger

5th best winger in the PL so far this season. I'd say we should be fairly happy he's playing for us and not our competition.

You do realize that if only comparing him to wingers, he'd rank even higher...right?

Because the stats don't lie. They literally state how often he gets past players He's being compared to all the other PL players, and whatever data set I'd be referencing would tell the exact same story. FWIW, I use WyScout and I trust it just as much as Arsenal, Manchester City, Barcelona and clubs of that ilk does, as it's the tool their scouts use. Given the fact it costs £3k a year for access, it better be correct.

What are you even on about? He's in the 80th percentile of all PL players when it comes to getting past defenders... The other bits has already been debunked, which makes it baffling to be pointing out. He's 11th of all PL players this season when it comes to contributing to goals scored. When removing team's penalty takers goals from penalties, he's 9th. He's 25th when it comes for "big chances created". There's no statistical evidence that could be used to back up an argument for Murphy not having been, and still is, a quality PL winger. Again, he's the 7th best NUFC player in the club's PL history when it comes to assists per 90 minutes.

He's not limited in his ability at all. I used to be of the same opinion, but the numbers don't lie. Across all of our PL seasons, only Asprilla, Robert, Fox, Cole and Gordon have a higher assist per 90 minutes ratio than Murphy. And that's only scratching the surface when it comes to his contributions when on the pitch. His name isn't glamorous and he doesn't have the swagger of the likes of Saint-Maximin, Ben Arfa, Ginola and so on. I think that's mainly why people keep dragging his name through the mud, the only thing I'd hold against him currently would be his age.

Willock might have outscored Murphy in the Bruce season, but beyond that the stats tell a different story. And yes, I'm aware a lot of people aren't fond of how analytics has become a part of the game. I even agree to a certain extent as xG and xA when used alone doesn't actually mean anything regarding either a team or player's skill/performance, as a player getting hit in their arse with the ball without even knowing and either scoring or assisting a goal will have effect on xG and xA without taking context into the equation. However, "x" analytics go much, much, deeper than just xG and xA – xGChain90 and xGBuildUp90, especially the latter as it doesn't take shots or goals into account – just the quality of chance creation stemming from the choice(s) ab individual player make when possessing the ball. In every other metric than goals scored, Murphy outperformed Willock. In certain areas, by a lot – such as a Murphy involvement in build-up being 45.2% more likely to lead to a shot on target (by another player) than a Willock involvement.

It 100% is, Murphy has outperformed Willock in every metric in all seasons they've both been playing for us.

Having reviewed his stats as a player for us in combination with my personal opinion and thoughts on him as a player, I've landed on D- to E+ Chose to go "E" as whilst I do believe he could work as squad filler for teams in a PL relegation fight, in my subjective and personal opinion, he just feels like a player that failed to reach PL level – but could still do a decent job in the Champo for one of the teams down there. The latter of those scenarios struck me as the one that felt "most natural" for me, as such; E.

"Assists" = "Chance Creation" The ability a player has to create chances for their team is not "borderline meaningless", or a "weird old metric". It's a great measurement of what a player can add to the quality of any given team when playing. This season, Jacob Murphy's xA90 has been 0.30 – the player in our squad with the second most assists this season, Guimarães, has an xA90 of 0.20. Murphy's xA90 is the 10th highest of all PL players with 5 or more assists so far this season. – 11th highest for players with 4 or more. – 16th highest for players with 3 or more. – 18th highest for players with 2 or more. - 27th highest for players with 1 or more. And that's without taking into account if the players are considered "starters" for their teams or not. When applying that metric and only including players with at least 1350 minutes of playing time so far this season (15 games), his xA is the 11th highest of all Premier League players. In addition, his xChain90 is the 47th highest among all players in the Premier League (xChain90 = xG average per 90 minutes from any pass-chain involving the player). And the above is only his stats for this season, his overall stats are even higher. Last season he had the 6th highest xA90 of all players in the Premier League with game time equal to at least 10 matches played. Averaging all measurable "x" stats sees Murphy 47th of all Premier League players this season. If we use that stat as a theoretical measurement to theorise his "level", with each team starting with 10 outfield players, his "team" would be 5th – which by this measurement would make him a must-start player for a team expecting to finish between 3rd and 7th. He's very underrated. So underrated that after breaking down his ability for this post, I've changed my vote from C to B

Absolutely love me some cherry-picked stats to serve a narrative If we look at our last 5, we're behind Forest, Villa, Chelsea and Brighton – level with City – with Bournemouth bein the only team out of those with fewer points on the board than us. The above is also a perfect example for my hatred of people's obsession with fixture lists, as all teams play all the other teams twice throughout a season.

They've undressed our tattooed merch boy: NUFC clearly doing their best to push the lad into an OnlyFans career with the way this is going

Murphy is extremely underrated given the fact the guy's got one of the best assists per minute ratio of any NUFC player in history, and by virtue of that is also holding his own amongst the best assists per minute ratios in modern football as a whole. He's not a flashy player beyond that ratio though, and I'm quite influenced by the overall consensus about him over the years – meaning that even after learning the above fact, I've still gone with a "C", not a "B"

Liking how Bodø/Glimt's looking in their second pre-season match tonight, already one-nil up against some Greek team they're playing on the annual pre-season warm weather camp. ...legit, though... this time of year is the time all the Norwegian teams usually have a kick-about with random semi-pro teams based in Malaga or something Olympiakos were unbeaten in all competitions for 26 straight matches before Bodø/Glimt rolled them over 3-0 last week, four months after the Norwegian season ended and two months before the new season begins – and now they're 1-0 up in Athens, 4-0 on aggregate. This isn't normal

Second hand info from a U21 Serb, so felt safe enough it was solid inforto post it. Thankfully it seems iike it wasn't 🙏🏼

Went to sit down after saying he "needed some rest" at training this morning, then keeled over before he got to the chair. Given immediate CPR and reportedly breathing in the ambulance en route to hospital.

The fact Bodø/Glimt are knocking out teams like Twente and Olympiakos from the Europa League whilst using the knockouts of the competition as a substitute for what would normally be pre-season friendlies? Genuinely unbelievable to witness

Olynmpiakos undefeated for 26 straight matches in all competitions, then they had to go face Bodø/Glimt...

My mother just made one of the more amusing (and true) statements I've head from a casual football-watcher in a long time; the commentators mentioned that Nikita Haikin, Bodø/Glimt's keeper, will be applying for a Norwegian citizenship next year as he hopes to play for Norway. To which I asked my mother, who isn't usually the most "immigrant-friendly" person given the fact she's from the generation pushing 80 this decade, what her feelings were about that. To which she replied: "The guy's voluntarily chosen to move, and live, in Northern Norway. He's more of a Norwegian than most Norwegians; let him play."