Roke

Josh King is not as good as his hot shooting 2016/17 season would lead you to believe. https://statsbomb.com/2017/07/joshua-king-and-the-hot-foot/ If he were available for cheap I'd take him but £22m would be big mistake.

I skipped the "in the Premier League" part of that for some reason and thought he meant top-7 in the Championship this season, which would be one of the most delusional things I've seen from someone running a pro sports team. But in the Premier league... I guess it's a nice goal to have but with the way he's run the club he clearly doesn't have the capability to get it done.

That would be wonderful. I have to think the likes of Karanka and Pardew are too smart to go for the job given the horrible state the club's in so they're going to be stuck with choosing from the unproven like Kevin Phillips and John O'Shea or proven idiots like Phil Brown and Tim Sherwood.

With Pardew I think it's just a case of him being an above-average English manager and the media's obsessed with jobs for the local boys. Of course England's coaching development is so shit "above average" just means the guy's actually bad.

He's certainly making me look like a moron.

Everton had one just cleared off the line and I think they should have had a penalty when Rooney got elbowed in the face but do they ever look bad. For all the money they spent in the summer there's no pace in the side.

Mark Hughes seems determined to make Stoke even older than they already were last year (3rd highest in the league behind West Brom and Watford). I think they're going to be in the relegation battle next year.

Their season's reminding me a lot of ours last year (but in our 9th match we beat Norwich 6-2). Looking at fairly basic stats stuff like shot ratios they're in the bottom-3 in total and close for shots and shots on target when matches are close which were the same sort of numbers we were in. I was already panicking around this time even though I thought the squad was pretty good, if unbalanced. Sunderland do not have that luxury. I honestly can't see them being able to bring in a better manager than Moyes to turn things around. Our January splurge improved things a bit last year but it when Rafa came in it was like we were almost top-half team (at least by those basic shot numbers). The only good news is Hull seems a certainty to go down and Burnely are also likely, plus there are some other bad teams around them but I thought the same thing last season.

Depending on the price (and wages) I'd love to see us take a shot at Januzaj too. He hasn't done anything in the last few years but when he first got into Man Utd's first team he looked like he could be a star.

Selling Krul to Palace would be good business, he's been among the worst shot-stoppers in the league for a few years now. He does have a blinder every once in a while but he is not a good keeper. I don't think Elliott's very good either but I don't think we would lose anything with him starting instead of Krul. But ideally the club would bring in a good keeper.

Premiership Winners: Chelsea Runners Up: Manchester City 3rd-6th: Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal Relegation: Aston Villa, Sunderland, Leicester Overachievers: Crystal Palace Underperformers: Aston Villa Top Goal Scorer: Daniel Sturridge Break Out Year: Erik Lamela Season to Forget: Aaron Ramsey PFA Player of the Year: Eden Hazard PFA Young Player of the Year: Ross Barkley Manager of the Year: Tony Pulis First manager to quite/be sacked/'mutual consent': Paul Lambert Newcastle United Where will we finish?: 8th Top Goalscorer?: Rivière How will we do in the cup competitions?: 3rd round league Cup / 4th round FA Cup How will we do in the derby games?: Win at home, draw away Domestic Championship Promotion: Derby, Reading, Wigan Championship Relegation: Blackpool, Charlton, Rotherham League One Promotion: Barnsley, Leyton Orient, Sheffield United League One Relegation: Fleetwood Town, Rochdale, Crewe Alexandra, Scunthorpe United League Two Promotion: Tranmere, Stevenage, Burton Albion, Carlisle United League Two Relegation: Cambridge United, Northampton Town FA Cup: Everton League Cup: Manchester United Johnstone's Paint Trophy: Peterborough United Europe La Liga winner: Real Madrid Serie A winner: Roma Bundesliga winner: Dortmund Champions League winner: Real Madrid Europa League winner: Benefica World Player of the Year: Philipp Lahm Other Who will start the most games at left back for us? Haidera Will Bojan be a success at Stoke? Yes. How many times will we see 'arry hanging out of his window on transfer deadline day? Five How many goals will Fernando Torres score this season? Eight

It will never happen, but I'd like to see the club parachute Red Bull Salzburg's coaching structure in.They're doing some interesting things, following Dortmund's path: http://www.dw.de/klopps-close-ally-powering-red-bull-for-europa-league-fight/a-17511071 I expect it will be Moyes or Pulis succeeding Pardew, if Pardew is sacked, because Ashley will play it safe rather than take a risk out of ambition.

I thought that changed the rest of the game for us. If you were going to bring Cissé on Tiote's the guy who should be coming off so you can still have the passing range we had for most of the match. Though Cissé is pretty useless so maybe it probably wouldn't have helped all that much.

Among football analytics writers that phenomena is called "score effects", and has its origins in ice hockey analytics. Basically, all teams tend to change their style of play slightly depending on the scoreline. Teams that are ahead tend to see less of the ball than their opponents, and attempt fewer shots while teams from behind have more of the ball, take more shots (though those shots tend to be more long-distance than other game-states). Even a dominant team will usually see less possession when they are leading than when they are when the game is tied. Basically, when trying to analysis with stuff like shot attempts or possession you need to separate them depending on the scoreline and then examine them. You'll get the best idea of how good a team is when the score is tied over many games or the full season. I can't speak for football, but I know in hockey it's not so much a tactical issue on the part of the side that is leading as something inherent - whether due to psychology and risk-aversion or something else. The score effects tend to render non-score-tied possession metrics* mostly useless on a single-game basis. *since they don't actually measure possession in hockey it's measured by proxy using shot attempts, which syncs up very well to actual possession when somebody has bothered to try to track it.

We did. I think Pardew got his substitutions wrong today - should have been Marveaux as a straight swap for Cabaye (Marveaux is pretty much neutered on the left, though he and Ben Arfa swapped in injury time) and Gouffran for Cisse with Gouffran and Remy swapping positions. Remy was very impressive but the defending was shocking. Yanga-Mbiwa and Debuchy had poor games while Ben Arfa was neutralised. I thought Huddlestone had way too much time when he had the ball. We had a good start and looked terrific going forward but completely squandered that with poor defending.

Great performance all around. Ben Arfa is just wonderful to watch. I was also impressed by the pressing Remy and Cabaye did together, especially early on. They won the ball back in the Villa end a couple of times early. The marking on the Villa goal was comical though. When the substitutions were being made the camera was on Pardew and he was pointing at Kozak telling a player to mark him. From the time Kozak came on until the ball was in the net he was completely unmarked, Benteke ended up unmarked, and there was another Villa player in around them who was also unmarked.

Oh my God that was glorious by Ben Arfa.

Pards will find it difficult to sub Gouffran on, since he can't take Gouffran off first. He can always pull a Pardew master-stroke: Subbing Gouffran on and then immediately subbing him off before play resumes.

Our movement off the ball continues to be appalling. It's like they don't work on that at all in training.

I thought things were a bit better going forward in the second half. Marveaux saw more of the ball and seemed okay (until he got subbed off) while Santon and Debuchy seemed to be further forward and got involved.I would have liked to see Debuchy make an overlapping run when Ben Arfa had the ball out wide on the right to maybe take a defender away. I also thought Anita played well enough to never have Jonas start ahead of him again, but that's not saying much and with Pardew at the helm it's probalby not going to happen. Despite me being fairly positive about the result, no shots on target and although there were plenty of attempts they were pretty much all low-percentage long-distance shots. That's just not good enough.

I'm not sure Shola would start for an MLS side outside of Toronto FC. I think we've looked okay. Nothing in the final third and a couple of worrying moments defensively but aside from absolutely nothing in the final third there hasn't been anything horrible.

Nothing strengthens your bargaining position like dropping a player the minute you receive an under-priced bid. Had Arsenal come in with an acceptable bid I could understand dropping Cabaye to make sure he doesn't get injured but dropping him right now is just sabotaging the small chance we have of getting a result today. I'll be sad if he goes because I think if he were used properly (more time on the ball rather than having Tiote starting moves like last year, starting moves and creating more from deep) he would be a critical player for us. For about £20 million I'd let him go and try to find a cheaper replacement.

Premiership Winners: Manchester City Runners Up: Chelsea 3rd-6th: Tottenham, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool Relegation: SToke, Hull,Crystal Palace Overachievers: Southampton, Cardiff Underperformers: Manchester United, Fullham Top Goal Scorer: Luis Suarez Break Out Year: Paulinho,Sturridge, Oscar Season to Forget: Asmir Begovic, Negredo,Wanyama PFA Player of the Year:Sergio Aguero PFA Young Player of the Yea: Oscar Manager of the Year: Pellegrini First manager to quite/be sacked/'mutual consent': Mark Hughes Newcastle United Where will we finish?: 10th Top Goalscorer?: Cisse How will we do in the cup competitions?: League Cup - 3rd round. Fa Cup - 4th round. FA Cup: Arsenal League Cup: Chelsea Europe La Liga winner: Barcelona Serie A winner: Juventus Bundesliga winner: Bayern Munich Champions League winner: Chelsea Europa League winner: Napoli World Player of the Year: Messi Other Will Di Canio still be at the mackems come May 2014? Yes. Will Pardew still be at NUFC come May 2014? Unfortunately How many points will Rangers win Scots Div 2 by? 10 Will we field a team with 10 French players in this season? No. A bit short of french-speaking centrebacks for that. How will Moyes do at Man United? Not well. Outside the top-4, out in the group stages of the Champions League. Will the new goal line technology be a success? Yes, if it is used. It will take less time to resolve things than it takes players to complain about a given/non-given goal Will NUFC finally score from a set penis? Yes.

Can we start a Gosling to Monaco rumour? Link Jonas first.

I'm not sure replacing him mid-season is a good thing though. I might be wrong but I figure you have more managers to choose from in the summer than you do once the season has started. Having your replacement options being limited to the the likes of Pulis could be you're hoping just for a dead-cat bounce rather than an actual improvement. It could be worse though, I dreamt that the club had fired Pardew and appointed an 80 year-old nun with no football experience as the manager.