Jagten

You can't play like they play and have a technical deficit vs the average opposition imo.

Phil Giles has a PhD in applied maths (from Newcastle). He spent 8 years at Matthew Benham's SmartOdds in quant research (eventually running it), developing some of the formative models in football analytics, before impressing enough to be appointed as Brentford's co-DoF. I think he's better equipped for a data-led approach than anyone, and he's way more interesting than Ashworth.

As of the end of last season, they extracted the greatest value in the Premier League. I am extremely pro-Phil Giles

Each PL goal is worth like 1mil, so I don't think a 10mil delta p/ season over the next 2 is that insane for Man Utd. Plus we need to get and (potentially) extricate a replacement.

Sure. I’ve watched Pardew and Bruce’s interpretations of how not to concede and I liked that much less.

It's not been a disaster, but this level of move in expected goals against is basically unprecedented. (Since the start of December, we have also conceded the most goals in the league.) Something has broken, and these sorts of results will probably continue for a while.

I did not say it was going badly.

We're controlled by KSA. There's nothing to wait and see bro. They will fire everyone if it goes badly for too long.

Of course it is. KSA make the calls, not Darren Eales.

For sure we've got issues, but this and Miley-Longstaff plus whatever Almiron is right now. The players are not that good.

He’s not great but he the attacker has to score a low probability goal. Most of the time that shot doesn’t go in.

How many teams would Longstaff and Miley start for right now? The answer is not great

The Semenyo shot was a tiny % of the accumulative xG we conceded, and one Dubravka should have saved. I don’t like Dan Burn, but he’s a cheap target.

In the US we have Peacock and you can watch on a proxy in the UK (eg NordVPN). They have most games for 4.99 USD p/ month.

Yea but we have Longstaff and Miley in midfield. It’s never going to happen

Ah, man. We nearly got good money for Almiron

Completely agree. Yes, that’s correct. I can personally confirm our new head of data doesn’t know anything about stats/ML/AI/whatever, but probably best I don’t expand on that. It’s the only info I do have on Ashworth’s job here and it’s a bad miss.

At West Brom he oversaw the appointments of Di Matteo, Hodgson and Michael Appleton. At England, he was involved in the appointments of Hodgson, Allardyce and Southgate. At Brighton, he was no doubt involved in Potter, which is his only obvious hit. Further, as someone who works in the space, I have found his data appointments here pretty disappointing. I don’t have enough information to properly assess him, but I don’t get what’s so obviously excellent about him.

I’m guessing many things here but I’ve been a little surprised at Staveley’s continued presence in operations

Welcome home Phil Giles.

Using the individual goal probs, based on Opta's model, I calculate there was a <1% chance we scored 3 or more goals.

I think he could have reduced the prob of the first-time shot going in by a similar % if his position wasn't so shit. Others were very involved in creating the opportunity for them though.

Dubravka at least 50% to blame

Burn often becomes a left-sided centre back in possession, with Trippier basically moving into midfield. Livramento a pretty different profile.

Tino for Burn is not tactically like-for-like, and it restricts Howe's preferred use of Trippier. I'd still do it, because Dan Burn is shit, but whatever.