Kid Icarus

I've noticed that neither FBRefs or Transfermarkt recorded his cross to Bruno in the Leicester match as an assist either for some reason. 

There's some extreme cherry picking going on here like. First, you don't use a data set of 7 matches. But if you do, you don't only look at passing 

Turns out that when you look at everything he's in the top centiles for things like xG, xA, shots, shot creation from dribbling, shot creation from defending, crosses, pressures, tackles, dribbles into the penalty area 

https://fbref.com/en/players/a3b03921/scout/11566/Joe-Willock-Scouting-Report

Or if you don't want to use data positively skewed by such a small data set, you can just look over the last year.

That's 224 732 clubs in the first round

There's no real reason why starting Botman over Burn at home to fucking Bournemouth should be a match-defining decision. I really don't think it's worth picking apart, particularly as Burn was probably the only player that wasn't poor on Saturday and Schar was one of the worst.

It seems like an odd thing to hone in on, the whole game plan wasn't right and there was no hand-in-glove connection between the midfield and Isak and the wingers and Isak.

40 minutes ago, Happinesstan said:

When i used to go you could hear the stadium singing as you walked up to the ground. Even in the shittest of years the fans still started things.

That happens now, it's just a two-way thing in terms of how vociferous it is.

7 minutes ago, Happinesstan said:

I tend to think it's the crowd's job to lift the team. We've been shite for years and WF have taken the gauntlet and are doing a great job, but the average football fan is no longer the average football fan. The average football fan is now just the average person who goes to the match.

I think the reality is that it's a two-way thing and has been for as long as I've been watching football. 

It was my first time back in years but it felt unique like and the match didn't help to get the crowd in the right mood. Weird atmosphere among fans pre-match, weird atmosphere in SJP, strange pre-match music, subdued feeling with the minute's silence, a mixed reaction to the national anthem with very few singing it and some sitting down.

All of it contributed to a feeling of things just being a bit off.

Then it just continued throughout the match with all of the things that are annoying, people coming in 5-10 minutes late, leaving on 40 minutes then the same again 2nd half. Absolute never-has-beens telling Kieran Trippier what is and isn't a good ball or decision.  Players doing something positive and winning a corner and instead of encouraging them, whinging because it wasn't the perfect ball. Far too many go on like football consumers rather than supporters.

Like I say though the match itself did little to lift the crowd and take them away from that. Maybe if it had no one would have been leaving, whinging and so on.

1 minute ago, Yorkie said:

There's nothing particularly critical in there and I don't think the journos write the headlines? It absolutely is important that we get Isak involved in the game more. If Saturday was anything to go by he's certainly no lone striker. Took his penalty well but I didn't think he was really in the game bar the odd touch. Of course it's  difficult for any central striker to impose themselves against a bank of 8/9/10.

He is a lone striker, he's just not necessarily one that's most effective against a defense that's sitting deep. At least not at this stage of his development anyway. 

Please start getting a tune out of your 1 in 2 striker.

 I noticed a while ago how Hope plays down the Bruce thing after he's the one to bring it up for the umpteenth time. Thought it was canny obvious how much he loved the attention he got from that.

Maybe we're just his bogey team because I also think he's looked poor when I've seen him in those matches and in the other odd couple I've caught little bits of.

16 hours ago, Coffee_Johnny said:

Based on strength of opposition, plus home and away variation, in June I calculated how a top-ten kind of season would be likely to progress. I have corrected for the postponed game in September.

 

On this estimate, we are two points below where we ‘should be’, at end of September, on the way to the estimated 54 points required. (10th had 51 points last year;  59 in 2020-21 and 54 2019-20).
 

 

 

 

That's exactly how I calculated it as well. We should have picked those points up Vs Bournemouth but were also robbed of them against Palace. Considering that and that we've had our best 3 players out injured, I think we're in pretty good shape all things considered. Think we should be and probably are aiming for around 60 points though.

Is it not all just recency bias with Everton not being terrible and Villa looking one dimensional? It wasn't that long ago that the same was said about Gerrard being miles ahead of Lampard when Villa were looking decent and Everton were a shower of shit.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFJWspop/

Love that. 

Seeing Sergio Ramos celebrating goals with Messi still seems so weird.

They're all decent in hindsight of very recent form, but we'll see how it goes. None of them bar Coady and possibly Maupay were that great at the time imo.

Missing out on Seymour and Duncan was a blessing in disguise 

Everton's signings were nothing special imo, with the exception of one player who I had a feeling would have a huge impact on them on and off the pitch - Coady.

5 minutes ago, nufc123 said:

Hes an attacking player like Almiron. They dont make goals or assists. 1 or 2 per season of both. Its shocking. 

Back end of last season Fraser was like. He's been generally good under Howe.

We're having a fair few hamstring injuries like. That's Shelvey, Wilson, Bruno, and ASM now I think.

All in all I think we're about par for where we should be VAR at Palace notwithstanding, 2 points down overall because of that. We've gained unexpected points against Brighton and Man City and dropped expected points against Palace and Bournemouth, but that's the chaos of football.

Forest 

Expected 3 result 3

Brighton

Expected 0 result 1 +1

Man City

Expected 0 result 1 +2

Wolves

Expected 1 result 1 +2

Liverpool

Expected 0 result 0 +2

Crystal Palace

Expected 3 result 1 =0

Bournemouth

Expected 3 result 1 -2

Not that big a deal and not a great deal to worry about imo. Yesterday was the only poor performance where we didn't get a result (Brighton away wasn't a good performance but a draw there is definitely a result)

There'll not be loads of teams who set up against us like Bournemouth did imo. Even then we're talking about a disappointing performance where despite everyone being off it, we had 73% possession and hit the bar and the post.

2 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Agree on Targett, think he has been poor since coming back from injury, hopefully the international break will help.

He was outstanding against Liverpool tbf

14 hours ago, Theregulars said:

He needs to stop giving minutes to Murphy. Anybody can see he’s not good enough. Baffling.

I can't stand Murphy but the unfortunate truth is that he was a clear improvement when he came on.

32 minutes ago, Dr Venkman said:

2 points behind 7th. Anyone booing wants shot with shit.

The booing was largely at the ref where I was sat. It might not have been picked up by the microphones but the crowd were really on his back for constantly giving nothing free kicks to them.

3 hours ago, jack j said:

True geordie Brian the fucking divvy

Always has been. His football knowledge is shocking