Well i've been happier than the the fans of Leeds, Villa, Forest, Derby, Sunderland, Boro, Ipswich, Norwich, WBA, Sunderland, Pompey etc for quite a while...
Pessimists often confuse themselves with realists. They may be, but not necessarily. I was pointing out that some pessimists also suffer from cognitive dissonance in that they are incapable of recognising any positive signs.
We played 2 of last season's top 8 and could have won both with a bit better luck. Thats reality not some made up fantasy. I prefer to look at positives and try to see how we can do well rather than ways we can do badly as i find that more fun, which is what football is about after all. Its not like we can change anything by saying everything's **** all the time.
I don't think we are a top 6 side (though am happy for the players to hope that)….I think 10 would be an excellent finish. We are more likely to be 11-15th.....though hope that will be quite a few points above the danger zone. I suspect that some pessimists think about the same, but make themselves miserable by regarding that as failure. I regard that as steadying the ship. We have definitely strengthened this season and I am hoping for more entertainment. One win equals 3 draws...that is where MH may do better than MP2.
Don’t know if already posted, but @Caley_graphics on twitter had the game Everton 1.8 - 1.6 Southampton in expected goals. So not too bad for away to Everton. Also far better than our season opener which was Southampton 0.8 - 1.3 Burnley. So we’ve scored 1 from chances that we should’ve scored 2.4 (no surprise there), and conceded 2 from chances that we should’ve conceded 3.1. Early days. Be interesting if the performance from Everton (a) is maintained or improved upon as we get everyone fit and firing.
Since when has it been an emotion to see the good in something rather than the bad.?? Often it is harder to see the good but easier to see the bad. That to me is more of an emotion..........
If we play our best players we will be ok. Clearly Ings is decent. I am disappointed PEH is on the bench whilst lemina and romeu fail week in week out to produce anything as a partnership. Also disappointed gab is still benched. Utter waste. Central defence is a shambles but an attacking 4 of mo ings gab and redmond with armstrong behind will beat plenty if teams at home if we have the balls to do it from the start
Three specific things have pissed me off in the past 18 months... 1. Sacking Claude Puel, 2. replacing him with a novice from a small Spanish club and keeping him for far too long, 3.taking a huge gamble on survival by not re-investing the VVD money in January. Now, we did change manager and we did survive (thanks Swansea) and we have spent the VVD money now so i'm waiting to see the effects of these changes. I've stated before that i'll be satisfied if we see more purposeful attacking football and there is a better atmos at SMS and if we can avoid a relegation scrap. Now I have already seen signs of the first two things against Burnley and Everton, the third I will have to wait for.
I still don't like how Hughes sacrifices a midfielder (or defender in 3-5-2) to put strikers on in the second half. Partly because adding strikers isn't the same as playing more attacking football, just like 3 CBs didn't make us better at defending. And it's just giving up on any attempt to control the match. We actually have good creative players, but I'm worried we're just going to end up like Stoke.
Don’t forget that Laces jinxed us by buying a season ticket last season. We’ve been **** since then. It’s all his fault. #lacesout
Expected goals is everyone's newish fave stat. I have no idea how they calculate it but it is how many goals each team should have scored in a game and supposedly is the best way to see how a game went at a glance
Basically, it's calculated by looking at a dataset of other shots from that distance and assigning a value based on how many of them went in. There are a bunch of different versions of xG, and some use more detailed situational data than others...how the shot was created, etc. Thus Burnley 'won' by 1.4 - 0.77 xG, largely because they had a couple good chances from good areas in open play, and we didn't.
I hate the way football is becoming stats obsessed like the NFL and NHL, the only ones that ultimately matter are the ones in the league table.
Football fans have always been obsessed with "deserved" results; xG is just a means of quantifying that.
