Well, you couldn't call us unlucky

Just watched the highlights of the Everton match again, and to be fair we are getting at least our share of luck this season.

To be clear, I call "luck" anything good (or bad) that happens to us which we have no real ability to influence. A failure by an opposing player, for example, to put away a tap in to an our open goal is "luck" from our point of view (because it is nothing we can do anything about) even though it may be incompetence from the point of view of the opposing team.

Against Everton:

a. the first goal was going to their keeper, but their defender put it into his own net. A bit of luck, though he was also under a bit of pressure.

b. they beat Krul fair and a square but it hits the inside of the post and doesn't go in

c. ball and arm come into contact in our area and a penalty isn't given.

Other things that have gone our way are Taylor's penalty against Wolves which wasn't given, Wolves second goal which was disallowed, and a whole host of opposition players who were overcome with a sense of charty/incompetence when through on goal.

Does this mean we didn't deserve the points, against either Everton or generally ? Not necessarilly, but I think we have to admit we have at least our fair share of things going our way, when they just as easilly could go the other way.

 

You make your own luck too I suppose. We have an excellent defence and an amazing goalkeeper who are keeping everything out. If we're attacking well and making chances and defending well and limiting the opposition's chances, then we're going to win games. Could the reason a striker turns into a plank of wood against Newcastle be that we've got a good back line, who constantly put them under pressure?

We've had a few bad decisions given in our favour, but it's not as if we've won all our games with last minute penalties.

 

I think the only lucky part against Everton was the penalty that wasn't given.

It's not lucky that their defender and keeper didn't communicate and its not lucky they hit the post, striker should of been more accurate.

 

How come you didn't talk about the Raylor cross that hit the bar

 

We've had our fair share of bad luck since we got promoted.

Remember all those deflected goals we conceded last season?

Remember the pen we should have had against Sunderland.

 

I'd have to agree with this
We put them under pressure for the defender to put into his own net, we still created the space and cross into the box.
There have been a few near misses during the season, you can't say they all bottle it in front of goal. so much of it has to be atttributed to our defence pessing and putting them under preasure.
The Pen yeah it hit his arm, he left it there and turned away as the shot came in. Seen them given but the Ref and lines man both missed it. So yeah was luck, only other time I say we've been lucky was against wolves with their pen and dissallowed goal.

Other than that can't think of anything else.

 

It's not luck if their striker can't aim between the posts! It'd be luck if a beach ball floated down from the stands and stopped the ball though...

 

This.

I think it's because we're so used to having such rotten luck that this seems surreal by contrast

We've had a few silly decisions against us as well, we're just not as hung up about them because we've had some go right for a change.

Edit - Also, I see you tried to knock-out the "definition of luck" arguments from the start of the article. I still feel I should agree with Herp Derp. At the end of the day, it's down to how each team plays, if they miss their chances and we don't, then that means we're better than them on the day. That's not really luck, that's ability and form.

 

The Wigan game is a prime example of this, god knows how many chances they had but couldn't even get half of them on target. People say they deserved a draw after all the possesion they had, but when the object of the game is to put the ball in the next which we did with a perfectly good (cracking) goal then no they deserved FA.

That is not luck.

 

"It's not lucky that their defender and keeper didn't communicate and its not lucky they hit the post, striker should of been more accurate. "

Please note the defintion of "Luck" set out above:
To be clear, I call "luck" anything good (or bad) that happens to us which we have no real ability to influence. A failure by an opposing player, for example, to put away a tap in to an our open goal is "luck" from our point of view (because it is nothing we can do anything about) even though it may be incompetence from the point of view of the opposing team."

Your probably right, though, that the own goal is as much about us making the defender run towards his goal, know there's a striker to his left and only be able to get a toe on the ball.


"

 

The season we went down we had a lot of bad luck (late goals etc). It swings in roundabouts season on season!!

 

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that we're not entitled to a bit of luck or that we aren't where we are by merit, just that so far we haven't really had anything that could be called bad luck all season, and a couple of times our luck has definitely been in.

 

The definition of luck is what happened with Spurs on Sunday.

Their defender had his hands all over the ball, might has well have picked it up and handed it to the goal keeper, then about a minute later after no penalty was given and Luca Modric had cleared one suspiciously off the line, they went up the other end and wrapped up the 3 points for sure.

That game could have, and should have ended 2-2. If the penalty was given, Spurs wouldn't have had the time to score the 3rd.

Luck.

 

I'm not going to lie, we've had a LOT of things going our way this season. But no matter how much luck you get, nobody can fluke their way to an 11 game unbeaten run.

 

It is annoying how the favoured clubs are viewed in a different light. How Man U etc 'grind out' a result in the face of a resilient team or when they play poorly, but we're just fortunate to have held on. It's worth pointing out Spurs were labelled lucky for their Fulham penalty shout yet that takes little away from the love in where 'super HOT unbeaten in 8 spurs' were lucky as opposed to 'lucky Newcastle' hold out again to remain unbeaten. I think it shows the lack in quality of todays pundits more than anything else, limited to seeing what's lucky about an incident.