Watching Sheffield U getting pumped at home by Newcastle. Makes me think what a great job Bielsa did that first season back and what an exceptional job Thomas Frank is doing at Brentford.
Tbh I’d rather hoped the “big rumours” had stopped when the transfer window closed. Doc, you know far more than the noddies that write this crap. Do you think Farke has told someone () his plans in Morrisons or do you think this is a guess from a kid that has somehow gained traction on line?
Disappointed that Farke didn't give WJ a shout out in his post match presser to be honest. Credit where it's due.
Naughty Marcos if Paddy comes back fit no need of Joffy plus he has said he wants to play as a 10 and so far not cut it. He has freinds at other clubs who expect him to ask to leave if no game time. FARKE himself has said Firpo is his LB so Byram was brought in as a RB utility hence Drameh leaving
We’ll be lucky to get 10 games out of Firpo, every time he’s returned from injury he’s become a yellow card magnet, he’ll never remain injury free either.
Judging on what we've seen so far the Championship is a completely different kettle of fish and Firpo should excel in it. Wouldn't worry at all about yellow cards, but staying fit is obviously an issue. When Farke says Firpo has been training alone, then the hope is he's having a complete pre season (by himself) and that the physios are building him up in a way that will minimise the risk of him breaking down again.
Some stats. we are in top 6 having played : 3 of the top 8(7 really as we are one if them) 4 of the middle 8 1 of the bottom 8 unbeaten against top 8 teams - 1 win, 2 draws You can see we have been up against somewhat above average teams. Actually doing the averages does not make it stand out - average league position of opponents 10.9, against the start of season expected average of 12.5 (it will vary slightly on where we finish of course). But bear in mind as we are getting above average points, we have depressed the average position of our opponents to date. best take aways are - we’ve played 3 of top 8(7) and only 1 of bottom 8; and no one in top 7/8 could beat us. I feel better for typing that.
I would also add to that positive post that even with a dodgy squad and all the problems leading up to and after the window closed, we were unlucky not to win the game we lost or the games we drew
Well, if that is all factual, what was the point of bringing in Spence?? Until Spence is fit, if Ayling is injured or not cutting the mustard, Byram at right back and Firpo (again if fit) at left back is entirely feasible but hardly worthy of big rumour status. In fact, with the various injury records, I’ll bet it doesn’t happen 10 times this season and highly likely Shackleton will play more than any of them. On Joffy, like many, I had high hopes when he broke through (even if he was massively over hyped by some ), now I would have no problem with him going and understand he probably needs to for the sake of his career. Personally don’t think that will be one that comes back to bite us on the bum
Ahh if only he could stay fit. Best case scenario for junior asprin is he gets banned before being injured.
Without going into all the maths, but based on league position and whether games were at home or away, the below table shows the level of difficulty for each of the Championship teams this season, broken down into sets of 4 games. So statistically as 2020 says, we are performing better than expected, based upon who we have played. Haven't bothered going past 12 games, as dependant upon actual results the difficulty level of certain fixtures may change. EDIT -Have deleted table as it doesnt look right to me, so just checking calculations to see if I can spot an obvious error Ok data all sorted so table inserted below. The higher the number the easier the set of fixtures. Difficulty of a fixture isn't based on chance of winning, but on the statistical chance that a team will gain at least one point from any given fixture.
I couldn't be arsed to type in an explanation Explanations available on the site. The data does suggest we've had a supposedly easy set of fixtures so far.
Yeh the draws against WBA & Sheff Wed at home were opportunities missed but as there were mitigating circumstances we shouldn't read too much into them.
