Used to listen to WTF regularly but that Brad fella became intolerable. Previews shows are decent when it's just Graham.
Really ****ing thrilled to see Regis is apparently no fan of xG or Xg or whatever it is people love to talk about nowadays. Never liked the use of that stat at all, personally. Points, goals, goals conceded are about where my interest in stats end.
Completely get it, stats make the game more fun for people and I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. Just not very interesting to me, especially with the xG which just feels very fashionable and fleeting in importance.
Maybe he should start mind. His first four months at Lorient they were massively outperforming their xG and xGA and their decline since was relatively predictable, in fact inevitable, as it simply isn’t sustainable without elite players. Mind, I’m not concerned as even if he is dismissive of those particular measures, he’s seemingly otherwise a progressive and modern thinking head coach so he’ll be using a raft of other such stats, data and analysis no doubt. On a very basic level the stats are only being used to reaffirm and add measurable criteria to what you see with your eyes anyway. It's common sense that if you're creating less quality chances over a long period of time then you'll score less goals, similarly that if you're conceding lots of chances that you'll eventually start to concede more goals. The data just removes the subjectivity and inherent bias from the eye test/judgement.
Didn't his three best players get sold? Besides, as I said above, I have no problem with stats in football. Fully understand sports science is here to stay. I'm just not particularly interested in hearing Gary Neville harping on about them.
Agreed. He's not the right fit for us right now, but definitely one to be keeping tabs on to see how he progresses.
Mind you, I've definitely seen overuse of data and it's presentation in forms that, while looking impressive, don't really tell you anything of particular use.
I thought it interesting that the lad on the pod rated him a little higher that Will Still, but he may be a bit biased, but he did seem quite balanced in his views
I live in the North West. I've posted before, it's mainly Liverpool and Man United fans here, also Everton, some city but man city tend to be mostly from Manchester. Yes there's been some banter and animosity towards us mostly when we were in the premier League. (The beach ball incident against Liverpool didn't go down well, or the man city chants/wave against United etc) But the overall feeling from them is respect for Sunderland. And now we aren't in the premier League I get a lot of "you deserve to be there, good fans, big club etc. The mags however are mainly seen as dillusional, opinionated arseholes. They of course will deny this, and some will no doubt read this. But that I'm afraid is how they are perceived. And quite rightly
Aye, and that's where the skill is, not the collation of the data but the analysis, interpretation and utilisation of it. Collecting and using data for the sake of it is a pointless exercise.
Data should be used as one of many tools but not overly shared with the players imo ... ... telling a player, like Ba, that he's not covering enough yards per game would be a disaster. It might make him run around a lot more and he really isn't focused enough as it is ... ... not to mention he's French and uses the metric system
I think this will be a season of progression for RLB and the players, moderate start build steadily and have a good finish.
Ba is a strange one for me, 2 years we have had him and I dont see a great deal of improvement, he is one I would allow to move on but I think we will persevere for maybe one more year and see if he kicks on.
He’s only 20 (21 next month). I think he has a lot of potential but can be really frustrating. Hopefully kicks right on this season.
He has loads of talent so, if he repeats the same mistakes, that's down to management and coaching. Not to mention he keeps being dropped and brought back only to be asked to play a different role. He scored a goal, at QPR, because he has an understanding with Aouchiche who's also highly talented. We need to give players a good run or let them go imo, it's pointless asking the majority of the team to keep changing position. We need to look at each player, Rigg, Jobe, Ba, etc, and decide where we need them to play ... ... I'm tired of hearing about them 'finding their feet'. They're on the end of your legs ffs, now use them to run and kick the ball
I've just seen they're discussing this on RTG. You don't happen to have the equivalent for Ligue 1 for 2023/24 do you? Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I don't intend to post it over there.
