Some of his touches and the speed he sees things are stunning. Regis says he is ‘about 70%’ so my days I cannot wait to see that extra 30%. His first home game today and I’m gonna be glued to him a wee bit. He has absolutely embarrassed his man a few times with his first touch already, he looks a real player and a real coup for us.
Le Fee looks a player no doubt, guess the question is whether he can do it consistently, if he can, could be a game changer in the run in for Sunderland. Hope Sunderland go up as long as it's not at our expense. As for 'could have, would have's' we're all good at remembering points we threw away better than points our opponents have thrown away against us. The xg points table (for all the arguments about xg) is at least a representative idea of what's gone on in terms of chance creation for and against. Despite Meslier's howlers we're more or less where we should be points wise. The other 3 in the top 4 have punched above their weight, quite a bit. And it's mainly down to goals conceded. To be honest it supports the eyeball view from what i've seen too. Main takeaway is if we had one of the other top 3's keepers, we'd likely be home and hosed now. Appreciate the Meslier narrative winds up some of the locals, but let's pitch it as a complement to the others. If Meslier has been average, Trafford and Cooper and Patterson have been excellent. Trafford in particular. In terms of shots faced, for all Burnley's great defence they should have conceded more than us. 15 goal difference between expected goals against and actual. It's crazy. It's not all good saves, it's opponent strikers missing chances etc. For all its largely efficiency at both ends of the pitch, there's an element of luck in football too.
The main takeaway from this is that if we had a better keeper than Mes (or he hadn’t made the howlers he has) we’d be about 8 points clear. That’s down to Farke and the coaching team because this isn’t new to Mes, he’s been average for seasons and we should have replaced with better last summer.
Yup… an argument I’ve been making for 3 seasons. Whatever people think, if you look at our team and rate them per position v the rest of the league, they’d pretty much all be in the top percentile. Meslier wouldn’t and it’s a critical position. Blame with that lies with consecutive management teams.
Sunderland dropping points to the divisions worse team, Sheffield United getting done at home to a team that were in the bottom three, great set of results for both ourselves and Burnley
those of us with mediocre degrees gotcha emu. not been a bad weekend so far… Monday’s the biggy though
