9 Players out to keep Modric and Bale.

Seems like you use long term stats when it suits your argument but will ignore an d look into detail when it doesn't.

 

I used long term stats to disprove a claim that someone was making about past events.
I didn't use them to predict the future, as they obviously have a very limited capacity in that context.

 

My prediction is based on the belief that the financial fairplay rules will be implemented fairly, and that Man Utd have clever businessmen running them meaning they'll never be in with a threat of going into financial meltdown or something. It's also based on the belief that Villa are a selling club who will be forced into selling any star players they have as he will want a move to a bigger club. Oh, and based on the belief that Villas-Boas is a top manager and even if he flops that Chelsea will always land on their feet with the players they've got.

 

And I'm sure that you'll admit that that's quite a number of assumptions, Raul.
Any number of them could be wrong and there are a vast number of additional factors to consider, many of which we don't and in fact can't know.

 

That's why it's a prediction. Not every prediction is nailed on to become true you know, otherwise most people would be millionaires from betting.

 

Which is why saying something like, "The top 4 positions will be contested between Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd & Chelsea for atleast the next 5 years", is both pointless and unlikely to be true.

 

Now that is a very silly statement. It matters not which team you look at in the Premier League, they are all making predictions about the coming season and what they have to do to achieve their predictions.

As for 5 years, I can assure you that they all have business plans which will use that type of time scale as their planning horizon.

 

He's right.
Spurs fluked their way into the champions league and now think they can compete every year.Rubbish.They did what Everton did.It was nothing more than a flash in the pan.6th to 8th is Spurs level.And thats how it is.They benefitted from Liverpool being in disarray and Man City being dysfunctional.They cannot realistically compete with either.Both are far too strong now.

 

You used long term stats going back 20 years to try and disprove a claim of events over the past couple of years.

 

There's a big difference between predicting how your own club is going to do next season and predicting how the top 5 is going to turn out for the next 5 seasons.

Business plans aren't predictions made by fans, either.

 

If someone else finishes in the top 4 that isn't one of those 5 teams then you can come back here and say "I told you so", until then it's every bit as valid as your "You didn't suffer a blip" even though we had 76 and 86 points in the two previous seasons.

 

I used long term (and then short term) stats to show that Spurs would've finished above Liverpool in most seasons by attaining 70 points and that it wasn't just down to a massive blip in form by Liverpool.
That's all to do with the past and there's no attempt to predict the future there.

You have no point.

 

Shall we do that with Spurs too?

 

And you had less than 70 points this season, last season and the season prior to the two that you mention, as well as on average over several years.

 

No, because it's irrelevant to the point that's being discussed.
It's not about whether Spurs performed better than average, as we clearly did, but about whether Liverpool suffered a catastrophic loss of form, which you clearly didn't.

 

On the contrary-I think that probably will be true- broadly speaking. Each season one or two others may have a good spell and one might possibly muscle in but I can't see anyone consistently troubling those places unless they get a huge injection of funds like City.

 

Those were totally different squads. The 09-10 squad's spine was created in the summer of 07, meaning that the seasons we'd take the data from for those certain players would be from 2007 to 2010. Taking all of that into consideration, 09-10 was a blip. You can't take data our of seasons that aren't in any way, shape or form connected to the 09-10 squad.

 

But you are basing that on 20 years of stats which is absolutely ridiculous.

 

Which could easily happen.
The financial fair play rules could also damage the chances of Chelsea or City severely, depending on how they're implemented.
That's just it.
We don't know.

 

I was basing it on 16 years of stats (since the Prem was reduced to 20 teams) but it also works for far less.