Match Day Thread Burnley v Saints Saturday 10th August 3pm

Just read back some pages on here and its clear we need a special edition red and white striped shirt with a yellow stripe down the back

 

Well yeah. They play on a bleak and windswept Northern hillside every other week.

 

Tbf wet and windy suits a long ball team far more than an on the deck team. So blaming the weather has some merit.

 

**** me, we're really clutching at straws if we're blaming the weather rather than Ralph

How long does he get before criticism is allowed?

 

Longer than one game where we were the better team for most of it.

 

Ralph is God. God makes rain. Ralph is to blame........perhaps

 

Jesus christ ...

 

xG courtesy of @Caley_graphics
Burnley 1.2 - 1.1 Southampton

Be interesting to see if whoever does the BBC’s agrees with that later on. Trouble as ever is that we concede very big chances when individual errors happen, because otherwise for the first hour we would’ve been in control.

 

We seemingly have more melts than ever.

 

And equally, Burnley have developed a habit over the past two seasons of being exceptionally clinical with what few chances they do create. Their ratio of goals scored to chances created was something like the third best in the league last year.

The total opposite to us since Ron left.

 

This is what happens when I select you guys to win in my Super Six thing

(I'm not doing it for money, just for fun)

 

I don't get anyone who has already lost faith in Ralph.

However, I similarly don't get anyone who has any faith in this board...

 

I'm disappointed as I thought that if we lost it would be by only a single goal...but it's one game. Far too early to judge the season from that.

 

Stylistic difference definitely play a role. While we were better in the second half under Ralph last year, we have for some time specialized in creating half-chances that we lacked the capacity to turn into goals, while Burnley has a talent for generating and then converting a handful of gilt-edged moments per game.

Edit: if you're a non-elite team and want to beat us, play like Burnley. Playing the ball long limits the effectiveness of our press, and limiting our press vastly reduces our ability to attack, because (at least with the current lineup) we aren't terribly creative in anything but a straight line. And punting puts our back three in the spotlight, which doesn't generally end well. Dealing with direct play is mostly about composure and awareness, and our defense struggles mightily to keep track of what is happening around it.

 

Agree with this. The problem with xG is that it assumes that the quality of the player attempting the finish in each case is the average of players who have attempted that type of finish from that position in the past.

Things such as the finishing ability of the player taking the shot, and in many cases the amount of defensive pressure on the ball at the time of the shot are not factored in. We tend to concede a lot of attempts with comparatively little pressure on the ball due to individual errors, so it can be misleading.

 

XG is the most stupid, unnecessary stat going. Literally pointless.

 

Sf4l,do us a favour,if you searched out this guy please don't bother again.

 

Yes, but as it has been mentioned before, Burnley were at home. Burnley are more used to it than us. In the first half, we had the wind behind us, they did in the second half...but we also had driving rain in our faces, they didn't.

As I said before, not going to get too down over the first game of the season. Up until they scored, I thought we edged it.

Early days, marathon not a sprint. A wise man once said don't get too down when you lose and too high when you win. Or something like that.

Got a nice bottle of FatLeTiss inspired Amarone with my name on it, It is Saturday night, I'm not on call and I am still on this planet. There is always the easier game next week to look forward to.

 

Also, seemed VAR played nicely too.

Quite unobtrusive.

 

Can’t wait for the football season to start next week.