Spurs would definitely win more and lose less if they could field their strongest team and only play once a week. Isn’t that the same for every team though? So I don’t really see that as a reason to keep the manager if he can’t cope with multiple games a week and injuries.
I didn't draw conclusions from the dataset. But my theory that injuries are the biggest driving force of our performance is at least consistent with the data.
It does matter how many injuries though. We've had a lot more than normal. It is completely consistent with the data for injuries to be the prime reason for the poor performance in which case sacking the manager is unfair and counterproductive.
It is an interesting argument that having weaker players available means you need to play a more pragmatic system. I would say the opposite at least when playing similar or better opposition. A pragmatic system is more likely to give the par result which is a draw or a loss. A risky system will lead to more losses and more wins which with three points for a win is the desired outcome.
As I've said countless times, he's admitted whilst at Celtic his style causes injuries and that he faced injury issues at previous clubs. He's since come to the most physically demanding league in world football and tried playing arguably the most physically demanding system in that and it's resulted in one of the biggest injury lists we've likely ever seen.
Exaclty that, that’s why I have little sympathy for him with regards to injuries and why I don’t think they would be much less in the future.
The annoying thing is that Postecoglou's worked it out. We played a sensible, maintainable system in the last four Europa games. Comfortably the better team in both legs against Frankfurt and walked over Bodo/Glimt. There weren't loads of injuries, we created plenty of chances and didn't concede many. What happens when we're back to the league? Stupidball. Stretched all over the place, creating **** all and conceding constantly. Mounting injuries, albeit due to **** tackles, but we don't even get anything from them. I'm pretty sure we've been awarded more penalties in Europe this season than domestically. Not sure how much of that is the system and how much is other factors, though.
The relegated teams this season are proof that isn’t correct. If you have lesser players you need to be more defensive and pragmatic otherwise you’re gonna have defeat after defeat
There's more than one way to skin a cat. Bielsa showed that you can simply outwork other sides, although it's rather temporary. Pulis showed that you can outthink and outmuscle them, which Arteta's adopted. Both took advantage of having less games to create an advantage.
Klopp had very similar issues early on at Liverpool but had a better squad so it didn't show up as much in the results. I don't know why so many find it hard to understand that if your natural position is 6th and there are massive rewards for coming 4th and almost no downside from coming 8th then the right strategy is to take lots of risk which will occasionally mean disastrous outcomes. However in the Europa where our natural position is 2nd then a pragmatic approach is best. Ange is doing the optimal thing in the PL and EL according to the risk reward ratios.
Spurs are 17th in the league. Spurs have lost 20 league games. Spurs have had their worst league season for decades and worst ever in the Premier League era. Ange is failing miserably. Winning Europa will be nice but it doesn’t change the fact he has to go.
Your theory will struggle mightily to explain why there are so many teams outperforming their squad value while we lag so far behind. Forest Arsenal Brentford Newcastle Fulham Bmouth Villa In fact, technically speaking by your measures of success, Ipswich are having a much better season than us as their squad value places then 20th but they will finish 18th.
I've been avoiding putting the calculated numbers in my posts but here they are. The difference between finishing 4th and 6th in the PL is about 10 points on average but there is a definite trend for it to get lower (ie the league is becoming more competitive) so the current expectation is about 8 points. We do finish 6th on average and our standard deviation after removing the trend is about 8 points. Just on pure stats we would expect to be top four once every six seasons. We get about 65 points on average. If we chose to play a much more risky system then we could triple our standard deviation to 24 points. This would more than double our chance of qualifying for the CL. In fact we would win the league about once in seven seasons. But we would also get fewer than 41 points once in every six seasons. So with that strategy we qualify for the CL a third of the time, and have a season like the current one a sixth of the time. As well as making it much more likely we will win the League That sounds like a good trade to me. So a very risky system like Ange's is better isn't it despite giving terrible outcomes quite often? Historically we have one of the lowest standard deviations on points in the PL. Half the league will outperform every season. The current table is entirely consistent with my theory.
I should add that I doubt it is possible to come up with a strategy so risky that it triples our standard deviation on points but Chelsea and Liverpool already have a standard deviation of 13 so doubling ours to 16 should be feasible and that is probably about optimal. It would give a season like this one approximately once every ten years and CL about every four years. I also doubt that Ange has thought it through exactly in this way but it doesn't alter the fact that our historical performance is not risky enough and to sack the coach for correctly taking more risk is bonkers.
Klopp’s squad really wasn’t that great, his main first XI when he took over barely had any top players in it. As for no downside on coming 8th, there definitely is. Your top players will consider their future as many will want to be in some form of European competition and for us especially, coming 17th this season sees the club miss out on about £24m in prize money. The Europa League means more to us than just a trophy this season, it’ll be the difference in potentially keeping some key players as well as making us attractive to new signings and having the money for them. If we don’t win, we are very much up **** creek without a paddle.
I'm baffled by how you describe Ange's system as if it's some great mystery that will be as brilliant one year as it was disappointing the year prior. As if opposition teams are currently merely fluking good results against us, but will totally forget how we play come August because it is so mysterious. There is nothing risky about his system. It is probably the easiest I've ever seen to work out and counter, which every single opponent has been wise to since the first third of last season. To beat us, you need just three ingredients: 1) Someone good at playing a ball over the top. 2) Pacy forward players 3) Wide players willing to run hard and overload the flanks It's really that simple. The only risky thing about Ange's system is that he's trying to implement it with a club that doesn't spend half a billion every summer and pays wages that won't attract players good enough to play the system well. And in my books, that isn't risky, it's moronic.
