Funny, I thought we had 14 games left.Oh, it's over...unless we get relegated.
Not for one minute do I entertain any notion of winning the EL. I hope I'm dreadfully wrong...
...but I'm not.

Funny, I thought we had 14 games left.Oh, it's over...unless we get relegated.
Not for one minute do I entertain any notion of winning the EL. I hope I'm dreadfully wrong...
...but I'm not.

He was in an ad for some German beer last year which pretty much nagged people how to drink itEx Liverpool manager making commercials now.His teeth look especially polished.Did they ever drop out during his touchline tantrums?
Because when we sign equivalent players the reaction is to whinge about not signing Pedro NetoBrighton are consistently so lucky in their recruitment.
Why is our luck so bad?
Funny, I thought we had 14 games left.![]()
Luck's got nothing to do with it. Brighton use a variant of Moneyball.Brighton are consistently so lucky in their recruitment.
Why is our luck so bad?
Brighton are consistently so lucky in their recruitment.
Why is our luck so bad?
Luck's got nothing to do with it. Brighton use a variant of Moneyball.
Their owner, Tony Bloom, runs a sports analytics company that primarily focuses on betting.
The club supposedly uses the data that they accumulate as part of their scouting system.
I think that is a misrepresentation of my position. I was happy to see Mourinho, Nuno and Conte go. I was ,mistakenly, happy to see Redknapp go. My position now is that I hope Ange can turn the season around. I hope that will start tomorrow, when we see a team with some players back and also rested.That's what the relegation comment acknowledged...but (at best) we're just playing for a more elevated (mid-table) placing.
We ain't gonna win nuthin' (natch)...and given that Ange is gone in the summer, we're just playing out the season.
I know that you're very supportive of the status quo, having told me how well Mourinho, Nuno. Conte and now, Ange are doing (when collapse of their spells was clearly coming)...and I support your right to be as wrong as you want to be...but we're done this season. DONE.
The only positive to come out of it, at all, is that Levy's starting to feel a modicum of the heat he righteously deserves. That's our end of season aim...get him out of the club and get Paul Barber in.
The alternative is stop start back and forth, getting nowhere.
We are half way through. You are just looking at the NOW when I think you have to look at the near future. League position matters on the last day of the season when you have 14 games still to play it's not a known thing. Tomorrow will be interesting.We are nowhere, Spurf.
We are 14th, level with West Ham and Everton.
That is nowhere...
We are half way through. You are just looking at the NOW when I think you have to look at the near future. League position matters on the last day of the season when you have 14 games still to play it's not a known thing. Tomorrow will be interesting.
@The RDBD corrected me on the word I was using. Random is better than luck. But I've always conceded that Brighton and Brentford, who use a lot of data in recruitment have outperformed in recruitment for quite a while. However when they sell players on, very few of them turn into the top players that we need to compete, they mostly turn out to be quite average.I'm told that it's luck.
I'll leave it to you to work out who told me.
I assume that this is because those clubs also play Moneyball football.@The RDBD corrected me on the word I was using. Random is better than luck. But I've always conceded that Brighton and Brentford, who use a lot of data in recruitment have outperformed in recruitment for quite a while. However when they sell players on, very few of them turn into the top players that we need to compete, they mostly turn out to be quite average.
I'm not sure, but there's bound to be a corner coming soon.How long till Arsenal get an undeserved winner?
@The RDBD corrected me on the word I was using. Random is better than luck. But I've always conceded that Brighton and Brentford, who use a lot of data in recruitment have outperformed in recruitment for quite a while. However when they sell players on, very few of them turn into the top players that we need to compete, they mostly turn out to be quite average.
If you look back over ENIC's reign I think we've been generally average on recruitment with some periods where most things went well and some when a lot went badly. The period before 2016 is an example of the former, the period from 2019 to 2023 an example of the latter. That's what I mean by luck or randomness...it's simply impossible to have a long-term edge in recruitment.
I think everyone will be learning from Brighton and Brentford so any edge they have will disappear. The first club to properly use AI will likely get a short-term edge but as in all works of life the richer clubs will tend to get the benefits.
If that was all true then you would expect us to finish well below 6th on average. But we don't. The data suggests our football performance is exactly where it should be based on our wealth.It's not random. There are forces at play in our recruitment that place us at a distinct disadvantage to pretty much any equivalent club.
We don't pay the wages to attract players of the required quality. We overspend on transfer fees for players who will accept our wage structure. The squad's full of them...and they're murder to get rid of.
We won't pay significant agent's fees. The best established players have agents who want to be paid with real money. We buy players who don't have such agents. Our reliance on CAA Base is excessive.
We love 'a bargain'. Levy can't help himself. It's why we've got a plethora of left wingers and goalkeepers..and only had 3 centre backs to start the season. He's regularly nipping out to buy players that the coach doesn't want (Sissoko, llorente, Lucas Moura, Joe Rodon, Reguillon, Bale the 2nd time, Spence). The majority of them aren't a bargain at all.
Our recruitment team was **** for years with COYS Daniel making technical, footballing assessments and having final say.
We're run like Trotters Independent Traders. Levy's not at Mr Byrite anymore. We need better...it won't be difficult. Villa got in Monchi and their recruitment is massively improved. If we were a progressive club, we could have got him and a decent coach years ago...
We are amateur.
Because when we sign equivalent players the reaction is to whinge about not signing Pedro Neto
Also demanded obscene wages, IIRCDodged a bullet with Neto, injury prone and not enough end product.