It's all about clichés The posting is typical of what supporters have been 'educated' to expect by the powers that control the game, by the so-called expert pundits etc with their constant use of terms like 'the table doesn't lie'. Of course logically it shouldn't. Yes, logically, after 38 games the table should reflect the ranking of the teams on merit. But how can you seriously believe that when we see all the crap served up by refs, and the cheating done to win pens etc that logic has much to do with it? Enter next over-used and under-true cliche 'these things even themselves out'. Which again is rubbish because it implies there is some kind of mystical force that causes and equal distribution of events, and (most importantly) judgement of the events across every game. True, when talking about an abstract group of events the events there are the more likely they will even themselves out, but even that very poorly describes normal distribution which even in itself allows for extreme events at either end of the spectrum. When you are talking about reality, and particularly reality in football, the minute you even suspect that something - let's say a certain team gets the benefit of the doubt more often at home games - is going on then normal distribution is up the spout too, and add to that a myriad of other decisions - how about the distribution of penalties awarded, was that evenly done? Yet as soon as anyone says that these two ridiculous clichés I've mentioned here might not be true, for example in saying the refs can clearly have determined a table when teams finish only one point different, we get the third cliché 'sour grapes'. And all the teams that benefit from this go back to sticking their head in the sand about there being a problem - until it happens to them and suddenly nobody is very sympathetic because of their previous attitude. But of course since these 'events' tend to favour the same teams all the time, that doesn't happen very much.
The only thing a league proves is which team is more consistent than the other, if it was all about quality then Arsenal would have won the league in 04/05 and Chelsea would have won it in 06/07 and probably even 07/08. I agree with you on football clichés and other mantra recycled by pundits. To add to those you have already mentioned I'd cite "It [fixture list] doesn't matter, everyone plays the same team twice". Only, it does matter when you play teams and the run-in, especially when you factor in other competitions and travel time etc. Champions League is a better reflection of quality in my view. There are less variables throughout.
I think your correct. I sort of remember a very average defensive bland money fuelled team unbelievably buying it not long ago.
Tottenham Hotspur fan humanbeingincroydon has urged 40-year-old sporting director Zinedine Zidane to speed up the end of this tiresome saga by shutting up about Bale before valiantly attempting to **** himself.
Just read an article in The Sunday Times claiming that we are in for Wigan's McCarthy. Supposedly, Wigan want £20mil. Needless to say, Levy won't pay it. The article reckons that business may get done around £15mil.
The article claims that Fulham have offered £8mil, which was rejected out of hand. He looks a reasonable player. He's young - 22. But £15 mil?....nah...
The fee for both Paulinho and Etienne Capoue is around £15m, according to various sources. So, to compare... Paulinho: £15m Capoue: £15m McCarthy: £20m Paulinho: 14 Brazil caps, 4 goals Capoue: 5 France caps, 1 goal McCarthy: 15 Irish caps, 0 goals Paulinho: 6th in Serie A/Last 16 of Copa Libertadores Capoue: 10th in Ligue 1 McCarthy: 18th in Premier League
These things do even themselves out.1966 England v Germany in the WC final. A goal was given which shouldn't have been and against Germany in the European Championship a goal wasn't given which should. In 66 it was to our benefit and then to Germany's benefit. Same teams,same incident ie ball hitting post and going down and 4-2 the other way around. Yes,these things DO even themselves out.
Trouble is HBIC is that Levy sees that as a chance to get some Brit talent on the cheap so he disregards logic. Wigan say 20,Levy says 4,and so on. I think he's worth about 6-7.
I agree, he's not worth £20mil, or anything close. I would, however, point out that a) McCarthy plays for two mediocre sides, in Wigan & Ireland b) that is Paulinho's supposed buy-out value. If a bidding war starts the fee could easily go far higher.
he's got "Dempsey" written all over him. Decent at a lower level, but could be average when he steps up to a higher level. We don't need squad players right now, we need players who will make a real difference. Total waste of money, IMO. - We've got enough like him already.
McCarthy, total waste of money. A backward step, the only attraction for Levy is that he won't demand a top wage. Players from the British Isles tend to cost double their true value , 95% of the time. Do it like Porto, find South Americans on the up and leave the Brit and Irish players for the others.
Sorry TMT they don't, unless you assume that the mistakes by the officials are due to bias and the policy is to correct that. Random events are simply that, random. If you toss a coin twelve times you expect 6 heads, but any number can actually occur. If the coin is fair then sometimes it will come out heads on the first six tosses simply by chance. This doesn't mean that there is a high chance of getting tails the next six times, the expectation is still three of each. The consequence of random mistakes is that some teams get exactly the number of points they deserve and some get more and some get less. It seems to me that there is about one match changing wrong decision most weeks in the PL so each team probably gets too many or too few points about four times a season. If these decisions are distributed randomly one or two teams end up with 3 or 4 points too many and one or two teams with three of four too few. That means you can be pretty certain that a team 8 points clear of another has had a better season but you can't really be very sure if the difference is one or two points. Another way of saying this is that if your hypothesis is that Arsenal are better than Spurs then Arsenal getting one point more over a season is not sufficient evidence for you to be confident that you are right. If there is bias in the decisions then that makes matters much worse.
£20m is a ludicrous price for McCarthy. He's a decent MF, but not at that price. He could be a good replacement for Parker, but to be honest, £8m - £10m is more realistic.
If you ask me, the best chance we have of having a good striker next year is Ade bouncing back. I'd take Ba, though not with any great hopes. At least he, like Ade, has been effective in the PL. I hate to gamble on strikers with no PL success in their background because so many turn out to be total wastes of money. It seems to be a trait I share with Levy.
No competition has ever been completely fair. Two obvious examples are whether you get teams during their good or bad runs, and whether you suffer or benefit from officiating decisions. The dirty little secret in sports are how frequently unfair officiating decisions determine the winner. The NBA may be the worst offenders, simply because officials call fouls constantly. On the other hand, their officials are pretty good, IMO. Semi-decent officiating in football would make few of the winners the product of bad reffing. Unfortunately, that's not what we have at all. The officals are awful. Did they determine the PL winner this year? No, definitely not. Did they determine 3-4-5? I don't know enough to say, really. But it looks that way. Arsenal deserved better than +1 pens, I would certainly guess. Spurs deserved much better than -3. And there was no way Chelsea deserved +10. So, based on my limited information and how close the teams finished, I would guess the "fair" result would have been Arsenal 3rd, Spurs 4th, Chelsea 5th.
My theme is about things evening themselves out Power and I still think that they do. Portugal v North Korea in 1966 was a 5-3 win to Portugal and in the last world cup it was 8-0 to Portugal. Coincidence? 8 goals again. Leeds v Celtic 1970 European Cup. A wee ginger haired Scot called Bremner was captain of Leeds and Scotland and he opened the scoring with a shot from 25-30 yards out on the right hand side but Celtic came back to scramble a 2-1 win. years later it was Leeds V Glasgow Rangers in the same cup. A wee ginger haired Scot called Strachan was captain of Leeds and Scotland and he opened the scoring with a shot form 25-30 yards out on the right hand side but Rangers came back to scramble a 2-1 win. Same cities,same opening score situation,same description of player,same cup and the same score. Coincidence? I think not.
