TWar

Yes, I did watch the game. Obviously it could have been more, it could have been less. Statistically speaking they scored more than they should have. It still should have been like 4 or 5 goals to our 1 but saying we were lucky it wasn't 10 was nonsense. Werner missed a header that was over 0.5 xg, yeah, but then Mount put in a shot from 24 yards with defenders between him and the goal which he hit first time which had an xG of 0.05 so those even out. The reason you think it should have been higher is you count every goal as a goal and every near miss as a goal whereas sometimes missed sitters are balanced out with tricky goals.

Yeah, it shows given the events of the game was the result reasonably fair. Its good for prediction in that it improves analysis, you can see if a teams is underperforming or overperforming and hence which direction they are likely to trend, which is why gamblers like it, but it isn't predictive on its own.

Why? Surely the quality of our season and by extension the success of our manager should be mediated against our expectations. 10th for City would be a disaster, 10th for Norwich would be amazing. When analysing whether we have had a good season or not we have to assess what "good" means for us. Considering what was expected preseason we have done well. Standards raised in Jan-Feb but that's only true because of how well we did, not really fair to hold that against us.

Alright mate, whatever you say. I expect if we lose I'll see you next week. If not, see you next time we have a bad spell.

That's true, but most aren't so relentlessly negative and then completely AWOL when we win, only to come back as relentlessly negative when we lose again. It's kind of suspicious. Normally what a troll would do.

The lower end of predictions was relegation. The higher end was ~13th. So even finishing ~15th which is probably the lowest we'll go is atleast a middling season considering fans and pundits alike had us as a relegation candidate. Here is the thread: (still a shame SKDMan didn't take that charity bet, that'd we'd be closer to 10-14th than 20th.)

We could, we could also get top 10, which we are one point off of, rather than 17th which we are 8 points off of. Either way, right now, we are objectively outperforming the vast vast majority of expectations preseason, so it really hasn't been that shit has it?

Good point, hadn't noticed that had finished. One point off 10th then. I remember someone being laughed at preseason for claiming 10-14th was possible.

If it is a majority shit season with a small purple patch why are we 1 point off ninth?

When? Both Armstrong and Moi basically always play as 10s so any game either of them plays in is probably not a 442. If anything the presence of those two was heavily linked to our upturn in form. We fiddled with a 442 occassionally with Redmond/Walcott/Djenepo at times this season but our best form was undeniably with our two 10s.

Wood was a release clause, so the price didn't go up at all. And, to be honest, they got Trippier and Bruno Guimaraes for pretty reasonable fees. Both were linked to top clubs for decent money.

You post like crazy when we lose and have been around a while, not unreasonable. Also a number of people noticed you went when we had good form and yet a few losses and you are right back. Bit weird is all.

I think the simple answer is "it could easily be 10" is an emotional response to a thrashing but thrashings happen all the time and it rarely goes above six for a reason. Big results are normally freak results. xG is unbiased by such things and hence accurately shows the likelyhood of certain results.

Statistically speaking world class players don't outperform xG very often at all. It shows that number of chances is much more important than conversion rate. It's why its better to be missing sitters than being anonymous. One can turn around a lot easier than the other. For example Salah, Jota, Kane, Mane, and Ronaldo are all underperforming with Son being the only top scorer who is overperforming. The biggest overperformer per minute is Smith-Rowe, who isn't exactly topping the charts. This view that xG doesn't well describe top players as they are much better finishers is pretty inaccurate.

How come you only show up when we are losing?

People said exactly this after the Liverpool loss, we then went on a fantastic run in January and February playing almost exclusively a 4222.

Bruno Guimaraes cost £38m which is almost double our record fee. So no, not within our budget whatsoever. Wood was £30m, again far above our record fee and double our rumoured cap. This is absolutely incorrect.

It is a slump. Obviously. But across the season we are doing really well compared to most expectations going in. I remember us being a lot of professional pundits prediction to go down. Given we still have a very good chance at top half Ralph has objectively done a very good job. A slump near the end when we are on the beach and have nothing to play for doesn't change that. Its bad? yes. Is it atleast partially the managers fault? Definitely. Does it mean he should be sacked? Fuck no, across the season Ralph has been superb.

The same 2 in the middle that worked against City, Spurs and united. We lost because our team massively underperformed, including a number of our best players. We lacked motivation which is absolutely on the manager. Also because Chelsea are very good. But to say it was a problem with formation and/or number of midfielders when we played exactly the same against other top sides successfully is poor analysis.

Ralph objectively does know what formation he asked his team to play? Tuchel, not being in the tactics meetings, does not. This shouldn't be controversial just because Chelsea won.

Yeah and he started slow, but so did Che and now Che is our top scorer. Would like to see him have another run in the side.

I know better than someone who thought we'd finish 20th and is now crying that we are only one point off 9th, but thats a low bar. By definition every other prediction was better off than that other than top 4, which no one said in earnest.

Ralph calls it a 4222 and I think Ralph knows better about his own set up than Tuchel. Also me vs Tuchel is a weird framing given I am referencing Ralph and you Tuchel, it's either me vs you or Ralph vs Tuchel. Saying its me vs Tuchel is a blatant misrepresentation to appeal to authority. I could equally say: So you think you know better than Ralph. Jeez.

I remember you having a similar reaction to people saying we'd finish 10-14th, it was LOL instead of LMFAO but it was pretty much the same thing. How did that work out?

How can you refer to a team as more counter attack minded when they had 71% possession? It was anything but counter attack, they kept the ball and broke us down like City do. And Ralph has called it a 4222 on countless occassions and he is the one that sets it up, so probably a better authority than someone who played against it.