Dman

Oh I don’t disagree. The miserable weather and the fact we seemingly never get a result there, or at least in the times I’ve been, have made it a pretty miserable hunting ground from personal experience.

I think Ralph is his own worse enemy. As Dan sheldon said on TSP a few weeks back, when he has time to think (I.e international break) we need to worry, as he starts to tinker and over think. Ive always said he’s a good training ground manager and a decent ‘coach’, but tactically not great. Yesterday, we went back to basics and like magic, it worked. That being said, Arsenal weren’t great and on another coulda/shoulda won.. but you need to ride your luck against the better teams. Re Broja, I think most can see what influence he has on us. He’s a top quality player and even when not scoring, he’s still contributing to style and giving us a genuine threat in behind. He struggles when teams sit deep and prevent any space for him to run in to. If we had the quality in midfield, this wouldn’t matter so much, but we don’t.

Having been to Burnley a few times, I’d find it hard to get the enthusiasm to go for a ‘6 pointer’ on a Saturday, let alone a Thursday night. There and Stoke seem to be the coldest, most miserable grounds in the country… I guess that’s just the soft southerner in me.

I’m just here to call out the bullshit buddy. He just says a lot of it. Live by the sword and all that. Act like a know it all, expect to be shot down when proven you don’t.

I thought the exact same. He’s a better version of Stephens. He’s got a decent range of passing as well.

He epitomises everything we need at the moment and miss when he’s not in the side. Technically he’s probably not the best player, but he has guts, determination and fight. And to think, Mr stat man wrote him off after watching the highlights of a bad game on YouTube….

When the manager learns from mistakes and changes his style 😉

Not pretty, rode our luck at times, but done exactly what we needed to do and had the fight to do so. Fair play, good win.

Done exactly what was needed today. Credit where it’s due. Please just find some consistency.

What a shite game of football this is.

About Fraser Forster “Southampton lost 6-0 last week, but without him it could have been double figures”… do these bloody useless commentators not know teams rarely exceed thier XG 😡

Trying to hit them on the counter attack with Broja’s pace it seems. Sensible, he’s already looked to have the beating of them once or twice.

Brilliant from Broja there. Should be 1-0

I may be mistaken, but we’ve persisted with the same formation for the past 5 or 6 games, which we’ve not won 1 of.

Personally, I’d swap salisu for Bednerak but those at CB are a bit of a raffle and you’ve no idea what you’re going to get. However, for me, that’s the strongest side we can put out. Why does it take a hammering for Ralph to change things though?

very naive way of looking at things. Koeman has been ridiculously hit and miss other than his spell at Saints. He went to Everton, where he had a huge budget and is generally considered a failure. MoPo, is at PSG, who have the biggest budget in football and he’s not exactly pulling up trees. Puel, in his one season (and limited budget it should be said), hugely outperformed any manager since Koeman. Koeman was a success here because of the players he brought in, not how much they cost. Pelle (£8m) was far a greater player than Carrillo (£20m) Mane (£11.5m) was far better than Boufal (£16m). What would Puel have achieved with Mane, Tadic & Pelle up top? Who knows? But they were far more talent than Redmond, Boufal & Austin

And Broja, don’t forget broja. Even managed to dig him out in a discussion about the quality of Chris Wood…

Out of interest, what do or did you expect Bournemouth to Achieve in the PL? Also, I don’t get you obsession with spending and guaranteed success. We spent a shit ton of money in the season or 2 after Virgil left, we didn’t spent it wisely and we’re hampered until probably last season as a result. Similar happened at bournemouth they spent big money on bang average players. Ibe, Solanke, Lerma, Billing, for example. (Our Lemina, Carrillo, Hodet’s). Who you sign is far more important than how much you spend. We’re living proof of that. Probably 99% of managers in this league do not pick the players who are signed, they have an input, but don’t pick them specifically. If player recruitment is poor, then how much you spend almost becomes redundant.

And in the main, for the first few (more successful seasons) at least, he was using a core squad of players who he had in L1 and the championship.

Success is relative. I doubt you’ll understand as it takes critical thinking rather than what’s black and white on a spreadsheet. Taking a club like bournemouth from the bottom of L2 to the premier league and keeping them their for 5 seasons is a huge achievement. West Ham are a far larger club, with significantly more resources. To measure their success against Bournemouth is just stupid.

The figures don’t lie. You said the best strikers don’t out perform their XG, they do. I’ve proven they do. Naturally, there are variants season on season and players will have good and bad seasons (for a number of reasons), but over a significant data set (generally in statistics the larger the data set the more accurate the numbers), they over perform. Fact. It’s been an extremely long winded debate, but in short, your argument was that it wouldn’t have been more with another striker in place of Werner. Statistically, had Lukaku played (+6), there is a greater chance that he’d have scored the chances Werner (-6) missed. Keep digging though, the more you post, the more you show how much you haven’t a clue.

Correct. It doesn’t make you a bad manager though, clearly as demonstrated in this case by moyes. Could be down to a number of factors.

Ahhh see I knew that you’d respond with this, so I’ve done a bit of research. The majority of big players out performed their XG over the period of 8 seasons, a few stand outs though are: Kane - https://understat.com/player/647 +21 Messi - https://understat.com/player/2097 + 34 Halaand (over 3 seasons) - https://understat.com/player/8260 + 11 Then you have the likes of Vardy, Argueo and Benzema, who over perform pretty much every season as well. And that was just from a quick off the top of my head glance at what I’d consider the best finishers in football. So better forwards do in fact out perform their XG, don’t they….

Got relegated, so must be. Apparently that’s the guide for a good manager.

Aribo for Rangers looks a proper player, or at least he has tonight.