Smirking_Saint

I think if you compared all the players of all the squads in the division and built a team with them, form not counted, we’d have a significant number We have good players, we just have a suicidal defensive structure

I mean, we are, we’ve shown that to be true but when it goes wrong it goes very wrong, if we can play the way we want to we’re fine, we’re just trash defensively

In fairness Ive been pretty vocal, certainly during the transfer window against any pessimistic voices, so its only fair I come here now with balance Last night, and Sunderland were as poor a defensive performance as I can ever remember… potentially since the 9-0 but even then I felt like our defensive shape was better than it was in the last 180 mins I think we likely have the best squad in this division, the best 11s are probably between us or Leicester and I do think we’re both better than Leeds overall, so ultimately its down to tactics and ours have too many negatives I know I keep banging the drum but if he doesn’t give us more defensive structure then we’ll be struggling to mount a meaningful promotion drive come christmas, because despite how good we are on the ball we simply are too easy to play against us… if I was our opponent Id push high on us when we play from the back, then retreat as we progress.. keep two wide men wide and you have counter options and we see that counters work At a basic level he needs a No.6 to stick to that position and atleast one of the WBs to support that, if we give up the flanks then we do.. you can’t cover everything, but unfortunately we can ne turned over wide or centrally right now Im genuinely worried that RM is either too stubborn or incapable of changing things

That was my take… the whole scenario around that corner was awful - Poor options around Sully - Terrible pass under pressure from him - Smallbone effectively the only man back and should have backed off or brought him down

I think he’s better but not by much, like I said they’re both just ball movers really

Nothings changed unfortunately Im still pro RM but we have to see a change, we simply have to see more defensive structure… its no good just pointing to the players and saying they need to work harder, for how long do you blame them and sit on your hands ? Against Sunderland this was Downes’ average positions.. thats simply not good enough for a No.6 The wing backs.. the reason you invert them is to allow for a central buffer, allowing the midfield to push up with atleast one of the FBs movibg centrally to assist Its just not good enough, you can have the greatest passing stats in the world but if as soon as you lose it you’re undone then its absolutely worthless Im happy to give RM a little longer but not if he is as stubborn as he seems, you simply have to be better defensively

Winks and Smallbone are one and the same really, very good players technically but like Smallbone I don’t remember seeing Winks win many duel’s yesterday, just nice and neat passing options

Leicester didn’t have to work hard… and walked away with a 4-1 win I said after Sunderland that RM has to be more resilient, he has to get the team in a better shape WHEN we lose the ball… I can swallow the slow possession play, but not if we are this soft The fact we let in 9 in 2 is bad enough but it feels like we had an international break and learned nothing Awful

Hybrid is an option but not as heavily subsidised so for the same contract its going to be closer to 300 a month unfortunately Ive currently got a Rav4 self charge hybrid.. great car for a work vehicle, but the contracts up

Whats the charging infrastructure like in Europe ? I get a tad worried that Ill be driving and there will be no chargers or they’ll be offline

Yeah they’re ridiculously expensive for what they are, although prices are coming down I can get the top spec Touota Bz4X for 100 a month though, and thats on a full maintenance contract with unlimited mileage.. so feels a no brainer.. but so far Im just a littke sceptical around infrastructure.. I don’t tend to do huge journeys, but my daily commutes can and do hit 100ish miles a day I suppose the odd times we go somewhere like Devon or Cornwall for a break Ill either have to plan properly or use the petrol car we have instead… annoyingly that’s currently a Focus ST.. so might have to convince the Mrs to get a different car too 😂

So unfortunately it looks like work is pushing me down the electric vehicle route, I do potentially have other options but the EVs are heavily subsidised as they want to champion an EV fleet Im starting to lean that way, ultimately I think Im confortable, the options Im looking at seem to hage around 230m real world ranges and I can get a 1k loan for a home charger install Anyone on here have an EV ? Just wondered peoples thoughts on current infrastructure etc My one hang up is currently, if Im doing a long journey I can pop in, fill and go but that won’t be an issue anymore

Society would be paying for whatever route we took back then though, we can’t say whether or not a lesser lockdown would have had better results but in the case of highly contagious diseases science would say we would have fared worse

Im not convinced education is or has ever been in his vocabulary tbh

I see the groundbreaking trade deal with the US is going well… unfortunately not for us though

Can you post a reference to that last stat ?

The irony of those that shout this yet blindly following the lies and exaggeration of accounts looking to take advantage of the outube algorithm is not lost here

Saw his sons Mrs had sold a story to the Mail recently about effectively them both being swingers, but mainly that she is endorsed to.. playing their open relationship out so publicly can’t be reducing any stress he is clearly under

Tbh this, and the guy is very intelligent, he’s just been taken in and overwhelmed by the conspiracist crew He doesn’t need to withdraw from public life etc, he just and in fairness probably has, needs people around him to refute his nonsense unfortunately i think pre covid (exceptions granted) we lived in a time where life was comfortable and people don’t accept a change to that reality, they’d rather believe covid was a control mechanism then accept the reality that life isn’t as under control for the human race as we’ve come to believe

There is another thread on it elsewhere but its arguments like this that over simplified the situation, it wasn’t really a case of lockdown/cancel appointments vs not.. and the narrative around ‘we’ll live with the cost of lockdowns etc etc’ is flawed because you never really knew or imagined the total impact of the virus if left unchecked Correct it was highly survivable but the fact it is/was SO contagious and a high(ish) percentage of those affected required hospitalisation, so in essence IF we didn’t have lockdowns the potential long term damage due to an overwhelmed NHS would of potentially exceeded the long term damage done by lockdowns themselves We’ll be living with the fallout of Covid for years to come because it was a global pandemic

Yeah I agree, but as far as stats go its certainly one of the better ones to use as a guide. Stats like completed passes, interceptions and tackles per game are ‘ok’ but again then are only really relevant if you compare the tactics adopted and if, say you compare the pass stats from an RM system to a Warnock system etc then the comparison doesn’t fit But at the very least xG and xGA are pretty consistent in how they are modelled, I think the ‘tagger’ is more some AI algorithm rather then some spotty oink filling in a spreadsheet… still like any stats I think needs to be backed up by the ‘eye test’ but they’re a pretty fair assessment of teams attacking/defensive output *Ours are sat at an xG of 2.15 and actual goals are 2.. so we’re slightly underperforming that *Rather worryingly our xGA is 1.25 (which comparatively isn’t bad) but our acual is 2.40 which is shocking, so we’ve either been slightly unlucky, or we’re letting in goals we frankly shouldn’t * Both per 90 stats from footystats.com

Not really sure how xG isn’t relevant, as I explained and you ignored

Whoever it is I don’t think he’s had much of a coaching back ground

The only goal we’ve conceded by passing out at the back was Holgates fuck up, and there was plenty that should of happened to address that and it ended up with a 20-30 yard effort going in The rest is purely due to terrible team shape and largely not because we get caught on the ball, if we set up defensively the way we do now but playing Ralphs way or Koemans, or Poch… the result would be the same

I appreciate you don’t like stats, and I do understand the dislike for them, but they are important, which is why you see pretty much every high level sports team using data to a hugh degree, some more than others I also agree that you can’t base everything on stats alone, you have to look at the bigger picture xG is expected goals, its a relatively easy metric, but basically if you’re matching your xG then you’re doing well and taking chances, equally if you have a high xG its an indicator that you’re doing well from an attacking perspective, and we’ve been praised for that So… Im tackling the ‘we’re too pedestrian’ narrative here… if we’re at the top of the xG charts than attacking isn’t a problem, and as such moving the ball in a quicker and less controlled way isn’t going to improve this, it’ll probably wreck team structure even more than it is.. we need to get better at taking our chances of course, but I think getting Stewart or Adams on the pitch addresses it Our problem is defending… or more pertinently IMO being able to stop counters, now in my mind, atleast in theory and more slow and controlled possession game ‘should’ allow us to remain in a relatively solid structure, certainly more than a quicker counter type game style would… so again.. the issue for me isn’t the possession game, its the way we’re set up when we lose possession So really im trying to get to the crux of what people’s issue is and it seems to me that they just don’t like possession football but I think, given a chance it can be very effective.. again though, he needs to ensure we’re defensively sound on the turnover and Ill want to see improvements