James Ward-Prowse

[em00jie]

1 minute ago, Harry_SFC said:

He must've changed his mind quite recently then...

Quite possible this was 2 or 3 weeks ago

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Good to read Pilchards' post saying he's not looking to leave. To my mind that means it would actually take a huge offer (£50m +) for it to happen.

If he were to go, I actually think we already have a replacement in Diallo. He was thrown in the deep end last season, played half a season covering Romeu's injury when he was a) not suited to that role and b) not really ready to be a starter in a PL side in poor form. But from what I've seen of him, I think he could fill the JWP role very well (apart from the dead ball stuff, of course). Him and Romeu as first choice in CM, with £50m in the bank to spend in other areas.. would that be so bad?

But the time you take agents fees and wages out of that £50m you could probably buy Carlton Palmer.

[beatlesaint]

The only problem I have with selling JWP, Ings or Vestergaard is that I have absolutely zero confidence we will be able to bring in anyone better or the same for the wages/fees we are prepared to pay. Our record of late (since Ralph took over) isnt great after all, KWP aside. 

[Shroppie]

14 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

He must've changed his mind quite recently then...

Did you ever say how you got this information?

[Ted Bates Statue]

13 hours ago, Pilchards said:

He certainly was looking at leaving during the Mark Hughes days as he never fitted in his plans which frustrated him.

I expect some of the broken-record gang on here would still like to accept Watford's £10M offer from that time.

[FarehamSaintJames]

12 hours ago, SuperSAINT said:

Just to add this to the valuation chat:

 

Cantwell I’ve always thought is an appalling player. Never understood the hype.

[Matthew Le God]

51 minutes ago, Turkish said:

So you’ve managed to quote one example of a player who didn’t chase money and dismissed his chances of winning anything at villa with their European cup win, 7 league titles, 7 fa cups, 5 league cups. Not won anything in ages, well yes but that was still 15 years more recently than we won anything. I’m convinced. 🤣
 

Let’s face it mate if he wants trophies he ain’t going to get them at saints. 

In the last 4 years Ward-Prowse has been in two FA Cup Semi Final squads and a League Cup Final. So we've been close in recent history and we've spent all but one season of the last decade above Villa!

Edited 1 August, 2021 by Matthew Le God

[Shroppie]

4 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

In the last 4 years Ward-Prowse has been in two FA Cup Semi Final squads and a League Cup Final. So we've been close in recent history and we've spent all but one season of the last decade above Villa.

This. Villa have no more prospects than Saints of winning anything this season.

[Harry_SFC]

16 minutes ago, Shroppie said:

Did you ever say how you got this information?

Yes, if you actually read the thread properly. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

7 hours ago, Saint86 said:

 

Villa without grealish are worse than saints imo, certainly no better anyway. 

 

Absolute pony. 

[Saint Fan CaM]

Once in awhile it would be nice to resist approaches to our best players and especially from clubs I consider to be no better than our own. To be honest I’ve never thought JWP would be a huge miss for the team, but he has improved a lot and stamped his presence in the side, so now I’m less sure. £50m would see him go though.

[TWar]

I'm also in the "villa without Grealish are worse than us" camp. Grealish didn't start 12 games last season, from them they got 12 points, third lowest in the league in that period. Villa without Grealish are a one point a game side, which is firmly "relegation battler" level. Dunno if Bailey and Buendia boost them that heavily tbh, Buendia certainly wasn't much of a difference maker last time he was in the prem with the same number of goal involvements as Nathan Redmond. Bailey seems alright but german fans are hardly unanimously positive about him, have heard people say things like "he has 5 good games a year".

[Verbal]

10 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Absolute pony. 

Learn. More. Slang.

[Shroppie]

33 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

Yes, if you actually read the thread properly. 

I have read the thread. The best you've offered is a claim that it came from someone close to his family. That may convince you, but not me.

[sadoldgit]

1 hour ago, bangkoksaint said:

Money may not be as tight but this has similarities potentially to Andrew Surman’s transfer

We had to sell Surman. Apparently we don’t have to sell JWP. He also has a long contract and as many have said, if he doesn’t want to go he isn’t going. Also as many have said, he is a key part of the squad (no matter what Duckie’s opinion of him is). I don’t believe he is going anywhere no matter how many bids Villa make.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Villa have a far  far better keeper than us. Centre halves that are decent, their full backs are on a par. Douglas Luiz actually stops people playing through their midfield and  John McGinn would walk into our side, really good player. Traoré is head and shoulders above fucking Djenepo, and you can’t tell me Redmond is better than Trezeguet or El Ghazi. Watkins isn’t at Ings level yet, but the play station statos would have wet their pants if we signed him from Brentford. Even their fringe players are men you’d want digging in for you.  

Edited 1 August, 2021 by Lord Duckhunter

[Turkish]

5 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Villa have a far  far better keeper than us. Centre halves that are decent, their full backs are on a par. Douglas Luiz actually stops people playing through their midfield and  John McGinn would walk into our side, really good player. Traoré is head and shoulders above fucking Djenepo, and you can’t tell me Redmond is better than Trezeguet or El Ghazi. Watkins isn’t at Ings level yet, but the play station statos would have wet their pants if we signed him from Brentford. Even their fringe players are men you’d want digging in for you.  

Reading here fans have been slagging off the owner, team and manager for years. It’s been pretty unanimous that we have fallen behind Villa and Everton in recent years despite. Player for player a better team, better squad and an owner spending money. They’re moving forward whereas we have been treading water for years with our ambition just to stay on the league. When there was a mention of us being linked with Bailey it was immediately dismissed by most saying we can’t compete with Villa for those sort of players, now they’re linked with one of ours suddenly they’re no Better than us, why would he leave etc.. 

[Harry_SFC]

1 hour ago, Shroppie said:

I have read the thread. The best you've offered is a claim that it came from someone close to his family. That may convince you, but not me.

Fair enough, you are free to believe what you want. All I am doing is relaying what I've heard from a very genuine source.

Although you seem to get your knickers in a twist as soon as someone posts something you don't want to hear. 

[le_tiss]

On 30/07/2021 at 23:34, Dusic said:

As ever, it will be down to the player. If JWP wants to move to Villa then it will happen because they have the cash to significantly up their first bid (which never gets accepted).

The only reason they make a second bid is if they have been encouraged that JWP would welcome the move. 

It will come down to how strong a desire that is.

The timing of his injury is an unfortunate coincidence I'm sure...

 

Normally agree with most of your posts but not here (unless you mean encouraged by the agent??)

Perhaps encouraged by his agent who is looking for a Pay Day

(in 3 ways -

1) a move for JWP

2) a renegotiated contract for JWP

3) a renegotiated contract for Grealish at Villa as Grealish (and/or Dean Smith) wants JWP there (allegedly) to maximise Free Kicks 

Strange that they share the same agent but 🤷‍♂️

 

Did you lot not pay attention recently when villa were encouraged by Emile Smith-Rowe agent that he was interested, he got his client £80kpw when Arsenal were offering £40kpw initially (i think he was on £15kpw to start) 

Villa made 3 bids in the end

🤷‍♂️

 

On 31/07/2021 at 11:24, The Curse of St Mary's said:

Villa must have had encouragement to make a bid from somewhere whether it be player or agents

 

Agent deffo (see above)

 

18 hours ago, saintwbu said:

They bid a similar amount for Emile Smith-Rowe and Arsenal basically told them to fuck off, and they did. Hopefully same happens here.

 

Exactly

Arsenal had no intention of selling Villa were used by the agent as a 'Stalking Horse'

Would love him to stay tbh

[Shroppie]

12 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

Fair enough, you are free to believe what you want. All I am doing is relaying what I've heard from a very genuine source.

Although you seem to get your knickers in a twist as soon as someone posts something you don't want to hear. 

Indeed. Fair enough. I don't get my knickers in a twist. I just get fed up with obvious trolls (not directed at you), those (probably not even Saints fans) who only want to criticise and others with no realistic understanding of the finances of a football club in the real world.

To be honest, I've virtually given up with this forum as a waste of time and only dropped in out of curiosity to see if it had got any better, but it hasn't. 

Edited 1 August, 2021 by Shroppie

[Turkish]

2 minutes ago, Shroppie said:

Indeed. Fair enough. I don't get my knickers in a twist. I just get fed up with obvious trolls (not directed at you), those (probably not even Saints fans) who only want to criticise and others with no realistic understanding of the finances of a football club on the real world.

To be honest, I've virtually given up with this forum as a waste of time and only dropped in out of curiosity to see if it had got any better, but it hasn't. 

I don’t see any trolls on here. I see people with a different view but no trolling. For example one post saying JWP would stay was applauded as being the only sensible post on the thread. Yet anyone who says hed leave if we get a sensible offer is dismissed as not having a clue/being a troll. Despite the fact that the club is screwed financially and we generally do tend to sell our best players when we get an offer we deem acceptable. That’s not trolling it’s stating a few facts people don’t want to hear 

[Neef]

For the amount Villa would have to pay for JWP (£40-50M), they could buy a better CM from elsewhere.

And the funniest thing is McGinn doesn't walk straight into their best side either. None of that takes away from how good I think JWP is. 

[Shroppie]

8 minutes ago, Turkish said:

I don’t see any trolls on here. I see people with a different view but no trolling. For example one post saying JWP would stay was applauded as being the only sensible post on the thread. Yet anyone who says hed leave if we get a sensible offer is dismissed as not having a clue/being a troll. Despite the fact that the club is screwed financially and we generally do tend to sell our best players when we get an offer we deem acceptable. That’s not trolling it’s stating a few facts people don’t want to hear 

I agree with the posts saying we're struggling financially. And with those saying if JWP wants to leave and we get a big enough offer, we'll let him. I find the arguments over which clubs are "big" clubs tedious.

The trolling is mainly on match threads and after we've lost.

 

[le_tiss]

interesting debate on a villa forum:

 

Funny how other fans see your players

 

Quote

 

This made me laugh from a villa forum

Poster 1: Two JWPs do not make up a Grealish. In fact, we can produce players like JWP through our youth system. He's no better than Jacob Ramsey apart from his set piece taking. If we are going to buy players in, we need to buy them in positions where we are lacking, or with characteristics we are lacking (ie buy a monster centre forward, or a huge bastard DM or a ridiculously quick winger, coz we don’t have any of those things).  

At the same time maybe, the analytics lads have decided the set piece taking is valuable enough to be worth carrying him. In which case you can’t carry any other player (ie no AEG, no trez, no young lad playing one of his first games). you're backing yourself into a corner

 

Poster 2: Have you ever seen JWP play?

 

Poster 3: So maybe like an expert set piece taker then?

 

Poster 1: yep. basically, ashley westwood with a good free kick. never impressed with him. he's not as good as, and definitely not better than, mcginn or luiz.

 

Poster 4: He's nothing like Westwood. JWP's defensive stats are brilliant. The idea that we'd carry him for his set piece ability is nonsense.

He outperforms McGinn and Luiz in all areas. Scores more and assists more too. Much better all-round midfielder than both of them.

Somebody who can actually run a game is more important to us than McGinn running into people and losing the ball.

JWP has games where he gets close to 100 passes, that's what great midfielders do. McGinn would need 3 full games to register 100 passes

McGinn isn't a proper midfielder, he causes a lot of the issues.

If you get someone like JWP in, you can control games and move the team forward. Playing with somebody like McGinn leads to ping pong football.

 

Poster 1: My point is that while JWP might well be a better player, but he doesn't outperform McGinn and Luiz in all areas and is lacking in 2 aspects in which Villa play under Smith. 

Personally, I'd be looking at better ball winning mid than JWP, who can add a lot of energy (who knows if that person is Sanson). McGinn offers a lot of energy, pressing and can carry the ball from the back or be played further forward.

He also Outperforms JWP in interceptions, or pressures and carrying the ball out from the back 

 

Poster 4: He doesn't though.

JWP has 207 successful pressures, success rate of 33%

McGinn has 168, 26% success

McGinn had 1 more interception.

JWP has more tackles and interceptions, no errors leading to shots. McGinn made 3 errors leading to shots.

Biggest difference is, JWP is making 70 passes a game, 81% completion - that' s a midfielder. McGinn is making 37, pass completion 77% - that's a goalkeeper. JWP has the 2nd most successful pressures in the league, 12th most tackles, 6th most passes and 1st for ball recoveries

If that's not a ball winning midfielder, what is?

 

Poster 1: Ward prowse is a tidy midfielder who makes a lot of sideways and backwards passes like ashley westwood but he wont win you games. that's fine at southampton where they don't expect to win many games. john mcginn is a different player entirely. hes got incredible close control and is impossible to win the ball off. he's a brave player - he demands the ball, he drives it forward, he gets us out of trouble so many times. he takes so much pressure off his team mates. he doesn't just pass it back to the defenders racking up stats. mcGinn is easily our second best player and any villa fan who thinks he's average is actually just thick.

 

Poster 2: Weird, pretty sure he won a game against us just last season, and scored 2 free kicks?

 

Poster 6: I would take JWP over McGinn in a heartbeat. 

 

[Lord Duckhunter]

Fuck me there’s stattos on other sites. Perhaps we could have a Play Station tournament with them. 

[Mustapha Fag]

3 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Absolute pony. 

The amount of times you mention ponies I wonder about your obsessions

[Roo1976]

14 minutes ago, Mustapha Fag said:

The amount of times you mention ponies I wonder about your obsessions

Donkey sanctuary,maybe?🤭

[TWar]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Fuck me there’s stattos on other sites. Perhaps we could have a Play Station tournament with them. 

Amazing how many people on football forums know what they are on about nowadays. Don't worry mate, there will always been room for someone to go "well I don't care about all these facts, I reckon he's soft".

[SaveloyMush]

2 hours ago, le_tiss said:

interesting debate on a villa forum:

 

Funny how other fans see your players

 

What did Poster 5 have to say?

[Lord Duckhunter]

1 hour ago, TWar said:

"well I don't care about all these facts, I reckon he's soft".

Stats are pony without context.  Pass completion means fuck all if you pass it safe every fucking time. For someone so interested in facts and stats, you seem to overlook the most obvious one. We keep getting dicked by embarrassing score lines. So yes, we are fucking soft. 

Edited 1 August, 2021 by Lord Duckhunter

[TWar]

51 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Stats are pony without context.  Pass completion means fuck all if you pass it safe every fucking time. For someone so interested in facts and stats, you seem to overlook the most obvious one. We keep getting dicked by embarrassing score lines. So yes, we are fucking soft. 

If only there was a "progressive pass completion" stat, or a "passes in final third" or "chances created through passes". Oh wait, there is, I guess you just have no idea what you are on about. Maybe just be quiet when people who do are discussing things, and stick to your basic analysis of "oh I guess we weren't bloke enough to win". It's more your level.

[Disco Stu]

I can't see Villa turning his head. They've been on a better trajectory than us but remain a mid table club and a direct rival. Without Grealish, they will remain a mid table club that could get dragged down into a dogfight much like us.

Regarding the price, I can't see Saints accepting an offer below £50m given the current market and how much pocket money we know Villa have. Add to that, we'd be losing a captain and a key player with 4 years on his contract.

Edited 1 August, 2021 by Disco Stu

[Golac's Cunning Stunts]

1 hour ago, TWar said:

If only there was a "progressive pass completion" stat, or a "passes in final third" or "chances created through passes". Oh wait, there is, I guess you just have no idea what you are on about. Maybe just be quiet when people who do are discussing things, and stick to your basic analysis of "oh I guess we weren't bloke enough to win". It's more your level.

But we do keep getting dicked by embarrassing scores. Using your obviously superior knowledge of all these stats, where do you suggest we are going wrong and what should we do about it? (You can read this as a sarcastic or argumentative post - it isn't - I'd be genuinely interested)

Without having studied any of these stats, my answer is that it's glaringly obvious we need to improve all things defensively. Stats would play a part of identifying good defenders, but attitude ("being bloke enough to win" as you put it) will also play a part. Just look at how everybody's head falls when we let a goal in.

Anyway - interesting discussion.

[Lord Duckhunter]

16 minutes ago, Golac's Cunning Stunts said:

 

Without having studied any of these stats, my answer is that it's glaringly obvious we need to improve all things defensively. Stats would play a part of identifying good defenders, but attitude ("being bloke enough to win" as you put it) will also play a part. Just look at how everybody's head falls when we let a goal in.

 

Exactly. When you keep getting dicked, keep chucking away leads, keep letting goals in at important times, then it’s pretty obvious there’s a lack of mental toughness.Some of our supporters are unwilling to face that truth. We get dicked at City & we’ve got supporters happy that we passed it around a bit, and Pep blew smoke up our arses. We need to man up and stop being so fucking easy to play against. The management shouldn’t need stats to realise that. 

[Dusic]

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/19483897.walker-peters-wants-saints-keep-hold-top-player-james-ward-prowse/?ref=twtrec

Somewhat strange that KWP was asked about JWP but not Hasenhuttl - surely he would have had a question on it...

[Saint86]

1 hour ago, Golac's Cunning Stunts said:

But we do keep getting dicked by embarrassing scores. Using your obviously superior knowledge of all these stats, where do you suggest we are going wrong and what should we do about it? (You can read this as a sarcastic or argumentative post - it isn't - I'd be genuinely interested)

Without having studied any of these stats, my answer is that it's glaringly obvious we need to improve all things defensively. Stats would play a part of identifying good defenders, but attitude ("being bloke enough to win" as you put it) will also play a part. Just look at how everybody's head falls when we let a goal in.

Anyway - interesting discussion.

Our idea of defense is a better attack 😀

[egg]

1 hour ago, Golac's Cunning Stunts said:

But we do keep getting dicked by embarrassing scores. Using your obviously superior knowledge of all these stats, where do you suggest we are going wrong and what should we do about it? (You can read this as a sarcastic or argumentative post - it isn't - I'd be genuinely interested)

Without having studied any of these stats, my answer is that it's glaringly obvious we need to improve all things defensively. Stats would play a part of identifying good defenders, but attitude ("being bloke enough to win" as you put it) will also play a part. Just look at how everybody's head falls when we let a goal in.

Anyway - interesting discussion.

We do, and I'm in the "stats only tell half the story" camp.

Whilst I've read above that there all sorts of stats that tell us all sorts, I've never seen them published anywhere or discussed on here. Regardless, if the club has access to these stats and has analysed them, they've done us no favours in terms of the rather important stats of not conceding goals and/or keeping a lead. That's down to mentality. 

[SKD]

3 hours ago, TWar said:

If only there was a "progressive pass completion" stat, or a "passes in final third" or "chances created through passes". Oh wait, there is, I guess you just have no idea what you are on about. Maybe just be quiet when people who do are discussing things, and stick to your basic analysis of "oh I guess we weren't bloke enough to win". It's more your level.

Again, these still add no real context. 

A ‘progressive pass’ could be a 5 yard forward pass to his fellow CM rather than a defence splitting pass. 

‘passes in final third’ again, could be a simple 5 yard sidewards pass which isn’t causing any trouble. 

‘chances created from through passes’. I bet this includes set pieces. 

I don’t need stats to tell me that we’re massively lacking drive and creativity in the middle of the park, other than when Armstrong was played in there. 

It looks like his defensive stats are potentially pretty good, however, as duck has pointed out, not good enough to prevent embarrassing score lines season upon season. 

For me, he’s being massively overestimated by saints fans. I think if you were to look at the saints web equivalent for Villa fans, I doubt they’re salivating at the thought of signing him. 

Imo, he’s a ban average premier league Central midfielder who’s got a very good free kick / corner and is a model professional and teachers pet (hence captaincy). 

Edited 1 August, 2021 by SKD

[TWar]

2 hours ago, Golac's Cunning Stunts said:

But we do keep getting dicked by embarrassing scores. Using your obviously superior knowledge of all these stats, where do you suggest we are going wrong and what should we do about it? (You can read this as a sarcastic or argumentative post - it isn't - I'd be genuinely interested)

It's fine, I genuinely love discussing football from a stats based perspective. And despite what it sounds like, I don't have an issue with those who don't like it, I just get annoyed at Duckhunter as they tend to be quite snide about it, saying things like it is akin to playing on playstation/excel spread sheet ect.

To answer your question I don't think there is one answer as to why we have embarrassing scorelines. If you take the two 9-0s for example, they are very different in cause. The first one was Angus Gunn. Our expected goals for that game was 4.4 vs 0.6. This mean, statistically, the score should have been 4-1. This is obviously not a good score but is not dreadful against a team of Leicester's quality when down to 10 men. Angus Gunn, however, had the biggest underperformance of xG in a single game I've ever seen. I believe when we beat Sunderland 8-0 it was very poor too, but that was more because own goals count as 0 on xG and they scored three.

The second 9-0 was mainly due to very poor squad depth. The vast majority of their goals came down our right where our 7th choice rb, Kayne Ramsey, was stationed. He was not able to stop united at all, which effectively ment we were basically playing with 9 players most of the game with a big gap. We, in essence, ended the game with 8 players. This is suicide against one of the best attacks in the league. McCarthy, again, didn't cover himself in glory. By xG it should have been 5.0-0.5 so should really have finished 5-0 or 5-1 but our keeper was dreadful again.

There are other individual poor results, a lot of them are just everything goes in, a good example of another team having this is Villa Liverpool where they lost 7-2. Statistically that should have ended 3-2 but their keeper had a poor game and everything villa hit went in. Statistically speaking, over a long enough time frame, a lot of spankings will happen just from very fortunate finishing. This is definitely sped along by having dreadful goalkeepers. There is a reason why Gunn was dropped straight after that game.

To answer the "why do we throw things away" question. Two factors for me: First we play a mad high tempo style which wears us out nearing the end of the game, and second we have crap depth so we can't make good meaningful depth.

Finally what to do about it. The answer is very unsatisfying but is basically spankings don't matter. They are very embarrassing but they are not really worth much more than a standard loss, bit of a tricky goal diff and a blow to confidence. If we wanted to avoid spankings we could buy a top keeper and play more defensively, play a low block, and do our best Burnley/Newcastle impression. The thing is, investing our money in attacking talent and playing expansive football is not only more fun to watch but also will likely do us better in the long run, even with the occasional embarrassment.

Therefore, while spending big on defence and GK would reduce our 9-0 risk considerably my advice would be to ignore the occasional spanking and instead focus on all the games we draw 0-0 or can't break down a team, and buy to attack. It is much more efficient. Also depth, we looked worse in all areas after injury so a couple of back up fullbacks and a good 4th CB if Vest goes is essential. People could say our def needs a boost, but tbh I think our first choice def was fine last season, we just didn't get to see it almost at all in the second half of the season. Unfortunately, Stephens is a dreadful CB and our back up fullbacks were all woefully sub par.

Edited 1 August, 2021 by TWar

[SKD]

40 minutes ago, egg said:

We do, and I'm in the "stats only tell half the story" camp.

Whilst I've read above that there all sorts of stats that tell us all sorts, I've never seen them published anywhere or discussed on here. Regardless, if the club has access to these stats and has analysed them, they've done us no favours in terms of the rather important stats of not conceding goals and/or keeping a lead. That's down to mentality. 

Our mentality is appalling, when the going gets tough we give up and roll over. We have done for years, hence the amount of leads we’ve thrown away in the last 2/3 seasons. 

However, recently, I don’t think we’ve been helped by our manager who I don’t think could set up a team to defend a lead if his life depended on it. 

we’ve not had a leader since Fonte. We miss him, we need to replace him, ASAP. 

Cahill is probably 2 years to late now (we should have got him on a free), however just having him in the dressing room woulD be invaluable. Likewise with Phil jones. 

[TWar]

2 hours ago, SKD said:

Again, these still add no real context. 

A ‘progressive pass’ could be a 5 yard forward pass to his fellow CM rather than a defence splitting pass. 

‘passes in final third’ again, could be a simple 5 yard sidewards pass which isn’t causing any trouble. 

‘chances created from through passes’. I bet this includes set pieces. 

I don’t need stats to tell me that we’re massively lacking drive and creativity in the middle of the park, other than when Armstrong was played in there. 

It looks like his defensive stats are potentially pretty good, however, as duck has pointed out, not good enough to prevent embarrassing score lines season upon season. 

For me, he’s being massively overestimated by saints fans. I think if you were to look at the saints web equivalent for Villa fans, I doubt they’re salivating at the thought of signing him. 

Imo, he’s a ban average premier league Central midfielder who’s got a very good free kick / corner and is a model professional (hence captaincy). 

Progressive passes must be atleast 10yrds in length in the opponents half or 30yrds in length in your half, so no it can't be a 5 yard forward pass. I feel a lot of mistrust of stats are born out of this exact type of misunderstanding.

A 5 yard sidewards pass in the final third is often very valuable too, to make space for a cross ect.

Set piece goals are worth exactly the same as non set piece goals so it really isn't a valuable distinction at all. As the old saying goes "they all count".

It's not purely on him to prevent embarrassing scorelines, as I point out in the above comment, mostly that falls on others.

I think he's superb, that's my response to the last point, its just my opinion though.

Edited 1 August, 2021 by TWar

[le_tiss]

12 hours ago, SKD said:

Again, these still add no real context. 

A ‘progressive pass’ could be a 5 yard forward pass to his fellow CM rather than a defence splitting pass. 

‘passes in final third’ again, could be a simple 5 yard sidewards pass which isn’t causing any trouble. 

‘chances created from through passes’. I bet this includes set pieces. 

I don’t need stats to tell me that we’re massively lacking drive and creativity in the middle of the park, other than when Armstrong was played in there. 

It looks like his defensive stats are potentially pretty good, however, as duck has pointed out, not good enough to prevent embarrassing score lines season upon season. 

For me, he’s being massively overestimated by saints fans. I think if you were to look at the saints web equivalent for Villa fans, I doubt they’re salivating at the thought of signing him. 

Imo, he’s a ban average premier league Central midfielder who’s got a very good free kick / corner and is a model professional and teachers pet (hence captaincy). 

I did and posted a snap shot of it above 🤷‍♂️

 

out of 10 posters (2 thought he was pony, average or not better than they already had, and the other 8 wanted to buy him to improve their team) but I understand he is not a Marquee signing.

 

Sometimes teams are built in stages and for the attacking threat to be let off the leash, water carriers are needed (+ the free kicks 😉 )

[Golac's Cunning Stunts]

13 hours ago, TWar said:

It's fine, I genuinely love discussing football from a stats based perspective. And despite what it sounds like, I don't have an issue with those who don't like it, I just get annoyed at Duckhunter as they tend to be quite snide about it, saying things like it is akin to playing on playstation/excel spread sheet ect.

To answer your question I don't think there is one answer as to why we have embarrassing scorelines. If you take the two 9-0s for example, they are very different in cause. The first one was Angus Gunn. Our expected goals for that game was 4.4 vs 0.6. This mean, statistically, the score should have been 4-1. This is obviously not a good score but is not dreadful against a team of Leicester's quality when down to 10 men. Angus Gunn, however, had the biggest underperformance of xG in a single game I've ever seen. I believe when we beat Sunderland 8-0 it was very poor too, but that was more because own goals count as 0 on xG and they scored three.

The second 9-0 was mainly due to very poor squad depth. The vast majority of their goals came down our right where our 7th choice rb, Kayne Ramsey, was stationed. He was not able to stop united at all, which effectively ment we were basically playing with 9 players most of the game with a big gap. We, in essence, ended the game with 8 players. This is suicide against one of the best attacks in the league. McCarthy, again, didn't cover himself in glory. By xG it should have been 5.0-0.5 so should really have finished 5-0 or 5-1 but our keeper was dreadful again.

There are other individual poor results, a lot of them are just everything goes in, a good example of another team having this is Villa Liverpool where they lost 7-2. Statistically that should have ended 3-2 but their keeper had a poor game and everything villa hit went in. Statistically speaking, over a long enough time frame, a lot of spankings will happen just from very fortunate finishing. This is definitely sped along by having dreadful goalkeepers. There is a reason why Gunn was dropped straight after that game.

To answer the "why do we throw things away" question. Two factors for me: First we play a mad high tempo style which wears us out nearing the end of the game, and second we have crap depth so we can't make good meaningful depth.

Finally what to do about it. The answer is very unsatisfying but is basically spankings don't matter. They are very embarrassing but they are not really worth much more than a standard loss, bit of a tricky goal diff and a blow to confidence. If we wanted to avoid spankings we could buy a top keeper and play more defensively, play a low block, and do our best Burnley/Newcastle impression. The thing is, investing our money in attacking talent and playing expansive football is not only more fun to watch but also will likely do us better in the long run, even with the occasional embarrassment.

Therefore, while spending big on defence and GK would reduce our 9-0 risk considerably my advice would be to ignore the occasional spanking and instead focus on all the games we draw 0-0 or can't break down a team, and buy to attack. It is much more efficient. Also depth, we looked worse in all areas after injury so a couple of back up fullbacks and a good 4th CB if Vest goes is essential. People could say our def needs a boost, but tbh I think our first choice def was fine last season, we just didn't get to see it almost at all in the second half of the season. Unfortunately, Stephens is a dreadful CB and our back up fullbacks were all woefully sub par.

Thanks for the detailed response and some interesting thoughts. I did read a book a few years back on how these things are being used in football. I can't remember the name of it but it had a green cover 🙂 One thing I remember from the book was that (at the time at least) Brentford were big into it and were using these kind of stats in their purchasing decisions. I'm sure this all has a big part to play, but equally there is a part of football that can't be quantified by it - heart, bravery, coolness under pressure (eg when taking a penalty in the finals of the Euros), leadership etc etc Franny Benali probably wouldn't have made it as a pro based solely on his stats, yet he gave me some of my most enjoyable moments as a Saints fan (coming on as sub v West Ham and sent off 20 mins later after launching Futre into the stands anyone :-))

[TWar]

12 minutes ago, Golac's Cunning Stunts said:

Thanks for the detailed response and some interesting thoughts. I did read a book a few years back on how these things are being used in football. I can't remember the name of it but it had a green cover 🙂 One thing I remember from the book was that (at the time at least) Brentford were big into it and were using these kind of stats in their purchasing decisions. I'm sure this all has a big part to play, but equally there is a part of football that can't be quantified by it - heart, bravery, coolness under pressure (eg when taking a penalty in the finals of the Euros), leadership etc etc Franny Benali probably wouldn't have made it as a pro based solely on his stats, yet he gave me some of my most enjoyable moments as a Saints fan (coming on as sub v West Ham and sent off 20 mins later after launching Futre into the stands anyone :-))

Absolutely. I think there is a reason a lot of clubs have in house sports psychologists. I actually read something interesting about Lautaro Martinez in that he is having a psychologist train him to be less aggressive as he gets too many cards.

I'm not familiar with the book but it does sound interesting. Brentford are excellent at that kind of thing, absolutely smashing it. Another side good at using stats to move forward are Leicester. We were a little acclaimed for it because of our "black box" but I'm always unsure how much of that was just hiring two elite managers back to back.

If you are interested in further listening to me ramble about stats I did a full statistical analysis of our season a couple of weeks ago and posted it here. The bold bits are the important bits if you don't fancy a long, potentially boring, read - 

 

Edited 2 August, 2021 by TWar

[Golac's Cunning Stunts]

2 minutes ago, TWar said:

Absolutely. I think there is a reason a lot of clubs have in house sports psychologists. I actually read something interesting about Lautaro Martinez in that he is having a psychologist train him to be less aggressive as he gets too many cards.

I'm not familiar with the book but it does sound interesting. Brentford are excellent at that kind of thing, absolutely smashing it. Another side good at using stats to move forward are Leicester. We were a little acclaimed for it because of our "black box" but I'm always unsure how much of that was just hiring two elite managers back to back.

I looked the book up. this is the one https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1788702050/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[TWar]

1 minute ago, Golac's Cunning Stunts said:

I looked the book up. this is the one https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1788702050/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Just bought it! Should be a good read for my next long train journey. Thanks very much for the tip 🙂

[Sunglasses Ron]

Great post @TWar and I love your use of the term 'our 9-0 risk '!  Let's hope they can get this down to only 6 or 7 next season 🙂

[tajjuk]

The Man Utd 9-0 was massively helped by the incompetence and huge bias of Mike Dean, who basically gave Utd 3 goals and poorly ruled one of ours off, and you can't underestimate the impact that has on players, already being a man down, with inexperienced kids in the team who are struggling and then the ref piles in on top and gives them pretty much everything. 

I do also like the people clamouring on against being stats and then blabber on show they have a huge ignorance of them and have no clue what they are talking about. Seems this is the world we live in these days, people just dismiss things when they haven't got the foggiest clue and just get swayed by nonsense emotional arguments. I mean it's basically how we got Brexit. 

[revolution saint]

18 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

The Man Utd 9-0 was massively helped by the incompetence and huge bias of Mike Dean, who basically gave Utd 3 goals and poorly ruled one of ours off, and you can't underestimate the impact that has on players, already being a man down, with inexperienced kids in the team who are struggling and then the ref piles in on top and gives them pretty much everything. 

I do also like the people clamouring on against being stats and then blabber on show they have a huge ignorance of them and have no clue what they are talking about. Seems this is the world we live in these days, people just dismiss things when they haven't got the foggiest clue and just get swayed by nonsense emotional arguments. I mean it's basically how we got Brexit. 

This is interesting - you mention the Man U game and all the difficulties we faced but would basic stats for players for that game echo those things?  Probably not.  You could be making judgements on those stats without taking into account those mitigating factors that you've mentioned and herein lies the problem with being overly reliant on statistics.

Don't get me wrong - they're a decent tool but to make them relevant you need to build a model so complex that it would become very difficult for the layman to understand how to interpret and use it.  You would hope that the professionals in the game do this but an average fan reading a book or taking things off a website is in danger of reading too much into them.  There's also the question of where human interpretation enters into the model - who gets to decide what is a goal scoring opportunity, what is a pass under pressure, what is a successful pass (is it successful if it reaches the intended target but doesn't give the receiving player any time to do anything with the ball).   The model needs to take into account the opposition and also the other players on your side - who gets to decide how tough the opposition is and how?  

All these systems do is try to replicate what a decent scout would tell you and try to automate how they come to these judgements and ensure there's some consistency but because there's so many variables it's virtually impossible to get that consistency.

Anyway, these stats are great, they're interesting and can provide a bit more insight into players and performance but they're not sacrosanct and they're not infallible.

[Lord Duckhunter]

I’m just hoping that for the first time since the 18/19 season we don’t lose a game 9-0 

We can then get to work on holding onto leads, getting a point when playing against 9, and not getting embarrassed by a Fat Sam relegation outfit.