Why Ankersen selected Jones

[Killers Knee]

Ankersen is primarily an Author, who has a theory.  This theory has been promoted on TED to attract financial backing for an experiment.  The experiment ultimately is to prove the Authors claims as true.  Dragan Šolak bought into it and provides the funding for SR, Semmens bought into it and SFC is the laboratory.  I would never doubt Ankersen as a salesman, the hypothesis being tested is:

 

[Pamplemousse]

The bloke is clueless. He needs to go as well.

[smithy]

What a load of wank 

[imadirtyurchin]

See I was thinking that was actually a good presentation.

but to use RA’s own words  NJ is failing (amongst other things) on Mindset and might be a “good talent” but not the “right talent” for us. This should’ve been obvious to anyone with a knowledge of actually watching football. 

[SotonianWill]

nothing screams whispering talents more than signing half of man city’s world class academy. 

Edited 5 January, 2023 by SotonianWill

[ant]

It's not a load of wank at all; this is a valid route for clubs like us to sign players that would - through traditional scouting methods - be out of our league. Or already on the radars of bigger, richer clubs.

The problem is we plainly don't have the aptitude or nous to correctly implement it.

[Midfield_General]

So the summary of that 10-minute video is: ‘Sometimes you can identify a raw talent who given the right support or conditions can excel and surprise people’. 

Well, yeah. Sometimes. Duh. 

What it doesn’t touch on is the bit that matters. Namely, how you identify those people, consistently, in a way that isn’t just taking a punt on a long shot who you think might have something, and hoping for the best. It also doesn’t deal with the law of averages - that for every long shot who overcomes the odds and turns out to be brilliant, there are 99 that don’t, and who turn out to be just as average as their previous performance said they were. 

If that schoolboy level of thinking is genuinely what’s driving his decision-making then it really goes a long way to explaining why we’re in the shit. It explains the transfer policy and it explains the appointment of Jones. 

He’s using us as an experiment with the aim of showing how he’s the smartest person in the room, but his theorising is built on sand and has no bearing in the real world of the premier league where - surprise! - a manager and players with a track record of success are consistently proven much more likely to succeed than ones with none. 

Maybe he’d point to Brentford as his example of how it can work successfully. My counter-argument to that would be that as any football fan knows, for every Thomas Frank who can pull it out of the bag, there are a hundred Nathan Joneses who can’t.

And if you’re going all in, stacking it all on red, betting the farm on doing the impossible, beating the odds and always identifying that one out of a hundred, then unless you can somehow magically do it every single time, then as any bankrupt gambler knows, eventually it’s going to do for you. 

He clearly has the arrogance to think he can. But he can’t. And here we are. 

Edited 5 January, 2023 by Midfield_General

[There when Franny scored]

41 minutes ago, Killers Knee said:

Ankersen is primarily an Author, who has a theory.  This theory has been promoted on TED to attract financial backing for an experiment.  The experiment ultimately is to prove the Authors claims as true.  Dragan Šolak bought into it and provides the funding for SR, Semmens bought into it and SFC is the laboratory.  I would never doubt Ankersen as a salesman, the hypothesis being tested is:

 

Thanks for posting, and probably a lot of that is true. 

Of course, there are two obvious problems in our situation: 

1. It appears that although Jones may have had some of the characteristics of a hidden talent, his talent (in the words of the video) "is not the right talent". In other words, possibly it's right at a club like Luton but not at Southampton (or indeed Stoke). 

2. We don't have the time to wait for his hidden talent (if any) to develop. We will be relegated by then for sure. 

So unfortunately, Ankersen also has to be able to recognise when the process hasn't worked. 

Get Bielsa in on a 5 month contract, and in the meantime start looking for someone else long-term, learning the lessons from the Jones appointment. 

[saintant]

16 minutes ago, Midfield_General said:

So the summary of that 10-minute video is: ‘Sometimes you can identify a raw talent who given the right support or conditions can excel and surprise people’. 

Well, yeah. Sometimes. Duh. 

What it doesn’t touch on is the bit that matters. Namely, how you identify those people, consistently, in a way that isn’t just taking a punt on a long shot who you think might have something, and hoping for the best. It also doesn’t deal with the law of averages - that for every long shot who overcomes the odds and turns out to be brilliant, there are 99 that don’t, and who turn out to be just as average as their previous performance said they were. 

If that schoolboy level of thinking is genuinely what’s driving his decision-making then it really goes a long way to explaining why we’re in the shit. It explains the transfer policy and it explains the appointment of Jones. 

He’s using us as an experiment with the aim of showing how he’s the smartest person in the room, but his theorising is built on sand and has no bearing in the real world of the premier league where - surprise! - a manager and players with a track record of success are consistently proven much more likely to succeed than ones with none. 

Maybe he’d point to Brentford as his example of how it can work successfully. My counter-argument to that would be that as any football fan knows, for every Thomas Frank who can pull it out of the bag, there are a hundred Nathan Joneses who can’t.

And if you’re going all in, stacking it all on red, betting the farm on doing the impossible, beating the odds and always identifying that one out of a hundred, then unless you can somehow magically do it every single time, then eventually it’s going to do for you. 

He clearly has the arrogance to think he can. But he can’t. And here we are. 

Absolutely spot on. Ankersen is too smart for his own good. Unfortunately he has fooled Dragan into buying into his crap and we are the guinea pig club that is suffering. Time for Dragan to ditch SR now along with Jones and Semmens and bring in a regime who know what they are doing. Fancy theories and know-it-all idiots like Ankersen don't cut the mustard and he's proved himself to be a charlatan. Cut your losses and change tact or lose a lot more Dragan. It's your call.

[The Kraken]

I’m sceptical immediately about the metrics used of ‘potential’ used in that video.  He could’ve used anyone to represent the point of undervalued talent and he used Asafa Powell breaking the world record in 2005, saying everyone was shocked as Powell was “a totally unknown man”.

By that point Powell had: won the Jamaican 100m national championship in 2003; won two international events including a golden league 100m in 2003; finished 7th in the world championship 100m final in 2003; won the Jamaican 100m national championship in 2004 with a time of 9.91; then throughout 2004 he ran 9 sub-10 second 100m races. That is not a totally unknown man by any metric.

[saintant]

10 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

I’m sceptical immediately about the metrics used of ‘potential’ used in that video.  He could’ve used anyone to represent the point of undervalued talent and he used Asafa Powell breaking the world record in 2005, saying everyone was shocked as Powell was “a totally unknown man”.

By that point Powell had: won the Jamaican 100m national championship in 2003; won two international events including a golden league 100m in 2003; finished 7th in the world championship 100m final in 2003; won the Jamaican 100m national championship in 2004 with a time of 9.91; then throughout 2004 he ran 9 sub-10 second 100m races. That is not a totally unknown man by any metric.

Proof again that Ankersen is nothing more than a bullshitter.

[Dr. Kucho]

Why Ankersen hired Jones? Because he thinks he’s some kind of genius/guru after being successful at Brentford and that he has developed some kind of vision that could make any club successful. Fact is he is failing spectacularly with poor recruitment and communication.

To get to the start, was he right in sacking Ralph? I would say yes, Ralph did well but the past year was poor and seemed like he had run out of ideas. A new coaching staff did seem like the best option.

First he should have identified what kind of players we have and which coach suited the players and club best, obviously not someone who likes to play hoofball, a tactic that has been ditched by most clubs since more foreign coaches took over and introduced more tactical ways of playing.

Then secondly the recruitment last summer. No striker and loads of cheap players hoping there’s some talent that we can flog for good money in the future. It wasn’t looking for players that would suit our style of play, just cheap youth players for positions we didn’t need players. Now we have got to the point that many summer signings sit on the bench and the players deemed not good enough are starting the games.

Conclusion, Ankersen, Semmens and who else is pulling the strings have fucked up big time. 
Now is the moment for Dragan to step in and make some changes before he loses his investment and we become the next Sunderland and till recently Leeds, Forest, Vila etc. Spending years in the Championship trying to get out of it.
 

 

[Dman]

At Brentford he wasn’t the main main. Benham is/was. 
 

Brentford fans said this at the time and since he’s gone, they’ve gone from strength to strength. 
 

no doubt he’s a very intelligent bloke and tbh, I brought his bullshit, but he’s clueless about football and is going to ruin this club with his wild theories. 

[Wade Garrett]

Right up there with the hipster wankers and their fucking xG.  Do me a favour Rasmus, and fuck right off.

[Killers Knee]

40 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

I’m sceptical immediately about the metrics used of ‘potential’ used in that video.  He could’ve used anyone to represent the point of undervalued talent and he used Asafa Powell breaking the world record in 2005, saying everyone was shocked as Powell was “a totally unknown man”.

By that point Powell had: won the Jamaican 100m national championship in 2003; won two international events including a golden league 100m in 2003; finished 7th in the world championship 100m final in 2003; won the Jamaican 100m national championship in 2004 with a time of 9.91; then throughout 2004 he ran 9 sub-10 second 100m races. That is not a totally unknown man by any metric.

Asafa Powell was also banned for PED use

[AlexLaw76]

Ankersen is the biggest blagger in football.

 

[NewYorkSaint]

May not be popular points, but I'll make them anyway.

1) I think we're incredibly lucky to have someone with Ankersen's vision running the club. He may well be the smartest owner in the league. Would you rather have just another rich owner or someone who's actually spent decades figuring out how to identify hidden talent and willing to construct a system of feeder clubs where talent can migrate all the way up naturally.

2) Where's the part in the video above that says success will come instantly? It isn't there. It's actually key to his model that it has to be first identified, then recruited, then developed. That won't happen overnight.  When you look at the early signs though, there's a lot of promise: Lavia, ABK, Edozie for three. Plus we were a few hours away from signing Gapko, someone who no one on here was arguing for, for half the price that Liverpool just paid. I don't think this is evidence that what he's talking about is 'wank'. 

3) I think we're all ignoring the role that luck/bad luck plays. If Lavia had stayed fit, and we'd brought in Gapko, we could well be looking at a very different situation right now. The trouble with football is that once things go against you, confidence drops, and the situation gets worse. You can see that so painfully in Che's loss of form. And last night it seemed to have spread to the whole team. Really, really hard to see. On the other hand confidence can come surging back with just a couple of wins.

4) I agree with everyone that so far NJ has looked a like a deer in the headlights. Definitely worrying. He's also been unlucky. The majority of the goals we've conceded since he came are down to specific individual errors. And we've missed many golden chances. With just a slight turn on that luck/confidence dial things would have been very different.  His talent is supposed to be the relentless hard work he's willing to put in, coaching individual players. That is not something that would necessarily become apparent overnight. I'm really hoping it turns soon. If it doesn't, and he loses the dressing room, I agree that Ankersen may need to try again. He took a big gamble on NJ. Not every gamble comes off. But for me, at any rate, I'm willing to give it another month.

5) We're at the start of a new window. Supposedly our owners are at their finest in identifying new talent. They know how urgent this is right now. Before everyone talks themselves into a frenzy of anger, how about we see who they come up with and what difference that makes. They had a strong window last time round, and it was nearly sensational.  I'm guessing they come up with the goods and we'll all feel a little better here.   As confidence returns, there is still every chance we find our way moving slowly away from the danger zone.

We're in the toughest in the league in the world, playing mostly against teams with far deeper pockets. If we can claim our place by OUTSMARTING them, that will be a really joyful thing.  I'm hanging in there. I'm not sure about NJ. But I do think Ankersen and Kraft have what it takes.  And that's despite my favorite John Cleese quote ever: "I can take the despair. It's the hope that kills me."  

Edited 5 January, 2023 by NewYorkSaint

[JRM]

I think he recruited Jones based on analytics, high league position v low budget, computer generated answer with no consideration for style of play and whether or not it suited our players 

[saintant]

41 minutes ago, NewYorkSaint said:

May not be popular points, but I'll make them anyway.

1) I think we're incredibly lucky to have someone with Ankersen's vision running the club. He may well be the smartest owner in the league. Would you rather have just another rich owner or someone who's actually spent decades figuring out how to identify hidden talent and willing to construct a system of feeder clubs where talent can migrate all the way up naturally.

2) Where's the part in the video above that says success will come instantly? It isn't there. It's actually key to his model that it has to be first identified, then recruited, then developed. That won't happen overnight.  When you look at the early signs though, there's a lot of promise: Lavia, ABK, Edozie for three. Plus we were a few hours away from signing Gapko, someone who no one on here was arguing for, for half the price that Liverpool just paid. I don't think this is evidence that what he's talking about is 'wank'. 

3) I think we're all ignoring the role that luck/bad luck plays. If Lavia had stayed fit, and we'd brought in Gapko, we could well be looking at a very different situation right now. The trouble with football is that once things go against you, confidence drops, and the situation gets worse. You can see that so painfully in Che's loss of form. And last night it seemed to have spread to the whole team. Really, really hard to see. On the other hand confidence can come surging back with just a couple of wins.

4) I agree with everyone that so far NJ has looked a like a deer in the headlights. Definitely worrying. He's also been unlucky. The majority of the goals we've conceded since he came are down to specific individual errors. And we've missed many golden chances. With just a slight turn on that luck/confidence dial things would have been very different.  His talent is supposed to be the relentless hard work he's willing to put in, coaching individual players. That is not something that would necessarily become apparent overnight. I'm really hoping it turns soon. If it doesn't, and he loses the dressing room, I agree that Ankersen may need to try again. He took a big gamble on NJ. Not every gamble comes off. But for me, at any rate, I'm willing to give it another month.

5) We're at the start of a new window. Supposedly our owners are at their finest in identifying new talent. They know how urgent this is right now. Before everyone talks themselves into a frenzy of anger, how about we see who they come up with and what difference that makes. They had a strong window last time round, and it was nearly sensational.  I'm guessing they come up with the goods and we'll all feel a little better here.   As confidence returns, there is still every chance we find our way moving slowly away from the danger zone.

We're in the toughest in the league in the world, playing mostly against teams with far deeper pockets. If we can claim our place by OUTSMARTING them, that will be a really joyful thing.  I'm hanging in there. I'm not sure about NJ. But I do think Ankersen and Kraft have what it takes.  And that's despite my favorite John Cleese quote ever: "I can take the despair. It's the hope that kills me."  

So with more luck and God willing we'll be out of this mess in no time 🙂. Strange that we have a guy who might be the smartest owner in the league yet we are bottom of said league. Is he smart or just full of his own self importance not to mention bullshit?

Edited 5 January, 2023 by saintant

[Midfield_General]

It's very obvious that Ankersen sees himself as a 'disruptor'. His world, or the one he aspires to, is the one of Musk, Bezos, the 'disruption visionaries'. Look at how Amazon came and changed the way people shopped! Look at how Spotify changed how we consume music! Look at how Uber changed how we get around! Then look at an industry like football where, apart from lots more money sloshing around, it's pretty old-fashioned really. We can disrupt football! 

People like him have been around for years, in different ways. Thinking it can all be torn up and done differently and everyone will think they're a genius and wondering why no-one had done it that way before. Sometimes it works - the Premier League is an example of a disruption strategy that was an unbelievable success (commercially, anyway, which is all they really care about). 

But with any disruption approach, for every success there are a multitude of failures, and football has seen more than most. It used to be things like Americans wanting to make the goals bigger or have pop concerts at half time to 'make it more entertaining'. God knows, we've had our own fair share of disasters like Woodward, Clifford and Lowe and his 'revolutionary new coaching set-up'. Then everyone got carried away when Moneyball came out. Most of it crashes and burns. That's the nature of trying new things - without a precedent to work from, they are learning experiences and much of the time they fail. 

The thing is, trying new and different things in itself isn't wrong. As said above, clubs like ours do need to try to find clever ways to stay in touch with the competition when half of them are bankrolled by billionaires and nation states. Ambition, vision, innovation and change are, fundamentally, good things and should be embraced. 

Where it goes to shit however, is when rather than doing tests here and there first to see what works (and more importantly, what doesn't), you just go balls to the wall and throw out all the conventional wisdom and change everything at once in the blind belief that you've cracked it and you're just cleverer than everyone else. Which is what it feels like is happening here. And with us, there's no safety net, so whether it ultimately works or not* , it's still an astonishing risk.

(*it won't) 

[Midfield_General]

43 minutes ago, NewYorkSaint said:

May not be popular points, but I'll make them anyway.

1) I think we're incredibly lucky to have someone with Ankersen's vision running the club. He may well be the smartest owner in the league. Would you rather have just another rich owner or someone who's actually spent decades figuring out how to identify hidden talent and willing to construct a system of feeder clubs where talent can migrate all the way up naturally.

2) Where's the part in the video above that says success will come instantly? It isn't there. It's actually key to his model that it has to be first identified, then recruited, then developed. That won't happen overnight.  When you look at the early signs though, there's a lot of promise: Lavia, ABK, Edozie for three. Plus we were a few hours away from signing Gapko, someone who no one on here was arguing for, for half the price that Liverpool just paid. I don't think this is evidence that what he's talking about is 'wank'. 

3) I think we're all ignoring the role that luck/bad luck plays. If Lavia had stayed fit, and we'd brought in Gapko, we could well be looking at a very different situation right now. The trouble with football is that once things go against you, confidence drops, and the situation gets worse. You can see that so painfully in Che's loss of form. And last night it seemed to have spread to the whole team. Really, really hard to see. On the other hand confidence can come surging back with just a couple of wins.

4) I agree with everyone that so far NJ has looked a like a deer in the headlights. Definitely worrying. He's also been unlucky. The majority of the goals we've conceded since he came are down to specific individual errors. And we've missed many golden chances. With just a slight turn on that luck/confidence dial things would have been very different.  His talent is supposed to be the relentless hard work he's willing to put in, coaching individual players. That is not something that would necessarily become apparent overnight. I'm really hoping it turns soon. If it doesn't, and he loses the dressing room, I agree that Ankersen may need to try again. He took a big gamble on NJ. Not every gamble comes off. But for me, at any rate, I'm willing to give it another month.

5) We're at the start of a new window. Supposedly our owners are at their finest in identifying new talent. They know how urgent this is right now. Before everyone talks themselves into a frenzy of anger, how about we see who they come up with and what difference that makes. They had a strong window last time round, and it was nearly sensational.  I'm guessing they come up with the goods and we'll all feel a little better here.   As confidence returns, there is still every chance we find our way moving slowly away from the danger zone.

We're in the toughest in the league in the world, playing mostly against teams with far deeper pockets. If we can claim our place by OUTSMARTING them, that will be a really joyful thing.  I'm hanging in there. I'm not sure about NJ. But I do think Ankersen and Kraft have what it takes.  And that's despite my favorite John Cleese quote ever: "I can take the despair. It's the hope that kills me."  

Good post. I don't agree with all of it, but you make some interesting points. 

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, NewYorkSaint said:

May not be popular points, but I'll make them anyway.

1) I think we're incredibly lucky to have someone with Ankersen's vision running the club. He may well be the smartest owner in the league. Would you rather have just another rich owner or someone who's actually spent decades figuring out how to identify hidden talent and willing to construct a system of feeder clubs where talent can migrate all the way up naturally.

2) Where's the part in the video above that says success will come instantly? It isn't there. It's actually key to his model that it has to be first identified, then recruited, then developed. That won't happen overnight.  When you look at the early signs though, there's a lot of promise: Lavia, ABK, Edozie for three. Plus we were a few hours away from signing Gapko, someone who no one on here was arguing for, for half the price that Liverpool just paid. I don't think this is evidence that what he's talking about is 'wank'. 

3) I think we're all ignoring the role that luck/bad luck plays. If Lavia had stayed fit, and we'd brought in Gapko, we could well be looking at a very different situation right now. The trouble with football is that once things go against you, confidence drops, and the situation gets worse. You can see that so painfully in Che's loss of form. And last night it seemed to have spread to the whole team. Really, really hard to see. On the other hand confidence can come surging back with just a couple of wins.

4) I agree with everyone that so far NJ has looked a like a deer in the headlights. Definitely worrying. He's also been unlucky. The majority of the goals we've conceded since he came are down to specific individual errors. And we've missed many golden chances. With just a slight turn on that luck/confidence dial things would have been very different.  His talent is supposed to be the relentless hard work he's willing to put in, coaching individual players. That is not something that would necessarily become apparent overnight. I'm really hoping it turns soon. If it doesn't, and he loses the dressing room, I agree that Ankersen may need to try again. He took a big gamble on NJ. Not every gamble comes off. But for me, at any rate, I'm willing to give it another month.

5) We're at the start of a new window. Supposedly our owners are at their finest in identifying new talent. They know how urgent this is right now. Before everyone talks themselves into a frenzy of anger, how about we see who they come up with and what difference that makes. They had a strong window last time round, and it was nearly sensational.  I'm guessing they come up with the goods and we'll all feel a little better here.   As confidence returns, there is still every chance we find our way moving slowly away from the danger zone.

We're in the toughest in the league in the world, playing mostly against teams with far deeper pockets. If we can claim our place by OUTSMARTING them, that will be a really joyful thing.  I'm hanging in there. I'm not sure about NJ. But I do think Ankersen and Kraft have what it takes.  And that's despite my favorite John Cleese quote ever: "I can take the despair. It's the hope that kills me."  

Our present positon has nothing to do with bad luck. 

Why is it that people who know nothing about professional English football think that somehow they can come in and try something so fundamentally different that it will be a success in the longer term? There is a very goood reason why not other clubs are approaching things this way. That's because it will not work. There is an enormous gulf between the Premier League and those below it. Their plan will not work if the club is in a lower league.

[davefizzy14]

Rasmus Ankersen needs to come out and explain to us what exactly the project is and why he employed NJ in the first place.

[Saint Garrett]

More like Wankerson

[Miltonaggro]

4 hours ago, The Kraken said:

I’m sceptical immediately about the metrics used of ‘potential’ used in that video.  He could’ve used anyone to represent the point of undervalued talent and he used Asafa Powell breaking the world record in 2005, saying everyone was shocked as Powell was “a totally unknown man”.

By that point Powell had: won the Jamaican 100m national championship in 2003; won two international events including a golden league 100m in 2003; finished 7th in the world championship 100m final in 2003; won the Jamaican 100m national championship in 2004 with a time of 9.91; then throughout 2004 he ran 9 sub-10 second 100m races. That is not a totally unknown man by any metric.

Exactly. Bad data in bad data out. 

[Miltonaggro]

For all of the pseudo intellectual biz-talk I still can’t see how you’d settle on Nathan Jones, surely watching his teams and listening to post match interviews would be part of due process as well as the ‘numbers’. The current situation is like a wankers version of My Fair Lady, and I wish Ramus had trialled it at Fratton Park first. 

[saintant]

30 minutes ago, davefizzy14 said:

Rasmus Ankersen needs to come out and explain to us what exactly the project is and why he employed NJ in the first place.

I doubt he'd know where to start. Or he'd try to bluff his way through with data, statistics and other nonsense. His theories are clearly a load of pie in the sky.

[Mystic Force]

Finding hidden talent great plan, so where is it hiding? Lower league club? Scouted for a century at this point. South America? Spain and Italy were doing it before us. Lesser European leagues, Scandinavia in the  90s Eastern Europe 90s, Nations with a few good teams, less money (Portugal, Netherlands, France) 90s. Smaller teams in top leagues (Spain, Italy, Germany) 00s Developing African nations 10s where. Where exactly do they think these gems are going to come from that haven't already been exhaustively searched? I know we need to get a bunch of skilled Indonesians and Nepalese who have been cruelly overlooked.

Sport like war tends to test people's theories and find the ideas wanting often.  I am all for improvement, it is my professional occupation. However in most fields there are experts slowly chipping away learning rather than radical change. Radical change only generally comes about when incremental change elsewhere make something new possible when a threshold is met. Not much can really radically change a bunch of blokes chasing a round object around trying to get it in the square netty thing, at least not that hasn't been learnt over 150 years.

[Convict Colony]

Should i comment on this having not watched the video, hmmm i think i will.

I think SR in this appointment has been led more by the underlying data more than what their eyes tell them.

Its dangerous to rely too heavy on data given the variables involved in football dont correlate as well as regimented sports like baseball, where there are set actions etc.

Jones numbers obviously look good at Luton (cos thats all they are going on) and i think how they played in League 1 v Championship has had an overwhelming effect on the numbers.

In league 1 luton played free flowing football (not what we are seeing) and scored 90 goals - 10 more than the next best and had a goal difference of nearly 50.

In championship  luton played hoof ball scored 63 goals and had a goal difference of 10 and ground out wins (comment - jones left in jan for stoke but mick harford had them playing the same for rest of season so I am classing that as jones's team).

Now I dont know what is the best way to play in the EPL but having data based on performance in leagues that are  2 and 1 levels below our current one and assuming that it translates is foolhardy in the extreme.

 

[Convict Colony]

3 hours ago, davefizzy14 said:

Rasmus Ankersen needs to come out and explain to us what exactly the project is and why he employed NJ in the first place.

100% he's spoken more to the turkish fans than he has to us.

The ownership group is making Gao look talkative and there is 3 of them.

[S-Clarke]

25 minutes ago, Convict Colony said:

Should i comment on this having not watched the video, hmmm i think i will.

I think SR in this appointment has been led more by the underlying data more than what their eyes tell them.

Its dangerous to rely too heavy on data given the variables involved in football dont correlate as well as regimented sports like baseball, where there are set actions etc.

Jones numbers obviously look good at Luton (cos thats all they are going on) and i think how they played in League 1 v Championship has had an overwhelming effect on the numbers.

In league 1 luton played free flowing football (not what we are seeing) and scored 90 goals - 10 more than the next best and had a goal difference of nearly 50.

In championship  luton played hoof ball scored 63 goals and had a goal difference of 10 and ground out wins (comment - jones left in jan for stoke but mick harford had them playing the same for rest of season so I am classing that as jones's team).

Now I dont know what is the best way to play in the EPL but having data based on performance in leagues that are  2 and 1 levels below our current one and assuming that it translates is foolhardy in the extreme.

 

I think you're right, and this is why stats and stats alone in isolation of everything else doesn't work.

There's every chance you could get lucky once or twice, but in the grand scheme of things stats should be used to backup opinions/views on an approach rather than entirely dictate it, which sadly seems like it has done here.

Too much is given to stats when at the end of the day it's what you see in front of you that matters, not probability statistical data.

[Saint Fan CaM]

Why did Adkins, who had previously performed admirably getting us two promotions, get replaced?  Because someone had the vision to realise that he didn’t have all the tools to command the respect and lead a team of incoming higher potential players. Cut to 2022 and the decision to hire Jones…a move that completely acts in the opposite direction to previous well established Prem managerial appointments. Stupid or inspired?

[Crab Lungs]

Tbf, he’s only ‘at fault’ for this seasons recruitment and for many on here, this was a 10/10 window not too long ago.

I would say it’s more the shite we recruited under Gao and Kat that’s been the problem. That has been a millstone around our necks for years, and some of the utter dirge is still here clogging up the wage bill… the misuse of the money we had on utter w4nk since Koeman left is and has been the bigger problem IMO.

I bet alot of these players will turn out to be decent but it’s been done too quick, too soon and now they’re in for a crash course on attempting to survive in the Premier League. Now that is his fault as that was his vision. 

roll that together with the mismanagement and chronic ineptitude of the past and you’ve got a perfect storm… and here we are, paying for it now.

Edited 5 January, 2023 by Crab Lungs

[JRM]

1 hour ago, Convict Colony said:

100% he's spoken more to the turkish fans than he has to us.

The ownership group is making Gao look talkative and there is 3 of them.

The Goztepe stuff is really odd, if it was Galatasaray, Besiktas, maybe I get huge fan bases but these 2nd division jokers think they're massive. 

What were those banners about as well 

 

[Toussaint]

10 hours ago, ant said:

It's not a load of wank at all; this is a valid route for clubs like us to sign players that would - through traditional scouting methods - be out of our league. Or already on the radars of bigger, richer clubs.

The problem is we plainly don't have the aptitude or nous to correctly implement it.

So you could say it’s half wank? Let’s say the first half, before an interruption, therefore totally unsatisfactory.

[Doctoroncall]

10 hours ago, Midfield_General said:

So the summary of that 10-minute video is: ‘Sometimes you can identify a raw talent who given the right support or conditions can excel and surprise people’. 

Well, yeah. Sometimes. Duh. 

What it doesn’t touch on is the bit that matters. Namely, how you identify those people, consistently, in a way that isn’t just taking a punt on a long shot who you think might have something, and hoping for the best. It also doesn’t deal with the law of averages - that for every long shot who overcomes the odds and turns out to be brilliant, there are 99 that don’t, and who turn out to be just as average as their previous performance said they were. 

If that schoolboy level of thinking is genuinely what’s driving his decision-making then it really goes a long way to explaining why we’re in the shit. It explains the transfer policy and it explains the appointment of Jones. 

He’s using us as an experiment with the aim of showing how he’s the smartest person in the room, but his theorising is built on sand and has no bearing in the real world of the premier league where - surprise! - a manager and players with a track record of success are consistently proven much more likely to succeed than ones with none. 

Maybe he’d point to Brentford as his example of how it can work successfully. My counter-argument to that would be that as any football fan knows, for every Thomas Frank who can pull it out of the bag, there are a hundred Nathan Joneses who can’t.

And if you’re going all in, stacking it all on red, betting the farm on doing the impossible, beating the odds and always identifying that one out of a hundred, then unless you can somehow magically do it every single time, then as any bankrupt gambler knows, eventually it’s going to do for you. 

He clearly has the arrogance to think he can. But he can’t. And here we are. 

Just need to point out there isn’t a law of averages. So it makes your argument invalid on that point. 
 

Brentford may have followed similar principles but certainly with less risk and gung-ho nature. 
 

A guy that knows about risk is Tony Bloom and his strategy for a middling PL club is working out well. They have a great scouting network to regions that are not heavily exploited by PL clubs, player and staff succession planning and he knows how to maximise player value. Obviously not all players work out, but Brighton work with data to increase the likelihood of a favourable outcome.  I don’t know what they do on the behaviour side but would love to find out.

However, footballers being human rather than just a set of numbers mean playing football manager in place of the real thing is plain nuts. Data can only be trusted as much as the process used to collect them and used with caution in going beyond it. 

[S-Clarke]

1 hour ago, Crab Lungs said:

Tbf, he’s only ‘at fault’ for this seasons recruitment and for many on here, this was a 10/10 window not too long ago.

I would say it’s more the shite we recruited under Gao and Kat that’s been the problem. That has been a millstone around our necks for years, and some of the utter dirge is still here clogging up the wage bill… the misuse of the money we had on utter w4nk since Koeman left is and has been the bigger problem IMO.

I bet alot of these players will turn out to be decent but it’s been done too quick, too soon and now they’re in for a crash course on attempting to survive in the Premier League. Now that is his fault as that was his vision. 

roll that together with the mismanagement and chronic ineptitude of the past and you’ve got a perfect storm… and here we are, paying for it now.

I do somewhat agree, as I said in another thread I don't think their approach in the summer was all wrong - it was the right idea, but they executed it wrong. They went balls deep in youth and underestimated the level of experienced quality at our disposal, in fact we actually diluted that.

There is no doubt that this regression has been happening for many a year, we've been hindered by a lack of investment and resorted to having to punt on Lyanco's and Perrauds. So whilst it was totally accepted we needed a big change up in the squad, it needed to be a balanced approach. To me they've come in with two eyes fixed on the long-term rather than looking at the here and now, but we needed help 'now' and they miscalculated that in the summer.

Edited 5 January, 2023 by S-Clarke

[chiknsmack]

On 06/01/2023 at 03:00, Whitey Grandad said:

Why is it that people who know nothing about professional English football think that somehow they can come in and try something so fundamentally different that it will be a success in the longer term?

- Soccer has been relatively late to analytics, particularly when compared to baseball. Why do you think that is?

It definitely lagged behind. A bunch of people in the book and a bunch of other people that I spoke to read Moneyball [when it came out] and they were like, “Whoa, you can do this? I could look at soccer this way?” That was a not uncommon response across other sports as well. It definitely lagged behind for structural reasons. It’s really fucking hard to measure soccer. It’s probably impossible to create a “wins above replacement” metric. I think you could maybe create it for your own team—if, that is, you’re committed to playing in a particular style. But that’s useless for the Moneyball idea of finding undervalued players!

That’s one big reason. But there are also all of the cultural reasons. The first baseball and soccer leagues are a little more than a hundred years old at this point. To me, that’s really not that old. The National League was immediately a closed system—a cartel system. They had like eight teams and knew they were getting all the money for themselves. The big question was, How do we make more money? In England, it was always an open system. Anyone could create a team; anyone could go up and down the ladder. The relegation and promotion system, that’s a competitive lever. But it’s more of a symbol. These teams are a community trust. You grow up rooting for them. There might have been a former butcher running the team in the 1920s, whereas the baseball teams were immediately businesses. When you’re a business you’re naturally searching for ways to cut costs and find value. It’s unsurprising that the first closed sports league in the world was the first one to be taken over by data valuations.

In soccer, these teams weren’t created to be these efficient, moneymaking, win-seeking vehicles. That only happened once the Premier League was officially founded in 1992. That’s the biggest reason. The other thing is that soccer’s brain center is in Europe and there’s just less osmosis with ideas than there [was] in American sports. In England, soccer has mainly been a working-class game. The people who run the teams have until recently mostly been guys who barely went to high school because of the academy system. All those things come together to cause this lag.

Source: https://newrepublic.com/article/169757/ryan-ohanlon-soccer-analytics-messi

 

[Fan The Flames]

The partnership attracted some initial scepticism, particularly after their first managerial appointment – Marinus Dijkhuizen - lasted just nine matches. ‘We probably tried to change too much at the same time,’ Ankersen reflects. ‘That set the project back 12 months or so.’ 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9877699/How-Brentfords-directors-Phil-Giles-Rasmus-Ankersen-taken-Bees-Premier-League.html

 

Marinus Dijkhuizen had some success at the lower league Dutch team Excelsior, failed at Brentford, failed elsewhere in Holland and now getting some succes back at Excelsior. It all sounds very familiar with our own little welsh miner.

Not very clever making the same basic error twice, especially in a higher league where it's harder to get away with. And especially when NJ had already failed at Stoke, what more data do you need.

Reading the article, it appears we got the mouth piece of the partnership and brains stayed at Brentford, typical Saints.

Edited 7 January, 2023 by Fan The Flames

[egg]

3 hours ago, chiknsmack said:

- Soccer has been relatively late to analytics, particularly when compared to baseball. Why do you think that is?

It definitely lagged behind. A bunch of people in the book and a bunch of other people that I spoke to read Moneyball [when it came out] and they were like, “Whoa, you can do this? I could look at soccer this way?” That was a not uncommon response across other sports as well. It definitely lagged behind for structural reasons. It’s really fucking hard to measure soccer. It’s probably impossible to create a “wins above replacement” metric. I think you could maybe create it for your own team—if, that is, you’re committed to playing in a particular style. But that’s useless for the Moneyball idea of finding undervalued players!

That’s one big reason. But there are also all of the cultural reasons. The first baseball and soccer leagues are a little more than a hundred years old at this point. To me, that’s really not that old. The National League was immediately a closed system—a cartel system. They had like eight teams and knew they were getting all the money for themselves. The big question was, How do we make more money? In England, it was always an open system. Anyone could create a team; anyone could go up and down the ladder. The relegation and promotion system, that’s a competitive lever. But it’s more of a symbol. These teams are a community trust. You grow up rooting for them. There might have been a former butcher running the team in the 1920s, whereas the baseball teams were immediately businesses. When you’re a business you’re naturally searching for ways to cut costs and find value. It’s unsurprising that the first closed sports league in the world was the first one to be taken over by data valuations.

In soccer, these teams weren’t created to be these efficient, moneymaking, win-seeking vehicles. That only happened once the Premier League was officially founded in 1992. That’s the biggest reason. The other thing is that soccer’s brain center is in Europe and there’s just less osmosis with ideas than there [was] in American sports. In England, soccer has mainly been a working-class game. The people who run the teams have until recently mostly been guys who barely went to high school because of the academy system. All those things come together to cause this lag.

Source: https://newrepublic.com/article/169757/ryan-ohanlon-soccer-analytics-messi

 

I'm intrigued by the relevance of analytics in baseball. It's a 1 on 1 sport with people hitting and chasing the ball and trying to catch it. In football, players do a hell of a lot more than just throw, hit or catch a ball. I'm no fan of stats and analysis, but I'd imagine they're a lot more relevant in football than baseball. 

Edited 7 January, 2023 by egg

[Hodgey]

On 05/01/2023 at 12:41, NewYorkSaint said:

May not be popular points, but I'll make them anyway.

1) I think we're incredibly lucky to have someone with Ankersen's vision running the club. He may well be the smartest owner in the league. Would you rather have just another rich owner or someone who's actually spent decades figuring out how to identify hidden talent and willing to construct a system of feeder clubs where talent can migrate all the way up naturally.

2) Where's the part in the video above that says success will come instantly? It isn't there. It's actually key to his model that it has to be first identified, then recruited, then developed. That won't happen overnight.  When you look at the early signs though, there's a lot of promise: Lavia, ABK, Edozie for three. Plus we were a few hours away from signing Gapko, someone who no one on here was arguing for, for half the price that Liverpool just paid. I don't think this is evidence that what he's talking about is 'wank'. 

3) I think we're all ignoring the role that luck/bad luck plays. If Lavia had stayed fit, and we'd brought in Gapko, we could well be looking at a very different situation right now. The trouble with football is that once things go against you, confidence drops, and the situation gets worse. You can see that so painfully in Che's loss of form. And last night it seemed to have spread to the whole team. Really, really hard to see. On the other hand confidence can come surging back with just a couple of wins.

4) I agree with everyone that so far NJ has looked a like a deer in the headlights. Definitely worrying. He's also been unlucky. The majority of the goals we've conceded since he came are down to specific individual errors. And we've missed many golden chances. With just a slight turn on that luck/confidence dial things would have been very different.  His talent is supposed to be the relentless hard work he's willing to put in, coaching individual players. That is not something that would necessarily become apparent overnight. I'm really hoping it turns soon. If it doesn't, and he loses the dressing room, I agree that Ankersen may need to try again. He took a big gamble on NJ. Not every gamble comes off. But for me, at any rate, I'm willing to give it another month.

5) We're at the start of a new window. Supposedly our owners are at their finest in identifying new talent. They know how urgent this is right now. Before everyone talks themselves into a frenzy of anger, how about we see who they come up with and what difference that makes. They had a strong window last time round, and it was nearly sensational.  I'm guessing they come up with the goods and we'll all feel a little better here.   As confidence returns, there is still every chance we find our way moving slowly away from the danger zone.

We're in the toughest in the league in the world, playing mostly against teams with far deeper pockets. If we can claim our place by OUTSMARTING them, that will be a really joyful thing.  I'm hanging in there. I'm not sure about NJ. But I do think Ankersen and Kraft have what it takes.  And that's despite my favorite John Cleese quote ever: "I can take the despair. It's the hope that kills me."  

Some good points here, but I would disagree about luck. Individual errors are not luck as it’s players who continuously make them - that’s ability or coaching. Gackpo wasn’t luck either - even if he was going to leave to a smaller Prem team it would have been Leeds. Injuries are not really luck either - every team will face injuries, if you have a suitable plan b it’s not an issue. Also I wouldn’t say we have been particularly unlucky with injuries this season - it just happens to be the one player we have no reserve for (as we sold him). There is absolutely no bad luck involved in aimlessly hoofing the ball 75 times at home to a relegation rival and having no shots on target. That’s simply terrible tactics / coaching
good point on Jan - can they make amends ?. 2 clear things they need to do - bring in players who can make an immediate difference, especially a striker (I like Osric move), work out quickly if Jones can ever succeed at this club and if they think he can support him.

[Fan The Flames]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jan/05/crypto-chaos-how-crawley-crumbled-under-owners-reckless-leadership

Another hipster football project going to shit.

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, Fan The Flames said:

The partnership attracted some initial scepticism, particularly after their first managerial appointment – Marinus Dijkhuizen - lasted just nine matches. ‘We probably tried to change too much at the same time,’ Ankersen reflects. ‘That set the project back 12 months or so.’ 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9877699/How-Brentfords-directors-Phil-Giles-Rasmus-Ankersen-taken-Bees-Premier-League.html

 

Marinus Dijkhuizen had some success at the lower league Dutch team Excelsior, failed at Brentford, failed elsewhere in Holland and now getting some succes back at Excelsior. It all sounds very familiar with our own little welsh miner.

Not very clever making the same basic error twice, especially in a higher league where it's harder to get away with. And especially when NJ had already failed at Stoke, what more data do you need.

Reading the article, it appears we got the mouth piece of the partnership and brains stayed at Brentford, typical Saints.

Sounds very interesting. There's clear parallels here. At least it shows he may actually sack him sooner rather than later. 

[Turkish]

Ankersen is a genius, the bits are falling into place. He will prove you all wrong. 

[coalman]

As a data nerd, one of the first things that should be (literally) beaten into you is that correlation does not equate to causality. So, at best, statistical correlation gives you an idea where to look and apply your judgement until you can rigorously test your hypotheses. You are also unable to really take advantage of the law of averages or regression to the mean over the course of a season because 38 games are an insufficient number of data points.

So it's entirely possible that Ankersen is a genius but he's on a bad run. It's also entirely possible that his approach has failed to take something key into account and Brentford was a freak outcome.

[saintant]

2 minutes ago, coalman said:

As a data nerd, one of the first things that should be (literally) beaten into you is that correlation does not equate to causality. So, at best, statistical correlation gives you an idea where to look and apply your judgement until you can rigorously test your hypotheses. You are also unable to really take advantage of the law of averages or regression to the mean over the course of a season because 38 games are an insufficient number of data points.

So it's entirely possible that Ankersen is a genius but he's on a bad run. It's also entirely possible that his approach has failed to take something key into account and Brentford was a freak outcome.

Ankersen is not a genius, more like a charlatan. Would a genius appoint Nathan Jones? I think not.

[ally_uk]

Because the man needs a reality check and isn't as good as he thinks he is..... 

After two games when the majority of the fan base can see how unlikeable and tactically woeful Jones is surely the board have to take note. 

Forget trying to rely on statistics and XG and potential nonsense..... 

Who has the capabilities to motivate?

Who has the capabilites to organise a team and play football with some form of cohesion and actual gameplan?

 

[64saint]

On 05/01/2023 at 20:22, S-Clarke said:

 

Too much is given to stats when at the end of the day it's what you see in front of you that matters, not probability statistical data.

Never has the famous old saying ......There are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics.....been more appropriate. 

Edited 7 January, 2023 by 64saint

[AlexLaw76]

who are all these new people that have started posting, who are clearly not saints fans?

👀

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, egg said:

I'm intrigued by the relevance of analytics in baseball. It's a 1 on 1 sport with people hitting and chasing the ball and trying to catch it. In football, players do a hell of a lot more than just throw, hit or catch a ball. I'm no fan of stats and analysis, but I'd imagine they're a lot more relevant in football than baseball. 

Good point. Baseball is nothing like football. There is very little in it that relies on a combination of players working in cooperation. Cricket is very similar in this respect.