Would be a better analogy if you could somehow utilize some skill to force the other players to fold

mw828,

meet ducksauce

Starting at the bottom: I think it's close to 100% Berahino starts tomorrow (unless he has a genuine injury - not a 'ghana be transfered' injury). [Eg. he played all preseason.]

I posted about the Berahino agent situation in the transfer thread. If I was him I would want to multiply my take home pay by 4 or 5 or whatever Spurs will pay .. but it is possible that waiting until October will allow him to make a better deal for himself and not lose money paying agents he doesn't like. (Otoh - he may well not be bright enough to understand that if it's true.)

Overall, one has to understand that our chairman (Jeremy Peace) has leveraged a minimal investment in the club (probably less than ~£1m 10 years ago) into owning 90% of the club and is, seemingly pretty committed to cashing in to the tune of ~£150m. It seems as if this summer he had a fish on the line but the Chinese stock market dip meant that they weren't able to pay the asking price.

So from the point of view of JP the crucial thing is (presumably) to stay in the top division until he can cash out. Secondly, whilst he (and we) are there/here, until a sale is secured money shouldn't be frittered away.

.... tl;dr

(imo one can deduce) Berahino will be £25m+ and only sold (assuming that someone in WBA recognises the importance of his role in us staying up this coming year) once an equivalent is signed.

I'm a mahoosive nit, but it seems like a huge risk to swap Saido for Rondon (the +/- value of the transfers is almost neither here nor there imo). But it may be that there is no other way if we won't pay Saido a similar amount of wages to what those of the transfer offers amount to. It's an interesting example for BAIDS's idea that in the BTVDITYW everyone will now be rich enough to actually do things like this.

fwiw: I don't think that WBA paying "£15m" for a striker necessarily means we have to sell someone for more to balance the books - but I may be wrong. Last summer we paid "£10m" for Ideye without a single makeweight. Re this, it's also worth noting that our last two striker buys from the former Soviet Union have been Odemwingie and Ideye - neither unproblematic.

And as I said in the transfer thread - perhaps misguidedly - Rondon would seem much more like a Richard Garlick (our now-sacked, post-Dan Ashworth sporting and technical director) buy than a Tony Pulis one. So it's not very clear what is really going on. I would have been less surprised by Peter Crouch for £7m tbh.


However I agree that if we start to stockpile centre-forwards then we may be in the business of trading some of that pile.

On my third hand (iirc), I would enjoy seeing if Kane and Berahino can make something golden, and as a WBA fan I absolutely wouldn't begrudge Berahino going to Spurs and doing that .. since I don't see any glorious upside for him staying with us.

I have 0.003 Sklansky kids if my girlfriend is using her anticonception stuff properly.

humble-brag

I'm not sure what is puzzling you but I'll certainly try to help. If you type "luck" as a Google search the first definition is as follows:

"success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions."

I feel that I should be able to leave it at that but I get the feeling that if you (plural) could reliably connect the dots to draw the correct conclusion, you'd already agree with me. Plus, it is not my inclination to keep things brief

I'm really not using a controversial definition when I point out that luck is intrinsically linked to intent. See the definition above and read what others write about the concept. The wikipedia page is as good as anything, I would suppose. I believe that your definition of lucky as "achieving an improbable success" (correct me if I am wrong) is more controversial because it ignores intent.

We were talking about luck but here you are talking about variance, as if they are the same thing. They're not the same thing. Luck (good or bad) is an explanation for the variance. A higher or lower prevalence of mistakes than expected is another explanation. I believe quite strongly that Cech would not usually make that mistake (I'd need to see him drop a few more clangers before I revised that opinion). Zarate was lucky because usually if he hits a shot like that he will not score and he had no discernible reason to think that Cech would **** up like he did. He achieved an improbable outcome largely due to factors beyond his control - that's what good luck is. But Cech wasn't unlucky. If there was something to mitigate then depending on what it was and how much it diminished his control of the situation, luck could explain it. If it's purely a **** up with no explanation other than incompetence, then that is not unlucky. Just because it is unexpected doesn't necessarily make it unlucky and I'm slightly baffled that you think it does.

I don't really disagree with any of this. xG is a metric which describes the quality of chances created. Teams that create more and concede less quality chances will do better - I can't imagine anybody disagrees. When actual goals differs wildly from xG, that is called variance. A common explanation for that variance is luck and over a large enough sample, you can be almost certain that luck is playing some part. But you can't just say "there is variance therefore there is luck", because there are other factors. You need more information to make that determination.

Perhaps the misconception that variance and luck are the same thing might come from poker? The difference between earned Sklansky bucks vs. actual bucks is purely down to factors beyond your control (how the cards fall) and is 100% a matter of luck. So the shortcut of variance = luck works in this context. When you shoot, however, whether you score or not is (largely) in your control, because it depends on how well you execute. When we're talking about luck, that is a key distinction. If you set out to score a goal and you achieve that outcome in the exact manner you intended, that is not luck. I don't say this because it is my opinion, I say it because I know what the word means. You also need to get away from thinking that shots are random events in reality. It is an assumption which you need to make because statistical modelling would be impossible otherwise. It's an approximation of reality.

Funny, because my son was actually conceived despite contraception being used by the Mrs.

Chef I feel like you're arguing against the current limited set of metrics, rather than the concept of luck in general. Stuff like atmospheric conditions, the pressure of the ball, the cut of the grass, the wind etc. can all contribute to variance. Of course variance is a thing, it's only because the models are in their infancy it's being disputed. Eventually, statistics will cover every physical and psychological variable and hold supreme predictive value.

lol@ sklansky kids

What formation should we play against Bournemouth? I was thinking :

-----------Mignolet
Clyne--Skrtel-Lovren--????
------------Can
---Henderson-Milner
---------Coutinho
------Firmino-Benteke

My doubt is to go with either Gomez or Moreno. Moreno looks better in attack.

tried to discuss it on a fan forum. Just got called a troll

Edit: thechef calm response has put him outside the "worst poster of the year" award. Well done. Keep up the good work

lol





lol

1, I wonder how long these stats guys will get away with trolling football?

2, Loving the RAWK meltdown - keep it up!

whats the line on the number of balotelli appearences in the league this season?

Very nice Brom posts tchaz

This was sort of answered earlier but wasn't exactly clear. If Italy outperforms the PL this year, do they get the 4th CL spot for the season 16/17, or the next season?

Pretty sure as soon as they'd have bigger point total and with the 11-12 points (Italy's disaster year) being replaced by 15/16 it would be immediately.

Not sure how likely it really is but it will at least be close in the coming years.

Personally I think top 4 leagues should get 4 each like talked about in CL thread. They have a justifiable gap (Spain way ahead though) to the rest and everyone from 7 to 15 getting two spots is too generous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_c...ry_coefficient

I wasn't really aware of the Pepe Mel inner workings but since the absolute number one thing you need to change for certain kind of change are old-school centreback types, them vs mostly foreign outsiders have become quite a theme. These big men are not going down without a fight!

Of course at Sunderland Di Canio did himself no favors with all sorts of things you could use against him. One thing to watch closely now, even if he is not a centreback but he still lives by the old ways so to speak, Cattermole was pulled in the first half by Advocaat so stay tuned there. Just as crazy it is that when they FINALLY rid themselves of the Wes Brown-O'Shea relegation-struggle-guaranteed-partnership they turn up with Kaboul and Coates, the real disaster was extending Cattermole for 5 years. He is probably one of the highest earners and that just sets the tone for the whole club. Sure enough he acts all experienced with the ball but there is so much better out there cheaper. I'm seriously not convinced that he would start for a single team in the other top 4 leagues.

M'Villa is there on loan and it will be interesting to watch what happens the first time he replaces culture-bearer Cattermole.

At Swansea the Monk vs Laudrup situation shouldn't be underestimated with how things ended up going down.

And the most well known saga is of course AVB vs the old school centrebacks at Chelsea and Spurs respectively.

mvila already got sent off in his first u21 match for sunderland so he will be like-for-like replacement for cattermole

Cech seems to get the blame for the first goal but Ramsey (?) lets Kouyaté run off him. If Cech stays on his line then he's terribly exposed.

Top 4 leagues should get byes for their top 4 teams and put them straight into last 16 of CL.

--

Mvilla a dud, another French dude hyped to high heaven.

Newcastle - Southampton was probably the most entertaining game of those that I watched. Chelsea - Swansea was also pretty good before 10vs11.

Southampton had some problems I thought with a serious case of lack of passing-moving-the ball ability central of the pitch. There is no ball-carrying centreback anymore like they used to have with first Lovren and then Alderweireld and in midfield with no Schneiderlin, Wanayama, Davis and not to mention Mane ahead of them had way too many technical and idea-wise shortcomings.

When for large parts of the game (until late 2nd half when things got way open) they couldn't establish possession in Newcastle half especially Tadic was caught behind the game and that also helped expose new right-back Cedric to all the Newcastle pace.

Cedrid did hit a great delivery for the first goal though well headed in by Pele.

But it looks like Clasie will have a huge responsibility taking care of the passing and building. He is much more different to Schneiderlin than articles I've come across talking about him as a direct replacement would have you believe. I mean all you have to do is just look at them and you see the totally obvious differences. Clasie is a fighter though and there should be enough physicality anyway. It is whether he can be good enough to take leadership and centerstage when it comes to everything that's passing from their own half that's the interesting question.

For Newcastle is was up and down. The good thing was looking powerful and at least tactically decent when both Anita and Wijnaldum were still in the game. Southampton couldn't get out of that press. Mbemba also looked really good in the back. He was also impressive when I watched him for Anderlecht and overall they're just pacy and strong in most positions. Even Obertan looked not bad though that spot is still a worry.

At home they will attack without discipline though. Probably roared on by the crowd and there are definitely holes to be found which Southampton also did with their particular weapons and when Newcastle lost Anita to injury and later Wijnaldum exited replaced by notoriously undisciplined Tiote and a very very very weak looking De Jong they could not have been more open in midfield and Southampton could easily have ended up stealing a game that for the majority had Newcastle as best team.

Yeah he hasn't exactly been the most dependable for the last few years. He also won't get the ref-benefit that I swear Cattermole receive although he has done nothing to deserve it. He could get way more yellow cards than he actually does.

To be fair I did see M'Vila play a couple of good games for Kazan. His downfall is a bit of mystery and his supposed scandal with French team if it was only what was reported didn't seem like a big deal either.

Arsenal - West Ham

First of all credit to West Ham and special mention to Payet who I have doubted in the past. Not that he is one of world's elite delivery-men. that's been more than well established (I have him perhaps modestly at 54 on my messy attacking mids ranking), and having one such, that alone speak volumes about this scoop for West Ham but I mean his overall game here looked very impressive. Of course it was just one game and we'll see what he will be against more defensive teams.

One thing I've held against him is his career severe lack of dribbling, well what do you know against Arsenal suddenly that was no problem. He has the two-footed ability (most used in his delivery-machinery) and he has the balance. What a scoop this must be.

When it comes Arsenal I just wish these elite attacking midfielders would be consistently optimized similar to the way elite attacking midfielder types have been optimized elsewhere the last few years. Let's ffs get that press organized and working. Start some attacks not from the ground that is zero that means having to combine yourself through an entire 11. Sure they can do that on good days but optimizing these players defensively is what will connect them to getting over the top offensively. If you defend in this conservative block that Arsenal did for good parts of the game you might as well have the athletic players that Xavi thought meant no place for him in football. Well turns out that a way was found into making these small-skill-small size "weak" players into effective players defensively. Make the spaces smaller suiting quickness over power. Arsenal have these players. Get on board Wenger. Sure enough it can often be wise trying to lure opponent forward, having that back-room to expose on counters but with no Walcott and little off-ball pace (Ox is on-ball pace imo until he proves otherwise) West Ham generally had the faster players. It made no sense!

Also, I know West Ham sat pretty deep. Deeper than I thought they had to with Arsenal's only competent off-ball mover towards goal being slower than their centrebacks but they did push up some at least delaying Arsenal pressure by decent amounts.

Entering Walcott can halt even that and even if he isn't as great against deep-sitting sides, just one single attacking player who moves towards goal-away from ball is just not enough. Everyone else's natural movement and instinct is moving towards ball-away from West Ham goal. Even the one attacking mover (Giroud obv) has significant move towards ball tendencies. Well, all the more reason to have at least one more aggressive off-ball mover TOWARDS OPPONENT GOAL.

Overall, not effective enough from Arsenal on the attacking front. They should be better.