So its being argued that if Arsenal lose a game because a highly proficient, capable and consistent goal keeper makes highly uncharacteristic errors, its not variance?

People are confusing agency and outcome.

The thing is, Cech meant for those goals to go in, ultimately its still variance that they did.

in b4 SN and his LOLengland and dinosaur tactics.

its a shame i have no idea what that paragraph was going on about after the first 2 sentences

Btw is the weekly fantasy (or some version of it) not available in Europe?

There are three options:
1. Everything is EV and variance, absolutely anything.
2. Stop talking about this, it's not numbers and your model is garbage.
3. Stop talking about it.

I'll just continue then Can't stop now anyway and want to try and add some nuances at least:

To be fair to Wenger I'm sure his main worry were West Ham counters and saw no reason to, in his mind gamble. If that worry turned out to be the most accurate thing I'm not so sure. It wasn't one dimensional from West Ham.

Also to be fair Arsenal did have games last season where they pressed well. One of the games they pressed very well in recent times was a game against Manchester United where they lost. That sucked.

And both Giroud and Mertesacker aren't exactly natural ingredients when it comes to the things I think that Arsenal are lacking. I think it can still get to made work, even if not supremely, but maybe both of them is one stumbling block too many. That sucks.

Of course they were also without the standard-bearer when it comes to this. The one man who can lead by example better than anyone. Who they have to follow. Get inspiration from. Alexis Sanchez. I really do think the over the top move is to make him the main attacking weapon and that includes his attacking by the way of his defense. He is the closest thing the league has to Suarez now in the ways he can contribute. Not as good a striker certainly but there is a great weapon to be even further unleashed on the league here. Use it optimally Wenger.

edit:

should also mention how there really isn't any good reason that the Ox shouldn't be a fantastic "counterpresser", seemingly he has all the tools, then the defensive midfielder COQ who now may or may not be error prone has one characteristic that suits and lifted this team very well, he has better acceleration than just about any defensive midfielder out there. He seems made to defend on the front-foot, fix holes aggressively that may or many not have come out of overall aggressive defending, instead of overall more slow more conservative defending.

The thing Chef is missing is that variance is exclusive to luck.

If you are using variance to explain outcomes, then there is no luck.

+1

Re: Italy vs England CL rankings. Country ranking that will be used for 16-17 UCL are already set in stone. Rankings beng played for over this season will come into effect for 17-18 UCL and currently there's a 4-point gap between the two countries (England is up). Even though Italy has 2 fewer teams than England in this years UCL, i don't think it will be able to bridge that gap. Last season was quite an outlier for them (variance!).

However, current standings for rankings'17, which would be used in 18-19 UCL country allocation, have Italy above England by less than a point. To finalize these rankings, there's still 2 full UCL seasons to be played. With the TV deal and general financial differences, I think the likely outlook is for England to keep their 4 CL spots over Italy for the foreseeable future.

Björn

I really hope Sanchez won't feature next week at all- we really need a 100% sanchez vs liverpool. But he just wants to play every game- apparently he stayed after the game to do fitness training. Beast

Looking forward to Monday Night Football.

Would be ideal if West Brom can get the win, Man City have looked very dodgy defensively all pre-season so there is a decent chance.

+ I have them in LMS. WBA lock

ExPg owned real results and any other statistic in explanatory power for future results so I guess it's probably really not garbage!

so pick option 1 or 3

i suggest another #:

#4: those who want to talk about variance/xG/etc do so. Those who dont like it, stfu. Those who want to just eyetest and lol at teams do so. And those who dont like that, stfu. I imagine theres plenty of people who are down the middle and enjoy both sides of the discussion and find the people who are whining about either side more annoying to read.

+1

+2. Just talk about what you want. If you think something is garbage - explain why you think it's garbage.

If you can't find what you're looking for in this thread then luckily for us, Fanerio solved the game so best option is to PM him with any questions.

Think 72o was asking why big teams aren't splashing the cash as hard. I heard (could have been here) it's because the accounts department now not only picks the team (see West Ham's Europa League game) but also rationalizes the worth of any transfer. Decisions can't be made without their consent. Difference in prize money between places 1 to 4 aren't worth a 40mil squad option for example. That 40 mil bench player might be useful for squad depth and rotation when chasing the Champions League but doesn't get past the accounts department.

fifteen million man utd 2015/16 league champions special edition toilet roll holder sales tho

Haven't looked at thread for a couple months, looks like analytics are taking over.

Also haven't really followed football that much so am a bit out of the loop. Fellow Chelsea fans, what's up with the lack of game changing big signings this summer? Utd are trash and TSO has cunningly sabotaged lolarsenal from within, but some quality signings would have been nice.

burnssss GOAT

Yes, as long as you have something coming in then it's fine. Utd don't have quality assets on the playing field so they moved to the toilet paper industry to fund their transfers and hopefully some donkey will be able to buy 11 competent players to win a league they really should own considering their resources.

Chelsea shuffle around youth players and when you sell a defender for 50 mil, you can go out and buy a couple of quality attacking players for that a few million more.

TSO has started criticising from within to try and squeeze a transfer out. Had a dig at his medical staff on Saturday. He might move up to more important figures at the club. He'll be outside accounts on August 31st begging for money.

Completely disagree with your Coutinho statement. Just look at the game yesterday. He was invisible until Can came on and he was pushed out wide left in place of Lallana. That was the moment that changed the game and he started becoming more of a force and scored the game winner.

I think a 4-3-3 with Henderson and Milner as the 2 in front of a holder (Can or Lucas) is the best formation that will get the best out of those two and Coutinho. Put Firminho wide right and Benteke/Sturridge up front and I think we'll see some more fluid attacking play.

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

This is what I think it'll be. Maybe Ibe to start instead of Firmino.

Apart from improving depth I don't really see how Chelsea could significantly improve their XI. Just not a ton available on the market this late and they got a pretty well set team with good chemistry.

Having KdB right now sure would be handy...