rsmith
The hand of Ghod
- Nov 8, 2006
- 792
- 848
Just to be clear, this is not about today's game, not 'AVB out', and not about any individual players.
It's also not a knee jerk.
It's about goal difference.
Check the end of season league tables, and as well as being ranked by points, the table is more or less ranked by goal difference. So what? The interesting thing about GD is that ranking sides by GD is surprisingly consistent from the early stages of the season. Sides in the bottom three, but with a significant positive GD, tend to have risen by the end of the season. The opposite is also true; ie. a team can be flying high early on, but without a commensurate GD, gravity beckons.
Over the course of a season, luck balances out. Wins by the odd goal based on a dodgy decision or a deflected free kick, get balanced by the losses by an odd goal caused by a defender losing his footing or a keeper playing a blinder. Wins by 2,3 etc goals aren't susceptible to luck.
If anybody fancies a friendly fiver that the top 4 come the end of this season won't be Arse, Chelski, Pool, and Citeh. Pm me.
Watching our progress this season as we bounced in and around the top four, our GD has been consistently below the teams around us. We're now 7th on points and 8th on GD. We're now sitting in the league place our performances warrant.
The writing on the wall has been there for longer than this season. We yids don't want to admit what every other fan, pundit and professional was saying last season. Spurs 12/13 was all about Bale. AVB fanbois will claim that it was AVB's brilliance to play a formation that allowed Bale the freedom to score the goals that got us our highest ever points tally. Who knows, they might be right. A statistician might demonstrate that our points tally was simply an inevitable consequence of the relative standard of the teams that gave us those points.
I don't have a particular solution to punt. I'm not qualified to suggest that Ade needs rehabilitating urgently, that Lamela needs game time NOW, that there is no fluidity in our formation (unlike Bale and Azza switching wings at will last season), or that we miss Modric's ability to turn defence into attack in a split second. Maybe our season was defined when we failed to land Benteke.
[Having said that, it was pretty clear that it was easy for Newcastle to double up on Townsend because we did nothing down the left. The thing I've liked most about Lamela, even in the PL games he was slated for, was his involvement across the full width]
But what I can say with absolute certainty is that our play has not adapted or progressed in the last 12 months, and unless it changes radically and dramatically before the Christmas bulge, seventh place is more or less where we'll be come next May. The players from Lloris to Sandro will comfortably win us a point per game over the season. In front of them we have a squad to cream over, but something ain't right and it ain't getting any better.
Apologies for the rant. Two seasons ago I looked forward to every second of football that we played, and I'll admit it, I enjoyed basking in the reflected glory as pundit after pundit waxed over our performances. I'm not enjoying this season much.
I'm off to finish my bottle of Shiraz now. COYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's also not a knee jerk.
It's about goal difference.
Check the end of season league tables, and as well as being ranked by points, the table is more or less ranked by goal difference. So what? The interesting thing about GD is that ranking sides by GD is surprisingly consistent from the early stages of the season. Sides in the bottom three, but with a significant positive GD, tend to have risen by the end of the season. The opposite is also true; ie. a team can be flying high early on, but without a commensurate GD, gravity beckons.
Over the course of a season, luck balances out. Wins by the odd goal based on a dodgy decision or a deflected free kick, get balanced by the losses by an odd goal caused by a defender losing his footing or a keeper playing a blinder. Wins by 2,3 etc goals aren't susceptible to luck.
If anybody fancies a friendly fiver that the top 4 come the end of this season won't be Arse, Chelski, Pool, and Citeh. Pm me.
Watching our progress this season as we bounced in and around the top four, our GD has been consistently below the teams around us. We're now 7th on points and 8th on GD. We're now sitting in the league place our performances warrant.
The writing on the wall has been there for longer than this season. We yids don't want to admit what every other fan, pundit and professional was saying last season. Spurs 12/13 was all about Bale. AVB fanbois will claim that it was AVB's brilliance to play a formation that allowed Bale the freedom to score the goals that got us our highest ever points tally. Who knows, they might be right. A statistician might demonstrate that our points tally was simply an inevitable consequence of the relative standard of the teams that gave us those points.
I don't have a particular solution to punt. I'm not qualified to suggest that Ade needs rehabilitating urgently, that Lamela needs game time NOW, that there is no fluidity in our formation (unlike Bale and Azza switching wings at will last season), or that we miss Modric's ability to turn defence into attack in a split second. Maybe our season was defined when we failed to land Benteke.
[Having said that, it was pretty clear that it was easy for Newcastle to double up on Townsend because we did nothing down the left. The thing I've liked most about Lamela, even in the PL games he was slated for, was his involvement across the full width]
But what I can say with absolute certainty is that our play has not adapted or progressed in the last 12 months, and unless it changes radically and dramatically before the Christmas bulge, seventh place is more or less where we'll be come next May. The players from Lloris to Sandro will comfortably win us a point per game over the season. In front of them we have a squad to cream over, but something ain't right and it ain't getting any better.
Apologies for the rant. Two seasons ago I looked forward to every second of football that we played, and I'll admit it, I enjoyed basking in the reflected glory as pundit after pundit waxed over our performances. I'm not enjoying this season much.
I'm off to finish my bottle of Shiraz now. COYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
