Spurs surpassed expectations in the 2013-14 premiership season

[fatpiranha]

By that chart, Southampton overperformed by 8.5 points more though.

So Poch over Sherwood all day, right?

I don't think many would disagree with that although on a note of caution i'd like to point out that Southampton had a history last season of starting matches very well but fading quite badly in the 2nd half. This is pretty much the diametrical opposite of how Spurs performed under Sherwood. The ideal situation would be for Poch to take training, pick the team and tactics and then hand over to Sherwood who would give the half-time team talk and phone in his 2nd half substitutions from his favoured seat in the stands.

Obviously given Sherwood's current popularity with the fan base it would be best if he wore some sort of disguise in order to hide his involvement. Either a large hessian sack with holes cut in it for the eyes or possibly a full length burqa would be fit for the purpose.

 

[Sp3akerboxxx]

So judging from your table the bookies got their estimates for every single team in the premier league wrong? And yet we overachieved according to the bookies estimates?

 

[fatpiranha]

So judging from your table the bookies got their estimates for every single team in the premier league wrong? And yet we overachieved according to the bookies estimates?

This is a common misconception that bookmakers try to accurately predict the outcome of sporting events. What they do is try to balance their books in order to minimise their risk and therefore make a profit whatever the outcome. What you have therefore is not the opinion of the bookmakers but rather that of the sports betting public. That is why the old adage that you will never meet a poor bookie holds true.

 

[guiltyparty]

This is a common misconception that bookmakers try to accurately predict the outcome of sporting events. What they do is try to balance their books in order to minimise their risk and therefore make a profit whatever the outcome. What you have therefore is not the opinion of the bookmakers but rather that of the sports betting public. That is why the old adage that you will never meet a poor bookie holds true.

Exactly. I never understand why people don't get this

If lots and lots and lots of Liverpool fans put money on Liverpool to win the league, their odds shorten. That's not Mr William Hill saying "We think Liverpool will win the league", it's him saying "Blimey, if Liverpool win the league I'm going to have to pay out a shedload of money, shortern those odds, stat!"

It's also how they spot iffy betting patterns. They will have a predicted spread of money that may be put on an event or team, and if the reality drastically differs (a lot of money coming in on an unusual team/horse/boxer whatever) they will suspend betting.

It's just like a casino really. If they ever get the sense anyone really knows anything, they shut that mother down. They want it to be random, as they will always win in the long run then

 

[fatpiranha]

We still performed bellow expectations. The betting there had us in 5th we finished 6th. Points are only of value in context. Outside it they are numbers, which I guess you can bet on, but have no correlation with performance.

We achieved higher points tally than expected by the bookies as they expected a point distribution similar to that before 2012-2013. The point distribution, however, ended up with an even larger gap than before. That is why our point tally is above what was predicted.

Size of point tally, however, is not in itself an indication of strength or achievement. Rather it is just an ordering device. The quality in the lower ends of the premier league were really weak. Most importantly anyone from Swansea downwards were at a much poorer level than in previous seasons. Therefore to perform on par we had to beat these weaker teams more often if you like. The expectation for point total changes based on the nature of the league. The relative position of the teams, however, is fixed and measurable and is unchanged to changes in quality etc.

Sorry but this is almost entirely fallacious. Far from being "fixed and measurable" the relative positions of the teams is a very poor indicator of performance compared to the points tally. The reason for this is that we have no influence on the results of matches in which we do not play.

This is easily demonstrable. It would be simple to engineer a hypothetical situation where all our results were exactly the same as they were this season but we won the league. All that would be needed would be for the teams above us to have dropped a sufficient number of points against the teams below us.

In fact it is hypothetically possible for a team to win the league with 38 pts but for the purposes of this discussion we'll have Spurs winning the league with 40 pts. For this to happen all the matches in the premiership end in draws except we beat Arsenal 1-0 at home. Every team would therefore have 38 pts except us with 40 and Arsenal with 37. By your reasoning we would have performed fantastically and Arsenal would have been dire whereas the reality would be that there was bugger all between any of the teams.

Back in the real world who do you think performed better this season ... Everton who moved up one measly place in the table or Newcastle who climbed an impressive 6 places?

Your contention that the quality of the teams in the bottom half of the table was much weaker than previous seasons also does not stand up to scrutiny. The 3 relegated teams from last season (QPR, Wigan & Reading) amassed 89 pts between them. The 3 promoted teams (Cardiff, Hull & Crystal Palace) amassed 102 pts. In addition the relegated teams performance in the Championship does not suggest they were stronger than the teams that replaced them as none were automatically promoted and they finished 22, 29 & 31 pts respectively behind Leicester and 13, 20 & 22 pts behind 2nd place Burnley.

It's not the case that the bottom half teams were weaker than last season but rather that some teams in the top half made massive improvements. The exception was Man Utd who suffered from replacing a world class manager with a very average one. The biggest improvers against expectation were the 2 Merseyside clubs (although if Tony Pulis had been in charge of Palace all season they would have proportionately been runaway leaders in that respect.

At the start of the season we lost a truly world class player who had 'Baled' us out of trouble in so many games last season and we replaced him with 7 players with no previous premiership experience yet we finished only 3 pts below our highest ever premiership pts tally. It is understandable that we hoped for better, but it is delusional with the benefit of hindsight to continue to insist that we massively underperformed.

 

[Sp3akerboxxx]

This is a common misconception that bookmakers try to accurately predict the outcome of sporting events. What they do is try to balance their books in order to minimise their risk and therefore make a profit whatever the outcome. What you have therefore is not the opinion of the bookmakers but rather that of the sports betting public. That is why the old adage that you will never meet a poor bookie holds true.

I understand how bookies work, it is similar in the financial market where securities values can fluctuate depending on how people expect their values to fluctuate. The how is not lost on me, the point is.

 

[fatpiranha]

I understand how bookies work, it is similar in the financial market where securities values can fluctuate depending on how people expect their values to fluctuate. The how is not lost on me, the point is.

The point being that it was not the bookies getting the expected points totals wrong but the betting public. Even so I think you may be underestimating the difficulty of the task. Given a 1.5 pt starting spread a single draw instead of a win over the course of the entire season would take you outside the spread. Given that 11 of the 18 teams quotes were within 2 wins of the initial spreads I don't think the general betting public did that bad a job.

 

[spurious1]

This has been a very odd season - it seemed to go on forever (I guess if time does fly when you're having fun, the reverse is also true). Just looking at the numbers, you'd have to say we did about as expected by most people. Only Liverpool and Everton did a lot better than expected, so in the end we were nowhere near the top 4. And not even in our usual 5th place, though only 1 win off it.

That's the logical take. But the emotional one is different, because the lows were spectacularly low and the highs were mostly only barely above mediocrity. All those points we picked up in the 1-nil to the Spurs borefest at the beginning of the season. At one point Lloris was on the way to beating the PL clean sheet record. Those days seem so long ago. The relative satisfaction of 10 workman like wins, grinding out the points, is obliterated by a humiliating thrashing.

I did not check, but we must have the worst goal difference in history for a team with so many points.

 

[Mullers]

I don't think either Harry, AVB or Sherwood were sacked for results or points tally. All seemed personality related to me

I know the explanations people have for Harry and Sherwood, but I haven't heard AVB was sacked because of his personality that definitely seems it was results related. If it was personality related then I think we have a very touchy chairman.

 

[guiltyparty]

I know the explanations people have for Harry and Sherwood, but I haven't heard AVB was sacked because of his personality that definitely seems it was results related. If it was personality related then I think we have a very touchy chairman.

My take on AVB, for what it's worth, was that they fell out behind the scenes - Levy hadn't provided the players he wanted, AVB was playing dull football & not picking our most expensive player. Words were had, they agreed to go separate ways as AVB refused to change

Could be wrong but reading between the lines that's my take. The wording of the statement is very clear he wasn't sacked for me

 

[Mullers]

My take on AVB, for what it's worth, was that they fell out behind the scenes - Levy hadn't provided the players he wanted, AVB was playing dull football & not picking our most expensive player. Words were had, they agreed to go separate ways as AVB refused to change

Could be wrong but reading between the lines that's my take. The wording of the statement is very clear he wasn't sacked for me

Which bit of the statement are you referring too.

 

[only1waddle]

Which bit of the statement are you referring too.

This bit:

The Club can announce that agreement has been reached with Head Coach, Andre Villas-Boas, for the termination of his services. The decision was by mutual consent and in the interests of all parties.

 

[Mullers]

This bit:
The Club can announce that agreement has been reached with Head Coach, Andre Villas-Boas, for the termination of his services. The decision was by mutual consent and in the interests of all parties.

You got just from that small bit of the statement he was sacked because he didn't get the players he wanted and for his brand of football and for not picking Ade?

 

[guiltyparty]

You got just from that small bit of the statement he was sacked because he didn't get the players he wanted and for his brand of football and for not picking Ade?

No, as I said, reading between the lines. The statement, Ade's comments, Burt's mouthpiece reports, AVB comments. The most rounded way of reading into it. And I don't think he was sacked, that's the point - I think he was as fed up as Levy

I never said it was fact, it's what I believe on the evidence that's been made public

 

[only1waddle]

You got just from that small bit of the statement he was sacked because he didn't get the players he wanted and for his brand of football and for not picking Ade?

No, i merely supplied the initial statement made on the official site that proves he wasn't sacked.

 

[Mullers]

No, i merely supplied the initial statement made on the official site that proves he wasn't sacked.

That statement doesn't prove he wasn't sacked.

 

[only1waddle]

That statement doesn't prove he wasn't sacked.

Ok, not proves, but it is the only piece of factual evidence we have that states he went by mutual consent.
Until another statement by either AvB or DL comes out saying otherwise then he left by mutual consent.

 

[Dan Yeats]

I don't think either Harry, AVB or Sherwood were sacked for results or points tally. All seemed personality related to me

I agree about them not being points related, but not that they were just down to personality clashes.

For me, I think:

Harry: Because he thought he had the England job and turned his back on the team. Apparently he stopped showing up to training. That's massively disrespectful to our players, totally unprofessional, and makes Levy look like a ****.

AVB: Style of play clearly not working, and a seeming total unwillingness to rethink it. The clincher was the particular games he lost and the manner in which he lost them.

Sherwood: No matter what the results, he was essentially sabotaging our future. We have an excellent squad, who he was systematically alienating to the point that we were hugely at risk of losing players like Verts, Sandro, Lloris - and they'd no doubt be followed out the door by others. Hopefully if we get the right guy in to replace him, they may give the club another chance.

 

[Bobbins]

That statement doesn't prove he wasn't sacked.

It never ends does it.

AVB left because his relationships with everyone at the club broke down (bit helped by Sherwoods plotting). At the meeting after the liverpool game they never expected to be sacking him but when Levy asked him to play Ade and AVB refused and that was the final straw for both of them. AVB wanted out and Levy was happy enough with that.

Mutual consent. Agreed by both parties. Not sacked. It's there in black and white.

 

[fatpiranha]

I did not check, but we must have the worst goal difference in history for a team with so many points.

By some distance. The next nearest since we moved to a 38 game season was Everton who had 61 pts and a -1 GD in 2004/5.