The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - 13th July 2015

[Dirty Ewok]

That's the third cabbage. The first two are Evans and Hernandez.

I thought the first two were from overseas.....

 

[raggy]

Wait, what? Evans as in Johnny Evans? The central defender? What. The. F.

If it's true that the cryptic refers to Evans and Hernandez, it makes no sense to me. Hernandez I can buy, but Evans? Eh?

We now have a plethora of decent centre backs. I don't think he could play as a midfielder effectively. So why?

Got to assume that it's not him. I hope.

When Toby joined they ruled out the first cabbage indicating it was a defender. So even though the first cabbage is Evans we won't be buying him now anyway because we signed Toby.

 

[Tobyisbest]

I'd be happy with michy, young fearless alternative option with potential. 9 mill I'd take a punt. Deece scoring record too for someone rarely getting 90 mins. 2 footed. Him McCarthy Austin good night

 

[spurs9]

I thought the first two were from overseas.....

JJ hinted that 2 attacking "bums off seats" players were from overseas, but that doesn't mean they were the only players we were looking at. .

 

[jedimonkey]

Ok a general complaint at the inference that "Mitchell does not have a black box or a program"

The important thing that Mitchell needs to have to do his job is expertise. I would be astounded if any Premier League club doesn't have access to A1 databases supplied by one of the big data companies and with an ability to drill down into it to establish long or short lists of players that interest them. A proprietary "black box or program" implies some secret methodology to find players. If you have the expertise to look at players in this manner, then you likely have the knowledge to use data in a constructive way and add it to the traditional recruitment process, not replace- add.

So "Mitchell doesn't have a black box or a program" infers that he is less capable than we might expect, specifically because we all know about Southampton's "black box", when really there is no reason to presume this whatsoever.

Moving on from this, any focus around a supposed "black box" is mischievous given two scenarios:

1. He is thought to have a black box
Signings fail- therefore "the black box failed" "it was all bullshit" etc

2. He is thought not to have a black box
Signings fail- "he should have brought his black box" "bullshit" etc

Plenty of transfers don't pan out, whatever method you use to obtain the player. What should be focused on here is that the methods employed by the club appear to be intending on minimising the error rate in such transfers. And that, given we seemingly spent 2013 picking players from an agent's list, should be applauded.

I agree, I was just mentioning what JJ said the other day in response to BC I think it was.

Of course Mitchell will have access to massive amounts of data and his job and that of his team will be to analyse this data and find what we need from it.

I have to do similar work in my job, it's all about looking for trends in the data.

 

[cockerel downunder]

How can Evans possibly be linked to cabbage ? It's got to be Germans or a German and a Belgium surely.

We also had a cryptic at the start of the window about 2 Germans using another ww2 nickname in Jerry

How on earth have people got to Evans ?

 

[0-Tibsy-0]

I'm not sure why I still keep refreshing this thread. There is some wild hope that I may have an epiphany and see through all these mad ramblings with clarity

 

[scat1620]

I'd be happy with michy, young fearless alternative option with potential. 9 mill I'd take a punt. Deece scoring record too for someone rarely getting 90 mins. 2 footed. Him McCarthy Austin good night

Ugh. Learn to speak.

 

[Dirty Ewok]

JJ hinted that 2 attacking "bums off seats" players were from overseas, but that doesn't mean they were the only players we were looking at. .

I understand that.....just trying to grasp how we got Evans and Chicarito from "cabbages"

I mean Chicarito is "Little Pea" and all but a Pea is a legume whereas a cabbage is in the Brassicaceae family......different things and all...

 

[Paolo10]

FWIW I'm convinced Cabbages are German players as 'Cabbage' in German is 'Kraut' as in 'Sauerkraut'.

Fill your boots as to who they might be, but I'm convinced they're German anyway!

 

[spurs9]

God people do worked up over what appears to be nothing. Jj confirmed that the other is the better one and be happy with. Considering he said we have been after huge potential all summer I really can't see it being Hernandez. Come on with Evans really that ain't a feesible link just cause he is a CB and we signed alderwierald you are all ffs chill out! My wife doesn't get in hissy fits like this!

His initial optimism was before the cryptic and he has since said 1 cabbage was shit but we aren't after him due to signing Alderweierld (Evans fits perfectly) and the other is better but underwhelming (Hernandez fits) and they are from the same "grocer".

 

[Tobyisbest]

Ugh. Learn to speak.

Not speaking I'm typing. Learn to ignore what you don't like to read.

 

[spurs9]

I understand that.....just trying to grasp how we got Evans and Chicarito from "cabbages"

I mean Chicarito is "Little Pea" and all but a Pea is a legume whereas a cabbage is in the Brassicaceae family......different things and all...

I think cabbage is just in reference to the players being.......erm disappointing. I think people are really looking to much into the cabbage thing.

 

[mpickard2087]

JJ hinted that 2 attacking "bums off seats" players were from overseas, but that doesn't mean they were the only players we were looking at. .

Probably means getting a couple more 'Townsends' who will have the supporters in Row Z ducking and diving constantly.

 

[spurs9]

Probably means getting a couple more 'Townsends' who will have the supporters in Row Z ducking and diving constantly.

Yeah, or fed up and leaving early.

 

[Nanky_1988]

Is there anyone decent at Olympiacos that we may be interested in?

 

[sloth]

On the black-box bollocks. It's almost certainly a misreporting of an approach by journalists don't really understand.

A blackbox is something like a neural network where you shove a whole load of variables into the mix and ask a bit of software to come up with an optimum outcome, where you set what that benchmark is. It's a black box because the human doesn't actually understand how it works, it's opaque, just that it comes up with an answer.

Like most alchemical myths it doesn't really work as it should, not on something as immeasurable as an optimum team dynamic anyway; how can the computer test all the counter-factuals? It can't.

In something like the betting game - my area of expertise - you can at least rerun matches ad infinitum and look at the bottom line, or have some kind of model score. Even then it's hard to beat something designed by humans using their experience and judgement, but tested on the same data, I can't imagine how it would work on something like player recruitment. What I do know is that companies like mine start out hugely excited by the potential, and seeming pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, only to find out it's usually a croc of shit. It's people like me, not experts, who get inordinately impressed by very clever mathematicians explaining their toys to you, and we get led astray. That's why I'd be extremely worried about football clubs getting seduced by the hocus pocus.

Anyway there won't be any magical black box, at best there will be football experts using some sophisticated analytics to help them home in on particular aspects, thus focusing their thoughts and decision making. That's what we should hope Mitchell and his team are doing.

 

[sloth]

Is there anyone decent at Olympiacos that we may be interested in?

Given the link, surely it's Olympique Marseille that's being referred to?

 

[THFCSPURS19]

Given the link, surely it's Olympique Marseille that's being referred to?

Or Olympique Lyonnais...

 

[guy]

Is there any actual itk in the last 30 pages? Nothing in the itk ro but usually some titbits still flying around in here.

Ta