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Have you been to as many of the Policeman’s’ Balls as Toonpack?

"Ere man! Less 'im alairn, ey's aalwuz walked like that!"

Well, because it averages out. The ability of Saka, the coaching he's had, the support he's had to manage pressure situations, the experience he's got of playing in high stakes games, versus the fatigue, the speed of the game, the weight of the pressure, the height of this particular stake. And the law of big numbers. That chance he missed was valued at 0.78xG, which means if that chance happened 1000 times, you'd expect the ball to hit the back of the net 780 times. This was just one of those 220 times in a thousand that it didn't. Let that chance fall to some clogger from Morecambe he's more likely to shank it that Saka is, but you'd still be in the stands saying "My nan could have finished that", because you know that if you watched 1,000 chances that were pretty much the same, the vast majority of them would be buried, regardless of who it fell to. We've all seen world class stars fuck up a relatively easy chance, and we've seen fucking clogger spaff one in against all odds. But because xG looks at thousands and thousands of data points it can ignore the ability of the player and look instead at the chance itself. It doesn't need to worry about the pressure of the stakes, or the BMI of the the player. It's the chance that matters. Not the competition, not the stadium, not the player... just the chance.

When we were in Normandy with the kids, we came across the Basilica of Saint Therese of Lisieux, massive Cathedral started in 1929, finished in 1954, with some mild bombing* in between. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area- the pairings and murals inside are fucking mad, in fact, I’d recommend dropping a tab before you go, it’s the only way to explain this depiction of the Middle Eastern lad Jesus Bat Shit Insanity * you can go up the outside of the dome, and on the top path there’s an in situ shell from ww2, stuck in the pathway, which, of course,didn’t go off and was a miracle.

What a fucking knacker. No surprise, but what a bull's Clem that bloke is.

https://twitter.com/deludedof/status/1920377251616407758?s=46&t=z2j8swpKHKggwsIUQJsACw

Well I’ve understood all that since you’ve mansplained it dozens of times because you think I don’t understand it. That the degree of difficulty of the chance is the same in the parc des princes in the last 10 of the European cup semi final as it is at the most basic level of local semi pro football doesn’t make sense. Context isn’t taken into consideration so how can the data be accurate? The human factor has to be allows for, which of course is utterly impossible. Why did Saka miss the open goal? What was the xG of the chance? Why is the xG of the chance the same as it is at West Allotment Celtic? It is indisputably a more difficult chance at the parc des Prince last night…

That's not what happens though. All they do is look at the chance (not the shot) and compare it to all the other chances that are sufficiently similar. e.g. a penalty. Of the thousands and thousands of penalties taken, how many end up in the back of the net? Works out to be around 76% of them. For less distinct instances automated video capture is used, plus some human input. They don't say "Ooooh I reckon we should add .002 because there was a crisp packet rustle in the second row. They just say what happened in that chance and the model says this is how often that chance ends up in a goal. Player 35yds out, on the volley, weaker foot, while under pressure is going to be fuck all xG. Player on the goal line, with control of the ball, under no pressure is going to be very high xG. Not because of what that chance sounds like or how it's interpreted, but because looking back at what has happened for those types of chances, this is how rarely or how often the ball ends up in the goal.

Joseph Swan- top lad.

You can't educate pork.

My mate was part of the police presence at Trafalgar Sq that day, they collared the bloke from the pool because he couldn’t walk after straight the fall and they needed to get him medical attention. His father started trying to fight the police and the rest of the fans were launching bottles & cans at them.

If we haven't even got shot of the brand new tariffs, I don't know quite what has been achieved. Hopefully we're not about to be flooded with chlorinated meat.

mackems

Xg data for the European cup semi final last night brought to you in conjunction with not only the likes of Saka who missed an open goal in one of the most highly pressurised environments in the sport itself but seemingly 1000s of lads who had a career like this lad… Then we get to the individuals who actually do the data gathering; those stout fellows who judge how difficult any given shot is at any given game throughout football, all issued with a set of criteria that they interpret having gained their relatively brief football knowledge almost exclusively through a computer simulation of the game itself. Am not suggesting I could do better btw, am suggesting most people would be unable to do it accurately and keep up with everything else that’s going on in the game that they may or may not be assessing. Those are my issues with xG, all context at the top level appears to be removed and at its very basic level data collection is very likely to be arbitrary and partial. I understand the football world uses it and good luck to them but it appears it’s most vocal adherents don’t ask any questions about it at all. Has there been any studies on how accurate it actually is?

Can't get brain damage when your brain is made from cream cheese.

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/mum-leeds-united-fan-who-31594299 Pretty sad that his mam has had to take to social media to address social media rumours being spread about the kid. Sounds like it'll be a long road to recovery, whatever that looks like for him. Poor fucker. I've got a mate who dived into a swimming pool on a stag do in 2019. Hit the bottom, had to be brought back to life at poolside, and has been in a wheelchair ever since. It's fucking mental how a moment of daftness can completely upend your life.

Trade deal with the US incoming, though sounds like it will be limited in scope and ambition (cars and steel with the 10% "global baseline tariff" remaining in place)

Is it even exciting getting promoted anymore. More than likely to get a trouncing pretty much every week and go back down. Its sad its got to that point but PSR has fooked everything up.

Was it as good as Mara Largo though?

Wanking then crossing themselves? Classic Catholic behaviour.

It certainly has its roots in the human sacrifice rituals of other civilisations - it fits in with JC's own supposed "sacrifice" for us. (That's in reply to Renton's canniibal post not religious art)

Not only does he look like a cunt, he looks like a wrong cunt as no one with half a brain still thinks Edison invented the lightbulb.

The funniest thing about it is that they then went on to get beat 2-1 by Brighton.

Whilst in Italy recently, we went to a couple of Cathedrals and other places. Some of the artwork and artifacts were early C14th. I find it quite mind blowing some of the stuff I was seeing. The religious art is mad. The yanks were all wanking over it and crossing themselves too