toonotl

Ange changing both his centre backs at halftime. I'm sure this'll go well.

Not too disappointed about yesterday's defeat. It had to come and you can't blame Tindall for not rotating the team. Great fixture to bounce back with and get back on track. It'd be nice if Eddie is back for this one. ManC play Villa too so chance to stretch the buffer to 6th place again. What result are we hoping for in that one? Obviously a draw is mathematically ideal. But a demoralising lose for one of them could be better. Particularly Villa since they're the form side now.

You pommy bastards are going the right way for a good kick in the backside.

Even a draw here amounts to a pretty big result for us. But hopefully we can nick a win. 2-1 to us.

Was thinking during the Palace game that this team is fast becoming Tonali's.

This place is beautiful chaos. I hope it never changes.

It's interesting that apart from the missed penalty Crystal Palace's other two "big chances" did not actually appear that way in the match. 36th Minute: Penalty Chance (0.76 xG) 8th Minute: Chance from corner for Richards (0.45 xG). It was a big chance. Basically a free header from a corner right on the six yard box in the middle of the goal. However, Richards mistimed his jump and the header ballooned over the bar. Easily forgettable. 50th Minute: Chance for Mateta (0.59 xG). It was a big chance too given it is in a similar place to Richard's chance but with feet. However, Tino (I believe it was Tino from memory) basically blocked the shot at source in a 50/50 challenge. But technically it was a shot since Mateta got to the ball marginally before Tino. It's also perhaps a contributing factor to our recollection of this chance that it was already 5-0 at this point. So the game was over. That accounts for 1.8xG of their chances according to the understat page. The rest of their chances are basically potshots. It's just a statistical anomaly, lads. It happens. Doesn't mean the entire model is useless in my opinion. It just means that it is a stat, like every other stat, it needs to be taken in context and broken down and analysed to see how much it is representative of reality.

Clearly we won because our players don't believe in xG. Only works if you believe in it.

If we're making predictions*, a much more likely unexpected sale would be Longstaff. He's clearly important for the domestically trained player count for Europe. But other than that, (as others have mentioned heaps) he's not a very effective bench player since his strengths are mostly endurance based and he seems to play better the more consistently he gets to play (which won't be the case next season similarly to the second half of this season). Also, he's pure profit in PSR terms, which means we'd make similar PSR headroom for ourselves from selling him for 20-25m as we would from trying to sell Gordon for 60-80m. And, we would have mostly or even exclusively non-rivals in the market for Longstaff compared to our direct rivals being in for Gordon, which means selling Longstaff "weakens" us less in a relative sense in addition to the reduced real difference in each actual player's ability. We'd also arguably have an easier time selling Longstaff in general since there are more clubs who can afford him. And, arguably the only club that would be in for Gordon that constitutes an upward move would be Liverpool. And they will likely have their money tied up trying to replace TAA and future planning for Salah's imminent departure. In other words, I'd be incredibly surprised if we agreed to sell Gordon and I'd also be surprised if Gordon wanted to leave. But, hey, I'm not a body language expert. * can 100% trust that Dougie made a prediction disguised as a hunch. (We're rolling with it now. Good luck, Dougie. Credibility on the line. )

Yep. It's the case now that if the likes of ManU or Spurs want our players then so good luck to them. Any player would be mad to choose them over us. And it's arguably soon to be the same with Chelsea and Arsenal. If it isn't already. These clubs want our players. Who cares? We're better than them already and heading upwards. And, ironically, thanks to PSR, we have a somewhat favourable financial position relative to them because a lot of these clubs that have been incredibly poor with their decisions in the transfer market cannot now simply throw money at our players to lure them away from us. The landscape is shifting rapidly or more accurately it has already shifted. The lag in the media response is arguably the product of a football journalism class stocked to overflowing with three generations worth of players from clubs who have a history of just taking the players they like from other teams. It doesn't compute that they can't just buy our players like in the past. Personally, I think this maybe works in our favour. They'll wake up one day like an old hermit coming down the mountain only to be told the news from years ago that the "Big Six" is dead. Thus Spake Eddiethustra.

That does sound horrible. Hospitals are shitty places to spend any extended period of time in. Glad your Dad's on the mend Chaser. And for Eddie, too, hopefully he's on the mend. Pneumonia can be very scary from all reports. My Dad has had it and it doesn't seem pleasant at all. Hopefully Eddie gets the rest he needs and really does allow himself to recover fully before thinking about work. I'm sure Mad Dog and co. will hold down the fort in his absence. It's a wonderful bonus having a two man team like Howe-Tindall. In this situation Mad Dog basically can apply a "What Would Eddie Do" principle in the boss's absence and get it basically spot on every time. If the ManU performance is anything to go on we'll be absolutely okay in Howe's absence for another week or so. As CT mentioned, apart from wishing along with the rest of us that Eddie has a speedy recovery, the biggest concern for Tindall will likely be the media commitments.

Tonali is so brilliant. There was a funny moment for me watching the match when Tonali dribbled the ball on a 30-yard run and burned past the Manc fullback around the outside, before turning back to keep possession to wind down the clock. The two clearly MancRed bias commentators seemed shocked, only then waxing lyrical about him being "lightning quick", with a sense of surprise, since they clearly hadn't noticed him doing exactly the same thing without the ball, not only every week, but also for the entire 90 minutes of the match prior to that. Yeah, dumbasses, he's lightyears ahead of your pedestrian ManU midfield. Imagine watching Erikson and Casemiro look like reanimated corpses every week, then seeing another team with two demi-gods of athleticism, Tonali and Joelinton. Oh the misery in their voices was magical.

How does the ref only give a yellow at first?

That pic is funny every time!

Onana clapping back with: "look my replacement is also at least as shit as I am". Fair point.