The Fish

Cheers for everything you're doing Andrew.

Jesus, whenever I step away from this place it goes to shit.

That's code for facebook

This was OPTA's prediction for the league at the beginning of this season Have to give Ange and Amorim credit. They've both achieved something that OPTA said there was a 0.4% - 0.7% to chance of.

Yup, since 1993/94 the winner of the PL Manager of the Year has been the league winner 25/30 times. exceptions were; George Burley with Ipswich (5th) in 0/01, Harry Redknapp with Spurs (4th) in 09/10, Alan Pardew with us (5th) in 11/12, Pulis with Palace (11th?!) in 13/14 and Klopp with Liverpool (2nd) in 21/22.

Music was better too.

Not what's wrong with me directly, but my cousin who's been battling cancer for the past few years looks to have lost the fight. Doctors have stopped treatment and it's now just about saying goodbye. Awful for my Aunt and Uncle who lost their son last year to suicide and now not even 12 months later they're going to lose their daughter to cancer. She's only a year older than me as well, she's going to leave two daughters. Trying to be helpful as I can, but they live in Aberdeen so there's not a lot I can do. Mind, even if they were close by there's fuck all I can do anyway. My mam called earlier to let me know my Dad's back in hospital because he had 3 seizures through the night. One is manageable for my mam, but 3 means a trip to hospital for observation and 10hrs kicking about at best. All the while my mam's going to be worried for her sister, and feeling guilty because they're not up there giving support. Fuck all of this. I'm going to sit in the garden, drink a can of poncey IPA, eat a bowl of left overs and listen to some good music in the sunshine.

Yup, since 1993/94 the winner of the PL Manager of the Year has been the league winner 25/30 times. exceptions were; George Burley with Ipswich (5th) in 0/01, Harry Redknapp with Spurs (4th) in 09/10, Alan Pardew with us (5th) in 11/12, Pulis with Palace (11th?!) in 13/14 and Klopp with Liverpool (2nd) in 21/22.

Who's he like?

What? At a golf course?!

Slot and Salah will get it. Slot: He's won the league at the first attempt, with little fuss. Salah: Most goals, most assists, won the league.

If we were going to lose one of those, who's out the door for you?

Can't believe it's not Bukta tbh

No point in signing DCL. He's 28, he'll command pretty high wages, isn't a reliable goal scorer, and won't be available for half the season. Sooooo similar Callum Wilson then, who has at least been a reliable goal scorer. Delap is younger, plenty physical, looks a real prospect and will at least retain his value better than DCL. Evan Ferguson is an interesting shout, there must be a reason why he's nopt played as much. I'd guess it'll be partly due to injuries and partly due to being Irish and you know what they're like.

Typical Americans, so uncouth.

I beg your fucking pardon? You shut your fucking trash mouth.

Nah, we can't both be.

It's the Club World Cup thing, right?

The chance isn't harder. The chance is the same. It's the executor of the chance that's different. You can tac on explanations why that chance wasn't taken and include pressure or lack of ability, but the chance is what the xG model is reporting. The model isn't there to explain why the chance was or wasn't taken. It's there to say that team A created more good opportunities to score than team B, but they didn't spend money on a striker so they're out of the Champions League. Player A has fuck all assists but has been creating really good chances for his team to score from, it's just that his teammates are useless. Player B is scoring more goals than you'd expect given the chances that come to him, if he's good he'll keep doing it, if he's just been lucky it'll regress to the mean. Team C has conceded the fewest goals so far, but that's due to their 'keeper pulling off world class saves, and profligacy from their opponents Not sure if they clock the speed of the pass (it's definitely doable and I'd argue that that's valuable information). They definitely record which foot (stronger or weaker) it comes to. Quick google and yes, they do consider the speed of the pass.

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.

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.

Not understanding it is and not caring is fine. Not understanding it and thinking it's useless is patently ridiculous behaviour.