ChezGiven

Its a bit mixed, no? Sometimes its immense then other times non-existent?

It was 'you' in the general sense. Do you agree with the approach? I like to get alignment on the analyses required before we allocate who does what

You need to determine the best 11 for the club, otherwise you dont count the impact of injury on the first 11. If Ben Arfa is injured all season and Obertan plays all 38 games, Obertan looks like a first 11 player by ranking which is not the case. This is quite hard for fans of other clubs, but even for a fan there might be a disagreement and it may depend on opposition. You then count the number of (premier league) appearances of the best 11s of the clubs. As you are counting for the 'best 11s' it doesnt matter if you use total or average as the denominator is the same.

Fucking hell, how to jinx it or what.

What period does that data cover HF? 157 games per player?

Good idea, you could then apply it to various key players in our first 11 and outside the 11, their average appearances last year, in 11/12 and then make some sort of judgement over performance based on expected appearances this year. This has legs....

No one is coming in for us, there is no point in following today for news related to us apart from Cabaye leaving. Its the only possible event.

You donated 2 quid to Betfair?

Plenty of reasons to be pessimistic too. An interesting bit of data to think about injuries would be the average expected for a premier league side. We were way out ahead on the injury front last year and no rational decision-maker should plan to be a statistical outlier. In other words, you dont invest in the squad to ensure that in an extreme case of luck around injuries, you are as strong. Not even Man City do that (c.f. Kompany). If we have bad luck again we will suffer. The question should be if we have average luck, where will we be?

I agree with Louise, hence the point about Giroud. Written off by many last season he was nearly unplayable against Spurs yesterday. Wenger smiled afterwards saying 'new country, new league, takes time to settle'. I think Sissoko definitely looked like a better player (was harshly blown for a couple of fouls that would have been superb turnarounds), Ben Arfa will deliver if fit, Cisse will score again. There are some reasons to be postive. @@Renton I wonder if you are still as certain about our fate this season? There are reasons to believe that we can get into the top 10. For all the talk of Norwich and Southampton spending 60m between them, not sure either of them are better than us (or am not sure yet anyway ). Not sure Everton are either, especially if they lose one or two today. Fulham? Nope. West Brom? Not so far? Hull? No, despite their performance. Cardiff? Not sure but probably not. Crystal Palace? Sunderland were wank. Ditto. Swansea? They looked good against a v poor West Brom yesterday and despite Laudrup's comments on MOTD2 last season about us, his sides have for falling away due to Europa League. West Ham? Lucky to get us when they did if you ask me and look to be needing some time to find form themselves. Villa? Think they will do a lot better this season to be fair. So top 10 doesnt look that impossible and who knows with a bit of luck and a following wind, we might be the new Everton.....

That's not entirely true, some fish is a bit over-powering when raw. If you dont eat white rice, then you dont have much of a choice when eating Japanese. Not sure what they would make of brown rice Our fishmongers is mint, it doesnt have a shop front as it supplies the main restaurants in our area but is open to the general public for 3 hours in the morning. Its just a windown down a back alley, first time i went i was not sure at all. We get some bat shit crazy stuff from there. We have Skate wings quite a bit (i needed to search for the English, known as aile de raie) which our lass does with capers and cooks in a stock of some sort.

You expect Giroud to play like he did last year too?

Over cooked tuna steak is ming ba ding. Seared really hot so its still rare in the middle is the only way to eat it. Or raw of course, had a lush tuna carpaccio the other week and always opt for it when having Japanese. Have you ever had Sushi CT?

Fish should be kept simple, I think with strong flavoured Trout you can add in things like you did there CT. I like it simple though, things like a rare seared tuna, fried salmon, roast or baked sea bass. Then pairing it with a top quality white of course.

How long ago was it that he was guest editor or something of the chronicle / journal? Was it January?

First half, Sissoko plays it to Ben Arfa in own half and then makes an overlapping run through the middle and out to the right flank. Great support and movement from him. It was the moment when Ben Arfa tapped the ball too far in front of him just outside the box and gave it to their defender. A simple forward pass with an angle would have been perfect for Sissoko to run on to either for a cross or run into the box. The complete opposite of the simplistic 'everyone just stands around looking at him'.

Back in training after 2 weeks. One week sorting himself out after the move. Not that implausible.

To be fair to Shola, HBA just has to knock it one yard backwards to find the angle to pass to him and Shola is ready for the one two. Point taken though, he's basically static in line with 3 players.

He hadnt played for 4 weeks, transferred and there was a question over his knee or whatever. So it was mid-feb and 6 weeks since his last game before he was sorted. Too much of a coincidence for me that an injury preventing him from playing for a month for us could be resolved in a matter of weeks of a £35m transfer. If he played by March he was back in training by mid-feb. So he was basically fine within a week or two of the transfer. Bollocks tbh.

How come Andy Carroll didn't play for the whole of that January?

It wouldn't surprise me if we have no option but it also wouldn't surprise me if Kinnear was just talking incoherently about the options on the deal.

"It's my ticket and I'll boo if I want to" It's fucking pathetic and basically stupid in the circumstances.

It was a decent ball to find him in space, why not tbh. Not exactly a critical element of the goal but it was a decent pass.

Utterly amazing second half from him, prepared to risk making those mistakes but capable of greatness.

Nonsense, it serves no purpose for him to come out with that. Your parents didnt advance so far in the NHS by being so politically inept