NurembergVillan

Reads like a summary of this thread really. The Sporting Director was my idea

It'll be a "crank" by the sounds of it.

Send her this as an MMS

You wrote that just over an hour ago. If I were a betting man I'd say you were sitting in your own piss right about now.

I'm very much anti-Morgan but even I'd say that he IS morally superior to Lance Armstrong. We're talking about a man here who is the biggest cheat and liar in the history of any sport.

Only if they were all aiming at the same player in the first place - for the example of crosses, Bannan is aiming at Benteke whilst Gerrard is aiming at Suarez. You would expect Benteke to be more of an aerial threat than Suarez so it makes Bannan's cross more likely to find its target than Gerrard's. Stats can be very useful, but in this instance there are far too many variables. Even if comparing players aiming at the same target (so Bannan for Villa vs, say, Defour for Belgium) it wouldn't be a fair example as the standard of opposition would be important as would the number of opponents. In a league match Benteke may be being marked by one defender but at international level it may be two. You just can't draw a fair like-for-like comparison based on stats with so many variables. Distance run, goals scored per chance, etc are a little easier to compare but it's still relying on equalities of context. When I designed Italy's World Cup shirt in 2006 we tested the aerodynamics of it in a low velocity wind tunnel. We had to measure the results based on the notion of all the competitor products being worn by the same player in the same conditions, running in the same direction with the same level of fatigue. As such we used a figure of a running athlete (rather than a real one) and had scientists ensure the consistency of the environment. Football is a game of variables so using stats is fundamentally flawed. If it were as simple as measuring stats Sam Allardyce, arguably the greatest advocate of sports science in the modern game, would be manager of Barcelona.

What are the full requirements for a pass to qualify as "chance creation"? Is it just a pass that is followed by an attempt on goal? I'm guessing "chance creation" doesn't take into account the quality of the chance created either does it? If Bannan crosses the ball and Benteke heads it wide then it's a "chance created" and so means Bannan made a good pass. But if the cross is a foot too high and just behind Benteke then it's actually a bad pass and the striker has done well to have an attempt on goal. According the stats, though it's "chance created" Bannan good, "attempt off target" Benteke bad. If it was that straight forward to work out then managers wouldn't watch the game, they'd sit in front of a laptop looking at a screen like this -

You can access your settings from any page by selecting your name at the top of the screen and then selecting "My Settings". There are several tabs on the side of the page, which allow you to configure and update different board settings: Ignore The "ignore" tab allows you to configure your Ignore settings - you can choose to hide individual member's posts, signatures, chats, status updates, or other aspects of a member that you wish to hide.

And you don't think the two are intrinsically linked?

Yes there is.

Arguably the two most talented brothers currently playing in world football - Jerome Boateng (Bayern Munich) Kevin-Prince Boateng (Milan) Although the Tourés might have an argument with that, only one of them is genuinely top class these days.

Great post Mike. You also missed out Michael Cunnah, another guy with superb top level experience in the industry who came and went. Makes you wonder why...

You put £750 on one match?!

If he were happy to forego a "loyalty bonus" I'd happily forgo a transfer fee just to free up his wages.

I can't help but feel that for as much as we might enjoying mocking them now, that could be us in two years time.

You can't blame Lambert for the fact that Dunne and Bent have been injured on and off for almost a year, and similarly Vlaar has missed a chunk of games too. Warnock has been in steady decline for nearly 3 years. Ireland had one good season, playing alongside Robinho, and seems to have gone into semi-retirement when Manchester City awarded him a ridiculous pay rise. The others he's inherited are, by and large, pony.

That's debatable. The were players who are employed by a Premier League club, but that's as far as it goes for some of them.

I agree entirely. My point was that Faulkner can't be MORE to blame than Lerner. I can't believe that Lerner is saying to PF "you do whatever you want in terms of policy and plans". They've got to be AT LEAST equally culpable if not Lerner more so.

I don't see how Faulkner's more to blame than Lerner. He doesn't scout the players either. And don't be fooled into thinking it's all coming out of Lerner's pocket - it's not. It's all being leveraged against the club as loans. Loans that are earning Lerner a higher rate of interest than he'd be getting from keeping his money in the bank.

We'd have been better off with someone advising Lerner on which manager to choose. It's something he clearly needs as he had an incredible record for hiring awful coaches at the Cleveland Browns too.

Since MON left we've got a net spend of around £5m. Given that many of his signings have left us for free (or very cheaply) at the end of their contracts there wasn't the number of players there to be sold to raise more funds - Sidwell, Reo-Coker, Cuellar, Heskey, Harewood. Between those 5 alone that's nearly £30m of outlay with zero return. The managers that have followed MON have been working under conditions almost like no other in our division. £5m net spend across 3 years. In the Premier League. No wonder we're shit. Lerner out.

I take no pleasure whatsoever from predicting we'll get thumped. Again.

That was your first mistake. This thread is for people to argue about how much money they think we/have or haven't got

FWIW I've been having the same dilemma. Don't be surprised if I get the work done before the end of this summer. If you don't want full on surgery there are a few places now that do injections that last about 12 months for £100.