tom_avfc

To be honest if we’d won that game 2 or 3-0 it would have been a fair reflection of the game. As you say it doesn’t matter because we didn’t take our chances and made 2 poor mistakes at the back. You’d like to think that if we continue to dominate games the way we have for the last 3 games that we’ll win more games than we lose.

To say we’ve regressed from beating Liverpool 7-2 is kind of stating the obvious though. We’d be miles clear in the league and potential champions league winners next season if we performed to that level every week. We've played well the last two games and certainly deserved far more than what we’ve got. I’m not sure that lapses in concentration by defenders and dreadful finishes by attackers are Smiths fault though. Hes put out a team tonight that have played well enough to win the game comfortably. Unfortunately he can’t put the chances away or head the balls into the box away himself. He’s been let down by two mistakes at the back and by who knows how many mistakes up front today. The system worked and we should have won the game.

I guess I’d look at Traore as being the player we wouldn’t have got in. I’ll just say that I’m not convinced that Traore has shown anything to suggest that he’ll even become a regular starter for us. In hindsight spending a little more to get a little more quality in may have been the better option. We shouldn’t really be starting Trezeguet ten games into the season as we need better in that position.

Surprisingly enough I’m not trying to argue that you will. Generally though you have far more chance of scoring from the penalty spot or from the open goal that Trezeguet had last week than from Traore passing one straight to the keeper from 30 yards like he did today. Your metric for whether we battered a team makes Traore’s shot more important than a penalty. It’s kind of why expected goals is a stat now even if it seems to be frowned upon on here as a measure of a teams dominance. But you carry on with the sarcastic comments like the above if it fits the way that you want to frame our performances.

It was quite hard for him to do much given the game plan that West Ham had. Frustratingly he showed a bit of quality with the one chance he had to put the ball into the box. With the amount of possession we had in dangerous positions I think he’d have been far more effective in our side than he will be for West Ham.

Why are shots on target the best way to determine chances created. We’ve missed the target with a penalty today. Last week Trezeguet put an open goal wide. Are we just ignoring chances where we miss the target.

This is bang on. It’s what I’ve thought of a lot of these overturned penalty decisions recently. If there was no VAR then for me nobody would complain about that goal today, Trezeguet’s penalty last week and the penalty that Albion had overturned against United. On the other hand if the ball into the box hadn’t reached Watkins then there would have been questions as to why the penalty wasn’t given for ogbonna jumping all over him. People wanted blatant mistakes like the foul on Watkins eradicated but didn’t want millimetre offsides or penalties which have always been penalties being overturned. It’s not doing what it’s designed to do.

I’m not convinced that the line drawing game that they play in Stockley Park is any more accurate than the linesman when the decisions are that close. Im also not convinced that had somebody else been operating VAR that the lines would be drawn in the same place. Just two more issues I have with that decision that is supposed to be levelling the playing field.

I’ll answer this as I was also a strong advocate of it. The way it is being used is ridiculously bad in the Premier League. This issue is not replicated in other leagues. We had a whole World Cup where VAR didn’t cause these issues. I’d get rid of it now but not because I am against VAR but because I am against the way that they are using VAR in this country.

It’s a dreadful system. I’m not sure how it’s not a penalty before the offside either as the defender is absolutely all over him. I don’t know about everybody else but the reason I watch football is to watch loads of lines being drawn on the screen for over 2 minutes.

It’s just Jurgen Klopp being Jurgen Klopp. If they don’t win a game he turns into a petulant toddler. I actually think the jovial nature he has when Liverpool are winning games fools a lot of people. He’s always been a particularly sore loser and he does it in a nasty way that I find pretty difficult to stomach.

I don't really get this argument to be honest. Referees are trained to make decisions in line with the rules. They then work their way up through the lower leagues with promotion and relegation to higher and lower tiers. Its a pretty simple system designed to reward the better referees and to ensure that the best referees are at the top of the game. Do referees make mistakes? Yes, as anybody would do. I find the idea that someone who has played the game would be more likely to make correct decisions than somebody who has been trained specifically to make right decisions a bit odd and often a bit of a throwaway comment said by football pundits. To call referees "some arsehole who's wanted to do it" also seems indicative of the issue that we have with referees. Why is it OK for referees to take abuse because of incorrect decisions made with genuine intentions? Could it be that people who would be very good referees are put off by the fact that they have to take abuse whilst trying to do their job from players, managers, fans and anybody else who fancies piling in on them?

Have you seen Crystal Palace and Newcastle play football? I’d say they’re considerably below average premier league teams who look like being fairly comfortable this season. The fact that there are a few teams that are so bad that West Brom would stay up with 23 points at the current scoring rate doesn’t make the remaining teams good. I’d add that I’d lump Villa, West Ham, Brighton and Leeds in with Palace and Newcastle as teams that in a normal season could easily find themselves battling relegation. As it is there’s some seriously bad teams at the bottom so the midtable will be tight with some average teams looking fairly comfortable and all beating each other.

Couldn’t agree more. I’d also say that it’s a decent start to the season and nothing more than that. Leeds are one of a number of teams (including Villa) who have the potential to go on long winless runs. If that happens there’s plenty of time for any of that bunch of teams to be looking over their shoulder a little nervously. The league as a whole is not great this season and beating your Arsenals and Evertons isn’t this great achievement. Losing 4-1 to a Palace side who have since lost to Burnley and Newcastle just about sums it up. Anybody can beat anybody more than ever this season.

You’re more than entitled to do that. I’d add that there’s no pitchfork and crowd involved. It’s a simple acknowledgment that there is an issue. We’ll agree to disagree I guess. You never know there could be only 6.5% of applications from BAME candidates. I’d also add that your measurement of the problem would fail to take into account the fact that a number of potential BAME candidates are put off applying by the response they and others have received. Its never going to be a cut and dry thing but I’d like to think that the majority of people can see that there is clearly an issue here.

But what are you trying to argue? That BAME individuals are not applying for the jobs? Or that white candidates are better than BAME candidates in almost every football manager interview process? If neither of the above applies then the fact that the number of BAME managers in the premier league totals 1 out of 20 and the number of BAME managers in the football league totals 5 out of 72 is evidence alone. Its a simplistic way of looking at it and evaluating it properly will allow us to deal with it in an effective way but it doesn’t need this evaluation to prove that it exists. It’s staring people right in the face and choosing to pretend it doesn’t exist is part of the problem.

Surely the proof is in the lack of BAME managers and coaches at all levels of football. The under representation is evidence enough that there is an issue.

I mean it’s kind of like Liverpool last season. If we ignore the fact that Leeds are in the bottom half of the table. If we also ignore the fact that Leeds have lost one game more in their first ten fixtures than Liverpool lost in the whole of last season. If we ignore the fact that Leeds currently have a negative goal difference. I’m not being funny but losing to Palace 4-1 isn’t particularly like Liverpool from last season either. They’re a decent side who are competing with the teams like us. They’re not title winning Liverpool from last season as much as the media wants you to believe it.

I think the issue with these stats is what they are classing as errors. If being offside by toe nail is classed as an error then I don’t think most people particularly care that the goal stands. The decisions which it is overruling are so marginal that if they are included in those stats then it’s a false narrative.

I wasn’t going to watch this but should be a belter now!

The only reason for VAR is to get the correct decision more often. The fact that we’re still seeing incorrect decisions with it and that it’s not operating particularly well makes me think they should just get rid of it now. It’s not fit for purpose in the way it’s being used and I genuinely think that the bad decisions are easier to take when it’s human error by the referee than it is now. The number of decisions going in big teams’ favours seems higher than ever. I say all of this and I was a big fan of it being introduced but for whatever reason it isn’t working and is making football far less enjoyable for me.

I don't really understand the nomination of Bielsa. He's got one of the better backed teams in the Championship into the Premier League. I'd be interested to know how far down the list Slaven Bilic is who has achieved the same feat. How often is a Championship winning manager nominated for this award. Given that the points total achieved by Bielsa of 93 is the lowest title winning points total since Burnley also got 93 in 2015/16 it just seems a really strange nomination. Was Nuno even on the shortlist for his 99 point season?

The Game of Thrones books are very good but be prepared to wait a long time (possibly forever) for George R R Martin to get around to finishing them. The above comment on Harry Potter being banded with Lord of the Rings is true but I wouldn't really recommend Harry Potter unless its something which you've grown up with. I am a big fan of the Harry Potter books but would say that's largely due to being the right age to have grown up reading them. They're good books but possibly not what you're looking for. Other fantasy series that I found particularly good are The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie and The Broken Empire series by Mark Lawrence. Both of these are probably a darker fantasy series than LOTR but I enjoyed both and do plan to get around to reading the later stuff by these authors. The Wheel of Time is a long series by Robert Jordan which has a TV series on Amazon Prime coming soon. I've only read the first few of these and found them to be pretty decent. Have the rest on a bookshelf and they may get read at some time. If you're at all interested in Sci-Fi then The Expanse series by James Corey is also very good. Its often described as Game of Thrones in space and again the TV series is also supposed to be very good (I haven't watched any of it to confirm).

He's headbutted him. Literally nobody is trying to defend his actions and he's come out himself to apologise. I genuinely struggle to see how anybody could say that what he's done is not a red card offence. Yes Alioski has hit the ground and if Pepe did that to one of our players I'd like to think they'd do the same thing for the reason that you've highlighted above. Alioski could have stayed on his feet and carried on but why would you when its a red card if you draw attention to it? As I said its exactly the same as Trezeguet's dramatic fall in the box. There's no way that the contact makes him do that but he's drawing attention to the foul to get the penalty.

I don't dispute that and have said the same in my previous comment on this thread: You can't have it one way though and then do the same thing. Labelling their player as embarrassing for rolling around after a headbutt but accepting Trezeguet hitting the floor like he's been shot is exactly what you're calling out Leeds fans for doing.