Laughable Chimp

That's Luiz's traditional mistake per game. Good thing it didn't lead to a goal this time.

Mings wtf

Mcginn our worst player so far according to whoscored. Can't say I disagree all that much(maybe I'd say Mings). Edit: Actually they both have the same rating now that I looked at Mings' rating again.

So the solution to the Hourihane/Luiz conundrum was to play both and drop Nakamba instead. Would've questioned the logic before the match but hey, its working.

I gave this a like for the first goal , I wish I could give another one now.

Wesley looks shorter than Mings. No way he's 6'4

I'm gonna regret not putting money on Wesley to score aren't I?

What was Mcginn trying to do there lol

Jesus Christ Mings, this is why I don't think you'll ever be a top quality defender.

You don't make your own luck, but you can increase the amount of times you play the game so that luck matters less, that's what I take the phrase you make your own luck to mean. Every attacking chance could be said to have a certain probability to result in a goal. Skill and quality only makes it so that you are more likely to score from an attacking chance, or less likely if we're looking at the perspective of the defence but it generally does not ensure it. There is usuallyan element of luck that goes into it, because the players never have true control of the ball. How many times do players shoot a ball exactly where they desired to shoot it for example? If you aimed a shot at the same point in the goal again and again, I highly doubt you'd always hit the target with the exact amount of power you intended, there's always some natural variation to it. Sometimes, that variation results in the ball going into the goal, sometimes it goes out. A more skilled player will more likely score a goal as a result of a lower natural variation in the shot, but its entirely possible that even with the lower natural variation he still misses. Its entirely possible for a team to have more better quality chances in a game and have the more skillful players, but still lose the game due to unlucky natural variation. What we can try to do is increase the amount of quality chances we do have so that even if we were unlucky in one chance, we still have another chance to score. We can be unlucky as much as we want, but if we have a boat load of good chances, chances are we'll score eventually. That's what I take the phrase making your own luck to mean, having so many chances that eventually you get lucky, or you end up with a chance where you essentially 100% will score from,(although do people still miss sitters). Of course, it does make it hard to decipher whether a team which fails to score despite having lots of chances is unlucky or are poor up front but it being hard to decipher from an outside observer's point of view does not mean there is no distinction between them. Not really related to the Palace comment, just the making your own luck thing although I do personally think we got wrecked by Palace too.

It would be 4 goals if you included the league cup match with Swindon Town, as it would've been his 10th match for us. 1 goal against Swansea. 1 goal against Norwich. 2 goals against Swindon. Don't know how many assists though. I can understand why people thought he was crap at first though. After his debut goal, he took about 6 matches to notch in his second goal.

****, I read it backwards lol. Those 2 games were from the start of the season.

Benteke's been getting above 7 ratings according to whoscored in Crystal Palace's last 2 games this season, which is his only 2 starts of the season. That generally suggests he's been playing well in those games at least, even if he didn't manage to grab a goal. Hard to judge the rest of his season so far though, considering he's basically been playing as a sub in all his other appearances with an average of 10 minutes. And if it means anything to people, he's been scoring goals for Belgium against admittedly pathetic opposition. No point bringing him on unless its for a low fee and low wages though and considering Palace just extended his contract for another year if I remember correctly, we aren't getting him for a low fee. Loan might be possible, but the fact that he's been starting for them recently suggests to me that's probably not a valid possibility.

The thing is, I don't think it was a lack of effort or desire that cost us against Wolves. I think we got the tactics utterly wrong in that first half. The were completely and systematically shredding us every time they got the ball, even if we lacked the desire or effort we should not have fared near as badly as we did. That point where Mings and the other Villa players ran towards Dean Smith after a break in play, highlighted just how badly we were playing, and how the team knew whatever they were trying to do, it wasn't working at all and they needed the manager to tell them how to fix it. In short, I put the blame for the Wolves match much more on Smith than the players. Yes the players screwed up during the free kick, but we would never have conceded that free kick had we not been subject to wave after wave of attack by the opposition, which I blame on Dean's tactics. This is the common theme with us conceding the goals. Yes, individual mistakes can be blamed for them, but we are often subject to immense pressure by the opposition that forces these mistakes to happen.

Call me crazy, but I think Wesley scores against Newcastle. May put money on it.

He's also a bit too unselfish for his own good.

Or make it worse tbf.

Yep, but we gotta hope we actually beat the teams around us enough that it makes up for the fact that we don't win against the big clubs when other clubs around us do. Its not as if we've been beating all the teams around us, and its not like other teams around us haven't been doing so either. Points are points in the end so its not as if their wins on the big clubs are meaningless.

Personally, I just don't see him actually contributing all that much to the team. I certainly don't feel we've actually lost much in midfield when we start Hourihane or Nakamba over him. That's been my view of him since the start, cracking long shot, but he's never really done more than okay for us in midfield. He's kind of just there a lot which is kind of weird considering how it seems a deep lying midfielder would be good for the balance of our team, retaining posession and getting it up the field in starting attacks. Add to that the amount of times his mistakes have directly lead to goals being conceded. I think he's a talented lad, but I'm not sure he's right for how we play at all. Will probably look much better for a team which has a lot of possession of which he can be the hearbeat of, (see the league cup match against Wolves, a match that he was also directly responsible for our goal conceded. No, it wasn't a stonewall foul.)but unfortunately that's not us in the PL.

My problem with Dean is that I'm not convinced that he is tactically good enough a manager. There are some things, tactics wise, coaching wise, substitutions wise I feel we aren't getting correct in these games and its costing us. I want to believe in the Dean Smith project, but its hard to think that he'll bring us anywhere if I don't think he has the tactical nous.

The implication is that we're conceding lots of goals because we've been conceding lots of shots, so if we reduce the amount of shots, we concede less goals. Of course no one cares about the amount of shots we concede by itself, only what it entails on our goals conceded.

Well we can't do that if we don't have enough points to stay in the league.

I was merely responding to that one line of argument in particular implying the quality of our performances, which is the only point you made iimplying the quality of our performances. I don't have any disagreements with the rest of your points and your conclusion, which is essentially that we'll get better and we're doing okay relatively considering how much of our squad was replaced.

Is it really that impressive when both Champions League finaliss were not anywhere near their absolute best when they faced us? And in Tottenham's case, they aren't even doing well in the league, and many other teams have put on more impressive showings against said Champions League finalist to the point they actually won the match. You could do this kind of analysis for any team really, if you just want to look at the bright sides. What about the bad sides? The fact that we've faced 4 different teams who've gotten a red card at some point during the match and yet lost 2 of these, drew one and won one and only just barely too. The fact that we've conceded more goals in the final minutes of a game more than any other team in the league,. The fact that we're the only team in the bottom 10 aside from Tottenham who've actually failed to gain any points from any teams in European placing. Like I said, its very easy to just look on the bright sides and paint a better picture of us that we actually are. At the end of the day though, we're 17th for a reason.

That's because we are an extra in this league, its no longer a lot about us as it was when we were in the Championship Personally, I don't care if the headlines from the league are not about us, has literally no bearing on my enjoyment in watching this club.