Laughable Chimp

Law of equivalent exchange

Is he a useful option off the bench? I don't think so. He's useful in the sense that he plays striker and we don't have a lot of strikers but that kind of goes out the window the moment we buy even a single striker. I think Davis is marginally better than him at the moment and he's much younger too so I'm guessing he'll be 4th choice for us if we buy even one striker.

What has happened to his shooting? Aside from that solid shot last week at Arsenal which was unfortunately straight at the keeper, he's shooting has been incredibly bad since the restart. Overall, I don't think its a controversial statement to say that his form has dropped drastically and it could at the end be beneficial for us as we can keep him, but I am very concerned at how he's seemed so unrecognizable. I don't think its a fitness issue either.

Will now go on to the Watford and Bournemouth forums and enjoy myself a bit of schadenfreude. Edit: And the West Brom and Birmingham forums as well.

My blood pressure was up the whole game, its given me a headache. Can't even celebrate with excitement. Why do we never make it easy for ourselves?

Luckily, no chance of jinxing us this time.

You have to go a bit far back, but I believe this is the best chance he's had with us with his feet in the PL Its the second highlight

Tbf, Agbonlahor probably regrets not leaving us when he had the opportunity and when he was in that position. It makes sense why he'd tell Jack to do the same. I appreciate the honesty, tbh.

That's the thing isn't it? He showed it in the Championship, not the PL. I don't think you can definitively say a player is easily good enough for the PL by watching him performing in a vastly inferior league.

Is there any reason to think Tuanzebe would cut it in the PL as a ready made CB? I have a feeling we're just gonna end up with a more expensive Konsa if we go for him.

If he leaves, I'll still be rooting for him. I know its supposed to be no one player is bigger than the club but Jack has given us so much that I can't help but want him to succeed wherever else he goes(of course, obviously not if to any significant detriment to Villa). If hypothetically speaking, he were to help lead England to glory in the World Cup or Euros, I'd be as chuffed for him as if it were a major to success to Aston Villa, even if he is no longer our player and hasn't been for a while. And I'm not even English.

Carried no goal threat at all is a reach. Every single Aston Villa highlight in this video involved Davis almost scoring. That's the problem with Davis, its always almost with him. Its not like he's not even getting close, he's always tantalizingly close. Close enough that with a bit of luck, some of these shots could've been goals. I'm not saying its all down to bad luck, however I do think Davis has been quite unlucky so far. And another thing to note is that he really hasn't played all that long in the PL. In fact he hasn't even played 500 minutes in total.

Currently the third worst center forward in terms of the minute per goal ratio over any PL striker who has at least scored a goal. The 2 worse being Mcgoldrick and Joelintion, but at least those 2 contribute more to buildup play than Samatta usually does. I'm almost completely consigned to him being a lost cause. His stats are worse than Wesley's in almost every regard and I already thought Wesley was underperforming as a striker.

Whatever happens from now on, he should stay on by my book.

Goddamn. God **** damn. I'm literally shivering with happiness and relief over that. And we aren't even officially safe yet. Massive massive result that was.

We have some damn fine one-trick ponies in our squad. Hause is only good at winning headers. Hourihane is only good at set-pieces. And apparently Trez is only good at shooting. But in a squad where seemingly no one can shoot well, that is an invaluable skill.

Honestly, I think Luiz's uptick in form is mainly due to the lack of crowds than anything else. The difference in the quality of his play after and before the restart is a bit ridiculous. He seems to have completely gotten rid of his inconsistency problems and the big difference between the two periods is the lack of crowds. I guess if we stay in the PL and keep Luiz with us, we can easily test this theory next season.

Then why have we and some other clubs seem to do nothing but sign bad players?

Agreed on that first point. If he wins at least 1 or draws the last 2 matches, regardless of whether we get relegated, I say he has done enough to keep his job. We'll likely be relegated on very fine margins if that happens.

Defenders are like the most difficult players to judge based on stats. At least, a single stat. Perhaps you could judge them better after being able to look at a combination of other stats. 1- According to smarterscout with a baseline of the premier league(meaning 50/99 is the average for the PL for his position.). a) Defending quality-20/99 b) Defending quantity-10/99 c) Ball retention-52/99 d) Aerial duels in open play-80/99 e) Aerial duels in dead balls-46/99 f) Ground duels out of posession-56/99 (the last 3 stats are for his overall career in the PL, not just this season). As a comparison, Van Dijk's scores this season are a) Defending quality-87/99 b) Defending quantity-40/99 c) Ball retention-80/99 d) Aerial duels in open play-96/99 e) Aerial duels in dead balls-95/99 f) Ground duels is posession-83/99(Mings has no metric for this, probably because he's never been involved in a ground duel whilst in posession) g) Ground duels out of posession-85/99 to show that it isn't just a quirk of the system measuring defenders badly. 2-Whoscored has Tyrone Mings rated at 6.61/10 overall in the PL this season. This isn't really a good score. Whilst its not bad, I would consider it quite mediocre. However, whoscored does have a bit of a problem with rating defenders as well. It would be better to delve into the individual stats they have recorded for him. It would however put him as our 9th best performing player this season according to them. For his individual stats, a) 0.5 successful tackles per 90 minutes(The least out of any PL centreback who's at least played 1000 minutes) b) Dribbled past 0.1 times per 90 minutes(The least out of any PL centreback who's at least played 1000 minutes) c) 0.6 attempted tackles per 90 minutes(The least of any PL centreback...yeah you get the picture) d) 1 interception per 90 minutes(15th least, closer to the bottom than the middle.) e) 0.2 yellow cards per 90(16th least, closer to the bottom than the middle ) f) 5.8 clearances per 90(4th most) g) 1.5 shots blocked per 90(The most) h) 0 crosses blocked per 90(The least. Not necessarily a quirk of the position, in fact he's the only CB alongside Jamal Lascelles who hasn't clocked in a single blocked cross) i) 0.3 passes blocked per 90(18th least. Closer to the bottom than the middle). https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/7811/Stages/17590/PlayerStatistics/England-Premier-League-2019-2020 I say the tackling stat is misleading because he doesn't need to tackle considering he's barely been dribbled past in the first place.

Money.

Edit: Nvm, made a mistake.

Targett has a 61% tackle success rate compared to Taylor's 62%. Not exactly a large difference, especially considering Targett actually achieves significantly more successful tackles per 90 due to attempting more

According to whoscored, its Baston if we put no minimum time on how many minutes played. If we put a 100 minimum minutes limit its Drinkwater. If we put a 500 minimum minutes limit its Nyland(they're only looking at the PL here, so Nyland's league cup showings don't count) Edit: You know what, probably unfair to put Nyland here since keepers are rated lower on whoscored compared to outfield players. If its not Nyland, the next person is Samatta. If we put 1000 minimum minutes limit its Taylor If we put 2000 minimum minutes limit its El Ghazi

I don't really have those specific stats for the 2nd half of the season but xG is basically a proxy for attacking output anyway(ignoring finishing ability). And I can rank that for the second half of the season. https://understat.com/league/Premier League/2019 You can play around with the chart on this link to get the data you want. But essentially we have the thirst worst attack in the league since the mid-point of the season according to xG. Palace and Norwich are the bottom two. We were 12th place if you looked at only the first half of the season. Other interesting statistics is that our xGA/game is pretty much the same for both halves of the season so far. Meaning our defence possibly has on average been the same for both halves of the season so far. After digging into it deeper, its because our defence deteriorated pretty badly after December and going into lockdown. Our defence has improved tremendously overall after lockdown but on average the defence in the second half of the season is the same as in the first half as the effects cancel each other out. Surprisingly, our attacking output is higher post-lockdown than expected. We are however the worst finishers in the PL during this same time period. I like to emphasize again that its not creating chances that's the problem with us currently. Its the fact that we have been garbage at converting them post-lockdown.