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TrentVilla

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On 28/09/2016 at 21:43, VillaChris said:

Think Bristol City will make the play offs.

Sir Dwight of Gayle with his hattrick....is that his 7th goal in 8 games Trent?

Pretty happy with that...put a tenner on Newcastle to win at 22/1 when they were 3-2 down. :lol:

Doubt we will be in the playoffs. 

We just haven't clicked yet, and while I'm happy with LJ as a manager he has only got the set up right in the first half 1 time this season.

Don't think it is still the case, but just before Tuesdays game we were the club that had spent more time than anyone else in this division in a losing position. Don't remember the number but it was almost 40%.

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You're still picking up wins while apparently not playing well...have a striker in sh*t hot form and you also have a great knack of turning losing positions into points with loads of late goals already.

You not think this team/squad is as good as what you had in 2008?

You had a similar game v Forest to what we had against them...fall 1 nil down, quickly turn it around into a 2-1 lead and while Lansbury blazed over towards the end he of course curls it into the top corner v us.

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13 hours ago, VillaChris said:

You're still picking up wins while apparently not playing well...have a striker in sh*t hot form and you also have a great knack of turning losing positions into points with loads of late goals already.

You not think this team/squad is as good as what you had in 2008?

You had a similar game v Forest to what we had against them...fall 1 nil down, quickly turn it around into a 2-1 lead and while Lansbury blazed over towards the end he of course curls it into the top corner v us.

I think the team/squad we have is far far better than the one we had in 2008.

But that squad had absolutely no right to be where it was in terms of the players ability. The current squad I think probably isn't far off of a top 6 side right now, and is in the main, very young. Personally think we will fall just short of the playoffs and have a stronger push next year.

Maybe I'm being a bit pessimistic, but I'm just trying to stay grounded for the time being. If we are top 6 in January I will dare to dream because I know Lansdown will spend money if Johnson thinks we need to.

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1 hour ago, Zatman said:

money and a bigger budget

The chairman at Derby is **** lunatic which is why Pearson told him to **** off. Paul Clement had problems with him at Derby too. He likes to get involved in squad selections and how they should play. I'd steer well clear of Derby if I was a manager

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Former Arsenal striker Marouane Chamakh has become Cardiff's City third free-transfer signing in the past 24 hours.

Chamakh, who was released by Crystal Palace at the end of last season, had previously attracted interest from Bluebirds boss Neil Warnock.

The Moroccan, 32, has signed a deal until January to reunite with Warnock, who managed him at Selhurst Park.

"I'm so happy to be here and work with the manager again," Chamakh said. "I'm happy and proud to work with him here."

Chamakh joins Sol Bamba and Junior Hoilett as Warnock bolsters a squad second bottom of the Championship.

The ex-Bordeaux striker thinks Cardiff can improve quickly under their new manager.

"Cardiff are a side that should be on top and I think we can improve going forward," he said.

"I'm looking forward to meeting with my new team-mates and getting started. I can't wait to score for my new team."

Don't get your hopes up mate.

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Don't call it moneyball!!!

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Analytics is a way of thinking,” says Brentford’s co-director of football Rasmus Ankersen as the Championship club opens its doors to Telegraph Sport to offer an insight into how they want to “out-think the opposition” and plot a path into the Premier League.

The fact that Ankersen is a “co” director of football, a role he shares with Phil Giles, is part of that difference at the club owned by Brentford fan Matthew Benham - who established Smartodds, a business based on using data to predict the outcome of sports events to customers including professional gamblers.

It has led to suspicion – and even ridicule - not least with a turnover of managers before Dean Smith was hired as head coach last November, from Walsall, with Brentford employing a ‘head of football philosophy’, coaches specialising in set-pieces, throw-ins and even ‘kicking’ and when the club’s academy was closed.

At Brentford they hate the term ‘Moneyball’ – appearing to base sporting decision on statistics and analytics - and bridle at suggestions that this is their ethos although such analysis is important.

“I’ve seen quite a lot written about Brentford with ‘Moneyball’ and so on and it’s not a term we like,” Giles explains. “We don’t really do that kind of stuff. It’s a label and I understand why. Ninety per cent of the football club is a football club but it’s the stuff around the edges that we hope can make all the difference.

“Obviously there is interest because of the way he (Benham) made his money. Stats and data do play a part but he (Benham) is also a brilliant risk-manager – when it’s time to take a risk, when it’s time to be more conservative.

“That is hugely relevant in football because we want to try and take some chances because if we don’t and do nothing innovative then we will just finish where our budget says we should finish.”

Given Brentford – seventh in the Championship – face Newcastle United – in third place – this weekend then the gulf in resources is clear. But Brentford do think differently – even when it comes to reflecting on the league table with Ankersen, an author and former player who is also chairman of the Danish club FC Midtjylland, also owned by Benham, referring to a “table of justice”.

He explains: “Football is a low-scoring sport, compared to basketball, for example, which means the score-line lies a lot more. The league table also lies, even a long way into the season. So there’s a need to try and identify some under-lying performance indicators that give you a more solid indication as to where you are going against where you currently are in the table. It’s more a model that takes into account other factors is a fairer reflection of the game to provide a table of justice.”

Brentford are protective as to exactly what data is used and how – and where they should be in that “table of justice” - although it is clear they are, in terms of budget, punching way above their weight.

They analyse games differently – “a game can look great on paper,” Giles says “But how are you trying to play? Are you doing it successfully? You can decide how you want to play football based on a kind of romantic way or you can take the other angle, the more objective, and ask ‘how is football played and is there a way to play it more effectively?”

Into this has stepped Smith who bought into the approach having taken the “tough decision” to leave Walsall, where he had been “player, captain, head of youth, manager” over a 13-year period. “We have a uniqueness here and we like that uniqueness,” Smith says. “We have five strategy points – but I can’t go into them as we will then let everyone else know.”

Getting the best out of the specialist coaches, for example, is something Smith is learning. What is the point of a throw-in coach? “If it gets us seven points, then it might be the seven points that gets us promoted,” he says. “They show me ideas, I will mull them over.”

Have there been any, well, wacky suggestions? “There have been a couple that I have laughed at or thought ‘woo’,” Smith says before intriguingly adding: “And then thought ‘no, it’s probably against the integrity of the game. Pushing the margins a wee bit’. But it’s thinking outside the box and we want to be better than the opposition and although sometimes you have to say no there are also some great ideas.”

Ankersen explains: “There’s a bit of a thing in football that a set-piece goal is not worth as much as a goal based on good possession. But a goal is a goal. So instead of doing yoga, we could spend our time on set-pieces. It’s more effective.

“And we have a ball-striking coach. It takes quite some time to make improvements in that area but it’s based on the idea of why do you actually swing your leg the way you do? It’s a question you ask in golf about your swing but it doesn’t happen in football.”

Brentford are innovative. All the players – all the members of staff, in fact, including Smith, Giles, Ankersen and even Benham – are psychologically profiled into colour groups. There is blue, green, yellow and red with each showing the dominant characteristics someone has. Defenders are more likely to be red - driven by system, structure, methods and detail – attackers are yellow and more creative.

The players have an “app” to fill in, Smith says, “so we have an idea of how they are feeling – sleep patterns, any muscle soreness etc - and then there’s a screening routine they will do: a sit and reach test, a urine test, blood test, saliva test”.

Recruitment, though, is key and this is where Brentford’s approach does, as Ankersen puts it, “make you more emotionally stable”. Last January Brentford realised they were not going to be promoted and neither were they in danger of being relegated. It was a ‘football on the ball’ moment.

“We decided to sell some important players,” Ankersen says. “It was better for us to cash in and then invest playing time on players who would be key for us this season.”

Out, for example, went James Tarkowski, for £3million to Burnley and in came three ‘key’ players from League one: John Egan, Romain Sawyers and goalkeeper Daniel Bentley.

“We had a clear plan,” Giles says with Ankersen adding: “If you don’t have the financial resources like Newcastle or Norwich or Aston Villa you cannot peak every year. That’s succession planning and that’s more important at a club with fewer resource because you cannot just fix your problems by buying a new player. And there’s not a recruitment decision based only on analytics and there’s not a recruitment decision that is based with the absence of analytics.”

Brentford carry out ‘background’ checks with Smith saying there is a “strong human element” in all they do. “I keep going back to personality – and that’s a big one for us. They (players) have to fit in with what the club is about,” Smith, who has the final say, explains.

The stats can be used in other ways. At Midtjylland they are sent to the coach’s mobile phone ahead of his half-time team talk. It has not happened, yet, at Brentford but Smith is not against it. “We’ve talked about it,” Giles says. “It’s about giving information to make better assessments as to what is happening. Very, very quick – two or three numbers to summarise the half. And I am not talking about possession because that often doesn’t mean anything.”

The closure of Brentford’s academy caused a local storm and it is a sensitive subject – but not a decision that is regretted.

“A club with a small budget has to do things differently to succeed and we felt we were not doing something different with the academy and it was difficult to compete with, say, Man City,” Ankersen explains.

The final straw was the loss of England Under-16 international Ian Carlo Poveda, to City. “We had to find a new structure, a new set-up,” Ankersen says with a B-team established to filter players into the first-team. Giles adds: “We are trying to make the club sustainable and gain promotion…A club like ours has to have a clarity in our thinking.” And a different way of thinking.

 

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