Liverpool

[HanoiVillan]

They'll give Salah a new deal, and it's the right decision. Players like that don't grow on trees.

[Xela]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

They'll give Salah a new deal, and it's the right decision. Players like that don't grow on trees.

Its a tough one... he wants a rumoured £500k a week and he's 29. I'd be reluctant to put a player that age on a huge deal. Unless it was a 2 year contract. 

 

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, Xela said:

Its a tough one... he wants a rumoured £500k a week and he's 29. I'd be reluctant to put a player that age on a huge deal. Unless it was a 2 year contract. 

 

Right, but you'd have to replace him, which if you wanted to avoid a big step-down in quality, would mean the thick end of £100m on a transfer fee and maybe somwhere between 25% and 50% of Salah's wages anyway, and then they'd have to learn Klopp's system so you'd also probably be looking at a bedding-in period as well.

I think some of these concerns about age are a bit old-fashioned nowadays. Players go on until their mid-30s at a high level very frequently; he's also rarely injured, in about as tip-top physical condition as a human can be, doesn't drink or go partying all the time, and has a seemingly machine-like professionalism. Of course it's a risk, anything is, but he's asking for a lot because he knows they'll agree to paying him a lot.

[Stevo985]

On 20/10/2021 at 10:07, villa4europe said:

that's what i love about this xG stuff

when its inaccurate its because the team or the player is "under-performing" or "over-performing"

it couldn't possibly just be that its because its all a load of bollocks that in reality doesn't mean as much as people make it out to mean...

there's lies, damn lies and xG statistics

I disagree. xG is about the most accurate statistic for a team's performance that there is.

The problem is people think it's meant to be bang on for every game and when it isn't they mock it for being inaccurate. That's not what it's for. 

[villalad21]

I feel like they have extra fuel and motivation this season because everyone wrote them off in August. 

[villa4europe]

that doesn't stop it from being utterly futile though

a team can have and xG of 6.2 vs a team with an xG of 0.8

whats the result of that game? so what does it show? attacking intent? quality of strikers? luck? dodgy ref decisions? one team had 20+ daisy cutters and the other had one thunder bastard?

 

[Stevo985]

16 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

that doesn't stop it from being utterly futile though

a team can have and xG of 6.2 vs a team with an xG of 0.8

whats the result of that game? so what does it show? attacking intent? quality of strikers? luck? dodgy ref decisions? one team had 20+ daisy cutters and the other had one thunder bastard?

 

This is exactly what I mean. It's not meant to predict the result of the game.

If team A had an xG of 6.2 and lost to  team B who had an xG of 0.8 then it would indicate that Team A absolutely battered Team B but were either incredibly unlucky, incredibly wasteful, or Team B's goalkeeper had an absolutely once in a lifetime performance. Essentially it gives you an indication that Team A performed far better but for whatever reason didn't win. It's a measure of performance, not a prediction of the game's result.

The example you used about daisy cutters doesn't cut it. A daisy cutter in the xG model wouldn't register as a big chance. If someone scuffs a shot from 30 yards into the keeper's arms that will go down as an xG of, I dunno, like 0.05. So 20 of them isn't going to give you a big xG at all (well it'd give you an xG of 1, which just means if you have a shot from 30 yards then 1 in 20 would go in... but I've made that number up as an example)

That's where it's far better than, say, shots on target which people will use all day long without question. Your daisy cutter example would be 20 shots on target, but in reality they'd have **** all chance of scoring. xG also takes into account shots off target. If Ings misses an open goal from 6 yards it doesn't go down as a shot on target. But it El Ghazi floats one from 30 yards into the keeper's arms it does. But which is the better chance?

an xG of 6.2 in one game would be a crazy amount of chances, and they'd either have to be chances of real quality to amass that xG or they'd have had to have had about a 1,000 "Daisy Cutters"

Edited October 27, 2021 by Stevo985

[Mr_Dogg]

17 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Africa Cup of Nations will be a massive issue for Liverpool.

Missing Salah and Mane is devastating.

They will 'only' miss 2 or 3 PL games depending on how far they get including Brentford and Palace. Also an FA cup game.

The fatigue from it might be the bigger issue.

 

[Mic09]

I don't get how you can argue with xG.

It's a stat, make of it what you will. No one questions possession stats, or passes, or presses per game. It's numbers, it's maths. 

Just because you have a higher xG doesn't mean you are better or you should have won the game. It means you created better chances to score overall.

It's just a stat for people to interpret anyhow they want. Personally, I like it, because it quantifies likelihood of scoring goals. For example, when we lost to Chelsea 3-0 we had a great game but still conceded 3 goals, yet the xG was 1.1. to Chelsea and 1.5 to us.

It shows we created more better chances, but Chelsea are better and converted theirs. 

[Stevo985]

Just now, Mic09 said:

I don't get how you can argue with xG.

It's a stat, make of it what you will. No one questions possession stats, or passes, or presses per game. It's numbers, it's maths. 

Just because you have a higher xG doesn't mean you are better or you should have won the game. It means you created better chances to score overall.

It's just a stat for people to interpret anyhow they want. Personally, I like it, because it quantifies likelihood of scoring goals. For example, when we lost to Chelsea 3-0 we had a great game but still conceded 3 goals, yet the xG was 1.1. to Chelsea and 1.5 to us.

It shows we created more better chances, but Chelsea are better and converted theirs. 

Exactly. But I think the issue is people will see 1.1 vs 1.5, and then the result being 3 vs 0 and think "well xG must be bollocks then because it's way off"

Like I said, it's not a predictor of individual scorelines. It's an indicator of performance.

[Davkaus]

17 minutes ago, Mr_Dogg said:

They will 'only' miss 2 or 3 PL games depending on how far they get including Brentford and Palace. Also an FA cup game.

The fatigue from it might be the bigger issue.

 

I thought this didn't sound right with the whole tournament running from 9th Jan to 6th February, but yeah, there are no league games on the weekends of 8th/9th or 29th/30th.

The Leicester game will be quite tight if either of them get to the last 4, but Salah might even be back for Palace if Egypt don't do better than last time.

Then they have Burnley and Norwich in Feb so you'd think they'd be happy giving them a rest if they need it

[Zatman]

33 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I don't get how you can argue with xG.

It's a stat, make of it what you will. No one questions possession stats, or passes, or presses per game. It's numbers, it's maths. 

Just because you have a higher xG doesn't mean you are better or you should have won the game. It means you created better chances to score overall.

It's just a stat for people to interpret anyhow they want. Personally, I like it, because it quantifies likelihood of scoring goals. For example, when we lost to Chelsea 3-0 we had a great game but still conceded 3 goals, yet the xG was 1.1. to Chelsea and 1.5 to us.

It shows we created more better chances, but Chelsea are better and converted theirs. 

Problem with XG is that its not explained properly, I thought was a bullshit stat until i watched a video about it. It doesnt though take into account the quality of the goalkeeper 

[Mic09]

7 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Problem with XG is that its not explained properly, I thought was a bullshit stat until i watched a video about it. It doesnt though take into account the quality of the goalkeeper 

It doesn't have to take that into account, exactly because it's a stat to show quality of chances. It's not a stat to show if those chances are converted. A top goalkeeper can have a stinker of a game, so the likelihood of scoring (xG) should not be dependent on individual performance of a single player. 

[Stevo985]

15 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Problem with XG is that its not explained properly, I thought was a bullshit stat until i watched a video about it. It doesnt though take into account the quality of the goalkeeper 

And neither should it. The whole point is that it's an average baseline. If a goalkeeper has a high amount of xG saved (which is tracked) then it's a measure of his quality. If xG adjusted to the quality of the keeper then it would be pointless.

There are versions of xG that are dependant on player quality but that takes away the whole point of it, imo

[villa4europe]

2 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Exactly. But I think the issue is people will see 1.1 vs 1.5, and then the result being 3 vs 0 and think "well xG must be bollocks then because it's way off"

Like I said, it's not a predictor of individual scorelines. It's an indicator of performance.

that's my problem with it

performance too often doesn't mean anything in football

for me personally i'm not a stat fan in general, im actually the opposite i dislike the over use of stats in football, for the data analysts and sports scientists at the club fair enough but for those sat at home watching i think its a nonsense Americanism

xG is nearly as bad this sponsored win chance percentage that the PL has introduced this year

 

[Stevo985]

Just now, villa4europe said:

that's my problem with it

performance too often doesn't mean anything in football

for me personally i'm not a stat fan in general, im actually the opposite i dislike the over use of stats in football, for the data analysts and sports scientists at the club fair enough but for those sat at home watching i think its a nonsense Americanism

xG is nearly as bad this sponsored win chance percentage that the PL has introduced this year

 

It's not even remotely in the same ball park as that. Again that would be looking at it as a predictor of a result, which is absolutely not what it is.

And I disagree with the "performance doesn't mean anything". That might be true for one off matches. But over a big enough sample it just isn't going to be the case.

Teams and players very very often revert to the mean (or in this case their xG). If a team wins a run of games but they' have badly negative xG, then in all likelihood they won't keep that up. If a player scores a goal 3 games in a row, but his xG over those games is, say, 0.4... then it shows he's scored worldies and is very unlikely to keep that up.

 

I understand the opinion of not being interested in it as a fan just watching the game. of course.

But it's a very powerful statistic. Like I said it's the most accurate measure of performance there is, imo.

[Indigo]

3 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

This is exactly what I mean. It's not meant to predict the result of the game.

If team A had an xG of 6.2 and lost to  team B who had an xG of 0.8 then it would indicate that Team A absolutely battered Team B but were either incredibly unlucky, incredibly wasteful, or Team B's goalkeeper had an absolutely once in a lifetime performance. Essentially it gives you an indication that Team A performed far better but for whatever reason didn't win. It's a measure of performance, not a prediction of the game's result.

The example you used about daisy cutters doesn't cut it. A daisy cutter in the xG model wouldn't register as a big chance. If someone scuffs a shot from 30 yards into the keeper's arms that will go down as an xG of, I dunno, like 0.05. So 20 of them isn't going to give you a big xG at all (well it'd give you an xG of 1, which just means if you have a shot from 30 yards then 1 in 20 would go in... but I've made that number up as an example)

That's where it's far better than, say, shots on target which people will use all day long without question. Your daisy cutter example would be 20 shots on target, but in reality they'd have **** all chance of scoring. xG also takes into account shots off target. If Ings misses an open goal from 6 yards it doesn't go down as a shot on target. But it El Ghazi floats one from 30 yards into the keeper's arms it does. But which is the better chance?

an xG of 6.2 in one game would be a crazy amount of chances, and they'd either have to be chances of real quality to amass that xG or they'd have had to have had about a 1,000 "Daisy Cutters"

Yep, case in point of this is Villa against United the other week. Sans the penalty, which obviously gives it a boost, in spite of their number of shots United had a particularly low xG because they had padded it with numerous non-threatening efforts from range. Gives a more accurate reflection of the game than seeing 26 shots to 7 and thinking it must have been a smash and grab performance.

[pas5898]

18 hours ago, Xela said:

Its a tough one... he wants a rumoured £500k a week and he's 29. I'd be reluctant to put a player that age on a huge deal. Unless it was a 2 year contract. 

 

500k over 4 years is around 100 million. How much would it cost them + wages to replace him?

A 50 million player and 250k a week is basically the same (admittedly a younger player could have a sell on though).

Man City are skewing the whole market. The Man City group up could offer him 500k and a 5 year contract (at 33 he will go and play for NY or one of the other clubs).

 

[Xela]

19 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Right, but you'd have to replace him, which if you wanted to avoid a big step-down in quality, would mean the thick end of £100m on a transfer fee and maybe somwhere between 25% and 50% of Salah's wages anyway, and then they'd have to learn Klopp's system so you'd also probably be looking at a bedding-in period as well.

I think some of these concerns about age are a bit old-fashioned nowadays. Players go on until their mid-30s at a high level very frequently; he's also rarely injured, in about as tip-top physical condition as a human can be, doesn't drink or go partying all the time, and has a seemingly machine-like professionalism. Of course it's a risk, anything is, but he's asking for a lot because he knows they'll agree to paying him a lot.

 

1 hour ago, pas5898 said:

500k over 4 years is around 100 million. How much would it cost them + wages to replace him?

A 50 million player and 250k a week is basically the same (admittedly a younger player could have a sell on though).

Man City are skewing the whole market. The Man City group up could offer him 500k and a 5 year contract (at 33 he will go and play for NY or one of the other clubs).

 

I see your points, but the knock on effect of paying Salah £500k a week means that VVD will want the same... then Mane... all of a sudden their wage bill is full of players on their best ever contracts, on the wrong side of 30, with no resale value whatsoever. We've seen that situation at Arsenal with Ozil, Auba and Willian. 

Liverpool have been very good at getting value for their players in the past - Torres, Suarez, Coutinho etc. Selling them when their value was at the peak and replacing them with other players. Maybe they'll do the same with Salah

[pas5898]

23 hours ago, Xela said:

 

I see your points, but the knock on effect of paying Salah £500k a week means that VVD will want the same... then Mane... all of a sudden their wage bill is full of players on their best ever contracts, on the wrong side of 30, with no resale value whatsoever. We've seen that situation at Arsenal with Ozil, Auba and Willian. 

Liverpool have been very good at getting value for their players in the past - Torres, Suarez, Coutinho etc. Selling them when their value was at the peak and replacing them with other players. Maybe they'll do the same with Salah

That's a fair point. Happened with Arsenal when they paid Ozil 300k.