Yes. Ken must be used higher up the pitch. I think he’s solid at LB but he’s a bit wasted there. Can’t wait for him to return.
Anyone would think football was a game of mistakes, moments and luck! I sometimes wonder what it would have been like in 1982-83 had forums and Twitter been around. Imagine the meltdown after losing 7-3 at Forest in the League Cup. Uncle Ron's eyes bulging out of his head as he berates Elton for 'disgusting' behaviour persisting with a Fourth Division goalkeeper, central defender and strikeforce. Hornetboy warning everyone that Watford were in a false position in the top four because we'd lost nearly as many as we'd won and that the defeats at Liverpool, Everton and at home to Man United were much more indicative than the 'flukey' 8-0 win over Sunderland. Then the subsequent meltdown in Autumn 1983 as everyone insisted we'd been 'found out'.
No one is offended. It is fair enough if that is what you think. I understand where you are coming from, but I can't wholly agree with your point. Hamer did make a few good saves in the first half against Preston, but we had a few chances in the first half ourselves. The second half was about as easy as it can get. The reason for this was nothing to do with small margins; we just played through them. I don't know; did the goals at Blackburn come entirely out of nowhere? Before Rajovic's equalising goal, we had been putting pressure on the Blackburn defence, and their keeper had to make saves. I remember thinking in the stands that we could turn it around. We also missed a good chance before the corner for the winner.
Maybe, who knows. I believe we are in a much higher position than our performances have deserved. Easily these small margins were having go our way could quickly reverse. Going on a bad run is certainly not beyond this team. No way are we the 8th best team in this league, regardless of what the league table says, but I appreciate that’s just my opinion, and some people only make their assessment based on results only.
Bit of a smash and grab with a below par performance but these happen every week in all levels of football. Armstrong caused us problems all game whilst we were very powderpuff. Thought Chakvetadze had a good game, defensively better than offensively weirdly but all plaudits have to go to Livermore and Hamer. Two great goals and great saves. I'd just like to say that the upper tier at Loftus Road is quite possibly the worst stand I have been in for a long while. The view is crap of the goal below, facilities poor and no space at all. Also chatted to Giles Coren which was rather bizarre.
And I disagree with your eye test, I've watched every game (bar Leicester!) so am basing this on both the eye test as well as the metrics to back that up. There's very few games in which we were definitely outclassed (Leeds, Sunderland, possibly Bristol - but even then conceding 4 flattered them, just as scoring 5 against Preston flattered us). We've been lucky at times, we've been unlucky at times, we've won games we didn't deserve to win, just as we've lost games we didn't deserve to lose. My eye test has always reckoned us to be a mid-table squad, doing exactly what a mid-table side does - which has been reflected by the results we've seen this season. I don't think we'll make playoffs and will drop off a little bit, but I'd be surprised if we finished any lower than 12/13th. And the xG stats would've shown that they missed 4 open goals and should've won...We all know the Preston result flattered us and wasn't reflective of the actual score - the xG stats: 2.31 for Preston and 2.64 xG for us - a much fairer reflection of what happened.
Or it's an effective way of measuring performance of teams/players over a decent time period which is why practically every single professional football team uses it in their analysis + recruitment
The best wins are the ones where you dont play well especially away from home. Dont get to many away games today was first away win I have seen in 6 and half years. Livermore could end up being most unexpected player of the season the club have had. Proving me and many others wrong.
I have been in upper tier there before and would agree with you. Was in lower tier today toilets were in a bigger space than the concourse, was rammed down there at half time.
I take xG’s with a pinch of salt, because it’s very subjective. Someone might think it’s an easy chance but someone else might think it was a difficult chance and would affect the expected goals count. However, I agree we’ve not been outclassed by many teams. But then neither should we be really, considering we’re still a club receiving parachute payments. Bristol destroyed us totally, and 4-1 was in no way flattering. They should have scored more on the day. But overall, we’ve been competitive in the vast majority of games, but we’re having an extraordinary amount of luck in tight games where the key moments have largely gone our way. This is why I don’t trust where we are in the league as I think we’re in an inflated position. We could easily go on a long losing run if key moments suddenly start to go against us.
I think most people on here are ecstatic with the win and to be one point outside of the play offs. Although it is fair to say that the performance wasn't brilliant also and we will need to be better going forward. I do think we were a long way of our best 11 today though.
All I can say is it’s amazing how games come across differently on tv. Even in the last 15 mins he gave away a dangerous free kick by ball watching, stuffed up an attacking move when we had 4 on 3 with a misplaced pass under little pressure and then gave up defending completely and let QPR get a free cross in from their left at the very end. And that was probably his best spell of the game, as he turned the ball over a couple of times and made some dangerous runs forward. Before that he was largely ineffective like the rest of the midfield.
It's not really subjective at all as it's not based on someones opinion. We could easily go on a long winning run if key moments suddenly started to go in our favour.
xG is not subjective. You might not agree with its methodology but it's not just a case of someone sitting there saying: "I reckon that should have gone in." A brief explanation here. I'm sure Reids has a more detailed definition – https://statsbomb.com/soccer-metrics/expected-goals-xg-explained/
Key moments are going in favour right now, so I don’t get your second point. …..regards your first point, how can it be anything but opinion xG? Even if it goes through a computer or AI it’s still an opinion based on likelihood. But it doesn’t consider when the chances arrive and the effect it would have on a result. You say we’ve scored 10 more than we should but conceded 10 more than we should, so it’s all balanced. That’s far too simplistic as it’s not considering the other complexities of the effect it has on a result.
Lets say I watch 100 penalties be taken and I keep track of whether they're scored, missed or saved. After watching all of them, I find that 78 of them ended up in a goal being scored. Is it my opinion that penalties are scored 78% of the time? Or was 78% the actual amount that penalties were scored from my test? My point is saying of course we could go on a long run if things so happen to go against us. Just as things can go in our favour - that's football.
Chakvetadze was good. Any fan with a set of working eyes saw that. Leave it at that. And frankly, I don’t visit the forum enough these days to care about your (likely) abusive and non-sensical reply to this.
But xG doesn’t take into consideration the ability of the player and the ability of the keeper. All it is is an indicator, just as corners is an indictor as to how many attacks a team has had. Goalkeeper saves is probably the most telling stat as far as I’m concerned. It is a fact, not an opinion. But even that is flawed if it’s not counted accurately. Some shots are straight at a keeper, but some saves are outstanding like Hamer’s 93rd minute save. How do you record that? From your example of 78% of penalties are scored, but it is just an average. No consideration to who is the penalty taker and who is the keeper. Some penalty takers have a much higher scoring percentage than 78% just as some keepers have a better save rate than 22%.
Well, he did get smashed by Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, so I wouldn’t take too much notice of the little squirt.
from the link @EnjoytheGame posted; Each xG model has its own characteristics, but these are the main factors that have traditionally been fed into the large majority of Expected Goals models: distance to goal, angle to goal, body part with which the shot was taken, and type of assist or previous action (through ball, cross, set-piece, dribble, etc...). Based on historical information of shots with similar characteristics, the xG model then attributes a value between 0 and 1 to each shot that expresses the probability of it producing a goal. So that disproves your assertion previous actions aren't taken into account while the bearing on the result is not really what xG is considering, merely the probability of a shot at any given time going in or not. You've now contradicted yourself. Stating xG is flawed because player ability isn't taken into account, you then claim goalkeeper saves is the stat you trust but go on to say, in so many words, it suffers the same 'fault' as the xG model because it's not taking ability into consideration. So while you stand fast by your opinion that xG cannot possibly be taken seriously because of a certain factor, you then use another metric as a preferred choice which suffers the same problem, as you see it.
I use the eye test. All other metrics are there to assist, but I believe some people use metrics far too much and use it to form their opinion, rather than the other way around.
But that's pretty much the point, there's already plenty of stats you can use that do take into consideration the ability of the players. So xG is the average. Still easily do-able. From the link @EnjoytheGame posted: "Post-Shot xG (PSxG) is calculated after a shot has been taken and generally considers shot placement, and if the model includes it, goalkeeper positioning in assigning a value between 0 (off-target) and 1 to every shot. Traditionally, PSxG's primary utility has been in assessing goalkeeper shot-stopping ability, although newer models that include extra factors like shot velocity could provide further insight into finishing ability." The models can track: the goalkeepers positioning when the shot was taken, where in the goal the shot was saved (as a shot very low or high in the opposite corner to where the keeper is positioned will obviously be much harder to save), how hard the shot was hit, how many players were in the way etc - which is then checked against the thousands of other shots that have been taking in similar circumstances to work out the average chance of the goal going in. So chances are the 93rd minute save will have a low xG value (as it was a hard shot from the edge of the area), but a good PSxG value (as it was on target in a good area of the goa) - which will show it was an outstanding save by Hamer. Your logic in this thread is hurting my brain. Shoot down xG as it's "opinion", to only claim your opinion is superior to everything else.
Dodgy history. Not being an admiral, Napoleon didn't feature at Trafalgar, and he had a good run of away wins before losing in Russia (which should have been called off because of the weather) and Belgium (where some late Prussian subs turned the match).
