The Championship 2020-21

Call me an optimist, but I’d be much happier with a draw.

 

All home wins tonight in the matches that matter would be great. Unfortunately it won’t happen as home wins are a lot less common now in empty stadiums. Think this will be an ugly 1-0 type of game, but I’ll take any win in this truly ugly season.

 

It does seem like they’re uncatchable but stranger things have happened. They have gone through iffy runs this season.

A couple of injuries and anything could happen. Especially if we beat them in a few weeks’ time.

 

Loathsome individual #sexism

 

People have at times gone to great lengths and written detailed paragraphs explaining just how the 'Bielsa slump' idea is a myth - I read one once, and it was fairly convincing. I no longer preach the 'Bielsa slump' doctrine as a result.

 

I would love to win the league but unless Norwich implode that looks very unlikely so probably edging towards a Norwich win although a draw wouldn't be disastrous. We have to win though and playing the team bottom of the league for some reason makes me more nervous than if we played one of top 4 away

 

Out of interest, in the last full Championship season (2018/19) these were the stats for all teams' home records:
Wins - 43.5% Draws - 29.3% Defeats 27.2%
The stats for this season so far:
Wins - 42.2% Draws - 25.0% Defeats 32.8%

So an increase in away wins but more at the expense of draws rather than home wins. I have no idea if this variation is significantly greater than in any other two seasons you might compare.

 

Norwich win for sure. But with a few broken legs, couple of metatarsals and a red card or two; just to hedge our bets.

 

Maybe they can take Toney down...

 

Nothing too serious, but a hamstring would be good as that could see him out for the rest of the season without any real physical damage done.

 

To be honest is was quite a while ago and I don't even remember what outlet it was from, but the main gist was essentially that in each of the main cases cited there were strong contextual factors surrounding their failure/slumps in form and performance that seem far more impactful than the idea he's overworking them - either that, or the clubs continued to decline after Bielsa left/in subsequent seasons, so the idea that his conditioning and/or approach is to blame is hard to square.

These articles do examine the idea, as well as the central idea that the seasons cited for it actually resulted in the kind of catastrophic collapse often attributed to them:

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/...-burnout-training-methods-tactics-form-220125

https://medium.com/@willalmond/bielsa-burnout-246741c85d15

Yes, the Medium article is a Medium article, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's worthless - I've written Medium articles on football, and they're brilliant

(Also worth noting that the Medium article listed provides a link to and sort of commentary on the first article linked, from inews)

In reality, plenty of other teams press very high and run all game; it's basically the fundamental tenet of all top teams today, and that is in part thanks to the influence Bielsa and his approach had on some of the coaches responsible for those current top teams. If you watch Leeds even now, it's not actually like they're superhumans running twice the speed for twice as long as their opponents - they're just fully committed and favour a high energy style. Plenty of managers demand a great deal physically and mentally from their players, and there have been strong accusations of, for example, Guardiola's approach requiring freshening up as personnel-wise, his teams can only respond to that amount of intensity for a certain number of time/seasons. One of the reasons that Bielsa's results might seem worse by comparison is that he's always been working with slighly 'lesser' teams, with the accompanying cheaper players, worse facilities and less money to pad out a full squad up to the 25 of top internationals, a la Man City, say.

 

Back in time to win them the playoffs whilst we grab second .

 

Josh Dasilva has a hip problem and will be out until the international break. Thought he looked unreal when we played them. Yaya Toure-esque.

 

1-0 Norwich.

 

Buendia makes it look easy.

 

I'm definitely on a budgie bias tonight.

 

Wouldn't matter. He'd be in the back of the net with the ball.

 

We also have Reading, Middlesbro and the scum who will play with pashun. A tough run-in to win this 3 horse race for second.

 

Pukki completely f**ks a simple chance to make it 2-0 with the last kick of the half.

 

Brentford have been the better side tonight, with brilliant pessing, but Canos has missed only one sitter while Pukki has missed two which were straightforward but not as easy.

 

Pukki is terrible.

 

Imagine the abuse Gray would receive if he had missed that chance that Puke just messed up,probably with justification.
I do hope that isn't pivotal.

 

Watched that Brentford Norwich game and thought, both of them will probably end up in the PL next season. Both won't deviate from their models and therefore will come straight back down and then both will go back up again due to their clever model.

 

Late winner it seems for PLAFC.

 

**** sake, really do hate Bournemouth.

 

They play Barnsley soon I think....ten days infact.

 

I know we don't pay much attention to the bottom of the table but what a result for Rotherham! Down to ten men for half an hour and a 97th minute winner away at their relegation rivals.

 

At the other end of the table, Rotherham score a late, late winner after playing for nearly half an hour with ten men.

Darren Moore has a massive task on his hands to keep Wednesday up if he didn't already.