Fulham 0 Chelsea 2

[Max Fowler]

1 hour ago, Ham said:

£66m. Each time an opposing fan or lazy journalist talks about our spending, they use the maximum fee with add-ons to get us to the magic £1bn mark. 

It's nowhere near that. 

You'd think our own fans would at least try. 

I suppose for me Ham, if our young players were showing potential like they did at the weekend, it wouldn't matter whether it's £1bn or a bit less. We have spent a lot of money and it hasn't been great so far - I do think questions need to be asked about how many experienced players we have, but it sounds like we might try and rectify that in January.

[Dwmh]

4 hours ago, martin1905 said:

What if they don't take any of them seriously? The problem with all those stats are they don't show the bigger picture, far too many people in today's game look at stats to show how well a team is playing, without looking at the obvious, like how well we actually played.

As soon as someone mentions any of those stats I switch off. They may well have a place for managers, coaches, analysts, scouts, pundits etc but that's it. The only time I ever hear fans talking about them is when the team is shit but they are trying to justify being right, the stats tell them so, and anyone that disagrees is wrong.

It's funny how when a team is playing well and winning games XG is never mentioned. If we had won every game this season 1-0 I doubt anyone would care about possession or XG.

The only time XG is relevant is when your not winning games of football.

Well personally I check XG and think about it after every game, and regularly look at teh XG tables to see how we are doing.
Maybe we can agree that cherry picking XG scores is not useful, but one can say the same about cherry picking single match scores too.

4 hours ago, Sciatika said:

The only stat that really matters is the number of points on the table. 

Funny I have long argued that Season points is the key stat an that only teams and managers with 80+ points can say they have done really well.  Unfortunately JM rates extremely highly on that basis so it has not picked up much traction.

4 hours ago, Ham said:

£66m. Each time an opposing fan or lazy journalist talks about our spending, they use the maximum fee with add-ons to get us to the magic £1bn mark. 

It's nowhere near that. 

You'd think our own fans would at least try. 

👍Maximum fee from a range of guesses supplied by ill-informed hacks (+ add-ons)

3 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

xG is important but it's really annoying when it's used to paper over footballing common sense. 

Not half as annoying as when people say "My objective opinion" over rules any stats or anyone else's view.

Seems to me that most of those arguing about "over complicating the game" are really just over simplifying to make a point.

[ROTG]

7 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Maximum fee from a range of guesses supplied by ill-informed hacks (+ add-ons)

I guess we will know how ill-informed the hacks were when the next set of the club's financial books are published. 

One can assume on the recent occasions when the club have broken the British transfer record do not count. 

[Max Fowler]

22 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Well personally I check XG and think about it after every game, and regularly look at teh XG tables to see how we are doing.
Maybe we can agree that cherry picking XG scores is not useful, but one can say the same about cherry picking single match scores too.

Funny I have long argued that Season points is the key stat an that only teams and managers with 80+ points can say they have done really well.  Unfortunately JM rates extremely highly on that basis so it has not picked up much traction.

👍Maximum fee from a range of guesses supplied by ill-informed hacks (+ add-ons)

Not half as annoying as when people say "My objective opinion" over rules any stats or anyone else's view.

Seems to me that most of those arguing about "over complicating the game" are really just over simplifying to make a point.

How do you deal with my Potter example from last season though, Droy? The fact we went through long periods winning xG battles - should he therefore still be in charge?

[thevelourfog]

11 hours ago, xceleryx said:

I feel there was this unrealistic set of expectations placed upon him when he arrived because of what he cost.

Maybe, but not from me. I just expected some evidence he'd played professional football before. Bar his first cameo sub performance, there'd been nothing. He couldn't kick a ball straight.

Anyone who expected him to revitalise the team was bonkers, they I'd agree with.

[thevelourfog]

I really don't understand why xG upsets anyone. It's just a metric that gives us some sense of how many goals we should have scored in a game, which is something we'll all have formed an opinion on anyway. There seems to be this view on here that reference to a high xG when results are objectively poor is some sort of middle finger to the eye test that says we're not playing well, when really it is something that supports and complements the argument that we aren't playing well.

[Dwmh]

1 hour ago, Max Fowler said:

How do you deal with my Potter example from last season though, Droy? The fact we went through long periods winning xG battles - should he therefore still be in charge?

Over long periods it clearly tells a message - about finishing mostly but maybe the oppo scoring an unfair proportion of Worldies.
Whether that is confidence, personal problems, poor selection or luck and then whether a manager change will help or hinder are all questions for the board (or Marina as was).
But it certainly helps to know mor precisely what the problem is than table position.

And it is one hell of a lot better approach than saying that TT/GP/SFL is crapbecauseIhaveaseasonticketandsaysoandgoonandonabout myopinionbeing10xbetterthanstupidxg.

 

40 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

which is something we'll all have formed an opinion on anyway.

Some more reliably than others - XG is a good objective test.
 

[east lower]

Lovely to see another win and also some over the top celebrations when the very unexpected second goal went in, so soon after the first. Although Mrs EL got some jostling from the lads in the adjacent seats, they got the Medusa stare from her and apologised unreservedly.

Good first half, but I thought we were attempting to play out the game in the second and would liked to seen us keep playing on the front foot as opposed to what appeared to be containment.  It only takes one moment of madness, like the goalkeeper almost passing to their forward or one chance to be converted and it's squeaky time.

 Broja's build-up interactions were ok and on a par with Jackson, he's stronger with his back to goal but Jackson is better in the more important areas when facing goal.  Albeit he was in there to get the lucky ricochet for the second goal.

Probably Caicedo's best game thus far and I thought Gallagher play was good and his work-rate was second-to-none. Acceptable from Enzo but no more than that.

The caveat being that I though Fulham were very ordinary. Second-half we kept getting caught with a long diagonal from their left to behind our left back and it kept happening - Having Mudryck on the pitch kept their right-back 'honest'  and he ventured forward in the first 15 minutes but soon realised/got told to play deeper and reduce the ventures forward.

Great to see MM score and I really do hope he can continue to improve, if he does we'll have a real tool of destruction and importantly most teams will then realise they need to keep their own full-back in their own half, this in turn will then limit their attacking options and make defending easier for us.

Shout-out to Cucurella, who I've slaughtered in the past - Tried his heart out again and even the crowd recognised it - sang his song again.

[Max Fowler]

25 minutes ago, Dwmh said:

Over long periods it clearly tells a message - about finishing mostly but maybe the oppo scoring an unfair proportion of Worldies.
Whether that is confidence, personal problems, poor selection or luck and then whether a manager change will help or hinder are all questions for the board (or Marina as was).
But it certainly helps to know mor precisely what the problem is than table position.

And it is one hell of a lot better approach than saying that TT/GP/SFL is crapbecauseIhaveaseasonticketandsaysoandgoonandonabout myopinionbeing10xbetterthanstupidxg.

 

Some more reliably than others - XG is a good objective test.
 

You dodged my question again though, Droy.

Should Potter have been fired or not last season, despite underperforming his xG for long periods?

Of course, the fact that we are consistently underperforming our xG points to longer-term issues in terms of personnel in forward areas. Fingers crossed, it looks like that will be addressed in January.

This is, though, a results business, and when Chelsea don't get results the players lose confidence, the manager takes the heat and if that goes on too long he simply has to go. Same with Poch as with Potter. 

[paulw66]

The thing with Xgls, is if you keep under performing, then how can they keep being "expected"

If you keep scoring less than 10 at cricket, your batting average drops, and therefore the number of runs you might expect from a batsman drops accordingly. 

There are a few other flaws with Xgls, in no particular order:

1. A penalty is awarded the same, irrespective of how the penalty is won. So a player goes through 1-1 and is brought down by the keeper, X goal of 0.8 .........alternatively, you swing in a cross and the defender has a brain fade and handles a cross going nowhere, X goal of 0.8. In reality one team has created the X goal, one has been "handed" it.  Doesn't reflect how well those two teams have attacked.

2. You get a zero for a disallowed goal. This may make sense, but if you score 3 goals in a game and VAR rules them all out by 2 inches, it seems harsh to suggest you weren't creating anything.

3. You get a zero if a cross is flashed across the 6 yard box (Mudryk, Villa) and nobody gets a touch. A striker could be 6 inches away from toeing it in

But, there is some value in it, in conjunction with using your own eyes. I have often thought that a team's finishing, or lack of, can give a false impression, either positively or negatively about the way the team has played overall. We played no better against Fulham than we did against Villa (with 11) but we took 2 chances, and the mood surrounding the performance is entirely different. 

[Dwmh]

24 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

You dodged my question again though, Droy.

Should Potter have been fired or not last season, despite underperforming his xG for long periods?

Of course, the fact that we are consistently underperforming our xG points to longer-term issues in terms of personnel in forward areas. Fingers crossed, it looks like that will be addressed in January.

This is, though, a results business, and when Chelsea don't get results the players lose confidence, the manager takes the heat and if that goes on too long he simply has to go. Same with Poch as with Potter. 

Bit fed up with your leading questions frankly.
The answer I gave is clear - XG is one factor in a bunch of factors, many of which can't even be guessed at if you don't enter the Cobham changing rooms regularly,  That might be poison between players and coach, or that might have nothing to do with the coach.
 

[Dwmh]

44 minutes ago, paulw66 said:

The thing with Xgls, is if you keep under performing, then how can they keep being "expected"

If you keep scoring less than 10 at cricket, your batting average drops, and therefore the number of runs you might expect from a batsman drops accordingly. 

Expected for a typical team and typical player from the division, not expected for that team/man.

 

44 minutes ago, paulw66 said:

There are a few other flaws with Xgls, in no particular order:

1. A penalty is awarded the same, irrespective of how the penalty is won. So a player goes through 1-1 and is brought down by the keeper, X goal of 0.8 .........alternatively, you swing in a cross and the defender has a brain fade and handles a cross going nowhere, X goal of 0.8. In reality one team has created the X goal, one has been "handed" it.  Doesn't reflect how well those two teams have attacked.

2. You get a zero for a disallowed goal. This may make sense, but if you score 3 goals in a game and VAR rules them all out by 2 inches, it seems harsh to suggest you weren't creating anything.

3. You get a zero if a cross is flashed across the 6 yard box (Mudryk, Villa) and nobody gets a touch. A striker could be 6 inches away from toeing it in

So Xbadluck instead of XG.  Sounds great.
I'd add 4.  You get very little for a 40 yard shot that hits the post with the keeper stood still, and the same for a 40 yard shot that hits the corner flag.  From a fans point of view the former definitely justifies thinking the team were unlucky.

I think the above are features, not flaws.  But they do explain why some people are convinced XG does not match what they see on the pitch.
Fans want to leave the game and say we were "unlucky" or lucky.  So I agree that XG doesn't score bad luck at all.
Rather it says "given the actual luck the team had, did they create genuine chances".
So I do sympathise with the kind of Xbadluck measure you are wanting.

In practice there are two problems I can think of with creating an Xbadluck measure.  One is for the XG algorithm to value the impact of a marginal handball decision against a good one.  We should have had a penalty but is that a possible 0.1 xg or 0.8 xg certainty.  I don't think its dataset can cope with that.

The other is that XG models are trained to come out "on average" to predict approx the same amount of goals per season as actually occur.  Targeting XG to match actual goals makes mathematical sense because one is known.  Targeting Xbadluck to Actual badluck is much harder*.

 

The other point is that bad luck generally balances out over a period of time, so a hypothetical Xbadluck measure wouldn't add any more long term value from a coaching pov than XG.
(not the same in the boozer post match though)
 

[Max Fowler]

1 hour ago, Dwmh said:

Bit fed up with your leading questions frankly.
The answer I gave is clear - XG is one factor in a bunch of factors, many of which can't even be guessed at if you don't enter the Cobham changing rooms regularly,  That might be poison between players and coach, or that might have nothing to do with the coach.
 

Fair enough Droy.

All I am trying to illustrate is results is still what matters most. As Poch said when he joined, "In the end, the most important thing is to win. Because if you win, you can help develop all the things - football is about the results".

What I have been reading above is that results aren't a very good indicator because they could go either way, a lot of luck is involved and the stats are there to prove it. I have been accused of being reductive by focussing on results.

But we all know if Potter had won all of his games, he would still be here, and if Poch continued losing all of his games until Christmas, he would be gone. xG is never going to outweigh that reality when it comes to our football club. 

So I am impressed Poch and the players have turned results around. xG indicated this could be possible. But winning tight games is still about mentality and we lacked it early on. Now we look stronger and more able to compete.

I do think Caicedo at full fitness made a huge difference against Fulham. He is a mentality monster and after all he is our record signing. But we should still be able to win against Burnley without our full strength XI. No excuses.

[Dwmh]

34 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

All I am trying to illustrate is results is still what matters most. As Poch said when he joined, "In the end, the most important thing is to win. Because if you win, you can help develop all the things - football is about the results".

Truism - of course they do.
But fans talk loads about the game and of all the stats we used to use and the ones that are more used now, XG is far and away the most useful.

35 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

What I have been reading above is that results aren't a very good indicator because they could go either way, a lot of luck is involved and the stats are there to prove it. I have been accused of being reductive by focussing on results.

Really - I thought it was you throwing about the accusations.

36 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

But we all know if Potter had won all of his games, he would still be here, and if Poch continued losing all of his games until Christmas, he would be gone. xG is never going to outweigh that reality when it comes to our football club. 

No sxxx Sherlock.

 

37 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

So I am impressed Poch and the players have turned results  Result around.

 

[McCreadie]

In the same way it was totally daft to be calling for Poch’s head 8 days ago, it is equally daft to be impressed because  “results have been turned around”.  And indeed to suggest that there are now “no excuses” for not beating Burnley away. This team is a work in progress. Has been since the first game of the season. Will be until well into next season. We will win some, lose some, draw some, often unexpectedly. 

[Gurj SS]

21 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

I disagree we lost control of the game, Gurj.

Fulham had to do better and show more energy. Yes they were toothless, but we also defended really well and continued to fight hard. Considering our injuries and suspensions, which I have not used as an excuse when we have lost, I nonetheless think the lads deserve a lot of credit for a battling second half. 

We weren't incredibly fluid but went toe to toe and that was all that was needed to get the result.

We're a team that has become known for keeping the ball for large amounts of the game, we sat back and struggled to do that, also while we couldn't do that the best chance of the game was actually missed by Fulham; we've fumbled in front of goal quite a lot this season but that Fulham chance was easier to score than not.

I sort of see what you mean but can we afford to try the same thing against a stronger team? I doubt we can, and I'd much prefer Poch to have used the opportunity to control possesion and keep the ball away from Fulham; because we'll need to do just that if we can get ahead in most of the games in the run up to Christmas.

Yes we did go toe to toe, but they got through however couldn't finish; against stronger teams we'd have been in trouble.

[kev61]

17 hours ago, Dwmh said:

idiot and luddite.
If a manager (or a fan) counts shots or shots on target or possession but doesn't take xg far more seriously he is just being ignorant.

"Idiot and luddite".How dare you Sir!.I might be an idiot but a luddite!...never!.

[Max Fowler]

5 hours ago, McCreadie said:

In the same way it was totally daft to be calling for Poch’s head 8 days ago, it is equally daft to be impressed because  “results have been turned around”.  And indeed to suggest that there are now “no excuses” for not beating Burnley away. This team is a work in progress. Has been since the first game of the season. Will be until well into next season. We will win some, lose some, draw some, often unexpectedly. 

"Will be until well into next season." Of course you don't know that - you've just pulled it right out of your backside. Any number of possibilities can happen - many of us saw a repeat of last season on the cards after an unprecedented and historic set of bad results against lower level sides. Burnley away remains a fixture we badly need to win given our start.

It seems like Poch has turned the tide - there is such a thing as momentum in football don't you know? Falling into a death spiral is a fate that practically all our managers in recent history have succumbed to. It seems the question is only when this will happen.

[kev61]

12 hours ago, Dwmh said:

 

Seems to me that most of those arguing about "over complicating the game" are really just over simplifying to make a point.

No.people who say that we are "over complicating the game" are right.People who say we are "over simplifying"  are over complicating the game.

[kev61]

17 hours ago, Ham said:

How do you know which posters to believe and respect if you haven't watched the games Kev?

 

Because I trust my instincts and I don't rely on a posters popularity(is that a statistic?).

If I don't watch a game I rely on people who I think understands the game.There are plenty on here.

[kev61]

10 hours ago, Dwmh said:

Bit fed up with your leading questions frankly.
The answer I gave is clear - XG is one factor in a bunch of factors, many of which can't even be guessed at if you don't enter the Cobham changing rooms regularly,  That might be poison between players and coach, or that might have nothing to do with the coach.
 

You need to get rid of the asbestos from your brain old chap.

 

 

[kev61]

6 hours ago, Gurj SS said:

We're a team that has become known for keeping the ball for large amounts of the game, we sat back and struggled to do that, also while we couldn't do that the best chance of the game was actually missed by Fulham; we've fumbled in front of goal quite a lot this season but that Fulham chance was easier to score than not.

I sort of see what you mean but can we afford to try the same thing against a stronger team? I doubt we can, and I'd much prefer Poch to have used the opportunity to control possesion and keep the ball away from Fulham; because we'll need to do just that if we can get ahead in most of the games in the run up to Christmas.

Yes we did go toe to toe, but they got through however couldn't finish; against stronger teams we'd have been in trouble.

We're a team that regularly has 75% possession  and then lose.How do the stat's people explain this?.

[Sciatika]

Possession does not mean goals. No one wins a game with possession (but nor do they win without it).

[kev61]

9 hours ago, McCreadie said:

 We will win some, lose some, draw some, often unexpectedly. 

Well that's a revelation.How did you come to that obvious conclusion?

[Sleeping Dave]

22 hours ago, paulw66 said:

Quite, and I would argue that defeat, conceding to the one half chance they had was unlucky, rather than Monday's game, where we won, and deserved to do so.

I mentioned it somewhere else, we could have won all of our games this season.  We've had the chances to. It was a matter of time before someone took one (or two)

Agreed but I also agree with Droy. We can’t expect a big chance conversion of say 40-50%. We are more in the bracket of 10-20% and while those conversions won’t be executed evenly across games, we run a real risk of having a streak of 0%, 10%, 0%, 10%, 50%. Five games but only let’s say four points on the board. But the chances created would indicate that 11-12 points would have been very doable if it were other teams creating them. 

There is a really good reason why trusted goal scorers comes at such a huge cost premium. If you have them, they can make a team. If you lack them it’ll break you. Especially in the PL.