Only if, on your figures, you consider a 16% reduction in the strength of the bottom five statistically insignificant....and you are ruling out further deterioration.
-
I think that it's an unreasonable consideration to make until the season is over, and even still I'd like to see a trend rather than a single season before drawing the sort of conclusions that you are doing.
-
I've not looked at statistical trends. I've watched games for fifty years.
-
V old school.
I want to see the xG of the top and bottom clubs for the last 20 years plotted against whatever that xG measure for defenders is, with a third dimension taking out the effect of the keeper.
Then we will see.
-
You literally started this conversation by attempting to point out a statistical trend (which isn't really anything of the sort, just a very small sample that you think supports your particular view). And anyway if your reaction to seeing Sheffield United getting battered at home is "look what they've done to the game" rather than taking pleasure in those bastards suffering, then I don't know what to tell you.
Arsenal are brilliant. Sheffield United are one of the worst teams to ever stumble into the Premier League courtesy of their penniless sheikh making no effort to compete. I don't necessarily disagree that there's a malaise in top flight football, but this game wasn't evidence of it.
-
Can we all stop saying how bad Sheffield United are please. You know we still have to play them.
-
And v unreliable. Your memory and mine of the standard of football in nineteeneightybollocks and the relative quality of teams versus each other is about the most useless way possible of determining the difference between then and now for all sorts of really obvious reasons, including but not limited to the volume of football you were able to watch then vs now, the ways in which you were able to watch it vs now, your relative interest in it versus other things in your life, who you watched it with, your relative levels of inebriation, the way the human memory works, and a whole host of other things besides.
The most you can say is that you enjoyed football more back then than you do now, if indeed that's the case. That's legitimate. You can't objectively prove something like the league being less competitive without resorting to statistics and trends though, and even then it might be a stretch.
-
And if we can't beat them we deserve to go down.
-
I don't watch Sheffield Undead, but I presume they've reduced their kicking now that Heckingbastard has left? So they probably hate themselves even more because they aren't being true to themselves or playing to their strengths.
-
The modern interpretation of the laws of the game mitigate against 'levelling the playing field' with onfield actions, with the pitches, the equipment, and modern training and in game management options adding to the mix. Off the field the refs have more ways of structuring the games to favour the more dominant teams, and the accountants have a strong lever to keep teams in their designated place.
Remarkably, in this environment, the competition within the league remains just as strong. Through Russ's eyes.
-
Can we at least remind ourselves that two-thirds of the way into the season, they are, however bad they may be, not as bad as the worst team in PL history™?
-
See I didn't actually say that now, did I you scamp? I even said "I don't necessarily disagree that there's a malaise in top flight football" - I said that your use of an exceptionally poor Sheffield United side getting dismantled by an exceptionally good Arsenal side as evidence of the structural imbalance of football was invalid, and your subsequent use of a very small data set to enhance your point was also fundamentally flawed.
I will though take objection to this: "the refs have more ways of structuring the games to favour the more dominant teams". I do not accept that the refs make decisions to favour the "big" clubs. I think that better teams get more decisions because they tend to have better players and more possession, and thus they are more likely to fouled. Inevitably some of those decisions are wrong. The only really telling stat would be whether the big clubs are the beneficiaries of a greater proportion of wrong decisions based on the relative volume of decisions they get vs their opponents, but good luck crunching those numbers.
-
I don't believe I said that, as a result of those drivers. I said it at the same time as that match was happening. That wasn't my sole data point. Nor did I intend a comprehensive statistical analysis...I merely provided some data that indicated a problem. Then you rebutted it with some data that supported my case. I have never claimed a scientific analysis. I have made some statements. You keep telling me that I'm wrong, but that neither of us can be arsed to do the numbers...apart from those limited ones that appear to support my case.
It's a view.
Refs are now only reffing the games in the areas of the pitch that are resulting in immediate goal threat. They are doing this for longer games than ever before. As you observe this is likely to favour clubs higher up the pecking order, as they are more likely to have players that give them more possession dominance with a higher average pitch position. They are also shifting the window of statistical likelihood of goals (more goals!) towards more regular occurrences, and further away from statistical anomaly. I would describe this as structuring the games, through the officiating, to favour the more dominant teams.
-
Interesting piece here from Grauniad about Alfie's son....
I like this line, which fits Deadlegs even more than Alfie's son...
"As ever with a prolific striker, raises the question of whether he is getting his side out of jail, or whether there is something about the way he plays that gets them into trouble."Given (apart from the finishing ability) Alfie's son is a quite different player to Deadlegs, I do wonder how Pep was going to set up if he'd signed Sir Harry of Tottingham as he wanted to a couple of years ago.
-
Harry has a decent shot of winning the champions league, which would wipe the smuggles off of the faces of his haters a whole bunch. Super impressive performance tonight against Lazio.
-
I imagine that there are haters, but that's not me. I just think that Kane brings a style of play that is not conducive to top teams winning things. Unless they are massively dominant and just need a good finisher. Of which he is one of the best in world football. Until his legs. Are dead.
