Spanish Wet Ham sandwich (A Match thread)

I fucking hope so. Bigger tests are coming. But no one is infallible. It might still go to shit with a couple of injuries but I'm absolutely going to milk the enjoyment dry whilst it lasts. We've all been waiting a hell of a long time for this...

We've got many strengths and a lot of options. Not getting carried away, but this might have been how Villa fans felt at this time last year.

Relax. It’s still Forest. The defence is doing brilliantly but there are mistakes in there that will dent the confidence, we’re short of midfield options and both Yates and Nico are limited and able to be made irrelevant by good opposition. We consistently fall short in the final third where quality and decisions are way below the standard of the play that gets us there. We’re playing well and have had a reasonably compliant fixture list that’s got us with points on the board, but things will only get harder. Also, our run of luck with recruitment (both who we’ve signed/sold and who we haven’t) will probably come to an end in January when we lose Murillo and spunk £60m on the new Lars Veldwijk.

We’re not going down though, and not only because the teams that will are especially bad. We have a good squad and a manager who seems to know exactly what to do with them. It’s very impressive.

Down with this sort of post.

Yates' Law of Perpetual Underappreciation

Definition:In any ongoing sequence of football matches (typically Nottingham Forest's), it is statistically inevitable that within every five-game cycle, an observer will assert with unshakable conviction that Ryan Yates is a limited footballer who may try hard but is simply not quite good enough for the level because he used to play for Scunthorpe, didn't cost £40M and has neither the range of passing or the flow of hair which is at or above the standard of Andrea Pirlo. This assertion is often made irrespective of Yates' actual performance, underlying metrics, or other observable variables.

Formal Statement: Given a series of games G(n) where n is the index of each game in sequence, the statement "Yates is not good enough" is an emergent, quasi-predictable phenomenon occurring with a regular periodicity of approximately every five games, or when Yates performs above his mean performance level, whichever comes first.

Corollary: The frequency of "Yates isn’t good enough" remarks appears inversely proportional to his work rate, stamina, shit-housing and overall impact on a game. An observed increase in positive overall team performance correlates with an escalation in criticisms, hypothesized to arise from a psychological displacement effect among fans seeking a inverse scapegoat.

Philosophical Objections (The O’Neil-Lamouchi-Hughton-Cooper School): Leading scholars of footballing philosophy, notably O'Neil, Lamouchi, Hughton, Cooper, and Espirito Santo, have over many years actively countered this proposition, suggesting instead that "Yates' Law" reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how midfielder footballer can do a job and influence a game. Their school argues that Yates’ contributions are systematically undervalued in the same way ancient Greek philosophers underappreciated labourers who built their temples.

O'Neil first observed that "Yates is undervalued relative to his contributions," a claim he presented as an axiomatic truth, positing that the midfielder embodies what he termed The Principle of Tactical Interference. This term captures Yates' unique ability to subtly destabilize opponents’ rhythm and influence the game through strategic disruption—a form of controlled chaos that often goes unnoticed but shifts match momentum.

Lamouchi developed this into a full Shifting Influence Paradigm, arguing that players like Yates excel in Kinetic Disruption: a near-art form of reshaping the tempo and mood of play, often with subtle provocations, fouls, and a hard-to-trace aura of “controlled nuisance.”

Hughton and Cooper refined this line of thought, developing a "Field of Perceptions" model in which Yates' perceived value fluctuates inversely with his actual contribution.

Espirito Santo notably introduced the concept of "Defensive Essentialism," a theory suggesting that criticism of Yates stems from a philosophical predisposition among fans to favor the visible flair of attacking players over the dark arts of defensive resilience.

Proof of Persistence: The "Yates Phenomenon" remains largely unaffected by empirical evidence, individual performance metrics, consistent gradual improvement in actual ability of Ryan Yates as a footballer over time or managerial praise. It operates as a fixed, irrational belief system, akin to a non-falsifiable hypothesis in pseudoscientific thought, impervious to rebuttals from the O’Neil-Lamouchi-Hughton-Cooper-Espirto Santo School.

If that ain't EBP I'll eat my own shit.

Interesting. The points are well made, if somewhat convoluted and rather selective. I’m very happy to say Yates continues to improve and is playing better than I thought he could; and despite initially being back-ups, he and Nico are keeping JWP out of the side. Curious to see what happens when Sangare and Danilo are fit again.

Of genuine interest, is that all your own work? Or cribbed/edited/chatGPt’ed?

Yep. First target: 30 points. Then let's see what happens.

If we've amassed those points by the end of the festive period, that would be outstanding progress and genuinely exciting to see what they could do in the second half of the season, attacking the run-in free of any relegation pressure.

I hope everyone has a screenshot of the table. I’m still looking down, not up. Solid mid table obscurity for me, please. That said, it seems strange to be thinking “good result for Forest” when Arsenal lose. And hoping United and Spurs do a number on Villa and Chelsea.

18 games is the new 10. I will be delighted if we get 8 points from the next 8 games (Newcastle, Arsenal, Ipswich, City, United, Brentford, Villa, Spurs).

Knowing you, you'll want ketchup with that and flat pop to wash it down.

I actually got my bot to do it with the prompt: set out the Ryan Yates Fallacy, or some such shit. So maybe EBP works in AI development for Elon these days. I'll see if it can do an Ingo one next.

It's all AI but I thought did a very good job which is why it's fine on this occasion for me to give it a like.

The whole of TalkBack is just AI these days isn't it?

This tackle looks worse the more I see it. Straight red? Also, has anybody got footage of the tangle between Yates and one of their lads, who ended up seeming to kick Yates in the head? I thought that could also have been a red.

x.com/j_heverin68/status/1853042420352483595?s=61&t=10kwuQXQpzhW7AeHKPyOYg

How that's not a straight red is beyond belief