[Archived] Premier League Happenings

[Majiball]

It's just length of time with the club, not in the PL. It's an astonishing table.

It does show that the idea of building teams over 3 or 4 years really doesn't exist anymore. It seems the best way clubs can hope for continuinity now is by being intelligent with appointments and bringing in managers who match the philosophy of the club.

Swansea are probably the perfect example with Martinez, Rodgers and Laudrup. Jenkins has already said he has a plan should Laudrup leave. They're probably the model club for those outside the top six at the moment.

Slowly slowly clubs in england are figuring out that when you chop and change managers, you change everything each time. Staff, players, tactics, the youth etc etc etc. It's crazy and financial suicide. Look at Spain, Germany & Italy almost every club in each of those countries plays a similiar style, a new man comes in and not so much changes. In germany they counter, spain possession and italy defend and build slowly. This makes life so much easier when a new man comes in, you don't need to sell all your players, you don't need to change your staff too much, you don't need to change the youth as the style and tactics don't really change that much. just look at us and the different styles why have had over the last 10 years, we have flipped from style to style, each time needing to buy plenty of players to make this happen and all to benefit one person the manager. It's madness and will only lead to ruin. But in England because you don't have a footballing culture like the other countries this needs to be done by the clubs and stuck too. Even in the premier league we see several styles and that's not a bad thing but causes issues when managers only last a year or so. WBA impose a style on the manager play this way or don't come and work here, I agree 100% with this. You see if a manager can only play one way, I personally see this as he's shouldn't be in the job. A coach who only knows one style when there are loads to me is a man not capable of doing the job. He may have personal preferences but again a world class coach manager who can only play one way isn't world class. Clubs need to decide how they want to play and structure everything towards this, youth, ressies, science scouting the whole lot it works and the EPPP is about this. Moneyball is a book people should read as it's made many in football over here turn round and go we've got it wrong.

[ABBEY]

off twitter but so true

[Tom]

Nzonzi hands in a transfer request at Stoke

Big Sam will be keen

[Clitherover]

Nzonzi hands in a transfer request at Stoke

Big Sam will be keen

West Ham are not much of a step up for him though, if any. Nzonzi has a bit of an ego on him so he'll probably be looking to move to one of the bigger clubs.

[Aberdeen Blue]

Been into brazil and Merson too but no replies .. Everyone on twitter should oin them .

Nice one Abbey.

Just stuck this on the BBC report regarding Hughes to Stoke:

"Post 546:

How come Steve Kean is not being linked to any of these jobs?

The media were forever telling us hard done by he was at Blackburn so surely someone would welcome the Cumbernauld Cruyff?"

keaners the lot of 'em!

[ABBEY]

and id guess no replies from media chaps.

[Aberdeen Blue]

Not holding my breath

[thenodrog]

Yep you are right

Probably longest-serving Premier League managers (prediction for 1 June 2013)

As I've said frequently the length of tenure of a Prem manager coupled with the current player contracts will never allow for any manager to assemble his own squad. Crackers really... you inherit a dysunctional squad and you leave a dysfunctional squad and there's sweet FA you can do about it!

Small wonder DoF's are becoming all the rage is it?

[Salgado Is A Hero]

West Brom seem to be the blueprint for it.

And as that Guardian article someone linked a few months ago showed, Villa are an equally valid reason for it. With all the outcasts there that are on high wages.

It works in Europe after all.

But in Spain, Germany, Italy etc, they all have their ways of playing.

Here we have the counter, long ball, possession football, various mixes of all three.....you need time to develop your philosophy......in Europe, they often play the same way in each league.

[Guest Norbert]

We used to have a 'style'-solid 4-4-2 with hard working midfielders, out and out wingers etc. but that is seen as too old fashioned rightly or wrongly. I agree that teams need time to develop a method of playing, but not so sure about whole leagues.

[Batman.]

and id guess no replies from media chaps.

Hang on, so the Professionals haven't risen to the illiterate abuse that you've thrown at them?

Fancy that.

[Philly13]

Slowly slowly clubs in england are figuring out that when you chop and change managers, you change everything each time. Staff, players, tactics, the youth etc etc etc. It's crazy and financial suicide. Look at Spain, Germany & Italy almost every club in each of those countries plays a similiar style, a new man comes in and not so much changes. In germany they counter, spain possession and italy defend and build slowly. This makes life so much easier when a new man comes in, you don't need to sell all your players, you don't need to change your staff too much, you don't need to change the youth as the style and tactics don't really change that much. just look at us and the different styles why have had over the last 10 years, we have flipped from style to style, each time needing to buy plenty of players to make this happen and all to benefit one person the manager. It's madness and will only lead to ruin. But in England because you don't have a footballing culture like the other countries this needs to be done by the clubs and stuck too. Even in the premier league we see several styles and that's not a bad thing but causes issues when managers only last a year or so. WBA impose a style on the manager play this way or don't come and work here, I agree 100% with this. You see if a manager can only play one way, I personally see this as he's shouldn't be in the job. A coach who only knows one style when there are loads to me is a man not capable of doing the job. He may have personal preferences but again a world class coach manager who can only play one way isn't world class. Clubs need to decide how they want to play and structure everything towards this, youth, ressies, science scouting the whole lot it works and the EPPP is about this. Moneyball is a book people should read as it's made many in football over here turn round and go we've got it wrong.

Yep Moneyball is fantastic. Its all about market inefficiencies and exploiting them. Unfortunately football doesn't have the reliable stats to use like baseball does so it's harder

[Guest Norbert]

If there is one thing US sports fans love, it is stats, ratios etc. Opta, Prozone and suchlike can do so much, but I don't think the Moneyball thing will work until someone invents a forensic system of stats that goes into autistic levels of details.

[M-K]

Football is more about the alchemy of a team game than the individual performances of baseball. You can't build a squad based on players who get the most throw-ins per game or draw the most fouls out of the opposition. Moneyball might work for cricket, if cricket players had huge transfer fees.

[Ricky]

Defenders with the best 'tackles won' stats, keepers with the highest 'save/ shot' ratio, forwards with the most shots on target. Players in CM who have the highest pass completion. I guess you could use some of those stats to help scout players. That's probably as close to the moneyball idea as you'd get in football.

[Guest Norbert]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2330591/Robin-van-Persie-sent-Piers-Morgan-message-picture-Premier-League-title-win.html

Good retort to that odious pillock.

[thenodrog]

Isn't it odd that a proper big club supporter (Arsenal) can accuse footballers of being mercenary? I know Arsenal keep a much healthier balance sheet than their main rivals but does he not consider what factor made RVP leave Feyenoord for Arsenal in the first place? Truth is that everybody who has ever won the Prem (or the 1st Div previously) since the abolishment of the maximum wage has effectively bought it... albeit to a greater or lesser extent.

[Majiball]

If there is one thing US sports fans love, it is stats, ratios etc. Opta, Prozone and suchlike can do so much, but I don't think the Moneyball thing will work until someone invents a forensic system of stats that goes into autistic levels of details.

But they do go into autistic levels of detail and pro-zone does far more than is displayed in the papers. Pass completion (PS) for example expands in to PS 0-10 yds, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51+, right foot, left foot, from which area of the pitch, final 1/3, mid 1/3, home 1/3, you get the idea? You can add in some qualitative aspects IE pass type to classify (x) the above details and you've just turned PS into 72 stats with x classifications. Then just for fun lets add in concepts like T-patterning, software that can analysis a match for technical and physical actions, generating when they do them most frequently during a match, in what area's and so on. The physical stats are crazy, time walking, total distance walking, walking in 5, 10, 15 min segments , jogging, running, cruising, sprinting, avg distances etc etc. do that over say 5-10 matches as the majority of matches are filmed these days and the video's obtainable and you're actually adding objectivity to subjectiveness. An analysis man costs about 30K a year or one week of danny murphy's salary.

Football is more about the alchemy of a team game than the individual performances of baseball. You can't build a squad based on players who get the most throw-ins per game or draw the most fouls out of the opposition. Moneyball might work for cricket, if cricket players had huge transfer fees.

A football team is 11 individual performing as a unit to tactical requirements. If you have one player who doesn't fit in the team suffers because of it. but also consider the money involved in signing a player these days. Your boss comes along says I want a CB who's good at x y z, search the database and give him a list of players that fit the requirements. Send your scouts out to watch them and away you go.

Yep Moneyball is fantastic. Its all about market inefficiencies and exploiting them. Unfortunately football doesn't have the reliable stats to use like baseball does so it's harder

Produce the figures over say 10 matches and a pretty clear picture of what they're good at what they're kean at can be extrapolated. Yes it is harder as they are many more aspects to consider than his actions on the pitch, personality, culture, etc etc. It's far from perfect but when you're spending 10-80M million quid on players these days increasing the odds of him being a success by even 10% is well worth the 120K it would take to do it every season. Whilst the above isn't what they do exactly Everton have been doing this for a while and it would appear to be a method that certainly reduces the risks of a flop.

[Stuart]

But they do go into autistic levels of detail and pro-zone does far more than is displayed in the papers. Pass completion (PS) for example expands in to PS 0-10 yds, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51+, right foot, left foot, from which area of the pitch, final 1/3, mid 1/3, home 1/3, you get the idea? You can add in some qualitative aspects IE pass type to classify (x) the above details and you've just turned PS into 72 stats with x classifications. Then just for fun lets add in concepts like T-patterning, software that can analysis a match for technical and physical actions, generating when they do them most frequently during a match, in what area's and so on. The physical stats are crazy, time walking, total distance walking, walking in 5, 10, 15 min segments , jogging, running, cruising, sprinting, avg distances etc etc. do that over say 5-10 matches as the majority of matches are filmed these days and the video's obtainable and you're actually adding objectivity to subjectiveness. An analysis man costs about 30K a year or one week of danny murphy's salary.

A football team is 11 individual performing as a unit to tactical requirements. If you have one player who doesn't fit in the team suffers because of it. but also consider the money involved in signing a player these days. Your boss comes along says I want a CB who's good at x y z, search the database and give him a list of players that fit the requirements. Send your scouts out to watch them and away you go.

Produce the figures over say 10 matches and a pretty clear picture of what they're good at what they're kean at can be extrapolated. Yes it is harder as they are many more aspects to consider than his actions on the pitch, personality, culture, etc etc. It's far from perfect but when you're spending 10-80M million quid on players these days increasing the odds of him being a success by even 10% is well worth the 120K it would take to do it every season. Whilst the above isn't what they do exactly Everton have been doing this for a while and it would appear to be a method that certainly reduces the risks of a flop.

Genuinely fascinating stuff. If I had the time I'd read up on this stuff.

It seems way OTT for what I need but I'm sure I could take something out of it that would help in junior football.

[Majiball]

Genuinely fascinating stuff. If I had the time I'd read up on this stuff.

It seems way OTT for what I need but I'm sure I could take something out of it that would help in junior football.

You'd be there all week doing that on your own!

However I do have an idea, do you have a parent who maybe be willing to play a role during the match? A Mac (could maybe do it on a PC) and a camcorder? Oh and about 1-2 hours free-time to be spent in front of a computer? (obvious answer, lol)

[Stuart]

You'd be there all week doing that on your own!

However I do have an idea, do you have a parent who maybe be willing to play a role during the match? A Mac (could maybe do it on a PC) and a camcorder? Oh and about 1-2 hours free-time to be spent in front of a computer? (obvious answer, lol)

It's all I can do to get someone to run the line!

[Majiball]

It's all I can do to get someone to run the line!

I bet you could sell it to them (no-one ever wants to run the line, bit like a KP in a hotel). Ask for one volunteer a week to video the match. if you have a mac I can get you the software (it's easy to use gamebreaker). Watch the match back and you can code clips of each of the kids good points N bad points, highlights if you like. Use it to feedback to them at training, parents can buy clips or the match and then they get vids of their kids playing etc to bore their mates. Make sure the kids know as when little bobby scores a goal he can then nag mummy N daddy for a video. You could even sell them to the opposing fans mail order? everyone pays up front so you only buy/do @#/? when they're paying and your club can have some spends?

[Guest Norbert]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22679633

Given is looking for a club. We could never afford him, but it would be interesting to see what he does.

[imy9]

He signed a five year deal at the age of 35! The premier league is mad.

[Paul]

Sometimes, sadly more frequently these days, the Premier league makes me want to vomit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/may/31/luis-suarez-liverpool-transfer-uruguay

£50m for Suarez. I've absolute no doubt Liverpool will ensure the money goes towards developing the longterm future of the club.