roversfan99

I wouldn't mind a "selfish" player if it meant one that scored 28 goals to be fair. Don't think Southampton will let him go, involved at the moment coming on with a very selfless assist on Saturday.

I never said he had. I am just saying that in general, lots of players pull out last minute of games when they have interest from elsewhere and they are no longer in the right frame of mind.

I think he will play but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't. He wouldn't be the first player to become unsettled and pull out of a match due to transfer issues. It's all well and good saying he plays regardless but if he is visibly unhappy then he won't.

I don't think that the owners should over rule the manager, or if relevant, the manager and director of football. I stand by that decision. Venkys have employed Broughton and Tomasson because presumably they seem them both as being capable of performing their role, and I would hazard a guess that their footballing knowledge compared to that could be scribbled on the back of a stamp. We are undeniably short at centre back, even if you have untold faith in Phillips when no one can be sure how he will cope with a sudden batch of Championship games in quick succession. One more injury and we really are going to struggle, so it is IMO critical that we get one in as soon as we can, and if we are after 2, maybe we can get 1 in and Van Den Berg becomes less urgent. My point was not that Tomasson will come out and say "I feel let down" or even that he will feel let down if we struggle with the lack of depth across the rest of the month. I am saying that he would be entitled to do so.

Because Dack is a very good player. Reading played only one day prior in similar temperatures. We also have more comparative scope to make changes if we choose/need to, Reading had a bench full of kids. I am still unsure why you keep mentioning last season, we had a different manager, it was far later in the season, we was in terrible form, and both sides will be more than 50% changed. And what sort of logic is, we should have won last year but lost so even though we should beat them this season, I will take a draw?!

It is not just specific specialisation, but also on general ability too. If a team with good, ruthless strikers is over exceeding its xG, that could be sustainable, likewise a team with poor strikers and scoring less than xG suggests they should be. It goes back to sustainability and expecting teams to naturally revert close to their xG. I don't think that it is bollocks but I think it is an incredibly flawed concept so needs to be taken with a huge pinch of salt. It makes sense to want to increase the number of chances that you create. I also think that it is has become fashionable to use xG with little context in the mainstream media. Take the Second Tier Podcast, they can't and don't watch most games so they become somewhat reliant on soundbites and cliches, so xG can be used as a crutch to suggest more knowledge about how a team is doing than they actually have. What I am saying about the way a game goes beyond measuring xG before and after goals. Games early often can be cagey and once players tire etc, the game can open up a bit for one. But say Travis/Brereton don't score the goals they do, the whole game is different. Maybe West Brom score first for example and we pen West Brom in the second half in their own half creating chances. So much is reliant on the flow of a game and when that first goal in particular comes. I also don't think it makes for constructive debate to be so dismissive that people simply don't understand it.

Why is that particularly relevant? We lost to West Brom at home and Swansea away last season, but with many different players and a different manager. The guy who scored the winner last season has left. There isn't some sort of strange curse at the Madejski, it's coincidence. They are one of the worst sides in the league, have loads of players out including Joao and Meite and have the worst keeper in the Championship and the worst manager. We have won all 3 games. I don't get why anyone would take a draw.

Do you agree/disagree with my points that: - The assertion that over/under performing xG and sustainability doesn't factor in the likelihood that teams will not automatically fall back towards their xG due to either having particularly ruthless/wasteful strikers either in general or if their teams create types of chances that their strikers specialise in - The above point was a big factor in the drop off following Brereton's injury last season - As evident in our first 3 games, the first goal can hugely skew the xG especially if a first half goal is not from a clear cut chance because of the natural way that a team losing will want/need to attack more than one protecting a lead Or have they just been dismissed under the "he clearly doesn't understand what he is talking about" line?

Not from the treatment table.

I am certainly not endorsing just signing crap for the sake of it, nobody has.

But if Travis and Brereton hadn't smashed in screamers to put us 1 up, the onus wouldn't have then gone almost solely onto our opponents to score an equaliser, making them attack more. The primary reason I would suggest that we went from suddenly outperforming to underperforming last season was not even that it wasn't sustainable. Our main striker who was getting most of oru chances was injured and our remaining attackers (Dolan, Khadra, Gallagher) don't have that same level of composure.

The Martin comments were not specific to xG, its mainly the possession Swansea have that makes people give Martin excessive "patience" that his principles will come together. It was just as a comparison albeit at a slight tangent to my point about Steve Cooper's Swansea and those comments which were about xG. But the stats we quoted were on xG whereby my point is surely valid. Even so, the idea that these stats will catch up to you is flawed even if we take for granted that NSxG factors in occasions like I flagged, poor touches, players not getting on the end of pull backs etc. And I have serious issues with the idea that any metric can totally objectify such aspects. Because teams will naturally over/under perform on these stats based on the quality of their attackers who get on these chances. A team might have ruthless strikers or indeed create better chances specific to the strengths of those attackers (for example, a target man might be much more likely to score a header of the same xG than a different type of chance, say a one on one) that means that they outperform those stats in a sustainable way.

To be fair, I think I would rather play 10 than go with Magloire, but your point in general is 100% correct. We have one injury prone but very good centre back, a kid who has played 60 minutes and nothing else. Without further injuries, we are still so short and the urgency is massive, or should be. I don't ever remember him saying that he turned down permanent players, but even if he had, the £5m rumour wouldn't automatically be true. Ultimately a manager should (if given autonomy) live and die by his decisions (add in director of football too when appropriate) including in the transfer market. A sale you deem to be a bad choice does not mean that the owners should have overruled it! As it is, with a season in between of a shit keeper, Mowbray then signed a very good one but either way, if the issue is the manager (or again, director of football) making below par signings in general (and Mowbray's main faults I would say weren't in this aspect) then the owners shouldn't start interfering with individual decisions, they should change the people who are making those decisions. Sadly they don't seem to judge their employees on performance. If they occasionally need to ask for a big sale to balance the books or whatever, ok, but they should NOT be overruling decisions on individual players.

How is it not? If you go ahead in all 3 games, then the opposition naturally end up attacking more than you (more often than not) to chase an equaliser, in which case they tend to take shots to try and get that goal. Add in the fact that our opening goals in 2 of the 3 games were from low xG shots and that only makes that stat seem worse. Would you not be better telling me how specifically I am wrong rather than being patronising in a way that you would definitely react negatively to if the shoe was on the other foot?

No way can we chuck Edun in, he is a liability. I would be wary of any changes bar Dack for Szmodics. Hard to take out a Buckley or a Hedges without weakening us. We badly need more players in.

Even assuming that Ayala who has a history of injuries and Phillips who has shown tendency to break down as his body grows both stay fit, how would people feel about potentially having only those 2 centre backs available over the next 5 games if signings aren't imminent? Totally get that quality comes first but Tomasson would have the right to feel aggrieved at those above him and I would not be comfortable with having to give Phillips such a run of games.

No it wasn't a good thing, you make out as if there were 2 options, to keep Rothwell or to sell him, without considering the potential to reinvest. As it is, we ended up with no Rothwell and no money. I am not convinced that Klopp and Pep are overruled but the thing is with these instances, they are the opposite. I would get the owners pressuring people to sell someone to raise funds potentially more, but to stubbornly keep players letting their contracts expire rather than letting the manager decide? Absolute rubbish. You took seriously the other week that van Hecke was signing because someone joked about it, so perhaps you more than anyone needs to re-evaluate your natural stance on rumours. The reason that I don't believe that rumour is because it makes no logical sense, it's not a slight on the individual poster by any means. And the irony of you saying to other people that it is not Football Manager.

Of course, but I think fixture coincidences like this tend to happen, either way I doubt a squad for whom most played few if any of those games will be weighed down by our poor recent record.

Surely the biggest reason that our xG is so low is because we took the lead in all 3 games, so the game naturally became a case of the opposition pushing more for a goal than us? Another flaw can be highlighted by an example on Sunday. A player can be put through on goal but due to a poor touch or a bit of indecision, he may be through on goal and not actually shoot, which would be an xG of 0. The same can be said if a ball like in the first half on Sunday when Hedges slid the ball across and no one got a proper shot away is put across but not quite tapped in, again, 0 expected goals. In either instance, a fantastic chance has been created but neither register on this flawed metric. Another good example is Brereton at home to Barnsley last season, put in and took a poor touch but managed to score from a difficult angle. He turned a great chance into a poor chance with a poor touch but scored anyway, meaning that the stats unjustifiably show us as being more "clinical" than we actually were. This idea that it catches up on you isn't always right either. Second Tier Podcast relentlessly criticised Steve Cooper's Swansea because their xG was well below their league position yet they made the play offs in both seasons, irrespective of predictions that they would drop off. Alternatively, because Russell Martin's football is a stats mans dream, there is an expectation that they will eventually catch up their xG. There are just so many flaws.

Forgetting Mowbray as my point was about the owners. I dont believe that we had a £5m budget that went unspent, thats my point. Makes even less sense when you factor in that Mowbray complained that he want some money to reinvest. Whether there was arse covering by Mowbray or not, my point is that I don't take much notice of rumours that we have much money unspent and I would presume that is common anyway. If a manager is allocated x amount as a budget, surely the chances of him spending it to the penny are very unlikely anyway. Ill continue to judge on what is spent rather than rumours of what apparently isnt. My other point is I strongly disagree with the notion of Venkys overuling the manager preventing sales and potential reinvestment and find it incredible that people defend them for it. Did he say that he would jump at a return? Where are those quotes?

Reading are not only one of the very worst teams in the league but are also probably even more threadbare than us. Their subs bench on Saturday was a sub keeper and 6 kids whereas we at least have Dack, Dolan and Morton to come in should we feel the need to change anything. As a team with the aim of improving upon 8th place and sitting pretty at the top, we should be feeling confident of beating such a poor opposition both in players and managers and any dropped points would be frustrating. Reading hoodoo? Come on.

If we were playing in the Premier League, we could treat games v City and Liverpool as free hits, anythings a bonus against opposition so superior. In this average league, there is no reason for an inferiority complex at all. We finished 8th last season and all signs are good with our new manager.

Where is it from that Mowbray never spent his budget or that he declined a £5m budget? Something which goes against him wanting to sell Rothwell to raise funds. Easier to judge on what is spent eather than on rumours on what wasnt spent. But surely we can expect a big net spend with all this spare money sloshing around.

Matip is out for two weeks which takes us to the end of the window. Gomez was fit enough to be on the bench and come so the question is whether Liverpool run with just Van Dijk, Phillips and Gomez for the next 2 weeks and let him go soon (critical for us with Wharton and Carter out) or if they keep him with Matip and Konate out.

Stop being pedantic. The owners should not overrule Tomasson in situations as I suggested. If he is ok with Brereton being sold for say £15m and reinvesting £8-10m on a good replacement, but Venkys refuse to budge from £20m, it is Tomasson who will be directly affected in a year when he has a huge hole where his goalscorer was and no money to replace him.