Brentford and Wolves really going hammer and tong in terms of physicality without being overly dirty. It’s the kind of game I can see us losing the battle in it feel very easily the way that we’re playing right now
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armstrong nearly scored from exactly the kind of hesitant defending that caused us to draw the game against Spurs
Brentford have capitulated here, lucky not to be 3-2 down. You have a 42ft tall forward in your box, you might want to start picking him up/blocking him off or something.
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Would love to sign Thiago, imagine what he could do under slot?
Probably do a few shifts at right back…or even better. He could pass to Gakpo.
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Need to move this thread above the 2024/25 thread to bring the season back on track. (Ummm, about that…)
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watching villa (3rd position in PL), you can see why Pl clubs are being killed in the CL. Absolute shit football.
Or in their case…the EL.
They’re doing well in that aren’t they? Scratch that.
Best league in the world!!
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English football does seem to be in some sort of identity crisis over what games play like.
Currently everyone just looks to be hunting for cheats and exploits rather than winning through any kind of style or system.
Probably an impact of so much data analysis thesedays. Players and coaches being advised things like “we have a 60% of getting the first shot of the game if we immediately kick the ball out of play from the goal kick” etc. (I made that stat up).
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Seeing forest deal with spurs so easily shows how incredibly bad we’ve been this season. Surely it’s time for a managerial change
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Yeah I made a similar point a few weeks ago about the impact of analytics. It seems like Teams are now actively trying to turn the game into a series of discrete plays because that is all that can be modeled with statistical analysis. It’s Charlie Hughes football to the nth degree
Edit…maybe better stated as discrete plays are more aligned with what can be confidently modeled.
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Fantastic from Neco, get our boy back.
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I hoped Aston Villa would fold against West Ham… I was wrong as I often am. It seems that constant shooting ourselves in the foot has left us fighting for fifth with at least three other teams - and I don’t see us winning that fight unless something major changes quickly.
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This result puts our display against Spurs into perspective.
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TBH, our matches against any opponents rarely passed the eye test. Do not really need stats or results from other teams tell us the story.
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It’s a shame West Ham couldn’t get a result today.
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I think you’re onto something there. It does feel like the Premier League is drifting into a phase where optimization is starting to replace expression. Instead of teams asking, “How do we impose ourselves on this game?” the question increasingly sounds like, “Where are the marginal gains?”
Take Arsenal as the clearest example right now. Their heavy emphasis on set pieces has been incredibly effective, no doubt about that, but it’s also changed the feel of matches. When a significant portion of attacking threat comes from rehearsed corner routines, blocking patterns, and second-phase chaos rather than open-play construction, the spectacle becomes more mechanical. Efficient? Yes. Entertaining? Less so.
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The little I remember from what Graham said about our stats/modelling team, it’s more of a whole-picture analysis that we do?
In trying to evaluate players, yes. But statistical analysis has gone beyond that to using it as a prescription for the game plan and that is almost impossible to do when treating the game as a continuous system
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Spurs revert to getting stuffed and shipping 2+ goals per PL match after having some respite last week.
The longer this season goes on the more apparent it is how truly fucking shit we are.
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