7rew

Given that Doherty played in the same defence as Jon Otsemobor, indeed actually next to him, I don''t understand how he can be rated anywhere near the top of the liabilities list. Doherty played right central defender and right back at the same time for several years. The defence wasn''t great when he did, but we can''t blame him for that.

"alartz wrote ''how do you sleep at night when opening your pay slip up every month'' " To quote from Rainer Wolfcastle: "On top of a huge pile of money with many beautiful ladies."

The recent buddy signings I remember were: Bassong, Gutierrez, Fox, Tierney and Martin. Except for Gutierrez, I''d take another one of those.

*waves from 2010.*

I''m so glad that the bad racist who sat next to me last season has moved seat. That''s bad as in inaccurate, rather than anything else.

Frankly, my thoughts were that we made the game too open as the team 2-0 up, and that is what lead to their goal.

If I had to sum up "the Norwich Way",  I''d use these words: NEGATIVE GOAL DIFFERENCE.  Winning tight games and getting smashed when we lose.I notice that (regardless of what the actual playing style was), the OP associates "the Norwich Way" only with successful teams.  I''m younger than the OP and it is of course possible that we found a way of playing that always works but were too stupid to keep using it, but it seems rather unlikely.  Rather more likely is that the components held by every successful (ie winning) team that he is identifying as "the Norwich Way" after the event.I am certainly old enough to remember Worthington and Lambert.  Apart from the tendency to win games, there wasn''t that much in common between the two.  Given Lambert''s current issues with Darren Bent, I don''t think he would have got on well with Huckerby.My personal view is that competitive sport, any competitive sport, is about controlling luck.  Good management is about maximising the chances of achieving your target, which is a combination of the expected number of points gained over a season and the variance of the points you gain.When the target is to win the league/promotion, as it has been for many seasons for us, then unless you are very much better than most other teams, variance is basically irrelevant.  You just need as many points as you can get.Things are different when avoiding relegation is the target. About half the time will be like we were last year, where the average number of points we could expect was close to, or even just below, that required for the target.  Then high variance (i.e. attacking, if-you-score-3-we''ll-score-4) tactics are really good, as getting above the target is as likely as going below it.  Last year in particular they worked spectacularly, beyond most of our wildest dreams, but there was a lot of luck.  This is not to denigrate what we achieved last season - win or lose its all luck in the end. This season is different, the number of points we could expect to get was, and is, above the number required to avoid relegation.  This means the higher the variance, the more likely we are to go down. Attacking football may have got us a few more points and it may have got us a few less points as well.  What it probably wouldn''t do is radically change the number of points we expect to get.  This season we have traded a very small number of points from the expected in return for largely raising the lower bound on the distribution, lowering the number of points we expect to get 50% of the time in return for raising the number of points we get 90% of the time.  I''m glad we did, because the luck really hasn''t gone our way this season.  This isn''t a complaint, after all luck, good or bad, is what makes sport so much fun.We don''t and we will never know what might have happened with different tactics. However, there are some things I think reasonable to say about the options.If we played the season 100 times with us playing as we did last season (tactics A) and 100 playing as we have this season (tactics D):1) our highest finish would be higher with A than with D.2) the total number of points we got would be higher with tactics A than D.3) the number of times we finished in the bottom 3 and were relegated would be higher with tactics A than D.4) the range of positions we finished in would be larger with tactics A than D.A key strategy from another game I play is summed up succinctly as "If you are sure to make your target, play for everything going wrong.  If you only might make your target, play for everything going right".  I think this is really good advice, is what Hughton has done and I''m glad he has.

But Booklet, we aren''t bottom of the form table. - http://stats.football365.co.uk/dom/ENG/PR/oform.htmlIf you make stuff up to back up your point, then why don''t you expect to be told you are wrong?

To Frere Jacques:von Wolfswinkelvon Wolfswinkelthe Mutts Nutsthe Mutts Nutscome-and-see-the-goals-scoredcome-and-see-the-goals-scoredthe Mutts Nutsthe Mutts Nuts

I am confident enough we are safe that I could view a loss at Wigan almost with equanimity, simply because it massively adds to the probability of Villa going down.  I still really want to win or at least a draw though.

There is quite a large amount of overlap in those stats.It would be interesting to see the difference between when we start Whittaker, Turner, Bassong, Garrido, Johnson, Tettey, Pilkington, Hoolahan, Snodgrass and Holt outfield as opposed to what happens when we start some other outfield combination.It does highlight that we have gone from a team with depth last year to one without this year, simply by buying better players on top.

Yes. Why does Hughton persist in playing our repeated winner of player of the month in his favoured position? 

I''d go 42 points and 14th place.I have no idea which 9 points those will be.  They won''t be at the Etihad, but we could win any of the others.

Well, 4.5% of times we lose every game we still stay up according to the simulations on http://www.sportsclubstats.com/England/Premier.html (us losing every match only happens 1 in about 1650 times).  Indeed the simulations found occasions where we lose every match and finish 15th (although not many).Relegation falls below 50% when we get 3 more points.

I''m firmly behind Hughton.I think the main difference between this season and last season, is that last season Boruc dives the other way.Also, even if Johnson isn''t good enough as a starter, we won''t sign 3 defensive-midfielders ahead of him in the summer, so he''s worth a new contract.

I don''t think we''ll get away without selling some of our better players this time unfortunately.  I think we might start to see seriously big bids for some of the midfield. (and I wouldn''t mind selling if the money is reinvested as I expect it would be).So, I''d say we need replacements in the squad for Jackson, Barnett, Fox and Tierney, to sign up Garrido and Kamara and possibly another left winger, depending on what happens with Surman.  That would give us 2 good players for all positions I think.After all that, any extra quality we can get our hands on.

"with a large enough set of numbers you can make statistics say whatever they want them to?"Actually, no you can''t.  There is no size of data set for where the sun rises that will allow you to say it is in the west.And you''d be better off with a really small set of numbers if you want them to say what you want them to.

Harry will have to change things. Absolutely no point Hughton making changes until he knows what Harry will do.

[quote user="ricardo"]They are all bloody lizards mate.[/quote]I think that was too subtle, but I appreciate it.

Of course there is a premature meltdown.If they wait till February 1st then they probably won''t be able to have one, so they''ve got to get it while its hot.

Remy''s deal will end up costing them in the region of 25.5 million.  While I don''t believe we will spend  that much on 1 player, we could sign both Graham and Hooper on £30,000 a week for 3 years for 8 million each and still not spend that much in total.So I''m not that worried by not spending that much in total.

To be in the bottom 3, http://www.sportsclubstats.com/England/Premier.html gives the following chances (based on ranking teams by previous results and opposition):QPR - 87%Villa - 68%Wigan - 52%Reading - 42%Newcastle - 27%Southampton - 12%Norwich - 6%Fulham - 3%These look reasonable to me.  I''d say 3 of Villa, QPR, Wigan, Reading.  My personal opinion is that I back Wigan to survive based on experience of battles down there.

For the record, In Vaughan we lost a player that played 148 minutes and had 0 shots on target last season. (OPTA stats)I don''t think the fetish people make out of speed is borne out in results either, but I haven''t made a study of it.

Kane, then Vaughan, then Mikhail-Smith.Kane and Vaughan have better (and similar) championship records than Mikhail-Smith, putting them both ahead of him.  Kane however achieved his in half a season compared to Vaughan''s whole season.  Kane also comes with the bonus that he doesn''t take up a place in the 25 man squad as he is too young.  This means that the question isn''t really Vaughan or Kane, but Vaughan or (Kane and Martin)  and for that there is no contest.  

Given that Doherty had to play both right sided central defender and right back for a significant proportion of his matches, I don''t think he did too badly.I always wonder if had Shackell played on the right and Doherty on the left, how different opinions of the two would be.