The Great Mass Debater

This sounds like Lambert's wingless wonders?

How much more dire could a game get I wonder?

Interesting. Lose two more games and we'll have lost the same number of games as we have won. Have any of our wins been potential losses, because if we had lost just one of those tight games we actually won (if such a thing exists) then this would be the same. And losing the same number of games as you win is mid-table form. I know there's a lot of if my aunt had balls she be my uncle stuff in there, but it shows the fine margins. Convert 1 win into a loss and it's mid-table performance

Harry Kane is a more useful acquisition for your team. He will score goals out of nowhere and will convert the chances created reliably. Based on Xg Rooney needs more chances per goal. It used to be said about Andrew Cole that he scored a lot of goals, but actually he missed a hell of a lot and needed 5 good chances a game for every one goal he scored

Ideally you want your Xg and your actual goals to match. As you say, it's not luck. Not over the course of a season anyway. If you have a poor striker who cannot convert chances your team creates, then you are underperforming. If you overperform and your actual goals are higher than your Xg, that suggests a degree of fortune, or reliance on individual brilliance which is not likely to be sustainable

Dowell pulling out?

I've posted this video before, as though about John McGinn, talks much about how Dean Smith likes to play. May be relevant to the conversation

http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2022/08/27/xg-liverpool-9-0-bournemouth-2022-expected-goals-match-stats-lfc-vs-afcb/ 3.53 apparently, showing that really, Bournemouth were pretty unlucky. I remember seeing those goals and thinking the majority of those were pretty outrageous. That Parker lost his job on the back of that is also unfortunate

Yeah I tried to find an Xg table, ie expected points based on Xg and XgA per games. Xg is a measure of how many times you should be expected to score however. So a team with an Xg higher than the actual goals it scores is underperforming, rather than this being a positive reflection of chances created. I remember reading an article when the concept first emerged, BBC I think. It showed that Harry Kane was scoring well above his Xg - ie scoring goals when you really wouldnt expect him to, but by comparison Wayne Rooney's Xg was high, but he was not hitting this - ie he was scoring fewer goals in actuality that he should be expected to from the chances created for him

Xg by definition is subjective. I think it's a useful concept, but like VAR, you can really put the lines anywhere and when you want within a certain margin

How are people feeling now?

When I used to watch Derby as a kid, it was notable that every time they had a shot, even if it was miles off target, the crowd would go 'Ooooooh!' Like it was close... And not ironically either

Just closed it. I'll find it again https://footystats.org/england/championship/xg

Farke went from hero and new 4 year contract to zero in only 11 games (after having his best player sold out from under him and his war chest invested in the (someone else's) future). I wonder why Smith is being shown more loyalty/faith?

We're second in the table on Xg

The big question for me is, if this is the case, what happened with the Farke sacking? The way it went down it looked like they already had Farke's replacement lined up. To then go on a protracted chase, interview Lampard and Smith and ultimately pick Smith, who only became available AFTER we sacked Farke makes me think it was knee-jerk. But then why sack him after our first win and why did the directors all look so glum like the decision had been made well ahead of the game? All seems very weird. I forget now, but perhaps a plummer job came up which turned the heads of our primary target and left us flapping around? All seems poor from the club

Who was the first choice?

You have a much lower threshold than Jason Donovan. He could give you 10 good reasons to stay (or as I misheard in my youth, 10 gold pieces to stay)

Loved what he said about Grant

With the figures clubs deal with in terms of pay, signing on fees etc and the amounts of money clubs regularly have to write off in terms of natural wastage and loss of players book values, its really hard to imagine that paying what is tuppence in comparison would make the slightest bit of difference to anyone but the employees involved. When you're paying Ronaldo £500,000 a week, it seems ludicrous to imply that Bob the kitman can't get a few pounds an hour payrise

You're not 'supposed' to get one as such, but we do offer one if patients want one. If you thought you were 'supposed' to have one, how come you didnt proactively pursue this? I tend to hear things like this all the time 'nobody contacted me'. So why didnt you assume responsibility for your health rather than outsourcing it to someone else? Im your GP not your Mum! If you arent interested in your own results or health, why do you expect anyone else to be?!

We certainly have some frequent fliers. I see one kid almost every week. How her Mum gets appointments I dont know, it has stopped though since we had a change in receptionists. We could change the system so that GPs receive a little less funding from the Government which is made up by the appointment fees, so that noone is profiteering - that way technically everybody pays a bit less, but the people who actually use it pay more. Downside with that is the really sick people who need multiple appointments, and also, many of the people who use General Practice dont pay tax or NI, so this would be a huge 'new' cost on them. The increase in telephone consultations has meant better access for those who work (as now acceptable to step out of the office to take a call rather than having to take a day off) but before this the people who mainly used us didnt struggle for access (namely the retired population and kids) as they could access easily during the day.

Always happy to offer professional advice 😉 I was talking with my student earlier about access. Basically it's hard to get a GP appointment because demand far outweighs supply. Demand is exceptionally high because in the UK we have a Free at the Point of Access System (FATPOA). This means as Primary Care is state funded (through taxation and NI), patients have already paid for medical care, and dont have to stump up anything for it. So it's not free, but from the patient's perspective, there is no cost to going 100x per year rather than once or twice. So if you dont have to pay anything to go, then everybody wants to go. And there will never be enough GPs to cope with such a demand. If we changed the system so that patients had to pay £10 to see a GP we would cure the supply/demand problem overnight. People wouldnt pay £10 to come about a verruca or a cold, meaning patients that really needed GP input would be able to access the service. But at what cost? I do not advocate charging because people have already paid. But more than that, in countries like New Zealand, where Primary Care is private, the way most dentistry in the UK is now, you pay $60 to see your GP. GPs in NZ therefore have much quieter lives, are much less stressed and actually earn more money. BUT, this stresses the system elsewhere, so for instance Secondary Care is state funded, so patients go to A&E instead of their GP. This happens in the UK a lot as well, but that is driven by access problems rather than financial ones. I do not advocate charging for appointments because I think it encourages bad practice. Right now patients invest very little in an appointment, so when they have a virus or a self-limiting condition, I have no problem with telling them that, and generally it is accepted. Once you start operating in a system where a patient has paid a lot of money to come and see you, you start to feel like you need to give them something for their money. Something they dont need. This leads to patients having investigations they dont need (some invasive) or drugs they dont need, which come with their own risks and the risks of breeding resistant bacteria in the case of antibiotics. In countries where patients are a source of revenue, like your mechanic it is in the clinicians interest to find as much 'wrong' as possible and do as much as possible, as it makes them money. In Italy for example they do bladder wash outs for UTI. There is no evidence-base for this, but it's a nice little earner. So charging patients leads to bad practice and corruption. But even more important is that patients need to have as few barriers to seeing the Doc as possible. If you start charging, the little old lady whose 'period' has started up again might decide not to bother getting it checked, or a Mum might think 'it's probably not meningitis'. So in order to remain accessible to these patients, we need to remain free. Unfortunately we're at a point where the reality is that the main barrier to access now is not cost, but demand, and it may be worth having that national conversation about charging to see a GP in order to ensure patients who really need to see us arent blocked by all the coughs and colds who need to see noone. What with all the GP bashing of late, which we're used to but has got a hell of a lot worse in recent times there is much talk about General Practice doing what the dentists did, handing back contracts and setting up as Private clinicians en masse. (I dont think it will ever happen, but we've been attacked publicly far more than normal of late. All I would say is, you dont know what you've got til its gone...)

I had no interest in football until Italia 90. I was 9 then and England's heroic, dramatic and unentitled run oh so close to glory is what inspired me and turned me into a football fan. My kids couldnt care less about football. I was hoping England's recent successes would galvanise something in them like it did me, but no. I care very little for England these days, basically because I cant identify with the players, unlike bygone eras. I feel no connection to the team like I used to

Their best position some might say...