Expected Goals Stat

[hogesar 10,261]

 

We had over a 2 XG vs Burnley and then bettered United away from home.

I know some dont like stats but it does show that with Dowell in the side, or at least in this current shape, we are creating significantly more or better chances to score from.

[Monty13 2,662]

This is what annoys me about the we can’t compete at this level as we don’t have the cash argument.

No we can’t ever realistically break into the top 6, not going to happen. Even a top half finish is extremely unlikely. The idea however we can’t possibly put on competitive displays against other sides to challenge for 17th though is nonsense to me.

The issue is sides like ours have to work smarter and harder to be competitive and ideally need a little bit of luck. Ultimately through 3 of them are always getting relegated and eventually you can get caught out even if you’ve stayed up for years (looking at you Burnley). 

Brentford aren’t massively better than us as a team and club, neither were Sheffield United last time. They’ve just been better than us in these seasons.

[hertfordyellow 462]

27 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

This is what annoys me about the we can’t compete at this level as we don’t have the cash argument.

No we can’t ever realistically break into the top 6, not going to happen. Even a top half finish is extremely unlikely. The idea however we can’t possibly put on competitive displays against other sides to challenge for 17th though is nonsense to me.

The issue is sides like ours have to work smarter and harder to be competitive and ideally need a little bit of luck. Ultimately through 3 of them are always getting relegated and eventually you can get caught out even if you’ve stayed up for years (looking at you Burnley). 

Brentford aren’t massively better than us as a team and club, neither were Sheffield United last time. They’ve just been better than us in these seasons.

I agree it’s not impossible but it is very hard when most teams have much better players. Burnley and Brentford are obvious examples but they stand out because it is quite rare. The teams who stayed up have mostly paid wages at a grade higher than we can dream. Villa, Palace, Brighton etc

[daly 532]

Does that mean after 32 games we’ve finally found a ground breaking team

[Badger 2,732]

27 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

I agree it’s not impossible but it is very hard when most teams have much better players. Burnley and Brentford are obvious examples but they stand out because it is quite rare. The teams who stayed up have mostly paid wages at a grade higher than we can dream. Villa, Palace, Brighton etc

To some extent this confuses cause and effect. Of course clubs that stay up for several seasons pay more in wages - they have recruited players to play in the premier league for longer and consequently pay more. As Monty pointed out, it is a question of finding a way to play to keep us up the first, second year etc.

When Palace were originally promoted they paid far less than us in wages, but found a way of playing (defensive/ hoofball etc) under Pulis to keep them up. The 2014 accounts showed that we paid 18% more than Palace and went down + if we had stayed up, it would have been nearer 25% more with bonuses etc.

They did not stay up because they paid higher wages but because they "found a way."

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/29/premier-league-finances-club-by-club

[Monty13 2,662]

1 hour ago, hertfordyellow said:

I agree it’s not impossible but it is very hard when most teams have much better players. Burnley and Brentford are obvious examples but they stand out because it is quite rare. The teams who stayed up have mostly paid wages at a grade higher than we can dream. Villa, Palace, Brighton etc

I don’t think most teams have “much better”players personally, bar the obvious big teams playing for the title and/or Europe. The bottom 10 or so just have the right mix of players for how they are playing and have a few genuine quality ones that up the level of the whole team. It’s why those teams that look competitive go into free fall with a few injuries to those higher quality ones (look at Leeds without Bamford/Phillips).

Our problem this season has mainly been you put our best 11 out and the only stand out quality player is Pukki (thank god he hasn’t been injured). If we had two or three more we’d be genuinely pushing to survive IMO. I honestly believe if Buendia and Skipp were in this same team we’d have enough to be safe, caveat being with the right manager and play style and I don’t think Farke was the one to do it.

[hertfordyellow 462]

1 hour ago, Monty13 said:

I don’t think most teams have “much better”players personally, bar the obvious big teams playing for the title and/or Europe. The bottom 10 or so just have the right mix of players for how they are playing and have a few genuine quality ones that up the level of the whole team. It’s why those teams that look competitive go into free fall with a few injuries to those higher quality ones (look at Leeds without Bamford/Phillips).

Our problem this season has mainly been you put our best 11 out and the only stand out quality player is Pukki (thank god he hasn’t been injured). If we had two or three more we’d be genuinely pushing to survive IMO. I honestly believe if Buendia and Skipp were in this same team we’d have enough to be safe, caveat being with the right manager and play style and I don’t think Farke was the one to do it.

You get what you pay for. If you compare us with say Crystal Palace, they do have better players and more depth. We couldn’t have attracted the players they signed this summer on our wage structure.

[hertfordyellow 462]

3 hours ago, Badger said:

To some extent this confuses cause and effect. Of course clubs that stay up for several seasons pay more in wages - they have recruited players to play in the premier league for longer and consequently pay more. As Monty pointed out, it is a question of finding a way to play to keep us up the first, second year etc.

When Palace were originally promoted they paid far less than us in wages, but found a way of playing (defensive/ hoofball etc) under Pulis to keep them up. The 2014 accounts showed that we paid 18% more than Palace and went down + if we had stayed up, it would have been nearer 25% more with bonuses etc.

They did not stay up because they paid higher wages but because they "found a way."

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/29/premier-league-finances-club-by-club

Again taking individual cases and saying it proves a point isn’t helpful imo. Yes some stay up without that injection in their first season, but looking at the ones that did rapidly scale up their wages in the first season and a vast majority do stay up.

That said Fulham went down with 9th biggest wages. The example used is 8/9 years old. Money has become even more important since then.

Edited April 17, 2022 by hertfordyellow

[Monty13 2,662]

1 hour ago, hertfordyellow said:

You get what you pay for. If you compare us with say Crystal Palace, they do have better players and more depth. We couldn’t have attracted the players they signed this summer on our wage structure.

It’s a difference between a bit better and much better players though.

Palace have a really good player in Zaha, but Gallagher has arguably been their best player and he’s not even theirs. 

Other than that while I’m not going to argue our squad is as good as theirs, because it isn’t, their squad isn’t “much better” IMO, just a bit better. Take Gallagher out of their team and they’d have been struggling this year IMO.

Also they pay established Premier league wages because they’ve been here a while and they can attract players because they aren’t favourites to go down. We can’t compete mainly for those reasons not because they splash significantly more on wages than us, I’d guess their wage bill is within 20ish percent of ours which makes sense given their historical position.

[Badger 2,732]

4 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

Again taking individual cases and saying it proves a point isn’t helpful imo. Yes some stay up without that injection in their first season, but looking at the ones that did rapidly scale up their wages in the first season and a vast majority do stay up.

That said Fulham went down with 9th biggest wages. The example used is 8/9 years old. Money has become even more important since then.

I don't know how we can discuss this without looking at examples - they are the main evidence we  have.

You assert that money has become "even more important since then" and I don't altogether disagree with you - I think that the gap has widened so it is harder than ever for the newly promoted to stay up. Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the last two promoted sides to stay up - Sheffield Utd and Brentford have done so with smaller wage budgets than ourselves - again, "they found a way" for one year at least.

[Tetteys Jig 845]

2 hours ago, Monty13 said:

It’s a difference between a bit better and much better players though.

Palace have a really good player in Zaha, but Gallagher has arguably been their best player and he’s not even theirs. 

Other than that while I’m not going to argue our squad is as good as theirs, because it isn’t, their squad isn’t “much better” IMO, just a bit better. Take Gallagher out of their team and they’d have been struggling this year IMO.

Also they pay established Premier league wages because they’ve been here a while and they can attract players because they aren’t favourites to go down. We can’t compete mainly for those reasons not because they splash significantly more on wages than us, I’d guess their wage bill is within 20ish percent of ours which makes sense given their historical position.

Palace squad is light years ahead of us.

The likes of zaha, Eze, Olise, Hughes, Guehi, Mitchell, Gallacher would walk into the Norwich side, facts are their wages are far higher than Norwich would go near under current circumstances.

[hertfordyellow 462]

2 hours ago, Monty13 said:

It’s a difference between a bit better and much better players though.

Palace have a really good player in Zaha, but Gallagher has arguably been their best player and he’s not even theirs. 

Other than that while I’m not going to argue our squad is as good as theirs, because it isn’t, their squad isn’t “much better” IMO, just a bit better. Take Gallagher out of their team and they’d have been struggling this year IMO.

Also they pay established Premier league wages because they’ve been here a while and they can attract players because they aren’t favourites to go down. We can’t compete mainly for those reasons not because they splash significantly more on wages than us, I’d guess their wage bill is within 20ish percent of ours which makes sense given their historical position.

I’ll try and find the figures but it was a decent wedge more(wage bill). We know from the Will Hughes transfer that they don’t sign relegation wage reduction clauses which is another thing we can’t do without. That and they are a London club which is important for overseas signings.

Personally think their squad is a lot better. There 20+ million defender has just played for England and so did their fullback. There is no one in our team that gets into theres. It’s also the depth of the quality. Looking at their bench, plenty of options to change the game. Over a whole season it adds up.

Edited April 17, 2022 by hertfordyellow

[hertfordyellow 462]

21 minutes ago, Badger said:

I don't know how we can discuss this without looking at examples - they are the main evidence we  have.

You assert that money has become "even more important since then" and I don't altogether disagree with you - I think that the gap has widened so it is harder than ever for the newly promoted to stay up. Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the last two promoted sides to stay up - Sheffield Utd and Brentford have done so with smaller wage budgets than ourselves - again, "they found a way" for one year at least.

Yeah it’s not impossible at all, but the correlation with survival and transfer investment (mostly wages / bonuses) shows a pretty clear trend.

[Monty13 2,662]

12 hours ago, Tetteys Jig said:

Palace squad is light years ahead of us.

The likes of zaha, Eze, Olise, Hughes, Guehi, Mitchell, Gallacher would walk into the Norwich side, facts are their wages are far higher than Norwich would go near under current circumstances.

Again it’s semantics, I agree they would all walk into our squad I just don’t agree collectively they are “light years” ahead.

Like I already said Zaha is the standout but Gallagher has been their best player and he’s not their player.

Hughes only walks in our team because our midfield is so poor, and he’s not that much of an upgrade IMO, he’s never going to play for a big team.

Eze has played 170 mins of football this season. 

Olise, Guehi and Mitchell are real talents with potential to be top players.

My point was only they have a few players that are really a lot better than ours but that’s what makes the difference is those quality players that lift the effectiveness of the whole team.

[Monty13 2,662]

12 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

I’ll try and find the figures but it was a decent wedge more(wage bill). We know from the Will Hughes transfer that they don’t sign relegation wage reduction clauses which is another thing we can’t do without. That and they are a London club which is important for overseas signings.

Personally think their squad is a lot better. There 20+ million defender has just played for England and so did their fullback. There is no one in our team that gets into theres. It’s also the depth of the quality. Looking at their bench, plenty of options to change the game. Over a whole season it adds up.

I mean I agree, having the ability to pay a bit more in wages, the non immediate threat of relegation and London based are all much bigger draws compared to us.

I think it’s just semantics of what “a lot” and “much” means to you versus me. I agree their squad is better but there’s also a lot of thoroughly average players in their squad that aren’t huge upgrades on some of our players, it’s the few key players that really elevate them above us as an effective Premier League team IMO.

[hertfordyellow 462]

21 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

Again it’s semantics, I agree they would all walk into our squad I just don’t agree collectively they are “light years” ahead.

Like I already said Zaha is the standout but Gallagher has been their best player and he’s not their player.

Hughes only walks in our team because our midfield is so poor, and he’s not that much of an upgrade IMO, he’s never going to play for a big team.

Eze has played 170 mins of football this season. 

Olise, Guehi and Mitchell are real talents with potential to be top players.

My point was only they have a few players that are really a lot better than ours but that’s what makes the difference is those quality players that lift the effectiveness of the whole team.

Eze has had a bad injury. We've not mentioned Milivojevic, Kouyate, Ayew, Schlupp, Andersen, Benteke, Edouard even McArthur. They all get into our first team. It is a much better squad of players. They don't have a few standout players better than us IMO, its in all positions, sometimes twice.

[Monty13 2,662]

35 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Eze has had a bad injury. We've not mentioned Milivojevic, Kouyate, Ayew, Schlupp, Andersen, Benteke, Edouard even McArthur. They all get into our first team. It is a much better squad of players. They don't have a few standout players better than us IMO, its in all positions, sometimes twice.

Again I think we are just talking at cross purposes. I don’t disagree their squad is better than ours or that you would replace a decent number of our squad with theirs. My point is the majority of their players aren’t significantly better. Only a few are real stand out quality players IMO that elevate them.

I probably confused the issue by saying a “bit better”, another subjective meaningless term.

I look at this way. Man City/Liverpool are the pinnacle of this league, they are significantly better than us. I believe the gap between us and Palace is noticeably smaller than the gap between Palace and those teams. Palace will likely never meaningfully compete with those teams for league position whereas with a smart approach and targeted investment we can compete with Palace.

We also don’t need to have a squad that is pound for pound the exact same quality to be competitive with teams like Palace. We need a majority of players that can hold their own and then a few quality ones that elevate the rest. That’s my point.

[Tetteys Jig 845]

2 hours ago, Monty13 said:

Again it’s semantics, I agree they would all walk into our squad I just don’t agree collectively they are “light years” ahead.

Like I already said Zaha is the standout but Gallagher has been their best player and he’s not their player.

Hughes only walks in our team because our midfield is so poor, and he’s not that much of an upgrade IMO, he’s never going to play for a big team.

Eze has played 170 mins of football this season. 

Olise, Guehi and Mitchell are real talents with potential to be top players.

My point was only they have a few players that are really a lot better than ours but that’s what makes the difference is those quality players that lift the effectiveness of the whole team.

Ok, rather than “light years ahead” how about £200m and an extra £500k a week in wages ahead. Give us that investment and maybe we could be as good as Palace.

[hertfordyellow 462]

1 hour ago, Monty13 said:

Again I think we are just talking at cross purposes. I don’t disagree their squad is better than ours or that you would replace a decent number of our squad with theirs. My point is the majority of their players aren’t significantly better. Only a few are real stand out quality players IMO that elevate them.

I probably confused the issue by saying a “bit better”, another subjective meaningless term.

I look at this way. Man City/Liverpool are the pinnacle of this league, they are significantly better than us. I believe the gap between us and Palace is noticeably smaller than the gap between Palace and those teams. Palace will likely never meaningfully compete with those teams for league position whereas with a smart approach and targeted investment we can compete with Palace.

We also don’t need to have a squad that is pound for pound the exact same quality to be competitive with teams like Palace. We need a majority of players that can hold their own and then a few quality ones that elevate the rest. That’s my point.

Yeah I get your point in that we are closer to them than say they are to Liverpool.

The issue I have is if we look player by player over a match, yes they are better but we could still beat them. But over season, with injuries, Christmas etc, it’s not just a game. It’s consistently being able to match injuries with quality, match winning substitutes, quality rotated, it adds up to much more.

[The Great Mass Debater 1,124]

De Gea 6.1?

[Monty13 2,662]

19 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Yeah I get your point in that we are closer to them than say they are to Liverpool.

The issue I have is if we look player by player over a match, yes they are better but we could still beat them. But over season, with injuries, Christmas etc, it’s not just a game. It’s consistently being able to match injuries with quality, match winning substitutes, quality rotated, it adds up to much more.

Indeed, it’s why we need to get more things right than them and have a bit of luck to match their margins they have over us. 

I just get frustrated by the idea more money is the only answer, it helps obviously, but you can throw 10s of millions at it and see virtually no improvement unless you are getting everything else right, plenty of examples of this, and see teams with less money/spending outperform you. On the flip side that extra money buys you moments of quality that can turn a game and make points even if overall your team is performing poorly.

I just don’t buy into the we can’t be compete without huge investment argument. We can’t compete with the big boys, we can compete and grow into more comfortable competition with the rest within our means if we get more decisions right IMO, it’s just harder.

[Badger 2,732]

1 hour ago, Tetteys Jig said:

Ok, rather than “light years ahead” how about £200m and an extra £500k a week in wages ahead. Give us that investment and maybe we could be as good as Palace.

😀

We would break the old FFP rules by miles, let alone the new ones! That's before we consider the issue of who is going to give us the money!

Back to the drawing board I'm afraid. 🙁

[Badger 2,732]

44 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

The issue I have is if we look player by player over a match, yes they are better but we could still beat them. But over season, with injuries, Christmas etc, it’s not just a game. It’s consistently being able to match injuries with quality, match winning substitutes, quality rotated, it adds up to much more.

I tend to agree with Monty.

Of course Palace have better players than us - they have been in the Premier League for 10 years, you'd expect them to. The point is that they didn't really when they first stayed up but managed to find a way and then built up over time. As I have shown, when they first got promoted they spent less on wages than we did, but as they have become established over time they have managed to build the squad. There is no reason, why we could not do the same - the key is staying up for a year or two to build - that's why the McNally relegation was such a disaster - not only did we go down, but we went down financially exposed.

Assuming at some stage we get promoted again, we do not have to have a points total beat all around us, just two of the promoted teams that are likely to get relegated + one existing Premier League team. This is perfectly doable.

Year two, you make sure that you are not the one more "established" Premier league team to  go down and become stronger again etc. If we managed to do this for a number of years our wage bill would be similar (or higher) than Palaces.* Even then though, we never be truly established - nor will Palace, Southampton, Brighton etc - the economics don't work in their favour. 

* Although perversely, like Southampton, the administration gave them a few advantages.

[hertfordyellow 462]

48 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

Indeed, it’s why we need to get more things right than them and have a bit of luck to match their margins they have over us. 

I just get frustrated by the idea more money is the only answer, it helps obviously, but you can throw 10s of millions at it and see virtually no improvement unless you are getting everything else right, plenty of examples of this, and see teams with less money/spending outperform you. On the flip side that extra money buys you moments of quality that can turn a game and make points even if overall your team is performing poorly.

I just don’t buy into the we can’t be compete without huge investment argument. We can’t compete with the big boys, we can compete and grow into more comfortable competition with the rest within our means if we get more decisions right IMO, it’s just harder.

No, not huge investment. It’s the ability to take a few more risks, knowing we can offer a contract knowing it won’t choke us if we get relegated. It’s not billionaire or nothing in this conversation. 

[hertfordyellow 462]

25 minutes ago, Badger said:

I tend to agree with Monty.

Of course Palace have better players than us - they have been in the Premier League for 10 years, you'd expect them to. The point is that they didn't really when they first stayed up but managed to find a way and then built up over time. As I have shown, when they first got promoted they spent less on wages than we did, but as they have become established over time they have managed to build the squad. There is no reason, why we could not do the same - the key is staying up for a year or two to build - that's why the McNally relegation was such a disaster - not only did we go down, but we went down financially exposed.

Assuming at some stage we get promoted again, we do not have to have a points total beat all around us, just two of the promoted teams that are likely to get relegated + one existing Premier League team. This is perfectly doable.

Year two, you make sure that you are not the one more "established" Premier league team to  go down and become stronger again etc. If we managed to do this for a number of years our wage bill would be similar (or higher) than Palaces.* Even then though, we never be truly established - nor will Palace, Southampton, Brighton etc - the economics don't work in their favour. 

* Although perversely, like Southampton, the administration gave them a few advantages.

I don’t think our arguments are far apart. I possibly put more emphasis on wages in this league than you in determining success but that’s it.