[Albion] How good are we really ?

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

We should be upper mid table but aren't which has made this season so horrendous. That said there's been a lot more encouraging signs of late, just got to hope it's not another false dawn. Let's face it we've had a fair few in the GPot era so far.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Gazwag]

Saturday was first occasion this season for 3 different scorers, and probably (tho cant be arsed to go back into history) for a very long time. NSC tends to get obsessed with this striker thing but it aint that simple.

Pretty sure that was Palace in Dec 18, the others when we score 3 since then have had own goals involved, three times last season

 

[bn1&bn3 Albion]

Goal difference is generally quite a good way to predict where a team "should" be in the table.

That would put us 12th, which I think is reasonable.

 

[CaptainDaveUK]

I’ve mentioned it a few places, our recent form paints a more positive picture than our current league position. Last 6 games we’re 11th in the form table, last 10 games we’re 8th / joint 6th! We’re actually quite a good team. https://thefishy.co.uk/formtable.php?table=1

 

[Milano]

I said before the start of the season that if we didn’t invest in a proven EPL or equivalent league striker then we would end up in a relegation battle. I’m not changing that view, it will apply again to next season if we fail again to get that player in.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

We’ve been “the better side” in nearly all of our matches this season.

We are effing brilliant.

It has been great to watch on telly (apart from the huge frustrations). When we get back to The Amex we are going to have some treats.

 

[um bongo molongo]

We’re one or two X factor attackers away from being very good. Look at how poor Villa look without Grealish, even with all the money spent. We also desperately need some pace.

Need to get Locadia, Andone, Izquierdo, Ali J, Duffy and Bernardo all off the books. Maybe Propper too depending what we’re paying him. Likely all in our top 10 or 12 earners. Reinvest the wages from those 6 into 3 top notch players: a young semi-proven striker still with room to improve (Abraham/Edouard), a pacy wide attacker with an eye for goal (Sarr, James), and a pacy LWB (Sessegnon, Henry). Then we’d be a VERY good side. As it stands we’re pretty but often a bit powderpuff.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

Putting the justified euphoria to one side after the Stains win and the 3-0, I’d say about the same level of Leeds and Stains.

It could be argued that we were superior to those teams, but then they’ve beaten a load of teams we couldn’t.

There's a key fact in there. We were better than Leeds and Stains on those days, and you could say we played them both at the right time. Leeds were having issues with their pitch, Stains are in a poor patch of form - which was also true of Tottenham and Liverpool when we beat them. Villa and Newcastle at SJP both played into our hands by leaving themselves open to counterattacks.

It matters when and where you play certain teams. Sides that come to the Amex and have a go (Tottenham, Liverpool) are easier for us to create chances against, but when they're good teams, the risk is that they will take more of theirs than we do ours. (Leicester, Manchester United). Our away wins have all been against teams who attacked us and left the back door open, because they were playing at home - teams still seem to have this attitude, despite there being no fans to try to entertain. So when we play Sheffield United, they should really play as they did at the Amex, and I think we'll struggle again - but if they attack because they're at home, I'd back us to beat them.

 

[Baldseagull]

I don't think we are a worse team than West Ham, and if you add to our total, the points we have dropped from being in the lead, we would have the same points as West Ham do currently. I think we have a better squad than all the other teams in the bottom half, and I would not swap our manager for any other in the division, including Pep, who has always managed teams that would probably still be winning trophies, if Steve Bruce was manager.
I am honestly expecting to be spending more time looking at the Europe tracker than the relegation tracker, next season.

 

[Dave Fishwick]

league tables lie plenty. We are class and should be top half easy

 

[CheeseRolls]

One man’s tweak is another man’s wholesale change. It’s always difficult to know what the impact of even one new player will be, or the loss of an existing player to injury or transfer - ask Liverpool. Potter seems to have a flexible approach mind you. Exciting times could be ahead.

There are no guarantees.

Would you swap with any of the following looking at next season ?

Southampton - Expensive loans, expensive squad?
Wolves - Expensive loans, where is the investment coming from?
Palace - Wholesale change is the only show in town
Leeds - Second Season
Burnley - Asset stripped.
Any of the promoted teams?

I have offered you the entire lower half of the premier league there.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

I would beg to differ I don’t really think we worked the Palace or Villa keeper despite having 80 attempts or whatever it was.

Villa’s Martinez possibly played the game of his life against us!

 

[Audax]

1. The table doesn't lie.

league tables do not lie.

Professional gamblers would disagree. The League table does lie, plenty. It tells the truth about what has already happened, but it lies an awful lot about *how* what happened actually happened, and in particular it lies a lot about the underlying sustainability of what happened continuing to happen.

That's why all the clubs invest heavily in looking at a whole lot of metrics that go way beyond what gets presented on the league table. It's why, for example, Potter will be retained as long as we can keep him whereas any sensible owner would get rid of Bruce ASAP. League table says us and Newcastle are much the same ... the metrics that pro gamblers look at tell a very different story. As it stands at the moment, the underlying data suggests we're a team that will be looking up the table sooner rather than later, while for Newcastle it suggests they're sliding towards a relegation battle they'll struggle to escape from.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Professional gamblers would disagree. The League table does lie, plenty. It tells the truth about what has already happened, but it lies an awful lot about *how* what happened actually happened, and in particular it lies a lot about the underlying sustainability of what happened continuing to happen.

That's why all the clubs invest heavily in looking at a whole lot of metrics that go way beyond what gets presented on the league table. It's why, for example, Potter will be retained as long as we can keep him whereas any sensible owner would get rid of Bruce ASAP. League table says us and Newcastle are much the same ... the metrics that pro gamblers look at tell a very different story. As it stands at the moment, the underlying data suggests we're a team that will be looking up the table sooner rather than later, while for Newcastle it suggests they're sliding towards a relegation battle they'll struggle to escape from.

I don't disagree with a lot of that and I'm sure that TB, as a professional gambler, has exactly these measurements in place. It's why Potter's job was safe despite our home record, I suspect.

But....

Take the word "professional" away from the word "gambler" and you're back in the real world for 95% of us. If I lump on us to stay up at the start of the season based on not much but my loyalty to the club and a good feeling, and we end up getting relegated, even if we've been unlucky, are "too good to go down" or dropped by a goal in goal difference, I've still lost my money and the club's still been relegated. End of.

 

[Richy_Seagull]

The “League table doesn’t lie” myth always makes me laugh.

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

The “League table doesn’t lie” myth always makes me laugh.

Maybe it's a myth over 3 or 4 games. Not 30 though.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

With only 38 matches in the season the table has a great opportunity to lie.

Less so if the season was 76 games, even less if it was 380 games etc. etc. etc.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

Saturday was first occasion this season for 3 different scorers, and probably (tho cant be arsed to go back into history) for a very long time. NSC tends to get obsessed with this striker thing but it aint that simple.

We had 3 different scorers against Wolves earlier this season (Connolly, Maupay and Dunk). The games away to Watford and West Ham and the Everton home game last season also had 3 different scorers but all the games had own goals to help us along the way. Before that it was the Palace game in December 18.

 

[Beanstalk]

We’ve pinched a few points here and there but generally the luck and our poor finishing has cost us dear. It’s not even lack of quality in the supply is it ..........It’s being clinical.....

This is the sticking point for me. We are probably only slightly underperforming as per our budget in terms of how clinical we are. Our wage budget is 2/3rds that of Leicester's (a side run in a similar way at a higher level). You'd expect our output to be around that level. By that metric, we are 3 goals short of where we should be and 5 points. It isn't dramatically far off where we should be and those 3 goals could have easily equated to 5 points. When margins are that fine, it's bad luck not poor finishing for me.

I do think there are questions around how the club manage expectations under Potter. He has to wildly overperform going forward to break that budgetary ceiling to the extent that a lot of Potter stans expect. I think 14th to 10th should be par expectation (in line with the Leicester comparison). I'd be happy with that. We were the 91st best club in England when I started going to games, expecting to be 14th is miraculous!

 

[kuzushi]

Maybe it's a myth over 3 or 4 games. Not 30 though.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

I remember Tony Bloom, who makes his living on gambling in football and probably knows more about it than anyone, once saying that the idea that bad luck always evens itself out over the course of a season is incorrect. That was a few years ago. His take on it was that it is possible to be unlucky, and it is possible for a team to have results go against the run of play over the whole season. I think this has been the case with Brighton this season. The only game that springs to mind where we were lucky to get a result was against Burnley, where I feel they should have beaten us, but we scraped a point, but I can think of many games where we should have come away with more than we did.