Does anyone think Mourinho was so gracious last night because he didn't want to alienate his next employer?

I hope Maradona gets the Montpellier job. More crazy!

Mourinho doesn’t want to create robots or automatons. They’re predictable and he doesn’t want his teams to be that way.

“When I set about studying opponents and attempt to identify their behaviour, their tactics,” he explained. “I often realize that the development of their playing dynamic is more a mechanical automatism than a true playing dynamic.”

Mourinho’s method, as defined by Corriere della Sera columnist Sandro Modeo, is instead structured but open, robust but plastic.

“The objective,” he said, “is that the players understand the playing system and trust it, that they take some initiative because they’re convinced that it’s the best thing to do and not because someone else says: ‘Do it that way’.

“I know where it is I want us to get to, but instead of telling them: ‘Go that way,’ I want them to find their own way there.”

Psychologically it’s much more satisfying and validating to find the solution to a problem yourself than have someone else solve it for you. Mourinho understands this. He calls it ‘guided discovery’.

I mention all this because I think it’s what we’re seeing at Tottenham under Andre Villas-Boas

[...]

“In general, I work a lot on the philosophy and the way of expressing potential during matches, physically and psychologically,” Villas-Boas explained. “We therefore simulate all the situations that players could encounter during matches so that they might automatically adapt, so they know how to adjust mentally, make the right decision...

“We work a lot on instant decision-making for the good of the team. You can teach them things individually but the decision on the pitch belongs to them. And sometimes it’s not exactly what the manager has taught. Instinct is so vital because everything changes very quickly in game situations. Of course you want to see the team play attractive attacking football. But with great freedom of decision. The players take more pleasure in it. You teach them how to manage an experience, they take the decision.”

Make of that what you will.

I read the graciousness as roiling anger at his team for getting stymied by Tom Cleverly and Ryan Giggs for an hour before the red card bailed them out. Mourinho's leaving the sidelines before the first half whistle fits here, too.

I hope Maradona gets the Montpellier job. More crazy!

This is a highly believable system for comparing teams.

I prefer the one I saw that had Dembele's face adorned with giant antlers and the moose's chin beard thing.

Someone needs more internet porn in his life.

Hey, Bob Ley is a Spurs fan. Good for him.

ESPN: On Wednesday, you spoke of MLS’s goal to be one of the top leagues in 2022. Is it fair to say that any expansion of the salary cap has to be preceded by a comparable growth in revenues?

DG: Yes. Clearly, in order to be one of the top leagues in the world we just need to grow the overall scale of our business. That means even more energy with Soccer United Marketing to grow our commercial business, both on the sponsorship and merchandising side, but also to continue expanding on our experience and activity in the digital space and our broadcast partners. We’re confident that if we’re able to exponentially grow our revenue base, then we’ll be able to, as we have in the past, invest more into our product.

Our other resident celebrity.

SPURS THINK FACTORY will soon be SPURS INTER TUBES!

In the Arsenal game, the Bale goal, the Lennon goal, and the Siggy one-pass-too-many were each classified as big chances, while Arsenal had no big chances.

I know it's subjective, but jeez. RB will surely vouch for the fact that the Shooty/Mattbert demographic felt very strongly that the Bale chance was "a subjectively classified situation where a player 'should' score, either one-on-one with the keeper or otherwise in excellent scoring position."

Also, MCoA, a question regarding your spreadsheet: Would it be possible to generate an equivalent of basketball's unit +/- stats for the various 11 man rotations teams use? Don't know if Opta tracks starting lineups/substitutions and the like, and even so the sample sizes probably make it pretty useless for soccer, but it would be interesting to see.

What are you talking about? Harry would have buried that in his playing days.

Oh I know the reference. Just couldn't resist a dumb pun.

I would have thought Giroud being through on goal 1v1 with Lloris until Vertonghen intervened would be classified as a big chance. Same for Benny's cross that Bale somehow put over the bar from about four yard out with the goal gaping.

Also, MCoA, a question regarding your spreadsheet: Would it be possible to generate an equivalent of basketball's unit +/- stats for the various 11 man rotations teams use?

In theory, yes. FPH is right that you'd see significant sample size issues - the "-" sample for Gareth Bale is not going to be particularly useful - but I think it could be useful for some players and some problems.

I see you have started using Big Chances in your metrics as I am. When did this begin? I ask as I recall you were using SOT + hit WW previously. I am presuming you found the increased correlation using Big Chances to be quite appealing.

As for extrapolating via FFS, their numbers change all the time. They claim it's Opta and I see no reason to believe otherwise. You will see BC and CC numbers change for matches a month back on a fairly regular basis. Because of this, I run the full season numbers every single week rather than simply add on the current gameweek to the previous tally.

West Ham's win over Stoke has been underrated as a result, as it put them just about entirely clear from relegation.

I know it's subjective, but jeez. RB will surely vouch for the fact that the Shooty/Mattbert demographic felt very strongly that the Bale chance was "a subjectively classified situation where a player 'should' score, either one-on-one with the keeper or otherwise in excellent scoring position."

Steua Bucuresti are not exactly a lovable underdog.

(*)This is just a guess. Liverpool are at about 2.50 clear cut chances per game this season, and I'm guessing they're in the upper quartile of the EPL, although I have no data to confirm that.

There was only contact because Bale dragged his foot to make sure there was some contact as he dove.

Yeah, at first I thought it was a harsh yellow but after seeing the replay I can understand it.

The attacking front four of Gylfi-Bale-Lennon behind Defoe looks insanely good.

Southampton Think Factory!

In practice, unless someone has a rich aunt, we don't have the data. I'm getting my numbers from Fantasy Football Scout, which already costs £15, but they only provide a subset of the Opta database, and it doesn't allow for in-game splits based on which players were on the pitch at the time. The full Opta database is like the old stats database from back in the day, it runs like ten grand or something.

We thought he was Superman, but he's Batman. Tim Howard has two fractured bones in his back.

This is a useful note, that a kind of flat-track bullying is entirely necessary to Premier League success. Everton have nice 2-3-2 record against top opponents, but a very mediocre 9-9-3 against the rest of the league. If you can't whomp on the mediocre and bad clubs, it doesn't matter how brilliantly you step up your game in Manchester.

Are the shots/big chances associated with game time in the data you have? If so, it might be possible to scrape ESPN game logs to generate the lineups at any given time. Not sure if it's worth the hassle, but if I manage to free up some time in the next month or so I could give it a try.