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Tuesday, December 31, 2019
As we flip the calendar to 2020, there are many things we do not yet know about the year to come. One thing, though, is certain: there will be lots of complaining about VAR. And I for one am looking forward to it.*
*I am not actually looking forward to it.
The Marksist
Posted: December 31, 2019 at 04:38 PM | 715 comment(s)
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####### Arsenal.
They are doing a fine job of this themselves.
Somewhere Arsene Wenger is throwing a water bottle and laughing.
No, he's still trying to zip up his coat.
Watford was up 2-0, but gave back a goal on a deflected shot and now down to 10 on a DOGSO ruled by VAR.
This sucks. I hate talking about replay (in all sports) but also can’t stop myself. If we are going to stop the game for 2-3 minutes to figure out if an armpit is off sides but also let Alderwiereld play keeper I mean...why bother with it? We are just making #### up.
To make it worse, that Kane no-goal was called offside on the field as well anyway, and it's surprising the check took so long.
Meanwhile, this quote from Daniel Levy from in interview just before the season started just keeps aging like a fine wine:
Heh, plenty of room to build up, Daniel, plenty of room ...
Watford seemed to have to deal with an onslaught at the end of the game against Wolves, down a man, but held on nonetheless.
Newcastle looked terrible again. Yes they have banked the points so fat (edit: far, but fat also works) his season, but on days like today where everyone chasing them wins and they look terrible, you start to wonder again if they will be in the relegation scrap at the end of the season.
Sure, in isolation.
But it's not a match in isolation , Spurs are not playing like a Top 4 team and haven't since the beginning of 2019 (anyone know how to query a return of team by team PL results/points for year 2019?).
Oh, and it appears that Kane left the match clutching his hammy ... good times!
Those stats would put them outside of the top 6 pretty much any year.
If I might ask, where did you get those numbers from?
You can also download the excel table at 538 and aggregate via date ranges, if you don't mind doing some sorting/filtering in excel.
I haven't checked yet, but maybe there's a way to do it on FBRef as well.
Thank god replay eliminates controversy and lets us just enjoy the game.
I’ll stop now.
Not so fast. Last weekend Sheffield United had the better of xG per understat (equal by 538, slightly worse by FBRef), and they did it on the road against the full 11. Nicely done!
There are solutions. ....ha...let the crowds vote!! Each seat has a little voting apparatus!
Joy ...
Real talk though: this is the Information Age. In any sport, an extremely effective way to handle replays on close calls would be to:
Build a list of a couple thousand fans who watch games, minimally vetted to exclude crazy homers and other idiots (there would obviously need to be a basic test to prove you understand the rules).
Have them mark themselves in a phone app as watching any particular game.
Assign 50 per game as "live" for that game (with a large enough list to choose from, you can easily exclude fans of any team significantly impacted by this game's result).
When a replay review is requested, ding their phones, and make them tap a button to confirm they're there and watching.
They can watch the replays on TV wherever they are, and if they think the call was wrong, hit the big red button in their app. They get 60 seconds to do this.
If 75% of them agree within 60 seconds that the call was wrong, overturn it. Otherwise, it stands.
After each game someone from the league office can review the results, and remove from the pool anyone who marked themselves live and then didn't respond to the review request, and over time anyone who consistently gets it wrong can be removed from the pool (there will always be a few trolls).
You can pay the 50 people $20 each or something if you want, but probably plenty enough fans would volunteer to do this for free. You all would, so would I. Once you invested some time and money in the initial setup it would work flawlessly and near perfectly, overturning obvious errors and refusing to overturn any call close enough that almost everyone can't agree on it. And it would cost the league couch change.
The big problem, of course, is the outrage you'd get from the practice of overruling the decisions of world-class expert professional referees with the decisions of... of... fans.
2. Could tweak the offside rule to help with VAR. Just look at feet. And to balance it give the benefit of the doubt to the defender. So those 'leaning over the line' calls are going to the attacker and the 'off by a millimeter on the foot' go to the defender. OR give the VAR refs 30 seconds to decide.
On PKs, only call encroachment on a defender clearing a save if the defender was the one to encroach. They may actually be doing this now.
The 30 second thing is the way to do it. Just take a look and make a decision.
Leicester top 4 odds: 90%.
So, slight edge to Leicester there. It's not that Norwich is completely hopeless, it's just that there among the very worst teams in the league, and now have a big deficit to make up. Pretty similar to Leicester's situation actually, but in reverse.
They played West Brom fairly even in a 1-1 draw already, but Leeds stifled them in their fist meeting, winning 1-0 and holding them to little offense.
It will?
I hold out no hope, sadly ... 'Arry would gladly go out like Bump Bailey if he could, though maybe that would be for the best ...
Who on this team is an above average passer for their position? Who on the team is an above average athlete for the position? I feel like the only player who may meet both criteria is Son. Who can win a 50/50 ball either in terms of a challenge or in terms of just being the first to a ball 8 yards away, or just get around their man in space? Almost ####### no one on the team. It's depressing and has me wondering why.
It's hard to believe that 3 years ago this team used to run other teams off the pitch.
We could have easily spent more money on players. Who knows if that would have bought us more success or not. The right approach is to build from the bottom up.
Does it not also have something to do with this?
It's a lot of the same players, right, and Poch wasn't exactly famous for rotation.
I mean Liverpool isn't rotating for ####, and considering the quality on the bench, Pep doesn't rotate that much either. I mean, I think it's possible that Liverpool has a team-wide breakdown in a couple of years as these guys are run into the ground.
But, I'm torn. Poch's practices were supposedly pretty hard. But I would argue pretty strongly that fitness is critical to success. Liverpool and City seem to be to be clearly the most fit teams in the league, even beyond their skill. That's the only way you can play the styles they play. I'm a pretty firm believer that you can only get that kind of fitness by training.
I think some of the guys were bound to breakdown anyways, some don't have their heart into really playing nasty anymore, and some of them just have lost a step or two. Poch may deserve a bit of blame, but I don't think he deserves it alone.
I do think Levy and the board is to blame, though I don't even feel like a lot of big name signings were needed. Just shipping out the injured players and bringing in younger guys, even if they're just midtable guys, who are hungry would have gone a long way.
This is a thing that has always bothered me, for the record.
ETA: My personal view is that overtraining is a huge problem for soccer players and that breakdowns are inevitable in the long run. It's like pitcher usage -- I suspect teams are going about it the exact wrong way in trying to squeeze more minutes out of their top players instead of rotating with deeper squads.
edit: total domination really, and except for that last chance by Sheffield, it would have been as dominating in xG as the Liverpool win over Leicester.
edit2: it's the type of game that skews xGD differential totals, and makes xPoints a useful statistic to reference as well.
edit3: for the first time this year, 538 now has Liverpool rated above City.
edit4: drops Sheffield United out of the top 10 in NPxGD (now around 0 or slightly negative). the only team in the top 10 other than the pre-season top 9 is Southampton, at less than +1 on the season.
There's a fine line between clever and stupid and it's an even finer line between "Harry Kane wants to play on a stump ... that's ####### great!" and "Harry Kane wants to play on a stump? The #### do I do with this madman?"
Love how Mourinho has decided to just completely blow past his "Happy One" stage in record time. Serves him and Spurs right for this unholy marriage.
We did not do ourselves justice for the first time this season. The midfield 3 were poor and the starting forwards anonymous. Liverpool were too quick for them. Sharp was decent after he came on and the back 3 and keeper did well. Basham was excellent.
McBurnie should have buried that late chance.
It would have been defensible to sit in so much if we hadn't conceded in the first 2 mins. Unfortunate slip by Baldock. Still, they are a great side and no disgrace.
He was on the bench for some of the Euro qualifiers. He's close but not quite there yet.
As a Liverpool fan, I'm more worried about the first thing than I am confident in the second. I know nothing, but I feel like it's very possible that Firmino hits a wall in the next 18-24 months. Mane, too. Plus with Ox and Keita pretty much perma-injured, the midfield is o.l.d. Of course, Klopp and his team know much more about football in general and these players in particular than I will ever know about anything, and they deserve the benefit of the doubt. Still, I think the downsides are very real and reasonably likely.
I'd love for this to result in an extended audition for Parrott, but instead I expect Son up top and a ####### mess behind ...
I'd fear it, but I think his ankles already did for that ...
edit: Tranmere currently in relegation position in League 1. Could be in the 4th tier next year.
I'm not saying he is wrong to prioritize the CL and (I guess) what is left of the EPL race, but if this will be how little the FA Cup means to the top teams, it's time to make winning the cup worth something again ($$ or a CL spot).
I almost feel like fans just have realized that the process is more messy than it was in their imaginations pre-replay (which we all told them it would be), so it's a "grass is greener" type of thing.
With that said I don’t think I’ve ever seen a professional soccer player so completely undressed as he was today by KDB.
It's going to be an interesting to see what develops with Kane after his return from his injury, the change in his defensive activity map from 17/18 to 19/20 are striking.
edit: it was the right call under the rules as they are, but very harsh for West Ham United.
And I don’t see the big problem. Rice clearly handled. If he hadn’t handled, Egan’s header goes right across him and the move breaks down and West Ham don’t score. So VAR got it right. The ref missed an obvious handball and VAR corrected the decision. If there was no VAR it would have stood. If the handball law hadn’t been changed it might have stood. But it was 100% correct on the current law.
Poor game overalll but a welcome 3 points given its Arsenal away and City home next.
I don't think it will happen, but West Ham being relegated would be a fairly big story. The schedule is not going to do them any favors. They play almost all top half of the table teams in the next 11 games (Liverpool twice). They could easily find themselves in need of a few wins at the end of the season to stay up. They do have that game in hand still, but it's Liverpool.
Arsenal imploding again.
edit: Auba quite dejected. I don't think he meant to make such a nasty challenge and that play is not always given a red, but he can't really complain. It was late and studs up on the ankle.
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