1 hour ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Pochettino has control over those decisions, though. You can see the current system tries to keep the defensive centre while allowing the fullbacks particularly Chilwell to function as wingers. That's all great in theory but it's got Raheem Sterling creating chances for Ben Chilwell to finish from the opposite wing, which is far from optimal. It's got players in reversed roles. Imagine City relying on Haaland creating chances for Grealish to finish!

Until we get Nkunku back we need to get another central attacking player in the box for chances and not rely on Chilwell as a winger or Enzo as number 10. Neither of those situations lead to consistent goals.

But Chilwell has been one of our best player attacking the box. The other alternative is to play Gallagher up high (he has been our best screener though and he is not really a connector) 

If you want to forgo plan and just play whateve football you can ask murdyk or Madueke to create for Sterling. Which we may as well forget about the game. 

 

 

Well that's it then, were going to win the league. f**king stats 😂

2 hours ago, Ernie_blue said:

Well that's it then, were going to win the league. f**king stats 😂

I hate the new wave of stats nerds.  Instead of trying to pain an accurate picture they try and use whatever cherry picked stat they can find to suit an agenda.

People have been banging on about us having great underlying stats but being bad in both boxes.

I knew that would be the case before the season started because we spent over £100m on each of our central midfielders but chose to go into the season with Brightons reserve keeper, 2 strikers who barely have a career goal between them and wingers that couldn't score in weaker leagues.

To me us being bad in both boxes isn't bad luck that will even itself out it's reflective of us wasting so much money and not getting the quality we needed in key positions.

Edited September 13, 20232 yr by Whats_The_Mata?

If points are earned via stats, we'd be pretty high up on the table. To be fair, it will take a long time than 4 games for the team to establish a pattern and find the rhythm. The issue is still we spend big every transfer window, already rid of 2 managers ( excluding Lampard) , Poch knows time is not on his side if results don't come soon. It is a long term project for Boehly, not the manager.

7 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

 

Interesting early view.  Article notes its an early peak (low sample), but impressive.  Can spin data though, as considering we've played Forrest and Luton at home, and 30+ mins against 10 man West Ham, I'd expect us to edge upper right in this chart.  Curious how this evolves as we meet strong opposition.

I don't think a lot of fans realized that what we are doing has never been done before. I have never seen top team build the way we do. Usually top team sign player on the brink on being very good. Jackson, Colwill or even gusto are typical player that top team sign. 

They don't really carry madueke, carney, murdyk and (hopefully not) palmer at least not in this quantity. One is fine, two is already a lot. 4 is mental. I haven't talk about the endless wonder kids that we have signed that is not currently in the squad. 

 

18 hours ago, Bob stark said:

I don't think a lot of fans realized that what we are doing has never been done before. I have never seen top team build the way we do. Usually top team sign player on the brink on being very good. Jackson, Colwill or even gusto are typical player that top team sign. 

They don't really carry madueke, carney, murdyk and (hopefully not) palmer at least not in this quantity. One is fine, two is already a lot. 4 is mental. I haven't talk about the endless wonder kids that we have signed that is not currently in the squad. 

 

The new owners see themselves as interrupters of the game, and will do the American way. Recruitment for future could work as long as you have a core of senior players and stable coaching team, we don't have either. In 2-3 seasons time, the likes of Mudry, Madueke need to be key players in the team, or at least be good enough to make a chunk of profit should we decided to cash in. The list of  wonder kids we paid 20M for, be amazed if we get our money back on them.

On 14/09/2023 at 02:16, Sconnie Blue said:

 

I think a lot of people who write these things have no real understanding of statistics or mathematics but use numbers to suggest their analyses are somehow 'superior' or authoritative. It has become a form of logical fallacy by argument to authority.

The grand assumption in such an analysis is that good "underlying statistics" will eventually create results, but that isn't necessarily true. Teams can, and frequently do have all the underlying statistics in their favour but still lose games (see Leeds, Liverpool, Brighton etc). It is pure speculation that there is no other variable influencing the results other than the "underlying statistics". 

We might look good on some metrics but they are not leading to goals being scored, which in turn leads to poor results. That could be explained by many factors, from the quality of players to just sheer lack of confidence. It could also be simply that the system the club is playing is not conducive to scoring lots of goals because it doesn't create enough quality chances, or puts the wrong players in the wrong positions. We don't know, and can't know for sure after just 4 games, but what we do know is that time is rapidly running out for Pochettino to get it right.

Edited September 15, 20232 yr by SydneyChelsea

On 13/09/2023 at 17:14, Bob stark said:

But Chilwell has been one of our best player attacking the box. The other alternative is to play Gallagher up high (he has been our best screener though and he is not really a connector) 

If you want to forgo plan and just play whateve football you can ask murdyk or Madueke to create for Sterling. Which we may as well forget about the game. 

 

I agree but this brings us back to your point above about needing to change the system with no Nkunku/Chukwumeka available. Like we have said before good teams have their best players doing simple things 100% of the time. My issue with this current system is that to be successful, it relies on Chilwell and Enzo and Gallagher overperforming in roles they are unfamiliar with. 

Pochettino has created as system which allows our LWB to get forward and effectively play as an additional wide attacker, but is that actually optimal given Chilwell's skillset? Should we not have a system that instead has a better attacking player in and around the box?

4 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

I think a lot of people who write these things have no real understanding of statistics or mathematics but use numbers to suggest their analyses are somehow 'superior' or authoritative. It has become a form of logical fallacy by argument to authority.

The grand assumption in such an analysis is that good "underlying statistics" will eventually create results, but that isn't necessarily true. Teams can, and frequently do have all the underlying statistics in their favour but still lose games (see Leeds, Liverpool, Brighton etc). It is pure speculation that there is no other variable influencing the results other than the "underlying statistics". 

We might look good on some metrics but they are not leading to goals being scored, which in turn leads to poor results. That could be explained by many factors, from the quality of players to just sheer lack of confidence. It could also be simply that the system the club is playing is not conducive to scoring lots of goals because it doesn't create enough quality chances, or puts the wrong players in the wrong positions. We don't know, and can't know for sure after just 4 games, but what we do know is that time is rapidly running out for Pochettino to get it right.

I am hoping we trust Pochettino here. Look at what happened with Arsenal trusting Arteta. It looked inevitable he is sacked but they sticked with him. Now they look like a side that isn't going to lose many games. 

Our squad is so young and inexperienced.

8 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

The new owners see themselves as interrupters of the game, and will do the American way. Recruitment for future could work as long as you have a core of senior players and stable coaching team, we don't have either. In 2-3 seasons time, the likes of Mudry, Madueke need to be key players in the team, or at least be good enough to make a chunk of profit should we decided to cash in. The list of  wonder kids we paid 20M for, be amazed if we get our money back on them.

I don't know whether it is going to work or not but it is certainly interesting. It certainly feel like we are being run by a hedge fund firm. Betting on risky asset/investment that can boom big or or go bust is part of their strategy. 

7 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

I agree but this brings us back to your point above about needing to change the system with no Nkunku/Chukwumeka available. Like we have said before good teams have their best players doing simple things 100% of the time. My issue with this current system is that to be successful, it relies on Chilwell and Enzo and Gallagher overperforming in roles they are unfamiliar with. 

Pochettino has created as system which allows our LWB to get forward and effectively play as an additional wide attacker, but is that actually optimal given Chilwell's skillset? Should we not have a system that instead has a better attacking player in and around the box?

I agree. However the other option is a bit of headscratcher. 

I will ignore Palmer as he just got here. 

1. Mudryk (thanks @Valerie)

Other than to get behind (we have Jackson for that), I don't know how to use him. 

2. Madueke 

Madueke problem is simple. His final ball is very lacking and he can't bring other into the game (not a connector) 

On paper 

Jackson 

Sterling - Gallagher - Madueke

Enzo - Caicedo 

Chilwell  - cb - cb - Disasi/Gusto (depend on the opp but we should have signed rice instead of Caicedo , we need height) 

Sounds good. But we have seen when poch brought in Madueke and palmer. We overloaded the right side and the ball didn't go anywhere. 

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 20232 yr by Bob stark

When the likes of the recruitment team look at the players performance stats and present them to Boehly etc, I am sure they are basing the statistics over a period of time. Then when bringing all the players together the stats collectively should give you a winning team, assuming you have the right coach and right conditions in place; however it all goes tits up when the unexpected happens....in this case...injuries. Injuries so far this year have screwed the entire plan, together with one or two under performing players, (which can be foreseen as players performance levels will dip now and then, so you insert his replacement with similar stats) Fofana season ending, Nkunku stupid injury out for months, Reece weeks out, Badiashile months out, Chukwuemeka weeks out, Lavia weeks out etc.   So when these unexpected injuries or extent of injuries happen, you can't really assess whether or not the use of stats is working.  Just like in crime when trying to do predictive analysis, if the behavior of the criminal changes for an unknown reason, (doctors appointment, holiday, accident etc ) the analysis goes out the window and the efforts to catch the criminal on a given day fails, but not because of the statistics.   I would wait until everyone is back fit before judging whether or not putting together a team based on statistics is working.   

f**king stats. I remember when an analytical statement was, down the the pub after a game, “f**k me we were sh*t, Sutton couldn’t hit a f**king barn door”

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Kev56 said:

f**king stats. I remember when an analytical statement was, down the the pub after a game, “f**k me we were sh*t, Sutton couldn’t hit a f**king barn door”

 

 

 

The good old days...

49 minutes ago, CFCCAN said:

The good old days...

Oh yea.

15 hours ago, Kev56 said:

f**king stats. I remember when an analytical statement was, down the the pub after a game, “f**k me we were sh*t, Sutton couldn’t hit a f**king barn door”

 

 

 

 

17 hours ago, Kev56 said:

f**king stats. I remember when an analytical statement was, down the the pub after a game, “f**k me we were sh*t, Sutton couldn’t hit a f**king barn door”

 

 

 

Sutton was one of the biggest disappointments I've has as a signing. I was on a tour of Europe that summer and there was another Chelsea lad on it, I saw we had signed him on the news and we spent the next few days figuring out how he would be used, fit into our side. 

Turns out the useless f**ker didn't fit in at all....

Let's face facts - Pocchetino is the guy who had a forward line of Messi, Neymar and Mbappe yet finished 2nd in Ligue Une to Lille.

This is his first job at elite level and he needs to shake off the loser mentality if he's going to be a success.

 

Honeymoon period is over. He might do a decent Argy barbecue but he needs to start winning games, starting with today.

Otherwise let's bin this mug off and find out what de Zerbi's release clause is.

2 hours ago, Gonoir Beniashile said:

Let's face facts - Pocchetino is the guy who had a forward line of Messi, Neymar and Mbappe yet finished 2nd in Ligue Une to Lille.

This is his first job at elite level and he needs to shake off the loser mentality if he's going to be a success.

 

Honeymoon period is over. He might do a decent Argy barbecue but he needs to start winning games, starting with today.

Otherwise let's bin this mug off and find out what de Zerbi's release clause is.

Surely no more Brighton's expertise, too many got PTSD from Potter's reign let's not go back there...

 

We're probably only 2-3 months away from another poll at this rate 😂

Prepare for the meltdowns! It's coming!!! 

I said before the season I expect Poch gone by Christmas and then his replacement gone by May.

It's an impossible job because there's so much media pressure and expectation from the ownership and supporters based on what we've spent.

But wasting money on sh*te kids doesn't win games, in terms of actual talent in the squad we're clearly a bottom half team.

I don't think you can look at our squad and think any point away from home is a bad result but obviously it won't cut it given the expectation.

Edited September 17, 20232 yr by Whats_The_Mata?

3 minutes ago, Drogba1 said:

We're probably only 2-3 minutes away from another poll at this rate 😂