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2014/15 Association Football (Soccer) thread
- Thread starter SuperScizor
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hate life
HBK
Subtlety is my middle name
Fucking dreadful....I'm not really sure as to how many times I threw up during the course of this match. Fair play to Tottenham, Kane was Messiesque tonight, Chadli had a field day with Ivanovic and Lloris was impenetrable in the latter portion of the second half. Nothing much to say really, Courtois and every one else in our backline except for Terry just decided to have their worst game of the season all at once. At least we're level with City on everything.......
Kane what an absolute beauty!!! Eriksen did nothing for my fantasy team but ah well, can't wait for MOTD!
You're mad if you think Southampton will finish in the Champions League spots lol it's the same shit ppl said about Hull, Bolton, whoever. They'll finish around 7th I reckon
To me, southampton's first team this season has been the third best first team in the league. That said, there's a reason I didn't project them third. Generally there are three things I try to weight fairly evenly when assessing teams, my feeling from watching them, stats, and good analysts opinions'.
First lets start with my general feeling. Schneiderlin/Wanyama is the second best midfield pairing in the league behind Cesc/Matic. I think soton are genuinely the best defensive team in the league, and although their offense isn't stellar, the combination of a very good press and a decent counter attack built around Tadic and Pelle feels relatively sustainable.
I probably rate the stats higher than just about anyone here. General models based on expected goals, built around valuing shots based on their chance of scoring before the shot is taken based on its position, how it was created, etc., have very good predictive power. For example, preseason stats predictions from this season have done a significantly better job of predicting the league positions through the season so far than most pundits.
(interestingly the only predictions doing as well as the statistical models are the bookmakers, who are the only ones literally paid to predict this stuff)
Anyways, different models disagree on where southampton is, but generally have them fourth, behind city, chelsea and arsenal. My preferred stats model, done by Michael Caley, puts out projections every few weeks. The last time he published his projections was december 19th, which had southampton a couple points behind United, but since then I would definitely say southampton has outperformed united, so I'd imagine currently his model would have them as roughly a tossup for 4th.
And then we get to the analysts. This is probably the worst for southampton, but more and more, especially after today, the good analysts are buying into them. Michael Cox (writer of zonalmarking) discussed in his article today that after the win today, southampton "have strengthened their claims for a top-four finish." Realistically I think the average of the credible analysts (read: not the idiots who are taking up most of the time on tv), have southampton finishing 5th or 6th.
So between the three of these, I have them as the 4th best team, ahead of united, although that race will be quite close. Also given the chance arsenal doesn't come round as expected, I think Soton is around a 70% chance of finishing in the top 4.
All of the stat mumbo jumbo goes out the window when you remember that there's been like two clubs ever to get top 4 on the basis of their first team only.. it's the same thing that happened with bolton, with hull, with villa... the same exact arguments are made year after year and yet the only shakeup in the top four has been spurs at best
sure I'll let us ignore the stats for a minute (although i would like to point out soton is the first team in the past 5 years to be in the top 4 at midseason by expected goals, so this isn't an argument that has been used to argue for previous teams in the past. Last year southampton's collapse was predicted by the stats, this year it isn't).
So I think largely the argument against southampton is that two of spurs, arsenal, and united will finish ahead of southampton, so I'll compare each of them individually to southampton.
The easiest argument is with respect to arsenal because these two teams have played twice recently. Southampton were without pretty clearly their best player for both of these matches, and sure arsenal had injuries, but for whatever reason arsenal /always/ has to deal with significant injuries. Arsenal slightly outplayed southampton in the first match, the home leg as it were. And yet it was a relatively close game, and if Southampton hadn't gone down a man due to a late injury I fully believe they would have ended up with a draw. And then today we saw Arsenal get exposed, although I don't think the score was fair to Arsenal in this game. They probably again had slightly the better of it, and lost largely because of a couple individual mistakes that are likely not repeatable. Despite this (and my spurs fandom), I do believe Arsenal are the better team for the season. They dominate most of the games they play, and struggle particularly with effective defensive/pressing teams, and so the fact they played even with one of the best defensive/pressing teams in the league across two legs says strong thing. I really believe, much as I hate it, that arsenal is the best of these four teams.
Spurs are the other team that I think is easy to deal with here. We are, quite frankly, not as good of a team as southampton. Call it the pessimism that naturally comes from being a spurs fan, but the entire team has been a mess for a lot of the season. Whoever we fit in at rw, mason, dier, fazio have all consistently looked like players who should not be playing for legitimately top teams, although I think this is primarily because of a poor tactical fit in Fazio's case. The fact is though, look at almost any spurs game before this chelsea game, and against the better teams we consistently looked the worse team, and against bad teams the games have been even roughly. The fact is this spurs team is a midtable team with kane, lloris, and eriksen tacked on.
So then if we say spurs are clearly worse, and arsenal are better, the battle for 4th comes down to united vs southampton. This is definitely a very close call for me, but united consistently this season so far has looked pretty poor in a lot of games. They commonly manage to get dominated and through de gea's shenanigans and some good finishing (and some things outside their control cough gibbs). Keeper form is VERY fickle, almost no keepers in the world can play at a consistently high level every game, and de gea almost certainly will come back down to earth. Anyone not a united fan I think acknowledges that de gea is not seriously in the conversation for best keeper in the world, so some regression there is to be expected. I think united will continue to improve like they have throughout the year, but I don't think it will be enough. They're very due to have some games where they can't get a goal, or where a bad call goes against them and costs them. Regardless though, I will almost always give the edge to a team that is elite at something. Southampton's defense is elite. United's attack can be, but I don't think from the form they actually show that I would take them over chelsea or city, and I put them closer to 4th in the league than those two, whereas southampton is at least the second best defense in the league, and significantly ahead of third.
tl;dr: its a bad idea to argue with me if you dont want fking essays when I'm a) awake and b) have free time
So I think largely the argument against southampton is that two of spurs, arsenal, and united will finish ahead of southampton, so I'll compare each of them individually to southampton.
The easiest argument is with respect to arsenal because these two teams have played twice recently. Southampton were without pretty clearly their best player for both of these matches, and sure arsenal had injuries, but for whatever reason arsenal /always/ has to deal with significant injuries. Arsenal slightly outplayed southampton in the first match, the home leg as it were. And yet it was a relatively close game, and if Southampton hadn't gone down a man due to a late injury I fully believe they would have ended up with a draw. And then today we saw Arsenal get exposed, although I don't think the score was fair to Arsenal in this game. They probably again had slightly the better of it, and lost largely because of a couple individual mistakes that are likely not repeatable. Despite this (and my spurs fandom), I do believe Arsenal are the better team for the season. They dominate most of the games they play, and struggle particularly with effective defensive/pressing teams, and so the fact they played even with one of the best defensive/pressing teams in the league across two legs says strong thing. I really believe, much as I hate it, that arsenal is the best of these four teams.
Spurs are the other team that I think is easy to deal with here. We are, quite frankly, not as good of a team as southampton. Call it the pessimism that naturally comes from being a spurs fan, but the entire team has been a mess for a lot of the season. Whoever we fit in at rw, mason, dier, fazio have all consistently looked like players who should not be playing for legitimately top teams, although I think this is primarily because of a poor tactical fit in Fazio's case. The fact is though, look at almost any spurs game before this chelsea game, and against the better teams we consistently looked the worse team, and against bad teams the games have been even roughly. The fact is this spurs team is a midtable team with kane, lloris, and eriksen tacked on.
So then if we say spurs are clearly worse, and arsenal are better, the battle for 4th comes down to united vs southampton. This is definitely a very close call for me, but united consistently this season so far has looked pretty poor in a lot of games. They commonly manage to get dominated and through de gea's shenanigans and some good finishing (and some things outside their control cough gibbs). Keeper form is VERY fickle, almost no keepers in the world can play at a consistently high level every game, and de gea almost certainly will come back down to earth. Anyone not a united fan I think acknowledges that de gea is not seriously in the conversation for best keeper in the world, so some regression there is to be expected. I think united will continue to improve like they have throughout the year, but I don't think it will be enough. They're very due to have some games where they can't get a goal, or where a bad call goes against them and costs them. Regardless though, I will almost always give the edge to a team that is elite at something. Southampton's defense is elite. United's attack can be, but I don't think from the form they actually show that I would take them over chelsea or city, and I put them closer to 4th in the league than those two, whereas southampton is at least the second best defense in the league, and significantly ahead of third.
tl;dr: its a bad idea to argue with me if you dont want fking essays when I'm a) awake and b) have free time
What about Liverpool last season LOL
You can write a billion words but when you've been watching the premier league as long as I have you begin to lose all hope and come round to the fact that this garbage earth will not give us a fun year where Southampton keeps out LVGs united.. I fkken hate United and I am utterly certain that their team full of garbagemen pieces of crap will get at least fourth . LVG is a "late starter" (which i thought was bogus at first bc I never really saw him manage a club before.. like hell I am going to watch idk whatever POS league he was in or more than three la liga matches a year when he was there lol) but it seems to be true. Theyll grind out enough wins for an appropriate season and idk probably challenge for the title after spending a billion pounds next yr.
you have to remember that football exists solely to break your heart i think
lol + :( i am a liverpool supporter and quite genuinely have not enjoyed a game of football since the slip. not a single match has made me actually happy to watch.
I don't know about the stats but there is always a risk in using the past to predict the future. You have to consider that fatigue will set in more and more now (it has been shown that players that do well in one half of the season do not do as well in the other half) and most of the top clubs have a massive squad of top quality that Southampton don't have. Man Utd are desperate to get back into the top 4 and if they feel there is a weakness in the team they have the money to buy upgrades with proven quality (Coleman this January?). Southampton don't have the same financial power and will depend on the quality of their youth players and scouting.
There's also the mentality of a club. Southampton were celebrating a draw with Chelsea and a win over Arsenal. These are good results but that's the standard if you want to finish in the top 4 because these are the teams you're competing with so you have to win against them more than you lose or else they'll be on top of you. I know Man City, Chelsea, Utd and even Arsenal and I'm sure Spurs and Liverpool would not be happy drawing with a rival. This mentality goes all the way to the top and starts with the chairman and fans, what they expect and the pressure that goes on the manager and the players. Utd will know top 4 is the minimum, in fact they'll be drilled that this club is used to winning everything. When push comes to shove, the mentality and pressure and fear of failure will get extra performance out of you at crunch time.
I'd love for you to be right and Southampton to keep it up, and not saying it's not possible, but if I was a betting man (and I'm not this season) I would rather put my money on Utd.
There's also the mentality of a club. Southampton were celebrating a draw with Chelsea and a win over Arsenal. These are good results but that's the standard if you want to finish in the top 4 because these are the teams you're competing with so you have to win against them more than you lose or else they'll be on top of you. I know Man City, Chelsea, Utd and even Arsenal and I'm sure Spurs and Liverpool would not be happy drawing with a rival. This mentality goes all the way to the top and starts with the chairman and fans, what they expect and the pressure that goes on the manager and the players. Utd will know top 4 is the minimum, in fact they'll be drilled that this club is used to winning everything. When push comes to shove, the mentality and pressure and fear of failure will get extra performance out of you at crunch time.
I'd love for you to be right and Southampton to keep it up, and not saying it's not possible, but if I was a betting man (and I'm not this season) I would rather put my money on Utd.
same i'd love united to fuck it all up again. they're garbage and have garbage players. unfortunately most of the prem is garbage as well so they just have to be the fourth best. which they probably will be. liverpool will continue fucking this year up so theyre no threat, spurs are terrible and always will be, west ham being as high as they are is a literal parody bc they're insanely bad. even chelsea, the club that all the media like to fellate are not that good. lol "new invincibles"???? theyre terrible and also in second place with mourinho crying again because hazard got tackled a bit hard boo hoo. fml i hate this league.
Not angsty just honest Beijing Red
destinyunknown
Banned deucer.
The same thing many people said about Atletico winning La Liga last season. Even at November, people thought you were bollocks if you were predicting them to win the trophy. Pre-season odds were 101. Of course Southampton is nowhere near Atletico, but we're talking about finishing 4th here, not winning the league against two of the best teams in the world. They didn't really have squad depth either (no replacement for Costa, Koke, Gabi or any of the defenders). Also many of their players were young, unproven or former rejects (like Juanfran). And Atletico also had mentality ''issues'' as they had failed season after season during the last ~15 years after spending money on promising players, hadn't won the league in 20 years and had also been 15 years without beating Real Madrid.
So Southampton is a similar case (on a smaller scale), and while it's by no means certain that they'll end on the top4, it isn't fair to overlook them. They have been the 3rd best team in the league and have finally performed well against top opponents (holding Chelsea to just 1 shot on target is impressive). And their opponents for top4 aren't particularly convincing, Manchester United has been shocking and are lucky to be where they are; they have a ton to improve, as they haven't even dominated games against lesser sides. Even assuming they will improve their game, we can also assume that their streak of luck and miraculous De Gea performances will end soon, so that evens out. The other rivals, Spurs and Arsenal, have their own problems as well.
That makes it 2 spots for 4 teams, with Southampton having the best midfielder pair, and being the most solid defensive team by a mile. So yeah, Southampton is less likely to make top4 than Arsenal and United, but I'd give them at least a 30% chance.
Also Van Gaal flopped at Barcelona and was sacked because they were 14th at Christmas (that was hilarious) and was sacked at Bayern because the team was 4th and eliminated from the UCL.
lol true re: atletico. still dont know how rm and barca fucked that up so bad its like simeone was playing football manager lol. but alright i see your point and frankly i hope you are correct would be nice to see southampton in the cl but ive been burned so badly by underdog hopefuls in the prem that i find it hard to ever get my hopes up.
Well, if he is, tell the people writing the paycheck to keep doing it. The man is hilarious.
sometimes I wonder if he's paid to be a dick.
Transfer window tiem!!! lol
These are literally too funny omg :')
last one i promise :'')
These are literally too funny omg :')
last one i promise :'')
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