So Rooney again stymies a better team of Big Val's! Although they still made the playoffs, the Reds' run of good results faltered towards the end of the campaign as teams worked out how to counter Ismael's style. Rooney's Derby were among the first, forcing a 0-0 draw at Oakwell in March. Big Val may need more clubs in his baggies [i.e. in terms of playing style] if he is going to return them to the top division. It will be an interesting managerial contest against Scott Parker and Marco Silva. Interesting that Ismael remarked after last night's game: "the opponent doesn't want to play football against us""!
TBF it’s only fair because Vals style is borderline football. Anyway does he think other managers are just going to play to his strengths!
I scored the game last night. These are the figures West Brom v Derby C Score 0 v 0 Shots 26 v 4 On Target 9 v 0 Yellow Cards 1 v 1 Red Cards 0 v 0 % Possession 64% v 36% % Territory 42% v 23% Corners 5 v 4 Fouls 8 v 10 Those numbers convert to (Contribution to game) Entertainment 200 v -24 Performance (Domination of the game) 191 v -191 The BBC described Ismael's system as 3-4-2-1, which is what he reverted to at Barnsley when the opponent refused to play in the way that his 3 man forward press demanded. At Barnsley, this way of playing was much less successful than the 3 player forward press, combined with the high defensive line. Nevertheless, WBA have better quality than he had at Barnsley and they dominated the game on almost every statistic. Although the Derby scores were not as bad as the Barnsley ones at Bournemouth, they were not far off. WBA dominated the game almost completely, but they did not score. Phew, I got through that without using the word Index, and I only used the words Entertainment and Performance once.
The Bournemouth game scores were Bournemouth 138 v Barnsley -33 = Total 105 WBA 200 v Derby C -24 = Total 176 The scores of the away teams were similar. Even though Bournemouth score 3 times and WBA scored 0, Bournemouth score only 105 for shots on goal + shots on target + goals. WBA scored 130 for their 26 shots at goal and another 45 for their shots on target. Clearly, with that many shots at goal, WBA should have scored. I suspect that the after match conversations among fans were about poor finishing, but that is why the scoring system is different to the match result and the Championship Table based upon those results. They are not measuring the same things.
I'm sure the Bournemouth fans found a game in which they scored 3 0 way more enjoyable and entertaining than the WBA fans.
I watched West Brom last night. They had two decent shots all game. One was straight at the keeper but very powerful. Had it been an inch to the side, it’s a goal. The other good effort was wonderfully saved by the keeper. I think they had a trickling effort first half that was kicked off the line. The rest of their shots were nothing to write home about. It was an awful game of football where one side sat in with 11 men behind the ball and the other launched high balls at them all night. On the rare occasions Albion got the ball down and tried to play through Derby, they looked dangerous but were often cynically fouled. But Derby’s defenders dealt brilliantly with every set piece, Davies and Jagielka rolled back the years. Albion were booed off at both half time and full time.
Although (as we know) Twitter isn’t the greatest barometer of sense…..I am quite surprised at the negativity towards Val on it given their league position. Same for the booing really how do you think he will cope if folk turn against him ?
Football fans are so fickle these days , Then they take to social media to dramatise their disgust when a player/coach official leave their club for better wages or a better chance of trophies etc . Fortunes can be turned around in a matter of a few games for these sportsmen when there’s no such thing as loyalty imo.
Not sure he will care. He's rarely stayed in the same job for more than a year, he'll just do his time there and move onto the next club. Unfortunately, his model of flogging players off the ball combined with such a low amount of possession is never going to be sustained by a group of players for much more than a season.
Can you think of an alternative name for it, that is not quite so emotive? Basically, the system produces a single number that represents all the important game statistics. I chose the name Entertainment, because the statistics seemed to me to represent all the parts of the game that I enjoy, but it is that name that seems to be the focus of all the personal aggravation, and I honestly have no objections to a change of name. I have offered a few that have been rejected. In my original submission, I listed all of the statistics for both of the teams. There were 9 pieces of information for each team. I summarised all that information into 1 number that represented the contribution to the game by each team. Now when I make comparisons, I can compare 1 number, and not the 9 that I would to have used. That is what the numbers will be use for. I do not have a definitive scale that determines how entertaining the match was and how entertaining each team was within the game. The numbers were always intended to give me a single number that I could use as a comparison across all teams and across the season. I have simply picked the wrong word to describe that number. So I will ask again. Can anyone come up will a better, less emotive word to describe a scoring system that summarises all of those statistics.
Tbh, I think you're reinventing the wheel a bit as the stats are already out there. But as you say, you might throw up some interesting at the end of the season
