mancunianfox

xG is misused as an expected score statistic which it wasn't designed for. TV coverage using this as an indicator for team performance is very stupid. It is supposed to be a more reliable way of assessing creative players than assists by recording the chance created rather than If they result in a goal. If you put in a really good through ball for jamie vardy that is likely to get recorded as an assist. If you put the exact same through ball to Bobby de cordova Reid the shot will likely hit the goalkeeper. Assists are only going to record the first one which isn't the player creating the chances fault. The ball played in and the chance created are the same but assists dont record those chances accurately. This helps identify players who are.making stuff happen but play in teams that dont have goalscorers to convert them.

To be fair Fatawu, mavididi, hermanson, doyle were decent additions and showed signs of reversing that trend. Only Cesare was a bit of a bust iirc. Last few seasons we have been weirdly obsessed with adding experience even though the model that works is clearly obvious.

Awful if we lose both him and Monga this Summer https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c5y4qpjqd7qo

I watch quite a bit of Stockport County, a 35 year old Ollie Norwood can look like Pirlo in this division and Louie Barry was definitely too good for the division last year. The league isn't great and I'm not sure the physicality is that much different to the Championship. You've got a lot more teams trying to dominate the ball which is trickling down the divisions but not a lot who are actually good at it and a team good at pressing should be able to win the ball back easily from defenders and keepers who are not good with their feet. Quick or technical players do stand out but the latter need to be tougher as they will get fouled a lot - I'd like to see a bit more pace in our side but then teams are going to play very deep against us because I don't think they will have the ball all that much.

Belgium and Portugal both gave Spain more of a game, French looked absolutely when out of posession. I think this was just a nightmare matchup for France and they would have faired much better against both England or Argentina. Glad France are out as they still worry me more as a potential England matchup even after getting completely nullified by the Spanish.

Assuming they go back to two progressing it adds 24 extra games over the current format, but compared to what we had before both are extremely bloated. This year there were more 9 more group games than total matches in the old format. 64 teams would be double what was played before... 32 teams, 8 groups played 48 group games and 15 knockout games - 63 games 48 teams, 12 groups play 72 group games and 31 knockout games - 103 games 64 teams, 16 groups play 96 group games and 31 knockout games - 127 games. 16th group would also be Group P. I can't get my head around that.

Yes I have built many. It's not quite the best time to build a PC as memory prices are still inflated but they are slowly coming down. I would advise against buying a really cheap off-brand case (cooling will be easier but quite often much easier to build in) and power supply in particular even though it is tempting to save there - it is one of the best advantages of building your own PC vs a lower end pre-built too. There is a rating system called 80 Plus for power supplies - there are some ok Bronze ones although they are a bit hit and miss - ideally you would want a Gold one. For specs, it depends on what you want to play really and what resolution your monitor is and then work back from there. For most uses a 6 or 8 core Ryzen CPU is fine - the graphics card is where it starts to get more complicated (and expensive). For reference the PS5 pro is somewhere around an RTX 5060 ti or RX 9060 XT so you could start from there and add/lower performance depending on your budget. There are loads of good youtube videos on sensible combinations of hardware for games and performance levels. Good luck, it's a really good way of learning about computers!

Taken from Joshua emerging at world level in 2017 I was intrigued by how many chances there was to realistically make this fight with the narrative of a decade in the making. Looking at the timelines I think there is only really one good chance in Summer 2021 to make the fight. Other than that AJ's tendancy to lose at the worst possible time, ruining his bargaining position plus Usyk's emergence and both fighters thinking they could beat him easily and get the upper hand in negotiations are huge spanners in the works. Are there any opportunities I am missing here? April 2017 - Joshua beats Klitschko, Tyson Fury is really fat and not competing. I can't really recall discussion about AJ vs Fury until after his comeback against Wilder which was the correct path to choose to get a belt. December 2018 - Fury v Wilder 1 - Bizarre result guarantees a second fight. June 2019 - AJ shock loss to Anthony Ruiz. Rebuild required to repair image. Feb 2020 - Fury v Wilder 2. Fury wins title. Rest of 2020 - COVID, enough said. Window in Summer 2021. Fury contractually tied to a third Wilder fight. Prob could get out of that if he wants. AJ has avenged loss. This is definitely when the fight should have happened instead of AJ/Usyk 1 which Joshua pursues while Fury is still messing around with a third Wilder fight. September 2021 - AJ loses a second time, the first of his two losses to Usyk. October 2021 - Fury finishes pointless Wilder trilogy. August 2022 - AJ second loss to Usyk. Fury gets wins against Whyte and Chisora due to the only two world level fighters worthwhile being tied together. Window in Summer 2023 but honestly not realistic with AJ coming off the two losses. Fury doing naff all during this year and Joshua trying to rebuild. Fury vs Usyk was the much more inticing matchup at this point with both undefeated. I don't recall why the usyk fight didn't happen until 2024, was Dubois a mandatory or was it war related? May and December 2024 - Fury has two losses to Usyk. A rematch was always likely if either man lost. September 2024 - Another shock loss for AJ, this time to Dubois. Window in 2025/2026- Both fighters struggling to rebuild after losses. Fury inactive. By this point the combined four Usyk losses really take the shine off but as a result it is probably the first time neither can claim an upper hand in the negotiations so will probably happen. Also worth pointing out AJ's car accident and loss of two friends which could still prevent this happening.

Good drives by Antonelli, Bearman and Unc Hamilton today. The Ferrari fight for third was fun. Quali has sucked but two pretty watchable races so far. The reliability issues have been both good and bad - a bit more unpredictable than the past few years when they had stagnant engines but engine failures triggering vsc/safety car has nerfed the strategy in both races so far which is a shame with the second half of the race being just managing a very long hard tire stint. There will be convergence at some point when teams start using data from the tests and these two races but typical first year of a new ruleset so far. Building F1 cars is really hard.

Every time he has spoken to the media it seems like he has been trying to get the sack for about eleven months. Going to be well happy to get out of there with a nice payoff.

Would appear so. I kept waiting for Lawrence to throw a redzone interception and give the momentum away but it didn't happen. He seems to have finally cleaned them up. Jags have a lot of good weapons and Lawrence is spreading the ball around. Impressed with their offense.

The crowd can be cruel at ally pally and I can understand players getting annoyed by it as it is often completely unwarranted and unfair. Even so, I am not sure if this is the right environment for Menzies to be putting himself in.

It does happen more on artificial playing surfaces (metlife is notorious) but it can easily happen on perfect grass pitches too. Parsons was at Mile High which is a grass pitch which is replaced regularly. I don't think their pitches are anywhere near as sophisticated as our football pitches over here and it still happens. I wonder if it is a side effect of the rise of sports science and and as players get bigger/faster/stronger it puts more and more stress on ligaments.

Looks like an ACL for Parsons as well. Shame, he has been brilliant the past four weeks in particular. Some big injuries for the GB as they also lost Watson too and their offense tailed off once he got injured. Really enjoyed the games last night - probably the best non playoff Sunday for a few years. Lots of good quality teams playing each other. Both conferences currently have strong wild card teams too - this would be easily the strongest set of wildcards since switching to seven playoff teams. Wouldn't fancy playing any of these: AFC : Bills, Chargers, Texans NFC : Seahawks, 49ers, Packers

That Jacks wicket is one of the worst I have seen in some time, what was he thinking? Plays a horrendous shot at a wide ball and instead of learning from his mistake he falls for the most obvious trap of all time playing the exact same shot at the same delivery the very next ball.