ClaphamFox

The inference is that Howe wasn't considered suitable because he doesn't have a track record of winning trophies. I suspect the FA looked at the current squad of players and thought, "This squad is capable of winning the World Cup but fell just short of the mark repeatedly under Southgate - do we have an English coach who could take them to the next level?" And when it was clear the answer was no, they decided to recruit somebody from abroad.

Or people moaning about people moaning about moaning. (this could go on for some time...)

According to Sky, which broke the story of Tuchel's appointment, Mark Bullingham (FA chief executive) wanted an English coach but John McDermott (technical director) wanted somebody with a proven track record of winning things. McDermott won the argument.

Apparently the FA didn’t even bother sounding out Howe or Potter - they were never even candidates. It’s a pretty damning indictment of the quality of English coaches, but probably not an unfair one.

What makes you think Southampton will go 3-0 up against us when no other team has managed that this season and every single one of them has been better than Southampton?

It will be interesting to see how desperate their players are to save Martin.

People put way too much emphasis on what happened with Rodgers. There are three important differences with Cooper: 1) He won't cost upwards of £20m to get rid of; 2) He doesn't have the credit in the bank that Rodgers had after his FA Cup win and two 5th-place finishes; and 3) The board will be painfully aware that delaying sacking Rodgers relegated us and they won't make the same mistake again. Cooper will stay as long as it looks like he might keep us up. If that ceases to be the case, I expect the club to act quickly.

You know what? I was just thinking that what this thread needs is a lengthy discussion over whether xG/xGA stats actually possess the predictive power that their advocates claim....

Ideally not, but I suppose it will depend on how desperate we are. If we're hovering around the relegation zone and struggling to score, a panic buy cannot be ruled out.

Even having Odsonne and Daka as our only two options for an extended period if Vardy is injured is a nightmare scenario. We were clearly trying to buy a striker in the summer - I suspect we'll be doing the same in January.

Really interesting. Could the ruling in the PL vs Man City case have something to do with it? The BBC report on the case said the following: "But the panel's ruling that the exclusion from the rules of interest-free loans from owners to their clubs (shareholder loans) was unlawful, has led to concerns that clubs could now be hit with additional costs that they were not anticipating. "This could mean some are in danger of breaching PSR regulations. The suggestion is that such loans will now be subject to commercial market rates of interest. "That could have major ramifications for those clubs that owe tens (or even hundreds) of millions of pounds to their owners." Clearing the decks before the PL can come after us again?

His nine wins in 2022/23 got them to 38 points, four points above us on 34. The following season he was sacked after 17 games when Forest had won three games and were on 14 points, five points above the relegation zone. That season he was on target to deliver 31 points, which would have meant they were still five points above the relegation zone at the end of the season (Luton were third from bottom on 26 points). In the end, Forest got 32 points under Nuno. Cooper's record in his two seasons with Forest in the PL suggests he can just about keep a team above a relegation zone provided it's a generally low point-scoring season at the bottom. And lo and behold - that's exactly what he's doing so far this season with us. So it's certainly not impossible that he will keep us up this season, particularly given that it looks like being another low point-scoring season at the bottom. It's what he does. The question is whether we should be aspiring for more than that - both this season, and beyond.

I mean I’m disappointed, but some of you lot have lost your marbles.

I had high hopes tonight but England really came Acropolis.

“The job is as good as Carsley’s unless he makes a hash of….oh!”

Possibly, but the evidence shows that teams can indeed outperform or underperform their xG stats over the course of a season, which indicates that individual teams' efficiency at both ends of the pitch (which x stats don't capture) must also play an important part. @The Doctor and @CosbehFox have argued above that mean reversion does kick in over the longer term (eg, over a couple of seasons) and they might be right - I'd be very interested to see more evidence for that. Anyway, I feel we've tested to destruction the xG debate My opinion of Cooper is that he's tactically very limited and I struggle to see him with us long term. However, I don't think the club will sack him unless we're dragged into the relegation zone. That might happen, but I can also see us staying out of it, which would prolong Cooper's time with us. Then the club would have a big decision to make next summer.

Why not?

It’s also stating the obvious. “We are told his position could come under threat if City suffer defeat at Southampton after the international break.” Anybody could have told them that.

Not according to understat. According to their data, Liverpool's xPts in 2019/20 was 74.28 and Man City's was 86.76. So if we believe xPts, Man City should have won the title comfortably. When we won the PL, Arsenal, Spurs and Man City all had higher xPts than us. When we got relegated in 2022/23, our xPts was better than seven other teams.

Thanks - I'm genuinely curious to know why he thinks Liverpool managed to exceed their xPts by 25 when they won the league in 2020.

No sign of Russell Martin being sacked and their fans seem to think he'll be given until our game at least. We won't get many better opportunities for an away win this season...

Of course they're not. And if I tried to argue that because we're in 15th after seven games it means we'll very likely finish in 15th, I'd be deservedly ridiculed for it. My point is that a lot of people assume that mean reversion will kick in and that we'll end up with the points that the stats say we should have, but the evidence from previous seasons shows that this is a deeply flawed assumption. Even if they are the 'best predictor' of future performance available, they are still very unreliable when it comes to predicting final points totals - hence the large discrepancies every season between teams' final points totals and their xPts. And it makes sense that they're not particularly accurate if you think about it. The only way that x stats could be truly accurate predictors of the future would be if all teams were equally efficient at converting their own chances and defending against the chances they concede. In reality, there are major differences in how efficient different teams are at scoring and defending. It's no coincidence that every season the bottom 4-5 teams significantly underperform their xPts - it's because they're inefficient at one, and more likely both, ends of the pitch. Expected stats can't capture those marginal differences in efficiency.

They would only suggest that if the evidence from previous seasons shows that xG/xGA stats are a reliable predictor of outcomes at the end of the season. But the evidence doesn't show that at all - it shows that xG/xGA data are extremely unreliable at predicting final outcomes. Here are the final xG stats from last season: https://understat.com/league/EPL/2023 Look at the final three columns - do you notice how many teams' actual goals scored and conceded, and final points totals, differ widely from those predicted by the x stats? In fact, only three out of 20 teams achieved final points totals that were close (within three points) to their expected points totals. And if you use the tab at the top to scroll through previous seasons, you'll notice that the same thing happens every year. In 2022/23, our expected points total was 45, which would have kept us comfortably up in mid table. In fact, we got 34 points and went down. In our title-winning season, we got 12 more points that the stats say we should have - is it time for us to admit that we didn't really deserve our PL title because the xG stats say so? When Liverpool won the league in 2020, they got 25 points more that the x stats say they should have. Cheating bastards!! They should be investigated I'm not saying that xG stats don't have their place, but the amount of faith people place in them is astonishing to behold. Every season there are major discrepancies between xG/xGA stats and actual outcomes, which tells us that there is something very important about the way teams score goals and defend their own goal that the 'expected' stats simply can't capture. Yet people keep citing the stats as if they're hyper-efficient predictors of the future. It's insane.

And yet 24 of those 96 teams have either equal or less points than us. What's going on? How can this possibly be happening?! This other-worldly phenomenon of teams' results not conforming with their xG stats needs to be investigated as a matter of urgency. Maybe we should try to persuade David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson to reunite for a new TV series called The xG Files...

Neither Skipp nor Winks have played every league game this season.