IDK, they were on a roll and it looked like they were the only ones who were close enough to potentially threaten Pool a month or so ago, after Pep officially dropped out of the race.
One has to admire the confidence, positivity, aggression and force with which Liverpool are playing the first half vs United.
At the beginning of November, they were 11 points behind Liverpool. Toward the end of December they were 10 points behind but Liverpool also had two matches in hand. Have they been closer than that other than at a point when hardly any matches had been played?
Leicester surfed some good luck plus good play Likely their points tally was already too big before xmas to miss top 4 But they are not city level
THREAD: Decisions from referees/VAR against Arsenal this season.— AfcVIP⁴⁹ (@VipArsenal) January 19, 2020 This is a thread about VAR and Arsenal, apparently we're down 9 points from where we could/should be if VAR worked differently.
{results below} This MU-Burnley match is really entertaining. Burnley (deservedly) up 2-0 into 2T stoppage time. ManUre just had a goal disallowed for offside on a pretty marginal call. Old Trafford is fuming. Half the stands are empty before the final whistle.
I don’t think it was for offside, he appeared to be onside, it was for going through the back of Mee for the header. I think that it was a marginal foul and the goal probably should have stood. I do find it interesting that as much stick as Arsenal have received for their poor defense, United spent approximately £100m on two defenders last summer and have only allowed five fewer goals than Arsenal have.
Thanks for the correction. I had the game on, but it was muted while I was on a con call for work. I don't know which is worse. ManUre spending that much on defenders, or us spending so little when we knew it's a need. At least Saliba is coming next season, and hopefully Tierney can eventually stay healthy.
Looking at xG data on understat, seems like United are the unluckiest team in the league right now - teams have finished like crazy against them, and their finishing has been bizarre. The should have scored at least five more, and conceded at least five less. On the flip side, the luck that Liverpool and Leicester have gotten is insane. Leicester in both attack and defense, and Liverpool in terms of results.
Always nice to see ManUre handed a defeat. And at OT. And with a blistering GOTS candidate by Rodriguez.
so like most United teams once you take away all the ref’s help too bad Teso had to be a giant racist and got himself banned, would LOVE to see his posts nowadays.
Utd's defensive improvement is basically because they got McGuire and AWB - who is a very good defender But there is no alpha there - these were obvious buys Their midfield without Pogba is dire
I’m really curious how understat determines their expected points. Liverpool have only gotten a undeserved result against city I think, based on xG. It must be they use the win/draw/lose percentage data. So basically, based on the historical data, strength of opponent and relative performances they would be expected to draw/lose a few more games. Will be funny if they have a massive correction and drop 10-15 points.
What is kind of interesting with understat is that liverpool are on a wild streak and City are not so bad. Whereas Arsenal really are as bad as we have been saying.
This is the one thing that statistical analysis doesn't seem to cover at least imo. When you are playing football and you don't think the other team has teeth, you will always gamble a little more and sometimes that means you get a goal when you don't deserve it, even when the other team has been good defensively. Our match against Chelsea is a perfect example, they kept us in the game far too long in a close but losing position. ManU love or hate them have always had a player or two who you would think could score if given half a chance. I don't think they have those players. We're similar in a lot of respects. TL;DR you can have a shit defense so long as the other team thinks that you can actually create goals.
It's no accident that the last time Utd won the league, they had some very bad data, but they also had RvP as an all time striker who was an xG monster
ManU got away from what helped them dominate the league in mid to late Fergie. They used to collect prem players basically like an all star squad. They would poach very top player from mid table clubs—young, Valencia, Carrick, and then supplement that with some flair from the continent. They got away from this and Liverpool have built their squad using this philosophy. Basically they gave Liverpool the blueprint that they have run away with it.
Someone really needs to create a rogue gallery of BS trolls for the records before this place shuts down
Good god. How the hell was he not banned five years ago? He said shockingly racist stuff as far back as 2011.
Yeah, I would stupidly try to engage with him until he tried to argue either the Taylor tackle on Eduardo or the Shawcross tackle on Ramsey (maybe both) weren't red card worthy. At that point, I said to myself, "ok you're the idiot if you keep trying to have a discussion with him." So I stopped.