Your man Tomkins

[goatboy59]

will be like De Niro in 'Backdraft' at this rate.

 

Rafa's taking some major stick in the last two days.

[RedinSweden]

I don't get the De Niro reference as it was ages since i saw the film. care to fill in a bit?

[Carlos Durninio]

That man could turn a 20 point deduction into a positive. Apparently Rafa was correct to take off Benayoun and our last chance to get something from the game because Ecclestone is young and hungry to play.

[05 Milan]

I don't get the De Niro reference as it was ages since i saw the film. care to fill in a bit?

 

Putting out the fire maybe, giving rational explanations for its cause?

 

I would've prefered him to be Kurt Russell, pointing at Rafa with tears running, yelling: That's my god-damn brother out there! He's a god-damn firefighter!

[sh#t waffle]

I don't get the De Niro reference as it was ages since i saw the film. care to fill in a bit?

 

I think De Niro's character may have written weekly defences of the Chief of Firemen which were as long winded as they were sycophantic. But then I'm not sure I've ever seen Backdraft.

[WaltonRed]

His new one on the offal takes the piss and he's still dying for an editor.

[goatboy59]

Mac4's next on his list

 

[YOUTUBE]wmin5WkOuPw[/YOUTUBE]

[Ted]

I skimmed his latest one on the offal and saw something abouit Gerrard being taken off in the derby of 07/08.

 

The hell was he going on about with that?

[2pak]

He's quite the crusader! Reading his articles you'd think we are the only club which experiences injuries, lack of luck etc.

 

Quite unbelievable really.

[DT]

"With that in mind, I would ask this: why does the average fan, or, given their ceaseless negativity, almost every football pundit (who have never managed, yet appear to know it all) have to 'understand' a manager's decision?

 

It's fine to have your opinions. But they, like mine, mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. They are made without full knowledge, from the safety of... ( – wherever – ). "

 

In other words, people, stop having opinions. They don't matter anyway. And neither does his.

[Antynwa]

[Walton Park]

Tomkins is well and truly up Rafas arsehole.

[goatboy59]

Is that what that picture is?

 

I knew Rafa was chubby but......

[Tom R]

Tomkins faces the public:

[Tom R]

Is it just me who noticed that Fulham had as many key players missing as us at the weekend? And they have considerably less resources than us.

 

I bet their wage bill is far less as well, as that's all that seems to matter these days.

[05 Milan]

Is it just me who noticed that Fulham had as many key players missing as us at the weekend? And they have considerably less resources than us.

 

I bet their wage bill is far less as well, as that's all that seems to matter these days.

 

No, our wage bill is higher than theirs, and everyone knows we'll finish above them this season. And that's the point Catch is making; a factor like wage bill won't have any say on an individual game, but stretched across an entire season I think you'll se it come into play. Which is natural, because the wage-bill reflects who has the best players, and the means to get them.

 

You can ridicule his paranioa about the PL being fixed all you want, as I can't back him up on that one. But his words shouldn't be twisted and ridiculed unfairly like this.

[PaulMcC]

Tomkins's articles are so one sided it's a joke.

 

I thought there were some interesting things in his article about talking to Benitez.

[Tom R]

No, our wage bill is higher than theirs, and everyone knows we'll finish above them this season. And that's the point Catch is making; a factor like wage bill won't have any say on an individual game, but stretched across an entire season I think you'll se it come into play. Which is natural, because the wage-bill reflects who has the best players, and the means to get them.

 

You can ridicule his paranioa about the PL being fixed all you want, as I can't back him up on that one. But his words shouldn't be twisted and ridiculed unfairly like this.

 

Ok. fair enough about individual games.

 

What about half of all the games we've played so far this season then?

 

Which of the shitty teams that have dominated us this season would you say have a higher wage bill than us?

 

none of 'em, I'd say.

[Guest the boy]

shitty teams that have dominated us this season

 

who?

[Troubadour]

Ok. fair enough about individual games.

 

What about half of all the games we've played so far this season then?

 

Which of the shitty teams that have dominated us this season would you say have a higher wage bill than us?

 

none of 'em, I'd say.

 

Spurs. They have a more expensive squad, too.

[05 Milan]

Ok. fair enough about individual games.

 

What about half of all the games we've played so far this season then?

 

Which of the shitty teams that have dominated us this season would you say have a higher wage bill than us?

 

none of 'em, I'd say.

 

Again, let's see how the season pans out. Any team can have a bad run of form, with injuries to key players. If you're going to make any sort of rational argument about what causes what, you have to look at the long trends. Because there are so many factors influencing the outcome of one single game, but the importance of those factors will only be evident when you review a long enough time-series.

 

The funny things is, I'm not so sure what I'm talking about here, but this is good practice for bullshitting on my econometrics-exam!:whistle:

[Tom R]

Again, let's see how the season pans out. Any team can have a bad run of form, with injuries to key players. If you're going to make any sort of rational argument about what causes what, you have to look at the long trends. Because there are so many factors influencing the outcome of one single game, but the importance of those factors will only be evident when you review a long enough time-series.

 

The funny things is, I'm not so sure what I'm talking about here, but this is good practice for bullshitting on my econometrics-exam!:whistle:

 

We've been on a bad run of form for about two fucking years, with the occasional blip of good form!

[05 Milan]

We've been on a bad run of form for about two fucking years, with the occasional blip of good form!

 

Or, you could say on the average we've been performing every season like our wage bill predicts; ending up close to the top, but more often than not below teams with a higher wage bill.

 

I don't for one second believe that wage bill is the only deciding factor in who finishes where, especially since the factor is so, wat do you call it, intercorrelated(?) with other factors, like management quality. It's a chicken and egg thing; a successful team aquires resources through price money and matchday revenue, which allows a high wage bill and gets you the best players. But to have success you need a good manager in the first place, but he needs a certain level of resources these days to do anything of note. This way, there's no way of separating the effects of wage bill and management quality on the results.

 

But enough geek talk. I think we all can agree that the mancs have both a very good manager and superior resources. What I choose to read into Catch's argument abot wages is that, ultimately, to surpass Chelsea and the mancs in our current state we need to overachieve, like I suspect we did last year. If you look at the statistics the way he does, only a boost in either management quality or resources will allow us to realisticaly expect to finish top of the Premier League every year.

 

Again, I see the bizarreness of the argument, but I also appreciate its logic. It's not such a clear-cut answer to Premier League success that Catch seems to think, but it sure as hell doesn't deserve all the ridicule it gets on there. At least there is some way of measuring it, unlike other stuff like "Rafa doesn't understand the PL", or "Rafa is too cold with the players, that's why he fails".

[Code]

Talking about wages and net spend, how would you explain that we beat those with higher wage budgets than us last season but lost the league because we could not finish off the dross which all had lower wage budgets then us?

 

That cant be right?

[Catch22]

Talking about wages and net spend, how would you explain that we beat those with higher wage budgets than us last season but lost the league because we could not finish off the dross which all had lower wage budgets then us?

 

That cant be right?

 

Smoking increases your chance of cancer.

 

Producing an old man who had smoked 70 a day all his life & lived until he is 90 doesn't change the 1st fact as it has been run thru data set after data set & passed.

 

A team with higher wages has better players.

That means it is more likely to win 1 match against a team with lower wages.

 

However it clearly doesn't guarantee it.

 

Over 38 games though, it does explain about 90% of the finishing position as you keep repeating the game.

 

If you play red/black on roulette once you expect to lose 3%.

However you will win almost half the time.

 

If you play the same strategy 38 times, your percentage chance of winning drops dramatically.

 

If you play it a million times, you will lose.

 

Because there is so much inequality in PL wages, 38 games is sufficient to give the 90% correlation.