It was clear to me that we still have a fair amount of work to do to be able to go toe to toe with Chelsea. We spent large parts of that game hanging on and it was a tough watch.
I didn’t think we were brave enough today, which was disappointing. Picked up a bit 2nd half when Richarlison came on but there’s still a gulf.
Sessegnon had a torrid time and Emerson not much better. I really hoped we’d go big on a class RWB this summer, you could see the difference Perisic made on the other side with his quality.
Can’t say any of them deserved a MOTM award but, hey, take the point and learn something from it.
That’ll give us some more chemistry, should push us up the table.Periodic has to start now! Fantastic long throws. I’m not sure but did he hit in swinging corners from either side? Unbelievable quality too. Who needs Ward-Prowse
In terms of being able to tell how good a chance is, your eyes are absolutely not more reliable. Eyes are much better at understanding the flow of a game mind, as well as context.Right, so it's totally not accurate. It can't possibly be. It's just a guide of what might or might not be true. Actually watching a football game is a better test, IMHO, but each to their own
Great Post ??In terms of being able to tell how good a chance is, your eyes are absolutely not more reliable. Eyes are much better at understanding the flow of a game mind, as well as context.
Chelsea were clearly better. But there failure to win wasn't down to luck. It was down to their failure to convert pressure into actual clear chances. The xG is even more skewered when you consider their better chances came later in the game.
This is why presenting this as an absolute shit performance is wrong. It absolutely wasn't that. I mean I hope we can perform better, but I suspect people's take on the performance is in part down to overconfidence at the start of the match and disappointment that Chelsea, yes where better than us.
Another statistical tool, an unreliable one is who scored, who gives a rating by just breaking down numbers and assigning it a value (which is quite arbitrary) they're system actually has Tottenham as very fractionally the better team in the game (by 0.01 a point).
Now clearly that tool is not giving an accurate description of the performance. But, it does further corroborate on the xG that shows that the game maybe wasn't as uneven as people here might think.
When you watch a game there is actually a lot of inherent bias. There's confirmation bias, so if you think a player is shit you are more likely to see things that indicate that they are shit (Say Royals final third contribution) rather than what they did well (Royals wonderful last ditch tackle after really poor defensive work from Persic) for example.
But you also have a lot of emotion pumped into it that of course informs how you interpret what you see. It's inevitable, everyone does it. So our eyes are not that reliable either. Not are statistics good at telling how a match really went.
What I think is a good thing to do is to rewatch matches. When you take away the emotional element you can better see what is happening, and I reckon if you were to rewatch this match maybe you will have a slightly different perspective.
Don't get me wrong. Chelsea were better and should have won. But it's not like we were completely overwhelmed and somehow managed to get away with it. We were always in the game, while never in control of it. And actually we did defend well over large parts of it. We did create chances throughout the game (in fact we even had more shots on target) and there was always the possibility for us to get something out of it.
Does xG account for the quality of the player? Its one thing for Kane to take a shot from 18 yards out, and quite another for Sissoko to take a shot from the exact same location.You absolutely can based on statistics. A 0.5 xG chance, which is quite high, will still be missed half the time. It's like when it looked like Trump was gonna win in 2020, and people were like 'the statisticians were wrong again, they didn't predict this' just because he was given only a 10 % chance to win the election. But they did predict that outcome as one of the possible outcomes that would see Trump win. It's a slight digression, but it's a good example of the general population's non existing understanding of statistics.
The 'organics' of a particular chance is accounted for in the statistical distribution. It's absolutely not flawless, but when you play match after match after match, there will be a certain convergence towards a mean probability for a particular chance to end in a goal.
Chelsea are a good match for us stylistically, much like we are a good match for City.
For me it was a case today of their strengths and our weaknesses being exaggerated as a result. They play some nice controlling passing and are good at shutting down the centre of the park, it makes them a tough match for us. Especially at their place too.
Personally I still think we'll finish above them. I think the lack of cutting edge and the age of their main 2 CBs could hurt them over a full season.
Our response against Wolves next week will be more telling IMHO.
What do you mean by accurate?Right, so it's totally not accurate. It can't possibly be. It's just a guide of what might or might not be true. Actually watching a football game is a better test, IMHO, but each to their own
Yep, this is something we have to face. Kane isn't pressing. It makes playing out from the back for our opponentsRicharlison brought a whole load of energy to our pressing from the front when he came on. Up until then they strolled around at the back with Kane ambling about. I don't think we'd have got back in it without that change.
I don't think it does, which I guess cam be both a weakness and a strength, depending on how you look at it. A stellar finisher will most likely overperform his xG, and such it doesn't account for elite players being elite.Does xG account for the quality of the player? Its one thing for Kane to take a shot from 18 yards out, and quite another for Sissoko to take a shot from the exact same location.
Kane had best chance of the matchI still disagree, though. Their chances were much better than ours and more numerous. IMO.
This. This post gets MOTM.There is a case for us to play 352 in certain games. It's all good and well people coming out with xG chances created, we also need to show more game control in both phases without and with the ball. As a spectacle I'd like to see us dominate with the ball at time against top teams.
So we were lucky that Chelsea decided to sit on it? That doesn't seem like luck. That seems like a strategic blunder on their part.
It doesn't tell the story of the match no. But we had three very clear chances, we took none of them. The sess one I'm not convinced at all that it was offside but in any case this was a much closer performance than previous games against Chelsea.
The hairpull I didn't catch but tbh there was a whole lot of crap going on by both players in those corners. Even the 'controversy' over our first goal grates on me. Yeah, it probably was a foul but those things are not given constantly in a football game and it didn't directly lead to the goal at all.
I know some fans like to make excuses for conceding poor goals so a decision not going your way then becomes 'the reason' you conceded a goal. But I always have seen that as abdicating responsibility. Chelsea conceded both goals because they didn't defend them well enough, and we took those opportunities. It's as simple as that. What the ref does or doesn't do in this case had very little to do with letting in perfectly defendable opportunities.