I am certainly not endorsing just signing crap for the sake of it, nobody has.

But if Travis and Brereton hadn't smashed in screamers to put us 1 up, the onus wouldn't have then gone almost solely onto our opponents to score an equaliser, making them attack more. The primary reason I would suggest that we went from suddenly outperforming to underperforming last season was not even that it wasn't sustainable. Our main striker who was getting most of oru chances was injured and our remaining attackers (Dolan, Khadra, Gallagher) don't have that same level of composure.

The Martin comments were not specific to xG, its mainly the possession Swansea have that makes people give Martin excessive "patience" that his principles will come together. It was just as a comparison albeit at a slight tangent to my point about Steve Cooper's Swansea and those comments which were about xG. But the stats we quoted were on xG whereby my point is surely valid. Even so, the idea that these stats will catch up to you is flawed even if we take for granted that NSxG factors in occasions like I flagged, poor touches, players not getting on the end of pull backs etc. And I have serious issues with the idea that any metric can totally objectify such aspects. Because teams will naturally over/under perform on these stats based on the quality of their attackers who get on these chances. A team might have ruthless strikers or indeed create better chances specific to the strengths of those attackers (for example, a target man might be much more likely to score a header of the same xG than a different type of chance, say a one on one) that means that they outperform those stats in a sustainable way.

To be fair, I think I would rather play 10 than go with Magloire, but your point in general is 100% correct. We have one injury prone but very good centre back, a kid who has played 60 minutes and nothing else. Without further injuries, we are still so short and the urgency is massive, or should be. I don't ever remember him saying that he turned down permanent players, but even if he had, the £5m rumour wouldn't automatically be true. Ultimately a manager should (if given autonomy) live and die by his decisions (add in director of football too when appropriate) including in the transfer market. A sale you deem to be a bad choice does not mean that the owners should have overruled it! As it is, with a season in between of a shit keeper, Mowbray then signed a very good one but either way, if the issue is the manager (or again, director of football) making below par signings in general (and Mowbray's main faults I would say weren't in this aspect) then the owners shouldn't start interfering with individual decisions, they should change the people who are making those decisions. Sadly they don't seem to judge their employees on performance. If they occasionally need to ask for a big sale to balance the books or whatever, ok, but they should NOT be overruling decisions on individual players.

How is it not? If you go ahead in all 3 games, then the opposition naturally end up attacking more than you (more often than not) to chase an equaliser, in which case they tend to take shots to try and get that goal. Add in the fact that our opening goals in 2 of the 3 games were from low xG shots and that only makes that stat seem worse. Would you not be better telling me how specifically I am wrong rather than being patronising in a way that you would definitely react negatively to if the shoe was on the other foot?

No way can we chuck Edun in, he is a liability. I would be wary of any changes bar Dack for Szmodics. Hard to take out a Buckley or a Hedges without weakening us. We badly need more players in.

Even assuming that Ayala who has a history of injuries and Phillips who has shown tendency to break down as his body grows both stay fit, how would people feel about potentially having only those 2 centre backs available over the next 5 games if signings aren't imminent? Totally get that quality comes first but Tomasson would have the right to feel aggrieved at those above him and I would not be comfortable with having to give Phillips such a run of games.

No it wasn't a good thing, you make out as if there were 2 options, to keep Rothwell or to sell him, without considering the potential to reinvest. As it is, we ended up with no Rothwell and no money. I am not convinced that Klopp and Pep are overruled but the thing is with these instances, they are the opposite. I would get the owners pressuring people to sell someone to raise funds potentially more, but to stubbornly keep players letting their contracts expire rather than letting the manager decide? Absolute rubbish. You took seriously the other week that van Hecke was signing because someone joked about it, so perhaps you more than anyone needs to re-evaluate your natural stance on rumours. The reason that I don't believe that rumour is because it makes no logical sense, it's not a slight on the individual poster by any means. And the irony of you saying to other people that it is not Football Manager.

Of course, but I think fixture coincidences like this tend to happen, either way I doubt a squad for whom most played few if any of those games will be weighed down by our poor recent record.

Surely the biggest reason that our xG is so low is because we took the lead in all 3 games, so the game naturally became a case of the opposition pushing more for a goal than us? Another flaw can be highlighted by an example on Sunday. A player can be put through on goal but due to a poor touch or a bit of indecision, he may be through on goal and not actually shoot, which would be an xG of 0. The same can be said if a ball like in the first half on Sunday when Hedges slid the ball across and no one got a proper shot away is put across but not quite tapped in, again, 0 expected goals. In either instance, a fantastic chance has been created but neither register on this flawed metric. Another good example is Brereton at home to Barnsley last season, put in and took a poor touch but managed to score from a difficult angle. He turned a great chance into a poor chance with a poor touch but scored anyway, meaning that the stats unjustifiably show us as being more "clinical" than we actually were. This idea that it catches up on you isn't always right either. Second Tier Podcast relentlessly criticised Steve Cooper's Swansea because their xG was well below their league position yet they made the play offs in both seasons, irrespective of predictions that they would drop off. Alternatively, because Russell Martin's football is a stats mans dream, there is an expectation that they will eventually catch up their xG. There are just so many flaws.

Forgetting Mowbray as my point was about the owners. I dont believe that we had a £5m budget that went unspent, thats my point. Makes even less sense when you factor in that Mowbray complained that he want some money to reinvest. Whether there was arse covering by Mowbray or not, my point is that I don't take much notice of rumours that we have much money unspent and I would presume that is common anyway. If a manager is allocated x amount as a budget, surely the chances of him spending it to the penny are very unlikely anyway. Ill continue to judge on what is spent rather than rumours of what apparently isnt. My other point is I strongly disagree with the notion of Venkys overuling the manager preventing sales and potential reinvestment and find it incredible that people defend them for it. Did he say that he would jump at a return? Where are those quotes?

Reading are not only one of the very worst teams in the league but are also probably even more threadbare than us. Their subs bench on Saturday was a sub keeper and 6 kids whereas we at least have Dack, Dolan and Morton to come in should we feel the need to change anything. As a team with the aim of improving upon 8th place and sitting pretty at the top, we should be feeling confident of beating such a poor opposition both in players and managers and any dropped points would be frustrating. Reading hoodoo? Come on.

If we were playing in the Premier League, we could treat games v City and Liverpool as free hits, anythings a bonus against opposition so superior. In this average league, there is no reason for an inferiority complex at all. We finished 8th last season and all signs are good with our new manager.

Where is it from that Mowbray never spent his budget or that he declined a £5m budget? Something which goes against him wanting to sell Rothwell to raise funds. Easier to judge on what is spent eather than on rumours on what wasnt spent. But surely we can expect a big net spend with all this spare money sloshing around.

Matip is out for two weeks which takes us to the end of the window. Gomez was fit enough to be on the bench and come so the question is whether Liverpool run with just Van Dijk, Phillips and Gomez for the next 2 weeks and let him go soon (critical for us with Wharton and Carter out) or if they keep him with Matip and Konate out.

Stop being pedantic. The owners should not overrule Tomasson in situations as I suggested. If he is ok with Brereton being sold for say £15m and reinvesting £8-10m on a good replacement, but Venkys refuse to budge from £20m, it is Tomasson who will be directly affected in a year when he has a huge hole where his goalscorer was and no money to replace him.

Believe it or not, I don't know Lewis Travis. You clearly haven't understood my posts if you think I was raising issue with stewarding.

We have one of the best defenders in the league but he rightly gets ridiculed often due to his poor injury record. Jones makes him look reliable.

Van Den Berg on the bench for Liverpool tonight.

He said that he turned down strikers, but that they were kids on loan from the Premier League. Makes no sense that he turned down money to spend yet also wanted to sell Rothwell to get money to spend, therefore I would suggest that the rumour is false.

We haven't played with an out and out striker in the last 2 league games nor in the 6 game winning streak last season. Seems an illogical rumour that we had a similar amount of money to the amount we would have raised had the owners not prevented the sale of Rothwell, and that he chose not to spend the £5m but wanted to reinvest the £3-4m of a potential sale. One thing I suppose Venkys can be summed up as is illogical. Lets hope they don't try and interfere under Tomasson especially as he may well not stand for such nonsense. He may be, but it is one hell of an unsubstantiated suggestion at this stage, to use that price tag.

They appoint those managers (and also now a director of football) because they are far more qualified to make decisions about players than themselves. They shouldn't be making decisions that potentially undermine the manager/go against the plan that the manager is trying to adopt because they "like" a player. How can you possibly already have come up with that potential figure? He has played 2 senior games, 1 v Hartlepool.

Why would you take a point? We have won 3 out of 3, Reading have lost 2, have a poor side, are expected to struggle and have the leagues worst keeper and the leagues worst manager. Surely any dropped points would be frustrating if of course not catastrophic.

Again I can't fathom talk of a "free hit" at Sheffield United regardless of the score at Reading. We could be top of the league having won 4, why are we writing off games?! It comes back off talk of yesterday where many would have taken a point at home and even a narrow defeat was mentioned. In a bang average league, we are a team who have so far won every game and are supposedly targeting promotion, at least the play offs. There are NO games we should consider to be free hits.

How do you know this? It makes no sense that Mowbray declined to spend £5m yet tried to sell Rothwell to raise a similar amount to spend on the team, if he could have had those players anyway. The biggest worry is that the owners are removing the autonomy of the manager (or now the manager AND director of football) to make footballing decisions. It shouldn't be a case of the owners insist that x is paid or y isn't sold. If say the fee in mind is £20m, and someone offers £17m and Tomasson thinks, I'd rather take the money and spend £10m on someone else rather than lose him for free, he should certainly not be overruled.