STFC Transfer Rumours

[singingiiiffy]

It's obviously not fool proof but Brentford and Midgetland in Denmark have made it work. Whether we can is obviously for discussion that we can have in 5,10 years etc but I think it's exciting and interesting that we at least seem to have a long term plan.

xg is quite simple really. expected goals

its how many goals that play should be expected to score off chances created.

We know that a chance from the halfway line isn’t as likely to result in a goal as a chance from inside the box. With xG, we can actually quantify how likely a player is to score from each of these situations. For example, suppose the chance from inside the box with a given set of pre-shot characteristics was worth 0.1 xG. This means that an average player would be expected to score one goal from every ten shots in this situation or 10% of the time.

The terminology may be new, but these phrases have been used by football fans and commentators for years before xG was introduced – “he scores that nine times out of ten” or “he should’ve had a hat-trick”.

[Ƭ̵̬̊: The Artist Formerly Known as CWIG]

Yeah. Some fans lack the mental capacity to even see the context I've described, to be fair.

[Bob's Orange]

Yeah. Some fans lack the mental capacity to even see the context I've described, to be fair.

It's painful really. Yesterday the club tweeted out a reminder about season tickets and the first reply was someone whining about the fact that the club had only signed kids and a couple of undisclosed transfers and that we weren't going to get out of league 2. I just don't understand why people waste their energy on being so visually negative about stuff. Each to their own of course but I can't get my head around it.

[Peter Venkman]

It's painful really. Yesterday the club tweeted out a reminder about season tickets and the first reply was someone whining about the fact that the club had only signed kids and a couple of undisclosed transfers and that we weren't going to get out of league 2. I just don't understand why people waste their energy on being so visually negative about stuff. Each to their own of course but I can't get my head around it.

Yeah. Some fans lack the mental capacity to even see the context I've described, to be fair.

We has speshul fans init.

[Peter Venkman]

It's obviously not fool proof but Brentford and Midgetland in Denmark have made it work. Whether we can is obviously for discussion that we can have in 5,10 years etc but I think it's exciting and interesting that we at least seem to have a long term plan.

FC Midgetland^©BO seem to have done it really well consistantly finishing 1st or 2nd in the last 5 seasons.

I never reasilised how many foreign players they had though, obviously not as many work permit laws in Denmark as the UK, in a squad size of 37 1st team players they have 19 Danes, 6 Brazilians, 2 Columbians, 2 Ivorians and one each from Australia, Germany, Sweden, Guinea, Malasia, Nigeria, Iceland and Zambia.

[Batch]

. Whether we can is obviously for discussion that we can have in 5,10 years

Interesting question that, what is deemed success (or fail) and when.

I'd imagine some will judge it on this season alone! But its going to take 2,3,5 years to tweak IMO. Will fan buy in last that long? Depends if they can see progress on the pitch I suppose.

What is success anyway?
   Fan - Promotion and sustainability?
   Club - Sustainability and at least stability in league status?
    Probably both?

[Berniman]

The success of the model will only be shown in as you say 2,3,5 years as it depends on how many of these players we manage to sell for a decent profit during that period, however complete success will mean those players helping the team to be successful and driving up their value in the meantime. If we are at the top end of the league this season then that will make it short term successful, if that turns into a healthy profit for the players then that makes the model successful.

Ideally to be completely succesfull you sell 1 or 2 players a year for £1m+ and bring in 5 or 6 young cheap/free recruitments and plan that 1 or 2 of them are the next saleable assets - all while progressing up the leagues - the higher you go, the larger transfer fees you can expect.

[theakston2k]

The most interesting bit will be how flexible it is when things don’t go to plan. If say we are in a relegation battle at Christmas do you break the model to bring in a few known quantities to try and do all you can to avoid relegation or do you wholly stick to your principles and take relegation as an occupational hazard.

[dagrumpymunki]

Interesting question that, what is deemed success (or fail) and when.

I'd imagine some will judge it on this season alone! But its going to take 2,3,5 years to tweak IMO. Will fan buy in last that long? Depends if they can see progress on the pitch I suppose.

What is success anyway?
   Fan - Promotion and sustainability?
   Club - Sustainability and at least stability in league status?
    Probably both?

I think the fan base will be able to accept not being promoted every season. What they'll want to see is consistent progress year on year. Club management and fans wants are probably not that far apart. This model should let us build a side for the next 2/3 years, with the transfer market dealing being about asset realisation and reinvestment.

The demand for success and promotion RIGHT NOW! is at least in part drive by our history over the last few years when, if we manage to get lucky and assemble a half decent team, we know we'll lose half the real talent from it at the end of the season and have to start again.

Contracted players rather than loans and fewer one year contracts eases that a bit.

[Audrey]

Success this year depends on Reed and McKirdy staying - although that goes against the model as they would be OOC at the end of next season and we’ll get nowt.

I’m all in favour of the current recruitment model - having a plan and sticking with it is preferable to ad hoc signings in the windows.

Being naive, but if those 2 were looking at moving I’m sure they’d be ‘injured’ to get out of playing friendlies - which is what Khan has done at Chesterfield.

If we can get a Simpson-like striker in, preferably on a perm, that’ll seal it for me.

[RobertT]

I have absolutely no issue with the model attempting to be used by the club.  BUT, success this season is pretty binary, promotion.  Anything but that is a failure for the season, regardless if the long term financial prospects are enhanced by a few players developing.  Even a repeat of last season, while fun at times to watch, would be a failure this season.  That may be a harsh reality, but it is simply where we as a club should be aiming when measuring success in Division Four under normal circumstances.  Last season was good because we had exceptional circumstances to deal with.

The success of the data approach, like has been described, is a clubs ability to identify the right players to scout without just looking for paper clippings of who is hot or top goal scorer charts, or relying on having scouts in every ground every week.  It will no doubt mean we sign some pretty "random" looking players at times.

[Honkytonk]

I'm all for the long term, moneyball approach presented by the club, and the fact they are backing it up with actions to support it is great.

That said, we need to get out of L2, too much of our recent history has been spent here and we need to be at least a L1 side dabbling with dreams of championship to make sure this works. This league has proven time and again that you can't make a team out of ex-academy youngsters and win promotion, when it's 8:30pm on a wet Tuesday evening somewhere north and grim in the depths of January, we're getting the shit kicked out of us by some barely professional side managed by a dinosaur of a manager, and the officials continue to be as shit as they have been for the past few years and offer our players no protection, we need some experience, grit, and squad depth to get us through.

Do I think we need to approach every game like that? No, I love that I support a team that tries to play flowing, intelligent, top-tier football. But I think we need to make sure we have the capability to make real changes when necessary if 'the plan' isn't working and we're dropping points we shouldn't be because said cloggers have set up with 10 men behind the ball and are deliberately playing to frustrate and end as many careers as possible (looking at you Port Vale and Mansfield from last season).

Happy with the signings so far, but we need a few more experienced players dotted into the squad. Our experience with Williams proves we have good sports scientists and can get a 'career ended due to injury' player back playing week in week out in a regular team again, so I think a few older players moving towards the end of their careers and maybe into coaching is something we should be able to attract and utilise when we need to.

[hanneyred]

A friend of mine who plays for Chesterfield has just put up a post in Instagram dedicated to Khan, and he’s said “Go smash it”… clearly signed for someone…

[Uncletrunx]

XG is to football what the Duckworth-Lewis method is to cricket.

(Using the Duckworth-Lewis method, I'm 6'5 and 8% body fat.)

[dagrumpymunki]

I have absolutely no issue with the model attempting to be used by the club.  BUT, success this season is pretty binary, promotion.  Anything but that is a failure for the season, regardless if the long term financial prospects are enhanced by a few players developing.  Even a repeat of last season, while fun at times to watch, would be a failure this season.

I don't think anyone, fans, management, players or board would disagree. To make this model work you have to be making progress up the leagues and getting out of the basement division asap is important as the players available to the club then opens up.

All I meant was that this sort of more of operation takes some of the pressure off to win back to back promotions, because everyone feels we have to take our chance when we get it because there's no chance to sustain any level of quality.

Our clubs high points tend to have revolved around managers that we were bloody lucky to get some my their best with utterly symbolic financial regimes.

If we can find a way to establish the club a bit more sustainably, we'll all feel less like we need success quickly before the bubble bursts