What to expect from Dougie ...

[Lord Kangana]

We've also been shit when playing 11 men, the kit man, the mascott, the ball boys and the Reebok Rebels behind the ball at all times. Personnel, preparation and tactics win every time over one dimensional, throw-away philosophies.

As I've said before, over to you Dougie. Success is the only criteria.

[BWFC_Insane]

We've also been shit when playing 11 men, the kit man, the mascott, the ball boys and the Reebok Rebels behind the ball at all times. Personnel, preparation and tactics win every time over one dimensional, throw-away philosophies.

As I've said before, over to you Dougie. Success is the only criteria.

Clearly, but as I said there were times we had a deep lying system but still couldn't keep the ball out the net.

Its relative though, Megson was more successful than Sammy Lee's gung ho approach. Could be argued thats because Lee was clueless, but in general I can't think of many teams in the past twenty years who have been massively successful whilst conceding a lot of goals at the same time.

I think the first priority is a solid base in any team. How much that can be combined with attacking ability for me comes down to the quality of your players.

[thebish]

if you aggregated the last 10yrs of premiership tables... (goals conceded in brackets) goals FOR in blue... goal difference in brucey-pink

779pts manU (280) 704 +424
760pts chelsea (262) 667 +405
691pts Arsenal (337) 677 +340
614pts Liverpool (319) 545 +226
537pts Spurs (438) 520 +82
532pts Citeh (404) 521 +117
524pts Everton (405) 466 +61
476pts Villa (456) 448 -8
434pts Fulham (474) 424 -50
424pts B'burn (498) 411 -87
422pts Bolton (500) 410 -90

so... not surprisingly - the closest next measure to pts would be goal difference - yielding the same order except for the citeh/spurs anomaly.

between goals scored and goals conceded, the closest match to the pts table would be GOALS SCORED.

ergo - goals win matches!

[BWFC_Insane]

if you aggregated the last 10yrs of premiership tables... (goals conceded in brackets) goals FOR in blue... goal difference in brucey-pink

779pts manU (280) 704 +424
760pts chelsea (262) 667 +405
691pts Arsenal (337) 677 +340
614pts Liverpool (319) 545 +226
537pts Spurs (438) 520 +82
532pts Citeh (404) 521 +117
524pts Everton (405) 466 +61
476pts Villa (456) 448 -8
434pts Fulham (474) 424 -50
424pts B'burn (498) 411 -87
422pts Bolton (500) 410 -90

so... not surprisingly - the closest next measure to pts would be goal difference - yielding the same order except for the citeh/spurs anomaly.

between goals scored and goals conceded, the closest match to the pts table would be GOALS SCORED.

ergo - goals win matches!

Someone's actually done a full statistical analysis. As a stats expert Bish, perhaps you could debunk this, if apporpriate.

Anyhow their conclusion is that in the top half of the premiership scoring more goals is key, whereas in the bottom half conceding less becomes more important.

http://thegameisafoot.weebly.com/1/post ... heets.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hmmmm.

[thebish]

if you aggregated the last 10yrs of premiership tables... (goals conceded in brackets) goals FOR in blue... goal difference in brucey-pink

779pts manU (280) 704 +424
760pts chelsea (262) 667 +405
691pts Arsenal (337) 677 +340
614pts Liverpool (319) 545 +226
537pts Spurs (438) 520 +82
532pts Citeh (404) 521 +117
524pts Everton (405) 466 +61
476pts Villa (456) 448 -8
434pts Fulham (474) 424 -50
424pts B'burn (498) 411 -87
422pts Bolton (500) 410 -90

so... not surprisingly - the closest next measure to pts would be goal difference - yielding the same order except for the citeh/spurs anomaly.

between goals scored and goals conceded, the closest match to the pts table would be GOALS SCORED.

ergo - goals win matches!

Someone's actually done a full statistical analysis. As a stats expert Bish, perhaps you could debunk this, if apporpriate.

Anyhow their conclusion is that in the top half of the premiership scoring more goals is key, whereas in the bottom half conceding less becomes more important.

http://thegameisafoot.weebly.com/1/post ... heets.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hmmmm.

i did the top half because you were asking about teams that were "massively successful"

[BWFC_Insane]

if you aggregated the last 10yrs of premiership tables... (goals conceded in brackets) goals FOR in blue... goal difference in brucey-pink

779pts manU (280) 704 +424
760pts chelsea (262) 667 +405
691pts Arsenal (337) 677 +340
614pts Liverpool (319) 545 +226
537pts Spurs (438) 520 +82
532pts Citeh (404) 521 +117
524pts Everton (405) 466 +61
476pts Villa (456) 448 -8
434pts Fulham (474) 424 -50
424pts B'burn (498) 411 -87
422pts Bolton (500) 410 -90

so... not surprisingly - the closest next measure to pts would be goal difference - yielding the same order except for the citeh/spurs anomaly.

between goals scored and goals conceded, the closest match to the pts table would be GOALS SCORED.

ergo - goals win matches!

Someone's actually done a full statistical analysis. As a stats expert Bish, perhaps you could debunk this, if apporpriate.

Anyhow their conclusion is that in the top half of the premiership scoring more goals is key, whereas in the bottom half conceding less becomes more important.

http://thegameisafoot.weebly.com/1/post ... heets.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hmmmm.

i did the top half because you were asking about teams that were "massively successful"

No I get that. It wasn't quite the point I was making, I was saying few teams I can remember being massively successful whilst conceding (relatively) lots of goals. Your analysis backs that up. You went a stage further to show that scoring goals correlates more to league position, suggesting its more important. Which the analysis I found also shows (for the top half), though the difference is small and as you suggest GD is the best measure.

[Lord Kangana]

Well, us in 96-97, for a kick off. We conceded 60+ goals in all competition didn't we, but scored IRO 120ish?

Massively successful team at this level aswell.

[thebish]

No I get that. It wasn't quite the point I was making, I was saying few teams I can remember being massively successful whilst conceding (relatively) lots of goals. Your analysis backs that up. You went a stage further to show that scoring goals correlates more to league position, suggesting its more important. Which the analysis I found also shows (for the top half), though the difference is small and as you suggest GD is the best measure.

i don't really believe you can sensibly assert either:

"defence wins games"

or (simply)

"goals win games"

neither really describes the real world. The result of the game is a combination of the two.

[BWFC_Insane]

Well, us in 96-97, for a kick off. We conceded 60+ goals in all competition didn't we, but scored IRO 120ish?

Massively successful team at this level aswell.

Yeah thats true. Though we only conceded 5 more than the lowest in the league (palace who finished 6th) and less than Barnsley who finished as runners up behind us.

I suppose the point is that if you have a team good enough to bag 100 goals then you are probably in a luxurious position in terms of how many goals you can give away, but even that season there were 17 sides who conceded more than us and 1 that conceded the same amount. So even then we were relatively solid by that years standards.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I suspect there are few years where the winners of the premiership haven't had the best defensive record (or close to it) though I don't know this for sure, should anyone want to check........

Shortly before I went playing football meself (10 blocks personally, team won 9-3), you reeled me in... Last 10 years:

12 City most goals, best GD, fewest conceded
11 MU most goals, best GD, but two teams conceded fewer
10 Chelsea most goals, best GD, MU conceded 4 fewer
09 MU 9 didn't score most (Liverpool 9 more) or have best GD (Liverpool +6 more), but conceded equal-fewest
08 MU most goals, best GD, fewest conceded
07 MU most goals, best GD, Chelsea conceded 3 fewer
06 Chelsea equal-most goals, best GD, fewest conceded
05 Chelsea 15 fewer goals than Arsenal, best GD, fewest conceded
04 Arsenal most goals, best GD, fewest conceded
03 MU 11 fewer goals than Arsenal, GD 3 worse than Arsenal, fewest conceded

Of the last 10 Premier League champions, seven have scored the most, seven have conceded the fewest, and eight have had the best GD.

So you're all bickering about nowt - shurrup and let me get some sleep

[Athers]

If we could get a penalty every game it would help

[Hoboh]

Simple answer is Cloughie spent £1 mill not on a forward but a keeper, unheard of at the time because he reckoned success started from the back!

[TKIZ!]

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/wa ... s/10036890._/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;?

Sam sums up the Gaffer's plan - defend from the front

[thebish]

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/wa ... s/10036890._/?

Sam sums up the Gaffer's plan - defend from the front

ooh goody!! play Tim Ream in the hole?

[TKIZ!]

Hahahahaha, steady Bish

[Dr.Karl]

Just thought of this thread when thinking about the Everton game. Is point three coming into fruition now? The OP has it almost bang on.

[Gary the Enfield]

Just thought of this thread when thinking about the Everton game. Is point three coming into fruition now? The OP has it almost bang on.

Quite spooky reading that back. I look forward to the run to the play offs then. Actually, winning two games in a row would be nice.

[a1]

yeah, but we could give "coyle masterclass" to the fans of the next team thats stupid enough to employ him.

"remembering what the manager did" is not that much of a magic trick.

[Lord Kangana]

If he went to form, they wouldn't believe us, as he'd be having an excellent first 12 months.

[Harry Genshaw]

Simple answer is Cloughie spent £1 mill not on a forward but a keeper, unheard of at the time because he reckoned success started from the back!

No he didn't.