Nerdification of football is so boring. I remember when these threads were Youtube videos, laughs and cock talk. Now it's just number crunching.
Matheus Cunha | Official | signed the first day of the window
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Hahaha, this what keeps me up at night. You know it's coming...and the sales, the sales will take for fecking ever.
You could easily counter with Yorke, Cole, Van Persie, Carrick, Ferdinand, Rooney and elsewhere Rice, Walker, Caicedo, Mac Allister etc
Knowing the league and being comfortable in it already will always be an advantage, but obviously doesn't guarantee success. It's just one of a number of plusses as it generally comes with, already comfortable in the UK, already understanding English etc.
But the main advantage of Cunha is that he not only knows the league already, he's played successfully in a tactical set up very similar to the one Amorim plays.
Yeah and the majority of them turned out pretty good, really. Only 3 absolute duds in that list.
Okay I get that, but surely any player scoring even 15 non-penalty goals in a season has a very high probability that they will have outperformed their xG by the nature of most chances being 0.5xG or less?
I'd be interested to see any examples of players scoring at least 15 goals who were also underperforming their xG, and even if there are one or two, I'd guess they would be in a minority. I guess what I am arguing is that once you score a certain number of goals, there is a floor effect on xG due to the fact that there are presumably very few chances which are >0.90
Who turned out pretty good? Luke Shaw, who else? The others were not worth the money paid for them - Maguire is a decent squad player but he cost a world record fee and was not worth close to that. Lukaku was decent in his first season but an absolute twat, Mount is pointless and more overpriced junk, AWB was horrendously overpriced and average, Mata is a player I loved from his Valencia days and was a good servant but signed for a huge fee and did not live up to it, Matic was decent but forgettable - the fact that he played for Manchester United more than any other time, yet no one will remember him primarily as a United player says it all - Schneiderlin and Sanchez will barely be remembered as United players. If you could go back in time with the knowledge you have now, would you honestly still sign any of those players apart from Shaw? Doubtful, so I wouldn't rate those signings as "pretty good".
Only Shaw was worth what we paid, despite these players supposedly being low risk and proven they turned out to be deadwood. Out of those signings, the only ones who were actually genuinely proven, top players in the PL prior to us signing were Matic (although the thought was that he wasn't as good anymore), Mata, Lukaku and Sanchez with Shaw being a young talent. The rest were nothing special to decent/good, at best, at their PL clubs but not worth close to the valuations we were made to sign them at.
There are no steadfast rules or guarantees to transfers, you get some benefit if a player has genuinely proven (not just played in the league and been alright) themselves in the PL and adapted to the country but you also get ripped off because all of the clubs are rich. Players move within the same league and struggle all the time, look at Griezmann from Atleti to Barca then back to Atleti where he looked better again. There are a multitude of reasons for player performance, but people want to boil it down to simple things, especially if it makes the PL look like the biggest, scariest league of all time. The importance should be on whether a player has excelled or shown they are a true talent, not simply "proven" they can play a season in the league and not be complete shite because otherwise you end up with AWB and Schneiderlin signed for huge fees stinking up the place.
No, because those players take a lot of shots full stop. The whole point of that "less than 0.5 xG chance" is that for every one of those you score, the average footballer shooting from there (which is not they drop every footballer in the top leagues there and make them shoot, it's a measure which is historical so highly weighted towards the type of player that will usually take shots from there) will miss one. For every 3 0.3 xG chances a player scores they will miss 7.
And one of the things that football supporters don't seem to grasp is that xG volume is the main predictor of goals, not xG overperformance. Great goal scorers aren't great, in the vast majority of times, because they're supreme finishers. They're great because they're supreme chance-getters. Son, who might be the best finisher we have data of this kind for, has a league career over-performance of about 31%. Messi is at about 15%. Kane 13%. These are the best of the best.
Ronaldo for instance, since 2014 when data is available to his last year at United, scored 234 goals from an xG of 229.4. So an overperformance of 4.5 goals (which is less than 2%, well inside any margin of error). More interestingly though, he underperformed his xG in 6 of 9 seasons, and without his monster season in 14-15 he'd actually under perform his xG by about 2%.
It's very, very rare for players to consistently exceed their xG by any significant margin. Of the 7 players who have scored 15 goals in the Prem this year 4 have over-performed, 3 have under performed. Of the 5 in La Liga it's 2 over-performed, 3 under. Serie A only have 2, but it's 50:50. Salah has 4 over-performing and 4 under-performing seasons in the PL, Haaland has 1-2, Isak 2-1... You get the gist. You become a great scorer by getting lots of chances, ideally high quality ones. That's what results in players hitting sustainably high goal numbers.
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Mbeumo: good player, but would he be 35-40 million? I doubt they‘ll sell him to us for that.
I‘ve mentioned Simons before, but for the same price or less we can have Cunha who is PL proven and 25 years old. Xavi would be a gamble.
I‘ve mentioned Simons before, but for the same price or less we can have Cunha who is PL proven and 25 years old. Xavi would be a gamble.
Which it should be, data is everything, the blend of quantitative and qualitative analysis plus sports science is needed.
If you want a high pressing team then you shouldn't hire a 30 year old over the hill player.
United need xG and xA in the front areas, that are in the high percentiles that can run.
Awesome, thanks for the detailed reply. Very interesting as I've only recently started to take a proper interest in this stuff, but find it really compelling #nerdstuff
Caf's gone
No problem, and just to be clear I'm not advocating xG as some kind of miracle statistic which has solved football! It's useful but with anything that appears superficially simple it's misused a lot. Generally it's a small part of a much deeper analysis (there's a good article here: https://medium.com/@drsmukherjee/th...s-most-misunderstood-and-misused-5b85773e9314 which breaks down that kind of thing if you're interested).
It just so happens that one area it is useful for on it's own is as a metric of accounting for skill and natural variance in teams/players scoring over the medium/long term, which is why I can say with complete confidence that Cunha won't keep scoring the types of goals he's scoring at the same rate he is now. That's not to say he won't keep scoring at this rate, but if he does it will have to be because he dramatically increases the volume or quality (or some combination of both) of the chances he gets. That's not impossible, but there's some strong arguments (his age, his relative importance to Wolves' attack compared to ours, how well his ball carrying will transfer to our style of play etc.) as to why it's unlikely.
It's why I'm in the "he's too expensive" price, but that's not to say he won't end up being worth it or anything like that. I just think playing the numbers game you're better off looking for less high profile players who aren't so obviously riding the crest of a wave and so will cost a lot less money.
Looks like I signed up too late
Be the change you want to see in the world my sonLooks like I signed up too late
Even with all the numbers and data, fans (e-fans) still go mad for the big names regardless if they would work for United or not, or even if United could afford them
I think if we had to pick one nation that's had the best transfer hit rate for us it would be England right?
Far from perfect but overall I'd say it's the place most reliable. Even the players you've listed to prove otherwise, most of them brought something.
Trying to think of outright terrible transfers from within England. Sanchez definitely. Schneiderlin but at least we got a half decent fee for him. Mount's just been injured. That's nothing to do with proven or where he came from.
I'm probably missing some but overall, England is the safest bet.
I'm excited by this I think he's quality and exactly what we need.
Caf never fails, all season sign him up he's class or he'll go somewhere else and we'll be fuming.
Confirmed interest, ooh I'm not sure about this!
Caf never fails, all season sign him up he's class or he'll go somewhere else and we'll be fuming.
Confirmed interest, ooh I'm not sure about this!
I think we wind up back in a 433 before too long, so that would put me off him. He ticks a lot of boxes, I would value PL experience just because you'd hope they'd adjust a bit quicker and hit the ground running. But not that keen on the signing, just think its bad vibes and nothing concrete.
Maybe it makes sense combined with Delap, he could probably cover and give some competition up front. Maybe if we can sell Zirkzee to fund it - think they'll be doing a similar job in the team and there wont be room for both.
Feel quite bleh about this one.
Maybe it makes sense combined with Delap, he could probably cover and give some competition up front. Maybe if we can sell Zirkzee to fund it - think they'll be doing a similar job in the team and there wont be room for both.
Feel quite bleh about this one.
He scores. That should be enough right now.
I understand some of the reservations but I’ll also say he’s a high quality, PL proven player in his prime. He also adds many of the attributes we sorely lack. He’s exactly the profile of player we need in many regards. Whether he’s the exact player we need is another question.
I’m certainly not against large signings, in terms of fees but they have to be extremely well judged and I would contend that they need to fulfil certain criteria such as PL experience. Great players can be bought from abroad but the fees have to be commensurate. See for example, we spent the same on Sancho and Antony, two complete wash out signings who never managed to adapt to the hurly, burly, fast pace of the PL, as we would’ve done if we had signed Rice and now Cunha. And I don’t think anyone could argue that we’d be a shit loaf better off with the latter pair.
There is a lot of conversation about PL tax, and while some of it is purely because of the financial robustness of nearly every team in the division and not needing to sell when big offers come in, part of it is also because such players do offer a lower risk profile than signings from abroad. When I look at signings from other leagues, I see an opportunity to get a high quality player at a lower price than an equivalent PL counterpart. When the overseas player is costing the same as the PL proven player, I would go for the PL proven player every time. The exception to this is in the case of obviously world class players, of whom there are few.
I’m certainly not against large signings, in terms of fees but they have to be extremely well judged and I would contend that they need to fulfil certain criteria such as PL experience. Great players can be bought from abroad but the fees have to be commensurate. See for example, we spent the same on Sancho and Antony, two complete wash out signings who never managed to adapt to the hurly, burly, fast pace of the PL, as we would’ve done if we had signed Rice and now Cunha. And I don’t think anyone could argue that we’d be a shit loaf better off with the latter pair.
There is a lot of conversation about PL tax, and while some of it is purely because of the financial robustness of nearly every team in the division and not needing to sell when big offers come in, part of it is also because such players do offer a lower risk profile than signings from abroad. When I look at signings from other leagues, I see an opportunity to get a high quality player at a lower price than an equivalent PL counterpart. When the overseas player is costing the same as the PL proven player, I would go for the PL proven player every time. The exception to this is in the case of obviously world class players, of whom there are few.
Interesting. Born one day after the 1999 CL final.
Blah blah he’s outperforming his Xg
Boring
He passes the eye test. He’s a good footballer and will improve our side
Boring
He passes the eye test. He’s a good footballer and will improve our side
Agreed. Which makes me feeling pretty unconvinced hard to understand. But i am unconvinced.
I think i'd be more inclined to Kluivert or Eze or MBuemo to be honest.
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Mbuemo is an interesting alternative but Brentford seem to be inclined to push for a big transfer fee and Newcastle and Liverpool are both supposedly a lot further along in terms of exploring a deal this summer. Eze always strikes me as a little bit inconsistent, wonderful moments but can be anonymous and barely involved and Kluivert has been great this season but was underwhelming to poor for much of his career up until this point. Cunha certainly seems to be the most proven and of course has the advantage of already playing in the same system so we don't need to project how he will fit in.
Mbuemo is an interesting alternative but Brentford seem to be inclined to push for a big transfer fee and Newcastle and Liverpool are both supposedly a lot further along in terms of exploring a deal this summer. Eze always strikes me as a little bit inconsistent, wonderful moments but can be anonymous and barely involved and Kluivert has been great this season but was underwhelming to poor for much of his career up until this point. Cunha certainly seems to be the most proven and of course has the advantage of already playing in the same system so we don't need to project how he will fit in.
The benefit of playing Bruno as a 10 in this scenario is it means Amad plays RWB and we have a proper attacker there.
The benefit of him playing as a CM is it gives us that creativity and forward passing from further back. It may mean we’re stuck with Dalot though on the right.
I guess the simple thing is to wait and see who else we prioritise next after Cunha and a new striker. I imagine we’ll get a CM in any case as it gives us more options.
I just can't believe we'd spend that much on one player, when we very desperately need so many additions.
Any player is a risk, but nothing about him screams taking that big a risk to me. Can't believe there aren't more affordable options out there.
Any player is a risk, but nothing about him screams taking that big a risk to me. Can't believe there aren't more affordable options out there.
Apparently he was conceived the moment the ball left Solksjaer’s foot.
Exactly my thoughts around him. He's been good against the better/best teams as well, maybe not scored(can't be bothered to check now...), but I remember watching him against the "top 6" and always being a threat.
He caughty eye when we played them once.
It must've been last season.
He was a constant threat.
Time to find out what it would have been like if we had gone all in on Michu in 2013
It's not about signing him in general. He's a quality player. But he's got a questionable character and for 62m you just could get Osimhen and a less expensive no.10.
Which less expensive no.10 did you have in mind?
One that someone pays us to take by the sounds of it
This is my perspective too about Amad. I love what he brings as the right sided 10, and I think he’s a good balance and mix with Cunha. I also think Bruno being us so much progressive passing from a CM role that makes us a much bigger danger going forwards. But the trade off is the RWB slot. Dalot there is a stop gap. He’s a good versatile player but he doesn’t have the attacking threat to be our outlet on the right. Amad has always looked so dangerous playing out wide and really helps our build up because he can receive it deep under pressure and keep possession and turn and drive us forward. We lose a lot when he’s not at RWB. So if we did play Bruno CM, with Cunha and Amad behind the striker, we would need to sign a RWB. A Dorgu type figure for the opposing flank. Perhaps someone even more attack orientated. Williams for me is the dream for that role, I think he would slot in perfectly and provide the pace and width we need from the role, but he’s never signing for us without CL football, would likely cost too much in relation to all our other needs, and might be averse to playing as, even a nominal, right wing back. There’s Frimpong at Leverkusen, who is a very good player, but I think the role is more of a winger than a wing back, and I suspect Amorim wants that player to be inverted.
Because we aren’t trying to do it all at once? We need to build a team. That will take numerous transfer windows. Why would we focus on getting all the players we need all at once? That would leave about £10m per new signing that’s required.
We don't need that many additions. We need focused quality additions in the attack. Cunha is a very logical add to the #10, and we need a striker. Seemingly that will be Delap, I would prefer Osimhen but all the same it's a big improvement so I think it's a big positive.
Cunha improves us no end.
He’s a flare player that’s capable of genius moments, very creative and likes to dribble.
A bit of swagger and excitement would do nicely.
Players like Cantona and Berbatov injected that swagger, I think Cunha could do the same.
I’d love him, Delap and Gyokeres but we can only dream.
He’s a flare player that’s capable of genius moments, very creative and likes to dribble.
A bit of swagger and excitement would do nicely.
Players like Cantona and Berbatov injected that swagger, I think Cunha could do the same.
I’d love him, Delap and Gyokeres but we can only dream.
Ornstein name-checked Semenyo as a possible alternative to Cunha in his most recent update.
And whatever qualms I have about signing Cunha for this price, I would have even more if it was a case of signing Semenyo for similar.
And whatever qualms I have about signing Cunha for this price, I would have even more if it was a case of signing Semenyo for similar.
True. I miss the guy and he's played in the number 10 position before so interested to see if Amorim will try him alongside Cunha with Dalot overlapping.
We know Marcus doesn't want to be here under AmoriimI'm hoping they do as they both seem to be very happy and enjoying their football and we need to offload some players so here's to hoping Villa and Betis can go for permanent moves for both. Not sure about Sancho though.
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