Shinji Kagawa is 30 and has joined Real Zaragoza in the Spanish second division. Im sure somebody really loved him when he was at Man Utd
Whilst Klopp has become universally adored, let's not forget how much of an oaf he seemed when spouting this soap opera worthy piece of melodramatic tosh regarding Kagawa:
Shinji Kagawa is one of the best players in the world and he now plays 20 minutes at Manchester United – on the left wing, my heart breaks. Really, I have tears in my eyes. Central midfield is Shinji’s best role. He’s an offensive midfielder with one of the best noses for goal I ever saw. ‘But for most Japanese people it means more to play for Man United than Dortmund. We cried for 20 minutes, in each other’s arms, when he left.
He was right though. That move pretty much ended his career. Coutinho should have taken note.
I do wonder how he'd have ended up if Fergie had stayed on. Moyes didn't have a clue how to use him.
He should never have gotten his teeth fixed.
Zulte Waregem have signed Berahino after Stoke terminated his deal.
Balotelli looks set to join Flamengo in Brazil.
Alright, Balotelli in Brazil sounds like a fun watch.
He can just fall over and feign injury to protect a 1-0 lead as happens in all the other matches there.
Nguyễn Công Phượng had become the first Viet to play in Europe having signed for Sint-Truiden in Belgium.
He isn't very good.
Have the sales of Sint-Truiden shirts shot up in Vietnam?
Perisic to Bayern Munich on loan.
So many weird transfers this window. De Rossi, Trippier, Balotelli, Luiz, Juanfran, Lukaku, Kean, and on and on.
I know it's only preseason, but Joao Felix is starting to look worryingly like he might justify that bonkers transfer fee.
He looked wank for Portugal when I saw him but yeah, he seems set to really push on for Atletico.
Adil Rami has been fired by Marseille because he claimed he was injured, missed training and took part in some mud wrestling tv show.
Mangala has joined Valencia on a free
Sneijder has retired
Barcelona are in Paris to discuss Neymar deal
Wesley Sneijder to United OFF.
Garay is still on.
If he's not on a trackable plane I don't care.
I see Man City have been bribing FIFA to let them off handily without a transfer ban.
You have to wonder what the point in having rules is if you end up fining the infinity money Emirate a couple of hundred grand, but you'd imgaine they've been focusing most of their largess on the UEFA stuff about FFP.
Wissam Ben Yedder has joined Monaco for £37m with Rony Lopes moving the other way for £18m
How do player swap deals work financially?
"Look mate we need Neymar but we're fucked for FFP leeway so whatcha reckon, Coutinho's worth about 175 mil, yeah?"
They are usually actually done at separate concurrent purchases as far as I can tell.
Lol come on fam.(Kieran Trippier) was valued at £61m while at Spurs, a rating which increases for the buying club.
That must be his post-World Cup value, because there's no way it can be that high after the season he's just had.
Can someone explain how these "values" are calculated anyway?
I realize their contracts are one part of the equation, but while that should really be all of it, it isn't.
People with computers and numbers did it, so it's definitely 100% right.
Too bad they don’t have an indicator variable for “turned out to be irredeemably shit” in their model
I wonder about stats like 'distance ran' which always seems to be given value, when surely it's not always a pro. Why is every headless chicken running about, snapping at heels more valuable than players who have decent positioning and spend most of the match patrolling a 12 yard box?
"Analytics twitter" has roundly lolled at that article. I can't believe it got published.
It always amazes me that nobody understands what Moneyball was about, even people who have read/seen it. Moneyball was not about using stats to value players, it was about using valid reasons to value players instead of arbitrary, made up, shite reasons.
Stats can come into both of those camps.
How good they are at doing things which actually matter to the end goal, which in team sports is 'the team winning'. The examples given in the baseball world were the ancien regime were signing players based on how nice their swing was, or if they had a 'good body', rather than results.
It was basically a book about seeing the world as it really is rather than as you think it is. For some reason though in the popular imagination it's some revenge of the nerds nonsense.
I forget whether you are one of those who hate expected goals, but that statistic I think is one of the most relevant and useful that anyone’s come up with in this sport. Idiots misuse it or just don’t understand it, and of course there is subjectivity in how you determine goal likelihoods, but it’s a very good abstraction
I think expected goals is a good stat, but it's one of those things that needs to be referred to over a very long period of time rather than in one game. In one game there is a pretty high degree of randomness.
Coutinho has gone on loan to Bayern.
Your mother has gone on loan to my dick
She's a right journeyman.
'The nomadic matriarch'
Not sure hiring a 60 year old with Sjogrens for sex is really the winning move you're looking for.