Colossl Victory

A major decision for managers of smaller clubs, who can’t just blow opposition teams away, is whether to go out quick at the start and try and get an early lead, then defend it or to keep it tight, before throwing everything at the wall for the last period of the match to try and snatch it at the death. Both methods have their benefits; the early attack gives more time to get the goal, but there’s no definitive end point as to when to start shutting up shop if the goal can’t be found as it’s unlikely a team would be able to keep up the intensity for a whole match. The late attack gives you more defensive security, as you prioritise not conceding in the early stages but can backfire if your opposition is fitter and have more in the tank at the end. What if it was possible to tell when is best to attack based purely on xG, if it could be shown that the time in the match affected how likely a shot was to be scored? It could help to decide when to attack to get the most out of it, or wh...

A link back to a thread I posted after the Cardiff game but seems still very relevant today https://twitter.com/colosslvictory/status/1034196536438087680 . We can't beat teams that sit deep and don't try to play, never have under Wagner and seemingly still can't. These teams turn up with a game plan to get a point and more often than not we are kind enough to give them all 3 for the troubles. The main problem is the pressing isn't as effective against them as they not only have the ball less so less opportunities but when mistakes are forced there is no space in behind to exploit and this leaves us out of options as we don't have a good enough delivery or patience to break these teams down. This also was a problem for Liverpool last season, although obviously not as badly), who also play the pressing game and they had a really hard time breaking down deep sitting opposition (H v Stoke, H v West Brom, A v Newcastle ) but this season they seem to have found a way ...

Week 13-16 Review - Week 13 - 3 results with 1 score and unfortunately a most confident wrong, bad week overall Week 14 -  5 results with 2 scores and both most confident right, a good week as hitting target Week 15 -  6 results with 1 score and both 'bankers' right, good week as above target would like more scores though Week 16 -  4 results 1 score and both 'bankers' right Overall a fairly good set of results running only slightly below target for number of results, hoping to see a continued improvement as more data becomes available and thus it can be trained more. On the betting front it has fallen quite far down to -£5.60 overall loss (so £160 bet so far and still have £154.40) for the season so could be better. Week 17 Predictions - I can't get the graphic to work again so here is a table, unfortunately this means the predicted GD has been excluded and it is just the results. Home Predicted Score Away Most Confident ...