paddy20
Sorry can't agree. Most fans that have been watching football for some time do have a pretty good idea between an average to poor player and a good player. If you take business for example some of the worst run companies are run by accountants who tend to make all the decisions based on excel spreadsheets etc etc. How many top entrepreneurs do you know that are accountants? Judgement on a player must be made on more than facts and figures as we all know that statistics can prove pretty much anything if you want them to.
Top entrepreneurs HIRE accountants.
Alan Sugar is brilliant and pointing out that there's no profit in there. The Dragon's den people are PRECISELY "accountants" quick to see the difference between "pretty idea" and money-making idea. They just do their accounting on the fly, intuitively.
I have never disputed that judgements on a player are NOT ONLY statistics, but I object to scapegoat of the month stuff. It's HRK ATM, has been Blackman, Akpan, Gunter, Guthrie. It's BLATHER from fans, many of which have probably never played.
The stats are about, "Hang on a minute, this guy scores goals, or this guy gets loads of assists, even if you don't like him."
I'm originally from Newport and remember John Aldridge joining us from South Liverpool. He got goals almost straight away and every one was ugly, off his knee, his arse, the side of his head.
Then they took him out of the first team and stuck him with the reserves playing in the Welsh League. When he came back he seemed to have lost all his natural instincts and couldn't score.
THEN, the drills, the learning gradually re-combined with his natural talent and he started to score so much that he was sold, first to Oxford, then to Liverpool.
But the fans were screaming in the middle bit, how we had RUINED the player, had coached the instinct out of him etc.
Fans don't know much. Antonio, Long, Rosenior, Mills