The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

You've fallen into the bogus list trap.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The point is that the Man City players could not break through as Arteta had surely convinced his team, bogus list or not ("Sorry, Gaffer, I am not falling for this bogus list"), that they now have the resilience to keep them out. Last year it was a case of 48% possession and a 4-1 loss.

[Mick Harper]

They were outta sight better. But does that support your view or mine? Remember we are not permitted to judge by individual results. Only the league table at the end of days.

[Mick Harper]

I decided to use a blast from this thread's past for a Medium piece and have got at least one interesting response. First the story in all its glory:

You’re starter for one. Don’t get caught out.

Here’s a simple question that so far, in my experience, nobody has ever got right even though it’s obvious when you hear the answer and why we use it in our “Would I make a good applied epistemologist?” questionnaire (send SAE for yours). It concerns cricket but it has resonance for baseball freaks and women.

Why does the wicketkeeper drop fewer catches proportionately than slip fielders?

I’ll give you a moment to write down the answer but while you’re doing that I’ll give you the answers other people have given whenever I’ve asked them in person. Usually at dinner parties though for some reason I am rarely invited to dinner parties. Why they are wrong is in italics (about the question, I mean, not the dinner party invitations). N.B. Nobody so far has said, “I don’t know.” Applied epistemology exists because nobody ever says, “I don’t know.”

1. The ’keeper is wearing gloves, slip fielders aren’t.
Would it change if you gave slip fielders gloves? No.

2. The keeper gets more practice catching nicked balls.
What, maybe three times in a day’s play compared to a slip’s one? Hardly.

3. But more practice catching the ball generally.
Would a keeper standing at slip be any better than a regular slip? No.

4. Slip fielders may not know whose ball it is until it’s too late.
Most often between wicketkeeper and first slip.

5. The more pronounced the nick the more uncertain the path of the ball.
Sounds good but is untrue (except as pertaining to where it pitches, so no catch).

6. The keeper is selected for his catching skills, slips aren’t.
Emergency wicketkeepers don’t drop catches either, at least not on a slip’s scale.

The light bulb will come on next time you and the lads are clustered round the slipper’s cradle for spring training. The ball’s coming towards you fast and at crazy angles just like when a batsman nicks it, right? You catch it practically every time, right? So does everyone else, right? None of you are wicketkeepers except the wicketkeeper, right? So how come? You knew the ball was coming, that’s how come. We can all catch a ball when we know it’s coming.

Only wicketkeepers know the ball is coming.

Whether the batsman hits it first is irrelevant, the wicketkeeper’s expectations are quite sufficient. Slip fielders don’t know the ball is coming because it never is. Except once in a blue moon which is why they are so often in a purple haze when it does.

You knew this! In fact you were just about to say it only I didn’t give you the chance. I know, I know. This happens with such frequency we have coined a term for it, ‘old hat syndrome’. That’s the way applied epistemology works. Solutions are so obvious everyone arrives at them before/after we do.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

When you lose at home to your chief rivals by twenty-eight shots to nine you're not going to keep your job come the end of the season. I firmly predict the new brooms from INEOS will sweep a fresh dud into the Augean stables. As for Arsenal, they are still too new brooms to disturb the very top of the table. But that is not a firm prediction.

[Mick Harper]

Anglo-Euro Quarters

The most obvious thing the matches had in common was that neither Bayern nor Real did any Premiership-style full-court press, all-action scurrying without the ball. This allowed our boys to develop at their own pace. Man City did and to good effect but Arsenal thought they were still in the Premiership and kept hoofing it. This, by the way, has spread from just the goalie to anyone who fancies it. Just what those towering Lofthouses--Martinelli, Saka and Havertz--want. Still it means a City v Bayern semi so we're through to the final already. At Wembley so we're guaranteed five teams next season.

[Mick Harper]

Arsenal 0 Villa 2

All my jeremiads came true. First of all El Caudillo picked Havertz and Jesus. They keep warbling on about Havertz having 'come good' but he was bought expensively as a striker (over my protest) and, as far as I can see, they have converted him into a journeyman midfielder who can't even score midfielder goals. As for Jesus (also expensively purchased despite my pleas) he's declined from useless into being a positive menace.

The lack of a decent striker meant it was still nil-nil when, as that decent striker Ollie Watkins said, "We could tell they were getting tired so we shifted gear." Why were they getting tired? It is true Arsenal's energetic all court press is tiring but it's the fact they keep hoofing it that means the press has to be used so often. If they only remembered they are the best tippy-tappers in the world and kept possession for long periods, Olly would have left without the lolly.

Now it's no peseta for Arteta and, like I've been saying all season, City are 80% to walk it.

[Mick Harper]

As for Villa, it's good and bad news Champions League-wise. They'll probably get fourth spot anyway now but fifth place may be enough. There are two extra places available for the leagues that performed best across all three of UEFA's club competitions. After the disastrous English results in midweek Germany on 16.785 went past England on 16.750 (Italy are way ahead). With Liverpool and West Ham all but out of the Europa it may all be down to City winning the big one and Villa winning the Conference.

What a palaver to salaver.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The tactics are an absolute disgrace, even if Arsenal had won yesterday they would have only just been ahead of Man City and Liverpool.

[Mick Harper]

I wish I knew what those tactics were. As the panel said, Arsenal were out of this world for the first twenty minutes. For the whole of the first half, according to Snr The Man. But the problem with Arsenal's style is that it produces few goal chances against a decent defence. If you watch ding-ding matches, chances are being created constantly at both ends and at all levels. Arsenal's 'tactics' ensure few chances but even fewer for the other side. Hence the importance of a decent striker. And, as someone pointed out, having to play the same two central defenders in every match.

But for no reason I can fathom, they always turn to hoofing sooner or later. This actually increases the chances of them scoring but increases the other side's chances even more. If you watch City (or even Villa yesterday) they put out their stall and stick to it.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Before yesterday.

Of your last 10 premier games you had won 9, drawn 1.

Man City had won 7, drawn 3.

Liverpool had won 7, drawn 2, lost 1.

Yesterday you had more possession, more shots, and more shots on target.

You really just need to do what you have done in the last 10 games or so as your run in is OK, and then hope for the best, ie the others continue to concede draws, it is pretty unlikely that a dramatic change of tactics will help. But what do I know. I only see highlights.

[Mick Harper]

It is true watching highlights is misleading. Arsenal's games are the only ones I watch in full and then mostly at double speed. I am not advocating a dramatic change of tactics, just playing the normal ones for longer.

Speaking of which Chelsea managed to beat Everton 6-0 at the Bridge last night without looking convincing. The chief moment of excitement was a mini-Chelsea riot about who was to take a penalty when they were four up. Maturity is not their style. Resolved when the normal penalty taker, Cole Palmer, took it and added to his first quarter of an hour hat-trick, thereby scoring six in his last thirty minutes of play (late hat trick against Man U).

Thereby putting him in the frame for England who now have four decent strikers (Palmer, Ollie Watson, Ivan Toney and Harry Kane) where previously they had none.

[Mick Harper]

The last goal was scored by Alfie Gilchrist (who?) for whom it was his first. When he tried his obligatory knee slide in celebration he had so little practice that he got it all wrong, flipped arse over tit, tore all his tendons and ended his footballing career. Well, he might have, he certainly did the a over t bit. Why they all do this knee slide (you don't have to score, you can do it to accompany the bloke who did) is something that never ceases to amaze me. Why managers and/or the footballing authorities don't forbid the practice never ceases to amaze me.

[Mick Harper]

While looking up the name of the (Welsh) England fast bowler who had his career nearly ended by a knee slide in Australia (it was Simon Jones) I discovered that Derek Underwood has died. This is rather sobering since I always claim I used to play against him when our school played Bromley Grammar School where he was a contemporary pupil.

Why he was playing in the seconds when three years older than me is not something I like to dwell on. I won't be dwelling on it at all from now on. Did I tell you I used to play in John Edrich's old cricket boots? That at least is true. Martha: check whether he's still with us.