Surprise Press-ent

[Brassneck]

Agree with it all Dave. I'm just really hoping Grealish doesn't have to go.

The problem with loosing our most important game since 1982 is that we are now at risk of loosing our best players.  Worse still, teams know we are desperate to offload and will be hovering around like vultures making derisory offers to test our resolve.

losing

We will try and shift everything else before accepting a shit offer for our best players.

Good luck with that.

Have you seen their salaries?  £20K a week for Gardner? £35k for Hogan, £30K for Lansbury? As for Tishibola & McCormack, I can't bring myself to type their wage. No team can match these salaries - We are effectively stuck with these squad players who are commanding salaries that are higher than the salaries of first teamers elsewhere.

[dave.woodhall]

Great article. The only point I don’t necessarily agree with is that we’d have been promoted had Jack done a full season. Not sure, since he probably had to go through that injury and all the subsequent struggle and reflection to grow up and get his head in the right place. If ever an injury had been a blessing in disguise it was probably that one. Probably.

Maybe. I've thought that myself but I also hope that he finally realised he wasn't getting any younger and if he was ever going to make his mark it had to be soon. 

[UK Redsox]

I just wish that Villa could find a 'Moneyball' player as good as "The Greek God of Walks".

Yooooouuuuuukkkkkkkk

[tomd2103]

Great read. In agreement with loads of it.
Especially the staying in this League bit.

On a strictly football basis perhaps, but I think this last week has highlighted the need to be in the Premier League, as nauseating as some the stuff that comes along with being in that league can be at times. 

[DesBremner]

Another good read Dave, bur can you explain what that man is doing on the steps of the Trinity?
It might be my fading eyesight but it looks suspiciously like he is doing a Barry Fry

[Hookeysmith]

Nail on head - again

[Clark W Griswold]

Agree with all of it but I do think we need to get back up in the next couple of years despite it being more fun at the moment in many ways. For the long term good of the club it needs to happen soon.
The two biggest issues as we stand are Bruce and Grealish, I'm think that we should only change Bruce for the right manager and only sell Grealish for the right money (£32m plus). In that case both would make sense for the long term.

[AsTallAsLions]

Well written.

[PeterWithesShin]

We supposedly used sabermetrics to find players like Amavi, not Moneyball.

[brian green]

Was sabermetrics what the Chicago pie factory executive came up with to inspire Billy Beane and Peter Brand?  The movie Moneyball seems to suggest a very bizarre origin of what came to be called Moneyball.

[PeterWithesShin]

Sabermetrics has been around for the best part of 50 years. Bill James was writing about it in the 70s.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Good read. Agree about this coming transfer window but maybe we should move Bruce to Head of Scouting and get somebody else in to take care of first team duties. Afterall, we all pretty much agreed last summer we had the strongest squad in the league.

If we are forced to go mainly 'young and hungry' this season, I hope we learn from the last time we tried it. That time we asked Paul Lambert to execute the plan, a manager that was used to working with much older, more experienced types. Will we repeat the same mistake? I really hope not.

[brian green]

Thank you PWS.  I think Bill James was the one referred to in the credits of the movie.  Not credits exactly but a factual segment at the end of the film.  A bit like in The Damned United when they show some actual footage of Brian Clough, Peter Taylor and Don Revie.

[PeterWithesShin]

Plenty in the film is factually correct, some is condensed and some stuff is based on fact but explained in a much simpler way. Main reason i'd imagine is for entertainment, to portray it all accurately would need a 3+ hour film that would bore the arse off most people. I love baseball and stats, but plenty of the Bill James stuff, and even other sabermetrics and stats, is too much for me. Just too heavy going. The film is certainly more accurate than stuff like Damned United and The Buddy Holly Story.

[brian green]

Skiinner's Johnny Cash likewise.