It's not Sherwood!

[Villa in Denmark]

And Marc Albrighton to Leicester because they worked out that he had fallen foul of Lambert, Culverhouse and Karsa and would not get a new contract with us for non footballing reasons.  Merson was a Moneyball signing for us.

Merson, and for that matter Luke Young a few years later, were anti moneyball signings. Paying over the odds compared to what you could have paid 12 months earlier.

[old man villa fan]

Last summer I thought Adebayor could have been quite useful for us but having seen him at Palace I can see that I was totally wrong.  Whoever pulled the pin on signing him knew more than me (or was it a sign from his God, after all)

[mr underhill]

Absolutely, I never wanted him anywhere near the club. A deadly bullet swerved.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

And Marc Albrighton to Leicester because they worked out that he had fallen foul of Lambert, Culverhouse and Karsa and would not get a new contract with us for non footballing reasons.  Merson was a Moneyball signing for us.

Merson, and for that matter Luke Young a few years later, were anti moneyball signings. Paying over the odds compared to what you could have paid 12 months earlier.

Buying players who are obviously good like McGrath or Merson aren't really moneyball - McGrath was a risk due to his fitness and personal problems, it could quite easily have gone another way - also £450k was still a decent fee for a defender in the late 80s; whilst Merson was the going rate or possibly more.

I thought a "moneyball" signing was one with a particular skill or ability that is underrated/undervalued by other teams.  Someone like Rudy Gestede could be a moneyball player for a team that played direct and had decent wingers.  Agbonlahor (I refuse to call him "Gabby" anymore) could have been a moneyball player for a counter-attacking team that liked to break quickly (before he got fat and lazy).

It's buying players who fit your own system/strategy at a bargain price because other teams don't play that way or can't make best use of a players best attribute.

[conman]

i think last summer  was a case of wrong place at the wrong time for Tim at the Villa
what if tony xia was chairman then , no paddy reilly , no  moneyball ,
but plenty of money for tim to bring in the likes of andros townsend and adebayor  for starters

Yes, if only we could have had Adebayor instead of him going to Palace. The 1 goal he's managed since January would have made a world of difference.

how many did he score and in how many games under sherwood at spurs

That is nonsense IMHO. Adebayor is a total fraud

so what you saying then , he never scored for spurs when sherwood was managing him

No, the point is Sherwood would have tried to buy the Crystal Palace version of Adebayor not the Spurs version. Sherwood doesn't own a time machine (as far as I know).

dont think so , sherwood knew how to get the best out of adebayor , as he did with benteke , delph , grealish and even gabby lol

[SheffieldVillain]

i think last summer  was a case of wrong place at the wrong time for Tim at the Villa
what if tony xia was chairman then , no paddy reilly , no  moneyball ,
but plenty of money for tim to bring in the likes of andros townsend and adebayor  for starters

Yes, if only we could have had Adebayor instead of him going to Palace. The 1 goal he's managed since January would have made a world of difference.

how many did he score and in how many games under sherwood at spurs

That is nonsense IMHO. Adebayor is a total fraud

so what you saying then , he never scored for spurs when sherwood was managing him

No, the point is Sherwood would have tried to buy the Crystal Palace version of Adebayor not the Spurs version. Sherwood doesn't own a time machine (as far as I know).

dont think so , sherwood knew how to get the best out of adebayor , as he did with benteke , delph , grealish and even gabby lol

At which point this season did he get the best out of Grealish or Gabby, or any other player in the squad for that matter?

[conman]

i think last summer  was a case of wrong place at the wrong time for Tim at the Villa
what if tony xia was chairman then , no paddy reilly , no  moneyball ,
but plenty of money for tim to bring in the likes of andros townsend and adebayor  for starters

Yes, if only we could have had Adebayor instead of him going to Palace. The 1 goal he's managed since January would have made a world of difference.

how many did he score and in how many games under sherwood at spurs

That is nonsense IMHO. Adebayor is a total fraud

so what you saying then , he never scored for spurs when sherwood was managing him

No, the point is Sherwood would have tried to buy the Crystal Palace version of Adebayor not the Spurs version. Sherwood doesn't own a time machine (as far as I know).

dont think so , sherwood knew how to get the best out of adebayor , as he did with benteke , delph , grealish and even gabby lol

At which point this season did he get the best out of Grealish or Gabby, or any other player in the squad for that matter?

not the one thats just finished but the one before that

[SheffieldVillain]

At which point this season did he get the best out of Grealish or Gabby, or any other player in the squad for that matter?

not the one thats just finished but the one before that

Oh. But he knew how to get the best out of them, you said.

So what about this season? Did he just decide not to bother?

[conman]

At which point this season did he get the best out of Grealish or Gabby, or any other player in the squad for that matter?

not the one thats just finished but the one before that

Oh. But he knew how to get the best out of them, you said.

So what about this season? Did he just decide not to bother?

gabby went downhill through no fault of tim and how did grealish play against blues 7 months ago compared with his peformances after sherwood left

[SheffieldVillain]

At which point this season did he get the best out of Grealish or Gabby, or any other player in the squad for that matter?

not the one thats just finished but the one before that

Oh. But he knew how to get the best out of them, you said.

So what about this season? Did he just decide not to bother?

gabby went downhill through no fault of tim and how did grealish play against blues 7 months ago compared with his peformances after sherwood left

Gotcha. So when they played well it was because of Sherwood's amazing managerial talents, and when they didn't it was no fault of Tim. Are you actually Tim Sherwood? Because you sound a lot like most of his post-match interviews.

[Risso]

I'll let PWS take this one:

What's moneyball?

To simplify it as much as possible, signing players that are massively undervalued by other clubs that can do what you highly value. In Billy Beane's case, this was mainly the ability to get on base. It had little to nothing to do with signing a 21 year old full of promise to sell for more later, as highly promising players they weren't undervalued in the first place. He'd sign a 35 year old for a year if he could afford him and he got on base. He used sabermetrics to find these players. It's called moneyball as the Oakland annual budget was say $40m and he was trying to find a way to compete with teams like the Yankees spending $130m a year.

Paul McGrath was a "Moneyball" signing. Jordan Veretout and Adama Traore weren't.

Edit: if you want an example of a recent "Moneyball" signing - Robert Huth to Leicester would tick pretty much all the boxes.

Solano would be my tip for our best moneyball signing of recent(ish) years.

[PeterWithesShin]

As mentioned, Merson is the exact opposite of Moneyball. Market value at least was paid in transfer and wages. Even Solano is dodgy as we'd have been paying the going rate on wages. The whole basis of Moneyball is you get a player that is very undervalued, of which a massive part of that undervaluation is their wages because Billy Beane had to build a 25 man roster and not pay more than, for example, $50m in wages for the year. Meanwhile the Yankees would be spending $140m or whatever on wages for their 25 man roster.

That is a simplified version as there is more to it than that but we'd be getting into geeky baseball stuff that you can't apply to football. It does however cover the basic premise of Moneyball.

I think the confusion with the use of the term Moneyball is sabermetrics, which i'd imagine just about every professional football club uses to some degree these days, not just baseball teams. Mainly because the media are too lazy/stupid to know the difference so just label it Moneyball.

[Villa in Denmark]

Sorry PWS, I just can't accept that.

You're saying our media are lazy and simplistic? Never.





























Bone idle simpletons and then you might be getting close to 95% of them.

[john e]

And Marc Albrighton to Leicester because they worked out that he had fallen foul of Lambert, Culverhouse and Karsa and would not get a new contract with us for non footballing reasons.  Merson was a Moneyball signing for us.

Merson, and for that matter Luke Young a few years later, were anti moneyball signings. Paying over the odds compared to what you could have paid 12 months earlier.

Buying players who are obviously good like McGrath or Merson aren't really moneyball - McGrath was a risk due to his fitness and personal problems, it could quite easily have gone another way - also £450k was still a decent fee for a defender in the late 80s; whilst Merson was the going rate or possibly more.

I thought a "moneyball" signing was one with a particular skill or ability that is underrated/undervalued by other teams.  Someone like Rudy Gestede could be a moneyball player for a team that played direct and had decent wingers.  Agbonlahor (I refuse to call him "Gabby" anymore) could have been a moneyball player for a counter-attacking team that liked to break quickly (before he got fat and lazy).

It's buying players who fit your own system/strategy at a bargain price because other teams don't play that way or can't make best use of a players best attribute.

Yes that would be my interpretation of it
But I've only seen the film once and know fuck all about baseball

[brian green]

Yes you are right about Merson PWS and I was wrong.  In haste I forgot what a big lump of money he cost us.