Unai Emery

[LeeS]

Of course we have over performed. How can anyone debate that (although this is a site for debate)? We have been calling Unai our “cheat code” for a while now. As long as we have him, I am confident we will keep gate-crashing that party “we haven’t been invited to”.

[letsshakehands]

We absolutely over-performed last season, given the restrictions we were under, the injuries we suffered, and the strength of the competition. I always thought that while one of Buendia/Sancho/Bailey/Guessand were guaranteed to be in the team, we would do incredibly well to qualify for European competition. And we did that, and then some.

[Matt C]

We’ve overachieved every season he’s been with us but last season was different level given the mess of the summer

[paul_e]

My argument isn't that we didn't over-achieve or exceed expectations, I think both of those are true. My issue is entirely with over-performed as the phrasing. As I said it probably is just arguing semantics for many people but in a sport so heavily loaded with performance metrics and armchair analysts misusing them over-performed comes with a clear expectation that we'll revert to form eventually and I think that's a misunderstanding of what we've done.

I guarantee that when a twat like Mashiter talks about over-performing he doesn't mean against our wage bill or any of the other valid points that are worth discussing. He means that he's looked at an xG adjusted table (which as I've said many times is something that shouldn't exist and completely misunderstands why the stat exists)  and seen we should be nowhere near where we have finished for the last few years.

Exceed expectations or over-achieve are largely positive things that show going beyond limitations, over-perform too often comes with an idea that you haven't really earned your achievements and that the foundations aren't there to sustain it.

[Garyth]

One interesting (at least to me, while there's no football on) thought experiment is where your gut says we'd finish if Emery left right now and was replaced with a generic, average, PL manager (ie. not great, but not horrible either) for the season.

Even with a few more incomings I think
- I'd be suprised (and delighted) if we finished top 5
- I'd mostly expect us to finish somewhere around 6-8
- I'd be disappointed with anything less than that.

[PeterWithesShin]

If we assume we'd have had the same players we'd have most likely finished 8th-11th last season.