RB Leipzig vs Aston Villa post match thread.

[langleylions]

Well said 👌

[Olneythelonely]

Sums up my views too

[Dave]

And me. But - it doesn't feel like it'll take *that* much to get it a bit more solid as well.

[lovejoy]

If we pause for breath, we are one win away from being in the top 8 in the European cup. This is an amazing achievement compared to where we were a few years ago and there will always be grumbles about the defence, Baileys form etc, but let’s enjoy it for what it is. I bet the Madrid galcticos forum were also moaning that Beckham was one footed and Zidane lacked pace.

[darren woolley]

I'm so glad we got the win.

[rooboy316]

By chance, I've known lots of multilingual people in my time (far more women than men, incidentally), and yes it still impresses me because I struggle with English, but the ability to switch seamlessly between languages doesn't hold the same novelty for me that it once did.

I ask the bigger questions. Like, where does she buy her conditioner? Her hair is fucking impeccable, and you cannot fake that sheen.

It’s refreshing/surprising to see linguistically talented people presenting in football, where the norm is buffoonery by the likes of Carragher and Richards saying ‘Buenas noches’ really loudly, then falling over themselves guffawing. See Jhon Duran interview after the Bayern Munich game for reference.

[Baldy]

A great win against a German side that will help towards England getting the 5th Champions League spot for next season.  We may need it!!

Could do with Arses and Man City* winning tonight.

[Olneythelonely]

Nah. I want them both to lose.

[Smithy]

The bilingual interview was impressive, until I remembered I don't speak Spanish, have no idea what she said, and so it be quite would be funny if she was actually just saying, "You do good goal. Tell more"

[Dave]

Nah. I want them both to lose.

Yeah, plenty of time for the coefficient to recover. Come on Monaco and Juventus.

[Somniloquism]

I do wonder if he has been told to only speak in Spanish during these so the club can use the old translation issue trick if he said something controversial. He spoke English a couple of times and when she mentioned it, he was like, no interview in Spanish only.

[Nii Lamptey]

For those commenting on Cash being much improved when pushed higher up the pitch, I'm pretty sure we converted him into a RB. Didn't he play on right wing for Forest back in the day?

Left for Leipzig at 4:30am yesterday, got home at 4:30am this morning. School run done, and now a full day of work ahead of me!

Wouldn't change it for the world - What a time to be alive. Brilliant trip, let's enjoy the ride! Still can't quite believe where we are compared to even a year ago.

UTV

[Dave]

For those commenting on Cash being much improved when pushed higher up the pitch, I'm pretty sure we converted him into a RB. Didn't he play on right wing for Forest back in the day?

Yup. Played on the wing and scored for Forest in that 5-5 game a few years back.

[Olof's Beard]

Our most fluent attacking performance of the season, sone of the combination play showed signs of us being back to our best, evidence by the build up to the first 2 goals and the Digne chance in the 2nd half. The goals conceded were cack again, poor concentration levels and communication from experienced internationals. But overall, it was more like the stuff we saw last season and I'm happy with that. Kamara is just brilliant and could play for any team. A 10 year contract for him would be lovely.

[rooboy316]

^^ Have you told lies before?

Shall we say you ‘mis-spoke’? Or would that make it hard for you to deflect?

How about this.. If we were on opposite sides of the Watkins/Duran debate, and I said ‘I prefer Watkins because he has scored more goals than Duran this season’ despite the fact that I know he hasn’t, what would you call that? Whatever word you choose to describe someone who would do that, we’ll go with it.

I don’t have a horse in this race either way, and this is clearly a crusade that means enough to you to bring it up several times. However, since semantics are involved:

a) that’s a false equivalence. The hypothetical Watkins debate is about number of goals, so clearly that’s a narrow quantitative metric with a clear answer. The debate is about which back 4 makes the better unit/team, not about which back 4 has conceded fewer goals.
b) While fewer goals usually means better defence, and statistics can paint a good picture, this isn’t some conclusive, objective, incontrovertible truth that you make it out to be. There’s a lot more to consider, especially if you’re going to make it a purely statistical argument.
c) the sample sizes you’ve used are decent, but not large enough to account for skews such as individual clangers etc
d) correlation is not causation. Your back 4 may have contributed to a tighter defence which concedes fewer goals, but that doesn’t imply causation in its entirety. Quality of opposition, our set up in those games, how well the midfield screened them, how well Emi played etc all contribute, amongst other a whole bunch of other things.
e) if it’s going to be part of a wider discussion about our best team, we also have to consider how that back 4 impacts our attack, not just a stat about goals conceded.
f) the beauty of football is that, unlike baseball, there are a whole lot of qualitative lenses through which holistic judgements need to be made, as opposed to a singular quantitative metric, even if that metric does play an important role in making said judgement

My wholehearted apologies to the rest of the site for drawing this argument out even further…