So this is what football is reduced to?
Some Harvard Excel freaks arbitrarily assigning probabilities to various outcomes and saying that their method is ‘rigorous’ eh??
It’s as rigorous as climate science is, because the data simply doesn’t exist to assign those probabilities to each individual player, as opposed to some amorphous mass of players who may or may not be similar to your current target.
The likelihood of Frank Lampard being a granny shagger is different to that of Wayne Rooney, but the same probability will be applied to each if you use rigorous ‘quantitative’ data.
Otherwise, you just pick a figure out of the air.
Lives change, life-changing events happen. Frank might suddenly have an early mid-life crisis and shag John Terry’s girlfriend. It’s not very likely, to be honest, but something might flip his lid.
The likelihood of ‘not settling’ in a new country, new city, varies from player to player. The judgement is qualitative unless you just average out over all transfers.
The first step toward wisdom is knowing when you can actually be quantitative and knowing when a back of the fag packet calculation is as good as it gets.
In football, it’s somewhere in the middle.
The only way things get really quantitative is if you can strike some very specific commercial deals by signing that player, deals you wouldn’t do otherwise. Perez can do that sort of thing with galacticos, but I’m not sure you can do that in the UK where image rights are concerned.
The second step toward wisdom is to understand that football isn’t going to the Wigmore Hall, it’s about shouting yourself hoarse, buying into a dream and dancing in the streets when you win something. It’s about giving sixty thousand blokes a hard-on and sixty thousand lasses weak knees.
A successful football manager will hear from fans that, statistically, they were far more likely to conceive their children the night of a big win than any other night of the week.They left the ground, the pub or the settee buzzing, ready to embrace the joy of life by screwing their partner senseless and/or creating a baby with them.
It’s about making kids feel part of something, making them feel the joy of winning as well as the pain of losing. Most importantly, learning that you get through those emotions together, experience them together, commit to the cause together.
It’s about keeping older folks vigorous and alive by remaining in touch with what it feels like to be young. Older folks know that you don’t usually win trophies every year, but they know the joy you have when you do win one. They provide perspective and wisdom, but passion too.
Right now, Arsenal need to provide their supporters with a realistic shot at winning a trophy this year and they won’t do it with the current squad. They can do it by buying three players.
This summer so far has been Arsenal playing the coquettish prick tease.
Bending over and showing her tits off, letting the guy buy her vintage claret at a posh restaurant, pay £50 to get into a swanky nightclub, get close and steamy on the dance floor, then telling the unfortunate that she’s actually got a boyfriend so she can’t shag you tonight.
If that’s your game, then keep your tits to yourself, darling. Go out alone in a smart blouse and slacks, keep all your buttons done up and don’t put on all the mascara, lipstick and Chanel 5.
But as you did tart yourself up in May and June and as you did accept all that money being spent on you, time to honour your half of the bargain.
Just my thoughts on summer 2013!!