Brendan Rodgers

[Neil Young]

That is interesting. Although Neil would have us believe that if we feel better about the results then we are progressing (), Coutinho certainly feels like he's improved us.

Ah, I'm sorry my argument went over your head.

I was wondering why you hadn't replied.

[dww]

Ah, I'm sorry my argument went over your head.

I was wondering why you hadn't replied.

Actually, I hadn't replied because I went to the pub and then Florence which ultimately seemed more fun. After careful consideration I think I was right on both counts.

[Tee]

**** in the Cups (not one good run), **** in the league and uber **** against any half decent side.....it's difficult to be particularly positive but at least we have a direction and we're better to watch. If next season is a repeat of this, however, then Rodgers will have to go IMO.

[Neil Young]

I have pointed out the squad quality issue in the post. I deliberately did not mention the tactical inflexibility of manager issue as I did not want this to descend into one more Brendan is good/****/bring rafa back debate.




I said it also points to a mentality issue. Of course there could be a defensive coaching or lack of midfield balance issue also to add to your points. I did not want to bring that up due to the reason mentioned above. I am not saying mentality is the only reason.



I am only looking at teams around us. Spurs is the only victory we have in those. And in that game we came back from behind. I dont have any stats for the other games. We have become quite good at dispatching teams from 10 to 20. Though not good enough to make up for the fact that we drop points against 7 of the teams in the top 8.




I agree with the first paragraph. I am more rankled by the fact that we had plenty of chances to overtake Everton and blew that.

Yes five of the teams above us are undeniably better than that. But when we include home and away against the 7 of our rivals, the fact that we have only one win points to some fundamental issue against compact organized defenses with quality in attack. There could be plenty of reasons for this - maybe Brendan's tactics are not good enough, we need a little bit more quality, more compactness in midfield, develop an ability to grind out victories or close out games, better defenders, be less expansive or less adventurous - whatever it could be any one of the above or more. But this is an issue which needs to be addressed over the summer break.

I don't really disagree with any of that.

However...All I really think is that those particular games don't tell a different story from the rest. All we're really saying here is that we aren't good enough and we need to improve in various areas, including player quality, tactical awareness, and so on. But we know that by looking at the table as a whole and our results in knockout competitions, we don't need to concentrate just on the results from teams that are demonstrably better than we are.

So in conclusion: we're better than the teams that are worse than us and worse than the teams that are better than us.

[Neil Young]

Actually, I hadn't replied because I went to the pub and then Florence which ultimately seemed more fun. After careful consideration I think I was right on both counts.

I read a piece the other day that said this terrible austerity policy can be blamed on some economists' feelings of inadequacy in the face of hard sciences which has led to the pursuit of discovering constants in the dismal science analogous to h and c and G (not the poster). The result has been some of the worst economics (and thus policy decisions) in living memory, all because some influential but insecure people overlooked fundamental differences between explorations and descriptions of the physical and human (or social) worlds.

Anyway, how long were you in Florence? And did she mind?

[dww]

I read a piece the other day that said this terrible austerity policy can be blamed on some economists' feelings of inadequacy in the face of hard sciences which has led to the pursuit of discovering constants in the dismal science analogous to h and c and G (not the poster). The result has been some of the worst economics (and thus policy decisions) in living memory, all because some influential but insecure people overlooked fundamental differences between explorations and descriptions of the physical and human (or social) worlds.

Anyway, how long were you in Florence? And did she mind?

I would suspect that there is some truth in that analysis of economics although it seems a far from complete or sufficient explanation. On a tangentially related note is it me or were Niall Fergusson's both revealing and unsurprising.

Florence seemed very obliging.

I was in town for 2 and a half days after 2 days in a country villa nearby enjoying free wine, food and interview offers at a conference.

[fah-q]

Was Ermintrude there?

[DannyMan2006]

One point to make. Having seen the impact of the sturridge and Coutinho signings mentioned above.

Check out this league table after 23 games: http://www.endz2endz.com/football-pr...able-22012013/

Shows us level on points with Arsenal with same games played and only 4 behind Everton on same games played. I must say I'm disappointed that we have not improved.

[Neil Young]

I would suspect that there is some truth in that analysis of economics although it seems a far from complete or sufficient explanation. On a tangentially related note is it me or were Niall Fergusson's both revealing and unsurprising.

Florence seemed very obliging.

I was in town for 2 and a half days after 2 days in a country villa nearby enjoying free wine, food and interview offers at a conference.

Of course. It's not a total explanation. That's the trouble with a single idea, whether it's expressed in maths or spoken language, it rarely captures everything. And the only constant in social science is that there are no constants (that's mine by the way ).

I totally agree about Niall Ferguson. It says a lot about the circles he chooses to move and feels comfortable in, just like Tory MPs who get caught out telling racist or sexist jokes. As for his protests that his writings show how against discrimination he is, they don't, quite the opposite.

Ah, good old Florence. Sounds like a great gig to get.

[Neil Young]

Was Ermintrude there?

I'm pleased to say my first association with the female name was ...and the Machine. That was my second.

And that means I'm more, to use the argot of young people today, with it than you.

[dww]

Was Ermintrude there?

Of course. It's not a total explanation. That's the trouble with a single idea, whether it's expressed in maths or spoken language, it rarely captures everything. And the only constant in social science is that there are no constants (that's mine by the way ).

That's a fair point. I think my main problem with it as a critique is that it assumes that the economics used to justify austerity is from a genuine investigative discipline (I wrote science but then thought I might have to used quotation marks and after that you are always in severe danger of disappearing up up ones own fundament) - a lot of it seems to me (a complete outsider to the field) to be highly ideological politics with a dash of maths by way of a cover.

I'm not as convinced as you that at the correct level of description there aren't constants in social science to be discovered. Whether such models are useful for the sorts of things people want to know is another matter entirely.

[Neil Young]

That's certainly how it's used by politicians and others but I think we can make the distinction between that and how economics is practiced at the academic level (although ideological bias is always present too).

The article was in the FT and talked about Friedman's obsession with finding a constant, which he 'discovered' when linking the money supply to inflation (although subsequent examination shows it depends how you measure it and it's not constant over time anyway). He was very influenced by Hayek.

Rogoff and Reinhart may not have intended it but they've ended up belonging to the same warped school of thought. If they hadn't then they might have questioned their own results closely enough to find the simple error in their spreadsheet. But a discontinuity in the data was 'significant' so they went with that.

I'm absolutely sure there are no constants in social science for one reason: feedback loops. Or, as various people are supposed to have said first, everything connects to everything else. The number of factors influencing any situation is effectively infinite. Of course you can read patterns into the data and come up with rules but I bet the causation is the inverse of what the rule implies. Kondratiev Waves are a good example: they roughly fit the data, and we were due one at around the time of the financial crisis of 2008, but as a predictive tool it's useless, they can only really be recognised in hindsight.

It's like forecasting a volcanic eruption or what the weather will be like in three months time. You know it'll blow up or be sunny at some point and you can make an educated guess but only a fool would express their prediction in anything other than probabilistic terms. And a constant isn't a probability. Unless you want to get into the issue of abstractions of abstractions...

[dww]

To be clear I wasn't claiming all economics was non-investigative, merely that the parts seized upon by by austerity cheer leaders seems to be. From what I've seen I think you are too charitable to R&R.

I suspect we pretty much agree about social sciences but have different attitudes to models and methodologies. There are plenty of feedback loops in science and engineering that happily coexist constants in science and engineering. Although I suppose there are, in general, better simplified cases and statistics available.

Obviously though, this all just shows that Rodgers needs to buy a more dominant central defender and get of his inherent height based prejudices.

[Rich]

We've won 5 league games in the last 15 games, so it is difficult to say we're on a good run!

Too open and defensively poor all season, although we've scored a lot of goals they've come in floods.

There is a lot of work to do in the summer - the whole defence needs sorting out, plus tactically we need to work on not being so open through the middle when the game is in transition. What worries me most is that we're losing 3 international centre-backs in the summer (cannot see Skrtel staying after being bombed out) which is a hugely problematic.

[dww]

We've won 5 league games in the last 15 games, so it is difficult to say we're on a good run!

Too open and defensively poor all season, although we've scored a lot of goals they've come in floods.

There is a lot of work to do in the summer - the whole defence needs sorting out, plus tactically we need to work on not being so open through the middle when the game is in transition. What worries me most is that we're losing 3 international centre-backs in the summer (cannot see Skrtel staying after being bombed out) which is a hugely problematic.

Caragher, Skrtel and ?

I'm sure I have forgotten something obvious.