Author Topic: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD  (Read 2637157 times)

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costa blanca baggie

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14850 on: October 28, 2024, 06:40:30 PM »
It was always a case of when it was going to happen.

They're a joke of a club.
Oh for the days when an established top club could be relegated.
Humanity is a parade of fools, and I’m at the front of it...twirling the baton.

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14851 on: October 28, 2024, 07:30:57 PM »
Ruben Amorim has verbally agreed to become Manchester United manager.

Sources in Portugal say Amorim has already said yes to #MUFC.

Manchester United and Sporting now working on compensation. Amorim has a €10m clause, as @David_Ornstein
 first called.

LiamTheBaggie

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14852 on: October 29, 2024, 09:26:52 AM »
Anyone know much about him?

Can't say I've paid much attention to the Portugese league.
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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14853 on: October 29, 2024, 01:26:30 PM »
Anyone know much about him?

Can't say I've paid much attention to the Portugese league.

Personally no. I mean he's got a good record over the last 4 seasons at Sporting but that's to be expected


Athletic just posted an article about him and he likes a 3 4 2 1 formation but it's highly flexible.


I'm on phone. Will post article later when I get home about 8pm

MarkW

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14854 on: October 29, 2024, 02:57:57 PM »
Started with a Portuguese 3rd division team before going to Braga and then Sporting. Has been touted for a few jobs - Liverpool and West Ham most recently. He likes to play attacking football. That's about all I know
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zippyandbungle

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14855 on: October 29, 2024, 03:02:08 PM »
Anyone know much about him?

Can't say I've paid much attention to the Portugese league.
I know it might turn out to be the best move of Victor Gyorkores’s career.
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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14856 on: October 29, 2024, 03:30:10 PM »
Anyone know much about him?

Can't say I've paid much attention to the Portugese league.

I'm not falling for that one. There's a free to read article on the BBC's football page. 'Slaven the Sequel' was my good deed for the day  ;D .
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gazberg

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14857 on: October 29, 2024, 08:08:16 PM »
Here you go Liam, don't say i don't pull my (considerable) weight around here  :P  I can't copy the pictures of the formation in sadly.




"There is often a quiet buzz that surrounds up-and-coming managers as they establish their reputation away from the spotlight.

For Ruben Amorim, however, it has been a siren alerting the football world to his coaching qualities. After a second title win in four years with Sporting Lisbon last season, the noise around him reached a crescendo. Now Manchester United have come calling and they are working on a deal to bring him to Old Trafford.

The 39-year-old has returned Sporting to the top of the Portuguese food chain, and they are showing few signs of moving. Nine wins from their opening nine league games have kept them at the summit, with a perfect start during which they have scored 30 goals and conceded just two.

Amorim was linked with a move to the Premier League for most of last season, with Liverpool and West Ham United those most closely connected, and The Athletic reported in April that he travelled to the UK to meet representatives of the London club.

There are plenty is reasons why he has been so highly coveted. Here is why…



Amorim’s ascent as a manager has been rapid and eventful.

Having only begun his coaching career at third-division Casa Pia in 2018, a move to Braga’s B team lasted three months before he was thrust into their first-team dugout in January 2020.

After a hugely successful stint during which he won 10 of his 13 games, Amorim was poached that March by Sporting, who were looking for their fifth manager (not including caretakers) in less than two years. A fourth-placed finish in 2019-20 was followed up by the club’s first league title for 19 years in his maiden full season. He was only 36.

Sporting have also won two Taca da Liga (Portuguese League Cup) trophies under Amorim, but the most impressive return has been their return to domestic dominance after years of standing still.

This is highlighted by Sporting’s ClubElo rating, a measure of team strength that allocates points for every result, weighted by the quality of the opposition faced. After a difficult start to his tenure, Amorim has guided Sporting to their strongest status in European football for over a decade.



Amorim has shown his desire to bring young talent into the first team — including Goncalo Inacio, Matheus Nunes, Nuno Mendes and Ousmane Diomande — and has improved the team’s quality with the resources at his disposal.

Bruno Fernandes moved to Manchester United a little over a month before Amorim’s appointment, but Mendes (to Paris Saint-Germain), Nunes (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Pedro Porro (Tottenham Hotspur), Manuel Ugarte (also to PSG) and Joao Palhinha (Fulham) are among the talented players whom Amorim has improved before being sold for high fees.

Amorim’s stylistic approach has remained unchanged throughout and that consistency has been the foundation for their success. So, what is his style of play?


On paper, Amorim’s Sporting play a 3-4-3 formation — or more specifically, a 3-4-2-1 — based on high possession, flexible attacking approaches and a strong defensive foundation.

In build-up, they will often stagger their midfielders across different lines to help with progression through the centre of the pitch, keeping the wing-backs high and wide to stretch the opposition’s back line. Ahead of them, their two attacking midfielders will occupy the half-spaces to stay close to the central striker.


When playing out from the back, Amorim will often ask his players to create a 4-2-2-2 structure, as shown last season with former central centre-back Sebastian Coates joining the midfield line to create better passing angles to eventually work the ball wide and progress up the field.


That fluidity in the build-up is supported by the numbers from last season when looking at Sporting’s playstyle wheel, which outlines how a team plays compared with Europe’s top seven domestic leagues.

Amorim’s rotational setup will often ensure that Sporting can progress without disruption, as shown by their ‘Press resistance’ metric (98 out of 99), which highlights the volume of touches per opposition tackle in the first two-thirds of the pitch.

A higher volume denotes a greater ability to play out from the back, and only Manchester City and Inter Milan averaged more than Sporting’s 74.9 touches per opposition tackle in 2023-24.


In settled possession, Amorim’s side can vary their progression through the thirds with intricate short passes or direct balls to their pitch-stretching wing-backs.

Their ‘Circulate’ rating (60 out of 99) may not seem reflective of a possession-dominant side in the context of Europe’s top leagues, but it speaks to the variety of Sporting’s play, where they are as likely to progress the ball quickly via passes into the channel as to recycle possession across the pitch.

This also explains Sporting’s ‘Patient attack’ score. A rating of 60 out of 99 here might suggest a confused attacking approach, but that flexibility to slow down the game or speed it up is a huge weapon in their armoury.

For example, no team registered more build-up attacks (defined as open-play sequences containing 10-plus passes that end in a shot or touch in the penalty box) in the Primeira Liga last season than Sporting’s 126. On the other side of the coin, no team in the division logged more direct attacks (open-play sequences starting inside a team’s own half that move towards the opposition’s goal by 50 per cent and end in a shot or a touch in the 18-yard box) than their 74.

Try to pin Sporting down at your peril — they have the tools to wriggle out of most situations.

For example, in their home league game last season against a deep-lying Vitoria Guimaraes side, you can see the neat, one-touch passing from midfielders Morten Hjulmand, Daniel Braganca and Pedro Goncalves, with a sequence that’s almost an ‘up-back-through’ passing pattern.

With Viktor Gyokeres making the third-man run in behind, Goncalves’ pass pierces through the Vitoria defence for the Sweden international to finish.


n contrast to such neat, intricate play, Amorim moved to a more direct attacking style last season after the arrival of 6ft 2in (187cm) human battering ram Gyokeres, who thrives on runs into the channel to bully opposition defenders and score himself.

Take this example, against Benfica in February’s first leg of a Taca de Portugal semi-final.

Wing-back Geny Catamo has the ball in his own half, and spots the run made by Gyokeres, who is peeling off into the right channel. A single pass sees Gyokeres race past Nicolas Otamendi, cut inside, and finish emphatically to the near post.

There are similar examples in the left channel.

Against fourth-division Dumiense in November’s Taca de Portugal tie, Gyokeres links up with left wing-back Nuno Santos to drive into the space, shrug off his opposite number and fire home from a tight angle. It is a mirror image of the previous goal, and something of a cheat code that Sporting can exercise.

For those requiring more examples, goals against Farense and Porto will strengthen the case that this is a clear pattern of play from Amorim’s side.

When Gyokeres is not carrying the goalscoring burden himself, those channel runs still go to good use as he provides for others.

Against Uniao Leiria in February, it is a similar pattern with a channel ball played by Santos and Gyokeres driving forward — only this time, he cuts the ball back to an oncoming Goncalves.

If you need further evidence for this one, just run the tape on Sporting’s goals against Benfica, Estoril (twice) and Porto last season.

Only Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane (36 goals and eight assists) and PSV Eindhoven’s Luuk de Jong (29 goals and 15 assists) had more goal involvements last season than Gyokeres (29 goals and 10 assists) across Europe’s top seven leagues.

It helps to have such a dominant centre-forward spearheading your team, but Amorim has intelligently found the best way to maximise the qualities of the players he has.

Given Gyokeres’ strong penalty-box presence, Sporting do not shy away from getting the ball into wide areas and playing teasing crosses for him to attack. These crosses do not frequently come from their wing-backs — who keep the width to stretch the opposition — but will commonly arise from their attacking midfielders operating in the half-spaces.

Take this example in March against Boavista (below).

Left centre-back Matheus Reis fizzes a ball to Paulinho, who plays a first-time pass to Hidemasa Morita before spinning in behind — it is a similar ‘up-back-through’ pattern. Note how the wing-backs, Santos and Catamo, are the two men closest to the touchline keeping width, despite not actively contributing to this sequence (slides one and two).

As Paulinho combines to receive the return pass from Morita, his driven ball across goal finds Gyokeres haring in for a first-time finish.

Overall, it is a clinical sequence executed in little more than six seconds.

Those changes to Sporting’s ‘Patient attack’ and ‘Circulate’ metrics last season are made all the more stark when comparing them to the previous season’s figures.

As you can see below, Amorim has tweaked the style to make Sporting more potent than ever under his leadership.


Out of possession, Amorim’s side boasted one of the meanest defensive records on the whole continent last season (‘Chance prevention’, 98 out of 99). Only Arsenal and Feyenoord had a lower non-penalty expected goals (xG) conceded than Sporting’s 0.78 per 90 minutes across Europe’s top seven leagues.

Principally, this is down to their compact shape in a 5-2-3 or 5-4-1 block, forcing opponents to play around their defensive structure and rarely through it.


Sporting having a five-man defensive line means you will often see a wide centre-back stepping out to press the opposition forward or attacking midfielder, confident he has the protection of the team-mates behind him.


As a collective, Amorim asks his players to press high up the pitch (‘Intensity’, 95 out of 99) and squeeze the play by often bringing his centre-backs to the halfway line (‘High line’, 83 out of 99).

Only rivals Benfica logged more shot-ending ‘high turnovers’ (defined as regains 40 metres or fewer from the opponent’s goals) than Sporting’s 58 in the Primeira Liga last season.

Having a robust, defensively aware midfield destroyer has been a hallmark of Amorim’s side, previously Palhinha and Ugarte and now 25-year-old Denmark international Hjulmand.

The ability to cover wide spaces, break up the play, and hoover up loose balls places a big demand on Amorim’s pair in midfield, and with Sporting’s wing-backs encouraged to stay high and wide, the space for the opposition can often be in the channels when counter-attacking.

Take this example, from November’s game against Estrela Amadora.

As the away side turn over possession, wing-backs Santos and Ricardo Esgaio (in white) are too high up the field, with space exposed on the flanks. The midfield duo of Hjulmand and Braganca are too narrow to cover the width of the pitch on their own, which forces Reis to pull out to the touchline and increase the gaps between the three centre-backs — Estrela would score from this attacking phase.

A similar example can be seen against Farense a few days earlier, where left centre-back Inacio mistimes his challenge to leave forward Rui Costa driving towards goal. With Santos high on the left wing, the space to be exploited is in the wide area once again, and Farense claw a goal back.

It is a tactical frailty in an otherwise powerful machine crafted by Amorim. The natural line of thought is how much this structural weakness could be exposed in a more competitive Premier League.

Even accounting for the inequality among many of the Primeira Liga teams, a side who can statistically boast one of the best attacks and best defence across Europe’s top seven leagues shows that their manager is having some sort of positive effect.

A charismatic leader known for fielding young talent, improving individual player performance and winning titles — you can understand why Manchester United would want him."

Standaman

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14858 on: October 31, 2024, 01:45:04 AM »
Ten Hag used to have a reputation as a coach before he stepped into the abyss that is Man United and at this point I'm not sure whether failing at Man United has become almost acceptable as in you don't blame a coach for trying but accept they are nearly certain to fail.

Ruben Amorim is now the latest coach with a burgeoning reputation to take up the challenge. Having read the article above my first reaction was to wonder how pragmatic he is because if he is wedded to that shape and style there is an immediate mismatch between that and the squad he will inherit. The squad is a bit of a hotch pot anyway but a coach with clearly defined style which the squad has not been put together to play just makes it look even more ill considered.

Ashworth is now at United and given his reputation you would expect the process to be a little bit more thoughtful than the next cab off the rank from the pool of promising coaches operating a level below the European elite. However from the outside this is what it looks like.
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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14859 on: November 03, 2024, 01:30:26 PM »
Forests gamble seems to have paid off. 3rd and flying. Woods having an excellent season.

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14860 on: November 12, 2024, 05:47:36 PM »
Brighton have sacked loads of scouts due to restructuring, surely we can nab one or 2. Not sure how deep Bilkal are into the Bologna system.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/11/12/brighton-axe-majority-scouts-recruitment-data-tony-bloom/

Hunnington Baggie

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14861 on: November 12, 2024, 06:52:11 PM »
Brighton have sacked loads of scouts due to restructuring, surely we can nab one or 2. Not sure how deep Bilkal are into the Bologna system.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/11/12/brighton-axe-majority-scouts-recruitment-data-tony-bloom/
would make sense, Ian Pearce came from Brighton’s setup so our head of recruitment likely still knows a few of of them.

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14862 on: November 12, 2024, 07:41:50 PM »
Brighton have sacked loads of scouts due to restructuring, surely we can nab one or 2. Not sure how deep Bilkal are into the Bologna system.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/11/12/brighton-axe-majority-scouts-recruitment-data-tony-bloom/

It probably means that Tony Bloom has sufficient evidence to trust his big data algorithms and the scouts are surplus to requirements.
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gazberg

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14863 on: November 12, 2024, 07:43:26 PM »
It probably means that Tony Bloom has sufficient evidence to trust his big data algorithms and the scouts are surplus to requirements.


Totally, that's why i said it might be good for us, i know we use Bologna system but to what extent?

Standaman

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14864 on: November 13, 2024, 01:15:59 PM »
It would seem that Brighton are actually letting 3 scouts go others are being redeployed. Most clubs use the same data sets for player recruitment e.g. Statsbomb or Opta. What Bloom does through Starlizard (his betting consultancy) is a closely guarded secret but it more likely to be innovative analysis of data rather than reinventing the rather laborious wheel of data collection.

Brighton's scouts will have very little proprietary knowledge, they will know who they scouted but not the why and it is the why that is useful.

With regard to our own recruitment it would be wrong to suggest that we are formally plugged into Bologna's system other  than that is where the ownership and Nestor in particular learned much of what they know. To what extent they replicate Bologna's processes will depend on their view as to how successful it was and whether or not it is possible to replicate it in a very different environment.

 
« Last Edit: November 13, 2024, 01:23:32 PM by Standaman »
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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14865 on: November 14, 2024, 05:00:02 PM »
Nice to see Russball doing well in the Prem! Poor Ramsedale though going to have 3 relegations on his CV...

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14866 on: November 14, 2024, 08:27:48 PM »
Nice to see Russball doing well in the Prem! Poor Ramsedale though going to have 3 relegations on his CV...

Ben Foster has 4  :o

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14867 on: November 15, 2024, 11:57:35 AM »
Ben Foster has 4  :o
I can only count 3? Was his first stint at Watford in the prem?

Hunnington Baggie

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14868 on: November 15, 2024, 02:27:06 PM »
I can only count 3? Was his first stint at Watford in the prem?
his 2nd loan there was in the Prem, 2006-07.

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14869 on: November 23, 2024, 06:45:08 PM »
Spurs tearing Man City a new one at the Etihad, 3-0 after 52 mins.

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14870 on: November 23, 2024, 07:25:36 PM »
Finished 4-0 to Spurs

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14871 on: November 24, 2024, 03:59:45 PM »
Hearing Cooper has been sacked at Leicester
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gazberg

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14872 on: November 24, 2024, 04:00:33 PM »
Hearing Cooper has been sacked at Leicester

BBC saying it's official.

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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14873 on: November 24, 2024, 04:18:13 PM »
I hope Leicester go after either Le Bris (Sunderland) or Carrick (Boro) managers
the road to the summit has dips, keep the faith when navigating those dips !!
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Re: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD
« Reply #14874 on: November 24, 2024, 04:26:26 PM »
Confirmed by LCFC.  Keen on Potter still apparently.