Football

Looks like Chelsea are stepping up their bid to sign Fellaini.

Looks like Chelsea are stepping up their bid to sign Fellaini.

That stories been goin for nearly 2 years

And for £20m?!?!

Is he the guy with the dodgy hair?
I heard he was coming to Liverpool

There's more chance of Dixie Dean signing for Liverpool

we've got joe cole and aquilani, why would we want the hair bear bunch

oh yes, because we've got joe cole and aquilani

WTF?!?!?

I knew that you were a bit dim but everyone knows that bigger = better when it come to hair.

Don't fucking start. I am not in the mood for your bs today. As for dim, I am still intrigued to know how you worked that one out.

Ah fuck it, someone PM me when Jeez has fucked off up his own arsehole

Actually, it's time to make use of the ignore function for only the third person in almost 5 years.

This Jeez fella really is an antagonistic spunkwipe isn't he. Why doesn't he just fuck off?

I was looking over a hundred year period not 10 or 20 years

http://www.soccer.mistral.co.uk/fleg/tdiv1.htm

Football definitely used to be less predictable - even if there was a team that would dominate. A team could easily come from nowhere and win the league. Early 70s - Derby - 9th one year, champions the next. Not possible now.

People want their team to be predictably consistent, winning all their games. But given that different people support different teams the net result is that people want competition.

(4) might be opinion, but it is fact that a good game does not need great players, and great players can produce a dreadful game. It is also clear that in the past you just would not get exceptional players on the bench week in week out - now lots are on the bench week in week out. This is one of the big downsides of a large bench.

Football used to be less predictable?
Like PNE going seasons unbeaten? Like Huddersfield being champions with Herbert Chapman for years, before moving to Arsenal and then repeating himself?

Perhaps you should read this:
[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_football_champions[/ame]
It looks like lots of little dynasties forming as ideas, talent, and money take control. Typically in northern industrial cities.

Regarding your opinion that fans want more chaos in the league, that's not entirely true.
Research :

OUTCOME UNCERTAINTY has been modeled across various dimensions
(match, seasonal, championship domination). Promotion to higher status is the primary measure of success. Championship domination is not an issue here because
the champion team, along with others at the head of the standings, is automatically promoted out of the division. Here, we confine attention to short-run
match-outcome uncertainty.

The most striking deletion from Table 2 is that of OUTCOME UNCERTAINTY
that failed to deliver a significant coefficient at 10% significance level. This finding
of zero influence of match-outcome uncertainty is in line with some recent
matchday attendance demand studies (

from
http://jse.sagepub.com/content/7/3/247.full.pdf+html
New Issues in Attendance Demand
The Case of the English Football League

So. Uncertainty isn't what makes people go to football matches.

then we can look at the most socialized league in the world, the NFL. I still think that dynasty teams form there. Probably because of systems in place by the coaching staff and the use of trading to secure players who work in said systems.

Ideas, talent and money.
Derby would have had more success, if the directors had given in to Clough's ego and let him spend more etc. Instead he fucked off to Leeds and Brighton, before shipping up 14 miles down the road and repeated what he'd done before.

To argue that it's unpredictability in the positions below position 1 is laughable. Who gives a shit? You're either fucking the prom queen or you're not.

Not possible again? I think it is. It just requires similar conditions, chippy managers, board who want success, players who've been passed over, players on the rise. CASH.

Well in Damo, that'll learn 'im!

http://www.umbc.edu/economics/wpapers/wp_11_130.pdf
We examine the relationship between attendance, uncertainty of outcome, and team
quality in the National Hockey League. Based on results from a reduced form model of
attendance at 6054 regular season NHL games from 2005/06 to 2009/10, we find evidence that
attendance increases when fans expect the home team to win by a large margin. Attendance
increases for home team underdogs, but the extent of that boost declines as the underdog status
worsens. An asymmetric relationship exists between expected game outcomes and attendance,
suggesting the need for an expanded definition of the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis.

Well in Chalfie, that'll learn 'im!

.

Shall we stop arguing about uncertainty now?

There's bound to be more said on this.

It's certain though that Derby are wank

You are now being ridiculously provocative. David Luiz has the bast hair. FACT

You are telling me that -

Home fans nos. are what influences attendance most.
Home fans would like to see their team win every week.

Well fuck me sideways. I just can't believe it.

There is absolutely no contradiction between that and the fact that the PL would be better if it was less predictable.

FWIW I have no problem with the (pretty much inevitable) fact that the teams who have the biggest crowds and who bring through the best youth team players will tend towards the top, whilst those who have the smallest crowds and a useless youth set up will tend towards the bottom. I do have a problem with the fact that the PL could be more unpredictable and that many of the best players that we could be watching are bench warming, whilst much worse players get played week in week out at other clubs.

So are you telling me that having a less predictable league by forcing more players of better quality will result in more varied winners? And increased quality? (have you been reading Zen and motorcycle maintenance lately? is this what's given you a boner for this?)
let's look at the NFL:
[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_Bowl_champions[/ame]

that doesn't look predictable at all does it? Colts, Patriots recently? Steelers?
But they, don't they? They do. They do share talent around. They do cap salaries. They do all the things you probably want, sharing money around evenly, and yet. There are still teams that tend to do better than others over the long term.

And yet. PEOPLE STILL pour their money into watching the game there.
I take comfort in Derby being predictably a bit shit.

It's what I base my look on.

Definitely a Leeds fan.

Oi!

.

Are you saying that more chaotic, increased number of different winners, more happiness?

That's not going to work. There are more Liverpool supporters than Stoke fans. The Liverpool fans would be unhappier than the Stoke fans, should Stoke win. That is not economically satisfactory.
It would also mean more fucking plastics.
"Yeah! Forest won the league I'm supporting them!"

The reasons people cite the NFL in discussions about competition, predictability, crowds, and money, are it's a league with salary caps, trading and draft picks, with a steady influx of talent. It's apparently the dream set up, and yet you still get dynasty teams, predictafuckingbility and people still pour their money in.

You're not backwards in coming forwards, what do you think the solution is?

Also: who do you support?