Scholes ‘would never make it today’ with ‘production line’ of £100m ‘automatons’ like Anderson | OneFootball

Manchester United legend Paul Scholes ‘talks sh*te’ and would also struggle to make it today with a ‘production line of automatons’ in the Premier League.

Also, is the Champions League format ‘literally outstanding’?

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Part of football has died

I hate Brad Pitt. Not because he is more handsome than me or richer than me, or even because he dumped Jennifer Aniston (the cad!) but because he probably was responsible to raising the awareness of data analytics to the football community in the movie “Moneyball.”

Now Coaches have retired their green sweatshirts and tracky bottoms and now strut along the touchline like male models. Now every aspect of a footballer’s life is dissected and analysed. We even have throw-in and corner kick coaches. And what has been the outcome of this? Certainly the game has become more tactical and strategic but has the “product” I proved?

It feels like a little part of football has died. A common narrative today is that Paul Scholes, a short asthmatic and a known late developer, would never make it today.

What would the chances today of Iniesta or Xavi or David Silva surviving, let alone a young Messi. Instead we see a production line of automatons like Eliott Anderson, players almost grown in a lab, or Mason Mounts, competent at everything but outstanding at nothing.

Will we ever see players like Juan Mata again, whose intelligence and sheer inventiveness and audacity made football a joy to watch, no matter who you supported? Watching the behemoths in the Newcastle team line up suck the life out of my soul like a Dementor. You know you are in for 90 minutes of witnessing every piece of gamesmanship that ever existed in the game. Brazil have always had a long and glorious history of magicians but even that has dried up.

One of you may know of some up and coming hidden gems but who are the current heirs to CR7 or Messi’s crown? Or Neymar or Ronaldinho or even a Gascoigne? Adidasmufc (If you think AFCON was a joke, wit until you see how badly the USA messes up the World Cup)

Scholes’ silence was golden

Maybe the reason Paul Scholes barely spoke to the media during his playing career wasn’t humility or focus or “letting his football do the talking”. Maybe it was just that every time he opens his mouth now, he talks absolute shite. Ant (sigh)

The Champions League format is ‘outstanding’

Also nobody mentioned it so I just want to check if everyone else agrees; this new format of the Champions League is actually brilliant, right?

I could be wrong but I think anyone down to 15th could still qualify for a top 8 spot if results went massively in their favour. 32 out of 36 still have a chance to qualify for the next round.

The last game isn’t a dead rubber for virtually anyone; it’s a huge night next week.

Fair f**ks to UEFA because I really thought the new format would be worse but it’s literally outstanding. Minty, LFC

The actual source of Aston Villa angst

Looking at the big weekend preview, I think the source of Villa angst is not so much the transfer window – although this is the usual shitshow – but all to do with Kamara being out for the season. It’s a bit of a cliche for a defensive holding midfielder to be underrated, but honestly he’s been so important – notably, he had edged ahead of Tielemans and Rogers in chat to be Villa’s player of the season recently; until Paulinha accidentally injured him in a completely fair challenge during his in no way unhinged FA Cup rampage.

And this in an area of the team that is in trouble anyway: McGinn won’t be back until possibly March. Onana played last night, which means he’s got 3 more games in him max until Easter. We’ll probably see Gnarls Barkley in a Villa shirt before Ross. Bogarde and Hemmings are very useful defensive mids, but both are young enough to think the Makelele Role is a Frederick Forsyth novel (obviously Frederick Forsyth novels are massive with Gen Z). Tielemans, Son of Unai, is more than happy trying to do too much a la Bruno Fernandes/Victoria Beckham, but if he gets injured we are proper screwed. So the midfield is *stretched*.

But the main thing with Kamara is: our record with him vs without is pretty stark. The last time we lost a prem game with him in the team was Liverpool away on 1 November; otherwise, with him in the team we’ve played 6 other games against Big 6 teams and won 6. (And Wolves, which may not seem much but it has been hard work for us over the years, including this season until Bouba banged in a Rogers special).

The last 3 league games he missed were Everton last weekend, Arsenal in December and Palace in August – we lost all 3 by an aggregate score of 8-1, even with the easier 2 games being at home. And the only cup games we’ve lost – Brentford in the Carabao and GAE in the Eurovision – were Kamara-free as well. So the fact that he will miss *every* game for the rest of the season has put the frighteners up all of us. Neil Raines

Misleading stats

Folks, this is one for the amateur (or pro, – I don’t really know the readership that well ) statisticians among you.

I was speaking to a friend of mine recently and we were talking about how a goals to games ratio – while nice to say – doesn’t always tell the full story about a strikers effectiveness.

I could play 6 games, score 2 hat tricks ( well, I couldn’t ) and that would be looked back on as a goal a game. But I’ve only scored in 2 games out of 6, that’s 4 matches I’ve not really impacted on.

Someone else could play the same 6 games, score 1 goal in 5 of them and not net in the 6th and, despite imoacting 5 games rather than 2, their contribution would be viewed as statistically inferior.

Personally, I’d rather a forward who scores once, consistently, than someone who bangs in occasional hat tricks and braces but then goes 4 or 5 without.

So here’s what I want to know.

Which forwards have the bast “ games scored in ” to games ratio? Not goals to games.

Not who scores the most, but who scores in the most matches.

Can anyone point me in the direction of that info or even do the work for me and let me know how some of the all time greats stack up.

Thanks, Doug, AFC, Belfast

I read Jaxx B’s mail from earlier, where he/she is discussing the use of / increasing use of set pieces in order to score goals, and it included the following whilst mentioning Pep Guardiola: ‘His old road’s rapidly agin’.

Now I assume this is meant to mean ‘his old road is rapidly aging’ and that Jaxx thought using a nod to Bob Dylan would be useful or amusing, but I would point out that ‘agin’ is a northern English dialect word for ‘against’ as in ‘I’m agin Donny Fart’s approach to Greenland’.

As such, his sentence read to me at first glance ‘His road’s rapidly against’ which clearly makes no sense.