[Albion] Palace Fans Biggest Fear

[Berty23]

We've outfootballed most of the "good footballing" sides this year.

Yep. If we can find a way to beat cloggers like forest, palace, Burnley etc then we will have a fine season next year.

I am still not over that game vs West Ham around 2 years ago when they had 3 brilliant chances in the first 25 mins when they had completed about 15 passes in total. It was mad.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

From what I have seen of Brighton play I would agree, although I saw a great goal from you lot this year, long ball up the middle by the keeper to Mitoma ? Controls it and smashes it into the net, in my view just as good as a 30 pass team goal.

It’s a question of horses for courses, there is no point for example as trying to out football Man City, set he team up to defend and when the opportunity presents itself play the ball into the space where your forward players have been told to attack.

Mitoma was marked out of the game of course, but we kept trying to go down the left, because statistically that's our most effective flank.

March came on for the last 20 minutes and had a higher xA than Mitoma/Adingra/Gruda combined.
But more often than not the players still looked to play down the left, with March in acres of space.

We'll get there, I'm sure.
This has been a transitional season and hopefully next season, will see us push on from a very effective base.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Yep. If we can find a way to beat cloggers like forest, palace, Burnley etc then we will have a fine season next year.

I am still not over that game vs West Ham around 2 years ago when they had 3 brilliant chances in the first 25 mins when they had completed about 15 passes in total. It was mad.

The one with Milner at right back?

 

[Berty23]

The one with Milner at right back?

I think you are right. It was a mess!

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I think you are right. It was a mess!

And Moyes targeted him - yes it was horrible.

 

[Benzhiyi]

Palace fan here in peace.

Many of you have stated that our cup win was all down to luck (three Premier league sides, only two home fixtures, one goal conceded in the entire run – come on now), and implied that luck evens out in the league – so apparently the final table doesn't lie.

I'm therefore intrigued to hear your reactions to a feature Opta published last week, looking back on the past league season. It names Bournemouth and Palace as the two unluckiest clubs in the league, and summarises that if luck did indeed even out over the season then Palace would have finished 8th, with Brighton 9th. (And Forest, astonishingly, 13th.)

Which Premier League Teams Finished in Wrong Position According to Opta's Expected Points Table? | Opta Analyst

We analyse the 2024-25 Premier League expected points table; put crudely, what the table ‘should’ look like based on each team’s underlying numbers.

theanalyst.com

 

[Berty23]

opta report that West Ham completed 31 passes in the first half. They had so many chances. It was comical.

 

[Berty23]

Palace fan here in peace.

Many of you have stated that our cup win was all down to luck (three Premier league sides, only two home fixtures, one goal conceded in the entire run – come on now), and implied that luck evens out in the league – so apparently the final table doesn't lie.

I'm therefore intrigued to hear your reactions to a feature Opta published last week, looking back on the past league season. It names Bournemouth and Palace as the two unluckiest clubs in the league, and summarises that if luck did indeed even out over the season then Palace would have finished 8th, with Brighton 9th. (And Forest, astonishingly, 13th.)

Which Premier League Teams Finished in Wrong Position According to Opta's Expected Points Table? | Opta Analyst

We analyse the 2024-25 Premier League expected points table; put crudely, what the table ‘should’ look like based on each team’s underlying numbers.

theanalyst.com

How is luck with injuries built into that?

“Only two home fixtures” is quite something when 66% of matches vs prem sides were at Wembley.

Are you saying you didn’t need luck to draw Stockport who struggled past my mates and they are part time?

Are you saying that a shambolic VAR decision is not lucky?

Are you saying that your attackers being rubbish at converting chances is lucky? And yet palace fans want them in the side over Brighton attackers if we form a mixed team.

Genuinely interested.

 

[Stato]

From what I have seen of Brighton play I would agree, although I saw a great goal from you lot this year, long ball up the middle by the keeper to Mitoma ? Controls it and smashes it into the net, in my view just as good as a 30 pass team goal.

Do you mean the MotD goal of the season? Strange description. I'd have gone with 'Takes down a sixty yard ball with a caress so soft it was like he was delicately placing his new born child's head on a pillow for the first time, takes the defender out of the equation with a sublime second touch and then bends it perfectly out of the diving keeper's reach.'

Wonderful goal, but only possible if you have a player with the talent of a Bergkamp who is capable of the seemingly impossible.
However, as far as long ball goals are concerned, I take Andone's. It was scruffier, but far funnier:

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Palace fan here in peace.

Many of you have stated that our cup win was all down to luck (three Premier league sides, only two home fixtures, one goal conceded in the entire run – come on now), and implied that luck evens out in the league – so apparently the final table doesn't lie.

I'm therefore intrigued to hear your reactions to a feature Opta published last week, looking back on the past league season. It names Bournemouth and Palace as the two unluckiest clubs in the league, and summarises that if luck did indeed even out over the season then Palace would have finished 8th, with Brighton 9th. (And Forest, astonishingly, 13th.)

Which Premier League Teams Finished in Wrong Position According to Opta's Expected Points Table? | Opta Analyst

We analyse the 2024-25 Premier League expected points table; put crudely, what the table ‘should’ look like based on each team’s underlying numbers.

theanalyst.com

In Peace?

Doesn't really sound like it, tbh.

The truth is that under/overperforming xg isn't an indicator of luck.
It's an indicator of performance against an evened out metric.

If we insist on taking xg as a measure of luck, then you were lucky to win the FA Cup final (0.74 vs 2.23) and your home game against us (0.6 vs 1.0)

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Palace fan here in peace.

Many of you have stated that our cup win was all down to luck (three Premier league sides, only two home fixtures, one goal conceded in the entire run – come on now), and implied that luck evens out in the league – so apparently the final table doesn't lie.

I'm therefore intrigued to hear your reactions to a feature Opta published last week, looking back on the past league season. It names Bournemouth and Palace as the two unluckiest clubs in the league, and summarises that if luck did indeed even out over the season then Palace would have finished 8th, with Brighton 9th. (And Forest, astonishingly, 13th.)

Which Premier League Teams Finished in Wrong Position According to Opta's Expected Points Table? | Opta Analyst

We analyse the 2024-25 Premier League expected points table; put crudely, what the table ‘should’ look like based on each team’s underlying numbers.

theanalyst.com

it's worth pointing out that you have a pretty decent record against all 3 of the Premier teams you drew in the cup.

You've thrashed Villa multiple times, over the past 2 seasons.
They were fighting on 3 fronts in the run up to the semi, and it showed.

 

[Mellotron]

I'm therefore intrigued to hear your reactions to a feature Opta published last week, looking back on the past league season. It names Bournemouth and Palace as the two unluckiest clubs in the league.

No it doesn't. It says absolutely nothing about LUCK. It talks about how good the chances you made/stats were, and whether you under or over performed taking those chances. If anything I'd argue it paints Palace in a negative light, not a positive one!

Same as our season under Potter where we finished 16th but had an xG of something like 7th. Unlucky? Nope. Underperforming? Big time.

 

[The Optimist]

No it doesn't. It says absolutely nothing about LUCK. It talks about how good the chances you made/stats were, and whether you under or over performed taking those chances. If anything I'd argue it paints Palace in a negative light, not a positive one!

Same as our season under Potter where we finished 16th but had an xG of something like 7th. Unlucky? Nope. Underperforming? Big time.

Does it simply highlight who’s poor in both boxes? I.e. their strikers don’t take their chances as well as other teams and their defence/ keeper lets in goals that should be stopped?

 

[Uh_huh_him]

No it doesn't. It says absolutely nothing about LUCK. It talks about how good the chances you made/stats were, and whether you under or over performed taking those chances. If anything I'd argue it paints Palace in a negative light, not a positive one!

Same as our season under Potter where we finished 16th but had an xG of something like 7th. Unlucky? Nope. Underperforming? Big time.

There is also a big misrepresentation of xg numbers within a single game situation.

A team making a high number low xg chances and giving away a penalty to an opponent. Will lose/draw far more often than they will win.
Regardless of the XG discrepancy between the two teams.

I would hazard a guess that the season's accumulated xG vs xGA might be a fairer indicator of eventually league position.
But it would still be a pretty unreliable marker.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Does it simply highlight who’s poor in both boxes? I.e. their strikers don’t take their chances as well as other teams and their defence/ keeper lets in goals that should be stopped?

Not even that.
xG really isn't a good metric to measure anything by, particularly in the Premier League.

A penalty has 0.7 xG
in 23/24 there were 85/96 penalties scored (nearly 0.9)

You really have to be looking at a huge dataset, before you can read any patterns into it.

 

[Berty23]

Not even that.
xG really isn't a good metric to measure anything by, particularly in the Premier League.

A penalty has 0.7 xG
in 23/24 there were 85/96 penalties scored (nearly 0.9)

You really have to be looking at a huge dataset, before you can read any patterns into it.

I thought XG was 0.79 for a pen. But I am probably wrong.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I thought XG was 0.79 for a pen. But I am probably wrong.

you are correct

 

[Stato]

Palace fan here in peace.

Many of you have stated that our cup win was all down to luck (three Premier league sides, only two home fixtures, one goal conceded in the entire run – come on now), and implied that luck evens out in the league – so apparently the final table doesn't lie.

I'm therefore intrigued to hear your reactions to a feature Opta published last week, looking back on the past league season. It names Bournemouth and Palace as the two unluckiest clubs in the league, and summarises that if luck did indeed even out over the season then Palace would have finished 8th, with Brighton 9th. (And Forest, astonishingly, 13th.)

Which Premier League Teams Finished in Wrong Position According to Opta's Expected Points Table? | Opta Analyst

We analyse the 2024-25 Premier League expected points table; put crudely, what the table ‘should’ look like based on each team’s underlying numbers.

theanalyst.com

Moaning to Brighton fans of all people about underperforming your Xpts is fairly ironic. Our long history with that business gives us the knowledge to know that it doesn't mean your team is 'unlucky', it means that your team is doing a lot of things right, but is underperforming in key metrics (scoring the chances you've created, making a lot of difficult, but few simple chances, letting in goals too easily, playing Neal Maupay up front etc.)

In Palace's case the underperformance in points v expected points is hugely made up from the phase at the beginning of the season where you were playing quite well in games, but not getting results. You finished the season with an underperformance of 5.16, but at the end of November that was at 6.91, so you actually slightly overperformed the Xpts for the latter part of the season. That's good news for you if it carries into next season. However, my guess is that the struggle in the autumn was about dealing with tiredness / absence of the key performers whilst getting new players well aligned with the system and the transfer window will test whether that might be an issue again next year. With a European campaign, you'll be needing not only to extend or replace those near the end of their contracts or targeted by the big boys, but also improve a squad that has shown from it's start to the season, that it can struggle badly if key performers are absent or struggling. Looking back, we didn't do that well enough going into our European season and that's why you snuck in front of us at the end. Our method of signing players to improve them struggled to cope with having to replace two of the best midfielders in the league in one window, particularly whilst having to play Thursday & Sunday so regularly.

Forest in thirteenth is not particularly astonishing. They have one system and it doesn't produce a lot of chances. It relies on being tight in defence and clinical in attack. They have over performed the Xpts enormously this season. This is impressive, but not easily sustained and if you split their actual season into two, you can see that they were second in the first 19 games, but eleventh in the second 19. They will also need to significantly add and improve if they are to sustain the success into the EPL and Euro Conference next season.

 

[Stato]

Following on from Bozza's keep two from five. Glasner has said that Palace won't lose 'all of' their star players this summer, so what do our Palace guests think about who are their most important players to keep? Which two from five would you do everything to have next year?

Guehi - Seems most likely. In the last year of his contract and linked to quite a few;
Mateta - Also expiring in June 26 and at 28 would be the clubs last chance to stick or twist;
Eze - Palace's biggest financial asset, linked with Spurs and Arsenal. Will the fee be needed to bolster the squad?
Wharton - Similar dilemma to Eze. Liverpool sniffing;
Glasner himself - Being linked to Tottenham and RB Leipzig.

 

[Benzhiyi]

No it doesn't. It says absolutely nothing about LUCK.

Ummm… it used these exact words in the piece I shared – written by Opta, not by me.

Who Were the Unluckiest?​

Bournemouth can perhaps feel the most aggrieved. Despite finishing ninth in the table, the underlying data suggests their performances were strong enough for a sixth-place finish, a position that would have secured Europa League football. That three-place gap between their actual and expected finish was the second largest of any team in the league.

Crystal Palace (finished 12th) should have also been able to talk about a top-half finish, according to their xG data. They came eighth in the expected points table, with that four-place difference the most of any side in the division this season. We suspect they will be more than content with the FA Cup as a consolation, though.