Common "beliefs" that annoy you

DB10

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

The notion that, every time Celtic fans act the bollix, that "it's an old firm thing" and "they're only as bad as each other"

Did you just make that notion up? Because I've never heard it.

The_Kew_Tour

DB10 wrote: »

Did you just make that notion up? Because I've never heard it.

Seen Celtic fans act the bollix few times

Their not much better then Rangers if they are at all

Fr Tod Umptious

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Seen Celtic fans act the bollix few times

Their not much better then Rangers if they are at all

Same here

Thats another one -
Denial by Celtic fans that there is a sectarian, scum bag element amoung their fans.

Thanks OP for a great thread

stumpypeeps

Sir Gallagher wrote: »

Not so much a common belief about the game but i don't get the common belief that Soccer AM is or ever was the absolutely hillarious show it's made out to be. Seems to be just a pack of gimps acting like gimps with a few funny football clips thrown in.

It wasn't bad when Lovejoy, Sheephead and fenners of the older crew were on it. Its pants now though. I'd watch Euronews quicker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxl-91yjfkU

_blank_

...that Blackpool have a player called Charlie Adams

Sgt Pepper 64

Melion wrote: »

.

Currently annoying me is the belief that Chelsea need width to provide for Fernando Torres, otherwise he is useless in that team. He never had any great supply from wide when he was at Liverpool, or Atleti from what i can recall.

Yes, I agree there. Width implies to me that he is going to get lots of headers from crosses?!
IMO a striker should be able to get goals playing in any formation

stumpypeeps

Sgt Pepper 64 wrote: »

Yes, I agree there. Width implies to me that he is going to get lots of headers from crosses?!
IMO a striker should be able to get goals playing in any formation

I think a lot of credit for Torres performances at Liverpool have to go down to Benitez. He was a much better player under him. He built the team around getting Torres into space running behind. Chelsea at the moment are better suited to playing to Drogba's strengths. Once they learn to adapt to Torres he's phenomenal. He is a lone striker that needs team mates to get him into areas he can cause damage.

ilovelamp2000

stumpypeeps wrote: »

I think a lot of credit for Torres performances at Liverpool have to go down to Benitez. He was a much better player under him. He built the team around getting Torres into space running behind.

And we won absolutely nothing while doing that.

Laois_Man

That Steven Gerrard isn't a common thug who doesn't also cheat.

That games deciding who finishes 4th are bigger than games deciding who gets relegated.

That the premier league is the best league in the world.

That supporters of clubs who have bought several titles or cups moan about newly rich clubs destroying the game.

That players can play for years for small clubs with no England recognition but magically become fantastic England internationals as soon as they move to one of the Sky 4.

That Arsne Wegner spends little money.

That what the Wags are wearing is interesting!

stumpypeeps

ilovelamp2000 wrote: »

And we won absolutely nothing while doing that.

We came pretty close though. To the big one. I like the way we play at the moment though. Much more the Liverpool way.

Pro. F

The belief that the term ''tactics'' only applies to defensive play. Since when, for example, is controlling and using possession not a tactic?

The belief that statistics is used in football analysis. Statistical analysis in football is very rare, almost non-existent. Iirc there was one website related to the sabernomics lads, but other than that I have seen nothing.

The belief that knowing lots of facts about football means that somebody knows and understands football well and that their opinion is therefore worth more. You can understand and analyse a game or player that you see without knowing loads about the surrounding details. It's why Jonny Giles' opinions on a game or player that he has just watched are worth listening to (even if I often disagree with him), but are ignored by many people.

The belief that going down easy when fouled, diving when not fouled and feigning injury are all as bad as each other.

The belief that you have to watch a player regularly for a decent period of time in order to judge whether he has ability or not. I think that people who believe this just can't judge players' ability well enough for themselves.

flahavaj

Pro. F wrote: »

The belief that you have to watch a player regularly for a decent period of time in order to judge whether he has ability or not. I think that people who believe this just can't judge players' ability well enough for themselves.

How often is acceptable then? You need to watch a guy for a decent amnount of times to get a good idea of what he's all about in fairness. Going by one or two games is retarded.

amacachi

Des wrote: »

or a match between two teams mastering the art of defending, or a mix of both.

Would they just leave the ball in the centre circle? :pac:

Het-Field

The common belief, amongst a specific group of fans, that a "barstooler's" footballing experience is somewhat less than that of a "real football fan", and that "barstoolers" are intrinsically poorer as a result of the source of the football they choose to follow.

eagle eye

Pro. F wrote: »

The belief that statistics is used in football analysis. Statistical analysis in football is very rare, almost non-existent. Iirc there was one website related to the sabernomics lads, but other than that I have seen nothing.

You are around this site for a long time so to see you say this surprises me a lot. All clubs in the Premier league use prozone or one of their competitors for statistical analyses, breakdown of games etc. Its a huge part of every professional club now.

spiralism

Ok, controversial maybe here, but the common belief that if you don't play football for a club, you therefore haven't a clue and cant make any real comment on it.

henke

That Howard Webb is a Manchester United fan.

Jigga

That Neil Lennon brings the treatment he receives on himself.

strawberryb0y

Het-Field wrote: »

The common belief, amongst a specific group of fans, that a "barstooler's" footballing experience is somewhat less than that of a "real football fan", and that "barstoolers" are intrinsically poorer as a result of the source of the football they choose to follow.

Hardly common and hardly wrong

Pro. F

flahavaj wrote: »

How often is acceptable then? You need to watch a guy for a decent amnount of times to get a good idea of what he's all about in fairness. Going by one or two games is retarded.

I disagree. Two or three games is normally more than enough to get a strong idea about how good a player is*. That's assuming that the player is in any sort of reasonable form and isn't just back from injury or something. Those things can be found out before deciding to watch him anyway.

I know sometimes it might be hard to actually see a player properly in a game, like if you're watching on a grainy internet stream with shít/foreign commentary so you can't identify which player is which. Or trying to judge a striker's movement off the ball on tv if his team are rarely attacking. In those situations you're just waiting to get a better game to see the player properly. Actually being at the game being the best obviously.

For the other things like how they apply themselves in training and how they prepare for games, you aren't going to be able to judge those things properly from watching them on the pitch anyway. For those things you just have to rely on whatever other sources you think you can trust - journalists, fans of the club etc.

I think by the time people have watched a player for more than 5 or 10 games before they make their decision, a lot of the time they are actually just regurgitating the opinions of others at that stage.

There is one position that I think is an exception to this and that's goal keeper. You need to know how many games a keeper can go without making a mistake so that might mean that you have to watch a lot of games before you know that a keeper is really good.

*If the player is not good at all then you can tell that within much less time.

eagle eye wrote: »

You are around this site for a long time so to see you say this surprises me a lot. All clubs in the Premier league use prozone or one of their competitors for statistical analyses, breakdown of games etc. Its a huge part of every professional club now.

Here's a link to some basic statistical tools:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/W7295E/w7295e08.htm#TopOfPage

I think prozone and the like are good for what they do. But I have never seen any of them showing that they use actual statistical analysis in their products. I may have missed it, and I'm open to correction on it, but any time I read up on their services I see no mention of even the most basic statistical tools like in the link above. The same thing when I read their articles. All I ever see is data, no statistical analysis.

I'm not trying to claim that I'm some sort of statistics expert btw. I've studied them and worked with them a bit, no more than that.

flahavaj

Pro. F wrote: »

I disagree. Two or three games is normally more than enough to get a strong idea about how good a player is*. That's assuming that the player is in any sort of reasonable form and isn't just back from injury or something. Those things can be found out before deciding to watch him anyway.

I know sometimes it might be hard to actually see a player properly in a game, like if you're watching on a grainy internet stream with shít/foreign commentary so you can't identify which player is which. Or trying to judge a striker's movement off the ball on tv if his team are rarely attacking. In those situations you're just waiting to get a better game to see the player properly. Actually being at the game being the best obviously.

For the other things like how they apply themselves in training and how they prepare for games, you aren't going to be able to judge those things properly from watching them on the pitch anyway. For those things you just have to rely on whatever other sources you think you can trust - journalists, fans of the club etc.

I think by the time people have watched a player for more than 5 or 10 games before they make their decision, a lot of the time they are actually just regurgitating the opinions of others at that stage.

There is one position that I think is an exception to this and that's goal keeper. You need to know how many games a keeper can go without making a mistake so that might mean that you have to watch a lot of games before you know that a keeper is really good.

Jaysus, I dunno. Theres lots of examples of guys who've looked amazing at World Cups or Euros over 3-4 games and have gotten big contracts only to fail badly at their new club. Personally I'd never judge a player on 2-3 games anyway, I'd need to see them a whole lot more to make a definitive decision on him. I remember the first few times I saw McShane play for Ireland I thiught we were set for years in the position. I actually annoys me whe people go mad over a player after a gae or two - for example I thought all the fawning over Neuer after the away leg vs Schalke went a bit over the top. He looked mich more average at OT (I realise you've said keepers are the exception!). You could catch a guy like Maxi Rodriguez in stunning form over the last three game which flies in the face of how mediocre he's been for a few years now. 2-3 games just strikes me as a very small sample to be working from. Too much room for error.

PHB

That United get preferable treatment from the referees and the FA. It ****ing pisses me off to no end, considering how many bad decisions from both we're on the end of.

cson

That Howard Webb is a referee and not a Manchester United staff member.

Clearly untrue. :cool:

Giggsy11

cson wrote: »

That Howard Webb is a referee and not a Manchester United staff member.

Clearly untrue. :cool:

After his amazing performance for Chelsea many would like to disagree with you. :pac:

iregk

Every time a goal is conceded zonal marking simply doesn't work.

Optimalprimerib

That Spain play beautiful football. They were the lowest scoring winners in world cup history, they win by smothering the opposition by playing keep ball and hope to chance by a goal at some point.

PhiloCypher

That bringing in video technology for contentious decisions would slow the game down more then players haranguing the ref and linesmen for 5 mins everytime a decision doesn't go their way.

gustavo

Players when losing a game pulling a goal back thinking that somehow bringing the ball back to the centre circle will somehow get the game going quicker

PhiloCypher

The belief that some goalkeepers have that spitting on their gloves is gonna help them hold onto the ball better .

keano_afc

PhiloCypher wrote: »

The belief that some goalkeepers have that spitting on their gloves is gonna help them hold onto the ball better .

As an ex-keeper, this actually works.

That_Guy

I hate the belief that finishing 4th means that you're in the Champions League. :rolleyes:

dreamers75

That_Guy wrote: »

I hate the belief that finishing 4th means that you're in the Champions League. :rolleyes:

How many english teams who came 4th didnt qualify for the groups?1? So its kinda correct :pac:

That_Guy

dreamers75 wrote: »

How many english teams who came 4th didnt qualify for the groups?1? So its kinda correct :pac:

It's not really though. It's just a peeve of mine.

Morzadec

All British players are inherently more hard-working, passionate and spirited than others.

When discussing the possibility of Liverpool signing Downing, an English colleague of mine said:

'And he's English as well, which means he will track back' :rolleyes:

pickarooney

That 'pundit' means someone who appears on television.

ROCKMAN

What I type here matters...

premierstone

ROCKMAN wrote: »

What I type here matters...

The title says ''Common beliefs''

Pro. F

flahavaj wrote: »

Jaysus, I dunno. Theres lots of examples of guys who've looked amazing at World Cups or Euros over 3-4 games and have gotten big contracts only to fail badly at their new club. Personally I'd never judge a player on 2-3 games anyway, I'd need to see them a whole lot more to make a definitive decision on him. I remember the first few times I saw McShane play for Ireland I thiught we were set for years in the position. I actually annoys me whe people go mad over a player after a gae or two - for example I thought all the fawning over Neuer after the away leg vs Schalke went a bit over the top. He looked mich more average at OT (I realise you've said keepers are the exception!). You could catch a guy like Maxi Rodriguez in stunning form over the last three game which flies in the face of how mediocre he's been for a few years now. 2-3 games just strikes me as a very small sample to be working from. Too much room for error.

The point about the big international tournaments in general I agree with you on. They are a very unusual environments so they can throw up weird shít. The world is full of skillful but lazy players and some of them start applying themselves properly when the internationals come around. Club games are generally far more telling. Still, if a player has been getting rave reviews at his club all season and then you see him playing for his country at a big tournament and you like the look of him then I think it's reasonable to start thinking that he is actually a good player. If any manager buys a player on the back of that, without watching some videos to check that all the positive talk of his club form was true, then he deserves to end up with a flop.

I haven't seen any of these Liverpool games recently so I can't comment too much on Maxi's form. But he is still as slow as Christmas and the opposition Liverpool have been playing in these games is not of a very high calibre and these are end of season games, so I doubt anybody would be getting too excited about Maxi just now. Also, a quick check of the records would show that his goal tally recently is not in any way normal for him.

One other point I would make is that whenever a player flops after a transfer, I wouldn't automatically assume it was that the scouts got it wrong and that he was actually a poor player all along. Plenty of good players just stop being good players for many different reasons. I'm not saying that you would make that assumption, I'm just pointing the fact out to highlight how judging a players potential always has to be an imperfect process.

Hannibal

Pro. F wrote: »

I haven't seen any of these Liverpool games recently so I can't comment too much on Maxi's form. But he is still as slow as Christmas and the opposition Liverpool have been playing in these games is not of a very high calibre and these are end of season games, so I doubt anybody would be getting too excited about Maxi just now. Also, a quick check of the records would show that his goal tally recently is not in any way normal for him.

Maxi Rodríguez record:
Argentina: 41 apps, 12 goals = 3.42 games per goal
Liverpool: 51 apps, 11 goals = 4.64 games per goal
Ath Madrid: 145 apps, 42 goals = 3.45 games per goal
Espanyol: 111 apps, 26 goals = 4.27 games per goal
Newells: 57 apps, 20 goals = 2.85 games per goal

This indicates Maxi's record is highly normal for him, his recent hat tricks brought his Liverpool career back in line with the rest of his career.

Pro. F

Dotsey wrote: »

Maxi Rodríguez record:
Argentina: 41 apps, 12 goals = 3.42 games per goal
Liverpool: 51 apps, 11 goals = 4.64 games per goal
Ath Madrid: 145 apps, 42 goals = 3.45 games per goal
Espanyol: 111 apps, 26 goals = 4.27 games per goal
Newells: 57 apps, 20 goals = 2.85 games per goal

This indicates Maxi's record is highly normal for him, his recent hat tricks brought his Liverpool career back in line with the rest of his career.

His record in his last few games is well over a goal a game! That is nothing like his previous record.

flas

that you can have a balanced view of the game only seeing it in person once a season(if lucky)!

pbowenroe

eZe^ wrote: »

That Busquets is a diver.

Are you serious? He's one of the worst on that Barcelona team.

1mcampo1

pbowenroe wrote: »

Are you serious? He is the worst on that Barcelona team.

fyp

pbowenroe

Yeah. It's close between him and Alves.

Anyway, the belief that Barcelona are a team of angels who never cheat, dive or try to get players sent off.

MR NINE

That "Rafas rant" actually played a part in who won the 08/09 title.

3hn2givr7mx1sc

MR NINE wrote: »

That "Rafas rant" actually played a part in who won the 08/09 title.

Is that a fact?

K-9

baz2009 wrote: »

Is that a fact?

It's a FHACT!

Rafa you legend.

Pinturicchio

That there's a H in "Atlético Madrid".

eagle eye

Pinturicchio wrote: »

That there's a H in "Atlético Madrid".

And that people think there is an O and no H in first name of Athetic Bilbao.

Blatter

Pinturicchio wrote: »

That there's a H in "Atlético Madrid".

eagle eye wrote: »

And that people think there is an O and no H in first name of Athetic Bilbao.

Jaysus. Pedantic Pat has nothing on you two.