Sunderland, Bournemouth, Watford to drop? Norwich hanging on? Villa and Newcastle safe? – And Leicester out of sight? Ask the fans!

John McCormick:
John McCormick: there are lies, damned lies, statistics and dodgy numbers

Monsieur Salut writes: John McCormick, our wizard with the stats, wrote this update to his series on the developing relegation scrap before Dick Advocaat left. His gut feelings may therefore change according to who is appointed, but I suspect his calculations will not, or at least not yet .. now over to John …

It’s still early days and small numbers of both wins and losses will continue to produce swings in win-loss ratios for some time, but with no game reports to post because of the international break it’s as good a time as any to make another visit to the bottom end of the table.
Those of you who’ve visited this series previously might remember that my last review took place just as the transfer window had closed and, with that, I gave you the opportunity to have another vote in the relegation poll that I’d opened in the close season.

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Diving for glory. Is blaming foreigners jingoistic piffle, or sadly spot-on?

Tom Webb
Tom Webb

Salut! Sunderland has been banging on for years about diving, the feigning of injury, unprofessional attempts by players to get opponents booked or sent off and other forms of cheating. The issue is raised with every “Who are You?” interviewee and I can think of only one or two who said too much fuss was made of it.

But should we really accept that British players are largely blameless, or that they were until they caught the nasty habits of Johnny Foreigner?

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Relegation watch: SAFC, NUFC and Watford? Bournemouth, Norwich and Villa? And are Leicester safe?

John McCormick:
John McCormick: There are lies, damned lies, statistics and dodgy numbers

At the start of the season some 7,696 votes had been cast in our relegation poll. As you can see below, the clear favourites to go down were AFC Bournemouth, Watford and Sunderland, with Norwich then Leicester following behind. Aston Villa and NUFC were also given as possibilities; Villa weren’t far behind Leicester but fewer people went for NUFC and even fewer opted for a club outside the chosen seven.

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Taylor Made: a BBC football version of This is Your Life

Bill Taylor gets lost in stats
Bill Taylor gets lost in stats

Bill Taylor came across a nifty new BBC tool allowing fans of all Premier League teams to calculate their clubs’ performance during their lifetimes. Fellow Sunderland supporters – and others – are invited to have a go and report back any interesting findings …

There’s no evidence to support this, but George Santayana, the Spanish/American writer and philosopher, COULD have been at Wembley in 1937 to see Sunderland clobber Preston North End 3-1 in the FA Cup. Santayana was certainly in Europe at the time.

And the saying he’s most famous for could well be applied to the Black Cats and their long-suffering fans: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

For those of us who have trouble remembering what happened last week, let alone a few decades ago, the BBC’s football website has unveiled a magical new tool to jog our memories.

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Dick’s post-Leicester Advochaat: And what can we learn from today….?

John McCormick writes: I spent the afternoon in Whiston Hospital, a phone and internet free zone, so I had no idea of what was happening at Leicester. So far so good, you might think, but as we drove up, just as the teams came out, I thought back to the last time I was there. We were taken apart by a Liverpool team that ran at a poor defence and popped in three goals before we knew what had happened.

I hoped history wouldn’t repeat itself, but it looks like it did.
 

Dick's chaat, by Jake
Dick’s chaat, by Jake

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Sixer’s Sevens: Leicester 4-2 SAFC. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Jake: catch Sixer's instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season
Jake: catch Sixer’s instant seven-word verdicts throughout the season

Whatever we hoped or expected from Dick Advocaat’s new-look side, it was pretty much as you were at Leicester. Three down in 25 minutes, only Costel Pantilimon standing between City and a hatful by half time and the team in utter shambles. Has Jeremain Lens a clause allowing him to leave by the end of August? First Defoe gave hope, then Fletcher, with their second half goals. But Leicester looked dangerous with every attack and Monsieur Salut takes no pride in seeing that his predicted starting XI was spot-on, since it was also fairly useless. Pete Sixsmith was there, as so often, to take the pain – and this, ahead of his considered view, is his instant, unhappy verdict …

Leicester City (3) 4 SAFC (0) 2 No encouragement to take from this shocker

Jake: 'phew - only 4-2'
Jake: ‘phew – only 4-2’

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Leicester City Who are You?: ‘I like Catts but you’re doomed with Norwich and Bournemouth’

Sometimes, Who are You? interviewees bend over backwards to please, offering upbeat predictions for Sunderland’s season that even we wouldn’t share. Not Ben Jacobs*, another of Monsieur Salut’s ESPN FC colleagues but also a busy sports broadcaster and journalist in the Middle East. A passionate Leicester supporter, and first in the WAY hot seat for the new Premier season, he makes due apology, but forecasts an end to our top-flight stay. What’s worrying is that he comes across – with fascinating views on football cheats, Qatar as 2022 World Cup hosts and Foxes management issues – as knowledgeable!…

Jake: check out the Who are You? series at
Jake: check out last season’s Who are You? stars at https://safc.blog/category/who-are-you-2014-2015/

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