Interesting. This is the sort of information that appeals to the scientist in me. It's enough to take my opinion of the match last night a notch higher.Burnley have the least number of chances against them according to the xGA columns, so a tight game shouldn’t have been a surprise
EPL xG Table and Scorers for the 2023/2024 season | Understat.com
xG table of EPL standings and top scorers for the 2023/2024 season, also tables from past seasons and other European football leagues.understat.com
-
The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...
Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports
Could he have perhaps avoided being branded as a casual racist by not relying on lazy cultural stereotypes and - perhaps - commented on the coaching which has obviously allowed it to persist over many years? If Jose or Poch had wanted it to stop, it would have. It’s not about Coco being from Latin America, but about what he has been asked to do / allowed to do.
Aside from Lloris, I can’t think of any of our players - from any continent - who don’t have a ‘cunty’ tackle in them. Davies, Dier, Aurier, Kane does, Sonny got a load of grief for it a couple of years ago.
It’s just an easy way to categorise and the longer these kind of comments are defended, the longer the stereotype persists.
Late to the party. Only caught last 20mins or so & it popped up we had 0 shots on target. Great timing as I missed most of what seemed a dull game but watched in time for the winner. Away at Burnley in the winter its all about the 3pts. Not concerned if we played crap. Unless of course we keep playing crap. But that's not the case so far. No injuries either I think. Liverpool seem to be getting all of those for once 
You're not wrong, but it's doesn't invalidate 1966's point either. Coco is brilliant at getting stuck in and winding up the oppo. I've no idea if that's because he's Latino or because he's just a cunt, but if I think of all the bitey, kickey, pokey cunts they're usually Latino, Italian or Charlie Adams. I think as observations go, Souness was entitled to that. Giving him such a hard time just makes it harder to talk about.
Fuck Souness. He’s a horrible cunt. He was one of the filthiest bastards ever to pull on a shirt. He’s the last person that should be commenting negatively on a players “dark arts” because he was guilty of committing every dirty act in the book of dark arts.
Souness was a ‘kickey’ c***; there’s a very famous photo of Vinnie Jones grabbing Gascoigne’s ‘midriff’? Neither of those are the embodiment of Latino heritage. The irony that he couldn’t recognise this? Even the language of ‘leave one on him’ which is very much a part of the dialect of English football from the 70s / 80s is still the same point. It seems - to me - there’s a massive lack of awareness that pretty much all elite sportspeople will do whatever is required to win. How is ‘taking one [yellow] for the team’ in the last minute to prevent a goal different to a ‘cynical foul to stop the opponents playing’? Or ‘play-acting’ to get a player sent off? It’s not.
Possibly it’s left over from that weird cultural stereotype of ‘British sense of fair play’ which is basically just whining that non-British players are winning against us. It gives an excuse and vilifies the opposition, denigrating their approach, but ignorant of the fact that many of the rules of modern sport were made by the British, so obviously were designed to benefit us. Even going back to WC ‘66, you have ‘dirty [fouling] Uruguay’, but we praise the ‘tough-tackling’ of Stiles and Charlton? Leeds in the 70s are seen as a great side, despite being fouling bastards. We still complain about playing football in hot countries in summer as it disadvantage Northern Europe, but don’t show sympathy for players more used to warmer climates playing in the erratic European summers? In fact, we are delighted at the advantage or a ‘levelling of the playing field’ (which is, in fact, an advantage).
One thing that Britain does really well (see Brexit etc for examples) is make themselves victims when - in fact - on a global scale that’s not the case. It’s about self-victimisation and justification of failure and / or approach. If Britain is the ‘winner’, then we did what was necessary (see Owen dive vs Poch); if we lose, then it’s the cheating foreigner (see Maradona - who did cheat - but also could have had his career ended by (I think) Samson’s attempted lunge / tackle for his wonder goal in the same match which is not discussed).
Souness should have apologised, and did so, and hopefully won’t mention it again so the issue’s dead and buried for him, for me. However, the fact that it relies on stereotypes, but we’re not prepared to explore them and consider that they may be cultural part-truths, at best, suggests we’re desperately trying to hold onto that sense of ‘other’ which is - essentially - a diluted xenomorphism from the 1800s, is a missed opportunity.
When we are in an environment where you have players taking the knee before every game; where there is another push on ‘Show racism the red card / say no to racism’, isn’t it time to reconsider the inherent bias in our language and beliefs? No judgment, here - I agreed with Bobby Moore when he was talking about the behaviour of South American people in the 1970 WC. Now - I think he was trying to find a narrative to justify their different approach to the game.
Anyway, enough of the essay. We’ve got a game later. COYS
Nice post.
Just one thing though; Souness didn't apologise
Sky Sports presenter David Jones issued an apology on the broadcaster’s [i.e. Sky's] behalf following the day’s final match between Aston Villa and Liverpool more than four hours later.
“Now I have to say before we go, earlier in the show we were critical of Erik Lamela's part in Anthony Martial's sending off in the Manchester United/Spurs game,” Jones said.
“We'd like to apologise for any offence that was caused and the stereotyping of the Latin culture.”
Even then it's sloppily articulated and doesn't go as far as retracting the exact comment.
Sky Sports apologise for Graeme Souness's 'grossly unfair' comments about Erik Lamela
Former Liverpool midfielder-turned-pundit was criticised by Spurs great Osvaldo Ardilles for making ‘grossly unfair’ comments that stereotyped Latin culture
www.independent.co.uk
Coco is fast becoming my favourite player
I’ve always liked him. He came here with big expectations & has been really plagued with injury. He always gives 100% on the pitch even though his body is “fragile”. He isn’t what I hoped he’d be (the next Bale) but he is a trooper and a genuinely “intelligent cunt” on the pitch.
That’s before my time, but I take your point. Maradonna had it coming, though. Would he have been lunged at if he hadn’t cheated? Would he have been inspired to score a worldie if he hadn’t cheated? We’ll never know, because he did cheat. The cunt.
What annoys me about the whole latin cheat thing is the lack of consistency and selective interpretations.
Holding shirts, fouling, hacking, elbows thrown going up for headers = tough, brave.
Diving or play acting = no honour, deceptful, shameful.
It's bollocks. They're both cheating and ruin the game. English/British players who then go on to be pundits and control the narrative have mostly been thugs indulging in the former. To comfort themselves they hate on the players who choose the other route.
Holding shirts, fouling, hacking, elbows thrown going up for headers = tough, brave.
Diving or play acting = no honour, deceptful, shameful.
It's bollocks. They're both cheating and ruin the game. English/British players who then go on to be pundits and control the narrative have mostly been thugs indulging in the former. To comfort themselves they hate on the players who choose the other route.
Maybe I like him because he is a baller but also he wants to win at any cost.
That's a good point. I was thinking the argument was that there was something qualitatively different about the 'Latino' way of cheating, but thinking about it, what differences could there possible be nowadays with cameras on all 4 corners and slow-mo?
My references were Coco (Love it!), Saurez's biting, Machiavelliswhatshisface getting Zizou sent off in WC final, Charlie Adam's breaking Bale's ankle, Ramos pulling Salah's shoulder out and just the general background pandemic of low pain tolerance. But we have all holding, kicking, elbowing, tripping and obstruction AKA 'professional fouling' and 'taking one for the team'. You're right, it's bollocks and it gives the pundits cathartic release to talk about it like they were doing God's work. But, in fact, they had to make new rules to stop these fuckers taking the piss out of the 'spirit of the law'. They got away with it because people weren't expected to be that much of a cunt. In truth, they are a blight on the face of the beautiful game.
(Except Coco, who makes it look good)
:lamelashock:
Update: That fat lad's hack on Aurier at the end of the Manure game is a case in point! How bad does it have to get? He was left on the pitch!