I Make Predictions (midweek)

Last round Mark Lawrenson got two games right for four points.  His celebrity guest got six games right for eight points.  Merson got three games right for five points.  I got three games right for three points.

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 117 out of 227 games correctly for 170 points.  Lawrenson predicted 114 games out of 226 correctly for 156 points. Merson predicted 111 games out of 222 correctly for 157 points.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published. However, I don’t know if they will predict the two mid-week games.  If they do, I will link to them here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.    Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter.  However, the results of these games could change my weekend predictions so I have published them separately.

Hull-Liverpool                   1-2

Leicester-Chelsea            0-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order as when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea                38 (we can no longer catch them)

Man City              23

Man U                  21

Arsenal                 26

Tottenham           14

Liverpool              17

West Ham             0

Swansea                6

Stoke                      3

Newcastle            -9

Everton                    0

Palace                     -2

Sunderland           -11

West Brom             -7

Aston Villa            -10

Burnley                 -18

Hull                        -10

QPR                       -17

Leicester              -10

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation is now 44.  It will drop to 43 if Chelsea beat Leicester.  This week Everton and West Ham reached safety. 

We have clinched 9^th place.   If everything goes right this weekend, we could clinch 7^th place.  We cannot clinch anything watching the mid-week games, however.

I Make Predictions (Round 34)

Last round Mark Lawrenson got three games right for five points.  His celebrity guest got two games right for two points.  Merson got four games right for six points.  I got four games right for four points.

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 114 out of 217 games correctly for 167 points.  Lawrenson predicted 112 games out of 216 correctly for 152 points. Merson predicted 108 games out of 212 correctly for 152 points.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published. They will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.    Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter.

Southampton-Spurs       1-1

Burnley-Leicester            1-1

Palace-Hull                       2-1

Newcastle-Swansea       1-1

QPR-West Ham               1-2

Stoke-Sunderland           2-1

West Brom-Liverpool     1-2

Man City-Aston Villa       1-0

Everton-Man U                 1-2

Arsenal-Chelsea               1-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order as when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea                39 (we can no longer catch them)

Man City              24

Man U                  25

Arsenal                29

Tottenham          17

Liverpool             20

West Ham           3

Swansea              7

Stoke                    6

Newcastle           -5

Everton                1

Palace                   2

Sunderland         -8

West Brom         -4

Aston Villa           -6

Burnley               -14

Hull                        -9

QPR                       -14

Leicester              -9

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation is still 45.  This week Stoke reached safety.  The number will drop if Leicester or Sunderland drop points or if Hull loses.

We have still only clinched 12^th place.   Once again, if everything goes right this weekend, we could clinch 8^th place.  This time, however, we don’t mind if that happens since the other games about which we care do not have to turn out any particular way to help us clinch 8th.

I Make Predictions (Round 33 minus)

Edit:  I made an error in calculating the points needed to have officially avoided relegation.  I mistakenly calculated the possibilities for Burnley and QPR finishing in 18th but not Leicester.  The correct number is 45 not 44.  I also badly miscalculated Merson's score.  Changes are in bold.

Last round Mark Lawrenson got five games right for 11 points.  His celebrity guest got seven games right for nine points.  Merson got nine games right for 17 points.  I got five games right for nine points.  These are all pretty good scores, but they gained ground on me again.   I also picked the midweek Aston Villa-QPR game (which they did not) and got it wrong.

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 110 out of 210 games correctly for 163 points.  Lawrenson predicted 109 games out of 209 correctly for 147 points. Merson predicted 102 games out of 205 correctly for 150 points.

This weekend there are only seven games because of the nasty FA Cup semi-finals.  Since Southampton is still playing, I won’t miss the other games anyway.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published. They will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.    Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter because only Burnley, Leicester, and QPR would be affected.  QPR does not play and Burnley and Leicester are both predicted to lose either way.

Palace-West Brom          2-1

Everton-Burnley              2-1

Leicester-Swansea          1-2

Stoke-Southampton        1-1

Chelsea-Man U                 2-1

Man City-West Ham        2-1

Newcastle-Spurs              1-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order as when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea                   39

Man City                24

Man U                     28

Arsenal                   29

Tottenham             17

Liverpool                20

West Ham                6

Swansea                 11

Stoke                         6

Newcastle               -2

Everton                     1

Palace                       5

Sunderland             -8

West Brom             -4

Aston Villa              -6

Burnley                 -11

Hull                          -9

QPR                       -12

Leicester                -9

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation is now 45.  So this week Swansea reached safety.  Wohoo.  If Leicester loses to Swansea, the number will drop to 44.

We have clinched 12^th place.  (Isn’t it amazing that since Pardew moved to Crystal Palace they have picked up 17 more points than Newcastle in just 13 games?) If everything goes right this weekend, we could clinch 8^th place.  Again, however, that is not really having things go right for us since it would mean that Manchester City beat West Ham and that is not our preference.

Greg Dyke and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ideas (Part Three)

In part one of this series I discussed the negative effects the recently enacted changes in the work permit rules will have on Southampton and the Premier League in general.  See here.

In my second post, I summarized the home grown player status of each of the 20 Premier Leagues both under current rules and under the newly proposed rules.  See here.

In this post, I address the problems with these proposed rules and their likely negative effects on English club football. (For ease of discussion I will usually refer to non-home grown players under the proposed rules as foreign players.  I will refer to home grown players under those rules as English players.  Of course it is possible for a non-English play to become a home grown player and by the same token, it is possible for an English player not to qualify as home grown in England.  Under the new rules both circumstances would be relatively rare.)

These rules will be disastrous both for the competitive balance of the Premier League itself and for the future performance of English Teams in European competition.  The richer clubs will become stronger relative to the other clubs in the Premier League, while becoming weaker relative to the elite clubs in the rest of Europe. 

It is important to understand that England’s status in European competition has already been put in jeopardy by the poor performance of English clubs in Europe over the last two years.  I expect to post a blog discussing this issue fairly soon.  When and if I do, a link to that post will be found here.  To summarize: because England is one of the top three rated nations, four English teams go to the Champion’s League.  Given the recent performances of English teams in European competition, there is a real risk that by the end of the 2015-2016 season, England will drop into fourth place.  If that happens in 2017-2018 only three English clubs would qualify for the Champion’s League.  Since, the FA claims to want more English players playing club football at the highest level, taking an English club out of the Champions league seems suboptimal.

As I explained in part two of this series, the proposed rules would, when compared to the current rosters, require the Premier League, as a whole, to find approximately 50 more home grown players.  These are not homegrown players who will be shifted around the Premier League from one club to another.  These are the number of additional English players that need to be added to the Premier League to fill the clubs’ rosters.  Admittedly, 19 of these roster openings are for club trained players who are not so easy to obtain so really only approximately 30 players are needed.  There are a number of home grown players who would count as club trained for a different club—such as Nathan Dyer, who would be club trained for Southampton.  If the new rules are implemented, it may be that some clubs will re-sign former players who would qualify as club trained.

Kicking 50 foreigners out of the Premier League and replacing them with 50 English players will give more playing time to English players.  It might even improve the English National Team, slightly.  However, it will definitely reduce the quality of play in the Premier League.  No one could seriously contend that there are 50 English players out there who are good enough to play in the Premier League but are stuck in the Championship because their path has been blocked by inferior foreign players.

No doubt the proponents of these rule changes would contend that the large number of foreign players block the progress of young English players into the squads of Premier League teams.  This might be true, but these rules will not solve this problem and, even if they mitigate it slightly, they will do so at great cost to competitiveness in both Europe and within the Premier League itself. 

Consider, for example, Chelsea.  Right now Chelsea is operating with a very small squad.  Of the 25 players they are allowed to list on their main squad, they only have 18 players listed.  In addition, they have only given significant playing time to one underage player.  Since they only have three home grown players, this means that they have room under current rules for five more home grown players and two more foreign players. Thus, it does not appear that, right now, foreign players are taking up roster spots that could be filled with English players.  Quite simply Chelsea, as of now, does not seem to want any more English players.

If the new rules were in effect this season, Chelsea would be permitted 13 foreign players.  Under the new rules, 16 of their current players qualify as foreign.  In other words, Chelsea would have to dump three foreign players.  They could replace those players with up to ten home grown players one of whom must be club trained.  How would they go about filling their roster?

They would probably get rid of Peter Cech and replace him with a home grown back up goal keeper.  It is less clear which two of the remaining foreign players they would let go.  However, since Chelsea has no truly bad players, whatever players are forced to leave would weaken the team.  Chelsea would replace them by using its financial strength to buy up to ten home grown players from other Premier League teams.

Consider the consequences of these potential transactions.  If we assume that Chelsea could not persuade Manchester United, Manchester City, or Arsenal to give up their home grown players, it means that the players would be taken from the teams that are already significantly weaker than Chelsea.  Looking at the clubs below the top four, I do not see a lot of home grown players who jump out as good enough to play for Chelsea.  Therefore, Chelsea will need to sign players who, by their current standards, are not good enough to play for them—thereby weakening their squad—while signing the better players from other clubs—thereby weakening those squads as well.  Imagine, if Chelsea were to simply sign a single English player from each of ten teams currently in fifth to 14th place.  They might, for example, sign Henderson, Clyne, Mason, Cork, Downing, Begovic, Zaha, Colback, Baines, and McManaman.

I am not claiming that any one of these specific transfers would be especially likely.  However, similar transfers would be virtually an inevitable consequence of the new rules.  Even though these players are, by current standards, mostly not good enough to play for Chelsea, they would be better than nothing.  Likely, given the way Chelsea is currently operating, they would not sign the maximum ten players and would continue to operate with a smaller roster.  Nevertheless, one thing is clear, even if these players are not currently good enough for to play for Chelsea, they are certainly good enough to play for their current clubs each of which would be noticeably weakened by their departure.

Moreover, Chelsea is not alone in its need for English players.  Under the proposed rules, Manchester City would need to replace six foreign players. Arsenal would have to dump six foreign players.  Manchester United would not have to dump any foreign players but would still have room for six more home grown players;  Liverpool is in an interesting situation under the new rules.  Very likely, they would lose players to the clubs above them but would be first in line to take players from the clubs below them.  As the roster currently stands, they would not have to dump any foreign players but would have room for four more home grown players.  However, any English players they lost would need to be replaced. Totterham would have to dump four foreign players.  Taken as a whole, the six richest clubs would need to replace 19 foreign players with at least that many top quality English players from the rest of the League.  In other words, they would need more additional top quality English players than actually exist.

A similar effect would operate on the mid-level teams like Southampton, Swansea, and West Ham, who would need to replace their excess foreign players and their English players taken by the bigger teams with English players from the smaller teams.  The effects would cascade all the way down the English Football Pyramid albeit with diminishing effects.  Perhaps the Conference North and Conference South teams would not be significantly affected.

Southampton, for example, currently has 21 players on its roster.  Under the new rules, only six of them would be home grown which means we would have to get rid of two foreign players and replace them with up to six English players of whom two would have to be club trained.  While no doubt we can all look at our current roster and identify two foreign players that we could lose without much of a problem, it is important to remember that these loses would be in addition to losses of the home grown players snapped up by the richer clubs.  Is it really even plausible to suggest that, given the increased demand for good English players these rules would bring about, that we could replace these players without significantly reducing the quality of the squad?  I doubt it. Certainly, we would be weakened more than Chelsea or Manchester United.

The problem would be even worse for the clubs at the bottom of the Premier League or in the Championship who would find any of their players who could plausibly play at the Premier level snapped up by richer clubs.

The result of the all this roster movement would be that the best teams in the Premier League would be somewhat weaker while the teams immediately below them would be moderately weaker and the teams at the bottom of the League would be significantly weaker.  The teams in the Championship would be weaker still—especially since the new work permit rules mean that very few, if any, non-European foreigners will be playing in the Championship.

The effects on English Clubs participating in Europe would also be significant.  There has been a lot of talk recently about the disappointing performances of English teams in European Competitions.  If the new home grown rules are not mirrored throughout the top European Leagues, these disappointing performances will only get worse.  Not only will the good foreign players for whom there is no longer room in the Premier League be signed by other European Clubs but these Clubs would not be weakened either by the more restrictive work permit rules already in effect in England or by England’s restrictive home grown rules. Unlike English Clubs, the Champions League contenders from other nations will not be required to replace foreign players with inferior home grown players.  Clubs in Spain, Germany, and Italy will not be forced to replace South Americans and Africans with inferior Spaniards, Germans, and Italians, respectively.

There is one way English Clubs playing in Europe could mitigate the adverse effect of these rules but I do not believe that method would be very practical.  English Clubs could sign four foreign players for their European roster who would be left off their domestic roster.  However, I doubt that top quality players would want to sign knowing that they would only be eligible to play in European Competition games?  For some, it might amount to a six game season.

In my fourth and final post I will discuss why I believe these rules will not help the English National Team and analyze some of the stupid reasons given in support of these rules.

I Make Predictions (Round 32 plus)

Last round Mark Lawrenson got five games right for seven points.  His celebrity guest got five games right for nine points.  Merson got six games right for eight points.  I got four games right for four points.

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 105 out of 199 games correctly for 154 points.  Lawrenson predicted 104 games correctly for 136 points. Merson predicted 97 games out of 195 correctly for 133 points. 

There is a single mid-week game which I would be entitled to predict separately and then make my weekend predictions based upon that information.  However, due to the way my system works that game would not affect any of the weekend predictions—I am still going to predict Spurs to beat Aston Villa and Chelsea to beat QPR no matter what they do against each other on Tuesday.  Admittedly, if QPR scores 17 goals against Aston Villa that would change the predicted score against Chelsea, but I feel I can ignore that possibility.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published. They will be found here and here. I don’t know if they are going to make predictions on the mid-week game.  It they do, their predictions will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.    Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter.

Aston Villa-QPR              2-1

Swansea-Everton           2-1

Southampton-Hull         1-0

Sunderland-Palace         1-1

Spurs-Aston Villa             2-1

West Brom-Leicester     2-1

West Ham-Stoke             2-1

Burnley-Arsenal               0-1

QPR-Chelsea                     0-1

Man U-Man City              1-0

Liverpool-Newcastle      2-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order from when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea              42

Man City            30

Man U                31

Arsenal               32

Tottenham         23

Liverpool             23

West Ham           11

Swansea              16

Stoke                    11

Newcastle           4

Everton                 6

Palace                   8

Sunderland         -2

West Brom           2

Aston Villa           -3

Burnley                 -5

Hull                       -3

QPR                       -6

Leicester              -6

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation dropped is now 47. 

We have still only clinched 14^th place.  If everything goes right we could clinch 11^th place this week.  However, that is using the term “goes right” very loosely since it involves Newcastle losing to or drawing with Liverpool and, obviously, that would be something going wrong for us.  For that matter, we probably would prefer that Everton beat Swansea.

Greg Dyke and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ideas (Part Two)

Note: Edited because I overlooked the fact that Ben Amos was on loan at Bolton.

In order to fully analyze the effect of the new home grown rules, I needed to figure out where Premier League clubs currently stood with respect to home grown players and how that would change under the new rules.  This became quite a project.  As a result, I have decided to publish the results of my research separately from my analysis.  I hope to complete the analysis in the next couple of days.

If the new rules were in effect right now, things would be dramatically different.  I have analyzed the rosters of the various Premier League teams to see just how many home grown players they currently have and how many they would each have under the new rules.  (I used the final Football Manager 2015 database as my primary, but not only, source of information because it was more accessible.  I also used other sources including league and club official web sites and Wikipedia.)

I am not certifying that my data is one hundred percent correct.  I may have missed a player here and there and I have certainly not spent the time to triple check my work.  However, I do not believe the possibility of small errors will in affect my analysis.

I have ignored players out on loan but have included players in on loan.  This is not totally realistic because some players out on loan would have been kept if the new rules were in effect.  For example, Tottenham certainly would not have allowed Aaron Lennon to go out on loan if they needed more home grown players.  The clubs are listed by their current order in the table.

Chelsea has only three home grown players:  Cesc Fabregas, Gary Cahill, and John Terry.  Only John Terry is club trained.  Under the new rules Fabregas is no longer home grown.  Since Chelsea is already operating five short of the permitted number of home grown players maybe they would be willing to do that under the new rules , but If they wanted to completely fill their roster they would need ten more home grown players—one of whom must be club trained.

Manchester City has six home grown players: Joe Hart, James Milner, Frank Lampard, Gail Clichy, Richard Wright, and Dedryck Boyata.  Only Boyata is club trained, but under the new rules neither he nor Clichy would be home grown.  To completely fill their roster Manchester City would need eight more home grown players.  They would need two of them to be club trained to completely fill their roster.

Arsenal has eight home grown players: Francis Coquelin, Kieren Gibbs, Emiliano Martinez, Aaron Ramsey, Wojciech Szclzesny, Theo Walcott, Danny Wellbeck, and Jack Wishire.  Coquelin, Gibbs, Ramsey, Szclzesny, Walcott, and Wilshire are currently considered club trained for European purposes.  Under the new rules only Gibbs, Wilshire, and Szclzesny are club trained and Martinez and Coquelin are no longer home grown.  Arsenal would need six more home grown players.

Manchester United has seven home grown players: Michael Carrick, Jonny Evans, Phil Jones, Rafael, Wayne Rooney, Tom Thorpe, and Ashley Young.  Evans, Rafael, Rooney, and Thorpe are club trained.  Under the new rules Rooney would not be club trained and Rafael would not be home grown.  Manchester United would need six more home grown players.

Liverpool has ten home grown players:  Joe Allen, Fabio Borini, Jon Flanagan, Steven Gerrard, Jordon Henderson, Glen Johnson, Brad Jones, Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert, and Daniel Sturridge.  Flanagan and Gerrard are club trained.  The new rules would cause Borini and Jones not to be home grown.  Liverpool would need four more home grown players.

I will stop here to note that these five clubs are the ones who will always be able to buy players away from Southampton and the other English clubs using their financial advantages.  Between them they would need 33 new home grown players to fill out their rosters, including three club trained players.  Where are those players going to come from?  Obviously, they are going to come from other English clubs.  Which English clubs?  The good ones like Southampton and Swansea are the more likely candidates.

Southampton has eight home grown players: Ryan Bertrand, Nathaniel Clyne, Kelvin Davis, Steve Davis, Fraser Forster, Shane Long, Jay Rodriguez, and Morgan Schneiderlin.  Only Schneiderlin is currently club trained.  Under the new rules neither Long nor Schneiderlin would be home grown.  Southampton would need six more home grown players including two club trained players to fill its roster.

Tottenham has four home grown players:  Ryan Mason, Danny Rose, Andros Townsend, and Kyle Walker.  Danny Rose is the only club trained player but he would not be club trained under the new rules.   Tottenham does have a bunch of younger players who are homegrown.  I did not sort out which ones would end up as club trained under the new rules.  I should mention that Aaron Lennon, who is out on loan, is currently club trained but under the new rules would only be association trained.  Tottenham would need eight more home grown players to fill their roster.  Two would need to be club trained.

Swansea is the ONLY club that is currently in full compliance with the proposed rules.  They have 15 home grown players: Daniel Alfei, Kyle Bartley, Leon Britton, Jack Cork, David Cornell, Nathan Dyer, Lee Lucas, Kyle Naughton, Curtis Obeng, Ahsley Richards, Wayne Routledge, Jonjo Shelvey, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Neil Taylor, and Ashley Williams.  Alfei, Cornell, Lucas, and Richards are club trained.  None of this would change under the new rules.

West Ham currently has 13 home grown players: Andy Carroll, Carlton Cole, James Collins, Aaron Cresswell, Stewart Downing, Matt Jarvis, Carl Jenkinson, Sebastian Lletget, Mark Noble, Kevin Nolan, Joey O’Brien, Alex Song, and James Tomkins.  Noble, Tomkins, and Lletget are club trained.  Under the new rules neither Song nor Lletget would be home grown.  West Ham would need one more home grown player.

Stoke has 11 home grown players: Phil Bardsley, Asmir Begovic, Peter Crouch, Stephen Ireland, Victor Moses, Ryan Shawcross, Steve Sidwell, Jonathan Walters, Glenn Whelan, Andy Wilkerson, and Marc Wilson.  Only Wilkerson is club trained.  Stoke would need one more home grown player who would have to be club trained to fill their roster..

Crystal Palace has 20 home grown players some of whom are not registered on the Premier League roster.  They have 13 home grown players on the roster: Shola Ameobi, Frazier Campell, Scott Dann, Dwight Gale, Wayne Hennessey, Martin Kelly, Joe Ledley, Adrian Mariappa, Jordan Mutch, Jason Puncheon, Jerome Thomas, Joel Ward, and Wilfried Zaha.  Only Zaha is club trained and nothing would change under the new rules.  This means that Palace has enough home grown players but would need a club trained player to fill the roster.

Newcastle has eight home grown players: Sammy Ameobi, Jack Colback, Paul Dummett, Rob Elliot, Tim Krul, Ryan Taylor, Steven Taylor, and Mike Williamson.  Krul, S. Taylor, Ameobi, and Dummett are club trained under current rules.  The new rules would eliminate Krul as home grown.  I cannot ascertain Sammy Ameobi’s status with certainty under the new rules.  He was born in Newcastle and lived in England but, did not join the Newcastle Academy until he was 16 which means he would not qualify as club trained.  I assume he would still qualify as home grown.  According to the PL website, Rob Elliot is not registered as home grown.  FM says he is home grown.  My research says FM is right on this one and I am assuming he is home grown. This means Newcastle would need four more home grown players.

Everton has eight home grown players: Leighton Baines, Gareth Barry, Darron Gibson, Tony Hibbert, Phil Jagielka, Aaron Lennon, James McCarthy, and Leon Osman.  Osman and Hibbert are club trained.   According to the PL website, James McCarthy is home grown.  FM says he is not.  My research says FM is wrong on this one.  However, under the new rules he would not be home grown.  Thus, Everton needs five more home grown players.

West Brom has eleven home grown players: Victor Anichebe, Chris Baird, Chris Blunt, Craig Dawson, Darren Fletcher, Ben Foster, Craig Gardner, Joleon Lescott, Callum McManaman, James Morrison, and Boaz Myhill.  None are club trained.  This means that they would need one more home grown player who should be club trained because they will need two club trained players to fill their roster.

Hull has 13 home grown players:  Sone Aluko, Robbie Brady, Alex Bruce,  James Chester, Curtis Davies, Michael Dawson, Joe Dudgeon, Steve Harper, Tom Huddlestone, Jake Livermore, Paul McShane, Steven Quinn, and Liam Rosenior.  None are club trained. The PL website lists Quinn as home grown.  FM does not.  I think FM is wrong.  However, he would not be home grown under the new rules.  Neither would McShane.  This means that Hull would need another home grown player and two club trained players to fill their roster under the new rules.

Aston Villa has 15 home grown players:  Gabby Agbonlahor, Nathan Baker, Ciaran Clark, Tom Cleverly, Joe Cole, Fabian Delph, Shay Given, Matt Lowton, Charles N’Zogbia, Kieran Richardson, Philippe Senderos, Benjamin Siegrist, Scott Sinclair, Andi Weimann, and Ashley Westwood.  Agbonlahor, Clark, Baker, Weimann, and Siegrist are club trained.  Under the new rules Given, Senderos, N’Zogbia, Weimann, and Siegrist would not be home grown.  This means that Aston Villa needs two more home grown players to fill its roster.

Sunderland has 13 home grown players:  Liam Bridcutt, Wes Brown, Will Buckley,  Lee Cattermole, James Defoe,  Danny Graham, Adam Johnson, Billy Jones, Sebastian Larsson, Vito Manore, John O’Shea, Jack Rodwell, and Patrick van Aanholt.  None are club trained.  Under the new rules Manore, van Aanholt, O’Shea, and Larsson are no longer home grown.  Sunderland would need three more home grown players including two club trained players to fill their roster.

Burnley has 19 home grown players: Ashley Barnes, George Boyd, Alex Cisak, Michael Duff, Matt Gilks, Tom Heaton,Danny Ings, David Jones, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Michael Kightly, Dean Marney, Ben Mee, Luke O’Neill, Steven Reid, Jason Shackell, Marvin Sordell, Matty Taylor, Kieran Trippie, and Sam Vokes.  Only Ings is club trained.  Under the new rules Ings is not club trained and Jutkiewicz is no longer home grown.  Burnley would need two club trained players to fill their roster.

QPR has 18 home grown players:  Charlie Austin, Joey Barton, Steven Caulker, Michael Doughty, Richard Dunne, Rio Ferdinand, Robert Green, Karl Henry, Clint Hill, Junior Hoilett, Alex McCarthy, Brian Murphy, Nedum Onuoha, Matt Phillips, Adel Taarabt, Armond Traore, Shaun Wright-Philips, and Bobby Zamora.  Only Michael Doughty is club trained.  Under the new rules Taarabt and Traore are not home grown.  QPR would need one club trained player to fill their roster.

Leicester has 17 home grown players:  Marc Albrighton, Ritchie de Laet, Danny Drinkwater, Ben Hamer, Dean Hammon, Robert Huth, Matty James, Andy King, Paul Konchesky, Jeffrey Schlupp, Kasper Schmeichel, Danny Simpson, Adam Smith, Wes Morgan, Matthew Upson, and Jamie Vardy.  King, Smith, and Schlupp are club trained.  Under the new rules only Schlupp would be club trained.  Huth, Schmeichel, and De Laet are not home grown.  Leicester would need one club trained player to fill their roster.

To be clear: if I say a club needs another home grown player and two club trained players, it means that they have 11 home grown players, but only ten of them count against requirement of 12 because they are short two club trained players.  If they make no roster changes, they will only be able to register 23 players.

In total, this means that Premier League clubs will need a total of 66 more home grown players to fill their rosters.  If the clubs that have extra home grown players graciously transfer them to the clubs with shortages, the league as a whole needs 50 more home grown players.  In addition, clubs would need another 19 club trained players to completely fill their rosters.

In Part three, I will analyze the consequences of the new rules in light of this information and explain why I believe they will be very bad for Southampton and most other Premier League clubs.  I will also critique some of the nonsense that is being spouted to justify these changes.

I Make Predictions (Round 31)

Last round my system picked four 1-0 games.  I got the winner of each game right, but only one score right.  From this I deduce that when poor offensive teams play good defensive teams, the good defensive team is very likely to win, but the score is less predictable.  There are four 1-0 predictions this week to test this theory.

Last round Mark Lawrenson got seven games right for eleven points.  His celebrity guest got five games right for five points.  Merson got five games right for five points.  I got seven games right for eleven points. 

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 101 out of 189 games correctly for 150 points.  Lawrenson predicted 99 games correctly for 129 points. Merson predicted 91 games out of 185 correctly for 125 points. 

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published.  They will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.   Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter because only the first and last place clubs are affected.

Arsenal-Liverpool            2-1

Everton-Southampton    0-1

Leicester-West Ham       1-2

Man U-Aston Villa           1-0

Swansea-Hull                     1-0

West Brom-QPR               2-1

Chelsea-Stoke                   1-0

Burnley-Spurs                   1-2

Sunderland-Newcastle    1-1

Palace-Man City               1-2

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order from when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea                42

Man City              33

Man U                  31

Arsenal                 32

Tottenham         25

Liverpool             26

West Ham           14

Swansea              16

Stoke                    14

Newcastle           7

Everton                 6

Palace                   8

Sunderland          -2

West Brom            5

Aston Villa             0

Burnley                 -3

Hull                        0

QPR                       -6

Leicester              -6

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation dropped to 50.  It will drop to 47 if Burnley lose.  It will drop to 48 if Sunderland, Aston Villa, or Hull lose, but Burnley win.

We have clinched 14^th place.  If we beat Everton and West Brom does not win we clinch 12^th place.  Tenth place is within reach the next week.  We could, but probably won’t, clinch 7^th place in three rounds. Clinching 6^th place is a long way off.