Pod interview with Tony Khan

[Woolly Mammoth]

Why would Shad Khan employ a new DoF and then say no to his requests? That strikes me as an odd assumption that Rational has conveniently adopted in order to sustain a very tenuous line of argument.

Go ask Mike Ashley or Ellis Short, why a owner says no to a new DoF. Let's face it, if Tony Khan goes it because his father doesn't want to "yes, my son" anymore to his requests for money that he thinks will be wasted, but you hope he will continue to say "Yes, my DoF".

Not a Rational Fan, Your defence of the owners son is weaker than Fulhams defence of their own penalty area last season. You have no defence, there is none so blind than those that cannot see.
As both you and Shahid Khan could learn something the great Brian Clough once said. "Never trust an animal without a jockey on its back ". 

[love4ffc]

Having read (painfully) these past 9 pages I've learned many things.
TK must have inspected Mawson's knee himself.
Most of us were happy when Seri was signed because Barca wanted him, don't ya know but his failure to impress was TK's fault.
TK can't take credit for Mitro, Odoi, Chambers, Bryan, Ayite, Babel or Johansen but is responsible for Noratveit, Fonte, Fosu-Mensah, Christi, Anguissa and Schurrle.

He IS responsible for all of these. He is in charge of the recruitment team and they pretty much failed. However, the medical team and the scouting department share the responsibility.

"Hey boss, I checked that knee and Mawson will be back at full strength in six weeks". "Hey boss, this kid Seri is a natural". "Anguissa has more potential than anyone in the world." "Noratveit will plug that defensive hole we have." yada yada yada

What I've really learned is that scapegoating is the real Fulham sport. Behind the ball we had Ali-Mac, Khan senior and now Khan junior. With the ball we have an endless list. Zamora, Baird, Ream, etc.

Anyway, automatic promotion this coming season. Parker will be a successful manager and Anguissa will come good. You heard it here first!

Always knew you to be a good soothsayer / interpreter  :005:

[The Rational Fan]

Why would Shad Khan employ a new DoF and then say no to his requests? That strikes me as an odd assumption that Rational has conveniently adopted in order to sustain a very tenuous line of argument.

Go ask Mike Ashley or Ellis Short, why a owner says no to a new DoF. Let's face it, if Tony Khan goes it because his father doesn't want to "yes, my son" anymore to his requests for money that he thinks will be wasted, but you hope he will continue to say "Yes, my DoF".

Not a Rational Fan, Your defence of the owners son is weaker than Fulhams defence of their own penalty area last season. You have no defence, there is none so blind than those that cannot see.
As both you and Shahid Khan could learn something the great Brian Clough once said. "Never trust an animal without a jockey on its back ".

When trying to make the point being someone's son shouldnt matter, you so cleverly quoted Jesus  "There is none so blind than those that cannot see (Matthew 9:26-27)" to strength your argument and then to further strengthen your argument you quote Nigel Cloughs father.

For all you guys that think, if Fulham sack the DoF and the next DOF will be treated by SK like his adopted son, go for it. Besides, what could possibly go wrong with a DoF that is begging for money from SK and where SK could say either yes or no to giving more money.

If you think the club should go back to the days when Shahid Khan use to run the club without TKs help, great cause things were going so well back then.

[toshes mate]

Why would Shad Khan employ a new DoF and then say no to his requests? That strikes me as an odd assumption that Rational has conveniently adopted in order to sustain a very tenuous line of argument.

Go ask Mike Ashley or Ellis Short, why a owner says no to a new DoF. Let's face it, if Tony Khan goes it because his father doesn't want to "yes, my son" anymore to his requests for money that he thinks will be wasted, but you hope he will continue to say "Yes, my DoF".

Not a Rational Fan, Your defence of the owners son is weaker than Fulhams defence of their own penalty area last season. You have no defence, there is none so blind than those that cannot see.
As both you and Shahid Khan could learn something the great Brian Clough once said. "Never trust an animal without a jockey on its back ".

When trying to make the point being someone's son shouldnt matter, you so cleverly quoted Jesus  "There is none so blind than those that cannot see (Matthew 9:26-27)" to strength your argument and then to further strengthen your argument you quote Nigel Cloughs father.

For all you guys that think, if Fulham sack the DoF and the next DOF will be treated by SK like his adopted son, go for it. Besides, what could possibly go wrong with a DoF that is begging for money from SK and where SK could say either yes or no to giving more money.

If you think the club should go back to the days when Shahid Khan use to run the club without TKs help, great cause things were going so well back then.

The quote is from Matthew in an English translation of the Bible, pedantic but, perhaps and importantly, meaningful when making attribution.  You continue your diatribe with decreasing levels of material to back up anything you say.   We can all attribute moments of failure and moments of glory to whoever we please, and nobody but ourselves can know the rationale behind those attributions unless we attempt to explain them.   You can only keep quoting the money factor and nothing about TK's ability to use money wisely.  In the podcast TK makes a reference to the Bryan/Targett situation which shows that if he had not spent money elsewhere he could have bought both to FFC.  That opens up questions about the money blown away on other purchases which didn't work out very well.  It is those blemishes on TK records - and there have been plenty of them - that provide ammunition for his detractors, and blow your arguments out of the water and yet you fail to come back with anything other than statistical material which is often not worth the paper it is written on.  This is a thread about TK's podcast and what it revealed about him.  Obviously that went way over your head.   

[Statto]

If you think the club should go back to the days when Shahid Khan use to run the club without TKs help, great cause things were going so well back then.

Can I just clarify, aside from the point you've mentioned about six thousand times that TK gets more money from his dad, are you suggesting TK is in any way responsible for things being better (albeit not much better because we're still in the same division) from 2016-2019 than they were from 2014-2016?

[Riverside]

The podcast interview is worth a listen

TK comes across well - though clearly in a friendly environment

He is a fan and cares
Part of me prefers this and inexperience to and old pro who is just working for a pay cheque

Outtakes for me
- more focus on keeping players than buying
- AK and StefJo are part of next seasons plans
- he wants Mitro to stay
- no mention of Sess
- Parker is fully involved in all recruitment meetings


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[toshes mate]

Indeed, and there's a huge amount of 'talent' crossover between betting companies and football analytics.  They're playing the same game here, attempting to get the best read on what makes for winning football.  I do recommend the book I linked to earlier, it covers all of this in a lot of depth.  However, the peer reviewed stuff wouldn't work for football: the real advances have come in the last couple of years and the good stuff is only available to those prepared to pay hefty consultancy fees.  Anything good in the public tends to get gobbled up quite quickly and integrated into proprietary models.

Not sure what point you're making here, but yes, randomness is a *huge* part of football (this is also covered in literature on the subject), much moreso than a lot of fans like to think (it's all about who wants it more isn't it?).  So yes of course, the better team you play the less prone to randomness you are.  The league table does lie, teams don't always get what they deserve, etc.  Probably one reason Khan's quite optimistic is that he would believe that the team played at the very low end of expected variance, so if you play that season out 100 times there's a decent chance we escape relegation more often than not.  But I know a lot of people will disagree.  In any case, the bookies you have just lauded have us as second favourites to go up so they seem to agree that we have something here.   Anyway, no, of course a computer won't pick a team - they don't even do that in baseball which has more or less been solved.  You need the human side, and nobody has denied that at any point.

No, I don't know that anyone would disagree with anything here.    But I think you're over-egging this.  The data team can find players it thinks are good and the scouting team have a go too, and from that you emerge with players you're interested in.  If you don't have data then you're reliant on agents or on the biases of human opinion, if you don't have scouts then you can miss other vital stuff.  It's an important cross-check and this is one reason I stand up for Khan's methods.    Other sports have repeatedly shown that embracing data is important, and really there's no reason not to use as much info as you can, is there?   Again, the application of this is another story: there's no point in using data to find hidden gems if you then pay £30m for them.  But needs must I suppose, and if Matt Targett was almost a £20m left back then Seri's worth what he cost.  And as you point out, these things don't always work out, but that doesn't mean it was the wrong decision to purchase him at all - in baseball they tend to evaluate trades based on what knowledge was available at the time it was made.  So here as best as anyone could tell, Seri was - and still probably is - a good quality premier league player..

Now we are getting somewhere and that somewhere is just how computers can help us.  Nowhere have I said we ignore them completely, indeed I have embraced their good sides in my working life and amazed people and industries along the way.   I have also confounded some by telling them what they ask is simply impossible to achieve or maintain without x,y, and z, and explain to them how and why they could resolve their problems in better ways e.g. have better manual systems which can then be shifted to computers with guarantees of improvements in productivity, efficiency and staff satisfaction.

A computer in the hands of a fool will not be anything other than a computer in the hands of a fool.  It is a dumb machine which, with or without its human interface, will only do what its programmer has instructed and told it to do.  Even its so called learning is a program written by a human being and so it is not learning at all - it is retaining and amending what it has been told to retain and amend. If just one bit of that instruction has a fatal error then it will one day crash, or, worse, it will be in the middle of something very major and output wrong pieces of data until a human being realises there is a bug.

You are the one doing the over-egging my friend.

[wormbridge]

Indeed, and there's a huge amount of 'talent' crossover between betting companies and football analytics.  They're playing the same game here, attempting to get the best read on what makes for winning football.  I do recommend the book I linked to earlier, it covers all of this in a lot of depth.  However, the peer reviewed stuff wouldn't work for football: the real advances have come in the last couple of years and the good stuff is only available to those prepared to pay hefty consultancy fees.  Anything good in the public tends to get gobbled up quite quickly and integrated into proprietary models.

Not sure what point you're making here, but yes, randomness is a *huge* part of football (this is also covered in literature on the subject), much moreso than a lot of fans like to think (it's all about who wants it more isn't it?).  So yes of course, the better team you play the less prone to randomness you are.  The league table does lie, teams don't always get what they deserve, etc.  Probably one reason Khan's quite optimistic is that he would believe that the team played at the very low end of expected variance, so if you play that season out 100 times there's a decent chance we escape relegation more often than not.  But I know a lot of people will disagree.  In any case, the bookies you have just lauded have us as second favourites to go up so they seem to agree that we have something here.   Anyway, no, of course a computer won't pick a team - they don't even do that in baseball which has more or less been solved.  You need the human side, and nobody has denied that at any point.

No, I don't know that anyone would disagree with anything here.    But I think you're over-egging this.  The data team can find players it thinks are good and the scouting team have a go too, and from that you emerge with players you're interested in.  If you don't have data then you're reliant on agents or on the biases of human opinion, if you don't have scouts then you can miss other vital stuff.  It's an important cross-check and this is one reason I stand up for Khan's methods.    Other sports have repeatedly shown that embracing data is important, and really there's no reason not to use as much info as you can, is there?   Again, the application of this is another story: there's no point in using data to find hidden gems if you then pay £30m for them.  But needs must I suppose, and if Matt Targett was almost a £20m left back then Seri's worth what he cost.  And as you point out, these things don't always work out, but that doesn't mean it was the wrong decision to purchase him at all - in baseball they tend to evaluate trades based on what knowledge was available at the time it was made.  So here as best as anyone could tell, Seri was - and still probably is - a good quality premier league player..

Now we are getting somewhere and that somewhere is just how computers can help us.  Nowhere have I said we ignore them completely, indeed I have embraced their good sides in my working life and amazed people and industries along the way.   I have also confounded some by telling them what they ask is simply impossible to achieve or maintain without x,y, and z, and explain to them how and why they could resolve their problems in better ways e.g. have better manual systems which can then be shifted to computers with guarantees of improvements in productivity, efficiency and staff satisfaction.

A computer in the hands of a fool will not be anything other than a computer in the hands of a fool.  It is a dumb machine which, with or without its human interface, will only do what its programmer has instructed and told it to do.  Even its so called learning is a program written by a human being and so it is not learning at all - it is retaining and amending what it has been told to retain and amend. If just one bit of that instruction has a fatal error then it will one day crash, or, worse, it will be in the middle of something very major and output wrong pieces of data until a human being realises there is a bug.

You are the one doing the over-egging my friend.

Yes, but this is where the statistics come in.  I'm assuming you're aware of regression models.   If Tony's model gives him very high r squared values when he looks at his data points and real life points then it's no longer about him, it's a statistical validation that the model works (with all the caveats noted earlier).   What I'm saying – and I think this doesn't need saying, but just in case – is that these models aren't subjective.  He's not writing a programme, he's not choosing anything, the data either (which he of course has to prepare, so there's that) either "works" or it doesn't.   So if he has a value of .2 for goalkeepers he knows he has *something* but not really enough.   But if his model gives him a value of .95 for centre forwards he's going to back that against anyone's opinion.   

In the olden days analytics was somewhat as I think people here think it is.  I remember getting my first Opta annual in the 90s and they rated all the players.  The best defenders were those at Sheffield Wednesday or something stupid because they'd made the most clearances, the most headers, etc.   Of course that was nonsense – they were just getting more opportunities to do those things because they were the worst team in the league!  That was obvious.   But the game's come an awfully long way since then and while there's a lot of push-back from "football men" who have been in the game all their lives so don't need a computer to tell them what they already know (this happened in baseball, of course, and most of the old baseball men either adapted or had to find another job in the end), it works.  Liverpool have been at the leading edge of this for some time.  City are as well.  Brentford have really bought in and it's transformed the club.   Some of this is in finding players, some of it is in finding better ways to do things (e.g. set pieces as the biggest under-exploited way to improve fast, which Liverpool have made the most of).   

It's incredibly sophisticated and while there's a lot to do, it works.  Honestly, I really recommend reading up on this as a lot of people's misgivings are explained away easily enough.  You seem to have half a foot in all this so I think you might find it enlightening.   So while Tony and co might not be at the leading edge their 100% doing the right thing in trying.   It's not just him on a spreadsheet deciding what he thinks are the most important stats ("Sign all the players with high assist numbers!"), those times are long gone.

[toshes mate]

Yes, but this is where the statistics come in.  I'm assuming you're aware of regression models.   If Tony's model gives him very high r squared values when he looks at his data points and real life points then it's no longer about him, it's a statistical validation that the model works (with all the caveats noted earlier).   What I'm saying – and I think this doesn't need saying, but just in case – is that these models aren't subjective.  He's not writing a programme, he's not choosing anything, the data either (which he of course has to prepare, so there's that) either "works" or it doesn't.   So if he has a value of .2 for goalkeepers he knows he has *something* but not really enough.   But if his model gives him a value of .95 for centre forwards he's going to back that against anyone's opinion.   

In the olden days analytics was somewhat as I think people here think it is.  I remember getting my first Opta annual in the 90s and they rated all the players.  The best defenders were those at Sheffield Wednesday or something stupid because they'd made the most clearances, the most headers, etc.   Of course that was nonsense – they were just getting more opportunities to do those things because they were the worst team in the league!  That was obvious.   But the game's come an awfully long way since then and while there's a lot of push-back from "football men" who have been in the game all their lives so don't need a computer to tell them what they already know (this happened in baseball, of course, and most of the old baseball men either adapted or had to find another job in the end), it works.  Liverpool have been at the leading edge of this for some time.  City are as well.  Brentford have really bought in and it's transformed the club.   Some of this is in finding players, some of it is in finding better ways to do things (e.g. set pieces as the biggest under-exploited way to improve fast, which Liverpool have made the most of).   

It's incredibly sophisticated and while there's a lot to do, it works.  Honestly, I really recommend reading up on this as a lot of people's misgivings are explained away easily enough.  You seem to have half a foot in all this so I think you might find it enlightening.   So while Tony and co might not be at the leading edge their 100% doing the right thing in trying.   It's not just him on a spreadsheet deciding what he thinks are the most important stats ("Sign all the players with high assist numbers!"), those times are long gone.

You should not patronise people by asking them to read stuff when you do not know what they have already read and already know.  As I've already said there is loads of stuff this year alone which proves beyond any shadow of a doubt what Girolamo Cardano discovered over 500 years ago that if a random event has several equally likely outcomes the chance of any individual outcome occurring is equal to the proportion of that outcome to all possible outcomes.  In the gambling world that meant that if you could foster a method of of finding odds better than 0.5 probability of winning then eventually you would start to make a profit if you played the same game the same way for long enough (the law of big numbers).   That is why betting companies are satisfied with statistical systems that push their probability of success over that 0.5 point.  They can then rig the game in their favour and make money.  Finding a player is about rigging the game in your favour over a very long period of time (the law of big numbers) and it suffers from the anomalies that will occur over shorter period (still sometimes big numbers even with a heads/tails sequence) which means you can never guarantee success in the short term which is what sport is.   You are simply reducing the chances of the system making errors but you cannot rig the outcomes because they will always be random.

I am not going to take up anymore time on this subject because we all have to learn the hard way, as I have done so many times, and, as unfortunate as that may be, TK and you must do the same.
     

[wormbridge]

Yes, but this is where the statistics come in.  I'm assuming you're aware of regression models.   If Tony's model gives him very high r squared values when he looks at his data points and real life points then it's no longer about him, it's a statistical validation that the model works (with all the caveats noted earlier).   What I'm saying – and I think this doesn't need saying, but just in case – is that these models aren't subjective.  He's not writing a programme, he's not choosing anything, the data either (which he of course has to prepare, so there's that) either "works" or it doesn't.   So if he has a value of .2 for goalkeepers he knows he has *something* but not really enough.   But if his model gives him a value of .95 for centre forwards he's going to back that against anyone's opinion.   

In the olden days analytics was somewhat as I think people here think it is.  I remember getting my first Opta annual in the 90s and they rated all the players.  The best defenders were those at Sheffield Wednesday or something stupid because they'd made the most clearances, the most headers, etc.   Of course that was nonsense – they were just getting more opportunities to do those things because they were the worst team in the league!  That was obvious.   But the game's come an awfully long way since then and while there's a lot of push-back from "football men" who have been in the game all their lives so don't need a computer to tell them what they already know (this happened in baseball, of course, and most of the old baseball men either adapted or had to find another job in the end), it works.  Liverpool have been at the leading edge of this for some time.  City are as well.  Brentford have really bought in and it's transformed the club.   Some of this is in finding players, some of it is in finding better ways to do things (e.g. set pieces as the biggest under-exploited way to improve fast, which Liverpool have made the most of).   

It's incredibly sophisticated and while there's a lot to do, it works.  Honestly, I really recommend reading up on this as a lot of people's misgivings are explained away easily enough.  You seem to have half a foot in all this so I think you might find it enlightening.   So while Tony and co might not be at the leading edge their 100% doing the right thing in trying.   It's not just him on a spreadsheet deciding what he thinks are the most important stats ("Sign all the players with high assist numbers!"), those times are long gone.

You should not patronise people by asking them to read stuff when you do not know what they have already read and already know.  As I've already said there is loads of stuff this year alone which proves beyond any shadow of a doubt what Girolamo Cardano discovered over 500 years ago that if a random event has several equally likely outcomes the chance of any individual outcome occurring is equal to the proportion of that outcome to all possible outcomes.  In the gambling world that meant that if you could foster a method of of finding odds better than 0.5 probability of winning then eventually you would start to make a profit if you played the same game the same way for long enough (the law of big numbers).   That is why betting companies are satisfied with statistical systems that push their probability of success over that 0.5 point.  They can then rig the game in their favour and make money.  Finding a player is about rigging the game in your favour over a very long period of time (the law of big numbers) and it suffers from the anomalies that will occur over shorter period (still sometimes big numbers even with a heads/tails sequence) which means you can never guarantee success in the short term which is what sport is.   You are simply reducing the chances of the system making errors but you cannot rig the outcomes because they will always be random.

I am not going to take up anymore time on this subject because we all have to learn the hard way, as I have done so many times, and, as unfortunate as that may be, TK and you must do the same.
   

Now who's patronising?  I get that you have background in computing but there's so much of this that's new and which applies to football which is just so interesting, that's all. I was only making a book recommendation because the book in question covers so many of the misgivings you and other raise.  I'm not sure how we might go about presuming to know more about this than specialists who have worked in the gambling industry and moved into football (as the Brentford owner has) but this is where we seem to find ourselves.

It's really not a question of me and Tony Khan learning the hard way (!), the data revolution is happening in all sports and a repeated lesson from this is that you either evolve and make the most of the wealth of data available and the advantages this brings, or you get left behind. Liverpool are at the leading edge.  So are City.  Fulham are trying to work it out, too.  That's a good thing, surely.     

[Dr Quinzel]

In the past, if company A fancies buying company B it would look for an info it could find maybe look over company B's books given the chance. Now that would all be accessed via computers and.various analysts will crunch the data. That's all he's trying to do. To rule out as many negatives as possible. It's not 100% maybe somewhere round 50%. If he can get his %'s up then the Club succeeds. Whilst we have one of the richest men in the World holding the reins I'm happy to let him get on with it and try and make it work.

No problem with the use of analytics. Problem is with the man with a past history of failure doing so, and not doing it particularly well. Amongst other things.

Again we have the difference between us Brits and our cousins across the pond. Failure to them is all part of their journey to success. We do it differently here. We're great at the begining then keep failing afterwards.

Our sport doesn't reward failure, so there's bound to be a difference.

[toshes mate]

Yes, but this is where the statistics come in.  I'm assuming you're aware of regression models.   If Tony's model gives him very high r squared values when he looks at his data points and real life points then it's no longer about him, it's a statistical validation that the model works (with all the caveats noted earlier).   What I'm saying – and I think this doesn't need saying, but just in case – is that these models aren't subjective.  He's not writing a programme, he's not choosing anything, the data either (which he of course has to prepare, so there's that) either "works" or it doesn't.   So if he has a value of .2 for goalkeepers he knows he has *something* but not really enough.   But if his model gives him a value of .95 for centre forwards he's going to back that against anyone's opinion.   

In the olden days analytics was somewhat as I think people here think it is.  I remember getting my first Opta annual in the 90s and they rated all the players.  The best defenders were those at Sheffield Wednesday or something stupid because they'd made the most clearances, the most headers, etc.   Of course that was nonsense – they were just getting more opportunities to do those things because they were the worst team in the league!  That was obvious.   But the game's come an awfully long way since then and while there's a lot of push-back from "football men" who have been in the game all their lives so don't need a computer to tell them what they already know (this happened in baseball, of course, and most of the old baseball men either adapted or had to find another job in the end), it works.  Liverpool have been at the leading edge of this for some time.  City are as well.  Brentford have really bought in and it's transformed the club.   Some of this is in finding players, some of it is in finding better ways to do things (e.g. set pieces as the biggest under-exploited way to improve fast, which Liverpool have made the most of).   

It's incredibly sophisticated and while there's a lot to do, it works.  Honestly, I really recommend reading up on this as a lot of people's misgivings are explained away easily enough.  You seem to have half a foot in all this so I think you might find it enlightening.   So while Tony and co might not be at the leading edge their 100% doing the right thing in trying.   It's not just him on a spreadsheet deciding what he thinks are the most important stats ("Sign all the players with high assist numbers!"), those times are long gone.

You should not patronise people by asking them to read stuff when you do not know what they have already read and already know.  As I've already said there is loads of stuff this year alone which proves beyond any shadow of a doubt what Girolamo Cardano discovered over 500 years ago that if a random event has several equally likely outcomes the chance of any individual outcome occurring is equal to the proportion of that outcome to all possible outcomes.  In the gambling world that meant that if you could foster a method of of finding odds better than 0.5 probability of winning then eventually you would start to make a profit if you played the same game the same way for long enough (the law of big numbers).   That is why betting companies are satisfied with statistical systems that push their probability of success over that 0.5 point.  They can then rig the game in their favour and make money.  Finding a player is about rigging the game in your favour over a very long period of time (the law of big numbers) and it suffers from the anomalies that will occur over shorter period (still sometimes big numbers even with a heads/tails sequence) which means you can never guarantee success in the short term which is what sport is.   You are simply reducing the chances of the system making errors but you cannot rig the outcomes because they will always be random.

I am not going to take up anymore time on this subject because we all have to learn the hard way, as I have done so many times, and, as unfortunate as that may be, TK and you must do the same.
   

Now who's patronising?  I get that you have background in computing but there's so much of this that's new and which applies to football which is just so interesting, that's all. I was only making a book recommendation because the book in question covers so many of the misgivings you and other raise.  I'm not sure how we might go about presuming to know more about this than specialists who have worked in the gambling industry and moved into football (as the Brentford owner has) but this is where we seem to find ourselves.

It's really not a question of me and Tony Khan learning the hard way (!), the data revolution is happening in all sports and a repeated lesson from this is that you either evolve and make the most of the wealth of data available and the advantages this brings, or you get left behind. Liverpool are at the leading edge.  So are City.  Fulham are trying to work it out, too.  That's a good thing, surely.     

I am not patronising you at all.  All you have done is produce spiel without one shred of evidence that the use of a computer has actually improved recruitment or game management.  The reasons for that are obvious since no game* can be played twice, once with computer aid and once without, to test the efficacy of either or both. 

*by game I mean the process of staffing and running a sporting unit over a long period of time which is the only test that can actually prove what the benefits are.  Cardano made his point with not a machine in sight.

[Dr Quinzel]

The point I making is if the previous Manager couldn't be bothered to turn up for scouting meeting then you cant blame TK as a non football man if he brought a few dudes, the person with the football knowledge who couldn't be bothered is more to blame. Lets see how he gets on with a Manager that feels it's important to have a say about the players coming into his squad and how they will fit in so we don't end up with a player disregarded as soon as he joins as the manager hasn't taken a shine to him. Like it or not Stats are playing a bigger part in football nowdays if not Optima wouldn't be in business

Would you attend a meeting where you felt your view and opinion was not listened to?

I did find that an eyebrow raising comment, and to be honest, I'm not sure I believe it - to suggest Slav and Ranieiri didn't either attend ANY scouting meeting? Come on. That's a stretch, surely?

[Jimmy Hill]

I took a lot from the interview which i thought was well carried out.

The main thing for me was how the statistics job was to look at the player in terms of "value".
The aim is clear to increase your squads "value" thus the theory being that if your squad has a higher value it will perform better, you have to agree that since 2016 we are in a better position that we were in this regard.

I think the club have astute business people at the club and is in safe hands in terms of finance.

As to what we care about which is results i think the conflict comes when you make a business decision on a player to increase the value of the squad rather than a short term option which will get results. He talks about Parera with how getting stefjo and piazon was better decision in terms of value.

But on the flip side he did the same opposite thing with Mitro which would of been against the model but got us promoted.

I think when you look at these two examples it shows how difficult a balancing act it is to get these things right and overall would say he is doing good a job and seems to apply a certain logic to his work and has a plan which has seen us promoted and has the squad in a better shape than when he started.

[ALG01]

I said he would not get a job anywhere else in football without being his father's son and you have not told me what qualities he has.  he is incredibly strong in obtaining investor funding is ridiculous. he can only do any of his job because his dad is a multi billionaire and gave him a cushy job and shed loads of money. He may have hidden talennts but being direcor of football at Fulham is not one of them. Wasting £100M would have seen him exiting any other team by Christmas last season..BUT we are obliged to keep the serial failure that you seem to endlessly defend no matter what. How bad do you think he needs to be before you say he is the wrong man.... Your AKA is the rational fan, maybe you should reconsider that.

History of Events

When Tony Khan asked his father to be DoF without experience, SK said "yes, my son".

When Tony Khan as DoF asked his father to buy Mitrovoic, SK said "yes, my son".

When Tony Khan as DoF asked his father to give him £100m for players, SK said "yes, my son".

The Future DoF

If Fulham sacks Tony Khan, when new DoF asks for something then what will Shahid Khan say?

If we hire a new DoF and Shahid Khan says "yes to everything the DoF wants" things will be probably go better, at least until he makes a mistake and blows the money like most DoFs eventually do.

If we hire a new DoF and Shahid Khan says "no to everything the DoF wants" things will be very dark indeed. If you don't believe me this can happen, then ask a Newcastle or Sunderland or Blackburn or Bolton or Wigan or Leeds or Aston Villa fan.

As a Fan, "Yes, my son" is better than "No, my experienced DoF". I frankly see many advantages having a DoF that is a multi-billionaires son, especially if daddy will bail him out of his mistakes.

Well, I do understand what you are saying this time and strangely there is a perverse logic to your post.

Personally i do not agree that is the correct approach.
My whole issue is does TK have what it takes to succeed as DOF at Fulham and so far the answer is clearly no.

I know you are unable/unwilling to to bring yourself to say TK has no talent for the job and I can only repeat, without his father being a very rich man he would not have the job and his lack of talent has cost us dear in so many ways. Imagine he was talented and had access to his dad's money, we would be top 6 in the prem, not relegated.

[Matt10]

Enjoyed the pod for what it was. It was time to get to know Tony Khan and what goes on behind the scenes. He was candid and open about it, and I feel better about him there alongside his team + Scott Parker being involved to further solidify the decision making.

This thread has been good as well, and having multiple opinions is never a bad thing. We are not always going to agree, and it's no surprise the hottest topic of the last couple of years supports that.

My general thoughts is that first, "A man needing convincing, will always remain unconvinced" is a strong theme. It works both ways whether you are for TK or against him. Most minds are made up and aren't budging regardless what TK said, which I've said before...he simply can't win. Some say he doesn't have experience in his role, yet he's been doing this since 2016, right? I'm not sure it's valid to deny him of that any longer, and the determination of what should or shouldn't happen to him is based on a matter of third party opinions.

Staying in my lane, I do like what he said about how tactics changed dramatically when Mawson and AK made their exit of the starting lineup. Ranieri wanted to play very direct, and all the work of the defense centered around Mawson, while the counterattacks centered around someone getting behind the defense via AK. When they lost their spots via injury/incident, the plan was affected more significantly that I had given it credit for at first. I did not know that AK was that vital at the time, however I do think Mawson was in the heart of everything we aimed to accomplish.

I wish he had talked more about Slav's exit and the transition to Ranieri, or more about Seri and Anguissa signings. However, I can understand the sensitivity and the intent to keep the team spirits up currently. I just would've liked to hear his thoughts overall about those topics. I think the transition from Slav to Ranieri was much more detrimental than recruiting alone, in particular because Ranieri tried to make Seri into less of a playmaker and more of a hard-nosed defensive midfielder.

Overall, happy the fulhamish pod got to interview him - and was glad that Tony opened up about a lot of things we've been thinking about for a while.

[Dr Quinzel]

Noticed a lot of people, and the most recent poster above me as an example, saying TK was 'open' or 'candid'.

It's a minor point, but is it really either of those things if certain questions are off of the table?

Everything was very soft (and I don't expect Fulhamish to have forced anything - they have to look after themselves and future access) and scripted, so the candidness only came on subjects that TK was willing to be candid about, which to my mind doesn't really make it the interview people are labelling it as at all.

[Lighthouse]

Noticed a lot of people, and the most recent poster above me as an example, saying TK was 'open' or 'candid'.

It's a minor point, but is it really either of those things if certain questions are off of the table?

Everything was very soft (and I don't expect Fulhamish to have forced anything - they have to look after themselves and future access) and scripted, so the candidness only came on subjects that TK was willing to be candid about, which to my mind doesn't really make it the interview people are labelling it as at all.

What wasn't he candid about? He said last season he was a failure in recruitment. But he defended his record until then. Not sure it came over as scripted more than the interviewers were prepared. What harder questions would have been asked that would have made you happier with the content?  Certainly he was happy to answer these questions which is more than any other MD or official has done recently. He did make some startling errors, appointing Raneiri whose philosophy never fitted this team with no defenders of quality. He also admitted mistake with other players that didn't work out. As far as it went it was as candid as any interview could have been without throwing out accusations and recriminations.

[Dr Quinzel]

Noticed a lot of people, and the most recent poster above me as an example, saying TK was 'open' or 'candid'.

It's a minor point, but is it really either of those things if certain questions are off of the table?

Everything was very soft (and I don't expect Fulhamish to have forced anything - they have to look after themselves and future access) and scripted, so the candidness only came on subjects that TK was willing to be candid about, which to my mind doesn't really make it the interview people are labelling it as at all.

What wasn't he candid about? He said last season he was a failure in recruitment. But he defended his record until then. Not sure it came over as scripted more than the interviewers were prepared. What harder questions would have been asked that would have made you happier with the content?  Certainly he was happy to answer these questions which is more than any other MD or official has done recently. He did make some startling errors, appointing Raneiri whose philosophy never fitted this team with no defenders of quality. He also admitted mistake with other players that didn't work out. As far as it went it was as candid as any interview could have been without throwing out accusations and recriminations.

They weren't allowed to ask about Sess for example. They weren't able to push back on his answers where often they needed further questioning to narrow things down, or at least a retort as to the appropriateness of the answer. So there was a level of control over the questions. Anytime questions are screened in advance, I can't consider an interview to be 'open' / 'candid' or whatever else someone may phrase that as. Do you follow what I mean?

[toshes mate]

Candid actually means caught off guard or unprepared and so, if the RS prognosis is correct regardless of reasons of privacy or sensitivity, then as I suggested earlier he could have easily had a prepared and appropriately worded non-committal answer.  Likewise his manner was one of being happy as long as he was within his own comfort zone throughout although rather heavy on the voice lead hums and arrs for most of the time.  The reason I became interested in his 'love my work' passages was because he revealed someone who valued his work more than his friendships and that is where the interview did at last deepen if only very briefly.