New measure for soccer goal scorers-

I think many people judge the effectiveness of the strikers / goals scored by the absolute number which I think is probably very ineffective. I am an Arsenal fan and I will admit now that I mainly follow EPL (+ other English domestic trophies like FA cup, League cup) and Champions League which basically means my view here is a very limited one. Also it is being driven mostly out of frustration than analysis (i tried putting in some effort behind the numbers though).

Arsenal top goal scorer this year has been Giroud. I however think he was not even half as effective as Ramsey, Walcott, Podolski, Flamini, Carzola and Rosicky goals (I am not counting Arteta as he scores only through penalties). The reason being, his goals are not "first" goals. For a team like Arsenal, it is very important who scores first when score is 0-0. If Arsenal score first, then they obviously start playing expansive, free flowing confident football BUT if they go down 0-1, then it all starts breaking down. If they go down 0-2, then it is basically all over, they haven't come back from 2 goal deficit this year. If they go up 2-0, then again it is all over, they haven't lost a match yet this season being up 2-0.
Point being - it is supremely crucial who scores at the stage when score is 0-0 or when they are down 0-1. And answer is - NOT Giroud (atleast not 95% of the time). The same is very different for Aguero, Suarez, Rooney, Hazard etc - they all score a lot of their team's "first" goals.

Now this can be generalized a lot for all the teams in EPL atleast, especially with a lot of teams these days playing with a very clear cut strategy of holding to a draw in away matches vs playing offensive football at home. It makes the importance of the "first" goal scorers even more felt and mathematically makes them not just match winners but outright title winners. This brings me to the second thing which I have thought a lot about given the poor Arsenal show since December. The maximum number of points that can be scored in a season are 114. Historically if you look at since 2000, the champion has scored anywhere between 80 to 95 points (95 was Chelsea and an anomaly. Median would be 89ish and average certainly even below 89).

e.g. A team like Arsenal if basically achieves these results every year, they would be champions 12 out of 13 years. Let's assume the BIG 4 clubs apart from Arsenal are ManU, Chelsea, Liverpool and ManCity.
4 away games at these clubs - if they draw any 2 and lose 2, gives them 2 points
4 home games at these clubs - if they win any 1 and draw 1, gives them 4 points
Cushion - suppose they lose another 2 away games somewhere like Stoke, Everton, Totenham types
Rest 28 games, out of which 15 are home games, if they win, gives them a grand total of 90 points.
Enough to win the title consistently. Not just that, this score is above the median and the average for last 13 years so equal probability of scoring lower and still having a shot at the title.

The reason why Arsenal fails to win the title every year is not because of their under performance against the BIG 4, but because of the DRAWS and hence losing the 2 points against the lesser teams. It is in those matches that they need to be gambling and absolutely ensuring that they play as many "first" goal scoring players and not Girouds - despite many of them not being outright strikers. It is here that Arsenal (and hence ARS ene Wenger) fail.
Year on year, there is so much hype, press and build up for the BIG 4 matches and i think Arsenal should do a Jose Mourinho there. Away matches, they should field 2 holding midfielders, 3 midfielders who are not super flank aggressive and 1 random striker as a wild card to play outright for a draw. Instead what they do is the exact opposite and get thrashed massively. And mind you, a draw takes away 2 points from opposition as well, putting pressure on them to win those 28 matches against lesser teams.

Have more thoughts on how substitution should work for these 28 vs 4 vs 4 matches. More on that some other time (in a nut shell - no point in substituting guys like Giroud upfront when the going is easy, you should at every point try to protect the "first" goal scoring people when you are up 2-0 types and give the sidey guys a run. And by that I don't mean those token substitutions at 77' minute mark. No, if you are up 2-0 at 50 minutes, you should be done by 60' minute on all 3 substitutions. Ramsey, Walcott 2 of the most influential people in Arsenal scoring were stupidly sacrificed when the matches were under control. It was rather comical to see the title slip when you are at top and when no one was paying attention. It quietly but most definitely slipped away at those 2 moments.

MA
 

How to lose 350gm every week without exercise?

I have been battling weight issues for over 2 years now and the below things work 500% on any body type, any gender etc etc (unless you have hormonal issue - get a thyroid check in that case first).
These things must be done everyday without fail, in this particular order and without any change/substitute. Some things are non vegetarian so deal with it, i don't have an alternative as of now. Each ingredient has it's utility, google it up but don't skip any of it.

1) Morning get up - eat 50gm oat meal with 2 table spoon honey and 1 table spoon cinnamon made in skimmed milk just enough so that after cooking it in microwave for 2 minutes it has some left on side. No fruits and no sugar (not even artificial sweeteners)

2) After 1 hour of your oatmeal, drink 1 glass (275ml) of cranberry juice (fresh or canned, anything is fine as long as it doesn't have any artificial sweetener added

3) After 1 hour of that, take 4 egg whites, add as much tomato as you want, as much capsicum as you want, as much onion as you want, some pepper, minimalist salt and some chili (green or red or both) and eat it in any form you want. Omelette, half fry, full fry, sunny side up with no sun, whatever...it doesn't matter. Only thing to note is, don't use oil to make it (not even olive oil, doesn't matter if it sticks to the pan, deal with it) and keep the salt to the extent just to take the egg smell/taste out of it. Cooking tip- remove the pulp of the tomato, it doesn't let the eggs cook well

4) After 2 hours, drink 1 glass (350ml - yes this is a bigger glass than the cranberry juice one, ikea sells both) of watermelon juice

5) After 1 hour of watermelon juice, take 300gm chicken breast (something you needed to have done in the morning while eating oat meal - marinate this chicken in 1 table spoon olive oil, some salt, some pepper, chilli, lemon juice, and any other herbs you can think of and zip lock it). Slow cook the chicken breast in a pan (or for that matter - fast cook it, or roast it or do whatever, doesn't matter) but make sure no oil (yes, not even olive oil). Keep the tomato ketchup handy in case you don't find it edible (in all honesty, it should be fairly decent and eatable)

6) After 1 hour of chicken breast, repeat step 4 i.e. drink watermelon juice 350ml

7) After 1 hour of watermelon juice, eat as many strawberries and blueberries as you want. Yes just those 2 berries, nothing else. Ok fine, eat 10 almonds and 2 walnuts. Poker tip: Jamie Gold won the main event in 2006 and he attributed it to purely to eating blueberries everyday. 2006 was the biggest prize money at ~12mm for the winner at WSOP than any other year which average ~8-9mm

8) After 3 hours, buy fish (300gm of salmon), marinate it same way as chicken but add some soy sauce and white wine this time and eat it. Also 2 broccoli (steamed/sauteed), 1 carrot (raw, steamed, cooked). 1 glass of red wine (no single malt / whisky or even white wine and of course no Bacardi coke etc etc). Hygiene tip: Keep a room freshener handy, broccoli causes flatulence and if you are married then you don't want to be sleeping on the couch , would you?!

9) After 2 hours, repeat step 3 i.e. eat eggs

10) After 1 hour, drink green tea and sleep (pu-erh to be precise, it apparently cuts fat, i doubt it, but even if it doesn't, the above eating schedule most definitely WILL)

2 side notes:
1) Drink 2.5 litres of water for every 70kg of body weight but not less than 2 litres even if you weigh really less like 50kg or something (why the fkk will you do this eating schedule then though???)
2) Every time you feel hungry apart from the times that a step from the above schedule is just about to come or pending, drink 1.5 glasses of water (the 275ml type). If even after that you feel hungry, curse god and note that this precise moment is the reason you are fat and proceed to eat 10 almonds. If hunger still doesn't subside, curse more and this time just eat a dam% chewing gum and wait for next step to happen, TOO BAD!

MA

Luminaries-

Read it a while back...probably my only book in last 2 months...I liked it a lot (despite being 800+ pages)
For all those people who like me pick up their books by following the Booker prize, orange prize etc etc winners / shortlists, this one definitely does so much better than say Finkler Question, Sense of an Ending and Bring up the Bodies from last 3 years.

It actually coincided with a series I was following on Nat Geo called "Yukon Gold" and I think that probably played a big part in me liking it.

Have picked up Amitav Ghosh now (really old ones but I am not spending another dollar on buying new ones till I finish my back log of 37 books!). I am waiting for Murakami San's "Dance Dance Dance", I ordered it online and have to collect it next time I am in India.

MA