Stoke weren't able to end their wait, although they'll get another chance if their game with Sheffield Wednesday goes ahead.

I've written something on the longest waits for a team to sit top and bottom of a table here, and the latter is even more interesting: www.experimental361.com/p/which-club...

I'm not aware of any precedent, but after back-to-back promotions (and receiving a ton of investment) it's not the worst idea.

On the "to do" list is a big study over multiple seasons to see if there is an optimum churn level for different situations, or if it depends on the quality of recruitment.

I think my simpler model has over-rated them a bit, as I can see they were 4th-5th best elsewhere.

These are only meant to be summaries rather than team ratings (which I still haven't switched back on), but you can (sort of) see goal totals by which stripe the team occupies in the attacking chart.

As the new EFL season is almost here, I've updated the fixture difficulty grids as promised: www.experimental361.com/p/analysing-...

The PL version will also get a refresh in early August.

I had a quick script set up to copy the full text list off the official Premier League page as soon as it was published and turn them into an analyse-able table.

... and here it is broken up into more manageable chunks:

Definitions are tricky to get right and there are always compromises e.g. they have to be as simple and unambiguous as possible for collection staff to apply consistently in real time.

It ultimately comes down to how data companies define things e.g. Opta’s assist definition begins with “The final touch from a teammate…” and explicitly excludes own goals.

An assist is often classified as a type of pass, which wouldn’t strictly fit with a ball that goes to an opponent.

Bit late to this, but I have similar requirements (love Ticket to Ride) and can recommend Lords of Waterdeep. Easy to get into, lots of replayability, works well with 2 players but goes up to 5 (or 6 with the expansion):

boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11...