Let the Paywall, We Will Stand Tall

It's time to turn this little site into a business. Come and join me.

The time has come for a paywall on here. Allow myself to explain… myself.

The world is searching for clicks. I’ve had enough. Not everything has to have so many adverts it’s impossible to read, or a clickbait title which needs an Enigma machine to crack. It’s a race to the bottom and, like many of you, I’m gasping for air.

A Manchester United legend says something about Liverpool. Anything. Could be good, more likely bad. It’s clipped, it’s shared, a Liverpool aggregator account posts a quote for people to get mad at. A news outlet then covers it to keep the anger vortex swirling until the next time.

Everyone ‘wins’, aside from the people who want a sensible conversation about football or are looking to learn something of merit between one match and the next. We can be better. We must do better. For my sanity, and probably yours if you’re reading this. Let’s play a little opera from inside the prison.

I can’t claim this site won’t ever post responses to the sort of bait drivel that does the rounds. But it will be done by proving the nonsense wrong with facts, data and hopefully well thought out arguments, not pure internet rage.

I’m realistic, there’s a lot of competition out there, with many excellent Substacks, podcasts, video channels and who knows what else competing for your attention and hard earned money. This will not be easy. But.

If you’re looking for insider knowledge or transfer gossip, I can’t help you. If you want to know how a rumoured target might fit into Arne Slot’s side, chances are I can.

If you want a thorough, robust tactical analysis of the last Liverpool match, I’m not your man; try Josh Williams. If you’re wondering how the Reds have performed against sides who started with a back three/five over the last three years, I can help.

(Won 36, Drawn 16, Lost six, with a +1.02 expected goal difference per game, +1.28 in reality).

There is insight I can provide. Perhaps you want to know if something you saw in the Reds’ game last weekend was rare or unusual. It’s likely I will want to know too, especially if I didn’t notice it myself. Nobody will ever fully understand everything about football but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun for us to try together.

When it comes down to why I’m putting up a paywall, I refer you to An American’s Creed, by Dean Alfange. I only learned of it recently, and part of it really struck me.

“I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.”

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Ultimately, to thine own self be true, for better or worse, richer or poorer. Some of the posts I’ve made on this site in the last few months have sparked my mind in ways that much of my work hasn’t done for a long time. Hopefully devoting time to what I want to cover on here will make me a better writer.

If I don’t get enough subscribers to make this worthwhile, at least I tried. May as well swing for the fences, even if I strike out.

So, here’s the deal. Your subscription will get you two exclusive articles each week, somewhere in the region of eight for your monthly fee of a fiver. Liverpool FC will be the primary focus, though I will also write about the women’s team at times (as stat articles seem thin on the ground there) and the wider Premier League. If this place takes off, I won’t need to do as much work for other outlets, meaning the content level here will be able to rise. Spread the word, friends.

Commenting on posts will only be open to paying customers. There’ll also be a subscribers-only chat thread where you can ask anything stats-related. I get loads of queries on Twitter, and while I’ll often help if the question intrigues me, traffic will be directed there from now on. If I don’t know the answer, I should at least know where to look. If an article has an interesting table of data behind it that would clog the flow of the post, that’ll be available in a Google sheet for you to access. I’ve even set up a WhatsApp channel (here) though for what purpose, even I’m not sure yet.

If you just want to read the weekly free post, that’s cool too. Ideally it will be good enough to convince you to try a subscription. That’s on me to prove, though, isn’t it? All I can say is, I can’t wait to get started. Now, where’s my record player?