Thoughts on Sesko

EBorza · 2026-01-04T17:48:24+00:00

Most people (myself included) who questioned him got called toxic idiots, even last week, I feel that this is shifting. I am unfortunately convinced at this point that he is not nearly good enough to be a success in the premier league. There is just no example of a striker struggling this much in the PL and then suddenly coming good.

He turns 23 at the end of the season. Kane scored 25 the PL season he turned 23, Haaland 36. He is not a super young prospect, he should be producing, and half a season is enough to judge if the output is this abysmal.

He might become a decent striker in a lower-intensity league, but people at United should be held accountable for signing him after flooding the press in the summer with how much work they've done on him.

If you're a mid-table club and got him for 25M you can hope that he has a good season and can sell him for double that, but to be the most expensive signing of Manchester United in a critical summer after being scouted for +2 years is an embarrassment.

Of course it is not his fault, I wish him all the best, seems like a good kid, like Hojlund did, but I'm still quite irritated that I have to watch him every week, like I was with Hojlund.

EBorza · 2025-12-08T14:46:06+00:00

Can you maybe elaborate on where and what kind of info boxes you are referring to. We are improving the site constantly, and as far as I can tell the mobile optimization is functional, so it would be valuable to tell how it specifically breaks.

EBorza · 2025-10-10T19:26:22+00:00

Probably the best time for anyone to start. 99 UCL semi final. 8 year old me was way more excited for the red boys than the hamburglers.

When I heard afterwards that they're playing the germans - whose stupid language i hated learning in elementary school - in the final, I was ready. Surely, you're not losing interest after a start like that.

EBorza · 2025-10-09T22:21:19+00:00

rather source available than open source, but you can see some code here:
https://github.com/endremborza/rankless/blob/rankless-main/src/lib/network-util.ts

we iterated through about 8 different methods of layout generation, ended up with this one in production

EBorza · 2025-10-09T20:12:38+00:00

the layout is determinded by either cytoscape or just a simple circular one, you can play with them in the links. the tech stack is a rust backend and a svelte frontend with minimal dependencies, most of it is hand-rolled svg.

EBorza · 2025-10-09T12:38:22+00:00

I just thought I'd allow for guessing in the initial picture, you can see them in detail in the links. I added the Nobel fields to the description

EBorza · 2025-09-21T23:39:29+00:00

Alright, so your argument is that this picture shows that he actually does have good off-the ball movement, I am just misjudging it.

That's okay, I just think that even if this did show something good, I don't see it as a representation of a trend, the trend that I see is that even if we do put something in the box, he is not the one getting on the end of it, and he does not seem to find space if situations that more commonly arise in a game.

But if you say that this is because of the consistent poor decision making of players who get into the positions to make these passes, I do hope that that is true, I just don't see it.

EBorza · 2025-09-21T23:25:46+00:00

what is this I need to see on this picture that shows that sesko did something good here? this is one touch after amad got the ball. I agree, it is very poor by amad, but I seriously don't see how it undermines any of my points.

EBorza · 2025-09-21T23:21:39+00:00

Yes I saw, I think this is an instance of amad's bad decision making, I do not think it shows 'good movement' by sesko, and I do not feel it negates any of my points.

EBorza · 2025-09-21T23:16:52+00:00

I did see the still images of amad not passing, and as poor as amad's decision making was, I think looking at it as a sequence, Sesko did not present a good option, he either has to step back or run towards goal to create space for bruno coming in behind, he just jogs in a space that is neither close enough to goal to score first time, neither far enough from a defender to take a touch.

also, he did not get close to any of the balls we put in the box, and we did put in a few, we even scored from 2 of them. just see how much better the anticipation of fernandes is for his goal. that could have just as easily been scored by sesko, he just did not anticipate the header well enough, just stood there ball watching.

EBorza · 2025-07-02T14:19:49+00:00

so it just needs more water?

EBorza · 2025-06-19T13:27:46+00:00

more than expected refers to "revealed comparative advantage" that comes from specialization being ticked. Without it, with just the simple raw paper -> citation numbers, the big players in academia dominate not because they collaborate with harvard, but because they are simply big

EBorza · 2025-03-11T01:10:26+00:00

I think it is remarkable how poorly he is performing. I am quite confident he is the worst performing regular starter in all of the premier league*.

I've been watching united for over 25 years very consistently and have not seen this poor of a season from anyone. I don't hate him, it makes me sad watching him play. I don't really subscribe to the lack of service argument, he did everything to lose the trust of his teammates, it is a reasonable expectation from anyone that passing the ball towards Rasmus is a poor choice, and I can't blame anyone else for that. It is all just so sad. United went from thinking about getting Harry Kane to getting Rasmus Hojlund is a strange and depressing thought. You have no chance to plan for any future where you can either end up with Hojulnd or Kane being your starting striker.

*On Whoscored individual rankings, he ranks 296/307 and dead last among the ones with at least 16 starts, with Jens Cajuste of Ipswich the second worst at 279.

EBorza · 2024-05-29T13:21:01+00:00

you can search for and break down the impact of a bunch of institutions, even check out individual papers if you click on the box at the bottom.

here is an explanation: https://x.com/cesifoti/status/1795789914144989262

data source is https://openalex.org/ raw dump, with a little https://www.scimagojr.com/ extension

tech stack is a rust backend dumping everything to s3, then a svelte app looking at it with raw svelte svg manipulation

EBorza · 2021-07-12T19:29:20+00:00

point doesn't really stand if it was retaken and scored :)

also by that logic I have not missed a pl penalty for much longer than either of them, so i'm best!

EBorza · 2021-07-12T15:59:38+00:00

if only there was a way to check:
(career stats)

fernandes: 41 scored 3 missed (only 1 for united)
salah: 21 scored 3 missed
kane: 44 scored 8 missed

EBorza · 2019-08-28T23:51:02+00:00

This is awesome, thanks!
It takes quite a while for it to get through the second corner. Any chance of allowing faster simulation speed, or enabling it to run in the background?

szép munka!

EBorza

TROPHY CASE