Miguel Almiron

The hapless but energetic Miguel Almiron, a Paraguayan forward signed from a club in the USA for about £20m has yet to score for his new club, Newcastle United.  Those of us who have watched most of his 24 games so far have begun to despair that he will ever find the net for the Magpies.  Not that he hasn’t carved out many opportunities.  It is just that on numerous occasions, where it would have appeared more difficult not to score than to place the ball in the opponents net, he has failed.  In simple terms, if the best chance appears to be to strike first time he chooses to delay and the chance is squandered as the defence re-group.  Alternately, if the best chance is to delay and perhaps pass again, he opts to blaze away wildly and misses the goal.  Poor Miguel is faced with a constantly recurring binary choice which, so far, he has got wrong.  My hero bridge player, SJ Simon would have had some advice for him.  Miguel could save the mental anguish of his wrong decisions by applying a simple rule of thumb and sticking to it.  As SJ Simon points out, it doesn’t matter what the rule of thumb is so long as it is mathematically sound and you stick to the rule.  With four cards including the Queen of a suit against you, and no other evidence, do you play for the Queen to “drop” under your Ace then King or do you fear an adverse distribution try the finesse.  Simon says, whatever you decide, you will be 50% right over time.  However, if you make a different decision every time and your luck isn’t in then it may could a long time before things work out right for you. Just like tossing a coin, if you make a different decision every time, heads or tails, it is possible that you may never call it right, however many times you try.  On the other hand, if you call either heads or tails every time you will probably be right about half of the time. Mushroom’s suggestion for Miguel therefore, in the absence of any other tips, for example, Steve Bruce the manager shouting, “shoot,” would be to choose either playing the ball first time, every time, or taking a touch to try to improve his situation, every time but sticking to that rule, no matter what his head says at the time.  Either way, whatever he decides, as the great bridge player says, he would be right 50% of the time and his goal tally would surely improve accordingly?