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cubeadvance

By cubeadvance
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carlito

carlito

Posted
Posted

Everytime anyone dares to suggest Ozil looks lazy and disinterested, stats are rolled out about how much he runs etc to 'prove' he does great work and people are just blind to his quality. Can't have it both ways!

Well I mean obvious some stats mean something. Like if I said "Suarez isn't a real goalscorer" I think pointing to his goals scored statistic would be pretty fair.

Equally noting that Gerrard in a free scoring Liverpool side was the only midfielder with more assists in the League would be a fair counter to "Ozil doesn't contribute anything" etc.

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Gabe

Gabe

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Regarding stats I think they are a very American thing and are far more applicable, in the most part, to the less flowing, structured nature of the popular US sports. Its part of the draft/combine cattle market mentality.

A yard run is a yard run but the difference between one chance in the box and the next chance in the box can be vast and they are just far too infrequent for the variation to "settle" statistically.

I see article after article based on Whoscored.com stats and yet anything extrapolated from those stats tells me less that one person who knows the player saying "he's got a heavy touch" or "he plays the hollywood ball over the simple pass".

Sure they are a tool that can be used alongside training and scouting to try and facilitate even more comprehensive analysis but in abstraction they are pretty much bunk.

I'm reading Soccernomics at the moment and it paints the picture that there is definitely value in the Moneyball approach (and that few clubs do use it at the moment), and that a lot of teams are starting to use stats to assist in selecting targets.

It's an interesting read.

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Gotters

Gotters

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stats in football are incredibly useful and obviously an area of great interest to clubs

the problem with them is they are often used & quoted by people ill equipped to understand or obtain meaning from them - and then get reduced to crude measures like goals scored, assists, distance run.

whats more valuable, Suarez scoring 5 goals in 3 high scoring games liverpool would have one anyway (i.e. he didn't get the decisive goal) or RvP getting 2 game deciders in the same 3 match spell ?

I also like how stats bomb look at conversion rates and chance quality, and non penalty goals etc - its a mile away from what usually gets trotted out.

Love Mourinho starting up again about Fabregas, he only takes the piss out of teams he sees as a threat so its a sign we're back.

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Rev

Rev

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I'm really unimpressed with Chelsea's transfers. Both Fabregas and Costa might come good, but neither really seems like the type to really work to adapt and they've both got huge changes ahead of them. David Luiz might be a bit of an odd defender, but you can see why another team would buy him as he is great when he's having a good day, and they've lost Cole and Lampard.

It just doesn't feel like a very Mourinho team at all, where Arsenal is starting to look like a Wenger team after it hasn't for years. Perhaps slightly scruffier around the edges, but it's a pretty coherent team now.

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The Fox

The Fox

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Fabregas is the complete opposite of a typical Mourinho player. That doesn't mean it won't work out, it just depends if they want to build a side around him I guess, as that's basically what you need to do to get good results.

I can see what Mourinho is trying to do re: Fabregas comments. Everyone knows the situation and it's basically just awkward for all concerned. He's trying to big up Chelsea a bit to simpletons who actually believe what he's saying (even though it goes against what Fabregas said himself), while also trying to endear Fabregas to those same simpletons. Any sensible Chelsea fan will understand why his first choice would have been Arsenal, but idiots (of which Chelsea have many) would take offence at it and I guess he's just trying to calm that down.

I'm not sure Cesc himself has been too smart on that front in recent weeks (still busily 'Liking' a load of Arsenal stuff on Instagram; essentially admitting to the press his first choice was Arsenal), so I guess Chelsea are trying to do some PR for him. He'd have been better off keeping his head down for a while with regards to Arsenal, and not mentioning us beyond his brief quote about the buyback clause when his Chelsea signing was announced. Just rebuff any questions about Arsenal with "I'm a Chelsea player now, I'd rather talk about the future" or something.

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bear

bear

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I think Chelsea's transfer business so far has been quite good. I wouldn't agree with selling Lukaku but if he does go then basically they will have replaced three players the manager doesn't want with three he does without dipping into their transfer kitty. Based purely on the amounts other clubs are spending it wouldn't surprise me if they were sitting on £70 million.

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Gabe

Gabe

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Posted

stats in football are incredibly useful and obviously an area of great interest to clubs

the problem with them is they are often used & quoted by people ill equipped to understand or obtain meaning from them - and then get reduced to crude measures like goals scored, assists, distance run.

For public consumption that's how many stats are presented, but that's certainly not how clubs that are invested in their collection use them. That's actually the main tenet of the book - that there's a resistance to stats inside football because 'it's not the way it's always been done.'

Everton were one of the first teams to start heavily using stats and had a dedicated team - of not only football people, but proper statisticians who can make sense of the numbers in a way that doesn't rely on gut-feel (which is why many stats are poorly-used). The book makes the point that it Moyes was actually very interested in knowing lots of information (both about his own team and the opponents) and - whilst not relying on it alone - used it pretty successfully to make Everton a very good top-8 side on limited resources.

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Gotters

Gotters

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see the Balotelli gossip is back again this morning on BBC with a fee of £18.5m being mentioned - have to say I like a punt on him at that price (plus wages which won't be cheap).

it is a punt but one worth taking as I've always thought in short bursts he's shown the highest level of ability up front, and would cost a whole lot more to buy if he'd proven consistency, which he's still young enough to develop

I wouldn't be unhappy with that business, as the alternatives are all above £30m

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pinholestar

pinholestar

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It strikes me that this team is a very harmonious group though & Balotelli is a disaster waiting to happen in that regard. I don't see Wenger willing to disrupt that by bringing such a notoriously volatile character into the dressing room. It's a non-starter as far as I'm concerned.

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Gabe

Gabe

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I find the Balotelli link interesting, it makes me think back to Stan Collymore; no doubt a real talent, but nobody could ever harness that for any length of time, even when he joined his boyhood club, Villa.

I don't believe Wenger will be able to control him, either. Anybody know why Milan are touting him around?

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Gabe

Gabe

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Well it was more a case of did anybody know what specifically he had done this time?

He certainly brings a mix of quality, entertainment and aggro to the league and I'd be okay with him destabilising a rival (:P), I just would be surprised though if Wenger thought he could get the best out of him. After all, he never really managed to overcome Bendtner's ego and get him consistently playing well (I appreciate Bendtner himself is probably the only person who would think he is a better talent than Balotelli).

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The Fox

The Fox

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Ornstein has tweeted saying we're still looking for a DM but it won't be Khedira (who as we discussed isn't really a DM in our system anyway). Ospina looks like he's joining imminently, and we're in the market for a defender or two, depending on what happens with Verm/Jenks.

Up front it doesn't look like we'll do anything else, unless someone Özil-esque becomes available late on I guess.

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