This thread is going to be statisitc heavy. If paul tomkins can make them upto suit himself then so can i! Introduction: I'm hearing we are frustratingly inconsistent. and i can understand how people can see that after we win at chelsea while drawing against swansea. I think its time to look a bit deeper into things to understand just whats going on. The stats First the premier league is one where singular results are not that important given anyone can beat anoyne on a given day. Rather it's form over a 4 game period thats vital. Why 4 games? Well a four game run is convienent for many reasons. It covers a month of games usually. It allows points averages to be more meaningful that over a single game. The season can be broken roughly into 9 groups of 4 games with 2 over for luck Form for title winning and for 4th place and for relegation can all be predicted off 4 game groupings. So how? Well lets just give some points totals that usually have workied over the past ten years. 90 points wins a league 70 points get 4th and 40 points is safe. bring that back to a 4 game run and thats 9.47 points out of every 12 for the title (9/12 = 85.5points, 10/12 = 95) OR 7.36 points out of 12 for 4th (7=66.5, 76points) Or 4.21 points out of 12 for 40 (4=38 points, 5= 47.5) Now admittedly those don't sound very real but lets put it like this. To win the league you go win 3 you of every 4 games you play plus pick up few draws too. To finish 4th all you need do is win 2 out of 4 games and draw at least one of 4 as well. to finish 17th all you need do is win 1 out of each 4 with another 2 draws in there most of the time. So what are liverpools stats so far? 13-Aug-11 Sunderland H Draw 20-Aug-11 Arsenal A Win 27-Aug-11 Bolton H Win 10-Sep-11 Stoke City A Loss 18-Sep-11 Tottenham A Loss 24-Sep-11 Wolves H Win 01-Oct-11 Everton A Win 15-Oct-11 Man United H Draw 22-Oct-11 Norwich H Draw 29-Oct-11 West Brom A Win 05-Nov-11 Swansea H Draw 20-Nov-11 Chelsea A Win And guess what.... that 7.33 points per game and right on the money for 4th place. The table DOESN'T LIE!!! Whats more interesting is that we are consistently taking about the same number of points per group of 4 games, there's always one big team in the group of 4 games and one minnow too. Lets project forward shall we? 27-Nov-11 Man City H 05-Dec-11 Fulham A 10-Dec-11 QPR H 18-Dec-11 Aston Villa A One big team in the group of 4 games, one reputed minnow too. Conclusions What do we need to do from here on in? Well first if 4th is really our goal we need to concentrate on performance not result. We are actually attaining the required level of results for a chance at 4th according to the statistics. If we draw or lose one game that we shouldn't thats just the way it is. We need 7 points out of 12 mimum so we can go get bloody pasted v City and come back and attain our goal. Equally we can go beat city and lose to qpr and not worry about it. So there you go slow and steady wins the race. we are on for 70 points and a shout 4th when the real form is required at the end of the year. Newcastle have had a great run of it and have 3 points in hand but a bad run of games coming that might hurt their form. Arsenal have had an AWFUL time followed by a purple patch, is that consistent?
Morewhinging? What a ridiculous first sentence. Might be why I stopped reading there and why there are no other replies to this post. Come on here with an air of postivity this morning. But you've reminded why I shouldn't use forums. Ta.
I've just added mr Spevin to my ignore list. if you miss the entire point of an article that badly i can only conclude you are acting the clown and out to insult. So form now on i'll not be hearing for the guy.
I didn't "miss" anything - I didn't read it. We can only conclude from this eerie silence that other right-minded folk read your first sentence and concluded "what an idiot!" "ignore list"??? Grow up. Said like a true philistine without an original thought in his bonce. Heh. Nevermind mate.
I thought you summed it up quite well mito!! Of course we are still in the race for top 4 and our performaces this season have been on the whole a massive step up from last year, but if i'm honest I want to finish above utd this season!
If you don't like the content of the OP Spevin then why comment, or better yet, why not make your own?
MITO makes a good statement here, although you could argue that there are 7 teams now currently have the stats to suggest they can finish top 4. Albeit Chelsea's recent form may suggest otherwise and Arsenals redemption seem to have ridden the ghost of OT. Out of all the top 7 teams now, Chelsea are the only team to get a point off one of the others.
Red - because the first sentence is so utterly UTTERLY ridiculous it renders this piece less than glimpse-worthy. You don't agree - serious? Lies, damn lies n stats...and somebody STARTS their piece with that drivel. You're kidding right?
...but of course. The thread must continue. Don't mind me. (I read title; consistent form? - and thought, I agree I think...let's have a read...but the first twonking comment...gawsh...not to mention MITO's "form"... Nah, yer alright. Ha! Carry on.
timmy, i take your point on wanting to finish above utd. that'd be great I just think we are being fairly consistent month on month in terms of the return we are getting and will continue in that vein. I do hope of course we can take advantage of the european football thing as the season settles down without international breaks etc. ziggy you are also quite right about there being 7 team in it right now so I think all we can hope for seeing the league is competitive is that we are in the mix as the season comes to the crunch.
I hve to disagree MITO that at this stage of the season performances are more important than results in fact I think just the opposite...this stage of the season is purely about grinding out results and keeping as close to the top as poss. No one ever wins leagues by flying pre christmas. As for the four games analogy it's an interesting theory and it definately can be used to stop some of the knee jerk reactions after one good or bad result but I'm not sure its actually relevant other than that. Consistency over a season is measured over 38 games. Split it into as many blocks as you like but ultimately play one game at a time and see where you finish
We are inconsistent but i see where you are coming from with the points return per 4 games.Its an optimistic way of looking at things and the stats support our progress from last season. That said we shouldnt be content with our 'Meh' results vs swansea/norwich etc.
Pompous twat. I quite like the work you've done there, MITO. I suspect your rationale for developing the approach was to challenge perceptions rather than boldly change the reality. In cricket, they do this stuff at a far more granular level: not groups of matches but every half dozen balls bowled - it's called an over. And certainly when you are chasing a target in a second innings you spend you're whole time thinking in terms of run-rate - if, at the end of the 10th over you need 7 runs per over and by the end of the 20th you need 8.5 runs per over, you know things are heading in the wrong direction. So we need 7.46 points per 4-game run and we're at 7.33? Sounds like we're on track but we have room for complacency. That in a month's time we might be at 7.07(unlikely) or 8.29 (also unlikely) is, at one level, in the lap of the Gods. But that we know we are heading in the right direction (i.e. our month on month averages are improving) or still within striking distance (because our key competitors are also improving at the same rate) seems quite a valuable insight to me. But then again, in my job I'm quite reliant on stats! GKRK.
it is a good point billy. putting the points on the board is vital. I guess it dpeends on perspective. If you want to win it you are right about keeping up, if you want 4th then you want a gap to 5th as well. My main thing is we're getting the same number of points from each block of 4 games, that means we are at a consistent level. Is that level high enough is another matter. I think the thing that makes a side like Utd tick is that when they do lose one they come back and win the next games. thats what defines a top side If i extend the point to look at the run chelsea are now on, they've not stopped the rot so that must show something about thier set up. Kenny on the other hand took the setback v spurs (which was a day when everything went wrong for us) and got the side to respond. Obviously ok v swansea the effort again dropped but we've responded again and thats positive! Good kop is pointing towards where i did come up with the theory. splitting the football season down into something like a set of overs and figuring out the required run rate is exactly the thought. Marrying billy's point to this I'd say it always good when your openers shoot off to a great start (like oh i dunno chelsea last year) and you get ahead of the run rate (like city this year) but..... if you get skittled in the middle order it's never good is it? Football is littered by teams who start well then fade every year. Cheslea did it last year, arsenal too. If we keep plugging away and keep improving AND (which i didn't say before) if we follow the old dyas of kenny's teams we are at our best in the second half of the year we'll be in with a shout.
The first sentence is 'this post is going to be statistic heavy.' Where is the problem there? If you don't like the opening sentence on the front page of a newspaper Spevin, do you just bin it? What about a novel? 'I didn't miss anything - I didn't read it.' In which case you missed EVERYTHING. Anyway, that inconvenience aside, I think this is a decent article MITO. It makes our results seem a bit better than they felt at the time. We can, as you say, get battered one game and win the next and be right on track still. Of course, the media like to make a crisis out of a hiccup, but that's rarely the actual case. A draw against City would do me, as I think the next 3 after that are very winnable. And if we do win 3 out of the next 4, that actually gives us a game in hand on the 70 point target.
speaking of games in hand, Tottenham are level and have 2 in hand, I know one with Everton will be tricky but hoping the Villa boys get the job done today!
BBC: Tottenham are hopeful that Rafael van der Vaart will recover from a hamstring injury in time to face Aston Villa. Vedran Corluka is expected to overcome an ankle problem but Tom Huddlestone and Michael Dawson are still out. Villa forward Gabriel Agbonlahor is back in training after the hamstring problem he suffered on England duty. Captain Stiliyan Petrov is fit after a similar injury but on-loan midfielder Jermaine Jenas is ineligible to face his parent club.
hmmm, might be able to sneak a point then?!??! I will watch it anyway, It is on at 3 here ESPN. I am hoping we get something out of the City game because the run we have after that, we can really pick up points and that consistency that we all feel we need to have more of.
