Have a look at the film Moneyball Swords. True story of how a baseball team was turned round by the use of stats. Didn't quite win the World Series, but close. Now all baseball teams use the same approach. I'd settle for Europe rather than the Premiership, at least for now.....
Just googled it SB. Very interesting, I'll get a copy. The only thing I can say there is perhaps Baseball but perhaps not Football!
Nightmare scenario is that the stats work and Hughes and his team use them, but don't actually understand them. Emporer's New Clothes Syndrome.
Great film watched it coming back from Mexico ... It's this simple now in Football data gives information to the management team to base their decisions on ... It won't be de invented And soon these will be available on your smart phone at the match The USA influences everything in the end ... Even you guys ...awesome
We all know he has quality but he's a right royal prick who's head is often not in the game. I think what annoys fans the most is that, unlike any other player, he's galavanting around and posting on twitter when we just want players to be concentrating on their job. They get paid enough for us to expect that! We can take a player having some below par performances but not when they're all mouth and often no trousers.
I thought these stats were interesting and give a a useful insight into Joey's performance, especially as they come from a neutral source and cover the key attributes one looks for in a central midfielder. Thanks, Telford. They confirm that his passing has been poor which irritates the crowd like hell when you've struggled to get the ball in the first place from the pass masters like Manchester United. What the stats don't show is that, when he has passed the ball away, or lost it in some other way, Joey doesn't always bother to chase back and atone for his sin. He stands there watching whilst the opposition scores. He's done that a few times and that REALLY irritates.
You beat me to it SB! It was the first thing I thought about as I was reading this thread. Apparently the original book is well worth a read. I think it's still safe to say that Barton has definitely been a disappointment, especially recently. But no player is as bad as what some have made him out to be. The personality and baggage that he brings with him has definitely clouded opinion of his performances. Opinions are subjective. Stats, though not telling the whole picture, are objective. Either way, I hope Barton fights his way back in to the first team, changing opinions and improving stats as he goes.
haha! Fair enough Col. I have to go back as far as Bob Malcolm to think of a worse performance in a QPR shirt than the performance that Barton turned in against Liverpool. Pretty inexcusable.
Hes extremely average but cannot pass, couple that with his baggage and wages then there is no way to defend him. I really want to know why our idiotic managers put a poor passer of the ball on set pieces which are then always wasted. Its not a coincidence that in the 1.3 games hes not played, we have scored a FK and from a corner. Probably more than weve got from over 100 set pieces from him all season. I did laugh at a site suggesting Liverpool should take him at £4.5m and SWP at £2.5m off us if we get relegated. Hands up who would turn that down for either of them!
Having seen the film I'd say the comparison is you don't spend £10M on a 15 goal a season striker if for £5M you can get one who'll score you 10 and set up another 10 for team mates. Back to who ever it was that said Barton has completed more passes than other midfielders. It doesn't tell you much. The further back on the pitch you are the less pressure you're generally under when making a pass, and you're usually going for simpler passes just to keep possession and try to give it to the playmakers/attacking midfielders. The opposition is sat back and you've got 2 or 3 players to pass to. When it gets to the attacking players they're expected to play more defence splitting passes and they're under more pressure from the opposition. You've also got to consider that the attacking midfielders, as they're not expected to be winning the ball from the opposition can only do anything with the ball when they've received it. So if Barton, as the man between the defence and the attacking players gets it to them 400 times, even with a 99% pass completion Barton will have completed more passes than them.
Swords and Col ..I'm with you on this one...ignore the stats... a great man once said.."There's lies, Damn lies and Statistics"......!
I knew we needed another JB thread. Stats can be used idiotically and to destructive effect. Charles Hughes and his POMO for instance which cursed our game for too long and maybe still does. In fact reading up on it just, it's almost exactly like your small office business scenario there. It's hard to fathom how this theory exercised such a stranglehold over football coaching in this country for so long. The Independent summed it up pretty well in their obituary for Rinus Michels in 2005. That having been said I don't think statistics "lie". Mislead maybe depending on how you contextualise and choose to interpret them. I've no doubt that the games Hughes did analyse showed a lot of goals where getting into POMO seemed to him to be the underlying reason goals were being scored. I doubt he considered the quality of the players. Hence a three-pass move of deadly accuracy carried out by technically gifted players somehow morphed into a philosophy which saw teams like Wimbledon hoofing the ball upfield in the general direction of a big, strong-running target man in the POMO. It's all about interpretation for me. In the Opta stats in the link I posted earlier if it says JB has misplaced a pass then that's exactly what he's done. No lies, nothing. He has misplaced a pass. Similarly if the stats say he's made a successful tackle then that's what he has done. Again no lies. This is where I believe stats are useful. They inform. They should hopefully inform JB and the management where he can look to improve. And they can hopefully inform debate on here. What was I thinking.
Did you actually take the time to read the link? No he's not. No he hasn't.Read the link! I'm sensing an agenda here.
I saw a doco somewhere on Tv many years ago and there was a debate about the colour of the sky...yes i was that bored.. One guy was using statistcal analysis to count something like; difrent bands of colour pigments in the air and atmosphere (or something similar) and he managed to "prove" that the sky was not actually blue but indeed green (?) i think...? Cant remember the doco, but my point here,is that yes certain stats can be helpfull at certain times, but are not really that relevant in a game like football. In your baseball example, the actions of a baseball player are very rarely determined by the actions of the previous player, or opposition proximity or enevitable physical contact. Baseball is pretty much a solo sport (ala darts, golf) where a plyers actions are not affected by others..to a certain extent. In football, the proximity of the 7ft tall 180kg Centre back running straight at you to stomp on your head, have a direct affect on your actions. These outside influences are not shown in stats, and it would be foolish to say they do not matter.. Fatcs are, we as supporters can see when a player plays below par..whether we choose to admit and highlight these players is a totally diffrent matter! IMHO PS..so just admit JB's crap and we can all move on happy !
50% of stats are made up 25%of stats have no correlation to the original question 12% of stats always agree just so they look good and 33% of stats are dont knows and dont forget about the 3.6% margin of error
Sorry....I have a lot of time for some of the posters on here sticking up for Joey.....but honestly!! I've seen every home game and a couple of away games and he's been reasonably ****e, save for a couple of games!! I don't need statistics to tell me what my eyes and football knowledge tell me.
Sorry....I have a lot of time for some of the posters on here attacking Joey.....but honestly!! I've seen every game except Norwich away and he's been reasonable, save for Liverpool!! I don't need statistics to tell me what my eyes and football knowledge tell me! Only a few letters needed changing Col!!
