I think this is certainly the case. Much of the criticism of CH is based on emotional responses of those fearing the worst. I think City will improve with or without a management change because of the 'self correcting factor' and because the injury situation will improve over the season as a whole and City will also strengthen the squad in January (which will be much tougher for the other teams in the bottom third). Having said that though, City have to stay in touch with the mid-table teams to make that possible. The Palace game is vital to that, given Liverpool and WBA away after that.
The thing is for me, where are you defining the mean? Those of us who do not believe in Hughton's managerial skills would argue that the teams mean results are those many disappointing ones, I'm not sure even you could argue that away from home our results and performance have settled into a very unsatisfactory pattern where the mean may lie at somewhere between a 1 or 2 goal defeat with very little positivity or hope in the performance. Too 7-0 thrashings etc when we are less than our norm. A win, draw or even a spirited close fought defeat currently and for some time representing well above the mean. Our home form is obviously better, looking simplistically our mean is the draw with our current record of W2, D2, L2. Probably a little to simplistic to just look at results though. What of our performances? Probably if we're honest as mixed as the results with even our better performances yielding few points. For example vs Chelsea or Cardiff, there were bright points with some obvious improvements. However were these above mean and less likely to be repeated improvements. Seemingly yes. However to assess form I think it is better to look at both home and away combined. And perhaps not just at this season but last too. We started last season poorly (perhaps understandably with all the changes, but we were not the only ones who underwent change) W0, D3 and L4 and then hit the 10 game run which I would argue constituted an improvement in the overall mean, with a spell of well above average results (Only bettered by Barca, so exceptional) W6, D4, L0 we then returned to the norm or a low form patch with the rest of the season running out W4, D7, L10 (If you consider the 2 wins at the end as another spike in form away from the norm this then reads even worse, 2,7,10.) So I may be negative and a bad fan in some peoples eyes but apart from a great spell of results with some good performances in the 10 game run which was well above our CH mean and the end ofseason blip. We are quite terrible under CH for the main. In the odd match we might reasonably expect to see a performance to be proud of but generally they will be dour and rarely yield 3 points. I realise that as a small fish in the big pond we are mainly doomed to sporadic wins and the odd thrashing but I'd like a manager who gives me hope for more, because with CH, hope hasn't left the building, hope never even went to it on away days! Bah!
@General Melchett The best measure of mean performance is average points per game (NOT number of wins incidentally), in our case over the 50 games in which CH has been in charge (plus cup games if you wish). So our PL mean is currently 1.1 points per game, which if maintained over the current season would yield 41--42 points and almost certainly survival. Currently (after 12 games) we are performing 0.2 below that mean, but there is no indication that we will fall away even further rather than recover to the mean or above. In the case of Palace (and "new manager bounce", which my post was about), calculating their average points per game is less meaningful (sorry!) simply because they are new to the PL, so the numbers need to be supplemented by other considerations such quality and depth of squad. Quality of performance doesn't come into it as far as this statistical phenomenon goes. "Boring, boring Arsenal" won plenty of honours and had an excellent mean perfomance level but didn't play attractive football in the Wenger style. For your information (and to repeat something I've mentioned before), Chris Hughton's average points per game over his managerial career -- including cup matches -- is 1.58. If, given time, he can reproduce that with us, we would be looking at 60 league points over 38 games and a placing of 7th--8th.
I am certain Hughton would have an exceptional record for us in the Championship i would rather we played in the Premier lg though, Warnock has a pretty good percentage if you include his Championship displays. Horrible Prem manager good Championship manager.
I don't see 1.1 points per match as horrible in the PL. The key question is whether it will stay the same, get worse or get better. My feeling is that it will get better as the injury situation improves and new players are brought in come January. I can understand that not everybody feels that way for a number of reasons, but I have yet to hear a convincing argument that isn't based upon 'gut feeling' or a general dislike of Chris Hughton.
The injury situation is just something that happens and I wouldn't place too much faith on January signings because they can go either way. The one thing I am confident about and have said a number of times is that, irrespective who our manager is, I think we will start seeing a decent run of form for a good few months (hopefully starting with Palace, but conceivably not until after West Brom) simply because of how kind the fixture list is to us then.
And all the arguments in favour of CH are based on gut feelings, too. Those in favour have a gut feeling that he will turn it around; those against have a gut feeling that he will probably relegate us. There's no science about it, and there never can be. The supporters of CH spruce their ideas up with lots of statistics, but statistics can often be the modern numerology. Essentially people decide what they believe from a gut feeling and then dig around for the statistics to prove it. The perfect example is that CH sceptics tend to begin his record from the end of the ten-match unbeaten run, whereas CH supporters on here are even beginning to include his record at Newcastle and Brum. We're all operating on gut feelings and don't pretend otherwise.
Have you become an official member of the Superman appreciation society? Whereby, only your view point and stat based arguments hold any credence?
1.0 per game is almost certain to be enough to survive.If you look at the sides we have played though the figures for points against those teams by opponents look like this: Arsenal 0.6 Chelsea 0.6 Citeh 1.1 Saints 0.8 Everton 0.75 Newcastle 1.1 Spurs 1.1 Villa 1.5 Hull 1.75 Stoke 1.6 West Ham 1.8 Our haul against all the teams played is 3.3 below the mean scored by every team.That is because we have still played on average the team in 9th position,1.5 places above the mean.In other words it's as if we had played Spurs six times both home and away,
I am saddened by your supercilious reply, Robbie. Of course, you offer no reason whatsoever why we 'pant-wetters' operate on gut feeling whilst you 'happy clappers' operate on some cool-headed level of scientific objectivity. I feel I gave a pertinent example of how we both use statistics selectively to fit our preconceptions, but you chose to ignore it. I accept I was a bit mischievous in my reference to including Newcastle and Brum, but I feel the general point was fair. Actually, I think the statistic you gave based on the league record since CH arrived is the fairest available, if only because at least there is no cherry-picking involved. I still have problems with it, though (which may be due to my statistical ignorance, but I'm sure you will tell me if this is the case). I understand the concept of regression to the mean, but I don't see how this can happen all the time because otherwise the mean would never be capable of change. I guess I'm asking why should what happened over the last 50 games necessarily happen over the next? Especially when we are talking about a phenomenon like a football club, which can change rapidly, rather than a slow-changing one, for example climate.
Regression to the mean has been used to examine performances in team sports. But for it to be remotely reliable or meaningful then the number of data points has to be vast, because there are hundreds of fluctuating variables, and therefore tells us absolutely nothing.
it can't tell us anything, if we look at the average points whilst being in the premier league Norwich are on 48, but this is over the course of six seasons and is positively skewed by performance in the 90s. It is unlikely that we will achieve those heights again. As in my previous post, regression towards the mean tells us very little in a football context
Does this mean that we should eventually expect to return to the Championship because that has been our 'mean' over the last two decades? (A genuine question). And how does the concept deal with teams like Man City and Chelsea, whose 'mean' was probably mid-table top division but who have now been catapulted to the top of the tree because of a sudden massive injection of cash? (Again, a genuine question. As Robbie will doubtless confirm, my background is in the arts not the sciences or mathematics.)
RTM is a statistical phenomenon that occurs when repeated measurements are made on the same subject or unit of observation. It happens because values are observed with random error. By random error we mean a non-systematic variation in the observed values around a true mean (e.g. random measurement error, or random fluctuations in a subject). This is very difficult to apply in any football context and my own opinion is that it tells us absolutely sweet FA about how Norwich are likely to perform this season. It can be applied to binary data in terms of PL or championship, but again simply because we have spent more time there, does not mean we'll regress towards that outcome.
Once again, my extremely mathematical and highly sophisticated method (a quick glance a the fixture list and an assessment of whether teams are crap or not) has deduced that whomever is our manager we will have a good run of form between mid-December and late March.
