The Numbers Game

[PowerSpurs]

"You've made all sorts of deductions from the data in your head (you know the best position for the players and that
we are deliberately doing a slow build up). So you are using statistics yourself."

I suspect Spurf was making a qualitative assessment, not a quantatitive one.


"A set of statistics collated by an independent observer is almost bound to lead to more valuable conclusions."

And it is often very nice when the (independent) statistics quantatively corroborate your
qualitative thoughts.

That is all completely accurate. But if the qualitative view might be based on a poor data sample then it needs to be challenged.

The major thread through my recent posts isn't that AVB is right, it is that he probably knows more about it than us and that we should be careful about making assertions that he is wrong. The only statistical studies that I can find support that view which is certainly convenient!

 

[No Kane No Gain]

Sounds like the kind of book I'd like to read. I find statistics and the ideas behind them more compelling than conclusive, there are always statistics you can us to contradict another, particularly in sports where psychology comes into it too.

You might enjoy reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, if you haven't already. There's an interesting chapter on how age cut off dates in hockey and football(our football) causes a significant bias to creating athletes born in certain months of the year and shows how having 2 age groups per year for youngsters could almost double the number of quality players coming through.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

The problem I have with our tactics is they seem needlessly complicated, which is bad enough with an established side but even worse if there's a bunch of new players being introduced to it.

Compare this to Harry or Jol, whose tactics were relatively simple - naive at times, certainly, but you could pretty much drop a player into that team and they'd land on their feet. AVB's tactics, on the other hand, seem to be causing problems for players who were playing under him last season.

 

[PowerSpurs]

Stats can and are being manipulated.
Look at assists...
a 2 yard pass to a player who smacks it in from 20 yards is an assist...
A 20 yard mazey run beating 3 players ending with a pull back only for the striker to do an impersonation of jason dozzel counts for nothing...
One was a great piece of play which is not counted on stats and the other played no part in the end product but is counted on the stats

Which is why none of the stats I quoted rely on such nonsense!

 

[BajanSpur]

Sorry, I'm a little late in picking up this thread. Thanks PS for posting it. I guess we can all now rest assured of the premiership title.

Lets do away with scoring goals and lets take the FA to court because the statistics prove that Spurs should have won the league this season already.

 

[redwhiteandermblue]

Baseball and Cricket are stat-friendly, since they're built on 1-1 confrontations. Football, Rugby and the NFL are not, because everything involves the team.

Without viewing your stats more closely, I'll draw my own conclusions:

1. They contain a mix of useful and misleading conclusions. Do they sometimes mistake a correlation for a cause, I wonder? Teams that pass to the wings may well win less than those that pass through the middle. But that doesn't mean that passing through the middle will help you. It may be that teams that are weaker tend to pass to the wings more, or that teams which are behind tend to.
2. You're right about the most basic thing, which is that received wisdom, in sports and in other fields, is only erratically wise. Better number-crunching in baseball revealed that the previous bible on baseball strategy--the unwritten but often cited "book"--was dead wrong about a lot of things--as you'd expect from a name for the collective wisdom of a bunch of guys with crappy educations and iffy reasoning ability.

 

[Boss]

Baseball and Cricket are stat-friendly, since they're built on 1-1 confrontations. Football, Rugby and the NFL are not, because everything involves the team.

Without viewing your stats more closely, I'll draw my own conclusions:

1. They contain a mix of useful and misleading conclusions. Do they sometimes mistake a correlation for a cause, I wonder? Teams that pass to the wings may well win less than those that pass through the middle. But that doesn't mean that passing through the middle will help you. It may be that teams that are weaker tend to pass to the wings more, or that teams which are behind tend to.
2. You're right about the most basic thing, which is that received wisdom, in sports and in other fields, is only erratically wise. Better number-crunching in baseball revealed that the previous bible on baseball strategy--the unwritten but often cited "book"--was dead wrong about a lot of things--as you'd expect from a name for the collective wisdom of a bunch of guys with crappy educations and iffy reasoning ability.

Even teams that play counter attack and through the wing, pass through the middle, that's why whoever complied data to create that stat, or fact, probably done so to be misleading or try and prove a point.

Very little passing is generally done on the wings as wingers are outlets or released with a simple pass.

A team could be completely focused on wing play but still pass mainly through the centre until they release their winger.

Our problem is we have tried to nullify wing play apart from attacking fullbacks and if Avb embraces wingers he can actually start to improve the team, stretch defences and be more effective, but that's up to Avb and him being flexible.

 

[littleDinosaurLuke]

Baseball and Cricket are stat-friendly, since they're built on 1-1 confrontations. Football, Rugby and the NFL are not, because everything involves the team.

Without viewing your stats more closely, I'll draw my own conclusions:

1. They contain a mix of useful and misleading conclusions. Do they sometimes mistake a correlation for a cause, I wonder? Teams that pass to the wings may well win less than those that pass through the middle. But that doesn't mean that passing through the middle will help you. It may be that teams that are weaker tend to pass to the wings more, or that teams which are behind tend to.
2. You're right about the most basic thing, which is that received wisdom, in sports and in other fields, is only erratically wise. Better number-crunching in baseball revealed that the previous bible on baseball strategy--the unwritten but often cited "book"--was dead wrong about a lot of things--as you'd expect from a name for the collective wisdom of a bunch of guys with crappy educations and iffy reasoning ability.

My thoughts exactly.

Attempts at goal are another misleading stat. Would you sooner have a team which clinically takes its chances or one that takes pot shots for fun- more in hope than expectation. But the interpretation is often that the latter posed more of a goal threat. Taking 3 from 10 chances will always better 0 from 20 in my book.

Cricket, however, is a game where stats are often helpful. They help bowlers formulate plans to batsman and vice versa, set fields, even select teams. There are less variables, I think. it's easier to spot patterns. There is more emphasis on strategy and winning individual battles within the game. The collation of information is generally more useful and more thorough. Conversely, the OPTA stats in football just seem to be for their own sake; they have little or no useful application.

 

[PowerSpurs]

Baseball and Cricket are stat-friendly, since they're built on 1-1 confrontations. Football, Rugby and the NFL are not, because everything involves the team.

Without viewing your stats more closely, I'll draw my own conclusions:

1. They contain a mix of useful and misleading conclusions. Do they sometimes mistake a correlation for a cause, I wonder? Teams that pass to the wings may well win less than those that pass through the middle. But that doesn't mean that passing through the middle will help you. It may be that teams that are weaker tend to pass to the wings more, or that teams which are behind tend to.
2. You're right about the most basic thing, which is that received wisdom, in sports and in other fields, is only erratically wise. Better number-crunching in baseball revealed that the previous bible on baseball strategy--the unwritten but often cited "book"--was dead wrong about a lot of things--as you'd expect from a name for the collective wisdom of a bunch of guys with crappy educations and iffy reasoning ability.

The book has quite an interesting section on American Football. Apparently punting on 4th down is a much worse tactic than is implied by the number of times it is done

 

[PowerSpurs]

Even teams that play counter attack and through the wing, pass through the middle, that's why whoever complied data to create that stat, or fact, probably done so to be misleading or try and prove a point.

Very little passing is generally done on the wings as wingers are outlets or released with a simple pass.

A team could be completely focused on wing play but still pass mainly through the centre until they release their winger.

Our problem is we have tried to nullify wing play apart from attacking fullbacks and if Avb embraces wingers he can actually start to improve the team, stretch defences and be more effective, but that's up to Avb and him being flexible.

Nobody is saying that you have to play one way all the time but if you play against the odds then you will do worse on average.

I thought the most interesting statistic was the one on corners. Most fans think they are a good opportunity to score (most English fans anyway, Mourinho is quoted in the book that he was surprised about the roar that came from the fans when a corner was won in the PL). Actually it seems that they are not. If this is really true this then it should affect tactics: your defenders should actually be told to boot the ball over the goal line rather than concede possession by clearing it aimlessly upfield! Imagine how much stick AVB would come in for if we started doing that.

 

[The RDBD]

"Conversely, the OPTA stats in football just seem to be for their own sake; they have little or no useful application."

Or "STAT" as they are known on Goon 606.

 

[The RDBD]

" If this is really true this then it should affect tactics: your defenders should actually be told to boot the ball
over the goal line rather than concede possession by clearing it aimlessly upfield!
Imagine how much stick AVB would come in for if we started doing that."

The outrage would come because in the case of Spurs, one corner is usually all the opposition need to score.
Which of course the stats either confirm or refute.

 

[Boss]

Nobody is saying that you have to play one way all the time but if you play against the odds then you will do worse on average.

I thought the most interesting statistic was the one on corners. Most fans think they are a good opportunity to score (most English fans anyway, Mourinho is quoted in the book that he was surprised about the roar that came from the fans when a corner was won in the PL). Actually it seems that they are not. If this is really true this then it should affect tactics: your defenders should actually be told to boot the ball over the goal line rather than concede possession by clearing it aimlessly upfield! Imagine how much stick AVB would come in for if we started doing that.

That's one stat I'll agree with, for us anyway, Corners are wasted on us. But corners are generally a reason for fans to up the noise as they see it as an advantage, short lived when they see another wasteful delivery!

Although if a team puts in 20 wasteful corners and scores with the 21st corner and gets a draw or win, then you could say corners are effective if you eventually get a result as the wasted ones then aren't of any significance.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

"Conversely, the OPTA stats in football just seem to be for their own sake; they have little or no useful application."

Or "STAT" as they are known on Goon 606.

Or, to Malcolm Gladwell, "everything I ever wrote."

 

[PowerSpurs]

That's one stat I'll agree with, for us anyway, Corners are wasted on us. But corners are generally a reason for fans to up the noise as they see it as an advantage, short lived when they see another wasteful delivery!

Although if a team puts in 20 wasteful corners and scores with the 21st corner and gets a draw or win, then you could say corners are effective if you eventually get a result as the wasted ones then aren't of any significance.

The point is that corners are just not good goal scoring opportunities. Statistically you'd score as many goals by passing the ball back into the centre circle from each corner as by crossing the ball. So talking about 'wasting' them doesn't really make sense. Actually over the last few seasons we have a poorer corner conversion rate than the average and also a worse record at conceding from them, but it doesn't seem that this is statistically significant (ie you can't be sure it didn't happen by chance).

 

[PowerSpurs]

" If this is really true this then it should affect tactics: your defenders should actually be told to boot the ball
over the goal line rather than concede possession by clearing it aimlessly upfield!
Imagine how much stick AVB would come in for if we started doing that."

The outrage would come because in the case of Spurs, one corner is usually all the opposition need to score.
Which of course the stats either confirm or refute.

the answer is more like 30

 

[Boss]

The point is that corners are just not good goal scoring opportunities. Statistically you'd score as many goals by passing the ball back into the centre circle from each corner as by crossing the ball. So talking about 'wasting' them doesn't really make sense. Actually over the last few seasons we have a poorer corner conversion rate than the average and also a worse record at conceding from them, but it doesn't seem that this is statistically significant (ie you can't be sure it didn't happen by chance).

Corners are a good opportunity to score if the person delivering the ball finds a team mate to attack the ball. If you have a wasteful delivery then yes it makes sense to discuss wasting the delivery as most corners are poorly delivered, hence it's a waste.

Corners are a law of averages, a numbers game, have a good corner taker, players to attack the ball and you will get success, hence my point about the unsuccessful ones then not being of any significance.

 

[PowerSpurs]

Corners are a good opportunity to score if the person delivering the ball finds a team mate to attack the ball. If you have a wasteful delivery then yes it makes sense to discuss wasting the delivery as most corners are poorly delivered, hence it's a waste.

Corners are a law of averages, a numbers game, have a good corner taker, players to attack the ball and you will get success, hence my point about the unsuccessful ones then not being of any significance.

But everyone knows this and still corners seem to result in fewer goals than open play possession. I would say that is nothing to do with quality of delivery it is simply that the defence is organised and outnumbers the attackers in the box by 2:1 usually. Therefore you are going to score more often by giving up on the chance of a cross and giving the defence time to be disorganised so take the cornet short and pass!

 

[The RDBD]

"the answer is more like 30"

What is ??

Proper use of stats would look at how many corners a team concedes in a PL season, and how many
goals conceded from a corner. That would give the ratio for that team.

And for any given opponent, you would look at the corners won/scored ratio (because some teams
may be better than others) .

And then before KO, a stats-driven manager would make the executive decision for his back four.

In the case of Spurs I suspect the concede and score stats from corners are much worse than
the PL averages.

 

[Boss]

But everyone knows this and still corners seem to result in fewer goals than open play possession. I would say that is nothing to do with quality of delivery it is simply that the defence is organised and outnumbers the attackers in the box by 2:1 usually. Therefore you are going to score more often by giving up on the chance of a cross and giving the defence time to be disorganised so take the cornet short and pass!

If it's that easy to increase our chances, or any teams chance of scoring then why aren't short corners more widely used?

Defenders may outnumber attackers, but attackers have the advantage of attacking the ball and that wipes out the number advantage, this is why John Terry and players like Pallister used to score often from corners.