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The League table lies all the time. If you took a look at what it looked like at 6 games in, you'd think West Ham and Swansea were decent sides, and Man Utd might be title contenders. Were any of those things true?
The table at the end of the year last year said Chelsea were the mightiest team in the land and Leicester were trash.
Football's a beautiful game because for all of the skill, grit, probability or whatever, anything can and frequently will happen.
Bad teams win games against the best, sometimes on merit, sometimes by ridiculous luck. That doesn't make the resulting points on the table "true" or "false". The table is just a record of what happened. Arguments about "better" or "worse" are separate from that.
Yeah, how we play has changed dramatically. For the better.
You are not understanding my point.
We are above Utd because we have picked up more points than them -the table reflects exactly this. Yes its a record of points earned over a season and will reflect the most successful teams in doing this. If a team wins all their opening 6 games of the season they will be top regardless how they do after.
A bit of a round-up:
Michael Caley:
Some thoughts from James York on a few different things, including Woolwich (and how we may have broken them):
http://statsbomb.com/2015/12/Woolwich-home-or-away-and-same-old-pulis/
And Analytics FC went over strikers from the lower leagues (Kane pops up as showing really well, which may just be a reminder to never listen to other clubs' fans about our players on loan):
Lost in Translation: Looking for lower league forwards
Michael Caley:
Some thoughts from James York on a few different things, including Woolwich (and how we may have broken them):
http://statsbomb.com/2015/12/Woolwich-home-or-away-and-same-old-pulis/
And Analytics FC went over strikers from the lower leagues (Kane pops up as showing really well, which may just be a reminder to never listen to other clubs' fans about our players on loan):
Lost in Translation: Looking for lower league forwards
Yes, but you're missing my point. I understand that's what the table says. What it doesn't say is how you got there.
West Ham this year is probably the best example, although we're a good one too. James York explained it best at week 6, I felt with this: (Elephants In The Room: West Ham, Leicester and Man Utd)
“In their last three games, all of which they won, West Ham have taken the lead inside ten minutes and in these games and the victory against Woolwich they have added to the score to make it 2-0.”
“Okay, that seems unlikely, but not entirely remarkable…”
“How about this then? In their four wins, West Ham have scored with their first shot on target.”
“Right… that’s interesting and sounds like a kind of thing that won’t repeat.”
“For sure, it won’t, it isn’t a skill. And you know what else? In each of those games, they also scored with their second shot on target.”
“Wow, Bilic for Prime Minister, right? I mean there may be a vacancy…”
What we find then is West Ham have spent more time this season at 2-0 than any other scoreline. They have spent 299 minutes leading, a full 76 minutes more than anyone else. With such regular and solid leads, it is arguable that they have been shelling for long periods of time, but this positive skew hasn’t stopped at their rate of scoring, the opposition are taking a ton of shots but only converting them at 7%, and the overall save percentage is a high 78%. It’s flowing right for West Ham at both ends. The problem being that these metrics have been shown not to sustain. West Ham’s underlying metrics have powered a freak run, will definitely decline and this is likely to be as good as it gets for them.
So, the results were the results, but how they got them suggested that it had more to do with having a horseshoe up their ass than actually being good at football. In contrast, at week 6, Spurs were mired in 9th, looking like mid-table mediocrity. Yet, according to ways of measuring shot quality, Tottenham were one of the 3 best teams in the land, in terms of how many chances we created, the quality of those chances, and the lack of quality and quantity of the chances we allowed. But our conversion rate was extremely low (around 6%). So, although we were playing better than almost anyone, the ball just wasn't going in the net for us.
This is where things get messy. The stats I tend to blather about talk about how probable something is. So, measuring shot quality talks about how likely the shots taken/created are to go in. There's no guarantee they really will.
But a team or a player's conversion rate (so, how many shots actually get scored) is something which has been shown to be very uneven. Generally, teams or players can score from 30% of their shots on target. But that's the average, over the long-term. In the short-term, it could be anywhere. From 6% (like for us at the start of the year) to 45% (Leicester up until this point). But in the long-term, things just about always average out to that 30% range. Some really good teams can do better than that, but not much.
But if you have a shit-hot conversion rate in your first 6 games and things are flying in, you'll look like Champions. Right up until you don't. The table doesn't lie, but it doesn't tell you anything about how teams play, either. And how they do it matters more, for the future, than what's actually happened in the past.
"The table doesn't show how teams are playing"?
Utter nonesence-sorry. The PL table reflect how teams are doing , simple. We scored two goals, watford scored one, we get 3 points. This, regardless on how many shots,saves or corners anybody has. The table clearly shows we have more points than Villa. Our GD is better than Utd because we have scored more and conceded less. It realy doesnt matter if you have 2 shots or 10 and win 2-0, its 3 points. If anything you are a better team if you score more with less? The Chaves won the PL because they won more points than everyone else. if you need stats to tell you if a team is playing well, well, what can I say. Stats is just another American fad thats taking over our game and creating a smoke screen to what is really happening., the oppersite to what you are promoting.
"A record of what happened" true- its 3 points for a win
Have I got that right?
I have to say that's a very simplistic view MrS.
For example our shots on target conversion rate is poor at the moment (below the current average for the PL this season).
This a statistic that the PL table does not show.
Given that Poch has shown concern in recent weeks about 'finishing the game off' I would say buying a striker in January is
not simply about giving HK a break but a realisation that we freshen up our attack.
We are 4th in the table regardless of how many shots we have on goal.
Looks stupidly bias to me. What reason to suspect Woolwich and City will overtake us on goal difference for a start? And with the top so tight how you can give all the weight to those teams over us and Leicester makes no answer either.
Could come down to GD between us and Woolwich, or who wins the remaining game between us. Important to beat those bastards when we play them again.
I am going to start by saying that we may just have to agree to disagree, but I cannot disagree strongly enough with this.
First, clubs don't agree with any of what you've just said. Every Premier League club, and in fact, most lower-league clubs in England (and across Europe for that matter) feel that statistical analysis of games and players is a vital component of how they prepare for matches and recruit players and managers. They all have people who go through the data that Opta and others provide, and match it up with video clips.
So, it's not an American fad, despite what mouthbreathing morons like Martin Samuel like to think because math has terrified them since primary school.
To rebut one specific point you make though, this: It realy doesnt matter if you have 2 shots or 10 and win 2-0, its 3 points. If anything you are a better team if you score more with less? is completely untrue.
Yes, you've won the game. But will you win the next one playing the same way? You might be able to win on only two shots, but that means that you can guarantee you will score, on only those two shots, and you can stop any number of shots your opponent takes from going in. The reality in football is that baring a major difference in talent between the two sides (like say, Barcelona vs a non-league team of paraplegics), that isn't the case. No one, not even Diego Maradona at his cocaine-inspired peak, is going to score every time on each shot, or every other shot. The best can manage perhaps 2 in 10 (which is roughly where Messi is at). So, if you're counting on scoring off one 1 or 2 shots, you're going to score once every 5 games or so.
The best teams create more shots, and win through volume. There is no team on the planet who has shown an ability to be better than average at conversion over the long term, bar the absolute top sides (Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich). And they are only slightly more efficient (like 2 goals every 10 shots versus 1.5 goals every 10 shots).
So, yes you might have won 2-1 scoring on only 2 shots. But do that again. And again. For 38 games. No one can. So how you play matters.
That's where all these stats that those of us in this thread are talking about come from. It's about measuring what's happened, and looking for predictive patterns that show what is likely to happen next. And then taking those patterns and applying them to how a team plays so that they can make tiny improvements, or cut out bad choices by recognizing what works, and what doesn't.
Good teams consistently shoot more than their opponents, and shoot from places on the pitch that are more likely to lead to the shot going in. They also pass in ways which are more likely to lead to those better quality shots. This is a universal truth across the game. Every league features the same kinds of teams at the top. Good players also have similar patterns. And by measuring them, teams can sort of get an idea of what to look for when scouting replacements.
That doesn't mean they don't use scouts and only use spreadsheets. Spurs head of Player Identification uses stats and video to filter out players who aren't able to do what we want. Then he and others scout the hell of out them in person to watch the things which the data doesn't show, to find the best possible fit.
Pochettino did this to figure our Eric Dier could play DM for us. Guardiola uses data to figure out what tactical changes he wants to make during matches. The data gives you the idea of how you play, so you can figure out what changes you need to make to win more. The eye-test matters because you can see in real life what's going on. The data matters because it lets you look at things you may have missed because you can't see everything at once.
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It's a prediction based on probability. So, it's based on the quality of chances created + conceded, and the likelihood of future repeatability. He also weights things based on past performances and payroll, among other things. Basically, those two teams have a long history of scoring and defending at this level. We've got 4 months. And both ourselves and Leicester, to this point, aren't getting results normally associated with our payrolls. So, either we're wildly exceeding normal performance, or our squad is rather underpaid.
So, based on probability, he's predicting the most likely outcome. That's not the only possible outcome, but only 7% of the time would it be likely that our young squad really did grow-up overnight into title winners.
It's not impossible. Just not likely, given what's happened in the past.
Yeah but it's probability calculated based on chosen variables, and reality is that a manager who knows what he's doing has a huge impact. It's one of the reasons Woolwich have a history of being up there. But perhaps that isn't accounted for or given enough weight in this calculator.
If half way through season in a season such as this a calculator gives 89% of the probability of winning to two teams when it's this close, the probability calculator is weak.