Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: ozzjim on September 15, 2012, 11:28:18 PM
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Does anyone have any decent access to football stats such as pass completion and for me much more interestingly distance run by our players. I have googled and come up blank, but the data is collated somewhere as sites use it in their game previews etc.
I know OPTA collected it, but being a bit geeky I thought a thread where we could identify and get excited by some stats would be great.
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www.whoscored.com has everything but distance.
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Karim El Ahmadi has completed 90% of his passes in the first half, the best accuracy for Villa
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Only 2 players (Baines & Morrison) have delivered more accurate crosses than Barry Bannan's 10 in the Premier League this season (5 today)
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Opta on Twitter is pretty pretty good.
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Four Four Two has a free app for Apple devices that looks a lot like Guardian's Chalkboards year or two ago. Seems legit.
http://fourfourtwo.com/statszone/
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Too much of this statistics stuff in football, its just not cricket.
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An interesting stat I heard before yesterdays game.
After 1 game Brad Guzan is number 1 in Europe (this season) for goalkeeper claiming crosses. I'm assuming that's catching the ball rather than punching.
I loved it yesterday when he came out almost to the edge of the box to claim one ball. The defenders must love that, takes a lot of pressure off them.
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I've never understood why distance run by a player is of any interest whatsoever. It's a ball game not a marathon. Maybe some kind of influence of American sports which seem to revolve more around stats than actual action.
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I love a distance run stat. It CAN show how a lazy player in perception is actually covering a lot of ground in a match without looking like they are doing so. See Darren Bent a few times last season. It is not fool proof, but I like stats as indicative measures. But then I enjoys formulas in excel that make different workbooks do different things, so am likely to enjoy a good stat or two.
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Karim El Ahmadi has completed 90% of his passes in the first half, the best accuracy for Villa
That's interesting as I didn't think he was that accurate yesterday, shows how little I know!
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Follow this account on Twitter, it's very good and you can request particular info from each match: https://twitter.com/AVFC_Stats
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I love a distance run stat. It CAN show how a lazy player in perception is actually covering a lot of ground in a match without looking like they are doing so. See Darren Bent a few times last season. It is not fool proof, but I like stats as indicative measures. But then I enjoys formulas in excel that make different workbooks do different things, so am likely to enjoy a good stat or two.
Woodward was a bit of a pioneer of this during his early days with England. The stats showed that Will Greenwood seemed to clock a significant longer distance that the other backs. As the technology improved and they could see where/when he was doing this running they discovered that he used to run about during the breaks in play as he knew that the stats would be used for something by the Woodward team.
I think it’s essential that the stats for players are used and analysed. I think having these stats has partially been responsible for the emergence of the 4231 and 433 formations. It is known that players/athletes/humans cannot perform to their best when they’re at the limits of their fitness - decision making and performance suffers - so more specialised positions have developed. Players are asked to do their running in more defined areas.
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Man City released shed loads of stats for free. Having a play with all of the stats and seeing what I could discover is something I would like to do if I didn't have lots of other things to do; if I was a student again or in jail or a man of independent means for example.
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I love a distance run stat. It CAN show how a lazy player in perception is actually covering a lot of ground in a match without looking like they are doing so. See Darren Bent a few times last season. It is not fool proof, but I like stats as indicative measures. But then I enjoys formulas in excel that make different workbooks do different things, so am likely to enjoy a good stat or two.
It proves nothing for me, For example Bannan covered more ground than Holman yesterday, but it's the intensity of Holmans runs that are so beneficial for the team.
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I love a distance run stat. It CAN show how a lazy player in perception is actually covering a lot of ground in a match without looking like they are doing so. See Darren Bent a few times last season. It is not fool proof, but I like stats as indicative measures. But then I enjoys formulas in excel that make different workbooks do different things, so am likely to enjoy a good stat or two.
It proves nothing for me, For example Bannan covered more ground than Holman yesterday, but it's the intensity of Holmans runs that are so beneficial for the team.
How far? Where from?
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I love a distance run stat. It CAN show how a lazy player in perception is actually covering a lot of ground in a match without looking like they are doing so. See Darren Bent a few times last season. It is not fool proof, but I like stats as indicative measures. But then I enjoys formulas in excel that make different workbooks do different things, so am likely to enjoy a good stat or two.
It proves nothing for me, For example Bannan covered more ground than Holman yesterday, but it's the intensity of Holmans runs that are so beneficial for the team.
By coming up with that observation you have in effect used statistics and applied them which is all that anyone is suggesting. Besides didn’t Holman come off after about 70 minutes.
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If you don't usually get the Times/Sunday Times online, it's free this weekend.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/clubs/astonvilla/article3539555.ece
I found some interesting stats on their match centre especially the ones about where the players operated (touches) during the match yesterday. Well, I found them interesting, anyway!
Meant to say, using this, if you put Ron Vlaar and Ciaran Clarke together, they covered the entire pitch betwen them!
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Todays Sun has a page on Mileage etc. They have Barry Bannan as the player in the Premier with the most distance covered yesterday at 6.76 miles.
I disagree that its all about the intensity of the run. Bannan often finds himself in space to receive a pass from a team mate. He hasn't got himself unmarked through magic. He goes and supports the man on the ball. Its intelligent but its also hard work that goes unseen quite often.
Hard work is not just about making tackles.
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The distance stats are misleading for Bannan due to his shorter than average legs.
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Whatever the stats show about individuals, one thing is for sure: under Lambert each player will be expected to work like a slave, so any future transfer targets will not be signing for Aston Villa if all they want is easy money.
I'm quite looking forward to the next few years.
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Whatever the stats show about individuals, one thing is for sure: under Lambert each player will be expected to work like a slave, so any future transfer targets will not be signing for Aston Villa if all they want is easy money.
I'm quite looking forward to the next few years.
This times many
He said he wanted hungry young players and we have them in abundance
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Anton Ferdinand completed the least amount of handshakes (9) than any other player.
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I love a distance run stat. It CAN show how a lazy player in perception is actually covering a lot of ground in a match without looking like they are doing so. See Darren Bent a few times last season. It is not fool proof, but I like stats as indicative measures. But then I enjoys formulas in excel that make different workbooks do different things, so am likely to enjoy a good stat or two.
Depends on how important you view perceived laziness, or I suppose "work rate". For me Bent's game is not about running around a lot to prove he's not lazy, it's about intelligent movement to be in the right place at the right time to stick it in the onion bag, or to link up play, plus to do his share of pressing when necessary. It ought to be fairly obvious from the general play if he is doing those things effectively. Reading the game and using anticipation can also reduce the need to cover huge distances - see Paul McGrath for example. The actual distance covered is irrelevant in my view.
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I love that people still don't see distance covered as an important stat. Barcelona for 3 seasons have had the highest average distance covered in europe, and have been hugely successful in that time. Internationally this applies for spain and again they've been hugely successful during that time.
Applying pressure in the right areas of the pitch is hugely important in modern football, doing this means working hard. Add to this that keeping the ball is all about the players who don't have it not the man on the ball, again having players in space to receive the ball requires them to be working hard.
I've said repeatedly that Bannan, for example, given his size needed to watch xavi and iniesta and apply their style to his game. Whilst not in that class he clearly is doing this as he harries the ball really well and works his socks off finding space to take passes. Once we have a full season of data the key one would be to compare the passing accuracy of KEA, and the defence when Bannan is there or not. I think you'll see a decline when he's not playing and I think he'll prove himself a key part of the side under Lambert for this very reason.
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Anton Ferdinand completed the least amount of handshakes (9) than any other player.
Very good.
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Not a stat so to speak but we are still 3/1 to be relegated....yet 2/1 to finish top ten.
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I love that people still don't see distance covered as an important stat. Barcelona for 3 seasons have had the highest average distance covered in europe, and have been hugely successful in that time. Internationally this applies for spain and again they've been hugely successful during that time.
Applying pressure in the right areas of the pitch is hugely important in modern football, doing this means working hard. Add to this that keeping the ball is all about the players who don't have it not the man on the ball, again having players in space to receive the ball requires them to be working hard.
I love that some people need a pointless stat to perceive what is blatantly obvious from watching Barcelona and Spain - that they work extremely hard to gain and keep possession. How far they each run in doing so is of no interest to me whatsoever.
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I love that people still don't see distance covered as an important stat. Barcelona for 3 seasons have had the highest average distance covered in europe, and have been hugely successful in that time. Internationally this applies for spain and again they've been hugely successful during that time.
Applying pressure in the right areas of the pitch is hugely important in modern football, doing this means working hard. Add to this that keeping the ball is all about the players who don't have it not the man on the ball, again having players in space to receive the ball requires them to be working hard.
I love that some people need a pointless stat to perceive what is blatantly obvious from watching Barcelona and Spain - that they work extremely hard to gain and keep possession. How far they each run in doing so is of no interest to me whatsoever.
It's not a pointless stat, if it was pointless it would have no bearing.
The value of stats of any kind is that they give you an impression of what you're getting if you haven't watched the entire game. Watching a player will always be more useful but none of the stats are pointless.
For example if we were linked with a striker from Romania who had a record of 30goals and 10assists in 40games you'd have the impression that he was a decent player to look at, based purely on those stats. People would then find youtube videos to see what kind of goals he scored, etc to make a more informed decision.
To me distance covered is a useful stat to see for midfielders and full backs where finding space for the pass and getting back to cover a gap are very important elements.
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I'm well aware that some stats have value, I've not argued otherwise. But how can you tell, from distance covered alone, whether a player was getting back to cover, or finding space? That stat doesn't give you any of that information.
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Who is this Romanian Messi of whom you speak?
Is it January?
Can I get a tenner on?
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I'm well aware that some stats have value, I've not argued otherwise. But how can you tell, from distance covered alone, whether a player was getting back to cover, or finding space? That stat doesn't give you any of that information.
As with all stats the numbers only give you an impression, the odds are someone who's covered 7miles in midfield will have been more productive in harrying the opposition and being available for passes than someone who's covered 5miles, if they also have more interceptions, more touches and more attempted passes then it backs it up further. No stat is all that useful on it's own but as part of a selection of stats it can be part of a big picture.
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I'm well aware that some stats have value, I've not argued otherwise. But how can you tell, from distance covered alone, whether a player was getting back to cover, or finding space? That stat doesn't give you any of that information.
As with all stats the numbers only give you an impression, the odds are someone who's covered 7miles in midfield will have been more productive in harrying the opposition and being available for passes than someone who's covered 5miles, if they also have more interceptions, more touches and more attempted passes then it backs it up further. No stat is all that useful on it's own but as part of a selection of stats it can be part of a big picture.
I think you’re both right here. The stats or numbers on their own mean nothing. It is only after analysis and comparison that any sort of information can be derived.
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This is an example of stats not providing much/any information (cut and paste from another thread):
Matthew Lowton has started his Aston Villa career strongly and highlighted just how strongly with a goal of the season contender against Swansea City on Saturday.
Villa fans will always welcome a goal from defence but the main concern will be that Lowton is doing his job at the back.
Here's a quick look at his stats so far...
Matthew Lowton has made 4 starts and played 360 minutes of football. He has made 10 interceptions and won 50% of his aerial duels.
He has made 11 clearances and won 79% of his tackles so far.
He has also contributed 147 passes of which only 6 were long balls. He has shown his willingness to get into attacking positions with 9 crosses and 3 clear chances created.
From those 147 passes he has a passing accuracy of 82%.
He has had two shots, both on target and one resulting in a devastating goal from outside the area.
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I'm well aware that some stats have value, I've not argued otherwise. But how can you tell, from distance covered alone, whether a player was getting back to cover, or finding space? That stat doesn't give you any of that information.
As with all stats the numbers only give you an impression, the odds are someone who's covered 7miles in midfield will have been more productive in harrying the opposition and being available for passes than someone who's covered 5miles, if they also have more interceptions, more touches and more attempted passes then it backs it up further. No stat is all that useful on it's own but as part of a selection of stats it can be part of a big picture.
"The odds are"? Hardly a convincing argument. There is no reliable correlation between distance covered and what you are claiming can be deduced from it. A player could be a headless chicken running around in circles all day. The stats on interceptions, touches, and attempted passes will tell you something about his contribution and involvement re the overall play - but why does it matter if he made his contribution whilst covering 3 km or 10 km? I'm still unconvinced that distance covered adds any further useful information.
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I'm well aware that some stats have value, I've not argued otherwise. But how can you tell, from distance covered alone, whether a player was getting back to cover, or finding space? That stat doesn't give you any of that information.
As with all stats the numbers only give you an impression, the odds are someone who's covered 7miles in midfield will have been more productive in harrying the opposition and being available for passes than someone who's covered 5miles, if they also have more interceptions, more touches and more attempted passes then it backs it up further. No stat is all that useful on it's own but as part of a selection of stats it can be part of a big picture.
"The odds are"? Hardly a convincing argument. There is no reliable correlation between distance covered and what you are claiming can be deduced from it. A player could be a headless chicken running around in circles all day. The stats on interceptions, touches, and attempted passes will tell you something about his contribution and involvement re the overall play - but why does it matter if he made his contribution whilst covering 3 km or 10 km? I'm still unconvinced that distance covered adds any further useful information.
That's the point though, against a decent team you need to cover more ground to make those interceptions, touches, passes, etc. At lower levels you'll see similar results for those stats but the distance covered will be lower, as the quality goes up so does the required work rate to make an impact. The days of great players being lazy and then lighting up with the ball are long gone, all of the top players (except central defenders and goalkeepers who need to be much more disciplined positionally) in world football currently (except for maybe Ibrahimovic, which is why there is debate about him being included) are hard workers. If you're static you'll struggle to have an impact on the game, I can't believe anyone can watch football and not see how important fitness and work rate are, distance covered is the most reliable stat to measure this. Distance covered measures your physical capability to play and the other stats mentioned then measure your techincal ability to use that capability to effect the game, they are irrefutably linked and both are required to make it at the top level.
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I'm well aware that some stats have value, I've not argued otherwise. But how can you tell, from distance covered alone, whether a player was getting back to cover, or finding space? That stat doesn't give you any of that information.
As with all stats the numbers only give you an impression, the odds are someone who's covered 7miles in midfield will have been more productive in harrying the opposition and being available for passes than someone who's covered 5miles, if they also have more interceptions, more touches and more attempted passes then it backs it up further. No stat is all that useful on it's own but as part of a selection of stats it can be part of a big picture.
"The odds are"? Hardly a convincing argument. There is no reliable correlation between distance covered and what you are claiming can be deduced from it. A player could be a headless chicken running around in circles all day. The stats on interceptions, touches, and attempted passes will tell you something about his contribution and involvement re the overall play - but why does it matter if he made his contribution whilst covering 3 km or 10 km? I'm still unconvinced that distance covered adds any further useful information.
That's the point though, against a decent team you need to cover more ground to make those interceptions, touches, passes, etc. At lower levels you'll see similar results for those stats but the distance covered will be lower, as the quality goes up so does the required work rate to make an impact. The days of great players being lazy and then lighting up with the ball are long gone, all of the top players (except central defenders and goalkeepers who need to be much more disciplined positionally) in world football currently (except for maybe Ibrahimovic, which is why there is debate about him being included) are hard workers. If you're static you'll struggle to have an impact on the game, I can't believe anyone can watch football and not see how important fitness and work rate are, distance covered is the most reliable stat to measure this. Distance covered measures your physical capability to play and the other stats mentioned then measure your techincal ability to use that capability to effect the game, they are irrefutably linked and both are required to make it at the top level.
That’s a very persuasive answer Paul e. Have you completed coaching badges or read shit loads on the subject?
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I'm a qualified rugby coach and the same argument holds true in both sports.
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This is an example of stats not providing much/any information (cut and paste from another thread):
Matthew Lowton has started his Aston Villa career strongly and highlighted just how strongly with a goal of the season contender against Swansea City on Saturday.
Villa fans will always welcome a goal from defence but the main concern will be that Lowton is doing his job at the back.
Here's a quick look at his stats so far...
Matthew Lowton has made 4 starts and played 360 minutes of football. He has made 10 interceptions and won 50% of his aerial duels.
He has made 11 clearances and won 79% of his tackles so far.
He has also contributed 147 passes of which only 6 were long balls. He has shown his willingness to get into attacking positions with 9 crosses and 3 clear chances created.
From those 147 passes he has a passing accuracy of 82%.
He has had two shots, both on target and one resulting in a devastating goal from outside the area.
What about his VORP and WAR ratings ?
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I really can't be arsed with all these stats, reducing the beauty of football into a load of scientific data about how far a player runs and percentages of crosses made etc....nah, not for me. I watch the game and make my own mind up if a player did well or not, I won't change my mond because OPTA say he only made four successful dribbles.
In a seperate thread we're talking about Dalian Atkinson, I'm sure that if OPTA stats had been around back then his would have uniformly awful, but he still provided some of the finest moments in my football watching career.
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Statistics are just like mini-skirts, they give you good ideas but hide the most important thing.
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Statistics are just like mini-skirts, they give you good ideas but hide the most important thing.
Absolutely no amount of statistics will ever replace watching someone play and making a decision but they can serve as a guide as to whether a player is worth looking at (or back up an existing opinion) or suggestions of things that could be changed to improve performance.
Stats most certainly aren't the most important thing but, as can very successfully be evidenced in the team sky cycling team, gathering stats and interpreting them correctly to adapt coaching can see a massive increase in performance. This increase is clearer in a more closed skill environment (such as cycling and sprinting) but at the highest levels of any sport that improved strength/pace/fitness can make the difference. For fans it's a stat to talk about at the pub, for clubs it should be an important element of the coaching team.
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I'm well aware that some stats have value, I've not argued otherwise. But how can you tell, from distance covered alone, whether a player was getting back to cover, or finding space? That stat doesn't give you any of that information.
As with all stats the numbers only give you an impression, the odds are someone who's covered 7miles in midfield will have been more productive in harrying the opposition and being available for passes than someone who's covered 5miles, if they also have more interceptions, more touches and more attempted passes then it backs it up further. No stat is all that useful on it's own but as part of a selection of stats it can be part of a big picture.
"The odds are"? Hardly a convincing argument. There is no reliable correlation between distance covered and what you are claiming can be deduced from it. A player could be a headless chicken running around in circles all day. The stats on interceptions, touches, and attempted passes will tell you something about his contribution and involvement re the overall play - but why does it matter if he made his contribution whilst covering 3 km or 10 km? I'm still unconvinced that distance covered adds any further useful information.
That's the point though, against a decent team you need to cover more ground to make those interceptions, touches, passes, etc. At lower levels you'll see similar results for those stats but the distance covered will be lower, as the quality goes up so does the required work rate to make an impact. The days of great players being lazy and then lighting up with the ball are long gone, all of the top players (except central defenders and goalkeepers who need to be much more disciplined positionally) in world football currently (except for maybe Ibrahimovic, which is why there is debate about him being included) are hard workers. If you're static you'll struggle to have an impact on the game, I can't believe anyone can watch football and not see how important fitness and work rate are, distance covered is the most reliable stat to measure this. Distance covered measures your physical capability to play and the other stats mentioned then measure your techincal ability to use that capability to effect the game, they are irrefutably linked and both are required to make it at the top level.
Why do you think I don't consider work rate and fitness are important? I don't need to know actual distance covered to get that. I know that Milner used to work his bollocks off for Villa. How far did he used to run to do it? I've absolutely no idea and have absolutely no need or intention of finding out. Because, to me at least, it's irrelevant.
If you have links to all the stats and analysis that can prove all the correlations you assert between distance covered and effectiveness of teams and players then fair enough. If not I'll stick to my opinion that it's a meaningless stat.
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In the instance of Milner you have the benefit of having watched him play on numerous occasions. Whereas stats will allow you to compare players that maybe you haven’t had the benefit of watching/scouting.
For example who is the hardest working player between Milner, Holman, Arteta and Scholes?
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That sort of stat isn't very nuanced, but expanded upon has uses. For instance, towards the end of his career Bergkamp used to complain to Wenger about being subbed off for the last 20 minutes. Wenger, however, had the stats up his sleeve to say "look Dennis, you started running less and less. And your speed decreased." The evidence of ones own eyes are not enough, but neither are statistics: together they inform a good decision.
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Dante I'm not disputing that stats are relevant, I've already agreed that some some clearly are. The ones that give you some hint as to the player's skill level and effect on games (pass completion rate, tackles won, assists, goals scored, chance conversion rate etc.). I can see the point of all of them. I just don't see what this particular stat, distance covered, adds. Even i f you restate it as "hard work", there is no qualitative element to it.
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Dante I'm not disputing that stats are relevant, I've already agreed that some some clearly are. The ones that give you some hint as to the player's skill level and effect on games (pass completion rate, tackles won, assists, goals scored, chance conversion rate etc.). I can see the point of all of them. I just don't see what this particular stat, distance covered, adds. Even i f you restate it as "hard work", there is no qualitative element to it.
Fair enough. My annoyance is largely aimed at the old school mentality that exists in football where science and technology are ignored by loads of coaches. Football seems to live in the dark ages compared to most other sports which is crazy considering that there is more money sloshing about in football than rugby or cycling for example.
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That sort of stat isn't very nuanced, but expanded upon has uses. For instance, towards the end of his career Bergkamp used to complain to Wenger about being subbed off for the last 20 minutes. Wenger, however, had the stats up his sleeve to say "look Dennis, you started running less and less. And your speed decreased." The evidence of ones own eyes are not enough, but neither are statistics: together they inform a good decision.
Reasonable point backed with an example, but to me that is a slightly different case. There is a frame of reference, a comparative element over two time frames, the first 70 minutes compared to the last 20 minutes. In that example you can reasonably deduce from his slowing up and running less that Bergkamp was tiring. Tiredness generally has an effect on a player's effectiveness. Thus it tells you something useful.