Paul Lambert confirmed as new manager (reply #544)

[damon loves JT]

it's just about "finding the right metrics."

isn't everything?

Baseball is a game of statistics though, while the most critical skill in football - I'd say - is the ability to take the correct position on the pitch. That's impossible to quantify objectively.

But not impossible to study objectively, and then quantify as, for example, number of times during a game, relative to possession, that a midfielder runs ahead of the ball, and then use other statistics to judge his effectiveness in doing so. Statistics are always useless and misleading in isolation - they need to bee tested against theories and other statistics to work. However, I'd say that something like finding the right positions can be turned into a statistic, and then quantified.

*nods and backs away slowly*

[Monty]

Haha, sorry Damon, recently re-read this book by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski all about this sort of thing, so it's a bit of a hobby horse at the mo. Really good book actually, I'd recommend it.

[Monty]

I'm changing your username to Statto.

But that's got nothing to do with Paul Lambert. I don't understand.

[damon loves JT]

I agree that if you spend your time in intelligent study of anything, it's always worthwhile. You just need to get the right people doing it.

Baseball is, in football terms, a series of corner kicks. there are only so many things that can happen.

[Legion]

How about PsychoStattoLambo?

[Legion]

I agree that if you spend your time in intelligent study of anything, it's always worthwhile. You just need to get the right people doing it.

Baseball is, in football terms, a series of corner kicks. there are only so many things that can happen.

Baseball is rounders with extra padding.

[Monty]

I agree that if you spend your time in intelligent study of anything, it's always worthwhile. You just need to get the right people doing it.

Baseball is, in football terms, a series of corner kicks. there are only so many things that can happen.

I agree, so the stats are more readily available. Which is probably why moneyball took off in that sport rather than football as it's so stop-start, even by American sport standards.

How about PsychoStattoLambo?

Trouble is, people who've missed this would assume Villadawg was back.

[ozzjim]

it's just about "finding the right metrics."

isn't everything?

Baseball is a game of statistics though, while the most critical skill in football - I'd say - is the ability to take the correct position on the pitch. That's impossible to quantify objectively.

But not impossible to study objectively, and then quantify as, for example, number of times during a game, relative to possession, that a midfielder runs ahead of the ball, and then use other statistics to judge his effectiveness in doing so. Statistics are always useless and misleading in isolation - they need to bee tested against theories and other statistics to work. However, I'd say that something like finding the right positions can be turned into a statistic, and then quantified.

I am with you Monty. BUT..... it falls down at the same point as it did with Oakland. You can only get so far on playing the stats. You can certainly build a functional side, but there is in football the brilliant unknown, which is, quite simply impossible to quantify. How do you assess Messi via statistics, when he takes on three and then plays a bloke in with a back heel that no one reads. Or when out of nothing Henry flicks the ball in the air, swivels and volleys home, or Rooney with a ball 3 yards behind him from a poor cross overhead kicks from above head height clean into the top corner. Or a corner is chipped back and Scholes hits it from 40 yards out smash off the bar, into the net. They are the moments that settle the big games. Percentage football and statistics are great, and will take you so far, but they then need to be sprinkled with something that cannot be analysed in a conventional sense. Talent. Brilliance. The moments for which we watch football.

[Legion]

I agree that if you spend your time in intelligent study of anything, it's always worthwhile. You just need to get the right people doing it.

Baseball is, in football terms, a series of corner kicks. there are only so many things that can happen.

I agree, so the stats are more readily available. Which is probably why moneyball took off in that sport rather than football as it's so stop-start, even by American sport standards.

How about PsychoStattoLambo?

Trouble is, people who've missed this would assume Villadawg was back.

Very good.

[damon loves JT]

I just remember watching Mourinho at a Champions' league game and all he was interested in was where his players were on the pitch. he would bollock them if they were a couple of feet out of position.

[damon loves JT]

How do you assess Messi via statistics, when he takes on three and then plays a bloke in with a back heel that no one reads. Or when out of nothing Henry flicks the ball in the air, swivels and volleys home, or Rooney with a ball 3 yards behind him from a poor cross overhead kicks from above head height clean into the top corner. Or a corner is chipped back and Scholes hits it from 40 yards out smash off the bar, into the net.

Or that Nose who makes an arrowing run into his own box and beats his own keeper at the far post with a back pass. Magical stuff like that.

[Monty]

With you on that Ozz, but don't forget the stats almost always bear out the under-appreciated fact that the football we call entertaining - passing, moving off the ball etc - is the most effective. To build an effective team with the right stats should produce an attacking and entertaining team. As for the geniuses we all love to watch, I'm sure they'd stand up to statistical scrutiny, but they don't need to. As kids, Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Ronaldinho, Zidane, they all obviously had something about them which doesn't require analysis to prove how good they are. However, for the rest of the mortal footballers out there, stats can help us find the undervalued ones and help make them better and more entertaining.

There is also luck - you can dominate a game but then your defender tries to clear it, it ricochets off a forward 40 yards out at the moment your keeper sneezes and flies in. But, by and large, doing certain things will produce more good results. Stats aren't everything, but that doesn't make them nothing.

[Legion]

100% hilarity.

[ozzjim]

With you on that Ozz, but don't forget the stats almost always bear out the under-appreciated fact that the football we call entertaining - passing, moving off the ball etc - is the most effective. To build an effective team with the right stats should produce an attacking and entertaining team. As for the geniuses we all love to watch, I'm sure they'd stand up to statistical scrutiny, but they don't need to. As kids, Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Ronaldinho, Zidane, they all obviously had something about them which doesn't require analysis to prove how good they are. However, for the rest of the mortal footballers out there, stats can help us find the undervalued ones and help make them better and more entertaining.

There is also luck - you can dominate a game but then your defender tries to clear it, it ricochets off a forward 40 yards out at the moment your keeper sneezes and flies in. But, by and large, doing certain things will produce more good results. Stats aren't everything, but that doesn't make them nothing.

Point is you need both to win.

[teamvillage]

I am with you Monty. BUT..... it falls down at the same point as it did with Oakland. You can only get so far on playing the stats. You can certainly build a functional side, but there is in football the brilliant unknown, which is, quite simply impossible to quantify. 

I think that's incorrect as regards Oakland. The point there was that the glass (money) ceiling remained. Oakland could not, on their budget buy the best statistical players. What they did so well is get people statistically better than their market value suggested - a 20th percentile player with a 70th percentile budget. It wasn't the unknown magic that limited them - it was cold hard cash.