Aston Villa vs Tottenham Post-Match Thread

[paul_e]

Both Chris and Monty are making the mistake of singling out examples, stats don't work that way.  Yes 100 shots on target might include a few that had 0% chance of being a goal but it will also include a few like Weimann's yesterday which are 100% goals as soon as they leave the foot.  These, and the whole range of shots in between, average out over time.

As I said before, over a decent dataset the conversion rate of shot on target to goals is always somewhere near 1 in 3 (it's 33.14% for the premier league this season).  After 10 games you can start to see some pattern to the statistics ( I don't care if you like stats or not, they're still true and still valid) and that is that we've been slightly below average in our shot conversion which has got us 5 goals from 18 as opposed to the expected 6.  Over such a small dataset 1 out is perfectly reasonable deviation.

Any shots and that expected percentage drops with the average conversion rate sitting at around 1 in 9 (I think i put 15% earlier which was too high) again this season in the premier league the average is 10.7% which is about what you'd expect.  This one throws us up as an anomoly with 5.6% (5 goals in 89 attempts).  So not only are we we getting less shots away than any other side we're also not hitting the target anything like often enough of them ...

So on to shots to shots on target, again statistically this is normally around 1 in 3 and again the premier league average for the season of 31.95% backs this up.  We are currently sitting at 21.35%.

As I've said before if you're going to play a defensive style you need high accuracy/conversion when you do get chances, we've actually gone the other way which is why we can't win games.  If I could be bothered I'd split the stats between the first 4 games and the subsequent 6 where I'm pretty sure you'd find that we were above average on the conversion ratings early in the season (which is why the style was working) but we've dropped off alarmingly since.

[Ads]

I think Chris is right (mainly because he said what I said earlier), Benteke with more games under his belt probably socres at least two of his chances. The first one in particular, where he headed way wide when unmarked being the most guilty miss.

We were the better side yesterday and but for events, would have won the game with ease.

[Clampy]

I actually think sanchez is one of our best players by far but he likes to give the opposition the chance to score goals . lets out he stops doing it.

He was abysmal yesterday.  Error after error after error.  Rarely have I seen anyone so inept.

You can't have been watching football very long if you haven't seen anyone worse than Sanchez. Why do people make thoughtless posts like this?

2 of the statements are factually correct, the other is my opinion based on 45 years of watching football.

What qualifies you to judge my post as thoughtless?

So in 45 years of watching football, Carlos Sanchez is one of the worst players you ever seen?

As I said in my post, his performance yesterday was abysmal and I rarely see anyone so inept.

You appear to be inferring more from my post - that's your issue not mine.

I'm not inferring anything. You said that you have rarely seen anyone so inept and came out with the 'i've been watching football for 45 years' line. My question was a valid one I thought.

[Monty]

I think the mistake you're making Paul, if I may say, is confusing symptom and cause. To paraphrase an old Jonathan Wilson question, are teams scoring goals because they're having shots, or having shots because they're getting goals?

The reasons that the shots-on-target-to-goals ratio is so high are twofold: firstly, one statistic includes the other - other than own goals, all goals are shots on target; second of all, most goals are scored from inside the penalty area, and close-range at that, and the closer you are to goal then obviously the more likely you are to get your shot on target. The crucial statistic to have is shots from inside the penalty area, though even that's a little arbitrary. All defensive-counterattacking teams have fewer shots-on-target than their opponents, or at least most do, but if you counterattack you have more space to make sure you get the ball into the area with accuracy and time to spare.

Shots-on-target, I have to say, is a bit of a FIFAish statistic (that's to say the video game), which indicates both too much and too little. On its own, it tells you no more about how goals are scored than does the 'goals scored' statistic.

[Chris Smith]

Both Chris and Monty are making the mistake of singling out examples, stats don't work that way.  Yes 100 shots on target might include a few that had 0% chance of being a goal but it will also include a few like Weimann's yesterday which are 100% goals as soon as they leave the foot.  These, and the whole range of shots in between, average out over time.

As I said before, over a decent dataset the conversion rate of shot on target to goals is always somewhere near 1 in 3 (it's 33.14% for the premier league this season).  After 10 games you can start to see some pattern to the statistics ( I don't care if you like stats or not, they're still true and still valid) and that is that we've been slightly below average in our shot conversion which has got us 5 goals from 18 as opposed to the expected 6.  Over such a small dataset 1 out is perfectly reasonable deviation.

Any shots and that expected percentage drops with the average conversion rate sitting at around 1 in 9 (I think i put 15% earlier which was too high) again this season in the premier league the average is 10.7% which is about what you'd expect.  This one throws us up as an anomoly with 5.6% (5 goals in 89 attempts).  So not only are we we getting less shots away than any other side we're also not hitting the target anything like often enough of them ...

So on to shots to shots on target, again statistically this is normally around 1 in 3 and again the premier league average for the season of 31.95% backs this up.  We are currently sitting at 21.35%.

As I've said before if you're going to play a defensive style you need high accuracy/conversion when you do get chances, we've actually gone the other way which is why we can't win games.  If I could be bothered I'd split the stats between the first 4 games and the subsequent 6 where I'm pretty sure you'd find that we were above average on the conversion ratings early in the season (which is why the style was working) but we've dropped off alarmingly since.

But we are making comments about yesterday, not the season as a whole, as it is the post match thread.

[JUAN PABLO]

I actually think sanchez is one of our best players by far but he likes to give the opposition the chance to score goals . lets out he stops doing it.

He was abysmal yesterday.  Error after error after error.  Rarely have I seen anyone so inept.

You can't have been watching football very long if you haven't seen anyone worse than Sanchez. Why do people make thoughtless posts like this?

hes better than David Hunt

fook me - he was bad but I only paid a fiver for my tickets in them days so at least we had a laugh at how bad he was

[Karl Bridges]

Sylla was 50/100 times worse than Sanchez. Who I think will become a very decent player for us in time.

[oldhill_avfc]

I actually think sanchez is one of our best players by far but he likes to give the opposition the chance to score goals . lets out he stops doing it.

He was abysmal yesterday.  Error after error after error.  Rarely have I seen anyone so inept.

You can't have been watching football very long if you haven't seen anyone worse than Sanchez. Why do people make thoughtless posts like this?

2 of the statements are factually correct, the other is my opinion based on 45 years of watching football.

What qualifies you to judge my post as thoughtless?

So in 45 years of watching football, Carlos Sanchez is one of the worst players you ever seen?

As I said in my post, his performance yesterday was abysmal and I rarely see anyone so inept.

You appear to be inferring more from my post - that's your issue not mine.

I'm not inferring anything. You said that you have rarely seen anyone so inept and came out with the 'i've been watching football for 45 years' line. My question was a valid one I thought.

His performance was one of the most inept I've seen in 45 years.  However, I don't judge players overall abilities based on 1 or 2 performances.  I make considered judgements and therefore made no assertions as to whether this was 'a bad day at the office' or if he is inherently a bad player.

You inferred the latter and in doing so critiqued my far from isolated opinion as thoughtless, but as I said before, those are your issues not mine.

[paul_e]

Statistics don't always tell the whole story but combined with watching it with your own eyes gives a fair indication as to how we are playing, and have been for ages.

The evidence of my eyes from my seat in the Holte End yesterday was that we were the better team and should have won. Which we probably would have, despite the missed chances, if Benteke had kept his composure.

Overall this season we have probably got what we deserved but yesterday was different.

Not going to quote everything but we had 12 shots, 1 on target (8.33% below average) and scored 1 (8.33% of shots so below average but an above average 100%) of shots on target.

They had 18 shots, 7 on target (above average 38.88%)and scored 2 (11.11% of shots, which is about average and a slightly below average 28.57%)

If you replayed that game over and over and always had those same shooting statistics they'd win more often than not.

I get what you're saying about us being the better team when you're watching, I agree we were, but we not converting that performance into chances or goals, which is where Lambert needs to be held to task.

[Clampy]

I actually think sanchez is one of our best players by far but he likes to give the opposition the chance to score goals . lets out he stops doing it.

He was abysmal yesterday.  Error after error after error.  Rarely have I seen anyone so inept.

You can't have been watching football very long if you haven't seen anyone worse than Sanchez. Why do people make thoughtless posts like this?

2 of the statements are factually correct, the other is my opinion based on 45 years of watching football.

What qualifies you to judge my post as thoughtless?

So in 45 years of watching football, Carlos Sanchez is one of the worst players you ever seen?

As I said in my post, his performance yesterday was abysmal and I rarely see anyone so inept.

You appear to be inferring more from my post - that's your issue not mine.

I'm not inferring anything. You said that you have rarely seen anyone so inept and came out with the 'i've been watching football for 45 years' line. My question was a valid one I thought.

His performance was one of the most inept I've seen in 45 years.  However, I don't judge players overall abilities based on 1 or 2 performances.  I make considered judgements and therefore made no assertions as to whether this was 'a bad day at the office' or if he is inherently a bad player.

You inferred the latter and in doing so critiqued my far from isolated opinion as thoughtless, but as I said before, those are your issues not mine.

Fair enough, but maybe you could have worded your post a little better than 'I rarely see anyone so inept' which did sound like you were saying he's one of the worst players you've ever seen. Personally, I didn't think he was as bad as some people have said he was and I think if we give him time, he'll cut out the silly fouls and be a valuable player for us.

[kipeye]

Sylla was 50/100 times worse than Sanchez. Who I think will become a very decent player for us in time.

Agreed on both counts.

[paul_e]

I think the mistake you're making Paul, if I may say, is confusing symptom and cause. To paraphrase an old Jonathan Wilson question, are teams scoring goals because they're having shots, or having shots because they're getting goals?

The reasons that the shots-on-target-to-goals ratio is so high are twofold: firstly, one statistic includes the other - other than own goals, all goals are shots on target; second of all, most goals are scored from inside the penalty area, and close-range at that, and the closer you are to goal then obviously the more likely you are to get your shot on target. The crucial statistic to have is shots from inside the penalty area, though even that's a little arbitrary. All defensive-counterattacking teams have fewer shots-on-target than their opponents, or at least most do, but if you counterattack you have more space to make sure you get the ball into the area with accuracy and time to spare.

Shots-on-target, I have to say, is a bit of a FIFAish statistic (that's to say the video game), which indicates both too much and too little. On its own, it tells you no more about how goals are scored than does the 'goals scored' statistic.

In a single game all stats can be misleading that's unavoidable, statistical analysis is all about the quality of the dataset and 1 game doesn't provide anything like enough to be useful.  However over the more games the value of the stats improves and generally everything starts to fall in line with expectations, I'm sure if you took all Lambert's games and applied the same modelling and then took a sample of 98 consecutive games from anyone else you'd be able to predict roughly how their team performed over that time almost entirely on shots on target for and against.

Moving on the whole point of my adding stats is more to highlight my problem around the bit in bold.  You're correct in what you say, if you look at sides that are very much counter-attacking teams you generally find a pattern where the percentage of shots on target is above average and the percentages of shots that end in goals is similarly higher than expected.  We're the opposite, we're not hitting the target enough and subsequently not scoring enough.  When you add in a leaky defence it's clear that we're not capable of playing this way.

[aev]

Statistics don't always tell the whole story but combined with watching it with your own eyes gives a fair indication as to how we are playing, and have been for ages.

The evidence of my eyes from my seat in the Holte End yesterday was that we were the better team and should have won. Which we probably would have, despite the missed chances, if Benteke had kept his composure.

Overall this season we have probably got what we deserved but yesterday was different.

Not going to quote everything but we had 12 shots, 1 on target (8.33% below average) and scored 1 (8.33% of shots so below average but an above average 100%) of shots on target.

They had 18 shots, 7 on target (above average 38.88%)and scored 2 (11.11% of shots, which is about average and a slightly below average 28.57%)

If you replayed that game over and over and always had those same shooting statistics they'd win more often than not.

I get what you're saying about us being the better team when you're watching, I agree we were, but we not converting that performance into chances or goals, which is where Lambert needs to be held to task.

And we may have been the better team yesterday, at least until the sending off but there are few times that you could that this season. Or last. Or even the ones before that.

Realise this is the post match thread, but we have been on a downward curve for ages now. If you keep hanging around the bottom 6 as we seem to be doing, sooner or later you will end up getting sucked in.

[oldtimernow]

I think Sanchez has made more headers in the middle of the park than almost all the others put together over the last couple of seasons

[nigel]

The general consensus at work with all my Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea supporting colleagues is that they thought we deserved to win and Benteke was unlucky not to be told to calm down.
That anyway is the opinions of people who don't care how we got on and watched the match as a neutral.

That's what my Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool and City-supporting friends thought as well. Sometimes the outsider view is helpful.

same with my colleagues today too, usual mix of teams, plus Southampton and Fulham too, all thought exactly as above.

Which is what the ref told their players after a raised arm in the face and two two footed lunges, of which two were certainly red card offences.