Interesting articles. I wonder if there's some of this statistical stuff in RD's approach, given that he doesn't seem to be oriented towards the human side of things. I think our set pieces fall into two camps this year. Free kicks have improved mainly because we have JBG (and Bulot) who can both take a mean one - winning a free kick just outside the box means a chance of a goal with them taking it. Corners are rubbish - I can only remember one goal from a corner (Bikey against Wigan ?) and I believe JBG said at the Eltham meeting it was because we don't have anyone who can reliably head the ball. I'd be very surprised if there isn't some number crunching going on in the player recruitment stakes - I think its probably harder for a player to adjust to the English game though in a way that switching to Denmark might be.
Number crunching, statistical analysis and lap top recruitment told us polish Pete was a better option than Yann and the Le Point was worth a 2.5 year deal aged 30.
Stats have there place and value but relying on them to the exclusion of other human factors shows a lack of trust in your own judgement and the judgement of those you employ. Such people want an exact mathematical answer to a non mathematical question.
It ignores the intangible human elements of team sports such as morale, acclimatisation, motivation, team spirit and people management.
So yes it brings benefits and avoids some pre-conceptions and bias in decision making but it can not work on its own.
Let us see what happens next Season to Brentford. Football is being over complicated by people. Too much reliance on data stops players reacting to situations on the field, just look at the England cricket team. You need the best people like fitness coaches, nutritionists, etc the best Coach who is able to motivate and set out the tactics and be flexible when things need changing. Finally you need the best players with good character all playing in their best positions giving 100 per cent effort.
Interesting articles. I wonder if there's some of this statistical stuff in RD's approach, given that he doesn't seem to be oriented towards the human side of things. I think our set pieces fall into two camps this year. Free kicks have improved mainly because we have JBG (and Bulot) who can both take a mean one - winning a free kick just outside the box means a chance of a goal with them taking it. Corners are rubbish - I can only remember one goal from a corner (Bikey against Wigan ?) and I believe JBG said at the Eltham meeting it was because we don't have anyone who can reliably head the ball. I'd be very surprised if there isn't some number crunching going on in the player recruitment stakes - I think its probably harder for a player to adjust to the English game though in a way that switching to Denmark might be.
Interesting articles. I wonder if there's some of this statistical stuff in RD's approach, given that he doesn't seem to be oriented towards the human side of things. I think our set pieces fall into two camps this year. Free kicks have improved mainly because we have JBG (and Bulot) who can both take a mean one - winning a free kick just outside the box means a chance of a goal with them taking it. Corners are rubbish - I can only remember one goal from a corner (Bikey against Wigan ?) and I believe JBG said at the Eltham meeting it was because we don't have anyone who can reliably head the ball. I'd be very surprised if there isn't some number crunching going on in the player recruitment stakes - I think its probably harder for a player to adjust to the English game though in a way that switching to Denmark might be.
It is apparent that M.Duchatelet is using something similar at Liege and Charlton. The article clearly states that there is a human element but raises a very interesting question about a scout watching a player live a handful of times vs watching many videos and a few seasons of stats.
Now we don't fully know who is studying our team and our targets nor what methodology they are utilising but it is very clear to me that our club has improved significantly while maintaining the very same budgetted losses as 12 months ago.
That is spectacular and suggests (not guarantees) that the board, coaches and scouts can take the next step up.
Once again someone chooses to criticise the use of data based on two perceived failures. How many senior players were signed last summer and how many made a contribution to a mid-table finish as opposed to those who didn't?
Our club has shelled out perhaps £6-7m to build a brand new squad which has delivered. The only money spent has been on strikers and everybody knows they are the most expensive part of the team. And also the most difficult to judge - Kermorgant, Delort, Tucudean, Watt all might have played for us in the season just finished but only two did.
At Charlton it appears to be about data and resale value too and it's apparent that we now have a number of players who might fetch a lot of money.
Nobody wants us to sell our best but I don't think anyone wants our club to go anywhere near approaching £100m of debt. That sounds a big number to me and would take just 10 years at current losses.
For me the use if data and statistical analysis is extremely valid to both improve the team and add value to the club. I mentioned transfermarkt a number of times last summer and pointed out that the Charlton squad went from a value of £10m and bottom six to £15m. If you look today we are rated at £21m and mid-table.
A squad worth £10m will put you at risk of relegation and it's no surprise to me that Blackpool and Millwall went down. And also no surprise the one relegation slot went to a higher value team such as Wigan.
At the top end it's interesting that not one but three lower value clubs are up there - this proves you cannot rely 100% on data. But I do not recall anyone ever saying that!
I spent some time recently revisiting the data for a couple of reasons: I was interested to see if last season's correlation held and I wanted to estimate the gap between us and a top squad.
Because of Wigan's failure and also the relative failure of other high value squads like Cardiff, Fulham, Blackburn and Forest the correlation is much lower this time at 55% as opposed to 75%.
To compete at the top it can be done with a squad rated at £20m but many top clubs are rated at £30m which is £10m more than us. We can bridge that gap through player acquisition AND our younger players improving and increasing in value. It's that simple and that's exactly how Derby and others have done it.
At the end of the day anybody can pick holes in the value of individual players but there's a clear link between squad values and league position. If people wish, I can explain some of their valuation methodology but right now I think it sufficient to state that somebody has taken the time and trouble to capture data and used typical German thoroughness to deliver a pan European database and apply a set of rules and algorithms for the whole of Europe.
And this last point means one can look up any player linked with Charlton who we may not have heard of. And that is why I believe that if we keep our best and acquire four/five players rated at €2m then we have chances.
Now I don't have the football vocabulary to describe what a €2m player looks like nor exactly how our performance and results would improve. But I can state unequivocally that Vetokele, Watt, Buyens, Bulot and Gudmundson are all rated around €2m. And incidentally Cousins has been moved up to €1m in the last year. Unlike Millwall, Rotherham and Blackpool we simply don't have many players left rated less than £500k And those we do have didn't play very much.
So data and analysis has a place in the modern game just as it has a place in catastrophe loss modelling. That doesn't mean that people can predict exactly where the next hurricane or earthquake will strike. But they can be extremely precise about what to charge for insurance and what the probable losses will be every year.
Football has the small matter of coaching ability, club stability and lady luck so data only take one so far but to ignore it or attack it is to misunderstand the contribution it can make.
I can understand the use of stats and analysis, especially in the transfer market, but you do need the human input as well.
The England cricket team, for example, has been lampooned for over reliance on spreadsheets when working out tactics, and in 2013 it was noticeable when Australia brought in Lehmann as their coach and quickly improved as he was much more of an approachable and positive 'bloke' than their previous coach
Matter of interest, what "tactics" did the England cricket team work out for the ODIs and in particular the World Cup? Seems to me someone thought that blocking out the first 20 overs was the way to go but for the life of me I can't see how spreadsheets and such could have made that sound like a good idea!
Be interesting to see if they can keep hold of the likes of Alex Pritchard (Who was of course only on loan from Tottenham)... If they cant get him back or cant replace him, then they may well really struggle as I wasnt impressed with them at all when they came to the Valley
Be interesting to see if they can keep hold of the likes of Alex Pritchard (Who was of course only on loan from Tottenham)... If they cant get him back or cant replace him, then they may well really struggle as I wasnt impressed with them at all when they came to the Valley
I assume Pritchard will be pushing for a place in Spurs' first team next season, seeing how many games Kane and Mason have played this season
I am personally a great believer in using statistics. The problem was Charles Hughes who was director of football for the English game in the sixties and early seventies. He was a visionary in many ways IMO, but his method was discredited due to a mistake he made. Hughes through analysis worked out that most goals were scored from moves that involved not many touches/passes - this heralded the long ball game which was successful whether we like it or not, for a period. The problem is that statistics are only as good as the data, and he collected his data from the English game which was lacking in skill and technique. It remains true today, that if you have a team that can't pass very well, you are best moving up the pitch with as few passes as possible. Of course skill and technique will always beat the long ball game and if you can pass, you should do so as much as you like - look at the success of Spanish football in recent times.
The mistake in my opinion was to assume that because the long ball game was discredited, that the system of analysis was too. The truth is IMO, that you just need to do your analysis with better data. Hughes used the data available to him at the time and is unfairly derided. I will be interested to see from the tactical standpoint how Brentford go. I do think this is the way forward, but it doesn't mean they have got it right. I do think the direction the FA should go in, is to form a state of the art statistical centre, and take great care to use the best data they can get. It could herald a new era in the British game. If I owned a club, I would be looking to see what could be done to identify a system and find coaches that sign up to that system so I cant be too critical when clubs are doing this.
The point was made about English cricket and we have suffered because the people who run cricket are public schoolboy types, too conservative to be open to new ideas. We invented 20-20 cricket, but it was always meant to be a small part of cricket. Other nations saw its potential and embraced it to a greater extent. The conservative English view is that test cricket and limited over cricket are so different - being a good limited overs player meant you were more likely to get out as you didn't have that test cricket menatility. What 20-20 cricket has done was demanded more ingenious shots. And what this has done is created better batsmen who have a greater ability that helps them in test cricket too. England have in recent years been playing limited overs cricket with most of their team not being able to clear the boundary easily. It is a complete joke and due to our culture IMO. English cricket needs Ian Botham in charge.
Muttley your post is a bit long. With long posts I tend to read the first and last sentences and skip the rest. In the absence of an executive summary, I'd say 1. You can prove anything with statistics. 2. Yes, perhaps, but how does that help Brentford?
It may help or not help them. My point is that I would be interested to see how and what they do as I believe there is a place for statistics, but the data behind them has to be very strong. It isn't about proving, it is about seeing if they can help develop more effective systems. Your first point is supported by the fact that Hughes using statistics believed the Long Ball game was the way forward.
My post was on the long side, but a small number may not know about Charles Hughes and I hoped to generate an interest that might get people researching some more. As he has been one of the most influential people in the modern English game. Not in a good way, but I am sympathetic to him despite all the damage he did. I think he was on the right track using data - it is just he used the wrong data.
Using statistics is hardly new and clubs have been using them for years - relying on betting data is a little left field, but it seems to work for the bookies (and apparently Brentford finished a place above their own predictor).
The problem is relying solely on it, as most of the signings in January 2014 seemed to do. I was encouraged to hear that Roger Johnson was signed as much for the dressing room as for the pitch, because this represented an acknowledgement that two people sitting at their laptops can't put together a team.
I don't blame Warburton for walking. He presumably has not only the players chosen for him, but the system. He then gets no credit for their success because, after all, it was all done by the data not the influence of the manager. The new guy might be a decent control though - he's apparently been utter shite at his previous club (according to TalkSport) so if they're successful next year it's down to the betting data.
Using statistics is hardly new and clubs have been using them for years - relying on betting data is a little left field, but it seems to work for the bookies (and apparently Brentford finished a place above their own predictor).
The problem is relying solely on it, as most of the signings in January 2014 seemed to do. I was encouraged to hear that Roger Johnson was signed as much for the dressing room as for the pitch, because this represented an acknowledgement that two people sitting at their laptops can't put together a team.
I don't blame Warburton for walking. He presumably has not only the players chosen for him, but the system. He then gets no credit for their success because, after all, it was all done by the data not the influence of the manager. The new guy might be a decent control though - he's apparently been utter shite at his previous club (according to TalkSport) so if they're successful next year it's down to the betting data.
Might go and check out their relegation odds...
To be fair Dijkhuizen got Excelsor promoted to the Eredivisie and kept them up, and they are by far the smallest team with their ground only holding just over 3000.
Using statistics is hardly new and clubs have been using them for years - relying on betting data is a little left field, but it seems to work for the bookies (and apparently Brentford finished a place above their own predictor).
The problem is relying solely on it, as most of the signings in January 2014 seemed to do. I was encouraged to hear that Roger Johnson was signed as much for the dressing room as for the pitch, because this represented an acknowledgement that two people sitting at their laptops can't put together a team.
I don't blame Warburton for walking. He presumably has not only the players chosen for him, but the system. He then gets no credit for their success because, after all, it was all done by the data not the influence of the manager. The new guy might be a decent control though - he's apparently been utter shite at his previous club (according to TalkSport) so if they're successful next year it's down to the betting data.
Might go and check out their relegation odds...
To be fair Dijkhuizen got Excelsor promoted to the Eredivisie and kept them up, and they are by far the smallest team with their ground only holding just over 3000.
Comments
I'd be very surprised if there isn't some number crunching going on in the player recruitment stakes - I think its probably harder for a player to adjust to the English game though in a way that switching to Denmark might be.
Stats have there place and value but relying on them to the exclusion of other human factors shows a lack of trust in your own judgement and the judgement of those you employ. Such people want an exact mathematical answer to a non mathematical question.
It ignores the intangible human elements of team sports such as morale, acclimatisation, motivation, team spirit and people management.
So yes it brings benefits and avoids some pre-conceptions and bias in decision making but it can not work on its own.
Now we don't fully know who is studying our team and our targets nor what methodology they are utilising but it is very clear to me that our club has improved significantly while maintaining the very same budgetted losses as 12 months ago.
That is spectacular and suggests (not guarantees) that the board, coaches and scouts can take the next step up.
Once again someone chooses to criticise the use of data based on two perceived failures. How many senior players were signed last summer and how many made a contribution to a mid-table finish as opposed to those who didn't?
Our club has shelled out perhaps £6-7m to build a brand new squad which has delivered. The only money spent has been on strikers and everybody knows they are the most expensive part of the team. And also the most difficult to judge - Kermorgant, Delort, Tucudean, Watt all might have played for us in the season just finished but only two did.
At Charlton it appears to be about data and resale value too and it's apparent that we now have a number of players who might fetch a lot of money.
Nobody wants us to sell our best but I don't think anyone wants our club to go anywhere near approaching £100m of debt. That sounds a big number to me and would take just 10 years at current losses.
For me the use if data and statistical analysis is extremely valid to both improve the team and add value to the club. I mentioned transfermarkt a number of times last summer and pointed out that the Charlton squad went from a value of £10m and bottom six to £15m. If you look today we are rated at £21m and mid-table.
A squad worth £10m will put you at risk of relegation and it's no surprise to me that Blackpool and Millwall went down. And also no surprise the one relegation slot went to a higher value team such as Wigan.
At the top end it's interesting that not one but three lower value clubs are up there - this proves you cannot rely 100% on data. But I do not recall anyone ever saying that!
I spent some time recently revisiting the data for a couple of reasons: I was interested to see if last season's correlation held and I wanted to estimate the gap between us and a top squad.
Because of Wigan's failure and also the relative failure of other high value squads like Cardiff, Fulham, Blackburn and Forest the correlation is much lower this time at 55% as opposed to 75%.
To compete at the top it can be done with a squad rated at £20m but many top clubs are rated at £30m which is £10m more than us. We can bridge that gap through player acquisition AND our younger players improving and increasing in value. It's that simple and that's exactly how Derby and others have done it.
At the end of the day anybody can pick holes in the value of individual players but there's a clear link between squad values and league position. If people wish, I can explain some of their valuation methodology but right now I think it sufficient to state that somebody has taken the time and trouble to capture data and used typical German thoroughness to deliver a pan European database and apply a set of rules and algorithms for the whole of Europe.
And this last point means one can look up any player linked with Charlton who we may not have heard of. And that is why I believe that if we keep our best and acquire four/five players rated at €2m then we have chances.
Now I don't have the football vocabulary to describe what a €2m player looks like nor exactly how our performance and results would improve. But I can state unequivocally that Vetokele, Watt, Buyens, Bulot and Gudmundson are all rated around €2m. And incidentally Cousins has been moved up to €1m in the last year. Unlike Millwall, Rotherham and Blackpool we simply don't have many players left rated less than £500k And those we do have didn't play very much.
So data and analysis has a place in the modern game just as it has a place in catastrophe loss modelling. That doesn't mean that people can predict exactly where the next hurricane or earthquake will strike. But they can be extremely precise about what to charge for insurance and what the probable losses will be every year.
Football has the small matter of coaching ability, club stability and lady luck so data only take one so far but to ignore it or attack it is to misunderstand the contribution it can make.
The England cricket team, for example, has been lampooned for over reliance on spreadsheets when working out tactics, and in 2013 it was noticeable when Australia brought in Lehmann as their coach and quickly improved as he was much more of an approachable and positive 'bloke' than their previous coach
The mistake in my opinion was to assume that because the long ball game was discredited, that the system of analysis was too. The truth is IMO, that you just need to do your analysis with better data. Hughes used the data available to him at the time and is unfairly derided. I will be interested to see from the tactical standpoint how Brentford go. I do think this is the way forward, but it doesn't mean they have got it right. I do think the direction the FA should go in, is to form a state of the art statistical centre, and take great care to use the best data they can get. It could herald a new era in the British game. If I owned a club, I would be looking to see what could be done to identify a system and find coaches that sign up to that system so I cant be too critical when clubs are doing this.
The point was made about English cricket and we have suffered because the people who run cricket are public schoolboy types, too conservative to be open to new ideas. We invented 20-20 cricket, but it was always meant to be a small part of cricket. Other nations saw its potential and embraced it to a greater extent. The conservative English view is that test cricket and limited over cricket are so different - being a good limited overs player meant you were more likely to get out as you didn't have that test cricket menatility. What 20-20 cricket has done was demanded more ingenious shots. And what this has done is created better batsmen who have a greater ability that helps them in test cricket too. England have in recent years been playing limited overs cricket with most of their team not being able to clear the boundary easily. It is a complete joke and due to our culture IMO. English cricket needs Ian Botham in charge.
1. You can prove anything with statistics.
2. Yes, perhaps, but how does that help Brentford?
My post was on the long side, but a small number may not know about Charles Hughes and I hoped to generate an interest that might get people researching some more. As he has been one of the most influential people in the modern English game. Not in a good way, but I am sympathetic to him despite all the damage he did. I think he was on the right track using data - it is just he used the wrong data.
The problem is relying solely on it, as most of the signings in January 2014 seemed to do. I was encouraged to hear that Roger Johnson was signed as much for the dressing room as for the pitch, because this represented an acknowledgement that two people sitting at their laptops can't put together a team.
I don't blame Warburton for walking. He presumably has not only the players chosen for him, but the system. He then gets no credit for their success because, after all, it was all done by the data not the influence of the manager. The new guy might be a decent control though - he's apparently been utter shite at his previous club (according to TalkSport) so if they're successful next year it's down to the betting data.
Might go and check out their relegation odds...