Analytics

[Alex Watson]

I think this is another great post on statistics in Soccer. It tackles something that was briefly discussed above, that being shooting accuracy, how much of it is luck and how much of it is skill:

http://blogs.thescore.com/counterat...re-than-luck-in-soccer-and-hockey/#more-49510

 

[Rocky]

If you want stats and analytic's just Google "Long Ball" then get the fuck away from my club!

 

[Éperons]

I think this is another great post on statistics in Soccer. It tackles something that was briefly discussed above, that being shooting accuracy, how much of it is luck and how much of it is skill:

Thanks for this. I like that it addresses the issues of PDO (being based on percentages) head on. It's gravy from there.

 

[RSpurs]

If there's any truth in that, get your money on Moyes to be first in the sack race.... middle at best by Xmas...

 

[Adam Clark]

Jaaskeleinen (sp?) has the record for most saves in a game this season (11) when we played the Spammers at their place earlier this year and Colback has the record for most goal line clearances (3) this season the final game.

I do partly agree with this idea that it is luck as on another day those players would be dreadful although, as most of our efforts are from long range these days the keepers do have a higher chance of saving them thus skewing the figures as penpen said. Having a striker who could net 20+ a season would be nice as well...

:defoe:

 

[Raitei]

WOAAAAH! Dembele.
Fucking efficiency.

 

[SpursLegend]

Not surprised to see Dembele there at all.

He can beat a man easier than anyone I've seen.

Edit: Just seen Townsend doing pretty well too. Suarez is a massive surprise!

 

[Raitei]

Didn't notice Townsend, though he and De Bruyne were one person.

 

[RSpurs]

Would have thought Bale would figure on there, but I guess beating a couple of players and then scoring means it's not a dribble anymore...

 

[Mr Always Right]

I've started to follow football analytics more recently, as its a big thing in baseball, and has been used to great effect there. Found this blog post interesting, basically shows that Spurs have been incredibly unlucky so far in the season, and that the luck should trend back to the mean. Thoughts?

http://jameswgrayson.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/149-down-231-to-go-the-premiership-so-far/

The more we invest in the squad the luckier we will get

 

[Mr Always Right]

Yeah, it's a little slippery to simply call Spurs "unlucky" without explaining what PDO is. But to Grayson's credit, he does give links to an explanation of PDO.

We were unlucky because we got very few goals for how many shots we took and let in many goals for how few saves we got. Whether that's actually "unlucky" is up for debate. And penpen describes the consensus we established when Carlito went on a toy throwing rampage about how "bad" Lloris's save percentage was.

PDO was developed for hockey, and I think Grayson is also just seeing if it can be used for football as well. I'm not sure it can be.

Incidentally, the last time I looked at this, our shot rate had gone down dramatically (this was, I think, during our unbeaten run). We were still scoring about the same number of goals a game, but taking far fewer shots. I'd not say we were also being more lucky.

OTOH, a match like Sunderland home certainly makes us feel "unlucky", since we're riddling the goal with shots, but none of them manage to squeeze through.

We won 1-0 mate

 

[Mr Always Right]

I think it's more likely our play style inflates the shot ratio metric. This year, we tended to control the ball without really penetrating, and end up taking a lot of long-range speculative efforts. Meanwhile the high line prevents our opponents from taking many shots at the other end, but those that do occur end up being more dangerous.

Yeh, it's called boring football, and you can blame AVB for it