Article The stat is more powerful than the sword

[The Fighting Cock]

Stats, heat mats, percentages and completions. This is how modern football chooses to communicate with the masses, but what exactly to they mean? Chadli is more effective than Sanchez? Senderos is better than Barkley? Stats are a powerful weapon and they need handling with care. Will Colwell returns and examines the jargon.

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[Nutter-Naylor]

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli. Take your pick.

 

[Greaves357_bestever]

Good article, well done to the author. Maybe not the best of titles, but hey.

 

[Skeelington]

Really nice piece. Might be having a slight dig at my Midfield Madness article from last week, but I'm not really a stats guy anyway...

More from Will Colwell, please.

 

[Macch]

So what you're saying is we should keep Chadli....

 

[Mrs Perryman]

I'm not a huge fan of statistics, as what happened last week has no bearing what happens next week!

 

[Gnutmi]

Im not saying stats are good, but they have their use. I went from top 150k to top 10k in FPL because i started being a bit more analytical. Stats can be used as a guideline or a tool for scouting/analysing players but they are dumb when used in/as arguments. They are probably useful only to professionals and geeks that play FPL. Shit like possession and tackles/minute are just dumb.
Is the keeper of a team shit simply cuz he had a low number of saves? Maybe the 10 players in front of him don't allow the opposition to even take a shot at goal. Stats are good when used as part of something. Players that are generally good will probably have better stats as well. Maybe chadli created more chances but sanchez probably outplayed him in many other stats.

 

[CJJ]

Stats are incredibly powerful if you understand them - if you don't, you shouldn't get into a grump with people who do.

Like religion - if you don't want to trouble yourself with it, don't, but it's not right to be negative or ridicule those who do. Each person to their own.

It's a bit like the thread we had (briefly) on here - a specific thread for stats and just generally discussing them out of the way of others, yet the likes of Gibbs would wander in and get in a sweat because the stats don't support his opinion. It's like walking into a church and preaching atheism.

The oddest thing about most of it is, you'll often find Mr or Mrs (but really, Mr) "I-hate-stats" putting the world to rights about how many goals or assists a player has (or doesn't have) based on their value or game time.


Ironically, that's a stat