well that was one f the points i was making.....our keeper(s) are pretty damn poor and that putting it mildly.
however what the stats don't show you how easy it is to break on us, how easy it is for opposition to get crosses into our box, how easy it is to get onto the edge of our box and shots away. all you have to do is watch the games to see this. (I'm sure you do see it)
The problem here is that you only watch our games judiciously. But none of the others around us. So to understand whether it is easy to get at us, you'd have compare it to how easy it is to get at the other 5 teams in the top six. It is this gap in the average fan's knowledge that stats help with.
If on average teams create less chances against us than most in the top five, and our possession stats are similar, then we are doing things ok defensively. Even if you can point to problematic instances you remember. What the stats is saying is that other teams have those instances too, and not necessar
No, it just implies that statistics don't tell us the whole picture and that's because they don't.
Stats are a brilliant tool when applied correctly. Unfortunately, they often aren't and we end up with people who don't watch a player but think they know all there is about him because they have a scroll through their profile on whoscored.
Overemphasis on the importance of statistical analysis is partly why (amongst a myriad of other reasons) sites such as r/soccer are borderline unusable for me. You're more likely to find a full blown argument about sample sizes than about football itself.
As I said, they're a useful resource but they most certainly don't tell the whole picture.
No modes individually gives us the whole picture. So stating one mode doesn't only serves to attempt to undermine it.
By stating what the stats say, I'm not suggesting it tells us everything. So a retort that it doesn't tell us everything is redundant. Unless the purpose of the retort is to undermine the point being highlighted by reference to the stats.
For the most part almost no one has a full picture of what every team in the league is doing at the same time. So to judge more accurately in comparison to each other, using curated stats is a by far better approach than guesing. Which frankly is what we do when we say our defense is bad and Chelsea's is good. We conclude this by noting what we've seen of our defense, and compare that to our guess about Chelsea based on conceding fewer goals.
Now if a curated stat shows that over the season we've conceded fewer chances than say Chelsea, or even similar chances, but yet conceded disproportionately higher number of goals. Someone responding with "stats doesn't show everything" is simply using that line to discredit a curated fact you could only have deduced from either watching both teams judiciously (not just one) or examining their stats side by side.
Since almost no one here watches all the teams judiciously and if you or
@simon23 do then I apologize. But if my assumption is right that like me you watch more City games judiciously and the other teams for entertainment. Then a statistical comparison is a way better barometer of the truth than either of our opinions drawn from just watching our team and making educated guesses about the others.
Thus, the fact that stats doesn't show us everything is irrelevant if it shows us more than our guesses and assumptions.
