Chance / Goal Involvement

[SWP's back]

Stats are for fans that don't understand football and need numbers to tell them how good we are.

Yeah that’s some bollocks right there.

 

[Shaelumstash]

Stats are for fans that don't understand football and need numbers to tell them how good we are.

I agree that some stats don't really tell you a lot about a player - pass completion percentage, tackles made etc in isolation don't tell you a lot about a performance and can mislead people who don't understand the game.

Not sure if you've read the article mate, but I actually think the reverse is true on this article. It gives legitimacy to a lot of points that people who do understand football have been saying for years, but had no stats to back them up.

The most obvious one being David Silva being top of the "sequences" that lead to a shot. As an earlier poster said, anyone who's watched Silva play and understood his game knows that his involvement in dictating play and helping to create chances is his key attribute.

Simply looking at his goals / assists stats won't tell you that. That's why people that don't understand the game will say "Silva's not that good, look at his stats compared to Ozil" / Hazard / whoever is flavour of the month.

Another thing the article shows is team play. So it shows Liverpool play a lot of passes, and at a very high tempo. Or Klopp's "heavy metal" football. Anyone who's watched Klopp's teams play and understands them, will tell you that's how they play.

Similarly Leicester are one of the fastest teams, and also play the fewest passes. The archetypal counter attacking team. Again, if you understand football you'd know that's how Leicester play.

I'm not a huge stats fan, but I actually think the content of the article applies data in a way that is useful and informative. Stats are only going to become more and more prevalent in football, so at least this is a way of making it insightful.

 

[Neville Kneville]

I saw an article online today about a new stat that had been introduced about "Chance involvement". So not necessarily a player directly creating a chance, but a player being involved somewhere in the move which led to a chance being created.

I think David Silva was top, DeBruyne was second and possibly Aguero third, in the whole PL.

Then there was another stat about "goal involvement" so again, not necessarily the player getting the goal or the assist, but involved somewhere in the move that led to a goal being scored. I think Aguero was top of this, DeBruyne 2nd and Silva in the top 5 too.

They came up with a word for this "involvement" aspect, but I can't remember what it was. But the article was making out, this could be a new key stat for footballers, in the same way that the "assist" became more prevelant in the early 2000s.

Has anyone got a link to the article, or seen it? I can't find it anywhere online, and yes I have tried Google ;-)

At least general stats like that are actually acknowledging the the reality of football a bit more, that it's not always the assist or the finish which was the most difficult bit.

But it will still generalise & Fellaini with his flick on, or Phil Jones with his lump, or even DeGea could still end up competing with Silva/KDB if Lukaku keeps on scoring.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

Stats are for fans that don't understand football and need numbers to tell them how good we are.

Number of goals? number of assists? passing rates, shots produced.... you probably look at them more than you think.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Number of goals? number of assists? passing rates, shots produced.... you probably look at them more than you think.

That's when stats are useful, for provable events or for a quick, backup impression of what your own eyes tell you.

But the real stuff the clubs actually use, is so much more intricate than the stuff we get thrown at us every day on tv, as being the gospel, as if it's educating us, when it's actually dumbing us down & telling us not to evaluate what we actually see.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

That's when stats are useful, for provable events or for a quick, backup impression of what your own eyes tell you.

But the real stuff the clubs actually use, is so much more intricate than the stuff we get thrown at us every day on tv, as being the gospel, as if it's educating us, when it's actually dumbing us down & telling us not to evaluate what we actually see.

and the other way around. We all get the wrong impression sometimes, pundits especially.

 

[Jordie]

I know we employ people to study stats and pass them on to certain players to help them improve but I doubt you will have to quote stats to Silva or De Bruyne because they understand football.
The media love stats because they can twist them any way they want to back up any particular story they are spouting.