New football terminology is stupid

[Phil1]

Very true, but like a lot of things in life it's become over complicated and in many cases unnecessarily.

Sports science is an incredible addition to football and all sports and specialised coaching has vastly improved players technic.

But a vast majority of stats are crazy and not for me a true indication of a game or a players ability.

Yeah I don’t tend to study stats myself and ignore them mostly but can see how a younger generation brought up on them would feel differently.
As fans we choose what interests us and what doesn’t. For most of our generation I’d imagine we focus on the 90 mins we’ve just watched before moving on fairly quickly to the next one without spending hours and hours looking at heat maps and such.
For me it’s as simple as life being to short to get bogged down with stuff that has no interest to me.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

And coaches when.a sub comes on, showing players miniature flip charts full of what to do....
They had one for a sub keeper the other week.... what did they say to him?
"OK when they shoot you save it..... then roll the ball out to one.pf the players wearing the white shirts......"

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

And coaches when.a sub comes on, showing players miniature flip charts full of what to do....
They had one for a sub keeper the other week.... what did they say to him?
"OK when they shoot you save it..... then roll the ball out to one.pf the players wearing the white shirts......"

It’s crazy that they can’t use iPads for that too!

 

[Betterdeedthan red]

That's totally reductionist. In that case why bother with any stats at all? Why bother with tactics? Just stick 22 blokes on the pitch and tell them to go at it. Then you can enjoy your true randomness. People don't love the game because it's totally random, they love it because it's a perfect mixture of random chance and skill.

Nobody can or is trying to take the unpredictability out of the game - in fact, if that unpredictability didn't exist then there'd be no need for xG, it exists purely to measure the unpredictability.

Never seen people get so upset over the existence of a bloody number. Totally strange. Why are people not like this about possession %? Shots on target? Distance run? They're all just numbers.

If it was the predicted distance run.
Or xg of possession then everyone would think that was bollocks aswell

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

If it was the predicted distance run.
Or xg of possession then everyone would think that was bollocks aswell

People have differing views on which stats they think are bollocks. That doesn’t mean that they all are bollocks as they are all metrics giving some insight into the game.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

People have differing views on which stats they think are bollocks. That doesn’t mean that they all are bollocks as they are all metrics giving some insight into the game.

It's a well known own fact that 63% of all statistics are made up

 

[Crooked_rain]

The worst is people calling players "My Starboy" - when did that start?

Half cringe, half noncey sounding.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

It's a well known own fact that 63% of all statistics are made up

Of course stats can be skewed to fit a narrative, but most football technical stats from OPTA aren’t until whoever uses them to prove whatever point they want to make.

Football club analysts won’t though as they’re looking to extrapolate as much info to give their clubs an edge when scouting an opponent.

If a City analyst saw 5 shots on target, 6 off target and 8 blocked, they wouldn’t know without watching the game as to whether they were all 2 yard tap ins or pea rollers from 30 yards.

If they had an xG of 1.8 from that, they would know more about the quality of chances just on paper.

All stats have limitations though and can be skewed by abnormal situations happening.

 

[Fiftyyearsandcounting]

People have differing views on which stats they think are bollocks. That doesn’t mean that they all are bollocks as they are all metrics giving some insight into the game.

The "Assist" stat can be totally misleading. A pass bounces of someone arse and a player scores =Assist.
A great KdB 30 yard pin-point pass, a simple tap-in but the next player scuffs it wide.
=No assist.
To get an assist, another player has to "assist" you by scoring.

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

People have differing views on which stats they think are bollocks. That doesn’t mean that they all are bollocks as they are all metrics giving some insight into the game.

Correct, all stats are just measurements. Like taking somebody’s height or weight. xG is just an average, there’s nothing mystical about it, it takes an enormous historic data set of shots on goal and just calculates averages out of it (these days they’re smarter about it but this is the basic premise). If you’re not interested in those averages then fine, nobody is telling you to be interested.

Somebody earlier in the thread said “the difference is that possession can be measured accurately” which just shows you that people don’t really understand even the numbers they’re familiar with. xG as a measure is more precise than possession which is incredibly difficult to determine. One is black and white (the averages are based on whether somebody scored or didn’t), the other has an infinite amount of shades of grey. Possession stats from different vendors conflict literally all the time based on how they measure it.

Please stop being sensibly analytical.

I have learnt my lesson. Some people are quite happy to deny the reality that this is how the elite professional football clubs use stats these days. They can continue to howl at the moon about how it’s an American import - it’s not, its origins are from a Plymouth fan in the 60s working with a statistician, later built on by subsequent British statisticians, one of which went on to head up analysis at Spurs - but that’s irrelevant. It’s quite clear from the arguments that most don’t actually really know what it is or how it’s used. Some of the arguments being made are totally bizarre.

They can keep dismissively calling it bollocks. Doesn’t change the reality. Like any stat, it’s not the holy grail or anything but it has its uses when people actually understand what it is and what it represents.