Not going to pick out individual posts but I will reiterate that it is easy to dismiss stats (lies, lies and damned statistics) and it is unfortunate that they are even referred to as stats due to the negative connotations the word often has. They would be much better be described as performance indicators, which are an essential part of running any professional operation and many top managers in football pay them a lot of attention these days. Some will be delighted that Pep is not a stats disciple; although, funnily enough, his coaching staff point them out to him!
The point about performance indicators is that they should not be used in isolation so football stats are not a substitute for what the eye sees at the game or for video analysis, they are just part of the armoury for those trying to analyse performance. The absolute fact is that the eyes play tricks and people can be swayed by their bias. Whilst the stats recording for football are not always perfect, they are consistent measures and capture huge amounts of data. The whoscored algorithm is an attempt to consolidate lots of measures into one number. It can't be perfect but if you look at who it indicates are the best performers in the league this season, it picks out many of the same players as the PFA team of the year, including player of the year. So whoever designed it may actually have had some appreciation of the game. I said when I posted the figures, they would not be how I would score things, if I could be bothered to, but I think they make a useful comparison to the scores people are coming up with for themselves.
