Liverpool FC Forum

[ConnO'var]

In some aspects.

But Football is a more complex game than tennis or basketball with all due respect, or even Rugby, which also is more complex than tennis and basketball.

Any computer scientist will know that to make a tennis computer game you require easier algorythms than to make 11 muppets playing something similar to football. It's easier to program a XBOX tennis game than football game. It's easier to model a tennis player with stats (serve power, drive power, accuracy, etc), than a collective game with long transitions like football. Football is more complex than many sports.

Just as it's easier to make a math model for tennis, tennis will be covered better with stats, than football. No matter how much football wants to learn about stats.

I don't see the day stats are able to grasp the quality of a pass.

Some stats will be indeed very useful for football, but we cannot dream of covering the explanation of the game with stats. It's too complex. Just like Chess is more complex than Checkers.

In a nutshell: we can discuss the many stats that are useful in football. There are many. But we cannot assume we can just make ANY question of football and answer it with stats.

I agree with a lot of that but not all of it.

Remember, as complex as chess is, we did manage to create the BIG BLUE which beat Kasparov, the greatest chess mind of all time, IMO.

That program/computer is based on on statistical, probability analysis.
It is possible to go to the nth degree of statistics to quantify something.

Whether we should or not is something else altogether. In chess, where it is a more logical and less emotive pursuit, I'd say yes.... in football, I don't think so..... would kill the soul of the game for most people.....

No matter how inaccurate, I'd much prefer to keep it to simple stats for everyone.

But I agree with mick and s@int, it is a useful tool for the managers and coaches and definitely should be utilized where applicable (factoring in the human element of course).

[ConnO'var]

That's a good post Conn, and I'm sorry I did dismiss your stats in another thread forgetting a bit the time it required to gather them, but now you can see why, I always appreciate more the opinion of a football fan to talk about a partnership than the results and numbers with that partnership.

I do agree your conclussion though, and everyone else's conclussion, stats are useful, and sometimes even the simple ones can be useful. I'm just skeptical of trying to get too much conclussions from them, and I advocate to analyse them with care.

Cheers mate and likewise, I apologise for the over-reaction.

[account deleted by request]

Yet even the great Bill Shankly used stats Bill. He sold Tony Hateley because of stats. Hateley scored 26 or 28 goals in the season(can't remember offhand) Yet Shankly sold him the following season saying that he had looked at the number of goals Thompson and Callaghan had scored in previous seasons against that one and found their numbers had dropped significantly as they were just crossing the ball for Hateley rather than scoring themselves. This from a man who used to weigh their shirts in his hands after a game to see how much they had sweated!

[Quadrophenia]

Saint, that was for the benifit of the team, as was moving Xabi further up field. Shanks looked to see how he could benifit the side, which he undoubtedly did. That taken into account, Shanks brought in Alun Evans to replace Hately. Not a similar forward at all, but forward for forward. As a manager you do what you think will benifit the side, by whatever means you decide that decision upon is up to the manager himself. I, not being the manager (yet) don't need to take that much into account. I look at results for the team and attributes for the player. Not stats, which I said to you Saint when talking about Robbie Keane and his last form. I didn't take stats into account when deciding he was a good player. I don't need a stat saying "Dossena got beat six times in one match" to decide he's . My eyes and own opinion are more than any stat can give me. I'm sure Shanks saw Liverpool not being the side he wanted with Hately in it so got rid.

[Bad Bob]

Where stats start to annoy me is when we stop using them to analyze the past and go to far with them predicting the future.  Were we, for example, to take a look at the remaining fixtures in the league this season--who we're playing, where and when relative to other matches--and try and predict how we'll fair based on what we've done against the same teams at the same grounds in similar situations in the past, I think we've gone past the usefulness of stats then.  It gets far too deterministic when you look at it like that.  Would we have anticipated a victory at Stamford Bridge going into that game based on our statistical record at that ground in recent years as well as their home undefeated record?  Of course not but win we did anyway, proving that what happened in the past (which is the stuff of stats) does not always provide the template for what will happen in the future.

Conversely, where I love stats is when people make bollox statements about what happened in the past without actually checking the facts and then get just a little bit arsey when you dredge up the numbers to show they've been talking nonsense (**cough**Babelians**cough**).

[aCe']

interesting topic...

only got one thing to say though... people keep baning on about wingers scoring goals and all.. i mean anyone whos read anyting in the pennant thread would tell you by heart... "hes an a.hole who scored 5 in 2 seasons" or something... anyways... imo wingers dont usually score many goals.. exceptions? sure plenty of them especially when ur a winger given a free role to roam around the pitch (ronaldo) or one who is usually used more as part of a front 3 rather than a more disciplned winger in a 4-4-2 (Kuyt)...

see the thing is... you'v got some of the best wingers in the league scoring 3, 4, 5 goals a season and no one comments on that.. as long as they do their jobs in creating decent attacking moves, its job well done...

you got giggs, park, nani from manutd... scoring 19 goals between them in 2 seasons , 25 if you include this season... now divide that by 3 to get goals for each player, then divide it by say 2.5 to get goals per season and you are left with something around 2 goals a season or so... same applies for Arsenal .. 2006/2007 you had hleb scoring 3, ljungberg 2, and walcott 1... rosicky, played centrally and then out wide bagged a massie 5 ! same applies for last season... hleb bagged 4, rosicky 7, walcott 6 and eboue an impressive 0 !

all im saying is...wingers dont always end up scoring 10+ goals a season ... you wanna look at whether a winger is effective and doing his job or not you sould look at his assists before his goals tally imo.. unless you have someone like ronaldo banging in 20+ goals a season playing the role then i guess it doesnt really matter if he contributes anything tpwards general play... which he does...

anyways... donno where i was going wiht all this..  oh yea stats... mmm.. yeaa... kuyt is sht as a winger, striker, secondforward... wherever... he hardly ever crosses the ball, hardly ever see him cut it back to someone to score , and no stats thrown my way will ever convince me that hes a decent winger/forward by any stretch of the imagination... oh by the way.. last season he had 7 assists from 48 games (mostly starts games),,, pennant had 7 from 25(mixed) and Babel 6 from 47 (mostly sub)...

in terms of goals, kuyt managed 11, babel 10, and pennant 2..

now what does that say?! ... and try to stick to footie when talking aout this please we all know pennant is a diickhead drunk who doesnt care about this club one bit:O

[milou]

Thanks Bigmick for this thread. It is indeed an interesting subject to debate, but it is hardly just a football phenomenon. Statistics are everywhere.. in other sports, politics, finance, business, manufacturing, etc.

In statistic, you MUST put certain assumptions in place in order to make sense or effective comparison. Bcos it is NEVER black & white, it is ALWAYS open for interpretation.

This whole chapter started in the "zonal marking" thread..

1. Many of the posters FEEL that Liverpool's "zonal marking" system has been effective (from naked eye).. some suggest that it is better than "man-marking" system.
2. Owzat (being Owzat ) used statistic to compare "goals conceded" between Liverpool, Manure & Chelsea and found that Liverpool didn't really have a better defensive record than the rest.. so it implies that "zonal marking" isn't as effective as one thought.
3. stu disagreed (somewhat correctly in my opinion) with that bcos "goals conceded" alone don't take many important considerations into account.. players quality, formation, manner in which goals are conceded, etc 
4. In comes little Milou who suggested that perhaps a statistic of "goals conceded from set-pieces" would be conclusive to prove whether liverpool (who deploys "zonal marking") is better defensively than other teams (who use "man-marking"), since zonal marking is mostly/wholly used in set-piece situations.
5. But stu again disagreed and said it was RUBBISH!

At the end of the day, it just boils down to the fact that I believe a direct comparison of "goals conceded from set-pieces" is sufficient & therefore conclusive.. but I said that consciously by ASSUMING other factors (difference in players quality, formation, age, etc) are negligible or they even out themselves over a large sample size (many games over many seasons).

I would challenge stu or whoever to not just disagree & ignore it as rubbish, but came up with other variables that should be included so that the results of the statistics becomes conclusive to you. No doubt, there will be others who think it is not conclusive to them now! So it is a matter of opinion really.

But beware.. Even the simplest statistics are debatable if you allow yourself to because NO comparison can be apple to apple (there are inherent variables in football and in life). There will be no end if we allow ourselves to go down that route.

Of cos if you TOTALLY do not believe in statistic at all (like Quadrophenia), then we just have to agree to disagree

[Madmax]

For me statistics are a crucial method to determine how the team or players are progressing. Without them any team would not have an idea of moving forward. Usually the most important stats that are analysed are Yards gained, interceptions, Completion percentage. Depending on the position or the formation of the team. For instants torres would be mainly judged on goals scored adding a little more emphasis we would then assertain his work rate with his fellow striker or team mates. His defensive work wouldnt be looked at.
Agree with what you guys are saying here and would like to add stats dont tell the whole story though. Stats also could be interpretated in two ways. For example you get a team hitting 17 shots with 10 on target and the opposition team 4 shots 1 on target and win 1-0. Its obvious which team creates more chances and which team is more clinical. Thats one way of looking at it but if you closely analys a game you will see that maybe the team with 17 shots were very unlucky via hitting the bar and playing against an outstanding keeper whilst the so called clinical sides goal was because of poor defending. when looking at stats on paper we cannot make assumptions of who was better. Its the complete analysis thats the key.

Another example is saying someone wants to place a bet on a team. Looking at the statistics team A has a good record of wins yet Team B has many draws,losses. A local idiot will think yeah i will bet on team A. But more analysis would be needed to put to assertain which team to place the bet on. Team A could have been scraping matches winning 1-0's and playing poor whilst team B could have been very unlucky with thier games conceding freaky goals and poor finishing.
Statistics are important but you have to look at them in every minute details.
I think in another thread the alonso stats were very interesting.

[bigmick]

In some respects it's a bit of a shame that the debate about the Alonso stats is going on at the same time I brought this up, because it's really got nothing to do with what I'm on about (and so far I've singularly failed to explain myself very well). What I'm trying to say is, we get lots of stats and the vast majority of them are meaningless. Sabre has pointed out that a pass is successful if it reaches its intended target, but the stats count a fifty yard throughball the same as a five yard square roll. In this sense, the stats are nonsense. Similarly, "goals from set-pieces" is nonsense, as it doesn't take into account the number of set-pieces defended.

In golf they use a lot of stats, driving accuracy, driving distance, sand saves, puts per round etc, and once more they can be decieving. The guy with the least puts per round is quite often the guy who goes in the most bunkers, his escapes from bunkers to three feet making him look like a better putter than the better player who hits greens in regulation and has birdie chances from 15 feet.

An obvious starter as a useful stat would be success at defending corners, or indeed success at scoring from them. If you know for instance that you are exceptionally good at defending them, and the opposition is especially poor at scoring from them, it could concieveably alter the way you would defend. You would fairly obviously prefer to concede a corner against Stoke for instance than let Delap launch it under your crossbar from a throw in.

Similarly, how many shots on target does a goalkeeper field before he lets one in on average? How often statistically do they come for corners, when they do do they ever catch it or do they always punch? Are the stats the same regardless of whether the cross comes from the right or the left?

IMHO there are many details which could be looked at. I'm not advocating becoming a slave to stats by any means, but it just seems to me that if we bother to collect stats as meaningless as how many yards a bloke runs during a game, we might as well concern ourselves with stuff which is actually relevant.

[kazza]

Would we have anticipated a victory at Stamford Bridge going into that game based on our statistical record at that ground in recent years as well as their home undefeated record?  Of course not but win we did anyway, proving that what happened in the past (which is the stuff of stats) does not always provide the template for what will happen in the future.

We could have read that they were due a loss and we were due a win (law of averages and all that) 

[milou]

In some respects it's a bit of a shame that the debate about the Alonso stats is going on at the same time I brought this up, because it's really got nothing to do with what I'm on about (and so far I've singularly failed to explain myself very well). What I'm trying to say is, we get lots of stats and the vast majority of them are meaningless. Sabre has pointed out that a pass is successful if it reaches its intended target, but the stats count a fifty yard throughball the same as a five yard square roll. In this sense, the stats are nonsense. Similarly, "goals from set-pieces" is nonsense, as it doesn't take into account the number of set-pieces defended.

In golf they use a lot of stats, driving accuracy, driving distance, sand saves, puts per round etc, and once more they can be decieving. The guy with the least puts per round is quite often the guy who goes in the most bunkers, his escapes from bunkers to three feet making him look like a better putter than the better player who hits greens in regulation and has birdie chances from 15 feet.

An obvious starter as a useful stat would be success at defending corners, or indeed success at scoring from them. If you know for instance that you are exceptionally good at defending them, and the opposition is especially poor at scoring from them, it could concieveably alter the way you would defend. You would fairly obviously prefer to concede a corner against Stoke for instance than let Delap launch it under your crossbar from a throw in.

Similarly, how many shots on target does a goalkeeper field before he lets one in on average? How often statistically do they come for corners, when they do do they ever catch it or do they always punch? Are the stats the same regardless of whether the cross comes from the right or the left?

IMHO there are many details which could be looked at. I'm not advocating becoming a slave to stats by any means, but it just seems to me that if we bother to collect stats as meaningless as how many yards a bloke runs during a game, we might as well concern ourselves with stuff which is actually relevant.

Exactly.

When it comes to statistics.. It is how you interpret it that makes debatable.

Let's try this hypothetical but silly example :

Statistic (simplest one I can think of): "Liverpool 110pts, Manure 99pts, Chelsea 86pts"

Interpretation No 1: Liverpool has more points than manure and Chelsea, so Liverpool is the champion of England! :P (FACT)

Interpretation No 2: Liverpool is the champion of England, so they are the best team in England! (slightly debatable now but most people would agree)

Interpretation No 3: Liverpool, the champion of England ends the season with 110pts - significantly more than all the other champions in other European leagues. So Liverpool is the best team in Europe this year! (VERY debatable now.. but some people would probably still agree since 110pts is unprecedented)

Interpretation No 4: Liverpool ends the season with an unprecedented 110pts. They have the best manager around and also the best players in every position! Even the wives and dogs of the players are also the best! (Now that's rubbish! )

But seriously.. You could practically do these kinda interpretations all day on all kinds of statistic. Worse still (to some), you could add other assumptions and make the whole picture ever more complicated.. and then start drawing even newer conclusions.

But if you use and interpret the statistic correctly, not only does it give you insight into the past but also help you predict the future. In the finance industry, people make billions of dollars using all kinds of mathematical models that are basically very advanced statistics.

But it is a BIG if.. Bcos if it goes wrong, you end up with the whole financial mess like we are seeing now in the world!

[Quadrophenia]

The reason why 99% of statistics are pointless in my opinion is because they can say whatever you like. Take that 110 points example milou used, somebody can easily say "we won 110 points" fact, then a bittter twisted fan of another club can come up and say "Liverpool dropped four points" also fact. Statistic works both ways, the only statistic that doesn't is a result.

[JoeTerp]

Moneyball

fascinating book about stats and sports.

Sabermetrics

Football Outsider Statistics

Scientific Football


To touch on Sabre's point about passes, it would be possible to quantify how good a passer is, but it the statistics would have to be measured on a very very complicated system by a well trained eye that was willing to dedicate a LOT of hours to watching film, even then it wouldn't be perfect because there will always be grey areas of which category to put certian types of passes in, but you could get it pretty close to representing in numbers what we can see but maybe cannot quite say with the eye.  Also the problem with the eye of the fan is that once you get the reputation of ALonso being a great passer you look for it more and hold on the memory more and might more easily forget an errant pass, whereas the opposite could be true for a player like Lucas unless its an obviously brilliant pass like the one  to Gerrard vs. Newcastle

[Sabre]

I can't argue the bit of the bias. We all do that with every player.

But the problem I see with football (European, that is) is that it's much less restraint than American football or Rugby, where, there are a lot of situations in which the situation is static. I think those games are easier to make a "scientific approach" as that book says, than our football.

it would be possible to quantify how good a passer is, but it the statistics would have to be measured on a very very complicated system by a well trained eye that was willing to dedicate a LOT of hours to watching film,

You really think so? If you come across with some model, no matter how complex it is, that is trying to do that, let me know.

[Raffmaker]

How long does the team need the ball then to score a goal, are we actually statistically more likely to score a goal when Torres plays, when Gerrard plays off the front man, when Kuyt plays up top etc?

Interesting point Mick; being a bit investigative. But unfortunately Irrelevant for LFC's performances.

Take an extract from your post above...does this include the clear easy chances that we fluff time and again? Easy chances that even stevie wonder could score! Is that just human error? Your post is full on intangibles that are un-measurable.

Pennant is a drunk who does not give a stuff? ? ?

Luncay Pal

Your post does not take into account clear-cut chances missed. Before we scored the 1st goal v Newcastle, we should have been Six up already!!!

Same goes for a lot of games!

There are no averages/ easy ways to score. etc.

If Stevie G and Rafa, Sat down and analyzed each chance per game, ways to improve for the next game etc, then the chances are someone would still miss easy chances the next game!

Its the disadvantage of being a human being. under pressure- people make mistakes.

THis was an irrelevant Topic. Sorry to say and serves no use whatsover!!

Any fan who can play the game a bit., disagree with me, then put on the red shirt and prove me wrong!

I think thats the end of this argument....