The Stats Thread

Clinical means what I said in my post.

WE ARE NOT AS CLINICAL IN FRONT OF GOAl AS OUR COMPETITORS.

This is a football forum not a semantics forum. Everyone else on this forum appears to be able to use the word clinical in this forum and understand what it means except you.

 

Late 18th century: from Greek klinikē ‘bedside'

Clinical

 

Unlike you most people don't accept that xG is the be all and end all of finishing. xG is just one factor that relates to goal scoring.

What you mean by clinical is not what most people mean by clinical

Calmness and efficiency In front of goal is a term covering multiple factors and relates to the team as well as individuals. Any way as usual you've managed to turn a vaguely interesting subject to a level that no longer has any value.

 

I understand perfectly how you, Rob and others use the term. The trouble with it is that, as so used, it has no explanatory value. It's like booking your car into the garage and telling the mechanic "it's not running properly"; it describes the situation, but throws no light on what's the matter. In the case of your car, even to the non-mechanically minded, it's pretty clear if it's not running properly; but in the case of our goal scoring, it's not even clear that anything is really amiss. I'm interested in whether anything is actually amiss, and if so what. Keeping on SHOUTING "OUR FINISHING IS LESS CLINICAL THAN OUR COMPETITOR'S FINISHING" is just insisting there is a problem without producing any actual evidence supporting it.

 

My first post today and previous posts clearly provides both anecdotal and factual data to support my views that we are not as clinical in front of goal as our competitors.

 

Sorry robbie, but that's simply not true in its entirety. Being clinical absolutely includes decision making of whether to shoot, because it is an inherent part of execution. You cannot launch a bow and arrow without drawing the string back.

And actually it is extremely important when developing terminology to try to use words "normally", otherwise (and as a lawyer I can tell you this is enormously important) it becomes extremely confusing and incomprehensible.

So if you're going to invent your own terminology for words to draw your own distinctions, that's absolutely fine, but I am afraid you cannot then complain if people disagree with you because it doesn't make any sense on the normal face of the words.

You are still ducking the point: if you are going to make fine distinctions on terminology, you are going to have to acknowledge that xG is so inaccurate, open for debate and limited, that the assessment on your finely distinguished terminology will simply tell us that in a very specific scenario you might be able to say that xG seems to show that not all strikers considered expert are as clinical (in terms of scoring more often than when they are expected to based on a very specific definition of expected) than some people might think they are (though others, like Messi and Kane, the latter of whom is particularly noted for his clinical shooting, it does seem to work).

I am also totally scratching my head as to the point of where you are going with this. If Messi and Kane are demonstrably clinical using xG, then that suggests it might have value, but if others are not, then it suggests it might not. So we are none the wiser. And so what that tells us is whether we should be using xG versus actual goals scored to measure whether our team has been clinical this season (i.e. we should not). In which case, why the hell are we discussing this? I don't care if it is not relevant to Norwich and I would hope you don't?

In reality, I am afraid, I think what you are actually doing is trying to invent a definition of "clinical" in order to try to duck the flaws with xG I mentioned earlier. However, all your comments demonstrate is that xG remains extremely unreliable because the measurable parameters are so limited. Which is what I have said all along (and judging by the fact you don't respond, I assume you accept).

xG is of passing interest, but it's too limited and specific to demonstrate value. And there is absolutely no value in using it when measuring our team's clinical shooting or otherwise, at least until there are more parameters taken into account and it becomes a measure of being clinical (however defined).

 

Robbie this is getting ridiculous, I have now several times given you clear, fully worded definitions of clinical. You are building straw men. Either that or you are actually just on a big wind up - I thought this board was passed that though.

 

I dare say Buendia was quite clinical with his goal too.

 

I think I get what the problem is, because you are so fixed in your views, you are unable to read what someone else writes and understand it. The only real question is whether you are doing it sub consciously or deliberately. The above post which you submit in reply to my post is a fine example. My post read

As hopefully you can see I never used the word finishing. What I said was WE ARE NOT AS CLINICAL IN FRONT OF GOAL AS OUR COMPETITORS. This was in upper case because I wanted to highlight the point, unfortunately despite the use of upper case you still seem to have interpreted it to say something it didn't, maybe I should have used a larger text or bold or a different colour. In your case probaly all 3.

There is clear data to support my view that WE ARE NOT AS CLINICAL IN FRONT OF GOAL AS OUR COMPETITORS. This can be found in post https://www.not606.com/threads/the-stats-thread.388955/page-8#post-14679412 despite apparently reading and liking this post you clearly didn't understand what I was saying. I have also posted anecdotal evidence in the past on this thread and others, here are a couple

AS YOU CAN SEE IN NONE OF THESE POST HAVE I REFERED TO FINISHING. I don't think I've every referred specifically to finishing in relation to being clinical in front of goal.

DESPITE SAYING YOU UNDERSTAND HOW I AND OTHERS USE THE TERM CLINICAL, YOU CLEARLY DON'T OR CHOOSE NOT TO. The term used may have no explanatory value to you, but for most people who watch or are professionally involved in football it does. You use the analogy of the car that is not running properly, which as I explained in my post https://www.not606.com/threads/the-stats-thread.388955/page-8#post-14679412 there is an issue which requires further in depth investigation and I've explained how this could be done using resources not readily available to most fans. In short the fans are the driver the analysis & coaches the mechanics.

To further use the car analogy to explain your approach. You are driving along, there is a horrible noise coming from the engine, you look at the dash board and no warning lights are on, so you don't take the car to the garage, but continue driving it, because of you over reliance on warning lights rather than what you experience (In case you're struggling to understand the xG is the dashboard).

 

He was born on Christmas day, that's all I'm saying. Coincidence? I don't think so!

 

Talk about the kettle calling the pot black! What you keep ignoring canario is that I have, consistently, from the very start, been questioning the idea of clinical FINISHING, nothing more, nothing less. Here's my original post (#130):

"So where is the statistical support for the claim that our finishing has been poor this season?"

This was in response to DHCanary posting stats that showed that both Pukki and Buendia were outscoring xG. That prompted some further discussion on the subject, after which I commented (#133)

"Yes, this is the message from the stats, rather than "poor finishing". Goals come from creating big chances for someone; it doesn't matter that much who has the chance." (The "message" being that our deficiencies, such as they are, are not to do with poor FINISHING as such, but other factors e.g. poor decision making, in the form of taking low value shots).

You then weighed in, completely ignoring the fact that I was specifically talking about FINISHING, so it's a bit rich to accuse me of failing to read and understand your posts.

 

Fine, but in which case what's your point? I am lost. We are saying that we think our finishing has not been clinical enough and I think we accept that based on the stats, because they are not complex enough, that cannot be confidently demonstrated in the stats (or confidently disproven in the stats). You do not appear to be saying, or proving, anything to the contrary? In which case, what are you really saying? That xG doesn't work? In which case, I agree.

 

Don't be a tw4t. I said it would be interesting to have some figures on conversion rates. You supplied some figures, which don't read well for us. I said the the data supported my view that we were not as clinical as our competitors. Previously you had suggested there wasn't any data to support the view that we weren't clinical enough in front of goal. You then tried to link my comments with your own agenda and xG. Nothing you can say will change the fact that our conversion rate is below the league average and well below the other top 6 clubs. You can bang on about xG as much as you like, but we are for whatever reason not converting as many of our shots as our competitors. I give much greater value to the view of DF and lots of others professionally involved in football who regularly say during and after our games that we need to be more clinical in front of goal than I do to your ramblings. I really don't get what your issue is & Canary Rob's post really sum up my views

 

I started posting on this issue because of the criticism that e.g. Pukki and Buendia, were getting when they failed to convert chances that posters thought they "should have" scored from. My point is, and always has been, that such criticism is unjustified. That's why, for example, in an earlier post, I challenged people to estimate the xG value of the five goals scored in the away game against Stoke (a challenge which nobody took on, by the way). The reason why it's unjustified is that Pukki and Buendia, Cantwell also, are all not just matching, but slightly exceeding, their xG. When it comes to putting away chances, even the best in the world bar two -- Messi and Kane -- don't consistently do any better than that. The simple fact is that posters generally hugely over-estimate how good a chance actually is. It is plain silly to insist, for example, that Pukki "should have" scored last night against Brentford. His best two chances were no better than 0.25/1 in 4 (the other chances he had were way poorer than that). Even the best chance of the game, missed by Canos, was no better than a 50:50 chance.

 

The problem with your point here Robbie, is it is totally undermined by the fact that I think we all agree that xG is an incredibly flawed measure at a micro level. As you even demonstrated earlier.

So as we are all agreed that xG is really only of passing interest, your use of it to argue that somehow Pukki is actually really clinical makes no sense at all. As well as missing out the fact that Pukki is held to higher standards because of his quality.

 

Also I’ve no idea why you’ve put Buendia there. I don’t recall ever seeing it said about him - on the contrary - he’s been absolutely lethal this season and I can only really remember one chance he missed he should have scored and a whole host he’s scored brilliantly with great technique.

 

So valid that it's going on more than one thread.

 

So.... in that case, Byram is our most clinical player currently after taking over from Javis?

 

Is a treatment table a bed? (Cue canario complaining that this is a football forum, not a semantics forum .........)