It's a numbers game

I know there are one or two people on here who think statistical analysis is essential to understanding much of what goes on on a football pitch. Are there enough of us to justify a sticky thread devoted to stats and the discussion thereof? (I don't mean high level mathematical debate, just chat about stats and what they tell us about the game and our club? If there is enough interest, I will ask DH to set up a sticky for us.

 

I think this is a really good idea but can't help it reminding me of my favourite exchange between a teenage boy and teenage girl in the movie 'Gregory's Girl'.

Girl: "All boys are obsessed with numbers".

Boy: "That's not true. Only 85% are".

Good luck; I may dip in and out.

 

Not a bad idea - my only concern is that the top of the Norwich forum is in slight danger of being overrun by stickies!

Granted though, a couple will disappear soon-ish (pre-season one and summer transfers one).

 

The boys on here seem to be obsessed with themselves gg, numbers would be a relief .............

 

On the subject of stats in sport, did anyone watch the film 'Moneyball' (with Brad Pitt) about the use of statistical analysis (Sabermetrics) to assess player values in baseball? Completely changed the face of the MLB.

I'm no baseball fan, but the film was decent and prompted me to read up a bit more into the methods used. The protagonist (Billy Beane) is apparently trying to figure out a similar system for the MLS.

 

I like the idea and will keep an eye on it, though I realise that stats are not everybody's thing. Well done Maestro!

 

Thanks Maestro. Probably will be slow to take off and won't ever be a huge amount of activity, but we shall see. I shall try to set the ball rolling (with minimum 1% success rate) in the next day or two.

 

...... Meanwhile the readers amongst us might be interested in "The Numbers Game -- Why Everything You Know About Football Is Wrong" by Chris Anderson and David Sally, Penguin Books, 2013. Chris Anderson also has a blog:

http://www.soccerbythenumbers.com/

 

I'll kick things off, bit negative this one, but we've only won four opening fixtures in the last 20 years.

Our last opening day win was a 4-0 victory over Grimsby in the 02/03 season. Surely we're due an opening win soon?

 

That's ridiculous.

I'm feeling a 3-0 win coming along.

 

I'm interested in stats 50% of the time - the other 50% of the time I'm not bothered.

 

I'm sure I just saw a tumble weed go by

 

Have you got 20:20 vision Fenland? Probably, so I think you're maybe right.

[Edit] How about we get all this stuff over with and then give the thread a chance!

 

Need I say?..was thinking of changing my handle to "Statto"

 

Ok, how about the man who drowned in a river, the average depth of which was 6 inches?

With that off my chest, I'll definitely be looking in. Quite a fan of stats.


Oh, nearly forgot.....

 

Any recommendations for best on-line source of football match stats? I have the FourFourTwo StatsZone iPhone app, free courtesy of Coral (irritating but worth putting up with), powered by OPTA. Are there other half-decent options?

 

This ones pretty good

http://www.statto.com/football/teams/norwich-city/2013-2014

 

I'm not particularly into stats in any walk of life. Of course they can be useful, but I find people tend to switch their brains off when they are faced with a statistic. They seem to forget that a statistic still needs to be interpreted.

A good example was a recent thread on here where people were discussing how many shots City had last year against Newcastle, Wigan, Southampton, etc. The statistics seemed to vary from zero to twelve according to what constituted a shot.

Another gripe of mine is when player X is shown as having a 92% pass conversion rate and everyone goes wow. But every one of those passes might have been a sideways pass that does nothing. A second player has a 50% conversion rate, but he might have made two wonderful visionary throughballs that led to two goals.

Statistics? As the General would say: Bah!

 

@vietnam
G'day vietnam. Several points. Firstly, we would all agree that stats can be misused and misunderstood. But that is not a reason to turn your back on them or on the collection and analysis of numerical data in any field of enquiry. Fact is that the growth of scientific knowledge since the Middle Ages is almost entirely founded on the mathematicisation of the sciences. As a linguist, I am sure you are aware of the revolution in linguistics in the last 100 years brought about in large part by precisely that process. Secondly, regarding the thread about shots on goal, Munky and others claimed there were a number of games last season where we failed to produce any shots on goal. They were using this statistic as an implicit measure of how entertaining or otherwise the football was. In querying the accuracy of their statistic about 0 shots, two interesting points emerged: 1) Munky was actually talking about shots on target, not shots on goal as such; 2) if entertainment is a function of how much attacking play there is in a game, what matters most is how often you get players into a position to have a shot on goal, not on how accurate the shot is. So in that context the relevant stat is shots on goal, not shots on target. Thirdly, your post is a good example of precisely why I suggested starting this sticky thread. You have already contributed to a discussion which will advance our collective understanding and appreciation of the game we enjoy and the club we support.