The Terrible Journalism & Tom English Thread

[IrishBhoy]

1 hour ago, Busta Nut said:

"Expected" things are a lot of shite.

I like a cold hard stat. Something that happened. I also understand they can be manipulate.

Expected goals data is far from ‘a lot of shite’. 
 

Professional sports traders and profitable gambling syndicates pay a lot of money to companies who collect and model xG data. It’s only a lot of shite to people who don’t understand it, or are wilfully ignorant of it. It’s almost certainly the most accurate way we currently have to analyse a teams true performance. It’s not bullet proof, and never will be due to the nature of football, but it’s a very valuable stat that can be used to make the people interested in it a lot of money. 

[Guest TheJTS98]

8 hours ago, ropy said:

The appreciation of an assist in the build up to a goal has nothing to do with stats.

That's simply not true in terms of how it's presented.

[LiviLion]

Folk will moan that xG is pointless then go straight to talking some pish about how many "shots on goal" a team had.

[Busta Nut]

1 hour ago, IrishBhoy said:

Expected goals data is far from ‘a lot of shite’. 
 

Professional sports traders and profitable gambling syndicates pay a lot of money to companies who collect and model xG data. It’s only a lot of shite to people who don’t understand it, or are wilfully ignorant of it. It’s almost certainly the most accurate way we currently have to analyse a teams true performance. It’s not bullet proof, and never will be due to the nature of football, but it’s a very valuable stat that can be used to make the people interested in it a lot of money. 

TL:DR - Lotta shite

[IrishBhoy]

4 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

TL:DR - Lotta shite

If you want to go through your life trying to pay your direct debits with Toffee Crisp wrappers then charge on. 
 

I am well on the way to becoming a multi MULTI millionaire trading the betting exchanges using xG analysis and automated trading bots that earn me a significant income while I sleep. 

[ewan14]

2 minutes ago, IrishBhoy said:

If you want to go through your life trying to pay your direct debits with Toffee Crisp wrappers then charge on. 
 

I am well on the way to becoming a multi MULTI millionaire trading the betting exchanges using xG analysis and automated trading bots that earn me a significant income while I sleep. 

Do you pay your taxes ?

[Junior_Arab]

12 hours ago, IrishBhoy said:

Read a stat that Buffon made 7 saves during the game, and every one of those saves was from a Messi shot. I did watch the game and can confirm that stat.
 

Not going to get involved in a Messi V Ronaldo debate because they are both sensational football players, but Messi with the ball at his feet does it for me. I was at the Nou Camp last year when Barcelona played Lyon in the Champions League quarter finals, and just watching Messi in front of my eyes was an experience I will never forget.  Barca got an early penalty and Messi scored with a Panenka down the middle of the goal which was just brilliant to watch, probably wouldnt have batted an eyelid at it if I’d watched it on TV, but seeing it in front of me was just special. Went with my Dad who supported Celtic as a boy but doesn’t follow a team these days, he just loves watching Messi and I’m so glad I got to take him to see a Messi goal. We’ve went to two El Clasicos and two La Liga games as well, and seen 4 Messi goals (he didn’t play in the first El Clasico, he broke his wrist in the game before it), but it’s the way he saunters about the pitch, often miles away from where the ball is, and all of a sudden someone passes him the ball and he just runs at the defenders, effortless skill to go past them. The other goal he scored in that Lyon game had him faking a shot about 6 times on the edge of the box, defenders diving in every time until he engineered a gap for himself and rolled it in off the post from outside the 18 yard box. Genius.  

It’s so different seeing these guys in the flesh. I went to the Rome derby a few years back. I’d seen Totti play a million times on the telly, and thought I knew how good he was, but when I saw him up close I couldn’t believe his quality. It wasn’t the spectacular stuff, it was the fact that he just killed practically every ball that got pumped up to him, whilst wrestling with a big centre half then held it up and found a team mate. Both feet, chest, thighs, head it didn’t matter, he just killed it. You don’t (or at least I certainly didn’t) appreciate that when you see him on the telly, but in the flesh, it was incredible to watch. 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Junior_Arab

[IrishBhoy]

Just now, ewan14 said:

Do you pay your taxes ?

Earnings from the betting exchange don’t need to be declared for tax purposes. I work from time to time as a contractor through a Limited Company, and pay minimal tax on those earnings because my accountant is a crook. I will start declaring my full income when Tory MPs stop stashing their money in overseas tax havens and make companies like Amazon and Vodafone liable for their fare share of tax. 

[IrishBhoy]

2 minutes ago, Junior_Arab said:

It’s so different seeing these guys in the flesh. I went to the Rome derby a few years back. I’d seen Totti play a million times on the telly, and thought I knew how good he was, but when I saw him up close I couldn’t believe his quality. It wasn’t the spectacular stuff, it was the fact that he just killed practically every ball that got pumped up to him, whilst wrestling with a big centre half then hold it up and find a team mate. Both feet, chest, thighs, head it didn’t matter, he just killed it. You don’t (or at least I certainly didn’t) appreciate that when you see him on the telly, but in the flesh, it was incredible to see. 

Yep that’s the same for me. Even watching players like Messi warming up is brilliant to see. Players like Ronaldinho, old Ronaldo and Zidane are players I would have loved to have watched live just once. People are just so accustomed to watching these guys on TV it’s quite a surreal experience to see them kicking about the pitch in front of you. 

[tamthebam]

14 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

See all the goals for in the goals for columns? They’re goals.  They’re what count.

And not the goals you were expected to score but didn’t.

Good morning.

Just quote the late Ebbe:

"Statistics are like miniskirts. They give you good ideas but hide the important things"

[kingjoey]

12 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

The worst thing about "stats" becoming widespread is the amount of people who clearly don't understand them, yet feel the need to have daily rants about "how my eyes tell me everything I need to know!".

Mozzas wee grumble about xG a perfect example. Clearly zero idea what's its actually used for.

Is there an xG column on the league tables? If teams end the season on the same points, goal difference and goals scored, will the team who have the highest xG end up higher up the table? 

[The_Kincardine]

2 hours ago, Junior_Arab said:

It’s so different seeing these guys in the flesh. I went to the Rome derby a few years back. I’d seen Totti play a million times on the telly, and thought I knew how good he was, but when I saw him up close I couldn’t believe his quality. It wasn’t the spectacular stuff, it was the fact that he just killed practically every ball that got pumped up to him, whilst wrestling with a big centre half then held it up and found a team mate. Both feet, chest, thighs, head it didn’t matter, he just killed it. You don’t (or at least I certainly didn’t) appreciate that when you see him on the telly, but in the flesh, it was incredible to watch. 

That immediacy is the big difference between live sport and televised sport, though.

I was never a tennis fan but have been to Wimbledon twice and 'live tennis' and 'telly tennis' is incomparable.

 

[IrishBhoy]

2 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

I was never a tennis fan but have been to Wimbledon twice and 'live tennis' and 'telly tennis' is incomparable.

 

I managed to get tickets to the World Tour Finals down at the o2 a few years ago, Federer v Tsonga. As you say seeing it happen infront of you makes it look like a different game, I couldn’t believe the speed that they were hitting the ball at. Something that you don’t get a perception of watching tennis on TV, due to the angle of the cameras, is the sheer amount of ground that they cover during every point, and with it being two athletes like Federer and Tsonga battle it out was excellent. Watching at an arena like the o2 helped as well, we were in the upper tier but you felt like you were sitting over the top of them. It’s so far the only live tennis match I’ve ever been at. 

[DukDukGoose]

There's clearly a place for xG. It shouldn't be the be end and end all.

[RandomGuy.]

44 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

Is there an xG column on the league tables? If teams end the season on the same points, goal difference and goals scored, will the team who have the highest xG end up higher up the table? 

Of course not. Its meant to spot trends/issues with teams and their ability/inability to score, nothing more.

[Dons_1988]

33 minutes ago, Merkland Red said:

There's clearly a place for xG. It shouldn't be the be end and end all.

Aye. It’s entirely possible that statistics are very valuable in the appropriate context, yet also be of no interest to a good number of casual observers. Shouldn’t really be a controversial issue. 

[DA Baracus]

7 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

I follow the NHL. "Advanced stats" - those over and above goals, assists (ahem), points, hits, time played etc. - have become increasingly important over about the last ten years or so. Advanced stats is used as a catch-all term for anything about the established basics that have been there since the start, although some of them aren't advanced at all and just measure things that amount to the number of times an action was carried out. Where a player starts at a faceoff, where they carry the puck into the opponents' end, that sort of thing. 

The problem with this as a phenomenon is that it's been near universally hijacked by insufferable twats on the internet who spend all day looking at spreadsheets and posting them on twitter smugly, as if it's so obvious from what they're doing that these players are all good and how could you ever even question it? You see conversations on the internet arguing about which players are better than others and then someone posts this:

The f**k does this mean? If you have higher or bluer lines on a chart, it's a better player? Who gives a f**k? Here's a different kind showing a player from my team:

Do I know what this means? No. Do I care? No. Does it explicitly state that he is a good player, or that a team is good? In this case he was the best player on a team having one of the worst seasons ever so it says something, but why are people interested in an exciting, visceral sport only to spend their team arguing about it on the internet with graphs?

This is exacerbated by hockey having a Yer Da quotient that football could only dream of where every sort of insult is thrown about from both sides of this debate. Then you get teams who have "big analytic departments" as if the top level of professional sport would ever not bother with a means of player evaluation. But then management types end up with reputations and things tagged to them by fans and a historically conservative culture around the sport and you have one side of a fanbase desperately hanging on to The Eye Test as undeniable proof that they're right and advanced stats are worthless.

TL;DR get xG and people who like that sort of thing the f**k away from football right now before it's too late.

'Advanced stats' probably work better in the NHL and NFL as the area of play is more enclosed and far more statistically predictable. In the NHL the puck stays in play and doesn't go out mostly. When an icing call is made is an exception, but that just results in a face from a measured area, so the stats can possibly account for these more.

In football a throw in can go in any direction and it's so hard to predict play from there.

[kingjoey]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

Of course not. Its meant to spot trends/issues with teams and their ability/inability to score, nothing more.

I know, I was being facetious. As everyone knows Leicester City won the English Premier League going through the season with less, sometimes miles less, possession than their opposition In the vast majority of their matches. Goals are the only thing that matter when the final whistle is blown.

[RandomGuy.]

Just now, kingjoey said:

I know, I was being facetious. As everyone knows Leicester City won the English Premier League going through the season with less, sometimes miles less, possession than their opposition In the vast majority of their matches. Goals are the only thing that matter when the final whistle is blown.

Well aye, and every "stat" is analysed to try and find the best way to score, and best way to prevent conceding. 

Its the reason Liverpool, for instance, spend £100m+ on building an analysis department and their equipment. Jota was identified by analysts as being an effective finisher based on his xG conversion rate over his career, and valued as good value for money based on this increasing to match Liverpools average.

You can think its a lot of shite and that's fine, this incessant need for some folk to belittle anyone who doesn't think its shite its just weird though, especially when they act as if they somehow know more about the game because they don't care about stats.

[kingjoey]

31 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Well aye, and every "stat" is analysed to try and find the best way to score, and best way to prevent conceding. 

Its the reason Liverpool, for instance, spend £100m+ on building an analysis department and their equipment. Jota was identified by analysts as being an effective finisher based on his xG conversion rate over his career, and valued as good value for money based on this increasing to match Liverpools average.

You can think its a lot of shite and that's fine, this incessant need for some folk to belittle anyone who doesn't think its shite its just weird though, especially when they act as if they somehow know more about the game because they don't care about stats.

Fair doos.