What price...............

[Capmeister]

.........your f***ing anal stats now Stubbs? 44 or 45 points who gives a shit. I doubt you travelled either, too busy playing with your probability cards.

To the game and Dickov lacked the balls to play Sharp on his own up front. Sharp actually got close with a header but it was all if''s but's and might have been's in the end. Leicester were dominant throughout. Husband conceded yet another late penalty. The lad cannot do the simple things and force the player wide, he constantly let the winger come inside. He got the pace to close out most speedsters that bolt for the line. Hey ho.

We'd gone for a point and I think Leicester would have been happy to draw but yet again we pulled the self destruct lever. Defending too deeply and not closing out the job. Forrester looked good when he came on. Again, all too little, too late cos I saw the germ of a combination between him and Billy. Bet he's gutted with Brentford getting promoted. Wonder if he's got a release clause if we got relegated?

Looking forward, Dickov's got a major re-building job to do next season. Can he emulate his predecessors? Rovers were depressingly bad in the middle. We're desperate for some creativity. I hate to say it and may be it's just immediate post match depression but there's a gathering gloom about our club at the moment. None of that ballsy bravado under Ryan. Well, goodbye and god bless 'til next season, assuming I survive Brazil. Watch out for the Capmeister's flag. Hopefully, it'll be draped round some Brazilian sexpot as well as me!!!! Toodle-oo

[Wellred]

Well said.

[Filo]

Not sure what getting relegated has to do with BST, he's been telling us what the target would be for months, we failed to reach that target, how is it his fault, his figures were very accurate

[Capmeister]

Not sure what getting relegated has to do with BST, he's been telling us what the target would be for months, we failed to reach that target, how is it his fault, his figures were very accurate

Unerringly accurate 44-45. Genius almost. Do you sleep with him or are you one of his servile, sycophantic followers. We could have drawn or won today. I had chips, wonder what the probability of that was??? Christ

[Filo]

Not sure what getting relegated has to do with BST, he's been telling us what the target would be for months, we failed to reach that target, how is it his fault, his figures were very accurate

Unerringly accurate 44-45. Genius almost. Do you sleep with him or are you one of his servile, sycophantic followers. We could have drawn or won today. I had chips, wonder what the probability of that was??? Christ

About the same probability of you coming on here lashing out at anyone

[PDX_Rover]

Anal stats - now there's a vision. One pebble dasher followed by some rabbit buckshot.

[philsky]

Although I have to confess that Leicester were never going to fancy a rumble today - why would they - even their fans said it to me.

To set our stall for a draw when that invites the best attacking team onto us seemed risky to me from to start.

I'm no tactical whizz tbh but I'd have been far more positive from the start.

[Wellred]

Any neutral watching that game might have though Leicester wanted us to stay up.
They did almost everything they could to give us a chance.

[Wiltshire Exile]

.........your f***ing anal stats now Stubbs? 44 or 45 points who gives a shit. I doubt you travelled either, too busy playing with your probability cards.

To the game and Dickov lacked the balls to play Sharp on his own up front. Sharp actually got close with a header but it was all if''s but's and might have been's in the end. Leicester were dominant throughout. Husband conceded yet another late penalty. The lad cannot do the simple things and force the player wide, he constantly let the winger come inside. He got the pace to close out most speedsters that bolt for the line. Hey ho.

We'd gone for a point and I think Leicester would have been happy to draw but yet again we pulled the self destruct lever. Defending too deeply and not closing out the job. Forrester looked good when he came on. Again, all too little, too late cos I saw the germ of a combination between him and Billy. Bet he's gutted with Brentford getting promoted. Wonder if he's got a release clause if we got relegated?

Looking forward, Dickov's got a major re-building job to do next season. Can he emulate his predecessors? Rovers were depressingly bad in the middle. We're desperate for some creativity. I hate to say it and may be it's just immediate post match depression but there's a gathering gloom about our club at the moment. None of that ballsy bravado under Ryan. Well, goodbye and god bless 'til next season, assuming I survive Brazil. Watch out for the Capmeister's flag. Hopefully, it'll be draped round some Brazilian sexpot as well as me!!!! Toodle-oo

Good post! None of that crap about being relegated due to poor refereeing decisions for crying out loud! No doubt JR will disagree!

[Lifelong supporter]

BST was spot on with his prediction.
If you got that bit wrong there's not much point reading the rest of the post.

[Donnywolf]

Any neutral watching that game might have though Leicester wanted us to stay up.
They did almost everything they could to give us a chance.

Like going over a leg left out in the Penalty area ? Or converting the Penalty when it would have been "not suspicious" if he had shot it wide. Or letting us get a late late goal and exit the Division with 100 points anyway ?

I was not there but the Penalty has been reported as dubious on here

[Filo]

I actually think that a number cruncher like BST would be useful for the club and manager, his points projection from Feb March to avoid relegation was consistently accurate, thats the stat that matters, not the actual teams involved, given that projection our match tactics could have been adjusted to suit an evolving situation rather than going gung ho for 3 points and coming away with nothing

[BillyStubbsTears]

Filo

I'm convinced that clubs trying to punch above their weight could get a bit of extra benefit from an informed study of this sort. Not the half-arsed stuff that I was doing, but a proper professional approach.

There was some coach in American sport, I forget his name now, but he transformed a small club into a big achiever by basing his approach to games on a detailed statistical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of opponents. That's too difficult to do for football. One if the joys of football is the unpredictability of each individual match. But I had a feeling for years that it is possible to do predictions of overall season issues, where the swings and roundabouts more or less cancel out.

I've become more convinced over the past two seasons, given that a pretty amateurish approach that I've used has predicted the target bang on from 3-4 months out.

This sort of analysis might well be sterile. It is probably vapid. And it is certainly anal. But I wouldn't give a f*** about that if it helped my club. And it could have done this year. Folk will scoff (sometimes they'll even scoff in a way that is comprehensible). But then again folk used to scoff when lifestyle coaches told players to eat pasta and brown rice. You wouldn't get many successful teams these days feeding their players egg and chips every day.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

His stats were right - team didn't hit the target, simple as that.

[Filo]

Filo

I'm convinced that clubs trying to punch above their weight could get a bit of extra benefit from an informed study of this sort. Not the half-arsed stuff that I was doing, but a proper professional approach.

There was some coach in American sport, I forget his name now, but he transformed a small club into a big achiever by basing his approach to games on a detailed statistical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of opponents. That's too difficult to do for football. One if the joys of football is the unpredictability of each individual match. But I had a feeling for years that it is possible to do predictions of overall season issues, where the swings and roundabouts more or less cancel out.

I've become more convinced over the past two seasons, given that a pretty amateurish approach that I've used has predicted the target bang on from 3-4 months out.

This sort of analysis might well be sterile. It is probably vapid. And it is certainly anal. But I wouldn't give a f*** about that if it helped my club. And it could have done this year. Folk will scoff (sometimes they'll even scoff in a way that is comprehensible). But then again folk used to scoff when lifestyle coaches told players to eat pasta and brown rice. You wouldn't get many successful teams these days feeding their players egg and chips every day.

It certainly would do any harm, personally I would like to see how your projections stack up next season especially in divisions that we are not involved in, take the emotion out of it and just deal in cold hard facts, there's another market there to exploit for forward thinking clubs

[silent majority]

The film, and the approach, was called moneyball.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball

[BillyStubbsTears]

That's the one.

There's a couple of academics at (I think) Birmingham University who try to do something similar with football. They statistically rank every PL player and come up with match and season predictions.

I've no idea how successful they are but that is not what I'm particularly interested in anyway - more a prediction of what the overall shape of the table is likely to be at the end of the season.

If we'd known 5 weeks ago that 45 points would keep us up, I suspect that we'd have emotes different tactics and that we'd have probably got to 45 points.

[Capmeister]

His stats were right - team didn't hit the target, simple as that.

Which target, 44 or 45? I often watch Carol Kirkwood of a morning not really for her meteorological reports, they are bland, vapid and generally wrong. The probability of her getting them right depends on where you are stood in the country at any particular time. I'm more interested in Carol's other assets. Maybe BST needs a female front woman. I may become more interested. Apologies for the overt sexism but we all know sex sells. I digress. I can't be arsed and maybe someone will correct me but wasn't BST only 8 games out from the end of the season when he made this audacious prediction? I thank you.

[Filo]

His stats were right - team didn't hit the target, simple as that.

Which target, 44 or 45? I often watch Carol Kirkwood of a morning not really for her meteorological reports, they are bland, vapid and generally wrong. The probability of her getting them right depends on where you are stood in the country at any particular time. I'm more interested in Carol's other assets. Maybe BST needs a female front woman. I may become more interested. Apologies for the overt sexism but we all know sex sells. I digress. I can't be arsed and maybe someone will correct me but wasn't BST only 8 games out from the end of the season when he made this audacious prediction? I thank you.

11 games from the opening post in this thread

http://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/index.php?topic=245571.0


Given that his opening post stated that he'd been saying it for a month previous to that, theres another 5 games to add on to that, 16 games, or a third of the season left. There's mileage in the analysis even if you refuse to admit it, it's there smacking you in the chops

[silent majority]

BST,

Individual player stats are very commonplace these days. Even DRFC have them available for every game, who runs the furthest, how many passes, tackles, assists etc etc.

I understand you're thinking of something different though. Stats and strategy can and do go together obviously. Interestingly enough Switzerland used the system, ranking points, current form etc to ensure they became one of the seeded teams at this years World Cup. England strangely enough ignored how the ranking system works and decided to play certain teams to celebrate the FA's 150th anniversary and it cost them dearly.

[BillyStubbsTears]

SM

Yeah, I know that player stats have been around for years. What the academics I was thinking of (Warwick, not Birmingham) have done is to use these stats to try to predict game outcomes at better-than-random-chance levels.

Their company is called Dectech and the football predictions are written about by Danny Finkelstein in The Fink Tank column in The Times every week.
 http://www.dectech.co.uk/football/index.php
But as you note, that level of analysis is not what I am talking about. I reckon there is a much simpler approach that gives a decent steer on what the final points target should be and that this should be used to help in making critical decisions. Like whether it was really sensible to risk Wellens in the Bolton match for example.

[silent majority]

Maybe we should pay more attention to this next season? It sounds like it's got legs.

[DonnyNoel]

Maybe we should pay more attention to this next season? It sounds like it's got legs.

I reckon a few clubs at the top level use it - Martinez and Allardyce have made reference this season to the points targets they have and why with regards to recent/historic trends.

[GloucesterRover31]

Fascinating thread! BST if your interested in this sort of thing you should read the "racing post definitive guid on betting on football" the book try's to roll the science into all the various stats of football for the novice to assess the betting odds on all markets to hopefully help punters make money! Also you should check out the company opta stat they don't just provide stats for commentating and jornelisitc reasons all clubs now use them! When Steve mcmanaman entered his last year at Liverpool he would stand next to Jason mcateer 4 or 5 times a game and make 5 to 10 quick short passes, him and mcateer where heads and shoulder above any player in the world that year for completed passes, Real Madrid saw this and offered him one of the biggest contracts in history at that time!

[GloucesterRover31]

Ps good work on the maths