solid work

I would say yes (99th percentile vs 90th), even though I don't think it makes sense to compare luck in an n=1 situation, since the shot is capped at 1 goal.

But I think it's a pretty big error in the model, if it doesn't account for the base rate of the player shooting. Messi 1-on-1 vs the gk is worth much more than Skrel through 1-on-1.

This has always been the trickiest aspect of the luck/variance/probability discussion for me. Whether I mindlessly select the lottery number I'm going to play or subconsciously determine the angles/power/etc I'm going to use to strike a football, I am "influencing" the outcome of the event. Clearly not all "influences" are created equal, but the waters are muddy.

What I think we can often forget when discussing a sporting occurance that we're tempted to label "lucky", or "flukey", or a "low-probability event", or whatever, is that it's not like the player trotted out there for five seconds to attempt this one low-percentage shot on goal.

Asking, "what are the odds of Coutinho converting that 30-yard strike in the 86th minute," is akin to asking, "what are the odds that the guy across the table held exactly the 7 of clubs, the 7 of spades and the 7 of hearts he needed to make a set of 7s and beat my pocket 10s??"

The proper question is more like: "what are the odds that, given 90 minutes and a football, Phil Coutinho will do something brilliant and win the game?" (Or, to complete the dreaded poker analogy: "what are the odds that the guy across the table will end up with a hand that beats a pair of 10s?")

And really even that is insufficient. How far down the rabbit hole do we want to go? It isn't enough to isolate and evaluate what just-so-happened to be the lone scoring play in the game. We need to evaluate the entirety of actions by every player, and determine what the odds were that each step taken should have contributed to a goal. (After all, if a basketball player hits a half-court game-winner after going 0-for-6 from the free throw line, did he get lucky or unlucky?)

Except wait, why bother with ANY of that? We "know" that Arsenal is better than West Ham, right? Regardless of "Cech this" or "Zarate that", we know that Arsenal "should" win, X% of the time. So anytime the planets and stars align in such a way that they lose instead, there's only one thing to say about it, right? ....."Variance".

as was pointed out roughly eleventy billion times that season

then in 2013/14 they ran hotter than the sun



then in 2014/15 they came back to earth and finished 6th

gonna be in champions league next year

I'm rooting for england to lose one CL spot, let liverpool finish 3rd, man u finish 4th and win the CL and take liverpools spot for next year's CL

I think the answer is the dreaded "it's a little bit of both."

The skills and abilities of a player (not to mention things like levels of confidence) are not static. Most players enjoy a general rise in ability, a peak, and then a tail-off in their careers, in addition to the occasional spikes and dips in form.

I don't think anyone would argue that Suarez was ever "crap" as a finisher. But I also don't think anyone would argue that he didn't improve substantially during his time at Liverpool.

Let's remember that top level players often have very little daylight to aim at. The differences between hitting the post, scoring, and seeing your shot saved are often a matter of inches. I'll certainly concede that even the most precise finishers are only accurate within a range of several inches. So surely *some* amount of post shots can be fairly labeled as unfortunate. In the year that Suarez hit the post repeated he was almost certainly unfortunate to the tune of some amount of goals. How much? I can't say.

However, I also think Suarez without question became a more accurate shooter than ever before in his final year at LFC. And I'm referring to the underlying skill here, not his statistics. Was there some statistical regression (in his case a positive regression)? Probably yes. But his increased goal tally (at the expense of his post tally) was also influenced by the player reaching the peak of his physical powers and the peak of his self-belief. He didn't simply repeat the same actions and enjoy a better result. It's more nuanced than that (and far too nuanced to measure).

That's nothing. I'm rooting for Spurs to win the EL and take Arsenal's spot too while we're at it. Your schadenfreude has nothing on my schadenfreude.

they changed the rule on that, Dean

leagues get an extra spot now if EL winner doesn't get one otherwise



maybe the other scenario too, not sure

Yes, thank you. Keep up the good work. For about twenty seconds there I thought that guy was gonna get away with posting a comment without having the less happy times in his favorite club's history promptly shoved up his ass by a fellow poster. Would've been so un2p2like.

Can someone explain what needs to happen for England to lose a spot in CL?

Well, that sucked. Everyone played bad. No need to panic, everyone will be better next week. It really showcased how an obviously unfit Sanchez was so, so much better than everyone else though.

Congrats Hoopie.

If Italy gets more coefficient points this year than England, England loses a spot. Pretty simple.

lol, it was clearly ox who gave it away terribly for the second. Coquelin won the ball in the box with a great tackle.

He was awful though, but so was everyone else.

I'm just so glad I don't watch sports this way

Fwiw, here is how they do xG.

Also, while we were absolutely horrid today, it's not a game to panic about. We got in good situations. Not as many as we should have or would like, but next week will correct a lot.

WBA

The tl;dr of this is that in early August it is, again, very hard to say how the season will go for WBA. I'm an optimist, so let's say we'll finish ~12th.

<plot spoil> Spuds fans here seem to think D.Levy is the MrThrifty of the EPl. Not so. J.Peace could be an early Mark.E.Smith character in his miserlyness - nothing is risked before the very last hour </plot spoil>

Long version.

This is the Nietzschean genealogical version of how WBA will do this season. One looks at the historical roots of the present situation, inventing plausible stories, in the absence of science, which help one understand 'why it is necessary' that WBA will do ... well .. such-and-such.

As a creature of little memory it suffices for me to start with post-Woy. Lukaku didn't score a heap of goals for us (apart from 2-0 against L'pool) - but did, when he played, provide good things in terms of spacing and hold up play.

Ffw to two summers ago. Towards the end of the window we have recruited Anelka and Morgan Amalfitano. We have a French speaking front 5: Anelka-Amalfitano-Sessegnon-Berahino-Mulumbu. We play like gods for two months. (Meh, not exactly gods, but pretty decent for WBA. We crush ManU and David Lloyd-whip Arsenal 1-1, etc, etc.) Then we play Chelsea. Our manager betrays what has led him to success and puts 9 men behind the ball with Shane Long up front to chase hoofs-away. Disaster. Chelsea could have scored five before half time (they score one). Afterwards it was worse. We scored a couple of ~EV=0.25goals and feel robbed by cheating diving scumski. This is the beginning of the end for manager number #-3. Next up we play the Villa. For reasons yet to be revealed we persist with the same formation. Shane Long channels CRonaldo for 15mins and ... fim .. 2-2 and we never recover. 8 weeks of hopeless football with nothing created later - Anelka self destructing and Morgan/Sess being edged out of the line-up - and manager #-3 gets the sack. And not before time.

After a pathetic 5-week interregnum over Christmas with #Asst-coach#-1 and #-2(dingles) we recruit a future GOAT euro manager, hair and all. Manager #-2: Pepe Mel. He understands how to succeed in EPL football, but is checked at every turn by a players' revolt led by the Anglo-speaking long-time EPl players - defenders - who are too slow/too scared to try to press high. Gg Steven Reid etc: Olssen, McCauley, Ridgewell, Billy Jones ... Notice that our French-flair has now completely vanished.

We finish in 17th - should have been ~15th but for utter craven not-turning-up in the last two weeks of the season when we were safe by supposed "English-speaker-EPL-pros". **** you all, all of you lot

Pepe says, "thanks, but no thanks" simultaneously with J.Peace saying "meh I don't see how this is going to work, but ty". [Pep goes back to Real Betis and absolutely crushes Spanish 2nd division - promoted #1 by a mile.]

And breathe.

We dispense with 50% of the squad. (Vide: previous summer exchange with BAIDS over this.) We get rid of the weakest links, at least, in the conspiracy against Pepe. We recruit various interesting, but not surefire hit players, e.g., Gamboa (Costa Rica rb), Samaras, Pocognoli, Blanco, Varela, ... It's reasonable to suppose that these players were recruited in concert with Pepe Mel - they fit his tactical schemes (you could quibble over Samaras, perhaps) and have/had high technical ability.

Last year. We appoint ex-manager-#1 as head-coach. Total coward. Unfortunately .. can't change the team on the pitch with substitutions until far too late when we are behind or drawing at home, and desperately afraid of losing. So, after a not terrible early-Autumn (when Berahino* scored from essentially every good chance he had), we once again descend into playing with 9 men behind the ball and no creativity.

[I will say one thing for this - it allowed Saido Berahino to develop quickly in this set up - at the start of the debacle he was hopeless, turning up field and giving the ball away every time it was hoofed to him on the half-way line, but after 8 weeks he had learnt to turn sideways/back towards his own goal and he now fights like a tiger to keep the ball. ]

*fn. I started that season itt worrying about whether Saido had enough of any one thing to excel - albeit that he would be good at most things. It turned out, rather quickly, in fact, that his finishing is absolutely elite. Worry is over just a matter of creating chances for him.


After 8/10 weeks of creating no chances ex-manager-#1 got the sack and <inter-regnum> .. </interregnum> we start again with Tony Pulis as ex-manager-#0.

You have to give it to the man - he runs hotter than Alex Ferguson. We gave away penalties from centre backs blatantly handling the ball in the box in each of his first five games. Each game was decided by one goal - except for one. Only one decision was given - in the game where Spurs were already 2-0 up on us and going away.

Highlights of this period included using Berahino as a 2nd left back - against an Everton team in conceptual melt down. [One hopes that was some bizarre headmaster ritual rather than an actual tatical decision.]

As is known, Pulis fired Pocognoli and we played with either 4 CBs in the back 4 or 3 SBs and Chris Brunt. Either way, both full backs were completely out of their depth against wingers with pace all throughout this part of the year, but - hey-ho - we had plenty of height for defensive headers for all the free kicks around the box we gave away as a consequence.

Oh - and did I mention that Saido goated every time (ie one game in 3) that he got a chance. No? Yes? I think I did in last year's thread.

So now we're here (again). J.Peace has (1) tried but failed to sell the club to ?rich? chinese people and (2) turned over some parts of the transfer policy to the manager/head coach.

That has led us to Steven Fletcher () and as many Scots-Irish wingers Wigan have.

We are obviously now trying to sell numerous non-English-as-quasi-first-language players that we bought last summer and replace them and - one hopes - other holes in the squad this window before it closes.

[truth in advertising: latest transfer things are: an Arsenal kid on the wing for a 1 year loan and James Chester - CB - permanent, both decent deals imo]

Ok - well that's all very well, but what about the organization of the team? Big Tone now says that everything depends on the players you have to work with. I'm a Pulis sceptic, but I'm prepared to believe that he enjoyed coaching Palace whilst there. So, although we'll probably line up with 5 CBs + Claudio Yacob + four others most of the time, it's completely possible that this will give us a position half way up the league (ie 8-12th).

But, that depends on scoring some goals. And that depends on our forwards, as our MFs are 2/3 goals per season players at best. (Of these I do have a soft spot for James Morrison, fwiw, - and Sess - but he's on the way out by all reports.)

Forwards: Berahino, Anichebe, Ideye. (Nabi)

Anichebe is decent - and is an EPL striker. But is injured literally 68% of the time. (And he was similarly at Everton before he came to us.) And so that doesn't really help.

Ideye - is a joke. No way he's an EPl striker - we should just write off his £10m transfer fee.

Berahino - yeah, well I've already massively (over-)praised him. We do well if we keep him and are on the rocks if not ... modulo not replacing him with someone else who can score at will. (I already posted about this in the summer transfer thread, but I agree that overall there's a good chance that Berahino will be sold to Spurs/ManCity.)

(Nabi) - scores tons for the reserves/U21s - has no 1st team starts ???

-----------

tl:dr

Pulis's view of his squad must be that it is threadbare and has almost no creativity - unless he's all in on the Wigan-Mc-s - but has an elite level goal scorer in Berahino. WBA has - at least recently - been active towards the end of the summer transfer windows, and this summer looks to be the same. We'll probably make transfers that make it likely we will be 15th or better. Or maybe not.

[Update on 2nd Sept.]

Arsenal played fine today, apart from the abysmal defensive mishaps you controlled the game very well IMO.

I would call this unlucky but would point out that it is the nature of the misses that makes me think this and not his performance relative to the xG metric. We know that shots hit into the corners have a better chance of being goals and if he's hitting the post often, we know he's getting very close to the corners. To miss so often by such a fine margin is unlucky in my book. Imagine however that instead of hitting the post, his tendency was to blaze the ball into orbit. Actual goals would be < xG but I doubt you'd say he was unlucky.

It's really about intent.

Cech lets in a howler that he should have saved nearly every time = He ****ed up, nothing to do with luck.

Philippe Coutinho scores a stunner from 30 yards = He's executed precisely as intended, no luck involved.

Torres blazes an open goal opportunity over the bar from 10 yards = Not unlucky.

Kyle Walker slides in to make a challenge he has to make. Ball could go anywhere but it nestles in his own goal = Unlucky. He did what he had to do and got an improbable bad outcome. Man Utd lucky there too.

Darren Bent hits a shot straight at the keeper, ball hits a beach ball and deflects past a bamboozled Jose Reina = Lucky, unless you accept that Darren Bent had the skill and speed of thought to execute this deliberately (I don't!).

I'll state again that I'm not denouncing the value of xG as a metric. If a team is scoring more or less actual goals than xG dictates they "should" be scoring then that is extremely useful to know. But you'll need to look closer to figure out the "why" and luck is only one explanation. A team scores woefully less than xG dictates. Perhaps they hit the post 5 times. Maybe the opposition keeper was absolutely amazing. Maybe post-Liverpool Torres is playing up front. Etc Etc Etc. "We won on xG but lost the match on actual goals therefore we were unlucky" is faulty reasoning and tbh I don't think this is a matter of opinion.

Not a hundred percent sure, so take it for what it's worth, but I believe what would need to happen is for Italy to outperform TBLITW teams in this year's European competitions.

good write-up tchaz

what do you think about rondon coming in? seems good (go read bjorn's high praise in the "300 players" thread if you haven't already), but surely means berahino is offski right? everyone on our end seems convinced he is as good as signed for us. that said, i expect him to start tomorrow

Bolded isn't quite right. Coutinho isn't hitting that shot like that every time, and it was a savable shot. That attempt isn't going in every time.

Think of it this way. The system treats a .200 hitter in baseball the same way they treat Ted Williams. There's still luck involved when you get a hit as a .400 hitter, but that doesn't mean there's not a massive difference between you and the .20 hitter.

chef, i find your ill-conceived view of luck to be puzzling.

there is variance in everything. yeah cech messed up, but in the probability distribution of what cech does there some slim amount of the time he let's in that goal. a mistake and variance are not mutually exclusive. and sure the distribution for cech is a little different than the average keeper, but there are probably more similarities than differences.

and some of us like to talk a lot about running good/bad in relation to xG, or how a team is dominated on TSR, clear cut chances, or any other metric, but the very data we are using to say the luck exists is subject to great variance. i often find that to be the most troubling part of it all. xG is correlated with level of play but it is imperfect.

the point is, nobody that i know of has some super model that incorporates every relevant facet of the game to project who is good/bad/lucky/unlucky. something like xG is a slight improvement over eye testing and removes a lot of bias. that said, having a tool that can complement and improve on your eye-test derived notions is a pretty awesome and powerful thing.

thx

Coutinho hits a shot top corner and it's not variance cuz he meant it? I jam 72o meaning to get everyone to fold and if they do my winnings aren't positive variance cuz I meant it?

Also, I think Messi is 1.5 expg career and barely anyone significantly deviates from it long term so the conclusion is all top level players are actually much more similar at finishing than people think. Which isn't that surprising when you think about it really.

That 72o analogy are like most poker analogies : cringe-worthy