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re: Liverpool FC 2011/12 Season Thread
Posted on 11/8/11 at 3:55 pm to LfcSU3520
Posted on 11/8/11 at 3:55 pm to LfcSU3520
quote:
What was found was that a very high percentage of goals in the PL came from set pieces, so naturally they set out to attack that specific area. At least by putting in what were considered quality players who were also some of the league's best in dead ball situations.
I'd love to see these stats. Corners in general account for about 1 goal every ten chances. Headed goals are even rarer. I remember someone watched every soccer game from five tiers of English football, and found that inswinging balls were more effective than outswinging balls (I might have that wrong. I can't remember where I found those stats).
What is interesting to me in this line of logic is the fact that the majority of bottom-tier teams in the EPL rely on set pieces. But prolific offensive teams in recent memory (think the 09/10 season where the top three teams finished with 80 plus league goals) weren't overly reliant on set pieces. If anything, these teams relied on some form of direct play. Set piece goals weren't a major part of their strategy, though they were able to score them.
In that sense, I disagree with 'Pool's strategy in that regard. At the same time, having someone excellent at dead ball situations is something top teams always seem to have. But an emphasis on set pieces is the strategy of lower-tier teams, or at least it appears that way.
The problem with an emphasis on a dead-ball strategy is that it assumes a dead-ball situation, which are hardly uniform from game to game.
quote:
There's tons of data coming out now, but not many people are sure of how to practically apply that data
By watching players. For example, Wenger found Mathieu Flamini, an unheralded midfielder fro Marseille, because he ran more yards than anyone in Europe. But he was then studied closely to see if he had the requisite technique and versatility to play in the system Wenger wanted to play. Again, I'm not positing that anyone is using this data without watching the player, but quality is something that resides in that line of tangibility and intangibility. I'm not sure if it always correlates in a statistical manner.
I mean, how do you quantify the ability of a DLP to create a small amount of space for himself to release a pass? Positions like that are, in effect, positions of flourishes. How do you find that player?
2
Posted on 11/8/11 at 4:20 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
quality is something that resides in that line of tangibility and intangibility. I'm not sure if it always correlates in a statistical manner.
This is really the complication for statistical analysis. One can measure distance run but this is so raw without quantifying the positions the player is occupying during his movement.
I've been in Rome the past month and there's a real split with friends of mine about Gago. Roma seems a much better side with him playing but I'm not sure any statistic that would support that. To me, he's world class in one specific area: defensively and offensively he always seems to fill a smart position.
What makes it hard to argue is that often there's a goal or killed chance on defense, for example, simply because of where Gago ran even though he never touches the ball.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 4:25 pm to crazy4lsu
you can't base everything off stats the same way you can't use your eyes for everything. Like anything, the truth lies in the middle.
Lots of people have watched Joe Cole play and have declared him a superstar capable of playing on any team in the world. In reality, he's so poor at understanding team play and tactics, that his physical skills become useless.
So even if he passed your eye test, and then matched some statistical points you deemed important, you could still bring him in only to realize you've got nothing.
And that's running a sports team in a nutshell.
Lots of people have watched Joe Cole play and have declared him a superstar capable of playing on any team in the world. In reality, he's so poor at understanding team play and tactics, that his physical skills become useless.
So even if he passed your eye test, and then matched some statistical points you deemed important, you could still bring him in only to realize you've got nothing.
And that's running a sports team in a nutshell.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 4:36 pm to LfcSU3520
quote:
So even if he passed your eye test, and then matched some statistical points you deemed important, you could still bring him in only to realize you've got nothing.
And that's running a sports team in a nutshell.
Great point. It's probably also the pivot on which fans move toward believing they know more than managers.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 4:37 pm to wm72
Surely we have the technology to help us understand how players move without the ball. At the same time, how do you relate the context of that situation simultaneously? I'd imagine you could develop a technology which tracks movements on one screen while the game plays on another.
Gago's positioning is quantifiable, but it's hard to relate without context. Perhaps in one instance, he kept the team shape defensively which prevented a forward run from a wide player. Or offensively his movement created a 2 v 1 situation 40 yards from goal which eventually leads to nothing, but changes the way an opposition midfielder approaches a similar situation later in the game. Those things can be invisible even if you are looking because what you are trying to measure is opposition intent, which is frankly impossible to quantify.
I don't think anyone uses stats in a vacuum to make judgments on players, but when we discuss it in forums like this as if those stats exist outside of context. Namely we are assuming that the context in each statistical situation is uniform, when what is only uniform is the fact that there is a ball on the field and a game is being played.
Gago's positioning is quantifiable, but it's hard to relate without context. Perhaps in one instance, he kept the team shape defensively which prevented a forward run from a wide player. Or offensively his movement created a 2 v 1 situation 40 yards from goal which eventually leads to nothing, but changes the way an opposition midfielder approaches a similar situation later in the game. Those things can be invisible even if you are looking because what you are trying to measure is opposition intent, which is frankly impossible to quantify.
I don't think anyone uses stats in a vacuum to make judgments on players, but when we discuss it in forums like this as if those stats exist outside of context. Namely we are assuming that the context in each statistical situation is uniform, when what is only uniform is the fact that there is a ball on the field and a game is being played.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 4:45 pm to crazy4lsu
you can't quantify movement without being able to read the thoughts of all involved.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 4:48 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
At the same time, how do you relate the context of that situation simultaneously?
Pretty much where physics ends and poetics begins . . . which is probably why some of us are such fans of sport to begin with.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 4:49 pm to LfcSU3520
quote:
you can't base everything off stats the same way you can't use your eyes for everything.
Exactly.
quote:
Lots of people have watched Joe Cole play and have declared him a superstar capable of playing on any team in the world. In reality, he's so poor at understanding team play and tactics, that his physical skills become useless.
And teams believe they can teach him some tactical nous. Cole's problems had everything to do with the tempo at which he wanted the play around him to go, and not his technical ability.
quote:
So even if he passed your eye test, and then matched some statistical points you deemed important, you could still bring him in only to realize you've got nothing.
This depends on many things, but it would all depend on the style of play that he is implementing. If you contextualize the situations where he did well, and he didn't do well, you could make a better decision that way, as the technical ability is obvious. But this would require going over game tape and determining whether Cole made the right decision. Can teams develop a metric to measure decision making?
quote:
And that's running a sports team in a nutshell.
I understand that, but I find myself questioning the metrics teams are using. The metrics themselves reveal a bias, which reveal what teams value, but don't reveal the context in which those statistics were compiled.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 4:52 pm to wm72
quote:
Pretty much where physics ends and poetics begins . . . which is probably why some of us are such fans of sport to begin with.
As someone who deals almost exclusively in the arts, poetics are a science unto itself. There is a reasoning iambic tetrameter and pentameter is pleasing to those reading English poetry, and why the classical Dactylic hexameter are not. This is partly my research interest, how the brain reacts to art, because there is a reason for it there, but it isn't studied.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 4:55 pm to LfcSU3520
quote:
you can't quantify movement without being able to read the thoughts of all involved.
As yet, but when playing the game, we often can read the thoughts of players we are playing against by body language. If we can already correlate every emotion the face can make, why can't we extrapolate that to sport and the movement of the body in general? I realize I'm talking like a crazy person here, but there is so much research going on in that type of neurological response, that the first team to be able to use that will gain a significant advantage.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 5:00 pm to crazy4lsu
you've gone way way way too deep
I see what you're saying but you're decades down the road I think
I see what you're saying but you're decades down the road I think
Posted on 11/8/11 at 5:09 pm to LfcSU3520
quote:
I see what you're saying but you're decades down the road I think
He is ahead of his time.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 5:37 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
why can't we extrapolate that to sport and the movement of the body in general?
That it's already "writable" in the mind is clear since, as you mention, it's what better players and managers already "see". I follow you in that it's only a matter of time before a technology that can measure and organize it to some degree is realized. The scope of the data would be truly staggering though as it would also need to correlate to all the geometric forms of all the players on a pitch, both actual and potential.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 5:45 pm to LfcSU3520
quote:
I see what you're saying but you're decades down the road I think
Sadly you are right. The irony is that all this data exists, or has the potential to exist in but the problem is that no one wants to put things together.
An inter-disciplinary approach to sport would yield extremely fruitful results, in my opinion.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 5:48 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
As someone who deals almost exclusively in the arts, poetics are a science unto itself. There is a reasoning iambic tetrameter and pentameter is pleasing to those reading English poetry, and why the classical Dactylic hexameter are not.
Your research sounds fascinating.
I did specifically intend to refer to poetics in its Romantic sense of being a science of the mind in the act of apprehending, even though I'm a bit more partial to American objectivism and its antecedents.
I also enjoy the hooliganism involved in a Roma and Arsenal fan discussing poetics in the Liverpool season thread.
This post was edited on 11/8/11 at 9:18 pm
Posted on 11/8/11 at 5:49 pm to wm72
quote:
The scope of the data would be truly staggering though as it would also need to correlate to all the geometric forms of all the players on a pitch, both actual and potential.
Hence the need for a team to invest millions into something like this.
I suppose re-watching games will have to do.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 5:55 pm to wm72
quote:
I did specifically intend to refer to poetics in its Romantic sense of being a science of the mind in the act of apprehending, even though I'm a bit more partial to American objectivism and its antecedents.
A very interesting juxtaposition, as I tend to think of the objectivists as almost antithetical to the Romantics.
quote:
I also enjoy the hooliganism involved in a Roma fan and Arsenal discussing poetics in the Liverpool season thread.
Ha. I prefer to think of it as enlightened trolling, though I'm genuinely interested in Liverpool's season, as I have a soft spot for them. It just so happened that it devolved into what I'm interested in at the moment.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 6:17 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
I'm genuinely interested in Liverpool's season, as I have a soft spot for them.
I feel the same way about Liverpool.
quote:
I tend to think of the objectivists as almost antithetical to the Romantics.
Williams postured as such no doubt. However, and I'll probably betray a lot of reading in Paul De Man by saying this, the sort of ultimate problematics that concerned a Wordsworth or Wallace Stevens were not so different than those which concerned George Oppen or Louis Zukofsky even if the approaches came from opposing directions.
Antithetitical to the Romantics are probably more, to my mind, the American Avant Garde that led through Stein to Language Poets like David Anton and bpNicol which took the Objectivist maxim to its logical conclusions.
This post was edited on 11/8/11 at 6:18 pm
Posted on 11/8/11 at 6:43 pm to wm72
quote:
George Oppen or Louis Zukofsky even if the approaches came from opposing directions.
I see their concerns more on a language level, whereas the Romantics and Stevens himself had little interest in the vehicle of language. You could posit that this was because the Objectivists were interested in philosophers like Wittgenstein.
quote:
Antithetitical to the Romantics are probably more, to my mind, the American Avant Garde that led through Stein to Language Poets like David Anton and bpNicol which took the Objectivist maxim to its logical conclusions.
I tend to agree, but to say that every poetry movement after the Romantics was a response to Romanticism almost seems self-evident.
Posted on 11/8/11 at 8:24 pm to crazy4lsu
What the hell is going on in here?
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