Don't all shoot me down,
Can someone please tell me what stats will be used in this new philosophy? I'm sure only one stat counts when playing football,, and that's...more goals than the opponent?
We are all well aware we just had a superb season playing some smashing football and I know it's been said on here before .... Why change that?
Yes, the past is the past now and we all have to move on and hope this new management team have the same desire and man management skills as the last lot!
But my point is, this is football , nobody or no stat can determine which way the ball will roll, no stat can tell you we will gain or concede a last minute penalty, no stat can tell you who will be sent off, ect ect,
I'm not the "old skool" typo and have played at a good level for 20 years (including bees CoE for 5 years) and still playing so I do know my bit about the game.
I hope it's not a complete failure obviously but I'm curious to know what stats will win us matches??
Obviously the biggest factor is player recruitment. Better players normally mean better teams. On an "equal" playing field we probably are in for getting out outmaneuvered in the transfer market by the so-called bigger clubs spending more money. However, that isn't what happened last summer - look at all the inferior players who cost more than Jota.
Football statistics are something I know something about (my job is in football trading/betting) and, whilst I don't have much experience in terms of the individual stats we might be looking at in terms of in-depth analysis of one player and their performances, I do know some general things about how, if I was in charge of a club, I'd be looking to use statistics.
The first thing I'd say is when you describe what statistics can't tell you what you are doing is describing randomness. If there was no randomness in football then everything would be quite simple - if we lose to Fulham in week one and Fulham lose to Cardiff in week two then we should have no chance against Cardiff in week three. Obviously people know that's not how it works and this normally leads to half-truths being used to explain what's happened (confidence, belief, form, biased officials, wanting it more) when often what happens is basic variation - there are so few goals in football that hard predictions are a mugs game.
This is all a long-winded way of getting to this point: the footballing truism of the league table never lying is codswallop. Teams can finish higher or lower than their performances and players deserve. Typically speaking, players in teams with higher league positions will be coveted and those with lower league positions will be less desired. However, if the team that finished lower is actually a better but unluckier team, you can sign their better players for less money.
This team-ranking can be done using a variety of statistics. A part of that is to take a look at things like shots on goal (to over-simplify: teams that shoot a lot will score more in the long run).
Another related, but slightly different, approach is to understand how good certain teams are across leagues and countries. If a player is performing well for a team that is a bit better then it stands to reason they're worth considering
if they'd come to you. This is normally a big if as a Premier League starter is unlikely to want to come to the Championship. However, there are some under-valued teams and leagues. If you find a good player (and you can judge good by traditional methods if you like) in a good team that isn't valued as highly their English equivalent would be, you are much more likely to attract the player. In our case I've read we've compiled a giant 'super table' of many teams across Europe so we can compare the teams easily even though it's not immediate apparent, at least to us fans, how a mid-table Swiss team compares to a promotion-chasing Championship team. It's the teams that are surprisingly high up on the table or those with incongruously low valued players that are worth looking at.
The Spanish second division is a good example of a league that has been undervalued in recent years - we'd never dream of getting Jota if he had been the best player in a promoted Championship side. As a related bug bear, the bottom of La Liga is normally pretty undervalued at least from a media/ english fans' perspective - they'd be more than competitive in the Premier League, it just looks like they're pushovers because Barcelona are THAT good. In a similar way, the bottom half of the Premier League is often overrated vs the top half of the Championship and so I doubt we'll be joining those clubs who buy the 'experience' of PL players who are dropping down. I heard some Brighton fans going mental that they won't give Zamora the two year deal he's supposedly demanding. They should be happy their club has more sense than they have.
I don't know enough about (who am I kidding, I don't know anything about) German lower leagues to comment at all but it wouldn't be surprising if we've discovered that their leagues are a bit undervalued if you consider the transfers of Sparv and Gogia.
TL;DR - Statistics don't win you matches* but they might get us the players who will win us matches.
*Well, if that 'random' last minute goal from a corner stems from us figuring out what's better, inswinging vs outswinging corners maybe they can. But this has gone on long enough
