Conversion % much betterOriginally Posted by El Chupacabra
I couldn't give a fuck less about how many shots a player takes from 30+ yards out.
Conversion % much better
I couldn't give a fuck less about how many shots a player takes from 30+ yards out.
Football. Bloody Hell.
Yep, it's very hard to take a lot of shots per game. Closest thing to a bad player in the top 20 of shots last season in the prem is Saloman Rondon. The rest are all good.
N. Pepe didn't play in the Premier League last year, so not a reliable comparison.
Football. Bloody Hell.
You need to weed out the long shots for sure. That's why Andros Townsend is Andros Townsend, and may be part of the reason that Ziyech hasn't gotten a big move yet.
Conversion is actually a little misleading, but good to look at. This isn't my conclusion, this is the conclusion of people who get paid a lot of money to do this for teams. Total shots and shots in the area have been proven to be more reliable indicators of future performance.
Runs with deer.
I'm sure the best teams all have proprietary data about league factors, but you definitely need to take into consideration the different levels of competition.
Runs with deer.
I disagree. Glen Murray was second last season in conversion rate (35%!). He's not in the top 25 of shots taken, and therefore is only t-10 in the prem in goals.
Second in shots taken is Sergio Aguero, who at 21 goals is one off the golden boot and nowhere near the top 25 in conversion rate.
There's a performance level that you should target that includes taking a lot of shots and taking them from inside the box and closer to the center of the box. That is the more demonstrable predictor of goals than conversion rate or shots or shots on targe. But xG is useful because it quantifies where shots are taken from and shot volume, which those others do not.
Last edited by TownieDeac; 07-24-2019 at 02:44 PM.
.1xG per shot is actually pretty good, and you would be a very good player if you took 5 shots a game at .1xG
Runs with deer.
dammit chupe
You're probably elite if you are taking 5 shots a game at all.
Runs with deer.
"Advanced" stats have made baseball borderline unwatchable, and basketball is headed down the same path. Do you nerds really want to do this to footie?
Also worth considering is whether a player under- or over-performs their xG. The expected goals stat is nice for quantifying average vs. good players in terms of who is getting into good positions and taking more and better shots but one big difference between a Morata and a Salah is what you do with those opportunities.
I'm fine with separating the kinds of discussions I have with different kinds of sports fans. If I'm watching a baseball game with my dad I'm not talking about Mike Trout's WAR. If I'm talking to Everton friends or Sixers friends who are data nerds like me, it's a useful way to talk about roster construction, which is important to your team being good and fun to cheer for. The important thing for data nerds is to not go full rj and just act like stats have all the answers. Anybody who does modeling will acknowledge the limits of their models to the point where you'll question their value.
you just gotta find that balance
Yeah, it is sort of like BABiP.
edit - replying to ipity.
Last edited by El Chupacabra; 07-24-2019 at 03:00 PM.
Runs with deer.
The thing is that with soccer the aim has always been to get as close and central to the goal for opportunities, so there won't really be any strategic shifts like swinging for the fences every time, and you don't get more points for a 30 yarder, so no need to worry about teams suddenly taking all those at the expense of those beautiful, glorious, old school mid-range jumpers.
Instead you are starting to see teams do fun shit like creative set pieces.
Some of the nerds are insufferable though, and fun to make fun of, it's true. Like that dork Knutson.
Last edited by El Chupacabra; 07-24-2019 at 03:05 PM.
Runs with deer.
Well I would fucking well hope that professional scouts and data analysts of top-tier football clubs know more than we do.
Football. Bloody Hell.
But those guys are all using these stats that you seem to think are shitty?
Runs with deer.
Anyway, I think some of these things have added a lot to my understanding of the game, so I've enjoyed exploring them. But it is always changing, and things like Michael Caley's xG shot maps on a per game basis, though fun to look at, can definitely be a little misleading and not as indicative of the match as he seems to often express.
Teams are definitely using these stats though, xG or something similar, so it makes sense to me to try to get into them a little more, but if you don't dig them, it's cool. I just think it's kind of silly to write them off.
The things we see in the public seem sound for analyzing attacking stuff, especially. It will be interesting to me to see how the metrics evolve for analyzing other postions. The keeper things coming out look interesting, and the ball progressing/advancement stuff is cool, but I'm less confident in that.
That being said, I just like to watch fun, crazy matches, and like fun, crazy players more than anything.
Runs with deer.
Oh for fuck's sake...
1) I don't think they are shitty, just that xG is flawed
2) They don't look at one stat, flawed or not, alone and come to a conclusion
3) They have many better advanced statistics than we are privy to
4) They also scout the players in person to see how they actually play vs look on a spreadsheet
5) They literally do this for a living and are much better and analyzing these particular data sets much better than we are due to experience, learned successes/failures, and comfortableness with the subject matter.
Z) Unless Bebe, when you sign a homeless player as a favor to a sports agent because how could that not go wrong?!!?
Football. Bloody Hell.
Hull signed Bert Bertbertson and Harry Maguire on the same day five years ago.
Runs with deer.
And I cannot prove it but I know for certain regardless that scouts of top-tier teams don't look at a damn StatsBomb radar chart when they consider if they would recommend a player to their manager or not.
And one would be fired if they tried to show on one of these radar charts that a player improved from their Year 23 season to their Year 24 season. Because no fucking shit they did, otherwise, why bother caring about the player in the first place?
Football. Bloody Hell.
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