Blog Posts

  • From Belgium to Cheltenham

    From Belgium to Cheltenham

    I’ve been watching a fair amount of football at lower league tiers in the last year both home and abroad. This is due to a mix of club queries and the fact that detailed data is becoming more and more available from the big data suppliers. A lot (not all) of teams at lower level…

  • How is Jonjoe Kenny doing at Schalke?

    How is Jonjoe Kenny doing at Schalke?

    There are 16 right-backs in the Bundesliga who’ve made 500 passes or more this season. Kenny ranks 6th of 16 in my passing model for accuracy. The passing model assigns a likelihood of a pass from x to y on the pitch being completed. So, a pass between two centre-backs like the one below gets…

  • On Goalkeeping Data, Scouting and Evidence Based Coaching

    Finally this week I got around to doing something I’d been meaning to do for ages. Pull all the data from games to see what a goalkeeper spends his time doing during a match. These are the on-ball actions of keepers in the Premier League so far this season: ‘Aerial’, ‘Ball Recovery’, ‘Ball touch’, ‘Challenge’,…

  • Why Possession Value Is Bollocks

    Expected goals. Expected assists. Expected passes. How likely is a shot from here to be a goal? How likely will a pass from here to there turn into a goal if the guy receiving the ball shoots? How likely will a pass from here to there be successful? All models have flaws and these guys…

  • The Everton Diary Game Week 9 – Whittling Down the Shortlist

    In the last piece I eliminated managers from the top 5 European leagues using my pressing metric. Today, the humble xG metric gets its chance to whittle down the candidates. Let’s go. Eddie Howe. Bournemouth finished last year with -7xGD, with the same attacking output As Everton but a much worse defensive performance. Despite being…