Blog Posts

  • Episode #02 – Performance Analyst podcast with Scunthorpe United’s Harry Jamieson

    Head of Performance Analysis at Scunthorpe United, Harry Jamieson, joins Differentgame to talk about how professional football clubs prepare for and analyse games. Harry talks about the tools and tricks of the trade and the hard graft that goes on off the pitch and behind the scenes. Listen via iTunes Listen via Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/differentgame/02-performance-analyst-podcast-with-scunthorpes-harry-jamieson

  • An xG Model for Everyone in 20 minutes (ish)

    I get loads of queries asking for xG values for teams or players. When I started all this nearly 5 years ago, collecting enough shot position data to build a model took months worth of effort. Today, you can get a decent enough equivalent in 20 minutes for a ton of leagues. How? Have you…

  • The Data Scout Miniblog – Leon Goretzka

    Goretzka’s team Schalke are an above average passing side but most of this is built on defensive build up from the back three Howedes, Naldo and Nastasic rather than a fully functioning midfield. Goretzka generally plays in a central midfield three alongside Johannes Geis and Nabil Bentaleb. My xP model says these three are average…

  • Episode #01 – Keeping podcast with David Preece

    Former Sunderland, Darlington, Aberdeen, Silkeborg, Barnsley and Lincoln goalkeeper, David Preece, joins Differentgame to talk current No.1’s, how coaching has evolved and media coverage of the men between the sticks. Listen via iTunes Listen via Soundcloud:

  • Expected Passing for Everyone!

    Regular readers will note that I’ve been boring off about ‘expected passes’ (xP) a lot recently both on the blog and on twitter. What is xP? It’s basically assigning each pass a probability of it being completed successfully. I’ve done this by gridding out the pitch in (roughly) 10yd x 10yd sections. This splits the…