Measuring Success - The Arsenal (Emery) Barometer

Discussion in 'Arsenal' started by ArsenalJake, Aug 20, 2018.

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  1. wanye_stirrear

    wanye_stirrear Member+

    Sep 19, 2002
    Maryland
    #301 wanye_stirrear, May 6, 2019
    Last edited: May 6, 2019
    I said the chances a player created.

    I know what average means. I said there is no such thing as an average player (the term YOU used). You just gave me the definition and then agreed with my statement.
     
  2. wanye_stirrear

    wanye_stirrear Member+

    Sep 19, 2002
    Maryland
    That comment was directed to the board, but I see how it is confusing since the comment directed to you was above it.
     
  3. mebeSajid

    mebeSajid Member+

    Feb 16, 2009
    Atlanta, GA
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Yes, the "average player" is an abstraction. But guess what? We use such abstractions in EVERYTHING. Including sports: teams actually use xG, and wins above replacement, and other metrics.
     
  4. DaPrince84

    DaPrince84 Member+

    Aug 22, 2001
    MD
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    right, so when you add all the players up it means...

    and if we are doing less of that as a team from one season to the next, that means...

    Breh, you being obtuse and overly semantical for no reason. I am only using the word average to describe something along the lines of "replacement player" in MLB. I have a feeling you knew that but felt the need to carry this further.
     
  5. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    This season xG has been remarkably good at predicting the troubles ahead for Emery and Ole
     
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  6. DaPrince84

    DaPrince84 Member+

    Aug 22, 2001
    MD
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    That's the other thing.

    "we are unbeaten over 20 matches, this team is good"

    The xG said otherwise and over the course of hte season, we regressed to what the xG said we were.
     
  7. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    That was definitely a chicken that came home to roost for the Ole crowd on twitter

    Lots of pundit class claimed to be able to 'eyeball" the game and realise Utd deserved to win regardless of xG - but Ole's run was likely a mix of luck and easy schedule

    As soon as some bad results hit, he hasn't been able to change it
     
  8. wanye_stirrear

    wanye_stirrear Member+

    Sep 19, 2002
    Maryland
    Doesn’t xPs saying that we would finish 7 or 8th? Seems like we are cherry picking stats.
     
  9. wanye_stirrear

    wanye_stirrear Member+

    Sep 19, 2002
    Maryland
    Dude, you responded to me with a question about my analytics, for which I gave you and then you mischaracterized.

    You responded to me saying that I don’t weigh stats highly with some average player bs, which I said means nothing since we aren’t talking about average players. We are talking about specific players in specific situations. A baseline means nothing. You then asked what field I work in, pretty much agreed with there is no average player and then accuse me of trying to carry this debate on with you!?

    Trust me, I have no need to convince you. You are welcome to believe what you like. It’s zero sweat off my back.

    We all agree that we don’t create enough or have problems in defense. I think that we rely too much on wing play, which we don’t have the players for and defensive players who can’t create in the middle.

    In defense, we have had too many injuries and switch formations too often to be successful. Maybe the stats say the same, but I just would rather watch and use them as supplements than rely on them. Anyway, considered the horse dead.
     
  10. DaPrince84

    DaPrince84 Member+

    Aug 22, 2001
    MD
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    this is you mischaracterizing my posts. Stats are only used as supplemental info. The numbers show this team aint that good and our eyes say that. I never used stats as the only basis for my understanding of the team.
     
  11. NorthBank

    NorthBank Member+

    Arsenal; NYRB
    United States
    Mar 29, 2006
    Connecticut
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Cherry picking stats?? Say it ain't so!!!

    Here's another for ya...

    EPL Win % - Overall*:
    • Emery@Arsenal 60%
    • Wenger@Arsenal 66%
    • Klopp@Liverpool 57%.

    EPL Win % - First Season*:
    • Emery@Arsenal 60%
    • Wenger@Arsenal 60% (followed by 68%, 68%, 64%, 61%, ...)
    • Klopp@Liverpool 43% (followed by 58%, 55%, 78%)

    And I choose to cherry-pick Guardiola out of this comparison. ;)

    The bottom line for me being: Emery deserves another season to see what his trend is... even if he doesn't lift Europa Cup. He also deserves his own summer transfer market where he has good help & backing on players in/out (but sadly I'm most dubious about this latter factor)

    *AFAIK these are EPL-only stats, which I got from Wikipedia/Transfermarkt
     
  12. mebeSajid

    mebeSajid Member+

    Feb 16, 2009
    Atlanta, GA
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    It's kind of weird: the performances during the unbeaten run weren't great, but the results were. Then the performances got a lot better, though the results weren't stellar.

    Performances in the league fell off a cliff after the Sperz game, and the results matched up.
     
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  13. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    it's only competitive in the end because Utd and Chelsea were awful and Spurs small squad caught up with them
     
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  14. mebeSajid

    mebeSajid Member+

    Feb 16, 2009
    Atlanta, GA
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    That's true, but we've also been significantly worse than Spurs, Chelsea, and United despite beating all three. The problem is that Emery doesn't know how to setup a default style of attacking play: you should be able to show up, play your game, and swat the other team aside 8-10 times a season. We didn't do that very often this season. On the flip side, Man City did that to us.
     
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  15. wanye_stirrear

    wanye_stirrear Member+

    Sep 19, 2002
    Maryland
    In the last two seasons, we have scored 2 goals against City. They have scored 14 against us. It’s embarrassing. It’s the game that I look forward to the least.
     
  16. Super Llama

    Super Llama Member+

    May 21, 2006
    Seattle
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Besides everything else that has been argued in this thread, this is ass backwards. These stats are an attempt to measure the underlying performance--how well stats currently do that is certainly debatable and they are not perfect. But performance is what drives results, not the other way around. You don't play well because you won, you won because you played well (Obviously, up to a point--there are spurious variables. My argument is that results don't allow you to dictate performance better than performances allow you to dictate results.)

    Equally, results have a much higher variability and lower correlation to performance than the other way around. In other words: using xG to predict a team's future results is significantly more predictive than using a team's points total. So you can use current performance (even in the form of an imperfect stat like xG) to fairly accurately predict a team's future results, but attempting to use a team's current results (in the form of point totals) to predict future results, or even worse, future performance, is folly. So when you say to me that I'm using imperfect tools to analyze the sport, I'd agree with you. But when you then offer up "points and wins" as the alternative method of analysis, I no longer understand your point. You're substituting a flawed but currently best-practice instrument of analysis for a significantly dumber instrument. Surely this kind of analysis wouldn't fly in the financial sector?

    Go read up buddy. I said from the beginning I thought the Emery hire was a mistake for many reasons, but that I was neutral about Emery himself. However, I want to say categorically: if this team finished four spots lower in the table than it will do now, but was performing significantly better than it is right now, I would not be arguing that we need to fire Emery. The point of citing these stats is to corroborate what my eye tells me--that we are a team that is performing badly but getting lucky results, and that will not last long-term and we will probably be even lower in the table next year given our current trajectory. So no small part of arguing for firing Emery now is to both avoid the sunk-cost fallacy of his hiring and to avoid the further regression of this team to what our stats (and my subjective observation) suggest would be future 7th and 8th place finishes.
     
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  17. GunnerJacket

    GunnerJacket Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 18, 2003
    Gainesville, GA
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Seeing Liverpool's success under Klopp just takes me back to those years ago when folks were clamoring for Wenger to be released while the German was available. The trajectory of the clubs has been so different since. And it's not all down to the coach but to the administration working with the coach to achieve success on the pitch. Tottenham with Levy and Poch to a similar degree.

    Kvetch all we want about Emery but for me the club won't achieve anything like we desire until the heads of the club pursue winning games like that single thing is priorities 1-11.
     
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  18. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    Quite a few posters here didn't want Klopp IIRC

    I was always a fan-boi
     
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  19. GunnerJacket

    GunnerJacket Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 18, 2003
    Gainesville, GA
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Even if not him the notion was about thinking forward and trying to win. It was about having a united vision of taking the club to the next level. Wenger and the board/ownership clearly didn't have that in the sense that the fans and the players wanted.

    I don't want a sugar daddy club or to be known for spending out the wazoo, but there's a point where value engineering is simply being cheap. Wenger wasn't building a cohesive team, he was simply being stingy and hoping his concoction would bear fruit. Alas.
     
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  20. DaPrince84

    DaPrince84 Member+

    Aug 22, 2001
    MD
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    I was one of them... I was wrong.
     
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  21. bandwagongooner

    bandwagongooner Member+

    Dec 9, 2006
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Klopp has been excellent, but Liverpool probably has the best upper management in the world right now. They make smart decisions over and over again and put their manager in a position to succeed. The last 5 years of team building has been a masterclass.
     
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  22. NorthBank

    NorthBank Member+

    Arsenal; NYRB
    United States
    Mar 29, 2006
    Connecticut
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Seems so. And that is why I think Emery is probably not what everyone should be arguing about. It's above him, and around him, that seems to need the most fixing. And if there is paltry money available to Emery this summer, then I'd say KSE is front and center to that argument.
     
  23. Super Llama

    Super Llama Member+

    May 21, 2006
    Seattle
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    The present-day Liverpool is everything I want Arsenal to be. An efficient, well-run organization with clear objectives and a strong culture of performance. I've said for years now that while Wenger did not deserve to still be manager, the fundamental organizational problems were above his head, and that, like you said, we won't get where we want to be without change at the executive, organizational level. It's the most depressing thing in the sports world to have a terrible owner, and unfortunately, that's what we have.
     
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  24. wanye_stirrear

    wanye_stirrear Member+

    Sep 19, 2002
    Maryland
    #324 wanye_stirrear, May 7, 2019
    Last edited: May 7, 2019
    Okay.

    Is Expected points a better metric than Expected goals for predicting future results? Wouldn’t the Expected points be the more encompassing stat? What happens when that’s way off? Does Expected Assist take into account who you passed the ball to?? No. Wouldn’t that be a major factor in whether or not a player would score? It’s so faulty.

    The underlining data for stats is the game itself surmised in some type of quantitative way from which people can glean some meaning. These stats are faulty because they are based on too many variables. If stats were based on a certain player, empirically, in different situations, they would be more believable. Basing whether Lacazette should score a goal on how X, Y and Z player did in that situation without the context of the spin of the ball, the weight of the pass, the gravity of the game,the skill and composure of the player, the position of defenders and a myriad of other factors is for suckers. But robots will robot. I can’t help you.

    And again, using stats from this season to predict how we will do next season with no regard to who will be in the squad or which formation we will play (given that Emery changes formation every other game) is dodo dumb. But you can have the last word, Super Llama.
     
  25. bandwagongooner

    bandwagongooner Member+

    Dec 9, 2006
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Generally who receives the pass doesn't affect the xG that much. Scorers score more because they get into better positions more often than worse scorers. RvP's superb off-the-ball movement is reflected in his xG total because he is further away from defenders when he shoots. xG takes into account a lot more than just where somebody is when they shoot. A good xG model uses header v strong foot v weak foot, the positions of the defenders, the position of the keeper, and probably other things.
     
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