The Terrible Journalism & Tom English Thread

[DA Baracus]

Or how it's a 'craze' since folk have talked about it in football for as long as I remember.

[ropy]

Very often the assist is what it is all about, a mazy run leaving 3 in your wake, a pinpoint pass and some jobber taps it over the line.

I hate it when the scorer wheels away instead of going straight to the assister, it was his goal.

[Salvo Montalbano]

Or how it's a 'craze' since folk have talked about it in football for as long as I remember.

First time I heard it mentioned was in Fantasty Football League on BBC Two back in the day, so that's going back at least, what 25 years? It was always a thing, just never recorded seriously. I think it was brought over from ice hockey? They have secondary assists in that sport too I think.

[Guest TheJTS98]

12 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

I don't understand how an assist isn't a thing?

It depends how you look at it and how it's measured.

It's one of those stats that doesn't tell you a lot on its own. While it's not utterly meaningless, it is a bit grating how some harp on about it as if it tells us all we want to know. It's perfectly feasible that the most creative player in a team could finish the season on 0 'assists' despite being the driving force behind most of his teams goals. All depends how a team is set up.

The fetishisation of statistics in football is pretty annoying.

[IrishBhoy]

On 09/12/2020 at 13:58, Busta Nut said:

I never saw the game but I noticed Ronaldo scored two penalties. Was he much better otherwise? I am not a fanboy of either and I hate to see the way you apparently have to choose one. 

Read a stat that Buffon made 7 saves during the game, and every one of those saves was from a Messi shot. I did watch the game and can confirm that stat.
 

Not going to get involved in a Messi V Ronaldo debate because they are both sensational football players, but Messi with the ball at his feet does it for me. I was at the Nou Camp last year when Barcelona played Lyon in the Champions League quarter finals, and just watching Messi in front of my eyes was an experience I will never forget.  Barca got an early penalty and Messi scored with a Panenka down the middle of the goal which was just brilliant to watch, probably wouldnt have batted an eyelid at it if I’d watched it on TV, but seeing it in front of me was just special. Went with my Dad who supported Celtic as a boy but doesn’t follow a team these days, he just loves watching Messi and I’m so glad I got to take him to see a Messi goal. We’ve went to two El Clasicos and two La Liga games as well, and seen 4 Messi goals (he didn’t play in the first El Clasico, he broke his wrist in the game before it), but it’s the way he saunters about the pitch, often miles away from where the ball is, and all of a sudden someone passes him the ball and he just runs at the defenders, effortless skill to go past them. The other goal he scored in that Lyon game had him faking a shot about 6 times on the edge of the box, defenders diving in every time until he engineered a gap for himself and rolled it in off the post from outside the 18 yard box. Genius.  

[Melanius Mullarkey]

See all the goals for in the goals for columns? They’re goals.  They’re what count.

And not the goals you were expected to score but didn’t.

Good morning.

[IrishBhoy]

10 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

See all the goals for in the goals for columns? They’re goals.  They’re what count.

And not the goals you were expected to score but didn’t.

Good morning.

Are you on an E?

[Melanius Mullarkey]

Just now, IrishBhoy said:

Are you on an TEa?

Yes. Assam, splash of milk

[18May1991]

4 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Yes. Assam, splash of milk

Used to drink that. Now Scottish Blend. 
 

Good morning. 

[ropy]

2 hours ago, TheJTS98 said:

It depends how you look at it and how it's measured.

It's one of those stats that doesn't tell you a lot on its own. While it's not utterly meaningless, it is a bit grating how some harp on about it as if it tells us all we want to know. It's perfectly feasible that the most creative player in a team could finish the season on 0 'assists' despite being the driving force behind most of his teams goals. All depends how a team is set up.

The fetishisation of statistics in football is pretty annoying.

The appreciation of an assist in the build up to a goal has nothing to do with stats.

[RandomGuy.]

The worst thing about "stats" becoming widespread is the amount of people who clearly don't understand them, yet feel the need to have daily rants about "how my eyes tell me everything I need to know!".

Mozzas wee grumble about xG a perfect example. Clearly zero idea what's its actually used for.

[IrishBhoy]

24 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

The worst thing about "stats" becoming widespread is the amount of people who clearly don't understand them, yet feel the need to have daily rants about "how my eyes tell me everything I need to know!".

Mozzas wee grumble about xG a perfect example. Clearly zero idea what's its actually used for.

Have you ever read ‘The Expected Goals Philosophy’. Ive got it on my Kindle and I’m half way through, but I’ve seen your into your stats it would be up your street. 

[Dons_1988]

53 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

The worst thing about "stats" becoming widespread is the amount of people who clearly don't understand them, yet feel the need to have daily rants about "how my eyes tell me everything I need to know!".

Mozzas wee grumble about xG a perfect example. Clearly zero idea what's its actually used for.

Stats aren’t going to shag you, RG. 

[Boghead ranter]

1 hour ago, Dons_1988 said:

Stats aren’t going to shag you, RG. 

How about XS (Expected Shags)?

 

[Bairnardo]

Stats aren’t going to shag you, RG. 

Post of the day.

[Raidernation]

When I used to play Championship Manager (or FM or whatever it’s called now) I always looked to sign players with high numbers of assists in order to support my “strikers”

Usually works

[Loonytoons]

3 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

Stats aren’t going to shag you, RG. 

 

I suspect Neil Lennon will be hoping that is true.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

4 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

The worst thing about "stats" becoming widespread is the amount of people who clearly don't understand them, yet feel the need to have daily rants about "how my eyes tell me everything I need to know!".

Mozzas wee grumble about xG a perfect example. Clearly zero idea what's its actually used for.

I know exactly what it’s used for.

[Busta Nut]

"Expected" things are a lot of shite.

I like a cold hard stat. Something that happened. I also understand they can be manipulate.

[Miguel Sanchez]

I follow the NHL. "Advanced stats" - those over and above goals, assists (ahem), points, hits, time played etc. - have become increasingly important over about the last ten years or so. Advanced stats is used as a catch-all term for anything about the established basics that have been there since the start, although some of them aren't advanced at all and just measure things that amount to the number of times an action was carried out. Where a player starts at a faceoff, where they carry the puck into the opponents' end, that sort of thing. 

The problem with this as a phenomenon is that it's been near universally hijacked by insufferable twats on the internet who spend all day looking at spreadsheets and posting them on twitter smugly, as if it's so obvious from what they're doing that these players are all good and how could you ever even question it? You see conversations on the internet arguing about which players are better than others and then someone posts this:

The f**k does this mean? If you have higher or bluer lines on a chart, it's a better player? Who gives a f**k? Here's a different kind showing a player from my team:

Do I know what this means? No. Do I care? No. Does it explicitly state that he is a good player, or that a team is good? In this case he was the best player on a team having one of the worst seasons ever so it says something, but why are people interested in an exciting, visceral sport only to spend their team arguing about it on the internet with graphs?

This is exacerbated by hockey having a Yer Da quotient that football could only dream of where every sort of insult is thrown about from both sides of this debate. Then you get teams who have "big analytic departments" as if the top level of professional sport would ever not bother with a means of player evaluation. But then management types end up with reputations and things tagged to them by fans and a historically conservative culture around the sport and you have one side of a fanbase desperately hanging on to The Eye Test as undeniable proof that they're right and advanced stats are worthless.

TL;DR get xG and people who like that sort of thing the f**k away from football right now before it's too late.