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Football biases

J

jakehake

“Morel high warrior”
Staff member
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Jun 9, 2004
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Not strictly PNE but some of the points in the article are quite interesting. About the kneejerk to a result vs the underlying performance, or the "20 goals a season striker" (Plymouth and Leyton Orient won leagues with no player scoring more than 13 or 10 goals respectively).

Taking the emotion out of decisions is the way forward at a football club | Soccer | The Guardian

Deciding things on match days or after a poor result is a popular but flawed concept when the heart rules the head
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com
 
jakehake said:
Not strictly PNE but some of the points in the article are quite interesting. About the kneejerk to a result vs the underlying performance, or the "20 goals a season striker" (Plymouth and Leyton Orient won leagues with no player scoring more than 13 or 10 goals respectively).

Taking the emotion out of decisions is the way forward at a football club | Soccer | The Guardian

Deciding things on match days or after a poor result is a popular but flawed concept when the heart rules the head
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com
Click to expand...
He speaks about mostly the negative side of biases but they can also be on the positive side too. An example of this could be fans thinking a club is doing okay because they've picked up a few points but the data actually shows they've been lucky to win as they've had significantly lower xG than the opposition in all of those games.
 
Rodney Bewes said:
He speaks about mostly the negative side of biases but they can also be on the positive side too. An example of this could be fans thinking a club is doing okay because they've picked up a few points but the data actually shows they've been lucky to win as they've had significantly lower xG than the opposition in all of those games.
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Aye, who wants pesky point's when their's xG to be had.
 
jakehake said:
Not strictly PNE but some of the points in the article are quite interesting. About the kneejerk to a result vs the underlying performance, or the "20 goals a season striker" (Plymouth and Leyton Orient won leagues with no player scoring more than 13 or 10 goals respectively).

Taking the emotion out of decisions is the way forward at a football club | Soccer | The Guardian

Deciding things on match days or after a poor result is a popular but flawed concept when the heart rules the head
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com
Click to expand...
PNE neatly remove all emotion from their decision-making by having the decision-makers based in the IoM with no emotional investment in either the club or football in general.
 
MrBoomBoom said:
Aye, who wants pesky point's when their's xG to be had.
Click to expand...
It's more about how the results aren't reflecting performance. The guy mentions xG in the article that's why I brought it up. Fans might feel aggrieved if a club sacks a manager off the back of a few wins but the data could show they were actually playing poorly and didn't deserve the wins. Frankie McAvoy for example probably lasted longer than he should've as manager because he managed to pick up results we didn't deserve
 
Rodney Bewes said:
It's more about how the results aren't reflecting performance. The guy mentions xG in the article that's why I brought it up. Fans might feel aggrieved if a club sacks a manager off the back of a few wins but the data could show they were actually playing poorly and didn't deserve the wins. Frankie McAvoy for example probably lasted longer than he should've as manager because he managed to pick up results we didn't deserve
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And last season's xG table also makes interesting reading when assessing how far we "really" were off the top 6:

2023 Championship xG Table.jpg
 
Managers who focus on possession stats after a crap result, especially when 50% of the touches are your centre backs knocking it sideways to each other.

The old line of 'if you've got the ball, then you can't concede'... well we seemed to manage it frequently.
 
SF said:
Managers who focus on possession stats after a crap result, especially when 50% of the touches are your centre backs knocking it sideways to each other.

The old line of 'if you've got the ball, then you can't concede'... well we seemed to manage it frequently.
Click to expand...
We had below an average that was below 50% and so did the majority of teams in the bottom half of the table (including all three relegated sides). However both Luton and Coventry had an average below 50% so you can still achieve success without having the majority of the ball
 
I think that you can take the xg from a single match and blow it way out of proportion - teams often win matches comprehensively without winning on xg. But viewing xG for teams over an entire season is just about as comprehensive as you can get at viewing a teams overall performance. Its not suprisingly that xG tables most always point out the weakest and strongest team in the league
 
xG is just too black and white and football just isn't like that. There are far too many variables, how good the ball in was for the shot, the weather, the pitch, the quality of defenders you're against, the quality of the player taking the shot, has the player taking the shot just run 40 yards to get to where he is, the position of everyone else on the pitch, is there a beach ball in the goal mouth. xG to me just seems too simple a metric for the beautiful game.

Not sure how a penalty is only a 0.76 xG either. Obviously it's based on how many penalties have been scored in history, but it really should be a 1.
 
Libertine said:
xG is just too black and white and football just isn't like that. There are far too many variables, how good the ball in was for the shot, the weather, the pitch, the quality of defenders you're against, the quality of the player taking the shot, has the player taking the shot just run 40 yards to get to where he is, the position of everyone else on the pitch, is there a beach ball in the goal mouth. xG to me just seems too simple a metric for the beautiful game.

Not sure how a penalty is only a 0.76 xG either. Obviously it's based on how many penalties have been scored in history, but it really should be a 1.
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xG is fine, it's just the way people use it. I remember debating with a Cardiff fan about our away match with them. They were insisting they deserved to win and they were trying to use the xG to back it up (they had 1.09, we had 0.18). The problem was they had 22 shots and they were all low quality efforts. Plus only 2 of their shots were on target. The way they were playing, it would've taken a few hours for them to have scored.

Also have to disagree on the penalty one. It wouldn't make any sense for it to be a 1 when not all of them are scored
 
Rodney Bewes said:
xG is fine, it's just the way people use it. I remember debating with a Cardiff fan about our away match with them. They were insisting they deserved to win and they were trying to use the xG to back it up (they had 1.09, we had 0.18). The problem was they had 22 shots and they were all low quality efforts. Plus only 2 of their shots were on target. The way they were playing, it would've taken a few hours for them to have scored.

Also have to disagree on the penalty one. It wouldn't make any sense for it to be a 1 when not all of them are scored
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But I thought xG was based on the position of the chance. Surely a professional footballer shouldn't be missing a chance bang in front of goal and central from 12 yards out.
If it's the case that it's based on similar being missed in the past then you can't have a 1. There have been occurrences where players managed to miss a chance from on the goal line.
 
Libertine said:
But I thought xG was based on the position of the chance. Surely a professional footballer shouldn't be missing a chance bang in front of goal and central from 12 yards out.
If it's the case that it's based on similar being missed in the past then you can't have a 1. There have been occurrences where players managed to miss a chance from on the goal line.
Click to expand...

Well yes. That's the point. The highest probability chances will be like 0.999 or something.

Its an evolving science, and as they can track more variables, they will get more accurate data, but right now it's still a pretty good way to judge who's has the best opportunities in the match or over a season.
 
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