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Moneyball Statistics and Damien Comolli
http://tomkinstimes.com/2012/04/mone...amien-comolli/
Interesting speculative article by Andrew Beasley and due to the graphs etc I'd advise you to click on the link. This article isn't just for people interested in stats but it gives in an insight on maybe why our new players where signed, maybe why we've changed our system this season and maybe why Commoli was sacked.
Last edited by ShayGuevara; 15-4-12 at 13:04.
The article is not by Paul Tomkins. It's on his site but written by Andrew Beasley.
Give credit where it is due
Apologies don't know how I managed to do that.Originally Posted by Jesal
The article is not by Paul Tomkins. It's on his site but written by Andrew Beasley.
Give credit where it is due
Very interesting.
Explains why Henderson is consistently played wide much to the frustration of most, myself included, on here.
No amount of words or statistics could explain that. It's absolute stupidity.
Stupidity is a bit harsh but I must admit I hope it's not a tactic we continue with for much longer.
Wide players are supposed to be ambitious attackers. Henderson is not. Even with all of Kuyt's technical flaws, he was always ambitious in his attacking. Henderson shows almost no ambition to create an actual attacking threat.
Simply put, he should not be in a wide position. He's horrific there.
I disagree, he's got ambition and he shows it. It's just that he shows them at the wrong times, like shooting from outside the and trying to emulate Gerrard in the final minutes, etc. It's just that many people fail to notice it.
That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about taking the ball and challenging a player. Taking responsibility of the game and saying "I'm going to create a scoring opportunity." Doing something that might not come off, but if it does, the team is in a very dangerous position.
If you watch good wide players, they do all of that every game, probably 5-15 times a game. Henderson does it 5-15 times a season (okay, that might be an exaggeration but you get my point).
Henderson is not a wide player. He should not play there. He is horrific out wide.
No one seem's to have picked up on the point he made that maybe with Commoli gone we will revert to the tactics that served us so well at the end of last season.
Also should this be true, how much power is Kenny being left with if he's been advised to use certain tactics?
Kenny has proven himself as a top manager when let do his thing, this season has tarnished his reputation a bit and could it be because of this moneyball strategy that seems to be the philosophy at the club more so than our old fluid pass and move sytsem?
I still haven't worked out why Kenny's decided to change tactics this season he's went from a fluid pass and move 4-2-3-1 with an extremely rigid defensive 2 in front of the defence and a fluid attacking 4 who could pop up anywhere while the full backs provide width. This worked and was extremely effective.
This season with Gerrard avaialable again (maybe this was the reason for change) even without Carroll in the team we seem to want to get the ball wide in a 4-4-1-1 system. With rigid wingers, one anchorman in midfield and a central midfield runner normally Gerrard or Adam. This hasn't served us half as well and even if we were still in the race for 4th I believe we'd be doing better with the old system.
Also now that Kenny has changed and bought players to suit it position wise, will he revert to the tactics that served him so well? I believe if he doesn't were in for more of the same next season and we certainly won't realise the potential we have.
We didn't see much evidence of that yesterday with the 4-4-2 and Henderson on the wing again.
I thought Henderson did well but I don't think that system should be used every game. Certain games maybe.
If it doesn't change I believe we'll have the same problems next season and Kenny will probably lose his job aswell.
He lacks certain quality to play in wide areas and makes a lot of wrong decisions in advanced areas in the field,sometimes it looks like he lacks the balls to try that something special in those areas
It will be an interesting to see the way we play for the remainder of the season.
Interesting read. Epic fail on Comolli's part if he thought that he could implement a stats based approach to help us win. Problem now is, are the players we bought any good to Kenny if he had been adopting tactics and selections which ran counter to his own footballing philosophies? Would really like to know just how much of an influence there was on Comolli's part though.
If true then Comolli has fallen into one of the most basic traps that anyone who knows anything about statistics should be able to avoid. The correlation versus causation fallacy.
He's assuming that good teams do well in X, therefore that's what you need to be a good side.
It doesn't follow. They might do well in X because they are a good side, or they might be a good side and do well in X because they do Y.
If this is true, Comolli should have been absolutely nowhere near the set up due to his incompetence. (Of course, maybe he did have better reasons than the ones posited by the writer of the article.)
We'll have to see how and whether or not we change before we can tell I guess.
awesome read...
thank you.
it went one worse on saturday though, henderson spent a portion of the game on the left wing
in which he put his best performance.
I'm sure its been looked at but another thing about the most crosses thing is that it depends where the crosses are from. Obviously United and Spurs low drives across the 6 yard box have a much higher success rate than curling crosses to a big man. If it has been looked at then why haven't we pacey wingers signed to do this?
I think the club needs to take a step back and ask themselves is this style of play more effective than the style of play Kenny implemented last season when he came in.
For me there's only one answer and I'm sure most would agree with me.
I have heard rumours about keen being our attacking coach and him responsible for setting up for counter attacks and the resent formations we play-if thats the case then he deserves the sack for this season as this has been a definite downgrade from last and as i said earlier the whole thing could be just rumours
I don't understand this myth that I sometimes hear that we are a counter attacking team. I've heard Coffeelover say it a few times on here, we aren't a counter attacking team we don't sit deep and use our pace to hit teams. We are rigid this season but it's still pass and move football to a degree but it seems a lot of emphasis is put on getting the ball out wide and getting in crosses.
I'm not sure what Kean's role in the team is so it'd be unfair to say anything good or bad of what he's doing. I know Kenny has the final say and maybe he should have a little step back and ask himself is this style really going to get us where we want to be? Also would the style last season with better players not be enough to get us where we want to be? I don't think things will change much til the end of the season but be interesting to see what we line out in pre season and the first few Prem games next season.
The interesting thing will be what made kenny change the style of his play,whether it was due to the effect of our new coaching staff or due to the signings he himself made.He must have learned a lot about his newplayers this season and also recognised the importance of the old players forming the core of the team,with this understanding if he plays with the same tactics next season I will be disapointed
why? Are you talking about the recent tactics or the ones implemented in the first half of the season?
It's won us a trophy and got us to another final, so you think everyone will say yes?
Apart from the first 8-10 league games our style of football has been uninspiring and we have slipped away from one touch football to blind crossing to hoofball at times.So apart from the first 8-10 games I havent been convinced
You might be interested to know that of the 15 games in which Liverpool have put in over 30 crosses Andy Carroll has only started 6. Also the only 2 wins were when Carroll started, Newcastle at home and Everton away
Thats my fear that we'll think these tactics are pushing us in the right direction. I don't believe they are, the club could look at a cup double or whatever and all the times we hit the post and points we "should" of had this season and think we'll fair out better next season.It's won us a trophy and got us to another final, so you think everyone will say yes?
Logically Kenny just needs to look at how effective his tactics were last season with a weaker squad and how effective this seasons tactics have been. The rigid style of play works against big sides and makes us hard to beat but against smaller clubs you need to let the shackles off.
He's left himself in a situation by signing certain players, he's committed to this style of play. Downing could play either system but Adam isn't disciplined enough to play that Spearing role of last season and Carroll isn't a pass and move player he's better suited for when we want to play this current system. I think Henderson could fit into either, just not sure what position. Bellamy would prosper in a pass and move system also.
If he plays the same tactics and gets results next season I won't be overly disapointed but I'm pretty confident either way that last seasons tactics were more effective and am baffled at why we changed it, this article is a possible reason why but it doesn't say a lot for how much power Kenny has at the club.
Got a feeling that Kenny is going to change a lot this summer, frankly. He is gradually toning down the contributions of Carra and Gerrard, and the next step is to bring in some quality first teamers, not to mention play the new guys in their correct positions.
I reckon he is going to address the main issues really well, and that's not just blind faith talking.
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