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Liverpool braced for statistical revolution

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King Binny

Part of the Furniture
Honorary Member
Billy Beane, who conquered American sport with his unique analysis, says his methods can work in football

The baseball manager Billy Beane, whose statistical approach to buying and deploying players, enshrined in the multimillion-selling American sports book Moneyball, will form part of Liverpool's future under the ownership of John W Henry, has urged British football to grasp a concept which he believes will offer the club a vital competitive advantage.

Henry's new director of football strategy at Anfield, Damien Comolli, a close friend of Beane, said this week that the American's metrics system – which breaks down every piece of action into numbers which can prove the ultimate judge of a player's ability – is something he believed in "massively".

Beane – who, having used metrics to transform the relatively impoverished Oakland A's, is translating them to Major League Soccer club San Jose Earthquakes, which he part owns – said that the science can be applied to a more fluid sport than baseball, one in which cause and effect and an individual's contribution to a team are trickier to ascertain. "Any change is going to be greeted with suspicion. It's a natural reaction to anything," he said. "But I don't think there's a business anywhere in the world which is not using metrics, not as a template for success but as a tool. All sports are about numbers and it's just a question of finding which ones correlate to a particular sport."

But The Independent has established that the British sports scientist who worked with Beane to introduce the concept at the Earthquakes has quit British football for a rugby union Premiership club because of the deep-seated scepticism among football coaches.

Dr Bill Gerrard, the Leeds Business School's professor of sports management and finance, has already identified key metrics criteria for football – such as a successful entry into the final third of the field, second-ball possession or passing tempo, depending on the style of game adopted by a particular team – which can make a tangible difference to match preparation. His work at the Earthquakes included a player-by-player analysis based on 30 actions in a game which, when applied to the salaries of those players, revealed precisely which players represented best value for money.

But though there has been some use of ProZone statistics in British football, Gerrard said he could not get coaches to accept his ideas, while club directors who do appreciate their value are unwilling to force them on the coaching staff. "There's only so far you can bang your head against a brick wall," Dr Gerrard said. "It was great working with Billy because he combined intelligence and imagination. But there is a very deep anti-intellectualism running through the British game. I found it much easier to get into the boardroom to explain the value of metrics, but boardrooms will not meddle or be seen to meddle. A lot of football boardrooms in this country know what I do but there has been no interaction with coaches and nothing has come of it."

Dr Gerrard has undertaken work for Bolton – the Premier League club which has embraced metrics more than any other – as well as Arsenal. He was also invited by Comolli to spend time observing the system at Tottenham, though said scepticism prevailed over the then performance director's idea. "The one thing Damien had created at Tottenham was a collegiate atmosphere of being able to discuss ideas [like this]," Dr Gerrard said "But by the time he invited me to Tottenham, Juande Ramos had arrived [as manager] and he was old-school and that was not the way he operated."
 
[quote author=Binny link=topic=42845.msg1220720#msg1220720 date=1290133682]
Billy Beane, who conquered American sport with his unique analysis, says his methods can work in football

"not as a template for success but as a tool. All sports are about numbers and it's just a question of finding which ones correlate to a particular sport."
[/quote]

This.

I don't see how making a more informed decision is going to be bad in any way.

I would much rather make a call after i have seen all these facts about a player than without seeing any of it and relying only on a manager or a scout's gut feeling. There is no reason why the gut feel process cannot work in tandem with stat analysis process as both come from a different school of thought, and we need both processes to validate each other.

There is a bit of identity crises for posters on this forum at times. Some want a young manager who is hungry for success, but they don't want to move away from old "English game" ideologies, and say things like the Manager must be the only person who makes the final call on everything, and statistic and excel sheets don't belong in football and try to make a joke out of anyone who tries to suggests it (like Rosco)....
 
Like it or loath it this is the way of the future, when football was a sport people were happy to go on the hunch of a manager or scout etc but now football is a business to its core, that means return on investment quantifible metrics that can be assessed in boardrooms etc.

English football will be last to adopt it of course, its always been glacier paced when it comes to modernisation whether thats in relation to foreign players, tactics, management structure of clubs or anything else. The "we've always done it this way and if it was good enough for Alf Ramsey its good enough for me" attitude is alive and well in english foootball
 
[quote author=RedStar link=topic=42845.msg1220745#msg1220745 date=1290145877]
Like it or loath it this is the way of the future, when football was a sport people were happy to go on the hunch of a manager or scout etc but now football is a business to its core, that means return on investment quantifible metrics that can be assessed in boardrooms etc.

English football will be last to adopt it of course, its always been glacier paced when it comes to modernisation whether thats in relation to foreign players, tactics, management structure of clubs or anything else. The "we've always done it this way and if it was good enough for Alf Ramsey its good enough for me" attitude is alive and well in english foootball
[/quote]


hmmm, well considering that english football's run by the worst kind of reactionary, small-minded cretins, the premier league's done surprisingly well in becoming the all-conquring behemoth of world football, eh?

still, what does the truth matter when you can rely on lazy national stereotypes?
 
That's a bit of a mess of an unclear Peter.

It's beyond question that there is an anti-intellectualism in football, both on the playing and coaching side of it. Look at the treatment meted out to those seen to be a bit clever, they're considered strange in football. It's almost a pre-requisite in England that you don't have an education in order to become a professional footballer. It's unique in that regard.


When you talk of the league doing well are you talking about the clubs doing well in Europe or the Premier League being sucessful world wide ?
 
sorry, he seemed to be referring to how football has become big business but that england lags behind in driving ahead with that...was that not what he meant? perhaps i misread that, because there's little doubt that the PL's been incredibly successful financially, and that has in turn funded the recent european supremacy of its clubs on the pitch, as well.

you're right that british football's still overwhelmingly working-class in terms of players and managers, and that does tend to give it a certain image, but there are plenty of very savvy people in the boardrooms of the big clubs and at the PL itself.
 
I think LFC are very lucky to have this baseball spreadsheet cunt, Damien Commolli, Budgie and Tom Werner making the final decisions about transfers and 'football strategy' considering that between them, they have had precisely zero success in football ever in their entire careers.

However, I did used to enjoy Cliff Huxtable's Uncle Tom gurning and capering when I was 10
 
My first sentence in that post is so eloquent. Clearly I was wide awake when typing it.

I think it's only the money that kept English clubs at the forefront of European football, now that the money is drying up a little bit there isn't the same success. Wasn't there a time when 3 of 4 semi finalists in the CL were English, last time was there any ?

The article describes the schism between the savvy and the old school , and it's a battle still to be fought. Baseball went through exactly the same a decade ago - Henry was one of the big hitters for the savvy side and everybody has followed him in baseball. They've managed to combine the savvy and the old school approach to benefit the team.

English clubs need to do the same.

To give a nice example - from Moneyball - Billy Beane did research that showed that only 1 in 4 players drafted from High School made it to the Major Leagues whereas 1 in 2 players drafted from college made it. So Beane generally refused to take High School players regardless of how good scouts thought they were, since his team couldn't afford to take the risks because they were a very small market team. I'd imagine something similar would be true in football too.
 
[quote author=Rosco link=topic=42845.msg1220758#msg1220758 date=1290152221]
My first sentence in that post is so eloquent. Clearly I was wide awake when typing it.

I think it's only the money that kept English clubs at the forefront of European football, now that the money is drying up a little bit there isn't the same success. Wasn't there a time when 3 of 4 semi finalists in the CL were English, last time was there any ?

The article describes the schism between the savvy and the old school , and it's a battle still to be fought. Baseball went through exactly the same a decade ago - Henry was one of the big hitters for the savvy side and everybody has followed him in baseball. They've managed to combine the savvy and the old school approach to benefit the team.

English clubs need to do the same.

To give a nice example - from Moneyball - Billy Beane did research that showed that only 1 in 4 players drafted from High School made it to the Major Leagues whereas 1 in 2 players drafted from college made it. So Beane generally refused to take High School players regardless of how good scouts thought they were, since his team couldn't afford to take the risks because they were a very small market team. I'd imagine something similar would be true in football too.

[/quote]


i think i'd find it easier to get excited about this approach if it hadn't been pioneered by a man called Billy Beane. tbh it all seems fair enough in principle, though - maybe the problem, more than anything, is that none of us follow football for this stuff, do we? i don't want it to be the answer to all of football's ills, because i don't want football to be all about bloody statistics.
 
Football will never be about statistics, though..just results.

I myself have little faith in this approach, and I think it's just reactionary because the past 2 years have seen poor transfers.

Still, it is something new and perhapd it's worth looking at.

As for the English football' issue raised earlier, I think it's largely due to whomever's in charge.

Shankly's appointment saw changes in many aspects of training and diet which initially didnt go down well, but they worked.
 
I don't think sabermetrics is going to be the ONLY way we will use to identify which players to buy. If it helps in the overall decision, I dont see why we can't give it a try.
 
I think Ive already cracked our metrics:

8 + 9 = goals

1 = 0 goals

1+ 8 + 9 > 2,3,4,5,6,7,10,11 etc

21 + 28 < 0
 
[quote author=Rafiagra link=topic=42845.msg1220775#msg1220775 date=1290155169]
I think Ive already cracked our metrics:

8 + 9 = goals

1 = 0 goals

1+ 8 + 9 > 2,3,4,5,6,7,10,11 etc

21 + 28 < 0

[/quote]

Good lord you've done it Rafiagra!

And it seems like that stats say we should sign Messi and Iniesta if we need to improve!
 
How do i express it how i want to?

hmmm...

Statistics.

Statistics were the reason that the long ball game was enshrined and even made it up to the national team, i might also add that the perception of working class culture = dumbass is not only wrong but it misses the fucking point, the vast majority of all the players involved in the game are working class.

So we propose that the culture of our game should be a different one to the people who actually do it?AND THINK THAT THIS WILL SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS!!

Statistically a fast player will get to the ball more quickly, gee thanks i didnt know that, statistically more goals are scored from closer to goal than the halfway line.... genius... can i have a job?

As for the guy never buying a youth player from a high school but only doing so from college teams, so does that mean that if a scout who has been watching players all his life for a living, an expert, spots a cracking youth player but said player doesnt fit into the most "likely" demographic a statistician will make the call and we wont buy him.

I wonder why such an idea was opposed.

Sports science and stats regarding the fitness of players and the training/playing time is a good idea and the pro-zone data we have been using supplies that, i'm all for prudent use of finances to obtain the best possible team, and i have no problem with an open minded approach to achieving that i do have a problem with football being called "anti intellectual" because its considered in some way old school. Old fashioned or not placing enormous faith in a baseball statto with a sliderule does not fill me with confidence.
 
[quote author=Rosco link=topic=42845.msg1220758#msg1220758 date=1290152221]
To give a nice example - from Moneyball - Billy Beane did research that showed that only 1 in 4 players drafted from High School made it to the Major Leagues whereas 1 in 2 players drafted from college made it. So Beane generally refused to take High School players regardless of how good scouts thought they were, since his team couldn't afford to take the risks because they were a very small market team. I'd imagine something similar would be true in football too.

[/quote]

In general you'll find your wasting your time if you go looking at u16 local league games for players for an academy/centre of excellence. The lads by this age have been in an academy set up for a good few years and have developed more than the lads who are still playing Sunday league football.
It's best to target the younger age groups u9s-u13s if you want to get lads in who are potentially better than what you have in your academy setup. They haven't had the handicap of missing out on good coaching for as many years.
 
Henry's new director of football strategy at Anfield, Damien Comolli, a close friend of Beane, said this week that the American's metrics system – which breaks down every piece of action into numbers which can prove the ultimate judge of a player's ability – is something he believed in "massively".

I dont care as long as the figures add up to number 19 before the scum get there!!
 
YES, Comolli certainly doesn't now a good player when he sees one.. RRRRRIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

One of Wengers most trusted scouts and had found 6 of the players that started against Inter for Spurs in the CL. He certainly doesn't know anything about football.
 
[quote author=Hansern link=topic=42845.msg1220912#msg1220912 date=1290178403]
YES, Comolli certainly doesn't now a good player when he sees one.. RRRRRIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

One of Wengers most trusted scouts and had found 6 of the players that started against Inter for Spurs in the CL. He certainly doesn't know anything about football.
[/quote]


i'm sure he's a great scout, but i really don't find his record at spurs very impressive, certainly not for someone who's meant to be able to spot unknown gems: was there a single player he signed who fits into that category?
 
As for being one of Wenger's most trusted scouts - fine, but in that case keep him well away from any proposed keeper or defender signings please.
 
[quote author=peterhague link=topic=42845.msg1220971#msg1220971 date=1290187599]
[quote author=Hansern link=topic=42845.msg1220912#msg1220912 date=1290178403]
YES, Comolli certainly doesn't now a good player when he sees one.. RRRRRIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

One of Wengers most trusted scouts and had found 6 of the players that started against Inter for Spurs in the CL. He certainly doesn't know anything about football.
[/quote]


i'm sure he's a great scout, but i really don't find his record at spurs very impressive, certainly not for someone who's meant to be able to spot unknown gems: was there a single player he signed who fits into that category?
[/quote]

Assou-Ekotto?

Hardly a gem, i know but he's better than what we've got at LB.
 
here's another article on this moneyball stuff from today's Independent:

John W Henry made his millions by using hard data to play the futures markets and get the edge on those prepared to rely on instinct. When he bought the Florida Marlins in January 1999, he discovered that baseball was another industry prepared to base huge financial decisions on hunches. "Many people think they are smarter than others in baseball and that the game on the field is simply what they think it is, through their set of images and beliefs," Henry reflected. "Actual data from the market means more than individual perception. The same is [as] true in baseball [as the stock market.]"


But the seminal American book on the subject, Moneyball, demonstrates that the Marlins were a tougher nut to crack than Wall Street. The book, which maps the way the Oaklands A's were transformed by general manager Billy Beane's determination to instil the metrics system he developed from the ground-breaking work of Bill James, suggests that Henry struggled to get the Marlins coaches interested. "For a man who had never played professional baseball to impose upon... a major league baseball franchise an entirely new way of doing things meant alienating the baseball insiders he employed: the manager, the scouts, the players," author Michael Lewis wrote. "In the end he would be ostracised by the organisation. And what was the point of being in baseball if you weren't in baseball?"

The secret of Beane's success has not been so much using statistical data to help tactically and in the transfer market – the sport was already doing that – as using data that no one else was looking at. "What we tried to do was find value in areas where most people weren't necessarily applying the right values and that meant we could go for the players no one else was interested in," Beane told The Independent. "Every event that happens on any pitch has a value attached to it. Technology now allows us to gather any kind of information. The rubicon is applying it."

He is, at arm's length, attempting to do that in football. Just before joining a group of investors which took over the San Jose Earthquakes Major League Soccer franchise in 2007, Beane heard about a talk given by the Leeds Business School professor of sports management and finance, Dr Bill Gerrard. The subject was how metrics – or "statistical performance analysis" as Gerrard described it – might be translated from baseball to football. The two spent over two years attempting to do that for the Quakes.

Dr Gerrard says he produced over 80 reports for Beane. These included analyses of the common features of every game the Quakes won and loss. He also developed a player-rating system based on 30 actions each individual completed in a game, each of which was weighted according to its significance to the Quakes winning. Taken with the salaries for each player, published by the MLS players' union, Dr Gerrard was able to produce a value rating for every player. Beane was also interested in a statistical approach to the MLS draft system, under which each side is allowed to protect 11 players. "He wanted me to produce a roster, within the $2m salary cap, of players who had not been protected," said Dr Gerrard.

Beane says metrics enabled him to sign players, though he will not disclose names. However, the Earthquakes' owners, including Beane, had pledged not to force the ideas on coaching staff. After two years, coach Frank Yallop, the former long-serving Ipswich Town defender, wanted to pursue a different route.

These ideas are not alien to the British game. Bolton's innovative former performance director, Mike Forde, now at Chelsea, embraced them and asked Gerrard for a report after hearing him give a presentation. But Bolton ultimately went their own way without Gerrard, whose time working at Arsenal was also brief. "People see you as a threat and a meddler and can be very negative to you," Gerrard said. "At the football coaching end there is a great belief that you need to have played the game at the highest level to understand it."

Beane acknowledges that metrics forms only a part of the matrix of football success. He has not forgotten an encounter with Sir Alex Ferguson at a conference in the United States a few years back. "I'm physically a much bigger man than he is but there's something in him which makes you want to be a part of what he is doing. He doesn't waste words but when he says something it means something."

But Beane urges patience. "There is a misperception that with metrics you are not going to spend money but that's not true," he said. "Great players can cost a lot of money but become worth many times more than you pay. Metrics can help you see the potential in young players, who stay healthier and who you can pay less, leaving you more money to buy the great players." Beane believes Henry will make metrics work at Anfield because he is "one of the most innovative businessmen I have known". Recent history suggests powers of persuasion may also be required.

Metrics: How data can (and can't) help football

Missed tackles

Defensive statistics are generally very useful. Minimising defensive errors is a key to success in all sports and work Gerrard carried out in rugby league has found these to be the best predictor of a win or loss. Missed tackles in the final third are particularly significant.

Successful entry into the final third

Since one goal is generally scored for every eight shots on goal, the completion rate of balls into the final third is a critical indicator when taken with the number of shots produced from those balls in.

Second-ball possession

Integral to the intelligent use of metrics is an understanding of how the team manager wants his team to play. "Tell me what your team would look like if they were playing as you want them to play," is what Gerrard says to managers he works with. If it is a team such as Stoke, who depend on aerial balls into the area, balls sent into the opponents' corner, perhaps winning a throw-in, are important.

Wages as a measure of a player's value for money

Gerrard's work for Beane at the San Jose Earthquakes included a player-by-player analysis based on 30 actions in a game which, when applied to the salaries of those players, enabled the side to calculate precisely which players represented good value for money.

And the data that does not help....

Percentage possession

"Activity statistics", as they are known, are not generally helpful. Time in possession does not offer any prediction of how much a player is contributing, as it does not tell if a player is contributing to scoring and is not generally predictive of an outcome. A lot of teams that lose do have a lot of offensive play but are unable to do enough with it.

Pass completion

Can be equally unhelpful, since it is passes into the final third of the field which can affect the outcome of games. Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas tends to make a lot of misplaced passes, because he is trying to split defences. There is a risk-return calculation where he is concerned.
 
[quote author=Rosco link=topic=42845.msg1221069#msg1221069 date=1290195767]
We're learning already
[/quote]

I'm with you, Ross.
 
I've got a horrible feeling this whole approach is going to end in tears. Tears of regret for us and tears of laughter for everyone else.
 
I'm more optimistic than that in general, but it bothers me that Comolli's involved after the way his time at Tottenham unravelled.
 
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