The Snowball stat thread

[Snowball]

ALF - 3 (5)

See earlier post.


Roberts - 4 (5)

Previously dealt with. I award an assist for winning a penalty (whether scored or not).



Harte - 6 (8)
I gave Harte two half-assists in the game where Churchy nicked Kebe's goal 7/8

Need to trawl for the rest



McAnuff - 11 (9)

Not going to trawl for that many, but one I took off McAnuff and gave to Kebe making the diff 10/9

Kebe - 8 (10) making the diff 9/10

[Snowball]

Church Doncaster

I awarded an assist to Le Fondre for his challenge on the keeper which gifted a goal to Church

This may be where you diverge - obvs it was a fair while ago now but I don't recall Le Fondre touching the ball, just pushing the goalkeeper (might be wrong, can't check it). If he didn't touch the ball then he'll not get an assist.

As REPEATED OFTEN I am giving assists (and explaining at the time)
where I consider the player "caused/assisted" the goal. The exact "who touched it last"
is irrelevant to me. I'm talking about spirit of the thing.

Hence, as one example, when Harte made a great goal for Kebe, I gave him an assist.

It happened that Church touched the ball and pinched the goal. I don't take away Harte's
assist because of that. It's with great reluctance that I have to demote Kebe's "goal" to an assist.

[Snowball]

Church Doncaster

I awarded an assist to Le Fondre for his challenge on the keeper which gifted a goal to Church

This may be where you diverge - obvs it was a fair while ago now but I don't recall Le Fondre touching the ball, just pushing the goalkeeper (might be wrong, can't check it). If he didn't touch the ball then he'll not get an assist.

Even so the official stats apparently say 3 when there have been 4 or 5

[Maguire]

Church Doncaster

I awarded an assist to Le Fondre for his challenge on the keeper which gifted a goal to Church

This may be where you diverge - obvs it was a fair while ago now but I don't recall Le Fondre touching the ball, just pushing the goalkeeper (might be wrong, can't check it). If he didn't touch the ball then he'll not get an assist.

As REPEATED OFTEN I am giving assists (and explaining at the time)
where I consider the player "caused/assisted" the goal. The exact "who touched it last"
is irrelevant to me. I'm talking about spirit of the thing.

Hence, as one example, when Harte made a great goal for Kebe, I gave him an assist.

It happened that Church touched the ball and pinched the goal. I don't take away Harte's
assist because of that. It's with great reluctance that I have to demote Kebe's "goal" to an assist.

Calm down Snowflake, i'm just tryign to help explain why your frankly batty "statistics" might diverge from official sources.

Awarding fractions of assists and adding them together might be another one

[Snowball]

Not wound up, Mags. As I say, the official stats are wrong on Alfie even if you take away the Donny assistfor Church's tap-in.

[Maguire]

Not wound up, Mags. As I say, the official stats are wrong on Alfie even if you take away the Donny assistfor Church's tap-in.

Yep I should clarify i'm not suggesting RFCs website should be treated as the Bible on such matters either.

[Snowball]

Hunt Assists


I can find 8 quite quickly



Alf Watford

Excellent header-on
Just as the game looked to be petering out, Adam Le Fondre came off the bench to score with practically his first touch, finishing very well indeed at the back post after Hunt got a touch on Ian Harte's corner.


HRK Peterboro
Hunt's midfield header put HRK away (altho HRK had a lot of work to do)

HRK (p) Barnsley
(Hunt won penalty)

Karacan Burnley
But the players never stopped believing, finished the game as much the stronger side and Karacan tapped in after great work by Noel Hunt.

Roberts Bristol
Awarded for the brilliant reverse flick which led to the penalty

Roberts Leicester
With a quarter of an hour remaining, Reading bagged a vital second. Hunt found some space down the right, cut inside and passed a low centre into Jason Roberts who calmly sidefooted home past Schmeichel for 2-0.

Church Leicester
Reading were to have a third though - and yet again a McDermott substitution came good. Noel Hunt floated a cross to Simon Church at the far post and Roberts' replacement got in front of his marker to head home for 3-1.

Karacan Barnsley
I have a Hunt assist for Karacan's goal. So does transfermarket.co. The OS thinks Kebe...

[Snowball]

Football League website (official source) has somewhat different assist figures to snowball... (his numbers in brackets for comparison:

Roberts - 4 (5) 4 Confirmed. 5th awarded for winning pen

ALF - 3 (5) 4 confirmed, official stats wrong. 5th awarded for Church's tap-in

Hunt - 4 (8) EIGHT CONFIRMED

Kebe - 8 (10) 9th assist was at Barnsley. Also won pen in first Barnsley game.

Harte - 6 (8) Two half assists in game where Church stole a goal from Kebe. Have to find the other.

McAnuff - 11 (9) Dropped to 10 (see above). There was another erroneously awarded to McA, but can't remember which one)

HRK - 3 (3) CORRECT. Arguably UNDER. Should be 4. (Won Pen v Barnsley)

Karacan - 2 (2) CORRECT

Pearce - 2 (2) CORRECT

[Snowball]

By my methodology-reasoning (showing contributions rather than worrying about boring FA stuff which you can read elsewhere anyway)

I really ought to award a goal and assist for the perfectly good goal
(admitted by the ref) for the Church-Hunt combo at Blackpool

(I haven't)

and HCs for HRK and Kebe for winning the pens v Barnsley that another player missed.

[Wycombe Royal]

I really ought to award a goal and assist for the perfectly good goal
(admitted by the ref) for the Church-Hunt combo at Blackpool

Does that mean you should also remove assists/goals for ones that were awarded but shouldn't have been?

[Snowball]

I really ought to award a goal and assist for the perfectly good goal
(admitted by the ref) for the Church-Hunt combo at Blackpool

Does that mean you should also remove assists/goals for ones that were awarded but shouldn't have been?

:-)



No because it's about general "attackingness" and a dodgy goal that's been awarded
is still a ball going in the net, which is the real point innit?(Watford away excepted)

[Wycombe Royal]

I just knew you wouldn't agree.........

[Snowball]

I just knew you wouldn't agree.........

and I noted you omitted the fact that I said I DIDN'T add the goal and assist

[Wycombe Royal]

I just knew you wouldn't agree.........

and I noted you omitted the fact that I said I DIDN'T add the goal and assist

It was a hypothetical "should" you remove them, in response to your "ought" to award them............

[Ian Royal]

Football League website (official source) has somewhat different assist figures to snowball... (his numbers in brackets for comparison:

Roberts - 4 (5)
ALF - 3 (5)
Hunt - 4 (8)
Kebe - 8 (10)
Harte - 6 (8)
McAnuff - 11 (9)
HRK - 3 (3)
Karacan - 2 (2)
Pearce - 2 (2)

Now is it illuminating that snowball has over estimated in every case where his figures don't match except for with McAnuff? Who knows, I don't.

Shows how subjective (and therefore verging on unreliable) a statistic "assists" is. Now I wouldn't take the official figures as gospel by any means, but there's at least one extremely hefty discrepancy there.

To be fair Ian, Snowers has been at pains to point out that these are his statistics and his alone.

Dredging this up again will only end up with another 5 pages of rubbish diluting any reasoned point anyone tries to make.

Just a counter point to snowy's. It's never a good idea to trust one source exclusively.

For the record I actually agree with him that some of the official stats are wrong. I think ALF has got more than that as well, at the very least. I'd trust my own stats over the official ones, because if I bother actually finishing them the way I'd intend then they'll be more reliable. Because I'll have spent more time on it than the people doing the official ones and because I am far more familiar with our players than whoever does the official ones is likely to be.

[chilipepper91]

Just going on the "self-calculated" stats...

I now make that 17 of our 56 goals (1 in 3.3) which have come as a result of set-pieces.

For this I've included the goals which were direct, headed from a corner/free-kick or (perhaps most loosely), a few seconds after the set-piece. For example, I've included all three of our goals against Blackpool - the first came after a badly cleared corner, and Harte wouldn't have been there to finish if he hadn't taken the corner; the second may have happened a good 15 seconds after the corner was taken but again Pearce was positioned for the set-piece; and the third, well that one's obvious

So in an attempt to actually analyse some stats, do you think 1 in 3.3 is a lot for a team? Obviously I don't know totals for other teams but it seems reasonably high. Does it show that we're reliant on set-pieces or that we just put in the effort on the training pitch to make them count?

[Maguire]

Just going on the "self-calculated" stats...

I now make that 17 of our 56 goals (1 in 3.3) which have come as a result of set-pieces.

For this I've included the goals which were direct, headed from a corner/free-kick or (perhaps most loosely), a few seconds after the set-piece. For example, I've included all three of our goals against Blackpool - the first came after a badly cleared corner, and Harte wouldn't have been there to finish if he hadn't taken the corner; the second may have happened a good 15 seconds after the corner was taken but again Pearce was positioned for the set-piece; and the third, well that one's obvious

So in an attempt to actually analyse some stats, do you think 1 in 3.3 is a lot for a team? Obviously I don't know totals for other teams but it seems reasonably high. Does it show that we're reliant on set-pieces or that we just put in the effort on the training pitch to make them count?

It's a hell of a change from the mid 00s when we seemed to be as threatening at set-pieces as a flock of wingless sparrows.

Intuitively it seems high, but there's nothing wrong with that. I love seeing every corner as a potential threat rather than "okay toss it in and one time in 100 we might score".

[Snowball]

I can never decide when a goal is (how) "soon after" a corner or free-kick that it
should be "from the corner" or just considered to be open play.

I categorically DON'T consider Pearce's goal to be from a set-piece. McAnuff and Elwood
were exchanging passes before the cross, so that has to be open play.


Harte's goal... that's a stretch to call it a set-piece too... It's not the first touch from the dead-ball kick,
or the second, and then the ball hits the woodwork twice...




Elwood's goal, obviously, is a set-piece header




And the problem we have when guessing dead-ball percentages is who defines when a goal is a set-piece
(the direct goals and headers/shots from corners and frees are easy, but then what if a direct shot is blocked
and THEN knocked in [marginal]... or a shot is stopped, a second shot is cleared but knocked back in and it's then a goal?)

[chilipepper91]

But the thing is that Pearce and everyone else was positioned as if it were the corner. If it had been just a one-two then a cross, the players would have been positioned the same, and they were even after McAnuff finally delivered the ball.

And as I said, most of the players were still in the box from the corner for Harte's goal (including him, obviously) - the only way he'd have been in that position would be if he was delivering a corner. For another example I included Leigertwood against Southampton after McAnuff hit the post because the set-piece "phase" hadn't finished. I think as long as the pressure hadn't been cleared you could make a case for the set-piece directly affecting the goal.

And as you said, it's subjective!

[Snowball]

Not arguing.

Just saying you need some sort of cut-off point after a corner or FK
after which (even if a Harte or a Pearce are still upfield) you have to
say that set-piece is over.