Back From The Game - Bolton

[ZacNaloen]

My main issue with Mcdermott even when we were winning, and as I said in the summer after we got promoted, if we don't learn to control the ball we would get ripped apart by the teams that could. This issue was never what we did in attack, but that our main defensive effort was to kick the ball back to the opposition so they could come at us again. You've got to be better than that now.

[winchester_royal]

I'd wager 48% is probably still a lot better than most of McD's matches TBH.

You still haven't got it, have you? More isn't necessarily better. As proved yesterday.

Don't need to be an economist to work this one out.

[P!ssed Off]

I wish people would stop putting words in the mouths of those they disagree with.

No one, repeat no one, has ever asked for us to dominate possession, play like Swansea, play like Barcelona or play pretty tippy tappy football.

All that anyone has wanted us to do was to be able to retain possession when necessary, move the ball quickly and accurately and create good opportunities, preferably through the middle as well as the wings. All anyone who was dissatisfied with how we were playing under McDermott at the end has wanted, was a couple of steps back away from direct football where there is nothing but getting the ball forward quickly to the channels.

I don't see what the difficulty is in seeing that there's a scale of playing style and it's not just binary.

Route 1--Pullis--Alladyce-----McDermott-----Coppell--Adkins---Ferguson--------Wenger--Rodgers--Tippy-Tappy

Binary fail...
Binary might only involve the use of 0 and 1, but that doesn't mean there are the only two possible outputs.
Decimal: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Binary: 0 1 10 11 100 101 110 111 1000 1001 1010

I think you meant boolean rather than binary. Boolean data has only two outputs i.e. on/off, true/false, yes/no, hoofball/tippy-tappy etc.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Lets all bicker about who is right & wrong after a 7-1 win. Classic.

So in other words let's not argue..'cos it was you that's been wrong all along. Classic.

Sorry what am I wrong about other than trying to back our current manager? I'd love to hear it & by all means find the quotes.....

You love picking a fight with me don't you?

God it must really hurt you that ADKINS was in charge of a side that got 7 goals yesterday - more than any other manager has ever got at the Mad Stad. I guess your Adkins out crap will have to be put to bed for another week. Shame.

And in answer to the point about possession - it doesn't take a genius to work out that if you only have 30% possession in a match, you are probably going to be under the kosh & have your goal peppered by the opposition ala last season.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Good graph there Winch!

[P!ssed Off]

I'd wager 48% is probably still a lot better than most of McD's matches TBH.

You still haven't got it, have you? More isn't necessarily better. As proved yesterday.

Don't need to be an economist to work this one out.

That's correlation. It says nothing of cause.
70% possession does not cause more shots on target than 48% possession.
Just as 80% passing success does not cause more shots on target.

The cause of both of possession and shots on target is not present in your graph. It's called having better players than the opposition.
And it doesn't take an economist to work that out.

Your graph would only have value if each team had the exact same amount of quality.

[Ian Royal]

I wish people would stop putting words in the mouths of those they disagree with.

No one, repeat no one, has ever asked for us to dominate possession, play like Swansea, play like Barcelona or play pretty tippy tappy football.

All that anyone has wanted us to do was to be able to retain possession when necessary, move the ball quickly and accurately and create good opportunities, preferably through the middle as well as the wings. All anyone who was dissatisfied with how we were playing under McDermott at the end has wanted, was a couple of steps back away from direct football where there is nothing but getting the ball forward quickly to the channels.

I don't see what the difficulty is in seeing that there's a scale of playing style and it's not just binary.

Route 1--Pullis--Alladyce-----McDermott-----Coppell--Adkins---Ferguson--------Wenger--Rodgers--Tippy-Tappy

Binary fail...
Binary might only involve the use of 0 and 1, but that doesn't mean there are the only two possible outputs.
Decimal: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Binary: 0 1 10 11 100 101 110 111 1000 1001 1010

I think you meant boolean rather than binary. Boolean data has only two outputs i.e. on/off, true/false, yes/no, hoofball/tippy-tappy etc.

Thanks.

[Ian Royal]

It's not like the two things are totally unrelated PO. It's not like pirates and global warming. The two factors are obviously linked. No one has ever tried to say that having more possession guarantees you goals, points or anything else.

And I'll say it again, no one has ever asked for possession for possession's sake.

Surely you have to conceed that in 99.9% of the time you can't score if you haven't got the ball. And that the opposition can pose a goal threat if they have the ball.

[BenReadingFC]

You're just a bald northern w*nker

[winchester_royal]

Don't need to be an economist to work this one out.

That's correlation. It says nothing of cause.
70% possession does not cause more shots on target than 48% possession.
Just as 80% passing success does not cause more shots on target.

The cause of both of possession and shots on target is not present in your graph. It's called having better players than the opposition.
And it doesn't take an economist to work that out.

Your graph would only have value if each team had the exact same amount of quality.

Yes, I'm not trying to suggest that possession = shots, but there is a strong correlation even allowing for other variables.

At the end of the day the more time you spend on the ball the more time you have to create chances and the less time you have to defend. That's a pretty solid causal relationship, and of course a number of the teams featured in that graph will be of similar quality.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Ian - I think I'm going to have to make you put £10 into the 'concede' box each time you spell it wrong. It's the only way you're going to learn.

[John Madejski's Wallet]

Don't need to be an economist to work this one out.

I like the way even with 40% possession you'd expect ~10 shots.

We (under Adkins) would absolutely f*cking ruin that lovely graph

[Schards#2]

Amongst my bets on yesterday's game was Reading to win 6-0 at 970/1 on Betfair. The £2 stake would have paid £1940.

Mixed feelings with the 7th went but only the second time in my life I've seen us score 7 so couldn't be too gutted. Would have been seriously peeved if it had been 6-1 and that scrappy goal sank it though.

[Man Friday]

God it must really hurt you that ADKINS was in charge of a side that got 7 goals yesterday - more than any other manager has ever got at the Mad Stad. I guess your Adkins out crap will have to be put to bed for another week. Shame.

Just glad that Adkins has seen the light at last. It's only taken 9 months after all. Either that or he got lucky.

Seeing any Reading side win pleases me, especially when it's deserved. Don't care who the manager is. (Within reason.)

And in answer to the point about possession - it doesn't take a genius to work out that if you only have 30% possession in a match, you are probably going to be under the kosh & have your goal peppered by the opposition ala last season.

Didn't happen yesterday, did it? And we achieved only 18 percentage points more (48).

[marlowuk]

Don't need to be an economist to work this one out.

That's correlation. It says nothing of cause.
70% possession does not cause more shots on target than 48% possession.

Your graph would only have value if each team had the exact same amount of quality.

The graph does show correlation and that correlation is too strong to ignore. Taking just the Premier League results on the chart (and doing my best to read off reasonably accurate answers from the scale given) the coefficient of rank correlation (Spearman's for those interested) is around 0.81! This strongly suggests that shots on goal is statistically dependent on possession. The point about the teams having the same quality is only relevant if we are talking about shots on target where quality is more of a factor.

[MmmMonsterMunch]

Amongst my bets on yesterday's game was Reading to win 6-0 at 970/1 on Betfair. The £2 stake would have paid £1940.

Mixed feelings with the 7th went but only the second time in my life I've seen us score 7 so couldn't be too gutted. Would have been seriously peeved if it had been 6-1 and that scrappy goal sank it though.

Some guy rang BBCRB as he'd had a bet at the ground on 7-1. Did it mid match so only got 50-1 but still fair play!

[P!ssed Off]

Don't need to be an economist to work this one out.

That's correlation. It says nothing of cause.
70% possession does not cause more shots on target than 48% possession.

Your graph would only have value if each team had the exact same amount of quality.

The graph does show correlation and that correlation is too strong to ignore. Taking just the Premier League results on the chart (and doing my best to read off reasonably accurate answers from the scale given) the coefficient of rank correlation (Spearman's for those interested) is around 0.81! This strongly suggests that shots on goal is statistically dependent on possession. The point about the teams having the same quality is only relevant if we are talking about shots on target where quality is more of a factor.

It suggests nothing of the sort.
Correlation does not equal causation.
You could just as easily infer from the graph that possession is statistically dependent on no. of shots.
You can talk all you like about your Spearman's, you're talking bollocks.

And who said anything about ignoring the correlation.
Of course there is a oxf*rd correlation.
Teams that have much better than average players will control their games and get a lot of shots on target, who would have thought, eh?
Teams with worse players will not control their games, and won't have as many shots on target. Surprise!!!!

This graph isn't a bloody controlled experiment: 20 teams of equal standing, each deciding to aim for a certain amount of possession and, oh look, those that decided to have more than 50% possession had more shots on target.

This is 20 teams with varying degrees of quality. Those teams with the best players will control matches and have more shots.
The ability to move along the line from the bottom left to the top right comes through buying better players, not through oxf*rd about at the training ground.

[Millsy]

Lol @ Reading fans.

We have a historic incredible win and all we can do is use it in some way to score points for our preconceived notions/ beliefs about the manager/players/system, in the bizarre belief that all of a sudden we've now cracked it and we'll be twonking teams on a regular basis.

NA has been with us for almost a year and we've had ups and downs along the way. Yesterday was an up and that's all. An amazing up, where a couple more things have worked out for us and we'll learn from but next game it'll be back to business as usual with the same Adkins, same mindset, same players and same system that he's been working for the last year or so. Yes confidence will be high and hopefully we'll start doing a bit better but that's about it.

Obita in, Guthrie out, more passion, more confidence but otherwise it's same old Adkins doing his best as ever do just leave him to it and don't expect another thrashing as though we've found some sort of holy grail FFS.

Dear myself, I agree with my own post. Everyone else is using the opportunity to score cheap points and it's rather pathetic. I salute you 2ww for just celebrating the great win and not trying to overanalyse what will not likely happen again, no matter what the pass percentages are. I'll talk to myself from now on. We'll done Adkins and Reading, you finally made us proud. Now keep it up!

[marlowuk]

That's correlation. It says nothing of cause.
70% possession does not cause more shots on target than 48% possession.

Your graph would only have value if each team had the exact same amount of quality.

The graph does show correlation and that correlation is too strong to ignore. Taking just the Premier League results on the chart (and doing my best to read off reasonably accurate answers from the scale given) the coefficient of rank correlation (Spearman's for those interested) is around 0.81! This strongly suggests that shots on goal is statistically dependent on possession. The point about the teams having the same quality is only relevant if we are talking about shots on target where quality is more of a factor.

It suggests nothing of the sort.
Correlation does not equal causation.
You could just as easily infer from the graph that possession is statistically dependent on no. of shots.
You can talk all you like about your Spearman's, you're talking bollocks.

And who said anything about ignoring the correlation.
Of course there is a oxf*rd correlation.
Teams that have much better than average players will control their games and get a lot of shots on target, who would have thought, eh?
Teams with worse players will not control their games, and won't have as many shots on target. Surprise!!!!

This graph isn't a bloody controlled experiment: 20 teams of equal standing, each deciding to aim for a certain amount of possession and, oh look, those that decided to have more than 50% possession had more shots on target.

This is 20 teams with varying degrees of quality. Those teams with the best players will control matches and have more shots.
The ability to move along the line from the bottom left to the top right comes through buying better players, not through oxf*rd about at the training ground.

A rank correlation as high as 0.81 suggests that the independent variable (which can only be the possession) is affecting the dependent variable (shots on goal, but not necessarily on target). I could refute each of your points one by one but that would bore fellow nobbers to death. I do, though, have an Honours degree in Pure Maths and Statistics and have, for many years, marked 'A' level Statistics papers. I do know what I am talking about.

[Millsy]

You're just a bald northern w*nker

Lol @ northern tossers.