1) You can run away from the debate if you like, but I think we all know it's because your interpretation of the stats which concluded that we only had 1 attacking free kick per game was woefully inaccurate. It's not a case of defining the event, we both counted at least 5 for the Swansea game.
Do I read like a bloke who wants to avoid the debate? I'm avoiding an unsettle-able debate because it's circular and we have no "appeal to authority"
I interpreted" the only stats we had, AND SAID AT THE TIME, VERY FIRST POST, THAT I COULD NOT KNOW THAT THE OS REPORTED ALL FREE-KICKS, AND THAT IT MIGHT BE MORE. Need me to cut and paste my actual words?
I did not "conclude" that we only had 1 free kick per game, I said the OS SHOWED that, and I went out of my way to accurately record what REALLY happened. And IN ONE GAME, I recorded 5.
Should we then say "we get 5 attacking free-kicks per game" based on ONE game?
In that case we score 4 goals every game, cos we did at Burnley.
No we sample over a series of games. Some may be higher than 5, some may come out zero, I don't know. And in the game in question, Swansea had 2. Maybe I should take TWO as the benchmark, or (5+2)/2 = 3.5, or maybe we need more empirical data...
2) You don't assess the quality of your source data? You take it as read that it's accurate and go through all the analysis without an thoughts to it's validity?
And you teach stats? I guess it's true, those that can do, those that can't....
No I do NOT "accept it as accurate". I take it as "the best data I can find". There's no logic to believe it's useless data.
And I DO NOT teach stats. I have NEVER said (in the present tense) that I-TEACH-STATS. Again, find the post where I've said that.
I said I
TAUGHT stats.
I have been a full-time professional writer of fiction and creative writing articles since 1992. That's 18 years!!What I DO know is it's collected by people who do it as a job and is far more likely to be more accurate than Hoop's "Cos I sed so
I think we've already established that my guestimate on the number of free kicks was a lot more accurate than YOUR INTERPRETATION of the stats and match reports.
Perhaps if you can't handle being soundly proven wrong you shouldn't be so quick to slag off everyones opinions and considered views and to rely on questionable stats to form your own take on the game.[/quote]
I will be UTTERLY DELIGHTED to show that we get (say) "an average of 7.9 attacking free-kicks per home game and an average of 5.3 attacking free-kicks per away game. There is NOTHING more enjoyable than discovering a "truth", something based on objective data as opposed to opinion. Guesstimates are bollox.
NOTHING has been established except that in the Swansea game we got 5 AFC's. I suspect we got more than one at Burnley but as yet I have no idea as I haven't counted them! And on Saturday we will have our THIRD game to assess. How many games would you say should be the minimum? 6? 8? 10?
