Harte Signs

[Wycombe Royal]

Average distance 13 Yards, virtually all goals central. Widest being about 3-4 yards central from edge of penalty area.

What about all his shots? You have excluded every shot he had where he didn't score and those are included in your deadliness stats. Yet again to fail to understand the point being made.

It is common sense that the closer to the goal the chance is the higher the likelihood that it will be scored and also on target.

Don't be daft!! I haven't "excluded" any shots. All I can do is look at his goals and see where
they came from. He scored a whole lot of STRIKER's goals, even you can't deny that.

15/22 goals from the penalty spot or closer, 16/22 goals from inside 14 yards.

Yes he scored three free-kicks from 22 yards and two very-long shots and one other long shot BUT HE MISSED THE REST.

Either he missed a shed-load INSIDE the box (ie very poor shooting)
OR
He missed a shed-load because he shot from great distance, obviously a poor choice because he only ever scored three goals that way.

Again you miss the point (you do a lot of that) - we are talking "deadliness" here. If 50% of his "chances" are from out side the box compared to only 10%of someone elses it doesn't take a master statistician to come to the conclusion that the "deadliness" will be poorer for the player who has more "chances" from outside the box.

[Snowball]

OK, I'm going to make a request for some stats here. Snowball please break down the shots into:

a) Outside the box
b) Inside the area but outside the 6 yard box
c) Inside the 6 yard box

Obviously you won't have these stats, which is lucky for you, because they will back up what myself and Vision are trying to get across to you but you are unwilling to accept because of your blinkered view.

I can only list in detail his shots-that-became-goals. I've done that. Even if we look at all the highlights
and painstakingly record every missed shot, there's no guarantee whatsover of what was put in the highlights
and what was left out.

But you really do not get it do you? Do you think I don't know that the farther out we are, the less likely we are to score?

Goal-keepers could shoot every time they get the ball, couldn't they? They DON'T because they have virtually no chance of scoring from their own area. If a keeper did shoot all the time, and got one goal a season, we wouldn't praise him, we would damn him for wasting possession.

Similarly, centre-backs or full-backs could shoot often from 50-60 yards but they don't because the odds are stupidly against scoring.

Only a tiny percentage of open-play shots from outside 25 yards are successful, less from 30 yards, even less from 35 yards and we probably don't see more than 1-2-3 from further in a whole season.

So if a player continually shoots from TOO FAR OUT he eventually will get a bollocking.

Gylfi took too many shots that had a very low percentage. That's why his mis-rate is so high. Had he still taken SOME of those shots (the best opportunities) but ALSO PASSED MORE OR DRIVEN ON INTO THE BOX he would have been a better player and the team would have been more successful.

Fans and journalists can get carried away by the totals when the goals pile up.
They also get over-excited by spectacular goals, and the Gary Linkers, Rasiak's,
and Crouches of this world are relatively overlooked because their goals are less "sexy".

[Vision]

I'm confused.

I thought the central premis of football that it was a team game. Trying to extrapolate this out to give the appearance of individual statistics would seem at best slightly pointless (however interesting).

For example, you could be the best striker in the world, but unless you get the service you'll not score the goals. You could be the best goal keeper in the world but if your back four are shite, you're going to conceed a shed load of goals.

Am I making this too simplistic?

The stats can be useful indicators of certain facets of an individual's performance and value to the team but as you say the other factors involved which stats alone cannot tell you have to be taken into consideration.

Its this that Snowball seems to have a blind spot with as he sees the numbers alone as some sort of conclusive argument in themselves.

So basically you're right, its essentially pointless.

[Vision]

Personally I dont think you can call a penalty a striker's goal can you? It has nothing to do with your position as anyone can take one.

Take out penalties then more than a 3rd of his goals come from outside the area.

I wonder if the same were done for Jimmy Kebe's goals, how many of them would be inside the penalty area?

[Snowball]

Again you miss the point (you do a lot of that) - we are talking "deadliness" here. If 50% of his "chances" are from out side the box compared to only 10%of someone elses it doesn't take a master statistician to come to the conclusion that the "deadliness" will be poorer for the player who has more "chances" from outside the box.

And the point YOU miss is this:

If a player has a deadliness of say, 1 in 4 (very acceptable) for shots/headers INSIDE the box (Gylfi, say)

and a deadliness of say, 1 in 8 for shots between 18 and 25 yards out. (Gylfi, possibly)

and a deadliness of 1 goal in TWENTY shots or 1 goal in THIRTY shots from beyond 25 yards, what should he conclude?



ANSWER: Do NOT shoot from beyond 25 yards unless there is absolutely no other option. Hold the ball up, dribble towards the box, look for a pass instead, BECAUSE shots from outside 25 yards are very-low-percentage and therefore INEFFICIENT and WASTEFUL.

Watch his highlights and, inside the box, he's as deadly as the best strikers, better than 1 in 4, maybe as good as under 1 in 2. He doesn't miss many.

But that means he must be missing about 95% of all the rest. Yes, NINETY-FIVE PER CENT

I can't have the exact stats but he got 16 goals inside 14 yards. He was very ruthless and rarely missed. So say that's 16 goals from 30 shots.

His other 7 goals came from 113 shots, or 1 in 16 shots, a 6% hit-rate


A manager has to balance the SMALL possibility of the OCCASIONAL spectacular 30-Yarder with the more sensible approach of MOST times, looking for the pass, cross, or dribble until the player or another player gets into those areas where goal-scoring becomes far more likely.

This is why I'm betting you will eventually see LESS shooting from Gylfi

[Snowball]

In the post where I made the the remark I did not ask for any figures. You really are losing grip here.......

So what does: Snowball please remove the penalties from those stats. MEAN? You mean remove the penalties so the stats change and KEEP THEM SECRET?

[cmonurz]

ANSWER: Do NOT shoot from beyond 25 yards unless there is absolutely no other option. Hold the ball up, dribble towards the box, look for a pass instead, BECAUSE shots from outside 25 yards are very-low-percentage and therefore INEFFICIENT and WASTEFUL.

No, the answer is get better at shooting. Because if a shooting chance is available, it should be taken. There is no guarantee at all that a player choosing to pass in this scenario then goes on to generate a goalscoring chance. So to get all statistical for a second:

Chance of a goal from shot from 25 yards: 1 in 10 (for example)
Chance of a goal from inside the penalty area: 1 in 5 (for example)

However, proportion of instances where the subsequent pass actually leads to another chance to shoot, say 33%.

So at the point in time where the player has that decision of shoot/pass, the actual stats may be....

Chance of a goal from shot from 25 yards: 1 in 10 (for example)
Chance of a goal from inside the penalty area: 1 in 5 x 1 in 3, or 1 in 15.

Ok, these are crude numbers that may or may not reflect reality. But it isn't sufficient to say 'don't shoot from 25 yards if a pass is on' because the subsequent move might not generate another chance to shoot.

[Snowball]

Personally I dont think you can call a penalty a striker's goal can you? It has nothing to do with your position as anyone can take one.

A "striker's goal" in the sense that a very high percentage of striker's goals come from inside the area, esp within 12 yards

Take out penalties then more than a 3rd of his goals come from outside the area.

6/15, and about a hundred MISSING shots from outside the area. (He's pretty deadly once he's in the box.

My best calculations have him missing about 95% of his shots from outside the box, and that is wasteful, selfish play.

I wonder if the same were done for Jimmy Kebe's goals, how many of them would be inside the penalty area?

From memory (but someone else can do the work to check) I think just about ALL his goals have come from inside the box.

None have been tap-ins (if memory serves me correctly). He has had breaks into the box, turned inside players to get in the box, a few major dribbles. My guess would be that 60% of his shots will be inside 12 yards and that 95% are inside 20 yards. WHICH IMO MAKES HIM A BETTER TEAM PLAYER THAN GYLFI who would rather shoot impetuously from 25-30-35-40 yards than think for an extra second and find the pass (which he is actually BETTER at than his long-shooting.)

The shooting from distance thing has the same "default" as the gambler's addicitve problem.

the occasional big success blinds us to the OVERALL failures.

The gambler loses a bit steadily, overall he loses a lot, but the rare wins and even rarer big-wins
have high "salience and relevance" (incorrectly) and mask the cold hard facts of the steady losses.


So the kid who gets plenty of goals inside the box (great) shoots too often from 25 yards + (ineffective)
but keeps doing it because of the absolute RUSH when a 30-yard wonder-goal goes in.

The fans fall for it in exactly the same way. Screw van Nistelroy he just "taps them in" we want a Beckham...

[Shaka's Giant Hands]

Snowball is really starting to get on my tits.

He either is Shane Long or one of his hangers on...either way I don't care, he manipulate stats more than the Labour govt.

[Snowball]

Your odds are wrong tho' cmonurz

You presume too many things


First, what if the odds are 20-1 from over 25 yards? And what if shots in the box are 50% likely to be goals? And what if the pass has a 50% chance of success

Shot from distance 1 goal in 20

Pass 5 goals in 20. Five times more likely


SEE? You can't just guess some figures and then make them work.

Gylfi really IS about as bad as 1 in 20 from outside the box in open play. That's quite easy to show.

I didn't count precisely but go watch his highlights and see how rarely he misses when IN the box. At the very worst he's 1 in 2. Yes TEN times better than hie is from 25 yards +.

So why not drive forward, get closer, maybe win the free kick just outside the box (shoot or chip for a header) or drive INTO the box and win a penalty (which is what McAnuff has done many times)

Free-Kicks from outside the box are not the same as shots on the run from a similar distance. The player can carefully flight his free-kick, curl it over the wall etc. Flat out, with a split-second of space or just turning the defender to make a moment's space, and it's much more of a pot-shot (unless we are talking of the Messi's, Ronaldo's, Thierry Henry's of this world.)

From distance, in open play there's the problem of multiplied inaccuracy. 1 degree out and it goes wildly wide or way over. And the keeper usually has more time to respond.

What percentage of goals are scored from inside the box? 90%?

[Snowball]

Snowball is really starting to get on my tits.

He either is Shane Long or one of his hangers on...either way I don't care, he manipulate stats more than the Labour govt.

We aren't even TALKING about Shane, Shaka.

[brendywendy]

ssshhhh

[Snowball]

I'm confused. I thought the central premise of football that it was a team game. Trying to extrapolate this out to give the appearance of individual statistics would seem at best slightly pointless (however interesting). For example, you could be the best striker in the world, but unless you get the service you'll not score the goals. You could be the best goal keeper in the world but if your back four are shite, you're going to conceed a shed load of goals. Am I making this too simplistic?

Seriously, do you think I don't know that a team needs a decent goalie, a solid defence, a good midfield to provide chances for the front men?

You think I don't get excited when Kebe or McAnuff goes on a run and makes a brilliant cross, and a striker bombing in scores with a bullet header?

(I'm sure it's happened once...)


So now I'm being picked out as not knowing it's a team game?

I am one of those who thought letting Gylfi (great individual) go was GOOD FOR THE TEAM in that it allowed us to strengthen the defence and balance the side?

Am I one of the few who has been arguing that Shane does an awful lot for the team SEPARATE from scoring goals, winning headers, flicking on, making assists, winning penalties and free-kicks for others to get the glory? Is that not TEAM-PLAY?

Am I the one (possibly the only one) who thinks that perhaps Gyfli, great player that he was
was perhaps a tad selfish, and sometimes went for personal glory with a low-percentage chance
of success? Is that not thinking in TEAM as opposed to individual terms?

[Wycombe Royal]

Why can't you understand that it is OK to have a difference of opinion? (I'm sure you will again respond with some stats)

Your view is that there is my opinion or no opinion.

[brendywendy]

sh

[cmonurz]

Your odds are wrong tho' cmonurz

You presume too many things

Glad you accept my principle is right. It's not sufficient to say 'only shoot if there is nothing on' because you don't know how often a goalscoring chance is subsequently created when the player chooses to pass.

Let's take the figure of 1 in 20, as the success rate of a shot on goal from 25 yards.

Now let's assume a figure of 1 in 5 for shots inside the area (I don't think that's unreasonable as a sort of median for the 'deadliness' stats you've been posting. It's probably a little generous given the 'most deadly' are scoring 1 in 4).

Even given those two stats, 1 in 20, and 1 in 5, if a player chooses to pass from a shooting position outside of the area, for it to be statistically the correct play, there HAS to be a shot a goal at least 25% of the time from the subsequent move.

Now I can't judge whether that is or isn't the case in general, and no-one can, because you never get to see the 'what if?' scenario.

But my point stands that when you factor in the likelihood or not of a pass generating another shooting chance, the odds on scoring a goal from the pass/shoot decision are somewhere in the same ballpark.

[Vision]

A "striker's goal" in the sense that a very high percentage of striker's goals come from inside the area, esp within 12 yards
.

Not if you're making the point that it means Gylfi was striker because as we know left-backs can just as easily takemthem.

6/15, and about a hundred MISSING shots from outside the area. (He's pretty deadly once he's in the box.
My best calculations have him missing about 95% of his shots from outside the box, and that is wasteful, selfish play.
?

So what your saying is that when confronted with the same situations as the strikers you continue to compare him with, his "deadliness" is actually not as bad.

Again though you've neglected for the umpteenth time to even consider that playing for a side that was struggling as we were for a big chunk of last season meant that shooting from distance was often the only option open to him. I dont think anyone is arguing that his shot volume is high, its your definition of wastefullness that is open to debate and comparing with players who face completely different situations and circumstances during any given game.

From memory (but someone else can do the work to check) I think just about ALL his goals have come from inside the box....

Which according to your definition of Gylfi would make Kebe a striker.....

The fans fall for it in exactly the same way. Screw van Nistelroy he just "taps them in" we want a Beckham...

For the umpteenth time though some players are not playing with a free scoring Van Nistelroy for the best side in the country, they're playing for a big part of a season for a struggling Champioship team with a misfiring forward line as Gylfi did last season.
This is why however much you want your stats to be conclusive, anyone with an open mind knows they cant really tell the full picture in the way that you want them to.

PS Do headers count as shots in your figures?

[Snowball]

I disagree, "rz", and there are a lot more possibilities than a pass.


Thirty-Five Yards Out. OPTIONS

1. Shoot, with about a 1% chance of scoring.

2. Hold the ball up, look for a winger or a midfielder in a good position. (You're good enough to retain the ball.)

3. Drop a shoulder and get another 5 yards further forward, going from 1% to 5% chance of scoring.

4. Dribble, trying to either create another opening for a closer shot, or pull a foul, knowing you have a wicked free-kick.

5. Play a through pass which you are VERY good at.

6. Turn and play a ball square or even back a few yards to a player with time and space who can see the whole picture.


etc

[Shaka's Giant Hands]

Snowball is really starting to get on my tits.

He either is Shane Long or one of his hangers on...either way I don't care, he manipulate stats more than the Labour govt.

We aren't even TALKING about Shane, Shaka.

Did I say you were then?!?

[Snowball]

I wasn't making a point about what Gylfi was or is, merely that the vast majority of goals closer than 13 yards I DEFINE AS "strikers' goals"

So what your saying is that when confronted with the same situations as the strikers you continue to compare him with, his "deadliness" is actually not as bad.

No I'm saying his deadliness was EXCEPTIONAL, (or appeared to be, I haven't checked it) probably better than Long, Doyle, Kitson, Forster, Lita, Hunt, Church,
which is why I believe that PART of his game was world-class but that he was wasteful in other areas, for example taking the long-shot option when he should have been looking to give and go etc.

Again though you've neglected for the umpteenth time to even consider that playing for a side that was struggling as we were for a big chunk of last season meant that shooting from distance was often the only option open to him. I dont think anyone is arguing that his shot volume is high, its your definition of wastefullness that is open to debate and comparing with players who face completely different situations and circumstances during any given game.

You see, this is a PRESUMPTION, which it's quite easy to see is NOT TRUE. I strongly disagree that we were a struggling side from the first Liverpool game onward. We got lucky and the world flipped over but we were AWESOME and playing table-topping form until we faded in the last 6-7 games before finishing OK

I suggest you look at the highlights again. We played some BRILLIANT football; P 22 W12 D4 L6 42-24, 40 points from 22 games plus DW v Liverpool W v Burnley, DW v WBA and lose to Villa W15 D6 L7 is very good indeed.

But that's just the numbers. Look at how various players played from the first Liverpool game onwards.

Kebe came good, McAnuff came good, Long scored 8 goals, Church broke through and scored about the same.

We were mostly on fire.

From memory (but someone else can do the work to check) I think just about ALL his goals have come from inside the box....

Which according to your definition of Gylfi would make Kebe a striker.....

The fans fall for it in exactly the same way. Screw van Nistelroy he just "taps them in" we want a Beckham...

For the umpteenth time though some players are not playing with a free scoring Van Nistelroy for the best side in the country, they're playing for a big part of a season for a struggling Champioship team with a misfiring forward line as Gylfi did last season.
This is why however much you want your stats to be conclusive, anyone with an open mind knows they cant really tell the full picture in the way that you want them to.

PS Do headers count as shots in your figures?