8 games in - is it too early to get excited?

[jonnydog]

jonnydog. What has a photo of you doing your homework got to do with anything? By the way, a bit of friendly advice. I'd get that hairstyle and specs sorted if I were you. You'd get away with the shirt, but I'd also practice facial expressions, as your study face is very weird.

Do you mind... that was my 'arrive' face

[vaya]

Anne Summers?

Creative writing classes?

[mjdgreg]

All I can say at the moment is that it is another teaching business. I seem to have a natural ability to educate the masses.

[vaya]

All I can say at the moment is that it is another teaching business. I seem to have a natural ability to educate the masses.

Are you sure you didn't mean 'alienate' rather than 'educate'?

[dickos1]

I'm talking about the 92 clubs within our 4 divisions. If 24 sides win without achieving the highest possession stat, every week. Then I think that proves your whole point is complete nonsense

[IDM]

You ignored my point about defence or goals conceded.

What you find is that the teams with the best possession efficiency also have the best defensive records. If you think about it, it is obvious. You're hardly likely to be good at possession if you keep giving the ball away to the opposition to score goals.

Do they though?  A team could have a bad "possession efficiency" but be excellent defensively, and succeed.  By your numbers, if we have a game with 50% possession and 10 goal attempts that is a rating of 5, so we'd be (more likely to be) relegated?  I beg to differ - 10 attempts on goal will often win matches - especially if the opposition has less attempts.  Your stats to predict performances take no account of the quality of what you do with the possession, and as I have already said, what the opposition does with theirs.

Also, in an earlier post, you said Rovers had (I think) 369% of possession from their games to date.  That is nonsense, they may have had 369 minutes of possession, which in 8 games averages just over 51%. 

More meaningful stats would be goals scored/number of attempts, goals/number of corners or crosses etc, amount of possession in opponent's half/penalty area etc. 

So there are flaws in your arguments, and it is nowhere near certain that 50% possession with 10 or fewer chances would mean relegation.

Can't you just enjoy the football, praise good performances and be critical where justified?

And by the way, I had a look at this (sorry, not sure about posting a link) http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/05/04/the-relationship-between-possession-and-shots

which has the following statement:

"Of course, being more or less efficient is not necessarily ‘better’ – because the sole purpose of possession is not to score a goal. Possession can be used as a defensive tactic to play out time when a side is ahead, and can be used to tire the opposition, before attacking more directly later on. The intention here is not to ‘rank’ sides, but to show their different styles."

out of which I extract further "being more or less efficient is not necessarily ‘better’ ".  I rest my case.

[mjdgreg]

I'm talking about the 92 clubs within our 4 divisions. If 24 sides win without achieving the highest possession stat, every week. Then I think that proves your whole point is complete nonsense

I suspect that 24 sides don't win every week with less possession. Any way even if what you said is true then that means that 68 out of 92 clubs win with more possession. That's 74% of all clubs in the 4 divisions. I think you may have just shot yourself in the foot again.

[mjdgreg]

Do they though?  A team could have a bad "possession efficiency" but be excellent defensively, and succeed.  By your numbers, if we have a game with 50% possession and 10 goal attempts that is a rating of 5, so we'd be (more likely to be) relegated?  I beg to differ - 10 attempts on goal will often win matches - especially if the opposition has less attempts.  Your stats to predict performances take no account of the quality of what you do with the possession, and as I have already said, what the opposition does with theirs.

Also, in an earlier post, you said Rovers had (I think) 369% of possession from their games to date.  That is nonsense, they may have had 369 minutes of possession, which in 8 games averages just over 51%. 

More meaningful stats would be goals scored/number of attempts, goals/number of corners or crosses etc, amount of possession in opponent's half/penalty area etc. 

So there are flaws in your arguments, and it is nowhere near certain that 50% possession with 10 or fewer chances would mean relegation.

Can't you just enjoy the football, praise good performances and be critical where justified?

And by the way, I had a look at this (sorry, not sure about posting a link) http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/05/04/the-relationship-between-possession-and-shots

which has the following statement:

"Of course, being more or less efficient is not necessarily ‘better’ – because the sole purpose of possession is not to score a goal. Possession can be used as a defensive tactic to play out time when a side is ahead, and can be used to tire the opposition, before attacking more directly later on. The intention here is not to ‘rank’ sides, but to show their different styles."

out of which I extract further "being more or less efficient is not necessarily ‘better’ ".  I rest my case.

You make some interesting points, some of which I agree with. The way to measure possession efficiency is to add up all the amounts of possession a team has and then divide it by the number of attempts. That's how I arrived at Rovers possession efficiency. I think you and Billy must be using some other method which is not right.

I've been doing some more empirical research and stand by my statement that 5% or worse possession efficiency will get you relegated in the top leagues. However it looks like you can get away with higher figures the lower down the leagues you go so Rovers current stats may not be too bad after all. I need to do more work on this before I can give a definitive answer.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I've been doing some more empirical research and stand by my statement that 5% or worse possession efficiency will get you relegated in the top leagues. However it looks like you can get away with higher figures the lower down the leagues you go so Rovers current stats may not be too bad after all. I need to do more work on this before I can give a definitive answer.

Halleluijah. We finally got there.

The rest of us know that possession, attempts on goal and possession efficiency count for less than two wet farts in this division. You take as long as you want to catch up.

You just missed the last sentence "And I'll stop this worthless, incessant, dribbling blather about statistics after every match in the meantime."

[dickos1]

But if 24 clubs do achieve victories without the lions share of possession then it means your constant rambling every week means nothing.
Football is all about achieving results, nothing else. Some sides achieve results by playing possession football others gain results by conceding a lot of possession and pressing high up the pitch.
It's horses for courses so to come out with the statements you do about all sides must have the most possession to win is nonsense.
And to be fair I think your realising the massive error you've based 99% of your posts on.

[Superspy]

I'm talking about the 92 clubs within our 4 divisions. If 24 sides win without achieving the highest possession stat, every week. Then I think that proves your whole point is complete nonsense

I suspect that 24 sides don't win every week with less possession. Any way even if what you said is true then that means that 68 out of 92 clubs win with more possession. That's 74% of all clubs in the 4 divisions. I think you may have just shot yourself in the foot again.

Not taking draws into account then?

[del boy]

I'm talking about the 92 clubs within our 4 divisions. If 24 sides win without achieving the highest possession stat, every week. Then I think that proves your whole point is complete nonsense

I suspect that 24 sides don't win every week with less possession. Any way even if what you said is true then that means that 68 out of 92 clubs win with more possession. That's 74% of all clubs in the 4 divisions. I think you may have just shot yourself in the foot again.

I didn't realise it was possible for 68  teams to win if there is only a maximum of 46 games between 92 clubs.

[dickos1]

Ha ha, what a muppet. Can't see these businesses surviving long with intellect as bad as that.
If 24 sides win without winning the possession stats, that means that only 22 sides can win with better possession stats and that's if there are no draws.

[silent majority]

Are the wheels coming off?

[Superspy]

I'm talking about the 92 clubs within our 4 divisions. If 24 sides win without achieving the highest possession stat, every week. Then I think that proves your whole point is complete nonsense

I suspect that 24 sides don't win every week with less possession. Any way even if what you said is true then that means that 68 out of 92 clubs win with more possession. That's 74% of all clubs in the 4 divisions. I think you may have just shot yourself in the foot again.

I didn't realise it was possible for 68  teams to win if there is only a maximum of 46 games between 92 clubs.

lmao, didn't even spot that :D

[MrFrost]

Hahaha. He has been exposed.

[MachoMadness]

I think he was exposed months ago.

In before the obligatory "well done for spotting my obvious deliberate mistake" post. There you go, Mick, just saved you some time.

[mjdgreg]

I didn't realise it was possible for 68  teams to win if there is only a maximum of 46 games between 92 clubs.

Well done del boy. You spotted my deliberate mistake. I had them all going there for a while. lol.

[dickos1]

Nevermind mick,

[RedJ]

why does it f**king matter so long as Rovers' goals count is equal to or greater than the opponent?

[Viking Don]

Christ I wish I'd never said I disagree with posts being locked now. 

If we could just keep all this stuff under the one post with STATS in the subject then I'd say don't lock it, then anyone interested can have a go on there, and the rest can just ignore it. But I go away for a few days and find all this stuff under a thread I started! That's hijacking!

I'm NOT Mick, in case anyone is wondering!

And I do have a ticket for tonight's game but I'm poorly!