tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76926627195462323582024-09-13T12:49:24.029+01:00The statistics of sportRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-90930624890135065922008-01-17T16:21:00.000+00:002008-01-17T16:27:48.485+00:00

Why was Sam Allardyce fired? Politics aside, his record merited a "wait-and-see".Allardyce's recordTeamsGamesWinsDrawsDefeatsWin %points per gamepoints per seasonNewcastle United2175933%1.2447.04Bolton Wanderers22680668035%1.3551.45Let's put this into perspective. Allardyce averaged 1.2 points per game with Newcastle - a season average of 47. Since the Premiership was reduced to 20 clubs, no team

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-59851143504519969362007-11-24T10:59:00.000+00:002007-11-24T20:38:34.563+00:00

After Steve McCLaren, who next? The debate about foreign coaches has started again, with Arsene Wenger saying that it should be an Englishman for the England job. Perhaps he just wants to keep the spotlight off him, but does he have a point?Of the UEFA teams - the teams in Europe - there are 54 teams in total, with 19 foreign coaches, 33 domestic and 2 jobs pending (Republic of Ireland being the

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-33070390760850840422007-11-21T17:31:00.001+00:002007-11-21T17:37:25.308+00:00

Interesting piece in the Telegraph. Apparently if England don't make it into Euro 2008, it wouldn't just mean a summer off from all that football nonsense and Steve McClaren out of a job:According to one study, by the Centre for Economic and Business Research, based on an examination of the impact of the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2004, the effect of non-qualification could be as much as £1

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-69417681778378323582007-11-19T20:53:00.000+00:002007-11-19T21:14:32.389+00:00

I have just got back from Paris, and a fine journey it is too from the new St Pancras. But as we took a taxi through the Hausmann boulevards, I couldn't help thinking of French football and radio, and it struck a nerve about the English game.The Premiership foreign players debate rumbles on and on. The Sunday Times had a good synthesis of the arguments, but as nostalgic old players chip in, no

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-28417980330038246402007-11-02T18:39:00.000+00:002007-11-02T18:52:50.102+00:00

"Chelsea are furious". Really? Why? Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe points out that their wage bill is huge, but gets a few figures wrong.Sutcliffe told delegates at the FT Sports Industry Summit yesterday morning that Terry earns £150,000 a week, that Chelsea are "£250m in the red" and that United had increased ticket prices by 13%. Both clubs disputed his figures.Yes, ManU have increased their

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-24008289298190284062007-09-11T17:55:00.000+01:002007-09-11T18:08:46.027+01:00

The Guardian is starting to get it's head around a few sport stats these days - aside from the spoof ones they run on the back page. To go with the Rugby World Cup opening weekend they ran a small piece that compared teams so-called Killer Instinct i.e the time spent in the opposition's 22 compared to the number of tries scored in the match. The results were:20.6sec Australia (269s in Japan's 22,

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-63951183351982734952007-09-07T19:34:00.000+01:002007-09-07T19:51:25.588+01:00

The foreign football player in Britain debate continues - Sir Trevor Brooking has joined in, suggesting that it's a major concern for England's chances at the big tournaments.Then the BBC used some stats to back it up.76% of the starting XIs that played on the first weekend of the first Premier League season in 1992 were English, only 37% were English on the first weekend of this seasonOnly 10% (

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-32691655113540211452007-09-02T22:44:00.000+01:002007-09-02T23:10:26.744+01:00

Hugh McIlvanney writes in today's Sunday Times: Year by year, almost day by day, it becomes more difficult to talk of Premier League clubs’ involvement in the Champions League as an English challenge. The term will be even less likely to trip off the tongue if David Dein’s association with a Russian steel magnate, Alisher Usmanov, ultimately puts Arsenal at the mercy of another foreign takeover.

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-17721357217937588282007-06-27T23:01:00.000+01:002007-06-27T23:23:37.546+01:00

Federer for five in a row? Too obvious. Women to get equal prize money? Interesting, but too late. (I've dealt with that before - they shouldn't, but it's complicated).The numbers the Guardian is interested in is still a perennial. Where does all the money go?David Conn looks at the some of the numbers, and there's an underlying discontent in the fact that debentures fund the championships'

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-79035002957559406472007-06-23T23:30:00.000+01:002007-06-24T00:02:11.340+01:00

As Arsenal have sold Thierry Henry, many papers mention his scoring record of 226 goals in 369 matches for the club, including 42 in 84 in Europe. His style of play gets the headlines, but his scoring rate is hugely impressive - he also has 40 goals for France in 92 matches. These stack up against any comparitive player you choose. For example, Alan Shearer scored more Premiership goals (260),

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-14495344477524924292007-06-21T20:57:00.000+01:002007-06-21T21:13:24.932+01:00

(c) The Guardain. Click for full size image.David Beckham looks likely to pull off the strange feat of playing for LA Galaxy AND England. If so, his itinerary next season is pretty full, and involves a lot of flying. The guardian did a nice graphic to show this alongside a story that Alexi Lalas of LA Galaxy would "drive him to the airport". Here it is.50,302 miles. Sounds a lot, right? That's

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-15406543655017899532007-06-14T10:11:00.000+01:002007-06-14T10:30:31.734+01:00

The Guardian picked up on an interesting data story yesterday, highlighting the research by the financial advisors Grant Thornton that only 16 English players have appeared in the Champions League final in its 15 year history. Not enough, you might think, but then only 3 English clubs have got to the final (ManU 1999, Liverpool 2005, 2007, Arsenal 2006). What this research really points out is

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-69662251314101773732007-06-12T20:22:00.000+01:002007-06-13T10:48:44.254+01:00

I've run a bit of number crunching on that Time Fink Tank piece. You can read it here.Interestingly, one comment made on the Times website points out exactly one of the anomalies highlighted by my work. Have the authors checked whether the scores for all the team members together are consistent with the team’s position in the league? For example, Bolton were seventh in the league but their top

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-58915122961040738102007-06-06T23:00:00.001+01:002007-06-06T23:07:01.564+01:00

So. You look at the French Open draw, and think - aside from Federer-Nadal, where are the other contenders coming from? Answer: Serbia.The semis draw is: Roger Federer SUI (1) vs Nikolay Davydenko RUS (4) Novak Djokovic SRB (6) vs Rafael Nadal ESP (2)and in the women: Justine Henin BEL (1) vs

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-73360684165602310722007-05-30T14:21:00.000+01:002007-05-30T16:40:18.757+01:00

Move over Opta. The Times yesterday launched Fink Tank, their unique rankings of football players in the Premiership. A heaven of statisics, I'm going to take a closer look later. First, a few observations:1) Introducing the rankings with the line: "How did Fink Tank do it? We used a multivariate Poisson log-normal model. I hope you find that information helpful." was pretty off-putting. Only

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-79241693522748489132007-05-29T17:52:00.000+01:002007-05-29T18:05:14.450+01:00

Again, much is being made of the England win over the West Indies - England's 3rd biggest win, the Windies biggest ever loss. I feel alone in thinking - so what? It's a exceptionally poor Windies team, so it's hardly earth-shattering news. I prefered the record that it was the coldest temperature ever recorded at a test - 7 degress C. Welcome to England in May.Many papers prefer to focus on the

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-40651858064251195732007-05-27T22:34:00.000+01:002007-05-27T22:57:37.761+01:00

Maybe so...The current series between England and the West Indies is looking very one-sided. Records are being set - or so the press would have us believe. In the first test, four England players scored centuries, which was the second time ever that had happened - for England (first time was 1938). Other countries have had 4x100 in an innings more recently than that, but never mind.Don't get me

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692662719546232358.post-6146090371372332007-05-26T09:17:00.000+01:002007-05-26T09:27:39.110+01:00

Apparently Sven is the most successful England coach ever, according to the Sunday Times. I happily debunk this myth on my research blog, but it's worth bearing in mind for all those Manchester City fans who might get Mr Eriksson as their manager next season. This one has been as on and off as a relationship with, well, Sven. Apparently, he now will marry Nancy. Good luck to them both.Sven is

Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14042447983540494246noreply@blogger.com0