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The Liverpool Thread


Parky

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"I haven't seen the picture and I'm not taking anybody's word for it," said Dalglish. "If you show me the picture and I'm convinced that what you're saying is true, then I've got a decision to make. But until you have proved it is true to me, I won't comment."

 

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/1331/suarez2075991b.jpg

 

Hmm.

 

Do you have toothpicks here in London in this size for my front teeth?

 

Hope he gets a 10 match ban for the shit that has been going on lately.

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Spot on about Dalglish. The stuff he's been coming out with this season is shocking, as manager he should giving Suarez a kick up the arse. Despite all eyes being on him, he's still acting the twat by diving and misbehaving.

 

The Fulham fans had every right to call him a cheat, because he is a fucking cheat.

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KD is only going to get worse, the board will already be questioning his transfers, but are now in the position of where they cannot sack him or hold him responsible or they'll end up being driven out of town like the other yanks. The could throw more money at the situation, which I'm sure is what KD and the fans want, but how deep are their pockets? That initial role of the dice to me will be a one off, they'll more than likely will have to live within their means like everyone else, that's when pissing away £35m on Andy Carroll will split the club, have the board, the manager and the fans all fighting about who is to blame and where it went wrong.

 

It's at that moment KD has a breakdown, it's not too far off IMO, as long as Arsenal keep improving and keep the pressure on for 4th, Tottenham and Chelsea are much better than them and the Manc duo are in a different league to them, they've no chance of what KD will have promised the board for that initial outlay, CL football.

 

 

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Anyone seen Moneyball? Basically what Liverpool did in the last transfer window is the exact opposite of how Fenway go about business for Boston Red Sox. I don't follow the sport so I don't know if they still do loads of sabermetrics and aim to buy in cheap but it just seems bizarre that Henry would take over Liverpool and allow that kind of shit spending to go on. I guess he just doesn't know the game at all

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In baseball, someone hitting a homerun or striking a batter out isn't especially dependent on other players in the team. It means stats are more likely to be reproduced when playing for a different team. Part of Jordan Henderson's succcessful cross percentage is going to be Gyan and Bent's ability to get onto the end of crosses. Since Brucie was in charge, I won't assume too much about tactics.

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KD is only going to get worse, the board will already be questioning his transfers, but are now in the position of where they cannot sack him or hold him responsible or they'll end up being driven out of town like the other yanks. The could throw more money at the situation, which I'm sure is what KD and the fans want, but how deep are their pockets? That initial role of the dice to me will be a one off, they'll more than likely will have to live within their means like everyone else, that's when pissing away £35m on Andy Carroll will split the club, have the board, the manager and the fans all fighting about who is to blame and where it went wrong.

 

It's at that moment KD has a breakdown, it's not too far off IMO, as long as Arsenal keep improving and keep the pressure on for 4th, Tottenham and Chelsea are much better than them and the Manc duo are in a different league to them, they've no chance of what KD will have promised the board for that initial outlay, CL football.

 

 

 

Sounds lovely :D

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Anyone seen Moneyball? Basically what Liverpool did in the last transfer window is the exact opposite of how Fenway go about business for Boston Red Sox. I don't follow the sport so I don't know if they still do loads of sabermetrics and aim to buy in cheap but it just seems bizarre that Henry would take over Liverpool and allow that kind of shit spending to go on. I guess he just doesn't know the game at all

 

I mentioned this the other day. The whole moneyball thing is based around finding bargains and anomolies in the market based on looking at statistics differently. I don't follow the sport either but I think all clubs in baseball use sabermetrics extensively now.

 

Liverpool were apparently trying to impliment it in football according to Comolli but I don't see how they have in any way. They've actually gone out and bought players who are overpriced relative to their ability (because of nationality and contract length, mainly). The moneyball approach will never work in football because football can't be quantified by statistics in the same way baseball can, it's too fluid and the stats are influenced by numerous different factors (the player's teammates, position, tactics, luck etc). Apparently they signed Adam, Downing and Henderson because they were highest on the assist/chance creation charts last season. You've got to hope that wasn't their primary basis for signing them, because it's absolutely ludicrous if so. Players should be signed on their on pitch qualities and ability, this can be judged through scouting but never purely on statistics. It's mental.

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Yeah, the moneyball scheme has become irrelevant now, as everyone uses it. The Yankees/Red Sox/Cubs and many other clubs still overpay a lot, they're just using different information than they were before.

 

:thup:

 

That's what I thought. I haven't seen the film but have been meaning to do so.

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Yeah, the moneyball scheme has become irrelevant now, as everyone uses it. The Yankees/Red Sox/Cubs and many other clubs still overpay a lot, they're just using different information than they were before.

 

Not necessarily. Moneyball is about going after underrated players so if people are now actually valuing the type of players that they originally went after the new optimal strategy would be to start going after players who were originally overrated who would now actually be underrated..  :buck2:

 

Either way, Liverpool paying $$$$$ for young, English, overpriced players makes no sense though.

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sabremetrics isn't about finding players to buy on the cheap per se, that is simply how one team utilised it (moneyball) to work with their specific budget constraints. it is about assessing players on allegedly objective statistical criteria rather than on subjective opinion, gut feeling, intuition, game impressions etc.

 

The information you gain doing that can be used on a wide variety of applications - choosing who to play in a particular game, what training techniques to use, and of course in the transfer market. a poor club would obviously use it to look for undervalued bargains, but a rich club might use it to make that sure when they spend £30m+ they're getting their money's worth. not necessarily about specifically targeting undervalued players.

 

with that in mind you can perhaps discern how something like this could've been used with Liverpool. Bring in Andy Carroll who had an astonishing ability for turning early diagonals and deep crosses into concrete chances, and then go for Henderson (3rd highest key pass player or some bollocks) Adam (long ball king) and Downing (one of the league's top crossers) and, in theory, it should work. big fees paid don't preclude stats being used to pinpoint those players.

 

The problem in football, as sewelly pointed out, is that it is far more fluid. simply importing a set of statistics from another sport and applying them to football isnt going to work. you need to completely go back to basics and figure out what set of statistics are actually important, how to weight them blah blah blah. if you're using a system that worked in a stop-start, incidental game like baseball then there may well be an in-built bias towards statistics that measure end-product or easily definable moments - ie key passes, goals, shots, crosses, tackle percentages and so on. these kinds of concrete events make up a big proportion of what happens in baseball, but a small proportion of what goes into making a game of football.

 

kevin nolan, for instance, may score incredibly highly on a certain set of values, yet luka modric, with only 3 goals and 3 assists last season, may not. yet Modric was arguably the league's best midfielder last season, and Nolan just mediocre. you have to figure out a set of stats that shows why modric is better than nolan, how better teams are more likely to go for the former than the latter. though to a degree that would just be using stats to backup a subjective opinion. with so many variables in the sport it may be that the well trained human brain of a pro scout or coach is better equipped to make judgements than a computer model.

 

but then there's not just one player on his own at the bat, but a bunch of guys who need to gel as a team. so even once you've formulated a complex statistical approach to deal with individual players you need to work out the same for tactics. basically sabremetrics in football is in its infancy and anyone trying to use this as the foundation of how their club operates is being reckless, if not stupid.

 

then of course there's elements that can't be covered by stats - that carroll was number 9 for his boyhood club, had a support structure from living at home and being babysat by kevin nolan, that he likes a drink, or how he played at an intensity that may have been physically unsustainable etc.

 

as a post-script, arsenal have been using stats for a while, but they've seen a drawn-out decline in the past 6 years or so. remember hearing wenger let Henry go as his sprint times over 60metres started to edge up dramatically - something people didnt notice that much on the pitch, but a fact that was really obvious not too long into his barca career. and that they never used high crosses as stats showed they were ineffective - but to an extent it's stripped them of a much valuable tool. also heard that arsenal don't require their players to bulk up at the gym like other clubs, as physical confrontations technically don't make a significant part of the game, and time at training could be used more efficiently.  :rolleyes: then of course there's allardyce telling his players at bolton not to shoot from distance due to decreased scoring chances, and the fact you lose possession.

 

most of these examples make me think most people in football really don't have a clue how to use statistics properly so it would be no surprise liverpool screwed up royally trying to gain an advantage on everyone else.

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Sabremetrics in football is in infancy, but any club that doesn't use it to support and aid their decisions, whether that be transfers or team selection, in 5 years time will essentially just be hoping that they're lucky enough to stumble on to good players and a working formation. There is a lot to sabremetrics in general, but obviously the statistical models need refining for football. Baseball was the first sport to use it fully because it's a game of statistics, but the revolution has since spread to the NFL and the NBA, both sports where there is vastly more fluidity and is more similar to football. The Mavericks who just won their first NBA title have one of the biggest team of statisticians in the league, and anyone who watches the NBA will tell you that it's much more similar to football than baseball, so it obviously works in complex sports as well. This is the future, like it or not. Man City have the biggest department of all the teams in the Premiership, as far as I know.

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The no high-crosses stuff just comes from its lack of efficiency. It's hard to deliver high crosses with any weight or directional accuracy, so you'd rather not do it if you had a better alternative. The ball also travels fastest when it's going in a straight line (vertically and horizontally), which means the fastest way to move the ball is on the ground. That is why you'd rarely see a Barca winger just cross the ball into the box. They do it from time to time, but there is a real strategy to it and it's not just a 'let's bomb the penalty area' strategy. It's obviously very effective too because they score shit loads of goals and the vast majority come from other sources.

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Guest ObiChrisKenobi

Sabremetrics in football is in infancy, but any club that doesn't use it to support and aid their decisions, whether that be transfers or team selection, in 5 years time will essentially just be hoping that they're lucky enough to stumble on to good players and a working formation. There is a lot to sabremetrics in general, but obviously the statistical models need refining for football. Baseball was the first sport to use it fully because it's a game of statistics, but the revolution has since spread to the NFL and the NBA, both sports where there is vastly more fluidity and is more similar to football. The Mavericks who just won their first NBA title have one of the biggest team of statisticians in the league, and anyone who watches the NBA will tell you that it's much more similar to football than baseball, so it obviously works in complex sports as well. This is the future, like it or not. Man City have the biggest department of all the teams in the Premiership, as far as I know.

 

Basketball maybe similar in some ways to Football, but you've still only got to account for 5 people active at anyone time. You also have rolling subs, so there's no gamble in swapping players around. Football is 11 v 11. In an open environment (so weather/pitch condition, etc are factors). So there are complex sports, and there are complex sports.

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The no high-crosses stuff just comes from its lack of efficiency. It's hard to deliver high crosses with any weight or directional accuracy, so you'd rather not do it if you had a better alternative. The ball also travels fastest when it's going in a straight line (vertically and horizontally), which means the fastest way to move the ball is on the ground. That is why you'd rarely see a Barca winger just cross the ball into the box. They do it from time to time, but there is a real strategy to it and it's not just a 'let's bomb the penalty area' strategy. It's obviously very effective too because they score s*** loads of goals and the vast majority come from other sources.

 

I guess it's just using these tools to support your game plan. Pep is very heavy on analysis, although doesn't rely on it completely. One of his "innovations" was instructing players not to dive into tackles since analysis showed that if the tackle was missed the player was effectively taken out of play as he needed too much time to get up and run back, etc... our "six second rule" comes from statistical analysis too, the window of time after a turnover where the team that has got the ball still hasn't transitioned out of defensive positioning and thus their players are vulnerable to isolation.

 

Again, those are tools, ultimately it's the 11 brains on the pitch the ones that take the decisions in an ever-changing environment.

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