The Times: The Nations Top Players (Mathematically Calculated)

[KaKa]

Very interesting article. They don't have the full article online, but I have it at home. They also ranked the players on each team  and Martins was, according to this formula our best player, while Nicky Butt was the worst!!! Fascinating stuff check it out. I will type up the rankings for our team in a bit ...

 

Just to add they ranked 403 players and Paul Robinson came in at 402!!! He was ranked as one of the worst keepers in the league!!! My eyes always told me he was and now I have mathematical proof. There are a lot of surprises in there.

 

The nation’s top ten - no arguments

Our correspondent offers a mathematical conclusion to the Premiership talent contest

 

Daniel Finkelstein

From one to 403 - the full listings

 

Five of the best and worst

 

So here you have it. Every Premiership player’s season, ranked. How did Fink Tank do it? We used a multivariate Poisson log-normal model. I hope you find that information helpful.

 

Dr Ian Graham and Dr Henry Stott used the model to allow us to identify the relationship between goals scored and every kick of the ball made by every player for every club. Once this was done, they simulated the league season over and over again, removing players one by one and replacing them with an average player in his position.

 

Related Links

The essential Premiership stats at a glance

This allowed them to see whether a player added or subtracted points from his team compared to an average replacement. The best player this season would be the one who added the most points.

 

But this process did not yield us the player of the year automatically. There were a couple of dilemmas to overcome.

 

The first was whether to take into account periods out with injury or not being played. Robbie Keane, for instance, is a fabulous player, but for one reason or another he spent only 47 per cent of the season’s playing time on the pitch for Tottenham Hotspur. Should we just ignore this?

 

We decided not to. Players were penalised for being out of the team. We multiplied the points added in our simulation by the proportion of time on the pitch. This produces one controversial feature of our ranking. If a player adds points compared to the average, they rise up the table the more they play. But if they subtract points, then the more they play the lower they are in the rankings. We take the view that they are making their team worse the more they play.

 

The other dilemma was more complicated. Gilberto Silva added more points to Arsenal than any player did to any team in England. Should he be the player of the year? The case for him is simply his importance to his team. But the case against him is that he was boosted by the fact that there were fewer impressive Arsenal players during this campaign for him to share the points with. A Manchester United player might have been better but had to split his contribution with four of five other stars.

 

So we hit on another way of calculating the player of the year. We looked at how many points a player would add to an average team, giving us an even playing field. This is not the perfect solution – Wayne Rooney may score more than a Sheffield United player simply because of the quality of Manchester United’s passing – but we thought that it was fair.

 

So what was the outcome? Here are a few headline points. Cristiano Ronaldo deserved to be crowned player of the year. The data confirms that judgment.

 

Also, Frank Lampard is fabulous. The common view is that Steven Gerrard is better than Lampard. Well, we cannot pass comment on basic skills. We are ranking the contributions made by players this season, not ranking abstract talent. Perhaps Liverpool do not let him breathe. Or something. But Fink Tank is absolutely clear that the free-scoring, great-passing Lampard is a towering figure. And Gerrard? He came 80th.

 

Finally, England and Tottenham have a goalkeeping problem. We rank 403 players and Paul Robinson came 402nd.

 

Now feel free to roam our rankings yourself.

 

HOW IT WORKS

 

The Fink Tank Predictor provides forecasts and ranking systems for English and European club football, based on a statistical model of matches based on more than five years of football scores.

 

In looking at player rankings for this season, the phrase “time-adjusted points” means the number of points the player would have added to an average team in the full season, compared with an average replacement. The points are then adjusted to reflect the amount of time spent on the pitch – minimum 400 minutes.

 

THE TOP 10

 

KEY: Player, club, position, pitch time, time-adjusted points

 

1 C Ronaldo Manchester United Midfield 85.12% 19.12

 

Voted player of the year by his fellow professionals and by football writers, the 22-year-old Portugal winger is our man of the season as well

 

2 F Lampard Chelsea M 97.31% 16.24

 

An ordinary season for Lampard? The statistics say otherwise

 

3 Gilberto Arsenal M 88.14% 16.01 P

 

Ten league goals was a remarkable return for the midfield man

 

4 Cech Chelsea G 50.15% 14.41

 

Chelsea missed their ’keeper desperately when he was injured

 

5 J Lehmann Arsenal G 97.30% 13.94

 

He may be 37 but the German is still among the league’s elite

 

6 P Scholes Man Utd M 79.10% 13.50

 

Enjoyed spectacular return to form after last season’s eye injury

 

7 T Howard Everton G 94.59% 12.96

 

Failed to make the grade at Old Trafford but a Goodison star

 

8 N Vidic Man Utd D 66.11% 10.48

 

The centre back was rock-solid in his first full season in England

 

9 B McCarthy Blackburn F 88.98% 9.91

 

Eighteen goals in 36 starts proves McCarthy is a lethal predator

 

10 A Hleb Arsenal M 68.14% 9.87

 

Not as flashy as some of his teammates, but highly effective

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/fink_tank/article1851667.ece

[Parky]

Cristiano single handedly won Manu the title that much is clear.

[Dragon55544]

Cristiano single handedly won Manu the title that much is clear.

 

Thats slightly unfair on the other players because Giggs,Scholes and Rooney all played a big part.

[KaKa]

Newcastle's Rankings according to their formula

 

1. Obafemi Martins (35)

2. Kieron Dyer (46)

3. Shola Ameobi (115)

4. Steven Taylor (139)

5. Oguchi Onyewu (159)

6. Antoine Sibierski (168)

7. Damien Duff (175)

8. Craig Moore (183)

9. Emre Belozoglu (197)

10. Peter Ramage (208)

11. Scott Parker (215)

12. James Milner (228)

13. Paul Huntington (239)

14. Charles N'Zogbia (248)

15. Steve Harper (261)

16. Celestine Babayaro (262)

17. Shay Given (264)

18. Titus Bramble (297)

19. Nolberto Solano (318)

20. Stephen Carr (352)

21. Nicky Butt (358)

 

The numbers in brackets are their overall rankings out of 403.

[Guest Triglett]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/fink_tank/article1852016.ece

 

That's the full listings. And I'm sorry, but if you believe that pile of rubbish, well...

 

So, Shorey and Bentley are Reading and Blackburn's worst players? Matthew Taylor is Portsmouth's second worst player? Ben Foster and Jaaskelainen are second and third worst goalkeepers? Calum Davenport, truly one of the worst Spurs players I've ever witnessed, making the top 50? 30 places ahead of Gerrard?

 

Uhm...

[Parky]

Newcastle's Rankings according to their formula

 

1. Obafemi Martins (35)

2. Kieron Dyer (46)

3. Shola Ameobi (115)

4. Steven Taylor (139)

5. Oguchi Onyewu (159)

6. Antoine Sibierski (168)

7. Damien Duff (175)

8. Craig Moore (183)

9. Emre Belozoglu (197)

10. Peter Ramage (208)

11. Scott Parker (215)

12. James Milner (228)

13. Paul Huntington (239)

14. Charles N'Zogbia (248)

15. Steve Harper (261)

16. Celestine Babayaro (262)

17. Shay Given (264)

18. Titus Bramble (297)

19. Nolberto Solano (318)

20. Stephen Carr (352)

21. Nicky Butt (358)

 

The numbers in brackets are their overall rankings out of 403.

 

 

Ramage above Milner!111

[Optimistic Nut]

The fact that Milner, Given, Solano & Butt are in our bottom 10 makes a mockery of that.

[Sparks]

Doh, I just posted this.

 

Baines was ranked really low.

[Optimistic Nut]

Ameobi 3rd best player.

[Guest nufc 4 life]

onyewu only played aorund 5 games for us.....

[Guest nufc 4 life]

ameobi played 1?

[Guest gggg]

Can't believe they even printed that.

 

Nicky Shorey, David Bentley, Kevin Davies, Ben Foster and Jussi Jaaskelainen the worst in the league last season? Whatever formula they use to work it out it's bollocks.

[Guest nufc 4 life]

to qualify for it you have to have played 400 minutes of footbal Ameobi only played a maximum of 90 right and Onyewu must of only played around 200?

[stozo]

to qualify for it you have to have played 400 minutes of footbal Ameobi only played a maximum of 90 right and Onyewu must of only played around 200?

You do realise Amoebi actually played several games for us at the start of the season.

[Dr Spectrum]

So. Matthew Taylor's habit of scoring wondergoals cost Pompey 5 points. Bobby Zamora is better than Tevez. Bentley, Shorey and Baines are there teams worst players. And Kevin Davies is the worst player in the league.

 

Lets kick Nerds out of football.

[Mike]

Seems to me that some massive UK used car lot pulled an ad and that newspaper had to fill a lot of space really fast so they ranked players according to google search rankings and added some horseshit math in the introduction ahead of it.

 

Ramage above Milner, seriously?

[Guest graemeh72]

Most of the time I'm a firm believer in The Fink Tank

 

however

 

these rankings stink!

[KaKa]

Isn't it amazing that even with such an apparently wacky mathematical formula, Ronaldo still comes out tops.

 

 

 

[Dr. TC]

It's an absolute joke.

 

Apparently, if Bolton replaced these players with 'average' players in their position they'd have won the league by 23 points.

 

366 Tal Ben Haim D 77.96% -5.57

 

375 Kevin Nolan M 78.20% -6.43

 

383 Jussi Jaaskelainen G 100% -7.44

 

398 Nicky Hunt D 78.98% -11.29

 

399 El-Hadji Diouf F 80.72% -11.59

 

403 Kevin Davies F 73.24% -14.08

 

Kevin Davies was one of their players of the season.

 

Butt was alledgedly our worst player 

[Bad Mongo]

Isn't it amazing that even with such an apparently wacky mathematical formula, Ronaldo still comes out tops.

 

A clock which has stopped shows the correct time twice a day. This list can only do one right out of 403.

[KaKa]

Isn't it amazing that even with such an apparently wacky mathematical formula, Ronaldo still comes out tops.

 

A clock which has stopped shows the correct time twice a day. This list can only do one right out of 403.

 

I was thinking more along the lines that Ronaldo couldn't even be held back by this mathematics. He beats it as well. He just had a great season in evrey way shape and form. Hopefully one of ours will be up there next season ...

[Guest Invicta_Toon]

welcome to sports science kids

 

so glad we're getting some scientists into the club

[ChezGiven]

I think it includes stuff like when the player gave the ball away, leading to a goal and a defeat = -3. That explains Nicky Butt, Fulham being a stand out game for him on that front.

 

Tbf, apart from us, the ranks for most other teams seem fairly sensible with their best players in the top 5. Ours is very odd though. 

[Joe_F]

Lehmann fifth best player in the league. He isn't even the fifth best keeper.

[ChezGiven]

The five worst defenders in the list are

 

Murty, Baines, Nicky Shorey, P Neville and Nicky Hunt.

 

Linvoy Primus joins Vidic, Ferdinand, Carvalho and Distin in top 5.