Tag Archives: soccer
Is xG any good at predicting game outcomes?
Introduction One can’t afford to ignore Expected Goals (xG) now that Match of the Day are giving the metric such a huge profile. I’m not a massive fan of xG, but I thought it was worth further investigation and so, … Continue reading
Shooting stars of the MLS
The easiest and (probably) best way to cluster with respect to a binary variable (goals vs. shots) is to use the algorithm known as classification by decision tree induction (DT) Continue reading
Can we judge performance accurately without knowing The plan?
Football performance is judged by analysing video and data from a match, or from many matches. But do video and data provide all the information we need to judge performance accurately? I don’t think so. A vital piece of information … Continue reading
Analytic insights and dubious corners stats
Does Manchester City’s much publicised analytic insight on corners stands up to scrutiny? There are reasons to doubt it! Corners are one of the key moments in a match that grab fans’ attention. There is always high expectation that a … Continue reading
Best and worst defensive performance – 2013 EPL
Introduction The idea for this analysis came from reading Paul Power February post, where he sets out to analyse Defensive Efficiency (Deff). To measure it he lists seven variables, and reasons for his choice. These are: 1. Goals Conceded (GC) … Continue reading
Points table vs. Performance table – take your pick
Continuing my analysis of the MCFC Analytics project data for the 2012 EPL season, in this post I try to give an answer to a much debated argument among fans, namely: does the number of points gained by a team … Continue reading
Possession and goals | Bolton – Man City (2-3) EPL 2011-12
Continuing my analysis of the Bolton-Man City match, this time I look at possession, currently a hot topic among football analysts. My objective is to analyse this metric during a number of fixed time (min.) intervals of the match, and … Continue reading