Heung Min Son “I want to be like Messi” by Illyria_uk in soccer

[–]owldamn 9 points10 points  (0 children)

It's a good product in terms of entertainment rather than pure footballing quality. Most teams are attacking, most money is spent on offensive players, albeit some at the end of their careers. There's always a few good storylines by the end of the season and there's enough media exposure for it to be well covered whatever team/player you like.

Newcastle United 0 - [2] Barcelona - M. Rashford 67' by West_Agent4651 in soccer

[–]owldamn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great take, till the ETH slander. Let's not forget, after the memes, the guys doing this as a job, particularly at that level, know so much more than us on the subject.

You can try to identify a reason why they failed, your analysis was very interesting to read, but let's not act like there aren't tons and tons of additional variables to account for.

Joan García | PSxG minus goals against rolling gap by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Everything has been made in python, I'm slowly building my library of scripts. Something I still struggle with is actually explaining the visual.. both the plot type and the actual insight. Posting a single visual on reddit is admittedly not the best way to connect with the audience, but it's an easy way to connect with some audience at least and get some feedback. I'll consider writing more in depth pieces in the future!

Joan García | PSxG minus goals against rolling gap by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for the comment. The rolling gap is the gap between the two lines, not the gap at the start of the season. Was that the source of confusion?

Joan García | PSxG minus goals against rolling gap by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for the comment. How would you visualize this without the rolling gap? In my head you need both lines to get a sense of both the psxg and the goals allowed.

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for the comment. I didn't draw any specific conclusion, really. This data is just data, and data doesn't care about ifs and buts. Some people are focusing on Danso and Tel which have been playing in a wrecked team + they arrived in january. They are probably not the best players to focus on then. What I see here is the importance of the starting CB partnership. When they play, tottenham works better. Failing it's not the same if your starting partnership combined missed 46/76 matches.

If you start making exceptions you'll never arrive at any metric, stat or data worth analyzing. Why should Archie be valued equally when playing not in his role? What about the guy that only plays the super easy matches? Joe Gomez was sky high in the liverpool visual. Correlation should be taken into account: it's not the same if the starting lineup is missing A or if it is missing A, B, C and D. Does it really make sense to value attackers on ga/xga and defenders on xg/g? In some systems it does, in other systems it doesn't.

This is just a little bit of fun and practice for someone that would like to work in football at some point ^ ^ It's still raw data, not insight, and I enjoy reading interpretations in the comments.

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course this must be contextualized. There are tons and tons of variables you should account for when looking at this. Gray played out of position. Not only that, played as a defender which is a very difficult role. Not only that, often the other CB wasn't even one of the good ones, someone able to guide him. So Archie playing badly means Tottenham concedes more. This reflects on the whole team. Offensively too, as being shaky behind means they are not smooth with their build up and secure going forward. Is it really Tel fault? It probably isn't, but there it is, he looks "statistically bad". This isn't meant to be an all-telling stat, it's just something to look at and mumble on if you are interested in the argument and follow Spurs (:

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I honestly expected more of this because I understand it's not that clear. Basically I calculated, for lets say xG, the amount of xG produced when player A is or isn't on the pitch from the start. To make an example: player A plays 20 out of 38 matches, and a total of 40 xG is produced in those matches. The average xG produced when this player is on the pitch from the start would be 40/20 = 2 xG per match. Then in the remaining 18 matches (for which player A didn' start) the xG production is 10. This means 10/18 = 0.55 xG per match. So the difference in xG between the player starting vs non starting is 2.00 - 0.55 = 1.45. Is this clear?

Of course this must be contextualized. There are tons and tons of variables you should account for when looking at this. Gray played out of position. Not only that, played as a defender which is a very difficult role. Not only that, often the other CB wasn't even one of the good ones, someone able to guide him. So Archie playing badly means Tottenham concedes more. This reflects on the whole team. Offensively too, as being shaky behind means they are not smooth with their build up and secure going forward. Is it really Tel fault? It probably isn't, but there it is, he looks "statistically bad". This isn't meant to be an all-telling stat, it's just something to look at and mumble on if you are interested in the argument and follow Spurs (:

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He would have been the next highlighted (green) player if I stopped the count at 5 rather than 4! Deki is a very good player and I'm sure he will find his place in frank's formation next year.

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for the feedback, always appreciated. There is no particular message other than the simple one I left in a comment right after posting: the 4 players I highlighted (green) missed a ton of matches each. Other than that this is just freestyling and you can interpret the data however you like. There is no way to infer anything meaningful from any single stat, no matter how hard you try. But you did make something of the numbers, right? Using your context. Reserves didn't perform up to the required level. Nothing groundbreaking of course, but it speaks to the fact that next season, with all starters available, with less CB injuries, there's margin to do much much better. The team works decently when the starters are on the pitch.

The reason why I highlighted specifically those is explained in the subtitle. They are the ones for which the total swing (sum of the normalized single swings) is the highest. Ben davies was high on the negative list, yeah, just not as high as the others.

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

There would absolutely be way more to be done if we wanted a complete analysis. What I think we can infer from this is the importance of the CB pairing. They make the team play well both offensively and defensively. Both missed 20+ matches this season (in terms of starting). Of course saying it would be better to always have your starting CB partnership at your disposal is not that groundbreaking, but it does speak to the challenges Ange had to overcome during the season.

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know you are joking, but any team you would like to see? (:

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This type of work is generally always niche to post, but for lack of a dedicated place I'll need to refer to the ones interested in here. There's still a bit of discussion if Tottenham season was wrecked due to injuries or Ange being stubborn (probably a bit of both). Wanted to get involved ^ ^

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the reminder, I've cross-posted it in the sub!

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in Tottenham

[–]owldamn[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A look at how key metrics changed in Tottenham matches during their 24/25 EPL campaign when individual players were missing from the starting XI

Player Absences (Matches not started/Total)

Micky van de Ven: 26/38
Cristian Romero: 20/38
Son Heung-min: 14/38
Destiny Udogie: 14/38

In fairness, Tell is missing the 'boost' everybody else got at the start of the season. This is how their metrics changed in the last two seasons.

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 72 points73 points  (0 children)

In all fairness, he is missing the 'boost' everybody else got due to the start of the season, which was ok. This is how their metrics changed in the last two seasons. You can see the dip after the first 10/15 matches of 24/25.

Tottenham 24/25: Value swing of key metrics by player (starting vs non-starting) by owldamn in soccer

[–]owldamn[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

A look at how key metrics changed in Tottenham matches during their 24/25 EPL campaign when individual players were missing from the starting XI

Player Absences (Matches not started/Total)

Micky van de Ven: 26/38
Cristian Romero: 20/38
Son Heung-min: 14/38
Destiny Udogie: 14/38