The Hatred Never Dies!.( A Wolver-Cunton Wanderers Match Thread)

I don't have a first touch, I find it quicker to work in 10s but I make the fewest tackles because when I tackle I tackle proper.

Sangare is 7th in league for successful tackles per 90 mins and Anderson is 8th. Ola Aina (what a player he is turning out to be) is second top for successful interceptions per 90 behind your man Mainoo, Boly is second top for clearances per 90, Murillo is joint 6th for blocks per 90, Matz Sels 12th for save percentage, Ryan Yates 5th for fouls committed per 90. Chris Wood is 10th for expected goals and 8th for expected goals on target. All a bag of bollocks isn't it.

I think we’ve looked noticeably better than in the last couple of years. We’ve controlled significant portions of all games, consistently got the ball in good places, and been more comfortable in defence and midfield (albeit with vulnerabilities that better teams will exploit). The downside is that we don’t convert opportunities from wide spaces into chances very often (I think both CHO and Elanga let themselves down in terms of decisions and delivery… for all of their great work and opportunities, MGW remains by far our most useful attacking weapon, creating more threat from far fewer opportunities) and whilst I am in no way down on Wood, I think he’s a 50:50 finisher at best, and doesn’t really do much for anyone else. And our set pieces are dogshit. Hence we have only got three goals from three good performances.. and we’re certainly not going to keep enough clean sheets for that sort of return to get us anywhere clear of the relegation picture.

We don’t know how good the teams we played are. Southampton are almost certainly awful, but that was their first home game, and one of their most winnable.. so credit is due for getting the job done. The other two may well end up occupying the mid-table berths we should aspire to, so being comfortable on, or ahead, of their level in both games is good even if we didn’t bank the extra points we probably should have done.

They were actually pretty good against Wolves.

Another stat for you, we've won 6th highest number of corners in league so far. Deliver a few of those better (oooo hello mister ward-prowse) on to the head of, say, a giant serb or Brazillian, or a plucky lump of a Kiwi, and we might score a few more.

You'd be mental to draw any conclusions from these sorts of stats when we've played two home games against mid-table teams and an away game against a team that will be in the relegation mix (dead last by some distance unless they sack their manager, which they probably will before Christmas).

After the next two, we'll move a long way down all the attacking stats.

Well, if you're suggesting it's invalid because it just reflects what may happen against the worst and middling teams I'm not sure I buy that reasoning, because if we do well in those games we'll be doing well by our standards.

I agree you'd be mental to read too much into it generally though, because it's simply too few data points to form any kind of reliable guide.

You'd be mental to draw any conclusions purely because most stats are bollocks, they almost always lack context and on their own rarely reflect what happens in a game.

But if you don't have advanced stats how can you milk idiots for fantasy sports subscriptions?

Or is that just bollockes Les?

Stats are a blunt tool and require a proper data set, but they're not bollocks. Check out the stats of Mbappe, Messi, Ronaldo, Haaland etc. They are different to the equivalent for Marcus Tudgay.

At the risk of getting dragged into this but…

Here you are, keeping yourself busy quoting several irrelevant “advanced” stats from three games. So a double whammy of a limited data set on some pretty meaningless endpoints.

You then say “look at ‘stats’ for Mbappe, Haaland, Ronaldo, Messi” without telling us what ‘stats’ you want us to look at. Basically those 4 players score a shit-tonne of goals. That is not advanced stats, that is a pretty basic metric of football. And beyond goals scored, all others ‘stats’ are pretty meaningless, whether it’s “touches in opponent’s box,” “progressive passes played”, “number of times left bollock scratched” or whatever.

I wasn't making a case for stats being be all and end all, but used properly they add to the picture and are better than a lot of the crap you will hear in the pub or are on the Internet from people who have never professionally played football, and indeed from many who have on places like Talksport.

The human mind and eyes etc are sophisticated censors, and the brain is a sophisticated computer. I don't need to tell you that, of course. But, like numbers which measure what happens over the course of matches and are used to model things and then are interpreted, humans just watching football express conclusions on games based on data that enters their heads through their eyes. In an era where every movement on the pitch can be quantified and modelled automatically, the idea that numbers cannot add immense value to our understanding of a chaotic but contained system (I.e a football match), alongside other information such as social and psychological information, doesn't stack up. It's why elite clubs invest so much in data, and by and large it in the round it gives a great advantage. It's basically modelling. Models aren't perfect, but they are often great tools if used properly. None of which is to say stats looked at in isolation don't need to approaching with a large measure of caution.

Forgive me as I'm not even sure that's inconsistent with anything you're saying, or indeed what I'm aiming to say. I also wasn't endorsing drawing any conclusions from stays based on 3 games, and I said that. They're just for fun at the moment, but they may be starting to tell us something. I certainly think the possessions stats when you compared between Nuno and Cooper might.

I'm honestly amazed he's even allowed on the Internet. Maybe we're on his list of 5 permitted websites.

I don't think anyone is logged in on that account, it's just Chat-GPT predictive text, and the P stands for something different.

Not biting, sorry pals. I was just giving some perfectly interesting insights about stats and I'm not interested in your old mates or trading insults. Don't let yourselves down.