| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. 23:07 - Mar 19 with 22294 views | A40Bosh |
1hr of sensible questions without prior notice
5mins at the end with Finney blabbering on trying to ask a question which Ben Williams never really understood until someone else had to step in.
Doubters will no doubt…. Doubt
Haters are gonna hate.
Make your own mind up if you want to sit through and listen to an 1hr of sports science
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| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 13:45 - Mar 20 with 3091 views | Northernr |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 13:40 - Mar 20 by Superhoop83 |
What did he say/admit about Poku and Chair?
I listened to the first 20 minutes but I'm not sure I can make it through the rest of it. |
In short that mistakes were made, they'd probably do things differently next time, but in Poku's case they were learning about a new player from a different club. |  | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 13:49 - Mar 20 with 3080 views | nick_hammersmith |
Oh my god, what a hard listen.
Panel did really well not to get angry with him.
The guy is a grade A bullshitter, I only did Sport Science and Biology to A Level, but I managed to follow hi geek stuff no problem...
He has far to big a remit, which mirrors our CEO/DOF.
When there is an absolutely massive backroom staff there is no need at all to route it all back to one or two people.
This guy needs to be removed as soon as possible, if he is allowed to stay for another season it will do serious damage to the club.
AAAARGH, that last part was painful!!!
I know its easy in hindsight but.
Last years accounts has an opening statement from your bosses boss. (Lee Hoos)
Saying last year was hindered by injuries.
It will probably be the same next year.
So, the question is
"Surely, one of your annual targets must linked to player availability. So, if your bosses boss is saying this is a problem are you failing in your key task?"
[Post edited 20 Mar 13:58]
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| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 13:56 - Mar 20 with 3043 views | bosh67 |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 13:45 - Mar 20 by Northernr |
In short that mistakes were made, they'd probably do things differently next time, but in Poku's case they were learning about a new player from a different club. |
What a weird thing for them to say. Like I thought most players we get come in from another club? Apart from Eze, who essentially came to us from his job at Tesco.
In Poku's case he came in off the back of some dreadful hamstring injuries and proceeded to get more. The difference was everyone knew that if if legs didn't fall apart that he was potentially a cut above most others and we got him at a price that indicated he was very talented but was bought as seen. |  |
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| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 14:05 - Mar 20 with 3004 views | nick_hammersmith |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 13:56 - Mar 20 by bosh67 |
What a weird thing for them to say. Like I thought most players we get come in from another club? Apart from Eze, who essentially came to us from his job at Tesco.
In Poku's case he came in off the back of some dreadful hamstring injuries and proceeded to get more. The difference was everyone knew that if if legs didn't fall apart that he was potentially a cut above most others and we got him at a price that indicated he was very talented but was bought as seen. |
You could hear his legs flapping at that one while he was thinking.
I suspect cycling Ben won't be doing any more Q&A's without pre prepared questions again for a while | | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 14:11 - Mar 20 with 2963 views | wombat |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 13:45 - Mar 20 by Northernr |
In short that mistakes were made, they'd probably do things differently next time, but in Poku's case they were learning about a new player from a different club. |
but that just admits the lack of experience in running the most important part of the club , well documented past injury record and compleltly ballsed it up from day one |  |
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| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 14:23 - Mar 20 with 2911 views | 7374Ranger |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 09:48 - Mar 20 by KensalT |
We can just look at the player data for this season:
https://fbref.com/en/squads/a7
36 fixtures completed is 3,240 minutes of game time (assuming 90 minutes per game).
Our big summer signing Poku has played 325 minutes = 10.0%
Our "best CB" JCS has played 403 minutes = 12.4%
And our top creator Chair has played a whopping 800 minutes = 24.7%
Nothing anecdotal about that! |
Please refrain from using sensible figures, it shows up his skewed data. |  | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 14:30 - Mar 20 with 2885 views | 7374Ranger |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 10:12 - Mar 20 by QPR_Jim |
This is possibly the reason why I've not listened to this podcast or particularly interested in listening to anything Hoos or Nourry say either. Usually an interview with senior members of the QPR management would have my interest but we all know i will be no new information (don't want to give away a competitive advantage after all) and trying to justify their performance and methods despite the actual results in front of us. Complete waste of time and not worth engaging with. |
My view is the same. Those 3 are full of bullsheet and should be kicked out of the club.
Rueben should stop throwing his money down the drain employing them and speak with other clubs about employing decent knowledgeable football people and experienced and skilled performance management/physios capable of working at a football club rather than a cycling one. | | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 14:44 - Mar 20 with 2823 views | Andybrat |
I have listened and actually I genuinely think he is trying to answer properly. Yes lots of words but it is obvious he has knowledge and admitted mistakes with Poku and Chair so real honesty.
I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, sorry and will not give my stand, row, seat number out there.
Doesn’t feel BS to me.
He could have just hidden | | | |
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| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:20 - Mar 20 with 2709 views | mart_Goblin |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 14:44 - Mar 20 by Andybrat |
I have listened and actually I genuinely think he is trying to answer properly. Yes lots of words but it is obvious he has knowledge and admitted mistakes with Poku and Chair so real honesty.
I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, sorry and will not give my stand, row, seat number out there.
Doesn’t feel BS to me.
He could have just hidden |
The answer to his first question is complete BS.
The damage to the pitch has nothing to do with rain, at least not initially and he knows it.
I get that “at least they are talking to us “ but what’s the point if it’s nonsense when they do .
And even if it did have something to do with rainfall , maybe flooding it before during and after matches isn’t a great idea, Ben. They’re your guys now. It’s on you .
Gerimandering stats to suit an argument, as said on the Lee Hoos thread is what politicians do .
We don’t want politicians. I’ll even forgive the patronsing “does that answer your question “ in the first 5 minutes as he went on to say he’s not used to these sorts of things . But come on .
Stop treating us like fools !
We want people fronting up , being transparent (which he said they were !!!!!!) and ultimately not smoking the place out so no one sees what’s really going on .
Not even got to the end of it and had to leave the rest for later. |  | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:21 - Mar 20 with 2706 views | KensalT |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 12:26 - Mar 20 by Northernr |
Yeh, I've just run round Greenwich Park listening to this, and some of it is absolutely infuriating.
We lost four players in the first half of of our least competitive game of the season when the pitch was at its worst. Ben says that's entirely incidental/coincidental. Ten minutes later he's talking about how we measure our training pitch and Loftus Road pitch in a million different ways - temperature, moisture, ball roll, bounce, hardness etc - to get them exactly the same because it effects push off, impact etc. So, which is it?
I think the question that was left hanging when he's talking about Mike, who came from sprint sports, and has completely re-written our "speed model", whatever the fck that is, is... it hasn't worked has it? The squad's dead. The season's been destroyed by injuries. He sounds great, very convincing, for long periods of time, until I remember we've got a game tomorrow and half the squad is missing for it. This all sounds great but... it hasn't worked has it?
Again sticking to this idea that we had fantastic availability through the first half of the season, despite the Larkeche, Chair, Poku, Frey, Clarke-Salter absences. Saffa sits there and lists the players who missed the first half of the season, and he just repeats the number back to him. It's BS. "Oh, we didn't include Larkeche in the stats". So, we've got great availability, apart from the players who are unavailable? Come on now. Come on.
However, on the positives
- They're talking to us. This should be encouraged. They should do it much more, and I'm well aware that wnkrs like me pulling it apart won't help with that but you'll get far more buy in and empathy if you just speak to people.
- He admitted they'd got stuff wrong, specifically with Poku and Chair. That's a good step forward for me. I haven't heard any of them admit a mistake or apologise for anything before. Again, people will go with you a lot more if you own up. His other comments about how brilliant the club are at holding up a mirror to itself are complete bolox, but, baby steps.
- He didn't get as far as apologising for his cack handed 'favourite players' comment at the fan forum, but he did say he's not the best public speaker, hasn't been used to doing interviews etc, and I think that's fair enough you do have to understand some people are better at that stuff than others.
- These interviews were booked in before Leicester, so they were willing to front up at a really difficult time, which is to be commended.
- He admitted the coms needs looking at.
This post has been edited by an administrator |
I agree that it's a good thing that they are making the effort.
From Williams' point of view, instead of getting bogged down in trying to defend a specific data point like 90% player availability it would be better for him and us if he explained the process that went into producing that number.
I still think the "90% player availability" number looks ridiculous and I strongly suspect the club definition of "available" is very different from how the average fan might define it.
But at least they are making the effort and hopefully will continue to do so. |  | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:39 - Mar 20 with 2655 views | Hastings_Hoops |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 09:33 - Mar 20 by Northernr |
One of the techniques Ben and Christian use a lot is to bury the audience in figures, most of which can never possibly be proved one way or the other, and then if you say 'come on, we can all see Poku, Chair, Madsen, Burrell etc have been out for months and injuries have killed our season' then you're told you're speaking "anecdotally" and what you're saying isn't backed up by "the data". |
I wonder if the owners get the same retort when they ask why the hell their prize assets aren’t playing / are dropping like flies. I do hope they’re asking these questions! |  | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:43 - Mar 20 with 2636 views | 7374Ranger |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:39 - Mar 20 by Hastings_Hoops |
I wonder if the owners get the same retort when they ask why the hell their prize assets aren’t playing / are dropping like flies. I do hope they’re asking these questions! |
I am guessing that they don't really care. If they do , maybe we will see them take some action. After all, the accounts said something about last season being ruined by injuries, well the same can be said for this one.
So let's see some remedial response from Ruben and Co. | | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:45 - Mar 20 with 2638 views | nick_hammersmith |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:21 - Mar 20 by KensalT |
I agree that it's a good thing that they are making the effort.
From Williams' point of view, instead of getting bogged down in trying to defend a specific data point like 90% player availability it would be better for him and us if he explained the process that went into producing that number.
I still think the "90% player availability" number looks ridiculous and I strongly suspect the club definition of "available" is very different from how the average fan might define it.
But at least they are making the effort and hopefully will continue to do so. |
1000000% that is the last time the club let Williams do one of these where they don't know what Q are coming.
*Big caveat*
Unless next season we see something like his first half season and JCS get 30+ games again.
At this point he will be paraded around West London by Nourry and we will see if it really is his fault when something bad happened and his teams if its something good. ;p | | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:57 - Mar 20 with 2601 views | wombat |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:45 - Mar 20 by nick_hammersmith |
1000000% that is the last time the club let Williams do one of these where they don't know what Q are coming.
*Big caveat*
Unless next season we see something like his first half season and JCS get 30+ games again.
At this point he will be paraded around West London by Nourry and we will see if it really is his fault when something bad happened and his teams if its something good. ;p |
Well ive emailed the club twice now and by the looks of it and no supprise there wont be a second fans forum this season.
the club will however. e emailing a set of excel spreadsheets for them to mull over when they apply for next seasons development squad season, its not all about results now lads but hey give us your cash and keep turning up please | |
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| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 16:14 - Mar 20 with 2533 views | MrsJeff |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:21 - Mar 20 by KensalT |
I agree that it's a good thing that they are making the effort.
From Williams' point of view, instead of getting bogged down in trying to defend a specific data point like 90% player availability it would be better for him and us if he explained the process that went into producing that number.
I still think the "90% player availability" number looks ridiculous and I strongly suspect the club definition of "available" is very different from how the average fan might define it.
But at least they are making the effort and hopefully will continue to do so. |
Completely agree here. |  | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 16:28 - Mar 20 with 2486 views | nick_hammersmith |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 16:14 - Mar 20 by MrsJeff |
Completely agree here. |
Only thing I can think of is that they have said to JS for example, Poku is available to play on Saturday, but we strongly recommend he only plays for 5' as a substitute.
Then they can say that he was available to play, and not on their stats | | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 17:28 - Mar 20 with 2364 views | QPR_Jim |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 12:14 - Mar 20 by BeauRanger |
Many thanks to all who put this together, it’s good to try to have an open& direct dialogue between the club & fans, for people to make their own minds up about it.
A few things occur to me, having listened to it..
Ben Williams concedes he’s not used to dealing directly with fans & doing podcasts, interviews etc. His answers (again which he concedes) aren’t always succinct & directly address points raised in a concise manner. He’s a scientist & his language reflects that.
When asked about the condition of the pitch & if it contributed to the injuries, he compared it to league 1 or 2 club pitches & stated there was no extrapolation of injuries caused by these presumably poorer pitches. Why compare with leagues 1& 2, is that the level of budget or expertise they have for it. Shouldn’t he be comparing with Championship clubs?
Regarding comms around injuries, which again he admitted could improve. He makes a valid point about levels of confidentiality & GDPR etc, but there has to be a happy medium between the current void of information regarding injured players EG Chair, Madsen, Burrell etc. I appreciate things change (for good or bad) with injury & estimated recovery, but a more regular update with what can be shared would be good for fans. Rather than the absolute silence around some players.
As mentioned would be good to have follow up episodes with him to discuss progress.. |
"He's a scientist & his language reflects that" - That's a bit of a reach, I might be being a snob here but he studied sport science, it's hardly a PHD in Physics.
As most on here have pointed out, it appears he's manipulating the data to get the answers he wants which is very un-scientific. So I'd suggest a more accurate phrase might be "he's a wally and his language reflects that". |  | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 17:45 - Mar 20 with 2321 views | nick_hammersmith |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 17:28 - Mar 20 by QPR_Jim |
"He's a scientist & his language reflects that" - That's a bit of a reach, I might be being a snob here but he studied sport science, it's hardly a PHD in Physics.
As most on here have pointed out, it appears he's manipulating the data to get the answers he wants which is very un-scientific. So I'd suggest a more accurate phrase might be "he's a wally and his language reflects that". |
Acktually,
manipulating figures to show what you want is known as data science
And it sounds like he has a PHD as well
To balance it all though, I think he's a weapon | | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 17:48 - Mar 20 with 2311 views | lassel |
At the risk of being a stuck record - one of the key requirements of any C Suite member is the ability to communicate, and the ability to acknowledge your own fallibility, own mistakes and fix them.
These guys can talk, but they can’t communicate. And they certainly can’t even acknowledge, let alone own mistakes. | | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 18:21 - Mar 20 with 2234 views | davman |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 09:48 - Mar 20 by KensalT |
We can just look at the player data for this season:
https://fbref.com/en/squads/a7
36 fixtures completed is 3,240 minutes of game time (assuming 90 minutes per game).
Our big summer signing Poku has played 325 minutes = 10.0%
Our "best CB" JCS has played 403 minutes = 12.4%
And our top creator Chair has played a whopping 800 minutes = 24.7%
Nothing anecdotal about that! |
This is the true metric. Take the top 15 players you'd expect to make the match day squad and work out the %age of games they actually appeared in.
Anything else is horseshit, right? |  |
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| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 18:37 - Mar 20 with 2196 views | Andybrat |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 11:02 - Mar 20 by MrsJeff |
So full disclosure, I was on the panel for this which after the awaydays pod on Sat was unexpected...
You'll all make your own minds up about what you hear, but to me the way the stats are used and communicated is the key problem. It's clear that Ben comes from a more scientific background and also from sports where the fanbase are more interested in data points - cycling fans might know the VO2max of their favourite rider but that's not what championship football is about.
In my opinion the club made a big mistake using quantitative information to defend qualitative comments in the early days instead of addressing them head on, and that's why we're now spending 20 mins getting into the weeds about what 89.4% availability between August and February actually means. That didn't actually answer the question that was being asked which is "why do we seem to have so many injuries"! Answering with statistics that don't seem to pass the eye test alienated people where just saying "yeah it's a lot, we need to figure out how to improve it, the boffins behind the scenes are on it" would have gone a lot further.
Data is a tool, and like all tools when you use it for the right job it can improve your life but when you use it for the wrong job it causes damage that takes forever to fix. Case in point, the number of people on this thread who have come on just to say they're not even going to listen to it because they don't trust anything the club say - it's going to take a lot to repair that.
I agree with ozexile - the breadth of his scope is pretty remarkable, I really hadn't appreciated that before.
This post has been edited by an administrator |
Just wondering were you on a virtual call or just voice? Would be interested in his body language for a guy who confirmed being interviewed is way outside his comfort zone | | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 19:07 - Mar 20 with 2128 views | daveB |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 15:21 - Mar 20 by KensalT |
I agree that it's a good thing that they are making the effort.
From Williams' point of view, instead of getting bogged down in trying to defend a specific data point like 90% player availability it would be better for him and us if he explained the process that went into producing that number.
I still think the "90% player availability" number looks ridiculous and I strongly suspect the club definition of "available" is very different from how the average fan might define it.
But at least they are making the effort and hopefully will continue to do so. |
It sounded like avaliable to train which is very different from being able to play a match from the start |  | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 19:21 - Mar 20 with 2104 views | connell10 |
I found it totally boring and still don't know why and how our players are getting injured this season. Waste of time and blather! |  |
| AND WHEN I DREAM , I DREAM ABOUT YOU AND WHEN I SCREAM I SCREAM ABOUT YOU!!!!! | | Poll: | best number 10 ever? |
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| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 19:45 - Mar 20 with 2057 views | Match82 |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 19:07 - Mar 20 by daveB |
It sounded like avaliable to train which is very different from being able to play a match from the start |
And absolutely not the point of the question.
If there was a player who was available to train all year but not available to play games, the value to QPR of that player would be zero. So at best it's a misleading stat. |  | | |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 20:52 - Mar 20 with 1965 views | JamesB1979 |
| Ben Williams on Open All Hours Podcast Tonight. on 19:45 - Mar 20 by Match82 |
And absolutely not the point of the question.
If there was a player who was available to train all year but not available to play games, the value to QPR of that player would be zero. So at best it's a misleading stat. |
If someone is available all year but not available for matches…..that sounds like a very polite way of saying that player isn’t very good. | | | |
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