| Motion versus progress – Analysis 14:52 - May 21 with 6876 views | Northernr |
Andrew Scherer crunching the numbers on another 15th placed finish...
https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/
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| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 15:06 - May 21 with 6769 views | Wegerles_Stairs |
Really interesting. Your point about WHY we are doing things is very pertinent.
If we want a young team purely because young players have a higher market value, it's specious reasoning. Get some older players in, a better (older) goalkeeper and you climb the table, maybe even get into the play-offs...and then there are more suitors for your players. [Post edited 21 May 15:06]
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| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 16:40 - May 21 with 6600 views | KensalT |
Great piece of work by Andrew.
And I really like the rocking horse quote. I will have to remember that one.
I agree with the overall conclusion that it has been an OK year but it's best to see what comes next before rushing to judgement.
Whenever I see one of these data driven reports I get the urge to be really nit-picky and trying to find faults with every line. But that's probably OTT and not constructive. However, I will take issue with two things:
1. Andrew says that our expected goals against (xGA) was far better than our goals conceded and that "all things being equal our defence should perform better next term".
I'm not sure about that conclusion. A better goalkeeper should certainly improve our goals conceded column. But at the same time we have lost Steve Cook who was the heart of our defence for much of the season and a big factor in our xGA being a decent one.
Yes a good goalkeeper should improve us, but if we don't replace Steve Cook adequately we could see our xGA deteriorating.
So potentially a swings and roundabouts scenario.
2. Game control metric.
This was a new one on me.
Maybe I'm just an old Luddite or being petty about semantics but I don't see how you can separate possession (where we finished 18th) from game control.
I agree the figures around shots and passes in the attacking and defensive thirds look encouraging. But the idea of 'control' without possession just looks wrong.
But apart from me being a grumpy old git I think that's a great piece of work by Andrew. [Post edited 21 May 16:59]
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| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 17:57 - May 21 with 6426 views | loftus77 |
What an excellent, well-researched, balanced piece. Thank you, Andrew - that must have taken a lot of work and I really hope the club read and absorb it - there is a lot there to consider.
Yes, your conclusion is probably what most of us would agree with. In many ways 25-26 represented meagre onfield progress but progress nonetheless. Positively, it was a green shoots season; negatively, a file-and-forget-it term (meh). For Nourry, for us all, so much depends on what happens next in early 26/27. Then we can see the season just gone in context - a stepping stone to success in the late 2020s or a(nother) Dead End.
Many Thanks. [Post edited 22 Jul 8:28]
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| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 18:16 - May 21 with 6393 views | dmm |
Thank you Andrew for what must have been many hours pouring over stats and data. I echo what loftus77 said about the club taking close attention to this piece.
There's so much to think about in this article, and I wouldn't know where to start. So, I'll just say that my great hope for next season is for the players who were new to Championship football last season to raise their level of performance in a similar way to what Madsen has achieved. [Post edited 21 May 18:18]
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| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 19:49 - May 21 with 6220 views | patrickqpr |
Really interesting.Thank you Andrew. | | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 20:00 - May 21 with 6197 views | Sonic_Hoop |
Really interesting and plenty of food for thought. |  | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 20:05 - May 21 with 6187 views | Wilkinswatercarrier |
Cracking read, thank you.
50/50 is very fair. Not been brilliant, not been awful, but improvement overall.
Next season, as you said, we need to see us challenging top 10, though top 8 is very very achievable (if they sign CMs). | |
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| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 20:10 - May 21 with 6178 views | UPPERLOFTNZ |
Brilliant piece thanks for all the hard work that undoubtably took! |  |
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| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 20:22 - May 21 with 6137 views | corse |
Excellent piece. I bow to you sire. | | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 08:33 - May 22 with 5600 views | TeddRanger |
Really excellent piece. Stats often go over my head, but you’ve set it out so well that even a maths dummie like me can understand (95%!) | | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 08:58 - May 22 with 5568 views | thehat |
Wow - What a fantastic in depth report - Thank you for putting that together Andrew.
It could of been even better if we had not binned off the last six games - And yes it still grates me our end to the season. | | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 10:38 - May 22 with 5480 views | derbyhoop |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 16:40 - May 21 by KensalT |
Great piece of work by Andrew.
And I really like the rocking horse quote. I will have to remember that one.
I agree with the overall conclusion that it has been an OK year but it's best to see what comes next before rushing to judgement.
Whenever I see one of these data driven reports I get the urge to be really nit-picky and trying to find faults with every line. But that's probably OTT and not constructive. However, I will take issue with two things:
1. Andrew says that our expected goals against (xGA) was far better than our goals conceded and that "all things being equal our defence should perform better next term".
I'm not sure about that conclusion. A better goalkeeper should certainly improve our goals conceded column. But at the same time we have lost Steve Cook who was the heart of our defence for much of the season and a big factor in our xGA being a decent one.
Yes a good goalkeeper should improve us, but if we don't replace Steve Cook adequately we could see our xGA deteriorating.
So potentially a swings and roundabouts scenario.
2. Game control metric.
This was a new one on me.
Maybe I'm just an old Luddite or being petty about semantics but I don't see how you can separate possession (where we finished 18th) from game control.
I agree the figures around shots and passes in the attacking and defensive thirds look encouraging. But the idea of 'control' without possession just looks wrong.
But apart from me being a grumpy old git I think that's a great piece of work by Andrew. [Post edited 21 May 16:59]
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You appear to be claiming that the difference between goals Gainst and xGA is purely down to the keeper. There's a correlation, for sure, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
For example, the shellacking at Coventry came from an xGA of 1.5 |  |
| "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky |
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| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 11:12 - May 22 with 5444 views | KensalT |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 10:38 - May 22 by derbyhoop |
You appear to be claiming that the difference between goals Gainst and xGA is purely down to the keeper. There's a correlation, for sure, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
For example, the shellacking at Coventry came from an xGA of 1.5 |
Not at all.
That was how I interpreted what Andrew said:
"While our goals against column is pretty dreadful, with only the doomed Sheffield Wednesday team conceding more, our xGA is far more mid-table. Through a mixture of bad luck and iffy goalkeeping we had the biggest underperformance in the league, suggesting that all things being equal our defence should perform better next term."
My point is that I agree with Andrew that getting a better keeper should mean we concede fewer goals next season.
Where I disagree with Andrew is that he seems to assume our xGA will remain the same.
I don't think we can take that for granted. Steve Cook will be a tough act to follow.
To be honest I'm not a big fan of xG and xGA.
They can tell you a story over a whole season or a long run of games. But if you go through it game by game you will get strange anomalies like Coventry putting seven past us or us scoring with nearly every shot against Portsmouth.
EDIT:
I know Andrew was looking at the team as a whole and not individuals but for goalkeepers I think save percentage is a better indicator of goalkeeper performance.
Of the 27 keepers who played at least 15 games in the Championship last season Walsh is 24th and Nardi 26th for save percentage - so both in the bottom four:
https://fbref.com/en/comps/10/
Based off that I think it is fair to say we need a decent keeper.
[Post edited 22 May 11:31]
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| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 12:22 - May 22 with 5358 views | E15Hoop |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 15:06 - May 21 by Wegerles_Stairs |
Really interesting. Your point about WHY we are doing things is very pertinent.
If we want a young team purely because young players have a higher market value, it's specious reasoning. Get some older players in, a better (older) goalkeeper and you climb the table, maybe even get into the play-offs...and then there are more suitors for your players. [Post edited 21 May 15:06]
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This - absolutely.
Plus, as we have referred to on other threads, and will I have no doubt be coming back to on numerous occasions over the next few months, let's not forget the impact that having some genuine leadership in the team would make.
That is my major fear with all of this data-driven modelling. How does it take account of the psychological aspects of belonging to a team, fighting for each other, covering for mistakes, anticipating mistakes before they happen?
This is where this squad is highly likely to let itself down badly unless this gets urgently addressed this summer. And that inevitably means older heads who've been there and done that, in spite of what the CEO's obsessed with. | | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 15:36 - May 22 with 5140 views | stevec |
Interesting stuff.
In real money, you need to score more than 70 goals and concede less than 60 to have a chance. Given we fall short in the former and woefully exceed the latter, it suggests the midfield has to be better at supplying chances and considerably better at supporting our defence. Two in the middle and flyweights out wide simply doesn’t cut it.
xGA or no xGA, if we leave the fullbacks as exposed as they were this season it’ll be more of the same. |  | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 19:27 - May 22 with 4975 views | scheza |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 11:12 - May 22 by KensalT |
Not at all.
That was how I interpreted what Andrew said:
"While our goals against column is pretty dreadful, with only the doomed Sheffield Wednesday team conceding more, our xGA is far more mid-table. Through a mixture of bad luck and iffy goalkeeping we had the biggest underperformance in the league, suggesting that all things being equal our defence should perform better next term."
My point is that I agree with Andrew that getting a better keeper should mean we concede fewer goals next season.
Where I disagree with Andrew is that he seems to assume our xGA will remain the same.
I don't think we can take that for granted. Steve Cook will be a tough act to follow.
To be honest I'm not a big fan of xG and xGA.
They can tell you a story over a whole season or a long run of games. But if you go through it game by game you will get strange anomalies like Coventry putting seven past us or us scoring with nearly every shot against Portsmouth.
EDIT:
I know Andrew was looking at the team as a whole and not individuals but for goalkeepers I think save percentage is a better indicator of goalkeeper performance.
Of the 27 keepers who played at least 15 games in the Championship last season Walsh is 24th and Nardi 26th for save percentage - so both in the bottom four:
https://fbref.com/en/comps/10/
Based off that I think it is fair to say we need a decent keeper.
[Post edited 22 May 11:31]
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Thanks all for the kind comments, very much appreciated.
Just to clarify re the defence, perhaps I left "all things being equal" to do a bit too much heavy lifting but my hypothetical point was if we had the same defence performing the same way next season, you'd expect us to concede fewer goals (i.e. we were a bit unlucky this year). I wasn't trying to suggest our xGA would stay the same (if I could accurately predict that I'd be sending this from my private island).
On the keeper point, yes I agree a better number 1 would help with this: neither Walsh nor Nardy covered themselves in glory last year. There is an argument for sticking with Walsh: his underperformance was pretty concentrated (i.e. when he had a bad game he had a shocker/cost us points) but he also had some v good games - the Charlton and West Ham away games being most prominent in my mind. If you can raise the floor then he's a viable option. Personally I'm not convinced that's feasible, and I have big reservations about his distribution too, but I can see the case for it. |  | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 11:09 - May 23 with 4586 views | NorrisGreen |
There's a disconnect between the season's efforts and that analysis... only one of them is thorough, well planned and thought out, consistent and maintains pace and engagement til the end... | | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 16:58 - May 23 with 4406 views | nix |
Really enjoyed this Andrew: balanced and excellently researched.
Thanks. |  | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 20:43 - May 24 with 3930 views | gazza1 |
I am far too old to get into all this stuff. XG/XGA, etc,etc....my simplistic view is the following.
1 - The teams in the league this season were pretty average apart from the obvious 1, 2 or 3 of them.
2 - The Manager (or whoever it was) made some 'proper' wrong decisions throughout the season on the footballing side, before, during and after matches. These errors cost us dearly.
3 - We had a better team overall than in previous seasons and we should have finished, 100%, far higher in the league than we did. Injuries were a major factor in the amount of points we lost. | | | |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 19:25 - May 25 with 3553 views | sevenhoop |
| Motion versus progress – Analysis on 11:09 - May 23 by NorrisGreen |
There's a disconnect between the season's efforts and that analysis... only one of them is thorough, well planned and thought out, consistent and maintains pace and engagement til the end... |
😂 |  | | |
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