The Woolster

3 minutes ago, lifetime fan said:

 

Feel free to give us your figures. 

You are the one saying it is a fact. Prove it!

*Hint - You can't because the accounts have not been published yet for the last 4 transfer windows.

On 2/8/2019 at 3:20 PM, lifetime fan said:

We’ve spent less than £30m a year under Klopp and it’s even less than that over FSG’s entire tenure. 

 

Thats a fact. A fact that has come back to bite us on the arse on numerous occasions. 

This. Is. Not. A. Fact.

Just watched it, first time I'd seen Cheeseman, who had seemed to be building a decent rep, and he was terrible. Got me thinking though, I don't remember every seeing another Spanish boxer, where are they?!

2 hours ago, TK421 said:

Have you run this stat by the Woolster?

Not yet, my DMs are open

4 hours ago, Remmie said:

Since when has there been an LA Rams? Its the friggin Raiders shirley. Oakland should have to change. Stupid franchise bollocks. 

When I was a youngster back in the 80s watching the NFL on Channel 4 with Gary Imlach, they were the LA Rams, so I was confused by that St Louis nonsense!

10 minutes ago, aws said:

Agreed. But if a player has a reputation for scoring the occasional screamer he often attracts an additional defender as he gets near the box opening up space for somebody else. Except for Shaqiri I can't see an extra defender making an effort to close down any of our midfielders on the basis they might score. 

I dunno, I reckon teams that park the bus like the Burnley's of this world would be happy to let them shoot with a less than 5% chance of it going in because they have so many bodies in the way. I think they'd be more concerned with coming out to block a shot that is faked and some space being created where that player was and a better opportunity being created.

Realised I've been saying this shit for years... this is so old the tables don't exist anymore

https://eplindex.com/27523/spurs-continue-baled-chase-champions-league.html

Spurs finished 5th that season btw, just sayin...

Both his goals against Olympiakos and West Ham were the type of shot from distance that I mentioned that I think is ok to take on, first or 2nd touch, bouncing ball, clearance from a cross, not easy to get control of the ball type situations.

Its about making the right decision at that point, and most of the time, the right decision is to not shoot.

32 minutes ago, aws said:

So you're saying Harry Wilson is shit, Wooly? 

I've been advocating Wilson for years, he is brilliant, but have often heard how he hadn't done it at first team level, or he was too lightweight, or that players that go off on loan never make it, so I am somewhat amused now that he's now being talked about by everyone having scored some worldies from outside the area which are in all likelihood unsustainable, so that comment may have been a point about what we might expect in the future...

Liverpool v Chelsea, 19 April 2019, Liverpool are 3 points ahead of City in the race for the title, but behind on goal difference. It is 0-0 coming towards the end of the first half, Robertson plays a simple ball to Henderson, but Henderson slips! Higuain gets the ball and has a 1v1 with Alison and slots it into the bottom corner.

Klopp gets the team together at half time and reminds them that they are playing well and to stay patient, he reminds them of the last time this happened when we took 15 shots from outside the area in the 2nd half, and tells them not to lose their heads. The team do stay patient, Henderson has 8 opportunities to shoot from distance, just like Gerrard took back in 2014, but instead he passes the ball sideways. From one of these sideways passes Milner plays a through ball to Firmino who has made a sneaky run into the box behind a defender, he passes across the box for Salah to score a tap in equaliser.  

Liverpool win their remaining games and beat City in the league by 1 point. When Tony Moanero checks flashscores on the last day of the season and sees we have won the league, he drops his mug of tea, and vows that he will never miss another game.

People are talking like we don't take shots from outside of the area. I don't have direct free kick info unfortunately, but we have taken 127 shots from outside of the area in the league this season out of 361. That is over 1/3 of our shots being from distance, so I don't think you can say we are predictable because we don't take any of these shots, as we clearly do.

"But we don't have anyone who is good at shooting from distance!" I hear you say. Well having a good shooter from distance doesn't actually move the needle that much. Lets take Coutinho as he has been mentioned a few times in the thread, he played for us, and I think we can probably all agree he is a good at shooting from distance. In his last season and a half with us he scored 5 open play goals from outside of the area from 50 games, so a goal every 10 games or roughly 3 or 4 a season, and whilst every goal counts, it is not loads (about 5% of what we as a team would expect to score in a given season). Those 4 goals would be worth a max of 8 points gained, but they would unlikely all be from games we win by 1, and they might possibly have no effect on the results and be worth zero. My guess would be 2 to 4 points gained. But you should also not take those 4 goals in isolation, you could say that if he didn't take those shots, how many goals would we have scored from retaining possession (I'll come back to this), or you could say that if someone else not as good at shooting took those shots, you would still expect them to score some goals, so the goals added is probably somewhat less than 4 goals a season, reducing the likely points gained even further.

The reason shooting from distance won't usually make a big difference is because hardly any of them are scored. Historically, roughly 3% of open play shots from outside of the area are scored, they are really inefficient. If you have someone who is good at shooting from distance, how much better do you expect them to be? Lets say they are 3x better, so they score from about 10% of these shots. Apart from very few exceptions, most players do not take more than 2 shots from outside of the area per match, if they score those 2 shots at the 10% rate, we get the 1 goal every 10 games that Coutinho managed, and like I said, this is not tipping the scales by much.

Of course every now and then a player/team will have a hot streak where they bang in a few more goals from distance, like Harry Wilson is having at the moment, but we would expect them to come back to more normal levels over a longer period. If we take Tottenham for instance, as mentioned above, they have got 10 goals from outside the area this season. In the whole of last season, they also scored 10 goals from outside the box. They did not buy any new players, and I very much doubt that the same players have become significantly better at long range shooting. So it is probably a combination of their shots from distance actually being that little bit easier this season, and some good fortune.

Interestingly, in the last few seasons there has been an increase in the amount of goals being scored, but a decrease in the amount of shots. The reason? As Premier League clubs have become more analytically savvy, they are reducing the amounts of shots they are taking from distance because they are so inefficient! Instead, they are keeping hold of the ball and creating higher quality chances and so scoring more goals. I don't have a subscrption, but there was an article in The Times just a few weeks ago on this very subject. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fewer-shots-but-more-goals-how-data-is-making-teams-more-efficient-l6srt0qsx

I think there is a mini review of that article here, but my access at work to the Talksport website is blocked. https://talksport.com/football/472334/premier-league-sides-scoring-more-goals-per-game-taking-fewer-shots/

I am not advocating not taking any shots from distance, for instance when the defence is disorganised like on a counter attack, or if it is a first/second touch shot where an attempt to get control of the ball has a good chance of the player being tackled, but in the vast majority of cases, it is the wrong option to take.

Would it be good if we had scored more goals from outside of the box that we have taken? Absolutely! But the reality is that to score more goals from distance, you have to take more shots form distance, and if you are taking more shots from distance, there is a good chance you will be scoring less goals in total.

Just about to get some stuff done, so don't have time to give a detailed response just now, so I'll just ask the question, would you rather we score more goals from outside the area, or score more goals in total?

6 minutes ago, TK421 said:

Does the Spurs result not influence this?  I mean, they will feel like they're back in it now so does a two horse race becoming three not change things?

The betting odds take the Spurs result into account. Think Spurs have a odds based probability of about 2.5%. Was probably less than 1% before. Spurs have got to play City, us and Chelsea away from home which will be a factor in their low odds.

13 hours ago, TK421 said:

. 

 

Remember the Woolster's wise words.  It's more likely we'll win the league after this round of games.

I read that the probability of us winning the league on Tuesday afternoon based on betting odds was about 55%, when i checked last night it had gone up to about 63%.

There's a possible discussion about accuracy of betting odds, but it is a decent predictor.

1 hour ago, skend04 said:

Walton had replays and said it wasn't a penalty. This is a professional referee saying it isn't a penalty. We've got no chance even when VAR comes in.

That was before he saw one of the replays, which I think they showed whilst he was speaking. After the game he said it would be given as a pen

On 1/25/2019 at 11:13 AM, AdamD said:

The only team that should have a shirt with a diagonal stripe are Peru from the 1978 World Cup. Cubillas was boss.

cubillas.jfif

River Plate had their kit first...

2 minutes ago, TK421 said:

I've done some quick statistical calculations using a calculator and some Al Gore Rhythms during my lunch break.  Now, what I've concluded is that if we win tonight, we probably win the league.  If we draw tonight, we probably win the league.  If we lose tonight, we probably win the league.  The only thing that changes is... get this... the degree of probability.  

 

I also discovered, for the first time, that if the worst comes to the worst and we do lose then the probability that we win the league will be higher than it was before this round of games.

 

Finally, my research revealed that we should sign Andy Robertson from Hull.

Damn fucking straight!

9 minutes ago, Trumo said:

 

Steady now, or he might add you to his hit list.

6 minutes ago, Mark M said:

Logically you can't argue with this.

I just feel physiologically to both the team and our fanbase this could be a real turning point tonight. Win and the buzz optimism and momentum will be with us and City felt shit last night when they lost, they'll feel even worse if we win tonight.

Cognitive biases can be bastards

To put it another way, if City had won last night, the match would have been far more significant, because if we were to lose it, we would have no more headroom to drop any points if City were to win all their remaining games.

In the scenario that City had won, then due to goal difference as well as underlying performance, it would likely have changed to be if we win tonight, we would still probably win the league, but if we draw, we would probably lose the league, and if we lost, we would probably lose the league.

20 minutes ago, Mark M said:

If we lose tonight the media will be all over our side ramping up the pressure saying they can't handle the pressure no experience in a title race etc etc.

Its fucking massive for us to step on City's throat now showing no mercy and put a gap big enough that over the next couple of week's their focus changes to putting everything in the champions league instead of the league. 

I'm sure that Klopp is drumming into the team to not give a fuck what the papers say whether we win, lose, or draw.

If we win tonight, we probably win the league. If we draw, we probably win the league. If we lose we probably win the league. Its just the degree of probability that's the difference.

In fact, if we lose, the probability that we win the league will be higher than it was before this round of games unless there are significant injuries or there is a big goal difference swing, and even then, it would probably still be higher. The fewer games remaining, the harder it become to close the gap.

Lads, tonight's game is not more important following City losing, we are the ones in the lead, every time City slip up, it gives us more headroom to be able to drop points, and it is unlikely that we will win every game.

1 hour ago, aRdja said:

Have we had anyone score from outside the box this season?

From open play? Sturridge against Chelsea, Milner against Burnley and Shaqiri against Utd.

I mean, Hunger Games is like a 7.1, also nothing particularly special

His retirement statement was really good I thought.