Ted Hughes wrote:Im_Spartacus wrote:Ted Hughes wrote:
If the stats are interpreted as they actually are, the best atfacking teams traditionally finish at the top. This is being ignored & discounted, but not by me.
Regression analysis evaluates the correlation between a dependent variable (points), and an independent variable (goals scored or conceded).
There is no ignoring and discounting going on, goals conceded had a far higher correlation with points total, than goals scored. Putting a Barcelona type team in the premier league would make no automatic difference to the outcome, just because they were an attacking team, it doesn't automatically follow that goals for will become a more valuable commodity than goals against.
You're basing your views on opinions, which I respect (and to a large extent my gut feeling would be to agree with you before seeing the data), I'm basing my posts on facts though, that conceding less goals predicts champions better than goals scored.
No you are giving an opinion & disguising it as fact, by interpreting statistics to suit your own argument rather than considering the reality of it.
Mourinho tends to concede less goals, so when HE wins the title, it is usually with the lowest goals against record, occasionally spectacularly so. When others win the title, your stats become complete & utter bollocks as there is no general rule at all. Sometimes the Champions concede fewest, sometimes the runners up, or the 3rd place team.
You are unconciously manipulating the stats, incorrectly, to suit your argument.
Most of the time, the side which wins the title are the top scorers & often not the tightest defence. This is a fact, not an opinion.
Please just discus it as an opinion. Your statistical analysis is wrong.
Ted, you know there are some times when you are just wrong, and this is one - you're pissing in the wind with this one, however I welcome your opinion as an alternative side to the debate.
The entire premise of the thread is that facts don't support commonly held opinions and perceptions, and clearly you're in the group with the managers who chose not to listen to sports science and statistics because they 'trust their instinct' despite all evidence being that they could learn from the numbers. That's fine, but your opinion, however strongly held, doesn't make the facts any different.
Seeing as you seem to have a fixation on taking Mourinho out of the mix, I've taken out all 3 Mourinho titles, and these are the outcomes.
Correlation of points to goals conceded: 33%
Correlation of points to goals scored: 2%
So still, the number of goals conceded is more correlated with the points tally of the champions, and now the correlation between points and goals scored is virtually random. Let me explain why that's happened, mathematically for you, step by step.
The points totals in those years (excluding Mourinho) were 86,89,89,80,86,90,87,89 (A range of 9 points)
The goals for were 102,86,83,78,103,68,80,83. (A huge range of 35, 4 x the range of points)
The goals conceded were 37,43,29,37,32,24,27 (A moderate range of 19, 2x the range of points....43 is an obvious anomaly, without this the range would be 13)
If you set a big range of goals scored, against a small range of points, it's obvious that goals scored, which varied by upto 35, have little relevance to the number of points which varied by only 9. What's more consistent however, is the range of goals conceded.
Another way of proving this perhaps in terms most people will find more accessible than regression analysis (although far less scientifically), is to look at averages.
** The average number of goals scored in the first 5 years was 75, but since then its 89.
** The average number of points in the first 5 seasons was 90, but since then its 87
So the number of goals have gone up by an average of 14 a season, but the number of points has dropped by 3. Odd? No, because the avg number of goals conceded has also increased from 22 to 34, a fact which obviously had a bigger impact on points than the increase in goals.
So we have regression analysis supporting disproving your opinion that scoring the most goals = the most points, and now averages. Need I go on?
Whilst picking one example isn't good practice, this one is significant because it ilustrates the point perfectly. The highest number of points in the period exlcuding mourinho (90 in 2008/9) were achieved by the rags with the lowest number of goals (68). So how do you explain that if a major contributor to those points wasn't by conceding less (24)
Essentially, all the evidence here is telling us, is that it doesn't particularly matter whether you score 68 or 103 goals in any given year, what matters to be a champion, is that you keep your goals conceded low