The Snowball stat thread

[Snowball]

My gut is WRONG. So is yours.

I wondered what that smell was.

Wow a post where you're not slagging off the team and predicting relegation

[Para Handy]

Tentative twat test.

Just wondering whether you can say twat* on this thread without some fukking pcunt reporting it or some over zealous Mod deleting it for the lolz.

Test. Test.

Probably not.

*Aimed at no one in particular btw. Scientific research.

[Ian Royal]

Tentative twat test.

Just wondering whether you can say twat* on this thread without some fukking pcunt reporting it or some over zealous Mod deleting it for the lolz.

Test. Test.

Probably not.

*Aimed at no one in particular btw. Scientific research.

think your tw*t will be fine Para. (gutless aren't I...)

[melonhead]

was going to report it, for the lolz


but that would just be giving para what he wants

[Snowball]

Birmingham do it again with the only goal in the 85th minute

Almost certainly they've overtaken RFC in the long form table

We have some TOUGH games to come. We simply must win our so-called "easier" games
to put us into a challenging position before the big games

I've been saying for a while that Birmingham are the danger, so as I see it we are
5 points off the danger side with a game in hand


01 29 16 56 West Ham .......... (AWAY)
02 29 20 52 Southampton ...... (AWAY)
=============================
03 29 20 50 Birmingham ....... (AWAY)
04 29 13 50 Cardiff (Played Twice)
05 29 12 48 Blackpool ........ (HOME)
06 29 03 47 Middlesbrough ........(AWAY)
===============================
07 28 03 46 Hull (Played Twice)
08 28 08 45 Reading
09 29 05 45 Leeds United ........(HOME)
10 29 02 45 Brighton ........(AWAY)
11 29 08 44 Burnley ........(HOME)

Saints are still on the slide, now about 15 games. We need to hope they continue that slide. Ditto Boro

Leeds may very well come back, and Brighton already have turned round after a bad time.

It's going to be an interesting last 17/18 games

Had we won on Saturday we'd be 6th and still loads to play for

[Snowball]

01 29 16 56 West Ham .......... (AWAY)
02 29 20 52 Southampton ...... (AWAY)
=============================
03 29 20 50 Birmingham ....... (AWAY)
04 29 13 50 Cardiff (Played Twice)
05 29 12 48 Blackpool ........ (HOME)
06 29 03 47 Middlesbrough ........(AWAY)
===============================
07 28 03 46 Hull (Played Twice)
08 28 08 45 Reading
09 29 05 45 Leeds United ........(HOME)
10 29 02 45 Brighton ........(AWAY)
11 29 08 44 Burnley ........(HOME)

OK so we are (with a game in hand on all the top six)

11 (8) Points off Top
07 (5) Points off Second
05 (3) Points off Third
02 (0) Points off the POs

Last Season we were

14 (11) Points off Top (3 Points better off)
09 (06) Points off Second (2 Points better off)
08 (05) Points off Third (3 Points better off)
04 (04) Points off the POs (2 Points better off)

Last Season

1 29 +30 56 QPR
2 29 +10 51 Norwich City
3 29 +11 50 Swansea City
4 27 +15 49 Nottm Forest
5 28 +12 48 Cardiff City
6 29 +07 46 Leeds United
7 27 +13 43 Watford
8 28 +13 42 Reading
9 29 +08 42 Millwall
10 29 -04 42 Leicester City
11 28 +06 40 Burnley
12 29 -05 40 Barnsley

[Snowball]

We are 3 points better off than this time last year. In our last 18 we managed 34 points @ 1.89 ppg

To match last year's finish points we need 31/18 = 1.72 ppg, noticeably worse than we've done over the last 22 games

If we continue our recent 22-Game form, well be 2 or 3 points better off than last year (79 or 80)

We will need to tweak up by .1 ppg to get 81 or 82, and if we manage that, we may need to avoid defeat on the last day at Birmingham to get automatic

It's not easy and as the games count down, wins and defeats become more important. We will need to win or avoid defeat at Saints, and Boro, and not lose at home to Blackpool...



The obvious thing to say is, "But last year we had a run of 8 straight wins."

We did, but not before we had a disastrous W1 D3 L2 5 Points

This was last year's first 6 games of the last 18 and it was baaaaaaad

01 H 0-1 QPR
02 A 1-2 Norwich
03 A 1-1 Sheffield
04 H 1-1 Watford
05 H 2-1 Millwall
06 A 3-3 Crystal Palace

THIS Season it's

H Coventry
A Derby
H Burnley
A Middlesbrough
A Millwall
H Portsmouth

We have a 3 point head-start. Two points from these and we will be in the same position as last season. So beat Coventry and we are guaranteed to be a point better off than last year (12 games to go) and FIVE games in hand. In other words, if we beat Coventry we will go into the last 12 games 1-16 points better than last year. This 6-gamer should give us 3 wins, possible 4/5 and a draw with luck, if we play well. We need to beat Coventry, Millwall and Pompey, and get at least 3 points from the other three games. Do that and we will be TEN points better off than last season with 12 games to go P 34 57 Points


We followed that up with 6 straight wins, so even at 2 ppg
we'd drop back 6 points

07 H 5-2 Middlesbrough
08 A 3-1 Ipswich
09 A 1-0 Barnsley
10 H 2-0 Portsmouth
11 H 2-1 Preston
12 A 4-3 Forest F

We managed 11 from the last 6. That's not so scary!

13 A 2-0 Scunthorpe
14 H 3-1 Leicester
15 A 0-0 Leeds
16 H 2-3 Sheffield
17 A 0-0 Coventry
18 H 2-1 Derby

[Snowball]

After yet another win I thought Birmingham would be
top on the table from September 17th but they are not

but surely now they are the biggest threat and could yet be champions?


1 23 13 4 6 +08 43 1.87 ppg West Ham
2 22 12 5 5 +11 41 1.86 ppg Reading <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
3 25 13 7 5 +20 46 1.84 ppg Birmingham
4 23 10 9 4 +10 39 1.70 ppg Cardiff City
5 22 11 4 7 +05 37 1.68 ppg Hull City
6 23 11 5 7 +05 38 1.65 ppg Leeds United
7 24 12 3 9 +11 39 1.62 ppg Burnley
8 23 10 7 6 +13 37 1.61 ppg Southampton
9 23 10 7 6 +09 37 1.61 ppg Blackpool

Since November 17

Reading's last 12 Games (Birmingham have played 17!!)

1 17 9 5 3 +16 32 2.00 Birmingham City
2 12 8 0 4 +07 24 2.00 Reading
3 13 8 1 4 +01 25 1.92 West Ham United
4 14 8 2 4 +11 26 1.86 Burnley

[Snowball]

After yet another win I thought Birmingham would be
top on the table from September 17th but they are not

but surely now they are the biggest threat and could yet be champions?


1 23 13 4 6 +08 43 1.87 ppg West Ham
2 22 12 5 5 +11 41 1.86 ppg Reading <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
3 24 12 7 5 +19 46 1.79 ppg Birmingham (Corrected)
4 23 10 9 4 +10 39 1.70 ppg Cardiff City
5 22 11 4 7 +05 37 1.68 ppg Hull City
6 23 11 5 7 +05 38 1.65 ppg Leeds United
7 24 12 3 9 +11 39 1.62 ppg Burnley
8 23 10 7 6 +13 37 1.61 ppg Southampton
9 23 10 7 6 +09 37 1.61 ppg Blackpool

Since November 17th Reading's last 12 Games
(Birmingham have played 16!!) (Corrected)


1 12 8 0 4 +07 24 2.00 Reading
2 13 8 1 4 +01 25 1.92 West Ham United
3 14 8 2 4 +11 26 1.86 Burnley

1 16 8 5 3 +16 32 1.81 Birmingham City

[Platypuss]

Birmingham have always been a threat - it was just masked by their games in hand.

Last 12 games:

12 7 3 1 +16 24 PgG 2.00 Birmingham
12 8 0 4 +07 24 PpG 2.00 Reading

Their loss was 12 games ago.

[Snowball]

Table Since November 17th Our Last 12 Games

We have played 7 of our last 12 games against sides in the top 8 current form table!! W3 L4 9-7, 9 Points

We also beat Burnley 1-0 but not in this 12 Games

We have played 9 of our last 12 against sides in the top 11 of the form table W5 L4 15 Points

We have played 10/12 against the top 14 W6 D4 18 Points

This is noticeably better than last season when we struggled for most of the season to beat any of the top six

Note how Middlesboro and Saints have crashed down the form tables to 15th and 17th

Our next six opponents (shown with left-hand underline) are
3rd, 12th, 15th, 16th, 22nd & 23rd in the form table




01 12 8-0-4 19-12 +07 24 2.00 Reading
02 13 8-1-4 18-17 +01 25 1.92 West Ham 3-0
03 14 8-2-4 22-11 +11 26 1.86 Burnley 1-0
04 16 8-5-3 29-13 +16 29 1.81 Birmingham 1-0
05 13 6-5-2 22-17 +05 23 1.77 Blackpool 0-1
06 13 6-5-2 17-13 +04 23 1.77 Cardiff City 1-2, 1-3
07 13 7-1-5 14-10 +04 22 1.69 Hull City 0-1
08 13 7-1-5 13-13 +00 22 1.69 Brighton 3-0

09 13 7-0-6 25-25 +00 21 1.62 Barnsley
10 13 6-2-5 21-17 +04 20 1.54 Leeds 1-0
11 13 5-5-3 17-14 +03 20 1.54 Watford 2-1
12 12 5-2-5 11-13 -02 17 1.42 Derby County
13 13 4-5-4 18-14 +04 17 1.31 Leicester
14 13 5-2-6 11-14 -03 17 1.31 Bristol 1-0

15 13 4-5-4 13-18 -05 17 1.31 Middlesbrough <<<<<<<<
16 12 4-3-5 13-12 +01 15 1.25 Portsmouth <<<<<<<
17 13 4-4-5 14-14 -00 16 1.23 Southampton <<<<<<<

18 13 3-5-5 09-14 -05 14 1.08 Palace
19 14 4-2-8 25-30 -05 14 1.00 Ipswich 3-2
20 12 3-3-6 10-17 -07 12 1.00 Doncaster
21 13 2-6-5 14-19 -05 12 0.92 Peterborough 3-2

22 13 3-2-8 09-21 -12 11 0.85 Millwall
23 13 3-1-9 13-17 -04 10 0.77 Coventry
24 12 2-1-9 07-19 -12 07 0.58 Forest

[Maguire]

Minutes Goals


0,276 Start for 0 Goals = 9,999 Mins per Goal ... Manset

This is incorrect.

You are right. But it's tricky posting infinity

276 divided by zero does not equal "infinity"

[Extended-Phenotype]

Goals per minute doesn’t work as a stat. There is no way of accounting for whether said player would or would not have scored if he was or wasn’t on the pitch. Player A could be taken off after 70 minutes of not scoring, because the manager believed he had no chance of scoring in the remaining 30. Stat gets twisted in players favour as the minutes are reduced, despite it being extremely likely he would have scored in 90.

This doesn’t get balanced out by the offset. If said player was on the bench, the likelihood is the manager believes he is unlikely to score. So these justified minutes out, again work in the players favour with regards to this statistic.

Evaluate these stats all you like, but you are doing nothing more than comparing random figures based on meaningless data.

Incidentally, stats and figures should be used to support an opinion, not form one.

[Wycombe Royal]

Whether it touched no-one, or the defender, or went straight in
the trajectory changed A LOT and it totally deceived the keeper
who managed to dive out of the way of the ball

I was quite fortunate that for this goal I was on my way down to get a half time cuppa and when McAnuff hit that shot I was directly in line with the balls trajectory and I can assure you that it's trajectory did not change much, and certainly not enough for the goal to be credited to anyone other than McAnuff. Hence why I said "I thought it was his goal at the time and nothing I have seen since has ever swayed me from that. Any touch that Church may have got on the ball made very little difference to it's trajectory".

[Snowball]

276 divided by zero does not equal "infinity"

It doesn't?

Which school did you go to.

Division is a series of subtractions until you get below the size of the divisor

So 6/2 = 3 is 6-2 =4 (1); 4-2 = 2 )(2) then 2-2 = 0 (3) as in I can subtract 2 from 6 three times.


276-0 can be repeated forever. 276/0 is infinity



PS and the reason I use 9999 is for simplicity. If a player has that against his name he don't score much!

[Wimb]

276 divided by zero does not equal "infinity"

It doesn't?

Which school did you go to.

Division is a series of subtractions until you get below the size of the divisor

So 6/2 = 3 is 6-2 =4 (1); 4-2 = 2 )(2) then 2-2 = 0 (3) as in I can subtract 2 from 6 three times.


276-0 can be repeated forever. 276/0 is infinity



PS and the reason I use 9999 is for simplicity. If a player has that against his name he don't score much!

Depends whether you consider 0 to be an infinite number or not doesn't it? I personally consider 0 to represent nothing rather than something infinite..... but then if I think about things like this for too long I go cross-eyed and I don't think it's got very much to do with the Reading squad atm.

[Platypuss]

276 divided by zero does not equal "infinity"

It doesn't?

Which school did you go to.

One that did hard sums, I presume.

Even my 14 year old daughter knows that the result of x/0 (where x is a real number) is "undefined".

If 276/0 was actually infinity, then infinity x 0 would be 276. Yeah right.

[Maguire]

276 divided by zero does not equal "infinity"

It doesn't?

Which school did you go to.

Division is a series of subtractions until you get below the size of the divisor

So 6/2 = 3 is 6-2 =4 (1); 4-2 = 2 )(2) then 2-2 = 0 (3) as in I can subtract 2 from 6 three times.

276-0 can be repeated forever. 276/0 is infinity

Platypuss has wrapped this one up for me but it's a pleasure to reply anyway.

276/0 is undefined, it is certainly not "infinity" as he has illustrated. You're completely and utterly wrong, simple as that.

(Grammar school followed by Oxford, seeing as you asked)

[Ian Royal]

[Snowball]

Goals per minute doesn’t work as a stat. There is no way of accounting for whether said player would or would not have scored if he was or wasn’t on the pitch. Player A could be taken off after 70 minutes of not scoring, because the manager believed he had no chance of scoring in the remaining 30. Stat gets twisted in players favour as the minutes are reduced, despite it being extremely likely he would have scored in 90.

Wow, there are so many things wrong with your post I don't know where to start.

Point 1. The game is 90 minutes, not 100 minutes.

You simply SAY "Goals per minute doesn’t work as a stat. "

I say, "Goals per minute does work as a stat. "

It is IRRELEVANT whether the player coming off "MIGHT HAVE" scored in the last 20, or if the player that was sub for 70 minutes might or might not have scored in the first 70.

I don't select which player starts and which is sub, or for what games, and when you compare Church-Hunt-Alf there starting minutes are very very close.

1,384 Start for 4 Goals = 0,364 Mins per Goal ... Church
1,382 Start for 3 Goals = 0,461 Mins per Goal ... Le Fondre
1,342 Start for 2 Goals = 0,671 Mins per Goal ... Hunt

So, when comparing these three the comparison is virtually bias-free


I previously said: Interesting that Hunt-Church-Le Fondre are virtually identical on minutes when starting

So for one thing, none of them are unfairly treated by the starting stats.


Church Best Sub Scorer in Minutes per Goal


085 Sub Minutes for 2 Goals = 043 Mins per Goal Church
161 Sub Minutes for 3 Goals = 054 Mins per Goal Le Fondre
170 Sub Minutes for 3 Goals = 057 Mins per Goal Manset
171 Sub Minutes for 1 Goals = 171 Mins per Goal Hunt

There is, again, an obvious conclusion, namely that McDermott gives his striker subs the same average
time on the pitch. Church is a bit lower, but 76-86 minutes when players aren't managing a goal in 180
minutes is hardly a massive difference

ALL I am doing is saying, "This player has played as a striker for XXXX minutes and scored Y goals."



There is a SMALL bias towards the end of games (I mean more goals going in)
and THIS SEASON, for Reading FC there is a ridiculous bias against those players
who start, because we have been playing so tight for the first 45-60 minutes

This doesn’t get balanced out by the offset. If said player was on the bench, the likelihood is the manager
believes he is unlikely to score. So these justified minutes out, again work in the players favour with regards to this statistic.

Pure supposition. For all we know (and countless HobNobbers have suggested this is the case) the plan might be to batter
the opposition with running and brute strength, with goals being a bonus, before bringing on subs for the last 25 "to play
against tired (battered) defenders.

But in the case of Reading FC the above is irrelavnt as the strikers have
played the same minutes starting and are very close in sub-minutes

these stats all you like, but you are doing nothing more than comparing random figures based on meaningless data.
[/quote

That is a statement with no evidence to back it up.

Incidentally, stats and figures should be used to support an opinion, not form one.

Actually you are wrong. Stats should be used to find patterns, and then investigations made
to see if the patterns are reliable and repeatable. The stats LEAD US to form opinions.

For example, I DON'T like Church. I "want" his stats to be poor to prove I have a good reason for saying he's poor.

But the stats won't go away. He's top scorer, top on minutes, top striker on "played in winning games"
and THOSE STATS are a reality check that says, "Hold up. Maybe you're biased. Maybe you're expecting
him to fail to get the header, win the tackle. Maybe you're spotting "more" when in fact Alf fails in as many
headers, misses the same percentage of tackles (etc)

We've seen this happen with many many players. It isn't they can do nothing right, it's that supporters
no longer SEE when he does right.

I did YEARS studying these sorts of human errors. There are shedloads of books on it, some I still have
if anyone wants to read them.

One classic is people are shown a comic-strip describing a scene on an underground train. A black guy
and a white guy. They write down what they know. Can't remember the exact number but almost
all of the respondents say the black guy had a knife. In fact the WHITE guy had the knife.

Racial stereotypes, racial prejudices, racial expectations CHANGE PEOPLE'S PERCEPTIONS, and if it can
happen as easily as that in an unemotional state, just think of the perceptual errors when watching a game