Why Ankersen selected Jones

[egg]

13 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Good point. Baseball is nothing like football. There is very little in it that relies on a combination of players working in cooperation. Cricket is very similar in this respect.

Indeed. Bowl a ball. Hit a ball. Chase a ball. Throw a ball. I guess you can figure out what balls a batter struggles to hit, but I can't see anything to analyse above that. Football, you can analyse lots more, but that only tells you part of the story - there is no substitute for watching the game and observing. 

Edited 7 January, 2023 by egg

[baggytrousers]

I've listed below all our signings for the last 2 seasons in order of effectiveness along with their ages when we signed them :

• Lavia                   18
• Livramento         18
• Adozie                19
• Bella-Kotchap    20
• Peraud                23
• Bazunu               20
• Caleta-Car         25
• Larios                 18
• Armstrong         24
• Mara                   18
• Cabeillero           40
• Aribo                   25
• Lyanco                24
• Walcott               32
• Lis                       25

It's pretty obvious from this list that the problem hasn't so much been the young players that we've signed but how the experienced players (Walcott, Aribo, Adam Armstrong) have completely failed.  Add Maitland-Niles to this list (not included as he's a loan) who is another experienced player who has also been pants and the picture is even clearer.

I think it's wrong to throw this abuse at SR and the club in general about their strategy of signing  talented youngsters as for the most part they've worked out. How many of us would be keen to get rid of Lavia, Livramento, Adozie or Bella-Kotchap.  Even Bazunu is clearly a better keeper overall than McCarthy already but that howler against Brighton has provoked some extreme reactions on here.

Where things have gone wrong has been the following :

1. Letting Romeu go.  SR did drop a bollock here.  He was slowing up but still a vital player to the structure of the team and Lavia's injury exposed a big gap in the squad. AMN didn't even come close to covering it.
2. The bloody World Cup. SR had deals lined up for both Gakpo and Ramos but both PSV and Benfica pulled the plug late on as they quite rightly concluded it was not in their interest to sell talented diamonds a few months before the biggest shop window in the world.
3. A worrying preference for 3 at the back, particularly when one of them is Lyanco.  Fair enough when we're playing City but against the sides around us it's had the effect of blunting our attack but not shoring up our defence.
4. Individual errors (at both ends) in the games where we have played well and deserved something.
5. Lack of confidence due to these errors creating a nervousness in the team.
6. Crowd's disappointment in the team adding to this nervousness and creating a vicious circle.

As for Nathan Jones I think the only one of these that can be laid at his door is point 3, but this was something Ralph had initiated at the start of the season.  Still I think it's a justifiable criticism of the way he's set his teams out.  His previous spell at Luton showed a degree of flexibility in the way he organised his teams with them scoring 90 goals and having a goal difference of nearly 50, playing a 4-3-3 free flowing style one season.   I honestly think it's too early to judge him.  This is certainly not an Ian Branfoot situation (thankfully) but the concern is that he's got to turn things around quickly.  Calls to sack him are certainly premature as is some of the criticism of SR.  Events have transpired at the extreme end of their worst nightmares but even in this situation we are only 5 points off 13th so people saying that we're already relegated are clearly wide of the mark.  Still,  our bums are getting squeakier by the minute. 

 

 

[saintant]

5 minutes ago, baggytrousers said:

I've listed below all our signings for the last 2 seasons in order of effectiveness along with their ages when we signed them :

• Lavia                   18
• Livramento         18
• Adozie                19
• Bella-Kotchap    20
• Peraud                23
• Bazunu               20
• Caleta-Car         25
• Larios                 18
• Armstrong         24
• Mara                   18
• Cabeillero           40
• Aribo                   25
• Lyanco                24
• Walcott               32
• Lis                       25

It's pretty obvious from this list that the problem hasn't so much been the young players that we've signed but how the experienced players (Walcott, Aribo, Adam Armstrong) have completely failed.  Add Maitland-Niles to this list (not included as he's a loan) who is another experienced player who has also been pants and the picture is even clearer.

I think it's wrong to throw this abuse at SR and the club in general about their strategy of signing  talented youngsters as for the most part they've worked out. How many of us would be keen to get rid of Lavia, Livramento, Adozie or Bella-Kotchap.  Even Bazunu is clearly a better keeper overall than McCarthy already but that howler against Brighton has provoked some extreme reactions on here.

Where things have gone wrong has been the following :

1. Letting Romeu go.  SR did drop a bollock here.  He was slowing up but still a vital player to the structure of the team and Lavia's injury exposed a big gap in the squad. AMN didn't even come close to covering it.
2. The bloody World Cup. SR had deals lined up for both Gakpo and Ramos but both PSV and Benfica pulled the plug late on as they quite rightly concluded it was not in their interest to sell talented diamonds a few months before the biggest shop window in the world.
3. A worrying preference for 3 at the back, particularly when one of them is Lyanco.  Fair enough when we're playing City but against the sides around us it's had the effect of blunting our attack but not shoring up our defence.
4. Individual errors (at both ends) in the games where we have played well and deserved something.
5. Lack of confidence due to these errors creating a nervousness in the team.
6. Crowd's disappointment in the team adding to this nervousness and creating a vicious circle.

As for Nathan Jones I think the only one of these that can be laid at his door is point 3, but this was something Ralph had initiated at the start of the season.  Still I think it's a justifiable criticism of the way he's set his teams out.  His previous spell at Luton showed a degree of flexibility in the way he organised his teams with them scoring 90 goals and having a goal difference of nearly 50, playing a 4-3-3 free flowing style one season.   I honestly think it's too early to judge him.  This is certainly not an Ian Branfoot situation (thankfully) but the concern is that he's got to turn things around quickly.  Calls to sack him are certainly premature as is some of the criticism of SR.  Events have transpired at the extreme end of their worst nightmares but even in this situation we are only 5 points off 13th so people saying that we're already relegated are clearly wide of the mark.  Still,  our bums are getting squeakier by the minute. 

 

 

Yeah, let's all bury our heads in the sand and believe Jones is suddenly going to become a fantastic coach. It's not going to happen. As the saying goes, you can't polish a turd.

[Miltonaggro]

19 minutes ago, saintant said:

Yeah, let's all bury our heads in the sand and believe Jones is suddenly going to become a fantastic coach. It's not going to happen. As the saying goes, you can't polish a turd.

In that analogy turd should be replaced with diarrhoea. Way beyond even an attempted polish. 

[coalman]

27 minutes ago, baggytrousers said:

I've listed below all our signings for the last 2 seasons in order of effectiveness along with their ages when we signed them :

• Lavia                   18
• Livramento         18
• Adozie                19
• Bella-Kotchap    20
• Peraud                23
• Bazunu               20
• Caleta-Car         25
• Larios                 18
• Armstrong         24
• Mara                   18
• Cabeillero           40
• Aribo                   25
• Lyanco                24
• Walcott               32
• Lis                       25

It's pretty obvious from this list that the problem hasn't so much been the young players that we've signed but how the experienced players (Walcott, Aribo, Adam Armstrong) have completely failed.  Add Maitland-Niles to this list (not included as he's a loan) who is another experienced player who has also been pants and the picture is even clearer.

I think it's wrong to throw this abuse at SR and the club in general about their strategy of signing  talented youngsters as for the most part they've worked out. How many of us would be keen to get rid of Lavia, Livramento, Adozie or Bella-Kotchap.  Even Bazunu is clearly a better keeper overall than McCarthy already but that howler against Brighton has provoked some extreme reactions on here.

Where things have gone wrong has been the following :

1. Letting Romeu go.  SR did drop a bollock here.  He was slowing up but still a vital player to the structure of the team and Lavia's injury exposed a big gap in the squad. AMN didn't even come close to covering it.
2. The bloody World Cup. SR had deals lined up for both Gakpo and Ramos but both PSV and Benfica pulled the plug late on as they quite rightly concluded it was not in their interest to sell talented diamonds a few months before the biggest shop window in the world.
3. A worrying preference for 3 at the back, particularly when one of them is Lyanco.  Fair enough when we're playing City but against the sides around us it's had the effect of blunting our attack but not shoring up our defence.
4. Individual errors (at both ends) in the games where we have played well and deserved something.
5. Lack of confidence due to these errors creating a nervousness in the team.
6. Crowd's disappointment in the team adding to this nervousness and creating a vicious circle.

As for Nathan Jones I think the only one of these that can be laid at his door is point 3, but this was something Ralph had initiated at the start of the season.  Still I think it's a justifiable criticism of the way he's set his teams out.  His previous spell at Luton showed a degree of flexibility in the way he organised his teams with them scoring 90 goals and having a goal difference of nearly 50, playing a 4-3-3 free flowing style one season.   I honestly think it's too early to judge him.  This is certainly not an Ian Branfoot situation (thankfully) but the concern is that he's got to turn things around quickly.  Calls to sack him are certainly premature as is some of the criticism of SR.  Events have transpired at the extreme end of their worst nightmares but even in this situation we are only 5 points off 13th so people saying that we're already relegated are clearly wide of the mark.  Still,  our bums are getting squeakier by the minute. 

 

 

Jones gave them 2 weeks off when he joined. That's on him.

If rumours are to be believed he's lost the changing room with his tactical preferences.

He's failed to connect with the fans. Say what you like about Ralph he put a lot of effort into the fans when he joined.

Part of the manager's job is giving players the freedom to express themselves. If you want to see the difference that makes just take a look at the England cricket team. They don't care if they lose as long as they are positive.

All of these Jones can influence. Managing a Premier League team is as much about how you are with people as your knowledge of the game. Right now my impression is he's lacking both in man management and the football side of things. 

[Turkish]

I think I’ve worked it out

back in the old days long ball game was referred to as percentage football, the quicker you get the ball into the area, the higher percentage there is of scoring or something like that

no doubt during Jesus Jones interview he talked about percentage football a lot which would have been a match made in heaven for a stats genius like Rasmus. 

[Dark Munster]

10 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

who are all these new people that have started posting, who are clearly not saints fans?

👀

I did some digging, and all their last names are Jones. Could be a coincidence though.

[verlaine1979]

14 hours ago, egg said:

I'm intrigued by the relevance of analytics in baseball. It's a 1 on 1 sport with people hitting and chasing the ball and trying to catch it. In football, players do a hell of a lot more than just throw, hit or catch a ball. I'm no fan of stats and analysis, but I'd imagine they're a lot more relevant in football than baseball. 

It's the fact that each incident of throwing, hitting or catching is much more closely correlated to the outcome of the game. Football has a lot more potential datapoints as it is a vastly more random and unstructured game, but not many of them are as directly related to the outcome as whether you can reliably connect bat and ball, whether you can steal a base effectively, or your fielding accuracy.

Baseball was always much more data-driven than football, going back decades - the innovation of Moneyball was that Beane and co. realised that a bunch of previously under-appreciated or under-calculated metrics were more predictive of game outcomes than the ones everyone else was using at the time.

[coalman]

2 minutes ago, verlaine1979 said:

It's the fact that each incident of throwing, hitting or catching is much more closely correlated to the outcome of the game. Football has a lot more potential datapoints as it is a vastly more random and unstructured game, but not many of them are as directly related to the outcome as whether you can reliably connect bat and ball, whether you can steal a base effectively, or your fielding accuracy.

Baseball was always much more data-driven than football, going back decades - the innovation of Moneyball was that Beane and co. realised that a bunch of previously under-appreciated or under-calculated metrics were more predictive of game outcomes than the ones everyone else was using at the time.

Without wishing to revive the xG unhappiness in the forum - that's why Ankersen uses xG as a lever for being better able to correlate with outcomes. So he's looking for things which correlate with increasing your own xG and decrease the other team's. 

[verlaine1979]

12 minutes ago, coalman said:

Without wishing to revive the xG unhappiness in the forum - that's why Ankersen uses xG as a lever for being better able to correlate with outcomes. So he's looking for things which correlate with increasing your own xG and decrease the other team's. 

I guess that makes sense, though I wonder if there are any metrics in football beyond an attacker's chance conversion that correlate as closely with the outcome of a game/xG as each individual players metrics do cumulatively in baseball.

[Saint Scott]

13 hours ago, baggytrousers said:

I've listed below all our signings for the last 2 seasons in order of effectiveness along with their ages when we signed them :

• Lavia                   18
• Livramento         18
• Adozie                19
• Bella-Kotchap    20
• Peraud                23
• Bazunu               20
• Caleta-Car         25
• Larios                 18
• Armstrong         24
• Mara                   18
• Cabeillero           40
• Aribo                   25
• Lyanco                24
• Walcott               32
• Lis                       25

It's pretty obvious from this list that the problem hasn't so much been the young players that we've signed but how the experienced players (Walcott, Aribo, Adam Armstrong) have completely failed.  Add Maitland-Niles to this list (not included as he's a loan) who is another experienced player who has also been pants and the picture is even clearer.

I think it's wrong to throw this abuse at SR and the club in general about their strategy of signing  talented youngsters as for the most part they've worked out. How many of us would be keen to get rid of Lavia, Livramento, Adozie or Bella-Kotchap.  Even Bazunu is clearly a better keeper overall than McCarthy already but that howler against Brighton has provoked some extreme reactions on here.

Where things have gone wrong has been the following :

1. Letting Romeu go.  SR did drop a bollock here.  He was slowing up but still a vital player to the structure of the team and Lavia's injury exposed a big gap in the squad. AMN didn't even come close to covering it.
2. The bloody World Cup. SR had deals lined up for both Gakpo and Ramos but both PSV and Benfica pulled the plug late on as they quite rightly concluded it was not in their interest to sell talented diamonds a few months before the biggest shop window in the world.
3. A worrying preference for 3 at the back, particularly when one of them is Lyanco.  Fair enough when we're playing City but against the sides around us it's had the effect of blunting our attack but not shoring up our defence.
4. Individual errors (at both ends) in the games where we have played well and deserved something.
5. Lack of confidence due to these errors creating a nervousness in the team.
6. Crowd's disappointment in the team adding to this nervousness and creating a vicious circle.

As for Nathan Jones I think the only one of these that can be laid at his door is point 3, but this was something Ralph had initiated at the start of the season.  Still I think it's a justifiable criticism of the way he's set his teams out.  His previous spell at Luton showed a degree of flexibility in the way he organised his teams with them scoring 90 goals and having a goal difference of nearly 50, playing a 4-3-3 free flowing style one season.   I honestly think it's too early to judge him.  This is certainly not an Ian Branfoot situation (thankfully) but the concern is that he's got to turn things around quickly.  Calls to sack him are certainly premature as is some of the criticism of SR.  Events have transpired at the extreme end of their worst nightmares but even in this situation we are only 5 points off 13th so people saying that we're already relegated are clearly wide of the mark.  Still,  our bums are getting squeakier by the minute. 

 

 

Absolutely agree but am fearful or Nathan Jones credentials to streer us clear of relegation given we're bottom of the table and don't seem to have a clear tactic of how we're approaching games, especially against relegation rivals. We will wait to see what SR pay in transfer fees in January but what is clear to me is our current squad is suited to 4-3-3 and Ely should be no where near the starting 11 as proved today.

[saintant]

In response to the question 'why did Ankersen select Jones' the answer is because he's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

[coalman]

12 hours ago, verlaine1979 said:

I guess that makes sense, though I wonder if there are any metrics in football beyond an attacker's chance conversion that correlate as closely with the outcome of a game/xG as each individual players metrics do cumulatively in baseball.

I would posit that xG is the current best guess but that it hasn't been rigorously tested and has some glaring weaknesses due to the subjective interpretation required to calculate it.

[Whitey Grandad]

16 minutes ago, coalman said:

I would posit that xG is the current best guess but that it hasn't been rigorously tested and has some glaring weaknesses due to the subjective interpretation required to calculate it.

I’m not impressed by xG. In my experience it has never correlated with the actual result.

[Singapore Saint]

On 07/01/2023 at 17:43, 64saint said:

Never has the famous old saying ......There are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics.....been more appropriate. 

There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are Sport Republic.

[Osvaldorama]

Did he watch Mike Bassett and think it was a documentary?

[coalman]

47 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

I’m not impressed by xG. In my experience it has never correlated with the actual result.

One of the many counter intuitive things with statistics is it's generally impossible to learn anything meaningful from a single outcome. You'd need a large data set to feel any degree of confidence in the correlation, particularly as it's a correlation rather causal relationship.

To give a window into the life of a data nerd the starting point in any kind of meaningful statistical treatment of a problem - the first thing you do is look for correlations in single or combinations of variables. Then build hypotheses  This is what I imagine Ankersen has done. The question is how much further he has taken it.

For example - the quality of the chance is a subjective interpretation by whoever is watching the game. To have confidence in your correlation you would need to isolate the selection bias of this. For example your data set is from a league scored by a person who is well correlated. Then you try and apply it to another league which works it out differently. At this point you might be comparing apples with oranges without realising it because it's called xG in both.

Which leads to another big problem with statistics. That a superficial analysis can come across as authoritative and the majority of to the population can't tell the difference. I'm not saying Ankersen's analysis is superficial but as many have noted here there are big gaps in reasoning which indicate it might be an oversimplification.

Good data scientists are ludicrously rare. There are a lot of people out there misusing data though. Noting I'm average at best but have managed a few data science organisations so have an idea what questions to ask.

[Badger]

On 05/01/2023 at 12:10, Dman said:

At Brentford he wasn’t the main main. Benham is/was. 
 

Brentford fans said this at the time and since he’s gone, they’ve gone from strength to strength. 
 

no doubt he’s a very intelligent bloke and tbh, I brought his bullshit, but he’s clueless about football and is going to ruin this club with his wild theories. 

 

On 07/01/2023 at 07:18, Fan The Flames said:

 

Reading the article, it appears we got the mouth piece of the partnership and brains stayed at Brentford, typical Saints.

Have said a few times, that the Brentford success is down to others work whilst he has just talked about it.

On 07/01/2023 at 09:17, Turkish said:

Ankersen is a genius, the bits are falling into place. He will prove you all wrong. 

Yes of course he will, although it does have a feel of the child's tale about The Emperors Clothes. 

Perhaps that was really written by Hans Christian Ankersen.

[Wade Garrett]

xG is an absolute load of bollocks.

[Doctoroncall]

On 07/01/2023 at 09:23, coalman said:

As a data nerd, one of the first things that should be (literally) beaten into you is that correlation does not equate to causality. So, at best, statistical correlation gives you an idea where to look and apply your judgement until you can rigorously test your hypotheses. You are also unable to really take advantage of the law of averages or regression to the mean over the course of a season because 38 games are an insufficient number of data points.

So it's entirely possible that Ankersen is a genius but he's on a bad run. It's also entirely possible that his approach has failed to take something key into account and Brentford was a freak outcome.

There isn’t a law of averages and regression to the mean is a characteristic when sampling or taking repeated data and there is a possible bias caused rather than an observed change.  The bias can be reduced or eliminated through study design and the correct statistical methodology. 

[coalman]

14 minutes ago, Doctoroncall said:

There isn’t a law of averages and regression to the mean is a characteristic when sampling or taking repeated data and there is a possible bias caused rather than an observed change.  The bias can be reduced or eliminated through study design and the correct statistical methodology. 

I think you've misunderstood my post I'm not talking about regression to the mean or law of averages and studies. I'm talking about how it would apply to results coming as a result of taking a particular approach.

[Saint86]

8 hours ago, coalman said:

One of the many counter intuitive things with statistics is it's generally impossible to learn anything meaningful from a single outcome. You'd need a large data set to feel any degree of confidence in the correlation, particularly as it's a correlation rather causal relationship.

To give a window into the life of a data nerd the starting point in any kind of meaningful statistical treatment of a problem - the first thing you do is look for correlations in single or combinations of variables. Then build hypotheses  This is what I imagine Ankersen has done. The question is how much further he has taken it.

For example - the quality of the chance is a subjective interpretation by whoever is watching the game. To have confidence in your correlation you would need to isolate the selection bias of this. For example your data set is from a league scored by a person who is well correlated. Then you try and apply it to another league which works it out differently. At this point you might be comparing apples with oranges without realising it because it's called xG in both.

Which leads to another big problem with statistics. That a superficial analysis can come across as authoritative and the majority of to the population can't tell the difference. I'm not saying Ankersen's analysis is superficial but as many have noted here there are big gaps in reasoning which indicate it might be an oversimplification.

Good data scientists are ludicrously rare. There are a lot of people out there misusing data though. Noting I'm average at best but have managed a few data science organisations so have an idea what questions to ask.

My view on xGs is that the main value is in a player's xG conversion rate.

And that can only really be accurately used in comparing players within their own league, for simple reasons such as goalkeepers will be better in the prem than the eredivise etc. Similarly defenders will likely be stronger, faster, better at marking etc in some leagues compared to others. Sure there are ways to allow for the differences in quality, but that becomes more and more of an assumption / interpretation based analysis - and that is where your good analysts will make a difference. 

Ings for example had significantly one of the better xG conversion ratios at saints (I'm sure everyone new he could be relied on and was a decent finisher, but statistically he stood out vs the league's other strikers, even kane etc.)

Similarly comparisons can be made for keepers, defenders, wingers etc. But another key issue to be made when looking at player stats is the manager / tactical setup within which they play - I.e. under Ralph we had a lot of players ranking highly for interceptions and this was regularly presented - but in actuality it doesn't mean that much given our entire tactical ethos was generating pressing and turnover opportunities - in the same way, just comparing xG for a player is flawed as some teams will simply generate more attacking chances. 

Edited 8 January, 2023 by Saint86

[Doctoroncall]

2 minutes ago, coalman said:

I think you've misunderstood my post I'm not talking about regression to the mean or law of averages and studies. I'm talking about how it would apply to results coming as a result of taking a particular approach.

To clarify, Law of averages does not exist and regression to the mean is a bias when dealing with repeated data so not something to take ‘advantage’ of.
 

 

[coalman]

17 minutes ago, Doctoroncall said:

To clarify, Law of averages does not exist and regression to the mean is a bias when dealing with repeated data so not something to take ‘advantage’ of.
 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean

[southamptonfc]

He chose Jones because he was cheap and would be a willing party to doing things on the cheap.

We have a squad full of Premier League rejects. We wont be able to sell any of them while they are on Prem. wages so maybe they think the best way forward is to get relegated and hopefully some will then want to leave, allowing us to rebuild.

[Fan The Flames]

But we are not paying him cheap wages.

[Mystic Force]

My main contention is not what stats to use to identifysuccess, but more that with a lot of competition and everyone and their uncle doing it. Thinking you are smarter at doing it than everyone else is what will get you in trouble. What turns out to work most often seems to be a have a lot of money for a longtime and being willing to spend it.