Excellent Beast analysis
For those interested in deep-dives using more sophisticated data https://statsbomb.com/2019/10/an-ode-to-adebayo-akinfenwa/
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For those interested in deep-dives using more sophisticated data https://statsbomb.com/2019/10/an-ode-to-adebayo-akinfenwa/
Comments
Wow! Great article and great website. Thanks for the share.
Interesting article. Any idea where they source such detailed stats?
Hopefully we can keep Bayo for at least another season. He looks as effective as ever, although im sure he would be interested in a spell playing in the States given the opportunity.
I wonder if he would be. Surely he could have done that the last few years but stayed as he has a big family and a lot of interests centred on London.
He's started the last two seasons with us all thinking it was definitely his last, but he's still starting all the games, so he probably still has another season all going well fitness and motivation wise
@Glenactico I'm pretty sure they do it themselves using their own model. Most of that isn't available for free, but the articles they come out with are really insightful. Oliver Walker who wrote that does quite a lot on the EFL, I think.
He is somewhat less than complimentary about Wycombe in a previous article, claiming we are only where we are because we played "Bolton youth team" and have had a comparatively high number of penalty kicks.
@Glenactico it could certainly be a dilemma for Bayo if we got promoted. Play in the States or play in the Championship?
To be fair, I think he was just making the point that our numbers are skewed by the Bolton game - as goes for every team who played them before their takeover. As for the penalties and OGs, again, he has a point, but it was still relatively early in the season to be making any judgements. He has watched a fair few of our games as well - I asked him - so not like he's going purely off data, which it's too easy to do, no matter how advanced that data. That said...I rather took opposition when I very first read the piece haha - I think we football fans are all very protective of our teams!
Getting penalties and OGs are not pure luck so that point of view doesn't seem particularly valid
But when it comes to statistical analysis, they can to some extent legitimately be discounted when analysing the potency of an attack.
Quite right @FmG. It reflects sustained pressure.
Well no, neither does so necessarily. Either can arise in a variety of circumstances.
Not sure I agree. I don't see why, for example, us putting in a dangerous cross which the defender turned into their own net or our striker being taken down in the box should be excluded from a view on how good we are at attacking.
I agree that statistically we might be unlikely to maintain the current run frequency but who is to say that we won't knock in that cross ourselves or the striker won't get fouled and score himself instead?
Getting into the position to win a penalty or draw an own goal is surely an indication of a potent attack?
I think that there's a ton of variance around the awarding of penalties and a similar amount around the scoring of own goals (not all of which result from threatening crosses like the one we got against thingy a few weeks ago). Similarly, either can result from throwing the ball into or, in the case of own goals, around the opposition area without necessarily creating a meaningful attacking threat.
FWIW, and by the by, I'd be interested to know if we're due a bit of regression. It seems to me we've had the rub of the green a fair amount so far this season with things like penalties.
I agree that there are lucky penalties and own goals and of course we might not have scored if it weren't for them, but to completely discount them and instead go with the narrative that "they've only won because they've been lucky" is a bit lazy and unfair
Pens and OGs are worth looking at on a case by case basis, of course, but there's no correlation between how many good a team is (in an attacking sense) and how pens they get and OGs they benefit from - which I'd wrongly assumed. Still probably not worth focusing too much on them until later in the season, though, I wouldn't have thought.
Here's the relevant passage, from a general article about L1 that is linked to at the bottom of the Bayo article: I've included a reasonable amount of it so as to give context to the comments under discussion. I suggest there's nothing lazy or unfair present:
"Having steered Wycombe on an upward trajectory for consecutive seasons now, it should be of no surprise that interest is beginning to be tabled in manager Gareth Ainsworth (including from Sunderland).
The main question to ask about this Wycombe side is a straightforward one: can they keep it going?
pulls out giant drawing pin and takes aim at Wycombe-shaped bubble
In a word, no. At least not in their current state. Strip out the game vs Bolton’s youth team and the fact their goalscoring numbers are bumped further by having the most penalties in the league and the most opposition own goals scored for them and Wycombe start to look somewhat more ordinary – which, lest we forget, would still represent an overachievement on their resources.
When lacking the resources to acquire individual quality it helps to be a well-coached unit and in that regard they most certainly are, possessing a varied attacking threat. They’re capable of going long and direct to man-mountain Adebayo Akinfenwa or countering at pace down the wings, whilst also creating regularly and frequently at set plays."
Yes, seems like Darren Ferguson read that article too.
You forget the officials giving us everything and (insert whinger club name here) getting nothing will skew the data
@HCBlue I still think "Strip out...the fact their goalscoring numbers are bumped further by having the most penalties in the league and the most opposition own goals scored for them and Wycombe start to look somewhat more ordinary" is unfair.
To me stripping out attacking returns to reduce us to "ordinary" is doing our achievements a disservice.
It's possible we don't keep it going, of course. But to me, 15 games out of 44 is a significant sample size.
Also, losing the "rub of the green" could be offset by returning attacking talent. When you think of how much time Samuel, Smyth, Fred and Rolando missed combined, it certainly does not make us seem lucky!
If you knock off the games we've won, we're no better than Southend.
It's not intended to diminish Wycombe in the eyes of the reader but rather to remove statistical noise to get a picture that allows for an accurate appraisal of performance that might be used to project future ones. Let's say, for example, that our expected goals stats were much lower than our actual goals scored. It would not be unfair to point that out - merely a reasonable observation.
We do what we do well. And have a gameplan.
Or something.
I blame JJ for scoring all those goals direct from corners. I am sure they are not counting them as shots, so he is making us look lucky, the rascal.
If it goes in then it counts as a shot.
Apparently the latest metric is the ratio between packets of crisps consumed in the Woodlands to sweets handed out by @micra.
We're top of that league.
That's the reason why the Legacy Members death rate is so high then!
I hold up my hands. I’ve missed four home games this season and, even when I’ve been there, I’ve totally forgotten several times to pass the ziplock round. Distracted I suspect by the disgusting sound of crinkle cut crisps being chomped all around me.
Skewed stats.