Anthony Modeste

[kramer0]

How do you separate the player from the team with that?

How much of that is due to good positioning and anticipation from the player vs the tactics of the player's team?

You can't really. If you notice similar shot maps across seasons, in different systems or with different teams, it's probably a skill, but outside of that, shot locations and tactics are pretty much inseparable.

I tend to use these individual season shot maps as a measure of forward decision-making. If a player is attempting a lot of long-range shots or shots from wide angles, I'm generally skeptical of their output. Those types of shots are lower quality and, more often than not, a pass or a cross is a better option from those areas. If a player has excellent goal-scoring output for a season but poor shot locations, they might have some difficulty repeating that level of output in the future. I doubt this is the case for Modeste. Most of his shots are central which suggests that he's selective and doesn't waste many possessions with low-quality attempts.

It's hard to say anything meaningful about Modeste's ability to generate good shots without understanding Koln's tactics or without having his shot maps from Hoffenheim. But the fact that he tends towards these good shots is a solid indicator that he makes smart decisions in the final third (which would help explain the consistency of his output in the Bundesliga).

Edit (just for fun): I couldn't find it in the same template but here's what Lukaku's map looks like from last season.

https://twitter.com/mc_of_a/status/690326932911722496

It's impossible to disentangle which of those were laid on a platter for him and which he created from a surging run in space. But all of those centrally located shots pretty much confirm what the eye test tells us -- Lukaku makes good decisions in the final third (even if he's a little overconfident with those shots from outside the area).

[MmmBlueToffee]

Kramer, u need to get a job on skysports. You'd run rings around most of the fuck-nuggets doing analysis on there.

[kramer0]

Kramer, u need to get a job on skysports. You'd run rings around most of the fuck-nuggets doing analysis on there.

Pretty much everything I post is stolen from someone posting free football stat content online. These are the people who should be getting club/media jobs.

[brap2]

I've started following a lot of the stats types on twitter and finding it very interesting. Lines up well with the data stuff I do in my job so i really like it, but it's some times hard to see the wood for the trees with it like.

[van der Meyde]

I tend to use these individual season shot maps as a measure of forward decision-making.

It's intuitive that the closer you are to the goal and the more of the goal you have to aim at, the more likely you are to score. So it's probably fair to use it as an indicator of decision making.

I dabble with reading up on the analytics side of football occasionally, so I'm familiar with most of the metrics, but my gut feeling is that most of them are over-interpreted. They're probably very useful for creating team tactics, but I don't think there are enough games in a season to assess individual performances with them.

[Confucius]

Pretty much everything I post is stolen from someone posting free football stat content online. These are the people who should be getting club/media jobs.

It's one thing gathering data. Another thing sifting through it and making sense of it.

[Major Clanger]

It's intuitive that the closer you are to the goal and the more of the goal you have to aim at, the more likely you are to score. So it's probably fair to use it as an indicator of decision making.

I dabble with reading up on the analytics side of football occasionally, so I'm familiar with most of the metrics, but my gut feeling is that most of them are over-interpreted. They're probably very useful for creating team tactics, but I don't think there are enough games in a season to assess individual performances with them.

It all depends on the sort of questions you ask.

If you want to "prove" that one player is better than another, well, forget about it. Even if you can rank players like that (and that's far from a given), there is just too much noise in your data.

But if you want to identify players worth watching more closely or make small tactical tweaks, particularly in constrained phases of the game like set-pieces, with the help of some data your guesses will be more often correct than without it.

[Ell Capitan]

Is he Modestly priced?

He'd Anthony cost about £8m.

[TheRam]

I'm having this.

[van der Meyde]

It all depends on the sort of questions you ask.

If you want to "prove" that one player is better than another, well, forget about it. Even if you can rank players like that (and that's far from a given), there is just too much noise in your data.

But if you want to identify players worth watching more closely or make small tactical tweaks, particularly in constrained phases of the game like set-pieces, with the help of some data your guesses will be more often correct than without it.

Yes, absolutely on set pieces and tactics. Saying that though, many of Martinez's ideas are backed by the data, so it's not exactly a simple task.

Even something as relatively basic as identifying potentially decent players is probably requires some kind of reasonably involved modelling though. The problem, as I'm sure you're aware, is that there's so much secrecy around many of these models that you can't question any flawed assumptions.

[Major Clanger]

Yes, absolutely on set pieces and tactics. Saying that though, many of Martinez's ideas are backed by the data, so it's not exactly a simple task.

We don't know what questions he asked and how good his models were. Maybe he asked the wrong sort of questions. Maybe what looked like small margins in his model was miles away in reality.

[blargins]

We don't know what questions he asked and how good his models were. Maybe he asked the wrong sort of questions. Maybe what looked like small margins in his model was miles away in reality.

With all the questions he asked, the answers he was getting back were phenomenal.

[kramer0]

We don't know what questions he asked and how good his models were. Maybe he asked the wrong sort of questions. Maybe what looked like small margins in his model was miles away in reality.

Martinez basically threw away set pieces, especially corners, based on the fact that conversion rates are so low. The false assumption was that all set plays are equal. Teams like Atletico, Midtjylland, and even West Brom have proven that you can gain a creative edge from dead ball situations if you commit to being good at them. Even Real Madrid, with the most expensive squad in Europe, often rely on Sergio Ramos' proficiency at scoring from set plays.

That's not to say that it's necessary to be good at attacking set pieces in order to be successful -- there are lots of ways to score goals and win football matches (that's what makes it so exciting). It was reckless for Martinez to disregard defending them, though. We paid plenty for that.

[van der Meyde]

We don't know what questions he asked and how good his models were. Maybe he asked the wrong sort of questions. Maybe what looked like small margins in his model was miles away in reality.

Well, I suspect he didn't ask any questions of the data...

But playing out from the back and playing to create a few high quality chances vs many low-to-medium quality chances, for example, are concepts that analytics generally supports. (Though I'm a little sceptical about the models behind the first.) These ideas are useless if you can't coach a team to do them effectively though.

[Toddacelli]

Martinez basically threw away set pieces, especially corners, based on the fact that conversion rates are so low. The false assumption was that all set plays are equal. Teams like Atletico, Midtjylland, and even West Brom have proven that you can gain a creative edge from dead ball situations if you commit to being good at them. Even Real Madrid, with the most expensive squad in Europe, often rely on Sergio Ramos' proficiency at scoring from set plays.

That's not to say that it's necessary to be good at attacking set pieces in order to be successful -- there are lots of ways to score goals and win football matches (that's what makes it so exciting). It was reckless for Martinez to disregard defending them, though. We paid plenty for that.

It wasn't just defending corners though was it? Under Martinez I would shit myself when we got a corner at the other end of the pitch because I expected the other team to defend, break away and score every time!