Notts County season review (not ng) | Vital Football

Notts County season review (not ng)

OneSirKeefy

OneSirKeefy

Vital Football Hero
Notts County owners have penned an end of season letter to their fans. Bit early, but still.

On the playing/results front, the basis is they reckon despite being 16th, their metrics (xG?) suggest they are a lot better than that, so not much improvement needed.

One telling statement - “These metrics have been proven to give a more accurate guide to the quality of a team’s performances than league position”. Say what??

I do hope Brad doesn’t mark us in this way. I don’t think there are any points, play off spots or titles awarded for winning the xG table.


www.nottscountyfc.co.uk

Update: Board of directors

Our board of directors have provided an update to supporters as the 2023-24 campaign nears its conclusion.
www.nottscountyfc.co.uk www.nottscountyfc.co.uk
 
"Data driven decisions" seems to be the way clubs are going.

They might do well to hold onto langstaff or whatever his name is.

Their fans have seen a lot more entertainment than we have for sure. We are both midtable but whose had the better season even if we are 1 or 2 places higher in the league.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
Notts County owners have penned an end of season letter to their fans. Bit early, but still.

The basis is they reckon despite being 16th, their metrics (xG?) suggest they are a lot better than that, so not much improvement needed.

One telling statement - “These metrics have been proven to give a more accurate guide to the quality of a team’s performances than league position”. Say what??

I do hope Brad doesn’t mark us in this way. I don’t think there are any points or titles awarded for winning the xG table.


www.nottscountyfc.co.uk

Update: Board of directors

Our board of directors have provided an update to supporters as the 2023-24 campaign nears its conclusion.
www.nottscountyfc.co.uk www.nottscountyfc.co.uk
Click to expand...
League table says their 16th, league tables hides nothing, their fans know they are 16th, dress it up as much as they like but they are still 16th & very much like Gills. Going nowhere.
 
GillsBluenose said:
They are not alone:
www.espn.co.uk

Poch on Chelsea data: We should be 4th

Chelsea coach Mauricio Pochettino has said that he believes his side should be higher in the Premier League standings, adding that data indicates that their results have not matched their performances on the pitch.
www.espn.co.uk www.espn.co.uk
Click to expand...

Wow. They are 14pts off 4th, although games in hand. That’s an incredible point of view.

It seems all these clubs looking at xG, metrics etc and saying they should be doing better is simply proving the opposite point.

Which is - the game is simply about scoring goals and stopping the other side scoring. Everything else matters not one bit. It’s all noise. Who cares about 100 passes, 70% possession, great xG and a high press if you lose 0-2. Have the best strikers and the best defenders and you’ll win games.

Wrexham were apparently woeful yesterday and Col U all over them for 70 mins. Do you think Col U fans are happy and Wrexham fans give a stuff? Nope.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
Notts County owners have penned an end of season letter to their fans. Bit early, but still.

On the playing/results front, the basis is they reckon despite being 16th, their metrics (xG?) suggest they are a lot better than that, so not much improvement needed.

One telling statement - “These metrics have been proven to give a more accurate guide to the quality of a team’s performances than league position”. Say what??

I do hope Brad doesn’t mark us in this way. I don’t think there are any points, play off spots or titles awarded for winning the xG table.


www.nottscountyfc.co.uk

Update: Board of directors

Our board of directors have provided an update to supporters as the 2023-24 campaign nears its conclusion.
www.nottscountyfc.co.uk www.nottscountyfc.co.uk
Click to expand...
I`m not a big fan of this approach, but it`s become firmly embedded as the way forward. It has benefits, of course, probably loads, but can it sometimes exclude or supress other important aspects required to judge a player`s effectiveness ? Is there a risk of putting too many, or all of your, eggs in a basket (electronic or pine or otherwise)?

I`ll admit that i`m a dinosaur. For me, the eyeball test carried out on a matchday overtly illustrates the value, or otherwise, of not only a player`s calibre but, importantly, how they react mentally to a crowd, conditions, adversity, urgency, tenacity and leadership. Eyeball is my primary judgement. When a head goes down, it can be quite revealing.

I accept that finely tuned metrics and all manner of stats are with us to stay and will inevitably be used more frequently, especially to aid recruitment. They are undoubtedly useful, but, that particular science may under-rate the mental capacity required to play sport at professional level in challenging environments.

However, having used science to recruit young players, it sometimes takes brave faith to put it to the test and see how that translates onto the field on matchday. I`m a believer in giving youngsters a chance over several games to "test" the non-scientific elements - it sometimes pays off handsomely, in the lower leagues as well as the money-rich top layers.

Scientific analysis helps football coaches, I don`t dispute that and it`s here to stay. All the same, the next few years will be revealing and prove, one way or the other, whether the all encompassing scientific investment in football recruitment is truly as worthwhile as those selling it claim.
 
Over-achieving Crawley have gone big in their use of data.
Some, on the face of it, strange signings paying dividends.
 
nibbles said:
Over-achieving Crawley have gone big in their use of data.
Some, on the face of it, strange signings paying dividends.
Click to expand...

Fair play to them. They (and their owners) were an absolute basket case not too long ago.

Tbf, I’m not against using the science to track and recruit suitable Players. I’m against it as a measure of whether your side is decent or not or has had a good season. If you keep outplaying other teams but keep losing, that is bad football.

The results table doesn’t lie over 46 games. Except maybe the odd exception of 1 place here or there.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
Tbf, I’m not against using the science to track and recruit suitable Players. I’m against it as a measure of whether your side is decent or not or has had a good season. If you keep outplaying other teams but keep losing, that is bad football.
Click to expand...

That’s a bit of an oversimplification.

I’m no xG-nonce but if your xG performance is much better than your actual performance (at either end) it suggests you’re not a million miles away and helps identify where improvement needs to take place - in our case clearly up front.

In Notts County’s case it’s clearly at the back - get this one area of their game correct either through recruitment or giving the coach pre-season to sort it out and their actual performance will improve drastically.

For both us and Notts County I think it’s tweaks rather than a mass overhaul that’s required, which is pretty much what they’ve said in their letter.
 
The Board wishes to announce that, while we won the league four matches before the end of the season and finished six points clear of second place, a data-driven analysis of all aspects of our performance revealed serious short-comings all over the park and we were forced to conclude that our win-draw-lose record flattered to deceive. Accordingly, we will be undertaking a wholesale clear out of the playing squad and management team in the close season, the head coach parting with immediate effect. We would like to put on record our thanks to them all, but our legal advisors have suggested we refrain from doing so until the question of recovering all funds associated with win bonuses has been fully settled.
 
I've always thought that data is a good way of judging a player individually in certain aspects, but a pretty poor way of judging a team when (as previously said) all you really need is a pair of eyes to see the deficiencies of a team as a whole.

Couldn't care less if the team has 30% or 90% possession as we are all football savvy enough to know when a side is keeping the ball but achieving absolutely nothing positive with it, but what can be interesting is seeing things such as which individual regularly covers the most distance in a game, has the most sprints, completes the most actions successfully and many other things - all things that can be covered with data, and almost impossible to collect manually in real-time. All useful for improving individual performances and indeed for recruitment purposes.
 
shotshy said:
I quite like a stat but ultimately there is only one that matters.
Points.
Did you know that we only have 5 more points than we did this time last season.
New direction?
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What, new direction from having 12 points out of 12 at one point, you mean?

Imagine of we hadn't started like that.;)
 
OneSirKeefy said:
One telling statement - “These metrics have been proven to give a more accurate guide to the quality of a team’s performances than league position”. Say what??

www.nottscountyfc.co.uk

Update: Board of directors

Our board of directors have provided an update to supporters as the 2023-24 campaign nears its conclusion.
www.nottscountyfc.co.uk www.nottscountyfc.co.uk
Click to expand...

I'd recommend anyone reads that article in its entirety rather than cherry picking comments to prove a point.

It's a very measured - and fair - assessment. They own where they need to improve and outline how they are going to address it.

When they say there's a lot of luck and variance involved in results, they're spot on.

I tip my hat to them - I genuinely can't disagree with a word of it and I love the transparency.
 
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