On Rafael Benitez in the Premiership and Serie A

It seems fairly likely that Benitez will finally be hired by Madrid in the very near future. I’ve written previously that I think that Liverpool can probably count themselves unfortunate not to win a title whilst Benitez was at the helm, having the misfortune of being a good team at the same time that United were good and Chelsea … Continue reading

On Alan Pardew in ’14-15

Earlier in the season I posted a bunch of numbers on twitter regarding the change in fortunes at Newcastle and Crystal Palace around the time of Alan Pardew’s move. Sean Ingle’s piece including some of those numbers is here. Now that the season is over and the sample sizes are somewhat larger I’ve updated those numbers and … Continue reading

Brief rumination on PDO

James Yorke has a post here today about PDO. I have thoughts about several of the points raised but it’s simpler to write them here than just send a long string on twitter. It’ll be in a quote/response format. “…then you get a grey area where some people multiply the derived figure by 1000, some … Continue reading

A quick cautionary note on predictiveness and R-squared

Yesterday Sander IJtsma published a nice post looking at various metrics and how well they predict future performance (note 1). Using R-squared as a measure of how predictable of future performance is, Sander’s summary is such “The conclusion from these graphs is quite simple actually. Expected Goals Ratio forms an impressive improvement on raw shot … Continue reading

2014-15 Premiership Predictions

For predictions from previous seasons see the following links: 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 For analysis of predictions in prior seasons see here: 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 These predictions are based on Team Ratings – the methodology of which can be found here Finally for pre-season predictions of the points scored by the teams in the next four … Continue reading

An alternative to Scudamore’s ’39th game’

News appeared today that Richard Scudamore, the Chief Executive of the Premier League, is still in favour of the controversial ’39th game’ idea that was first suggested back in 2008. Furthermore, apparently the clubs are on board with the idea, too. In my opinion it seems like a no-brainer that meaningful (i.e., for points in … Continue reading