One of the biggest BLIND SPOTS for statisticians

 

I've been a fan of The Purist Football on Youtube for quite a while. He used to produce rather dense video essays, which would only drop very irregularly, perhaps only two or three times a year; but this season he has moved into more frequent positing: still a bit irregular, but usually something - something worthwhile - every few weeks or so.

His latest piece called attention to another of the shortcomings of statistical analysis. This is a topic I've been meaning to do a substantial post of my own on for some time, but I confess I am a bit daunted by the scope of the challenge: there are so many things to be said, few of them good. 

And I confess I hadn't really taken note before of the point The Purist makes here: Most football statistics focus only on 'active contributions', on touches of the ball; they completely overlook the substantial elements of the game which are merely 'passive contributions', off-the-ball work.

Blocking, marking, recovering defensive shape, making decoy runs - these are all vital parts of the game... which stats compilers fail to capture.

This video highlights the particularly pertinent example of Barcelona's Dani Olmo, who is an absolute maestro of the dummy. - an attribute that no conventional statistic even records, let alone attempts to evaulate the potential game impact of. (Often, a great dummy ought to count as an 'assist' - but, of course, it doesn't, because the dummying player avoids making contact with the ball.)

My general attitude to using statistics for FPL purposes is that it should only be done in moderation, and only if you always manage to remain duly mindful of what the statistics are not showing you.

Very few FPL managers, alas, are capable of this. For the majority, it would probably be better to steer clear of statistics altogether.