[Albion] How good are we really ?

[blue-shifted]

For those that like this sort of thing, this is a chart of our expected goals for (green) and against (black) since 2017/18, with trendlines.

View attachment 135200

A few notes:

Stats from UnderStat.
10 point moving average used.
We were incredibly lucky to stay up in 2018/19. We sucked.
Our performances seem to drop at the end of every season.
Our defence and attack are stronger than they have ever been in the PL.

We had two fabulous centre backs and a striker with nous. It wasn't luck

 

[Caveman]

Why are you and all the other 12th were it not for lady luck, also not taking into account:-

- playing Spurs' without Kane and Son.
- playing Liverpool the game after their 'shield of invincibility' got smashed.
- scoring a weirdly deflected goal at Anfield against an inferior keeper.
- hanging onto a point home v West Brom (thanks Maty)
- playing Newcastle at their lowest ebb, without Wilson.

and that's just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

I know what you are saying, but injuries to key players is kind of outside this subject as they haven’t directly impacted what was happening with inside those 90 minutes .. we could argue the same with Solly, Webster and Lamptey who may have seen us beat Palace or Leicester for example, equally they could have argued the same if we had won and Zaha wasn’t playing. But hitting the wood work five times in one game is a matter of cm’s.

You will always play teams in and out of form.. we hit Everton bang in form. We played Palace bang out of form.. so lowest ebb didn’t work there.

 

[Stat Brother]

I know what you are saying, but injuries to key players is kind of outside this subject as they haven’t directly impacted what was happening with inside those 90 minutes .. we could argue the same with Solly, Webster and Lamptey who may have seen us beat Palace or Leicester for example, equally they could have argued the same if we had won and Zaha wasn’t playing. But hitting the wood work five times in one game is a matter of cm’s.

You will always play teams in and out of form.. we hit Everton bang in form. We played Palace bang out of form.. so lowest ebb didn’t work there.

So a subsequent question for all you 10th to 12th ers.

Are you all saying The Albion is the only team who lady luck has got it in for?

Shirley to follow your logic through Leeds, Villa, Wolves, Burnley and Southampton have all had level par luck allowing The Albion to leapfrog them.

I put it to you all those teams can example 9-12 points left on the pitch.

That in turn would make the points required to get up to 10th 11th 12th considerably higher, still out of the Albion's reach, and leaving the club still bottom 6, but above palace. (Surely not even they have the front to say they're underperforming)

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

So a subsequent question for all you 10th to 12th ers.

Are you all saying The Albion is the only team who lady luck has got it in for?

Shirley to follow your logic through Leeds, Villa, Wolves, Burnley and Southampton have all had level par luck allowing The Albion to leapfrog them.

I put it to you all those teams can example 9-12 points left on the pitch.

That in turn would make the points required to get up to 10th 11th 12th considerably higher, out of the Albion's reach, leaving the club still bottom 6, but above palace. (Surely not even they have the front to say they're underperforming)

So basically your argument is no football fan can be objective? That is what it boils down to.

None of us can say 'we've punched above our weight to be in this position', or 'we've got lucky a few times this season', or similarly 'we really have been unfortunate not to have more points'. To you, everyone is in the same boat?

I think that is a simplification that purely suits your view on things at this time. It suits your narrative. It doesn't matter what objective evidence there might be, none of us can conclude we deserve a few more points based on performances because everyone can say that. I think this is what some would refer to as a cop out.

 

[Stat Brother]

So basically your argument is no football fan can be objective? That is what it boils down to.

None of us can say 'we've punched above our weight to be in this position', or 'we've got lucky a few times this season', or similarly 'we really have been unfortunate not to have more points'. To you, everyone is in the same boat?

I think that is a simplification that purely suits your view on things at this time. It suits your narrative. It doesn't matter what objective evidence there might be, none of us can conclude we deserve a few more points based on performances because everyone can say that. I think this is what some would refer to as a cop out.

What I'm saying is we're currently a bottom 6 side.
We always have been a bottom 6 side.
We're funded for a bottom 6 side.

Saying anything else while still in the bottom 6 is laughable,


Taking trolls out of the equation:-

We all think we can see progress.
We all hope we can see progress.
We all want to see progress.
Not just for ourselves, but the owner and I suggest for the players too (cracking bunch of lads)

If the team carries on, then next season could be phenomenal and more importantly so much fun.

But we ought not to just be wishing for 10-12th place because we're seemingly the only club to have choked on points.

Learn the lessons (they are and will)
Get to 10th.
Celebrate being 10th.

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

What I'm saying is we're currently a bottom 6 side.
We always have been a bottom 6 side.
We're funded for a bottom 6 side.

Saying anything else while still in the bottom 6 is laughable,


Taking trolls out of the equation:-

We all think we can see progress.
We all hope we can see progress.
We all want to see progress.
Not just for ourselves, but the owner and I suggest for the players too (cracking bunch of lads)

If the team carries on, then next season could be phenomenal and more importantly so much fun.

But we ought not to just be wishing for 10-12th place because we're seemingly the only club to have choked on points.

Learn the lessons (they are and will)
Get to 10th.
Celebrate being 10th.

I see what you are trying to say now. Your getting to the point is a bit like one of our long tapping it around the back build-ups isn't it.

 

[Uter]

So a subsequent question for all you 10th to 12th ers.

Are you all saying The Albion is the only team who lady luck has got it in for?

Shirley to follow your logic through Leeds, Villa, Wolves, Burnley and Southampton have all had level par luck allowing The Albion to leapfrog them.

I put it to you all those teams can example 9-12 points left on the pitch.

That in turn would make the points required to get up to 10th 11th 12th considerably higher, still out of the Albion's reach, and leaving the club still bottom 6, but above palace. (Surely not even they have the front to say they're underperforming)

I don't think anybody is saying that.

29 games is not very many to have luck "even out". After 29 games games in a 20 team division most teams will be clustered reasonably close to the middle. In other words most will have been slightly lucky or slightly unlucky. A smaller number will have been very lucky or very unlucky. But at the very extremes you'd expect to encounter a couple of teams who have been extremely unlucky, or extremely lucky.

Most metrics indicate that we are one of those unfortunate ones at the very extreme wrong end of the "luck" distribution.

See the distribution graph I posted a couple of days ago. A team with an equal chance of losing, winning or drawing each match would expect to have 40 points after 30 matches. But if you look at the probability distribution you actually have about an 8-10% chance of having 30 points or less and the same chance of having 50 or more points. This means in a 20 team division where every team is equally likely to draw, win or lose every match you'd expect to see 3 or 4 teams with a difference of over 10 points from their expected total of 40 after 30 games.

Obviously in real life we have teams with varying strengths and the chance of winning each game varies considerably. But the principal still applies. Luck is a big factor. 29 games is not very many and chance will mask a team's true strength, sometimes considerably.

Other metrics, e.g. xG, help remove the statistical "noise" of luck and give a better estimate than the table of how good a actually team is. Every indication is that we are doing a lot more right than wrong and will be ok over time as the impact of chance diminishes.

 

[vagabond]

For those that like this sort of thing, this is a chart of our expected goals for (green) and against (black) since 2017/18, with trendlines.

View attachment 135200

A few notes:

Stats from UnderStat.
10 point moving average used.
We were incredibly lucky to stay up in 2018/19. We sucked.
Our performances seem to drop at the end of every season.
Our defence and attack are stronger than they have ever been in the PL.

Thank you. I think this highlights things quite clearly.

How anyone can’t see the above indicates a huge upwards performance trend this season is beyond me.

 

[Audax]

For those that like this sort of thing, this is a chart of our expected goals for (green) and against (black) since 2017/18, with trendlines.

View attachment 135200

A few notes:

Stats from UnderStat.
10 point moving average used.
We were incredibly lucky to stay up in 2018/19. We sucked.
Our performances seem to drop at the end of every season.
Our defence and attack are stronger than they have ever been in the PL.

Would be interested in seeing that graph with some key long-term personnel changes marked up as well (eg from this season: Sanchez replacing Ryan; Lamptey, Webster, and March injuries; from last season: Lamptey breaking into starting line up).

 

[Bry Nylon]

I've never believed in the concept of 'luck' for life in general and certainly not with regard to our current league position. I think 'luck' tends to get used as a reason when people have an emotional attachment for a particular outcome or result.

When we hit the post or bar there is a tendency for some to put it down to 'bad luck' - rather than bad finishing. So by the same token was Welbeck's goal on Saturday 'good luck' rather than good finishing? You can't have it both ways.

Luck doesn't exist.

 

[Rinkmaster]

We are better than we used to be but not as good as we are going to be

 

[Uter]

Would be interested in seeing that graph with some key long-term personnel changes marked up as well (eg from this season: Sanchez replacing Ryan; Lamptey, Webster, and March injuries; from last season: Lamptey breaking into starting line up).

Ryan's last game was our 12th league match of the season. The xGA had already started to drop before this, but this was from a very high level.

The only thing you can really say about the unavailability of Lamptey, Webster and March is we have not suffered because of it. I suspect Joel Veltman is the main reason for this with respect to xGA. I was one of those who were surprised by our acquisition of Veltman, but he's been vital in my opinion. Shrewd move.

Although the gap between xG and xG against is as high as it's ever been, I am certain this will narrow considerably over the next few games as we have tough games against Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City to come, all of whom seem to regularly rack up high xGs when they face us. I will eat my (virtual) hat if it doesn't.

 

[Audax]

I've never believed in the concept of 'luck' for life in general and certainly not with regard to our current league position. I think 'luck' tends to get used as a reason when people have an emotional attachment for a particular outcome or result.

When we hit the post or bar there is a tendency for some to put it down to 'bad luck' - rather than bad finishing. So by the same token was Welbeck's goal on Saturday 'good luck' rather than good finishing? You can't have it both ways.

Luck doesn't exist.

I'm with you on most of that. To have so consistently fallen below the standard that the underlying metrics suggest we should be hitting implies that something is going wrong - and that's not "luck". As you say, it's a poor standard when it comes to finishing (across the board, I'm not singling out our strikers here - the midfield have been complicit as well), and a very high standard from opponents when we've gifted them chances earlier in the season. We're gifting fewer chances now, and there's glimmers of hope that our finishing is improving as well.

Re: that last sentence though: there is a little bit of "luck" involved. Aerial pass is played, but while in flight it gets affected by a gust of wind, the changed trajectory causes it to land slightly differently on a tuft of grass, and the slight change in bounce direction causes a shot to be struck wrong and go wide / high. It can and does happen from time to time that something the players have zero control of causes a minor little change that rapidly escalates. But while it can happen occasionally, we've had so many poor shots that it can't be put down to luck. It's just poor finishing. Players snatching at the chance, players taking the low % shot instead of the high % pass, etc.

 

[Perkino]

I appreciate that there are several players that many fans have never seen play for us live. Sanchez, Lamptey, Veltman, White, Karbownik, Lallana, Moder, MacAllister, Wellbeck, Tau & Zeqiri. Equally many players have improved hugely over the last 12 months.

The squad are beginning to demonstrate better understanding of the style, tactics and systems that Potter wants them to use. Our form in 2021 is a good guide, 19 points from 13 games is almost 1.5/game. I expect that sort of form to continue into next season which I hope will get us close to a top ten finish