The over-reliance on spurious stats by Jon Fox
My fellow Gooners, for ages I have been depressed at how so many fans have such a slavish devotion to stats and wrongly assume they are reliable guides, when plainly, in many cases, they are not.
In truth, I have long been of the firm opinion that a slavish devotion to the use of statistics (stats) as a reliable guide to a player’s ability is based on a fallacy.
I do not say, of course not, that all stats are useless. That would be silly and also, wrong. But to rely on stats as being reliable information to a player’s ability is way overblown by many fans in general and Gooners seem no exception, if one takes takes as truth the many posts which use them slavishly and without intelligent context.
I am the first to agree that when used in context as a guide, though not as an infallible one, that many stats are indeed useful. But my purpose in this article is to try to point out to some who seem not to ever think beyond first base, so to speak, how misleading SOME stats can be and indeed, often are.
In common with many fans, I look closely at the now common use of stats in newspapers and online, though in my case I have an ingrained cynicism towards them always being of limited real use.
As an older fan I easily remember the times when the only stats published in sports sections of papers were the score, the scorers, time scored and attendance. Oh, plus the half time scores. At odd times through the season a list of leading goal scorers might well appear, but this was random at best, and “assists” were never even thought about.
As the years and decades have passed, there has been more and more, relentlessly so, concentration on the minutiae surrounding any top-level game and this has in turn spawned a whole stat based industry. The use of computers has of course intensely speeded up this creeping intrusion into what is really a rather simple game. Not that one would think it’s simple upon reading all the increasing waffle and trivia that surrounds any game.
I have, I confess, been wanting to write this debunking of stats piece ever since the day when Mertesacker and Koscielny played together as our CB pairing. I would regularly read that Merts was among the Prem’s most reliable and passers, overall. That was of course nonsense, but the stats said he was!
What those stats did not say was that almost all those passes, which gave him an approx. 95% successful pass rate, were made when under no opponent pressure and he and Kos would pass the ball back and forth, again and again (while I grew a beard just watching this boredom!!!) til Kingdom come. But that “stat” put him firmly among the Prem’s very best one or two passers.
My fellow Gooners I DO put some credence in stats which give a striker an overall minute played per goal, or goal and assist. Jesus comes out rather well, even in his City days, when you look into that stat.
I consider it a good guide – provided it is used only on players who have played a seriously decent number of games, and not on those who have played only a tiny few. There is some safely in use over a long time, but if in short bursts only, there are bound to be many fallacies. It is about using one’s brain to closely consider what use, if any, and if any, then how much, use do all stats have. IF fans can do that and many can and do, then stats, used wisely are helpful, though not as sole arbiters of a players use.
It is widely known that top clubs, in particular, do use detailed stats for players who they may be considering buying. I have no beef with that, because within most clubs there rare wise people in charge of how stats are used, and they know how much reliance to place on them and how much not to place.
But it is we fans who tend to use stats in amateurish ways, then project our own opinions on to their use as if to back up our opinions. By all means have opinions; we would all be up a gum tree without opinions. Opinions are the life blood of fanhood, and I love seeing, hearing and reading them. Though we all have a responsibility to use our brains wisely and not to lazily trot out false stats to “back up” our opinions. THAT is the whole purpose of this piece; to make us think before we trot out nonsense, based upon incorrect use of stats.
IF I can convince even one person not to continue doing what he/she has done previously, then this article will not have been written in vain.
Thank you for reading this and please do at least consider whether or not YOU personally are a wise or a lazy user of stats. Used in context, they DO have real role to play… but not otherwise.
COYG!
Jon Fox