It’s Better To Be Lucky Than Good But It’s Even Better To Be Lucky And Good

Statsbomb’s James Yorke put out the following tidbit before this week’s Sunday games1. Leicester opposition all shot conversion rate from season midpoint onwards = 3.4%. Insanely low, can't last forever.— James Yorke (@jair1970) April 10, 2016 Of all the ridiculous stats about Leicester’s season I’ve seen so far this was maybe the ridiculousist. Made even […]

It’s German For ‘The Penalty The’

It’s time to kill the penalty kick.I’ve made the case elsewhere that Premier League officials (in particular) are terrible at their jobs1. Certainly there are multiple missed or incorrect calls all over the place during a match, which is understandable as A) many (most?) infractions are judgement calls to begin with and B) referees are […]

The Discreet Charm of Erroneous Rooney

One of the better professors I had taught that there are four basic questions you want to ask about any data you look at. The most important (and probably most obvious) is: Is it accurate? A couple of weeks back, after Manchester United’s win at Liverpool, I noticed something on the shot charts that get […]

Anyone Else Starting to Think Braxton Miller Might Be Having Concussion Issues?

It might be time to start legitimately asking the above question about Ohio State’s Braxton Miller. Miller left this weekend’s game against Minnesota after his helmet made pretty forceful contact with the playing surface during the course of a tackle. It’s the second time that’s happened in his playing career. Combine that with another incident […]

Darren Rovell Is Annoying

Darren Rovell is annoying. For a myriad of reasons, I’m sure. For current purposes he’s annoying because, as a sports business reporter, he can’t seem to do basic business or financial calculations (although, maybe his editorial overlords don’t even want him to). He put up a list yesterday of the worst dead money contracts in […]

Shot Charts – Free and Fun

These are player shot charts for the Championship and Premier League last season. They should be (mostly) self-explanatory. Link here: https://mbertin.shinyapps.io/shotChartBlue crosshairs are goals; whites are misses. A player’s conversion rate is just his goals divided by the number of total shots. The last number, Naked Shot Probability (NSP), is a metric based on the […]