Liverpool FC Forum

'Although he did have his own army of flops but none where as expensive, I think Aquilani was the biggest.'  (killerp)

That would be the flop who's about to win a Serie A Champ. medal for one of the only 2 teams to have won more Euro cups than us.  Disappointing that injury deprived us of the opportunity to see him at his best, when he arrived, but let's not deny the guy has talent, matey.  Wouldn't you rather he was available for us this season, hindsight or no?

the footballer who writes incognito articles under the pseudenom `the secret footballer` has written a piece defending andy carroll but he also discusses moneyball theory which apparently his own club (whoever they are) have started using themselves, though the secret footballer himself says he isnt a fan of the theory. he credits comoli with finding players like kolo toure, clichy, bale and kaboul but says recently comoli has really bought into the moneyball philosophy.
he said moneyball is being used at liverpool but what fans dont realise is that moneyball theory isnt just about transfers its about the tactic`s used on the pitch.
apparently moneyball stats men studied loads of games and came to the conclusion that if a team wins more than 40 headers, puts in more than 30 crosses and wins the ball back 12 times (or more) in the final third then they will nearly always win the game.
thats why the likes of carroll, henderson and downing were signed, carroll probably to win the headers, dowing probably because of the crosses and hendo was probably signed because of his high energy style, the club probably thought they could mould him into someone who could win the ball back high up the pitch.

I'm not sure how knowledgeable you guys are about baseball but it's actually a sport with very few factors when it comes to end results. They have a 250 year history of factual and good statistics. Moneyball still doesn't work flawlessly and many question it.

There is something called "residual fallacy" that a man Tomas Sowell came up with that basicly describes how in most cases people missuse statistics to prove their own predecided thoughts. Football has to many variables to use moneyball in any great capacity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4LjWMITwXs

West Brom the real Moneyball story of the season as Liverpool face replacing Damien Comolli

What next for Liverpool? When the American owners, John Henry and Tom Werner, arrived at the club they spoke impressively about their long term plans for rebuilding Liverpool as a force in English football.

21 Apr 2012

With the sacking of Damien Comolli as director of football they have clearly come to question some of those plans — will they stick with the director of football model? Will they continue to apply Moneyball and statistical theories to football?

At the moment it is not clear what the owners’ strategy is. The timing of the decision to sack Comolli is explained by the need to give any new man time to get to work before the opening of the summer transfer window, but most clubs are already finalising their target lists and making their first approaches. Liverpool cannot afford to be left behind.

So will they return to a more traditional English-style hierarchy, with the manager all powerful? It seems highly unlikely.

Their problem seems to have been with Comolli not with the role itself. Indeed, they only need to look at Sunday’s opponents to see the director of football system as a working success: West Bromwich Albion are the closest thing to a Moneyball team in the Premier League.

People tend to mean what they want by Moneyball when they apply it to football.

The concept does not easily translate from baseball but, in basic terms, it means finding players in unexpected places, players that are undervalued because they are misunderstood, players whose statistics belie any subjective impression you may have of them.

It helps if these players are young because they should increase in value as they mature.

No club has been applying these principles more effectively than Albion. For the last five years Dan Ashworth has been director of football, having initially joined to coach in the academy.

As part of his duties he runs the Albion scouting network and does so much travelling himself in pursuit of talent that he has earned the nickname Marco Polo.

His track record is remarkable. He went to Russia to sign Peter Odemwingie and to Holland to get Jonas Olsson for a fraction of their true value.

Youssouf Mulumbu and Graham Dorrans were signed for a total of £275,000 and their combined value now probably exceeds £10 million. He saw potential in Jerome Thomas and Steven Reid when others had lost faith in them.

Albion have paid bigger fees when needed — Shane Long cost £4.5 million from Reading— but rarely do their signings lose much value. The one that did not work out was for Spanish midfielder Borja Valero, signed for nearly £5 million in 2008.

If Albion can do it, why can’t Liverpool? The big problem is that of scale. WBA do not have the same level of expectation of their players as Liverpool.

At this level, there are simply more bargains to be found. To find players who can get you into the Champions League is far harder — players of that quality are very rarely playing below themselves or available cheap.

It is hard to do what Ashworth is doing at Albion but it would be even harder at Liverpool unless the owners were prepared to be extraordinarily patient.

Time is another problem: Ashworth has been through relegation and promotion in his five years in the role at Albion.

It takes time to bring the right people in, whether it is scouts or coaches. And it takes time to judge whether the director of football is doing a good job himself — are his players good value for money?

Is the academy producing talent? In the context of the job, Comolli had only just got started at Liverpool.

The other problem is that the best people doing the job of director of football — Ashworth and Nicky Hammond at Reading — tend to be those who prefer working with a low profile.

That is something you cannot have for a club the size of Liverpool. It is going to be formidable challenge for the Fenway Group to find the right replacement — the number of credible candidates is very small. It could be the most important decision they make.

killerp » Wed Mar 28, 2012 10:59 pm wrote:

tubby » Wed Mar 28, 2012 5:44 pm wrote:1st serious attempt has essentially shown the answer to be no. Will FSG continue to employ this recruitment strategy in the summer or shift away to a more traditional policy of paying top dollar for proven talent?

Discuss

I remember FSG talking about using a stat based system to recruit new players. If stat's lead us to believe that Carroll, Henderson, Adam & downing are quality players I think it's time to drop that system... 

I hate to admit it but we were better off under Benitez in that department. Highly doubt he would even look at these players. Although he did have his own army of flops but none where as expensive, I think Aquilani was the biggest.

I think you are wrong. Rafa picked players that we meant to be good (stats) yet he ended up getting 65 players that were big flops yet their stats were good.

the last manager that picked players due to him just thinking he could work with them was Houllier and even then he picked a few flops yet the team he built won the CL.

I do fear that in 5 years time the PL will spilt and move to a super league mixed with european teams. (driven by TV money)
Sky have seen a fall off in viewing figures for their live football and a few weeks ago hit a new low from the prem yet the european home league viewing figures are up.

how this would change the way a team is made up is so big that we could ended up seeing a Liverpool team playing 20 games overseas a year, no FA cup.
your english born players will not get a look in.
the cost of european players will be so high and any idea of going by stats will just be silly.
A few weeks ago on 5 live they spoke about a ranking for all the top 1000 players and a fixed price for the top player and working down in cost as you move down the list.
so it would be something like
rank 1.Messi 90mil
rank 1000.Henderson 5mil
This would have to be based on stats
my problem with stats is that you could get a player that just stands out side the box for most of the game but gets a goal every game. his stats would be very low on things like passing and ground coverd but yet the guy could have got 15 winning goals.

lakes10 » Sun Apr 22, 2012 11:08 am wrote:

killerp » Wed Mar 28, 2012 10:59 pm wrote:

tubby » Wed Mar 28, 2012 5:44 pm wrote:1st serious attempt has essentially shown the answer to be no. Will FSG continue to employ this recruitment strategy in the summer or shift away to a more traditional policy of paying top dollar for proven talent?

Discuss

I remember FSG talking about using a stat based system to recruit new players. If stat's lead us to believe that Carroll, Henderson, Adam & downing are quality players I think it's time to drop that system... 

I hate to admit it but we were better off under Benitez in that department. Highly doubt he would even look at these players. Although he did have his own army of flops but none where as expensive, I think Aquilani was the biggest.

I think you are wrong. Rafa picked players that we meant to be good (stats) yet he ended up getting 65 players that were big flops yet their stats were good.

the last manager that picked players due to him just thinking he could work with them was Houllier and even then he picked a few flops yet the team he built won the CL.

I do fear that in 5 years time the PL will spilt and move to a super league mixed with european teams. (driven by TV money)
Sky have seen a fall off in viewing figures for their live football and a few weeks ago hit a new low from the prem yet the european home league viewing figures are up.

how this would change the way a team is made up is so big that we could ended up seeing a Liverpool team playing 20 games overseas a year, no FA cup.
your english born players will not get a look in.
the cost of european players will be so high and any idea of going by stats will just be silly.
A few weeks ago on 5 live they spoke about a ranking for all the top 1000 players and a fixed price for the top player and working down in cost as you move down the list.
so it would be something like
rank 1.Messi 90mil
rank 1000.Henderson 5mil
This would have to be based on stats
my problem with stats is that you could get a player that just stands out side the box for most of the game but gets a goal every game. his stats would be very low on things like passing and ground coverd but yet the guy could have got 15 winning goals.

But then thats a problem of what stats you include. Only looking at scored goals would hardly be the only criteria. The biggest problem for me is that certain great players can be found in teams that struggle and therfor have bad stats so you also have to use some parameter for including "team" level or something similar. Football is also a game with so many more parameters than for example baseball. A defender playing in the leagues worst team but still have great % stats could in weighted system still be considered the best stats wise.

Taking a fat player with good stats could make him in to a great player etc. Very simplistic ofcourse.

last year Southend posted their players stats up at xmas 2010, going by there stats there was 2 top players in the team.
it coverd thing like ground coverd, passes, shots and things like that.
their states were great but in fact they were very bad players, most of their shots on goal did hit the target but only at around 5mph.
their passing stats where great but again due to them just doing short passing in their own area.
ground coverd was also a mess as the 2 players would mark the goal line and always had to run back to their own box for anything taking place their then run back up front.

but good stats made them easy to sell on and southend have been better since they left lol.