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Arteta’s impression of Mini-Pep
Arsenal fans are doubtless elated at the win but also seething at the goal conceded against Olympiakos last night – not the first time, we are all yelling!
Here, I would like to juxtapose Arteta’s two-fold principles of 1) avoiding long-range shots (as a result of mainstream xG analysis positing it as the ‘better’ option in the long run) and low-percentage crossing and preferring recycling the ball to find a better alternative, and 2) playing it out (i.e. passing) from the back in spite of opposition pressure
The former is a fundamental tenet of xG-based analysis today because of widely available statistics on shot positioning (one tap-in is worth more than 5 long-range shots etc.). Now Arteta has already come under pressure from a section of viewers and fans alike on said ‘meaningless sideways passing’ but it seemingly makes sense to him in the long run to ‘play the percentages’. However, to my knowledge, mainstream xG analysis does not yet sufficiently take into account the effect of losing possession in the opposition’s third after 2-3 waves of attacks end up without a clear chance at goal. Arsenal have conceded a fair few goals this season in said manner.
Furthermore, if we hold the foregoing tenet no. (1) as a self-evident truth, the question arises if principle (2) i.e. “passing out from the back” is also backed by data to be the “better option in the long run”? It does make footballing (common) sense that once you break the opposition’s press in your own third, it would lead to open spaces in the final third that could be exploited. Moreover, as Arteta has himself mentioned multiple times that if you hoof the ball clear, it would come back again attracting another wave of attack. However, does Arsenal currently possess the personnel to be able to effectively execute this? And is said tenet backed by data?
To the former, I believe even Arteta has said ‘no’ in a roundabout way, and to the latter, I would like to think that sufficient data and frameworks do not exist yet for us to be able to make that claim sufficiently. Moreover, ‘hoofing the ball clear’ has long been considered the ‘percentage option’ by old-school coaches and fans alike.
On the other hand, as we saw last night and multiple times throughout the season, losing possession in ones own third will be punished. Perhaps the Arsenal analytics team could compare the xG against from all shots that come about as a consequence of losing possession in ones own third versus xG against for shots that come about as a result of a second wave of attack after hoofing the ball clear? I do not have the data to prove the claim but it seems the former should be significantly higher than the latter (based on naked eye analysis of all Arsenal matches this season).
To mitigate the bias in my naked-eye analysis, I would also here like to compare Arsenal and Man City’s ‘Action Zones’ this season: Arsenal sees 28% of action in their own third, 44% in the middle and 28% in the opposition’s third whereas Man City play 20% in their own third, 47% in the middle and 33% in the opposition’s third. That begs the question: if Arsenal see 8% more action in their own third, does it make sense to prefer the riskier route of always passing out through the back like City?
Both Odegaard and El Neny’s goals yesterday harken me back to Rinus Michels’ book where he lists ‘opportunism’ as a key attacking feature apart from planning and playing the percentages i.e. the benefit of doing something the opposition does not expect you to normally do. I would not go so far as to say that data analytics is killing football, but there is a case to be made for both ‘taking the shot from afar’ and ‘hoofing the ball clear’ under certain circumstances. Sometimes, you just might have to let your prime players break free from the xG shackles and encourage them take a punt. Remember, while there is a fine line between stupidity and bravery, fortune does tend to favour the brave.
Shahzad, Pakistani Gooner in Dublin
Please stop trying to ‘fix’ football
Every week, someone or the other writes in to the mailbox with a detailed list of rule changes that will supposedly fix the game. And it only makes everything so much worse. VAR only came in because no one would ever stop moaning about refereeing decisions, and look how that’s turned out.
The most recent suggestion in the mailbox: stopping the clock and reducing the game to 60 active minutes. Here’s a counter to it — mid-game ad breaks! I’m Indian, and people here are obsessed with cricket, a sport in which there is a break for advertisements literally every three minutes. You’re also taking away injury-time equalisers or winners, one of the purest joys of football. No thank you.
On to the constant offside back-and-forth. Last season, everyone was so aggressively outraged by the armpit offsides. The people in power took notice; they fixed it by changing the rule, extending that line till the shirt sleeve. So now we get weekly meltdowns over sleeve offsides. The best example of this would be Bamford from earlier this season, getting a perfectly good goal ruled out for “having arms” — primarily because fans, managers, and the press couldn’t get over how someone’s armpit could be offside. Well, it no longer is. And as a bonus, we get a whole new debate about handballs because you can now score with your bicep.
Next, the handball law. It doesn’t work with VAR, true, and I’m sure there’s going to be changes to it at some point. And it’ll still remain completely f**ked up because that’s just how it works. Earlier in the season, all handballs in the box were being given as penalties. Lindelof conceded an unfair one in United’s first game of the season. There was also the Dier handball that he knew nothing about. A lot of screaming and shouting happened after that, resulting in the referee committee amending the law a bit and making it more subjective, like it used to be earlier.
So what do we get? A full week’s worth of whining by my fellow United supporters over the penalty call against Chelsea. (For what it’s worth, I thought it could and should have been a pen. But it happened in like the 14th minute, so is there really any need to act like it was some decisive game-changing call?) Arsenal had a similar, possibly more blatant, shout against Burnley recently.
The only solution here, to me, is to be grown-ups about it and just let things go. Make our peace with the fact that bad decisions will happen from time to time. Football is not “fundamentally broken”. Referees are wankers, we can all agree. But they’re merely making mistakes, or what they believe to be the right call. There are no conspiracies, no agendas.
Bigger teams get better decisions because of the disproportionate attention they get in the press, leading to subconscious bias. Some teams get a run of bad decisions. It’s a sport with very subjective lines, and there’s bound to be occasional patterns that emerge, which partisan fans assume are conspiracies.
Unless a refereeing mistake is objectively blatant — like say the Roy Carroll “save” against Spurs, or if it’s something that explicitly and beyond reasonable doubt changes the result of a game — like an incorrectly awarded last minute penalty, thus leaving no room to fix it — do we, as adults, really need to go on and on about it, glossing over our own respective teams’ incompetence? I’ll readily admit that bitching out refereeing decisions and coming up with new ways to “fix” football is loads of fun. But it’s reached the point now where freeze-frame images are shared regularly on Twitter and referees are getting actual death threats. Maybe we’ve gone too far? Let’s just tone it down a little and let the jeopardy remain? Besides, I don’t think I would ever want football to have a 100% record in decision-making — not to go all Johnny Nic here, but refereeing errors are a part of football’s charm for me.
Akhil, Man United, Delhi
Why belittle Liverpool?
Seeing as Fred is treating the mailbox like his personal therapist I thought I might try to understand why he is so insistent (is this the 6th or 7th mail he’s sent in on the subject?) on belittling Liverpool’s remarkable achievements over the past couple of years, citing a fortunate goal here and a late win there as if no other club experiences these. You see Fred’s a Tottenham fan and this was supposed to be their success. They’d finished above Liverpool in something like 7 out of 9 seasons after Liverpool nearly imploded and then brought Hodgson in to manage the team. Spurs got Pochettino and created a wonderful attacking team and this was their golden era, success was round the corner. Unfortunately for Fred that success didn’t materialise and Liverpool hired Klopp who built a devastating team playing wonderful, exciting football.
This team actually achieved things and Fred just can’t accept that it was due to a well run club putting all of the components in place for success. So he lashes out, childishly, because it’s just not fair that Liverpool have got what he wanted for Spurs and he really, really wanted it so he constructs a reality whereby Liverpool didn’t actually deserve their success and it was down to luck. And he’s seen some examples of luck which confirmed his bias (another tenet of confirmation bias is dismissing any evidence that doesn’t fit the bias so Liverpool had no bad luck in that time, like losing their world class keeper for the first quarter of the title winning season or having a goal in their only loss of the previous season ruled out by 11mm). This way Fred can insulate himself from an unwanted reality where his team failed to live up to expectations and was superseded by the team he thought they’d replaced in the pecking order.
A team simply does not achieve 271 points, 2 CL Finals, I CL title and 1 PL title in 3 years due to luck. Show me a shanked VVD shot that Origi scored from against Everton and I’ll show you a stonewall penalty not given for Keita in a tight game that we drew in 2019, the season we came runners up by 1 point. Show me an uncharacteristic miss from Son (which you’ve cited before) and I’ll show you 5 uncharacteristic misses from Salah or Mane which could’ve changed the outcome of a match.
A wiki definition: Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias cannot be eliminated entirely, but it can be managed, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills.
Fred, seriously lad. Let. It. Go.
James Outram, Wirral
Hilarious email from Fred, London today.
“So, to summarise, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own “facts”. Luck exists, undisputedly so, in all aspects of life, & football’s no exception. That’s a fact.”
I can’t work out if he’s angry at himself for saying that.
Luck as an actual thing doesn’t exist, it’s just a way of saying something positive happened which had a pretty low probability. Like Liverpool having relatively few injuries over their successful period. Equally bad luck is the opposite, like not scoring a goal when you’ve battered a team and had 30 shots and not managed to put one in. It’s just low odds for a negative event.
Now that’s a FACT!
Cheers
Andy, Cheshire
Fred’s letter this morning may have been a wind up, not sure, but it was certainly very emotional and I think missed the point of many of the listicle emails intended to be a bit of fun.
Years ago we only thought of the manager when they were bigger than life characters. Change happened seismically. In that it was slow to non-existent and then bang, a change happens that alters the game completely. Once a style of play came to the fore, everyone copied it and played it until the next big change. Those old enough would remember the hooferah around Sir Alf and the 4-4-2 wingless wonders, a formation and style that helped win our only world cup.
Today we see different styles each week and sometimes by the same team and sometimes in the same game. We watch a team dominate another European club in a Champions League game then struggle in their home league to a less fancied team playing an entirely different style to nullify the ‘top’ team as much as possible.
So, long way of saying, the managers that stand out for me, are not those who win the most titles but change the game and force other teams to change the way they play to nullify them. But in doing so create entertaining games to watch. Mourinho has been successful. When he started it was definitely the underdog style. Unfortunately it stayed that way. Same with Simeone, who is doing an amazing job with Atleti. In the PL era, it has to be Fergie, much as it pains me to say it. Not only did he win stuff, but the teams played a very attractive style for the most part. Pep and Klopp’s teams can do that as well, as did Poch, although not enough to win something. Conte did brilliantly winning the title but the team was not that stellar. But has to get a gold star for winning in an unkown league with a team that was not stacked. Zidane gets the most out of his players – the immense squad he had – but doesn’t appear to have a style of his own and struggles without Ronaldo.
I could go on, but the point is, it is never nor should ever be about titles or trophies alone. It has to be about creativity and entertainment. Those that simply play the same way as everyone else but have a better squad…
Paul McDevitt
Bernd Leno
I enjoyed Chris, Dublin, LFC’s mail about Leno because it reminded me how wonderfully subjective football is but we treat it like it’s science.
He was annoyed that pundits were blaming Xhaka not Leno after the Burnley game and I was annoyed that pundits were giving any blame to Leno at all.
Arsenal play out from the back and, week in week out, work the ball through Leno from extremely tight spaces. Yes Xhaka was under pressure but he had two clear options to his left – which he saw. 9 times out of ten he plays that first time, arsenal beat the press easily and no one thinks twice about Leno playing that pass.
Amro, Gooner, London (Also reminds me how crazy it is to think VAR would solve all our problems.)
Chris Wilder
Looks like the fake sheik has done the dirty on another Blades legend after having shafted McCabe – another Blade for Life.
A sad day for Blades everywhere and I want to wish all the best to Crissy boy. Someone is going to get a brilliant manager and we are off to the third tier for another 13 years.
Shambles.
Bladey Mick (football – it makes you weep)
As Chris wilder leaves his post at sheffield united one thing that keeps bothering me is why there isnt an option for managers to take a break mid-season. we see this happen a lot a beloved manager has a not so stellar season and they have to leave the post which leaves a bad taste in the mouth. why can’t they bring in part-time managers on a month to two-month basis. this will help the manager to rest and recharge and look from the solution from the outside. it will also mean that there will be managers that will have specialist roles. say a club is leaking goals you bring up big sam/tony pulis to shore up the defense. you are having a problem with goals? get eddie howe in for a couple of months. you want to play with the feelings of arsenal fans get in wenger for a stint.
i get it that people may need time to imbed their ideas but this way clubs will save money they have to pay a sacked manager also it will help give the long-term manager chris wilder/frank Lampard breathing space and a real chance to introspect and improve. I don’t see many downside to this idea. what do you guys think?
Sohaib Junaidi, CFC, Karachi
Arthur cost Juventus much more than Ronaldo
I know im a bit late to the champions league mailbox party but i have to point out even though the focus will be on Ronaldo as it always is, there was an awful performance from a team mate deserving of critiscism much more than Ronaldo in the whole Juventus champions league debacle. If there was one player in a Juventus jersey that deserves criticism it is without a doubt Arthur Melo and not Ronaldo. Watching the match on numerous occasions Ronaldo was making great runs looking for the ball to be put in the box with some urgency, time and time again Arthur seemingly forgetting that they were loosing on aggregate just completley ignored the runners and turned backwards or sideways to play the easy option but not actually doing anything to help the team.
There was one moment in the second half when Ronaldo made 2 seperate runs into the box one directly after the other pointing where he wanted the ball when Arthur was in possession and as expected Arthur ignored him and kept the ball slowly passing left and right, leading to Ronaldo having to drop deep back Into midfield to collect the ball himself and set off on a surging run towards the opposition goals, being brought down just outside the box. If it had of been Cuadrado on the ball in them moments instead Arthur it’s more than likely they would have at least created a half chance rather than just aimlessly passing around the midfield not actually going anywhere. On the evidence on show against Porto, Barcelona robbed Juventus blind by swapping Pjanic for Arthur even if they only did it because they needed the quick cash.
Aaron CFC Ireland
Save of the season
In the dying moments of Rangers match against Slavia Prague in the EL last night Allan McGregor surely pulled off the save of the season in all of Europe! Not bad for a 39 year old veteran! Best
Neil, Glasgow
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