I thought that I would introduce these indexes in an away game that I have not seen. It illustrates that the indexes are built from independent data, and that they are therefore independent from my opinion. I have scored all the games over this week-end, and that is important because we can only judge the scores of our team if we can place them in the context of all the scores of all the other teams playing in the Championship. After I have presented the indexes, I will go on to illustrate the information that is contained within the basic data. I hope readers will enjoy this new source of information, and appreciate it as a new insight into the game that we all love. The two indexes will become part of Minority Reporting and I intend to write a monthly Minority Report, which will summarise the movement of scores for every team for the month.
Entertainment Index Bournemouth 138 v Barnsley -33 = Match 105 Birmingham 77 v Derby C 33 = Match 110 Blackburn R 61 v Luton T 63 = Match 124 Blackpool 24 v Fulham 92 = Match 116 Bristol C 69 v Preston NE 49 = Match 117 Coventry C 105 v Middlesborough 39 = Match 144 Reading 76 v QPR 163 = Match 239 Sheffield U 260 v Peterborough 31 = Match 291 Stoke C 52 v Huddersfield T 63 = Match 115 Swansea C 123 v Hull C -24 = Match 99 West Brom 73 Bonus -10 63 v Millwall 56 Bonus 10 66 = Match 129 What is it about the game of football that entertains you? Well the obvious answers to that question, are shots, shots on target and particularly goals. Any system that is attempting to condense entertainment into a single number must reflect that, and by scoring them 5, 10 and 20 points respectively, I believe the system is headed in the right direction. However, the game is more than that. Personally, I enjoy watching my team dominating possession far more than watching the team running around in circles trying, and failing to get the ball back. I enjoy football in the final third more than watching the ball being passed between defenders, or meaninglessly from midfield player to midfield player because they cannot find a route forward through a well set defence. The system rewards possession, and play in the opposition final third at the rate of 1 point per percentage point. In the case of possession each 1% over 50% earns the team 1 point, or minus 1 point for less than 50%. In the case of territory, the reward is also 1 point per 1%, but in order to match the calculation with that for possession, the calculation is more complex. Corners also score 1 point each. But there is a negative side to the way teams score as well. Fouls attract a minus 1 point each. The thinking is this. A fouls interrupts play. They slow it down and they prevent an attacking move coming to its logical conclusion, and doing so before the opposition can properly prepare to defend the attack. In the same way, a yellow card earns a deduction of 5 points, and a red card a deduction of 10 points. The reasons a foul turns into a booking or a sending off are well understood. They come when a defender stops a promising opposition move because it is likely to result in a chance to score, or they result from an attempt to injure an opponent. In those circumstances, it seems logical to penalise the yellow card with a 5 point deduction, and a red card with a 10 point deduction. The system also includes a system of bonus scores, but the best time to explain these is when one occurs, because they are not awarded very often. There is a league table of Entertainment Index scores based upon all matches to date, but I plan to use it only at month ends. By comparing the position of a team from month to month, we should be able to tell whether a team is becoming more or less entertaining. For example, as the injury list shortens, as more of our new recruits are involved with the first team and as Coach Schopp develops his system and makes changes from the 3-4-3 he has inherited from Ismael, I am expecting the team to gradually become a better watch. This will be catalogued by the changes in the Entertainment Index Table from month to month. If it doesn’t get better, then questions will quite rightly be asked. When a game is as one-sided as the one at Bournemouth, it could be argued that you do not need an Entertainment Index to know that we were poor entertainment. However, when an index is built mainly upon what goes on in penalty areas, and the team does not score and has just 2 shots off target, then you know it is going to be bad. The team scored minus 33, and just to put that score in perspective, even Peterborough who got beaten 6-2 at Sheffield United managed to score a positive 31. Hull were our closest challengers for the weekly award of least entertaining team in the Championship for the weekend and they scored minus 24 in a 0-0 draw at Swansea. Indeed, that game was only 1 point worse than the Bournemouth V Barnsley game for the title of least entertaining game of the week. Just to illustrate that the index is heavily biased towards goal scoring, the most entertaining games this week were Sheffield United 6 v Peterbrough 2 (291 points) and Reading 3 v QPR 3 (239 points). I promised to explain the bonus points system, and Millwall earned themselves 10 bonus points when their goalkeeper saved a WBA penalty. It also meant the West Brom lost 10 points, not because I do not like Ismael’s system, but because the 10 points is deducted from your opponent’s score. The on-going Entertainment League Table describes the extent of our problems so far this season
Performance Index Bournemouth (3) 154 v Barnsley (0) -154 Birmingham (2) 51 v Derby (0) -51 Blackburn (2) 3 v Luton T (2) -3 Blackpool (1) -60 v Fulham (0) 60 Bristol C (0) 17 v Preston NE (0) -17 Coventry C (2) 60 v Middlesbrough (0) -60 Reading (3) -73 v QPR (3) 73 Sheffield U (6) 205 v Peterborough U (2) -205 Stoke C (2) -26 v Huddersfield T (1) 26 Swansea C (0) 117 v Hull C (0) -117 West Brom (1) -6 v Millwall (1) 6 How many times have you watched the team lose a game that they should have won or vice versa. I still find it hard to understand how we won at Liverpool in our Premier League season. Besides the injustice of the result and the loss of the points, I have longed for a system that would put a number upon my frustrations. Hopefully, this is that number. It uses the same data as the Entertainment index, but the points scored by the opposition are deducted from the points scored by your own team. If your team loses, in most cases, your team will have a negative Performance Index score. The size of the negative score, determines how poorly the team played and it give an indication of how badly mismatched the team was as compared to its opposition. Conversely, a positive score indicates the opposite. It tells you in one number how well your team played and how effectively it outgunned the opposition. Readers will get used to reading the numbers and comparing them to the performances of other teams. Very occasionally, a team will lose a game but will dominate the Performance Index. This indicates that it dominated the game to such an extent that the points awarded for the higher goal tally were not sufficient to counter their level of dominance. OK, it also probably means that the team had lots of chances that it failed to take, but that in itself is an early indication of an impending change in fortunes. For example, currently, Sheffield United are in a false position according to their league placing based upon their Performance Index. The monthly league table for the Performance Index will be compared to the previous month in order to give a clear indication of whether performances are improving, and in Barnsley’s case they need to do so. It will also be compared to the Championship League table. It is this comparison that will determine whether the team is in a false position, and by how much. If the Entertainment Index tells a depressing story, it is as nought as compared the Performance Index. Our score of minus 154 paints a picture of the total domination of the game by a very good Bournemouth team. It is a score that is only exceeded by the minus 205 scored by Peterborough at Sheffield United. It is a disgrace, but critics should remember that the match day squad at Bournemouth contained all of our fit and available first team players with the exception of just Daniel Jinadu, and indeed, Will Hondermarck was listed as an U23 player before Saturday and was never likely to be called upon to play. Based upon the first 6 games of the season, the Peterborough score is the worst of the season to date, and our score is the second worst. Having said that, I knew that it was going to be bad when I saw our team sheet before the game. I was not wrong. I understand that after a performance like that, many people are feeling frustrated. They need someone to take responsibility. Quite frankly, it is not as simple as that. Those behind the scenes will be working day and night in order to try and put things right, but the main reason is beyond their control, because the main reason is that many of our better players are just not fit, or they are not eligible. That will resolve itself with time, but I also believe that our coach is not being consistent with his own principles. He is trying the make 3-4-3 work his way, and according to his principles, when what he should be doing is converting the team to a system that he believes in. Part of my pre-game planning involves looking at how our opponent played in their previous game. Apparently, Bournemouth changed from the 4-4-2 that they had used in every game this season to a 4-2-3-1, a system favoured by Schopp. They also made 8 changes to their starting line-up of which just 2 were positional changes. They also changed all of the players on the bench. Did these changes catch Schopp by surprise? Who knows, but he was too short of players to do anything about it with just Victor Adeboyejo left on the bench who could have been trusted to play. Things will get better, but it will take time, unfortunately.
No it doesn't. They are very much dependant on your opinion as you unilaterally decided what should get points and how many entertainment points they are worth to you specifically. It's like me creating a 'radio Sheffield caller intelligence index', deciding all on my own that every time a caller says 'yeah' they are awarded 20 points for intelligence and then asking someone to listen to football heaven and tell me how many times mark the pitsmoor owl says yeah then posting on here that he's the most intelligent caller and it's built from independent data and therefore independent from my opinion.
Offered the chance to contribute. Ok, a red card conceded should give a positive entertainment score of 10, a penalty conceded should give a positive score of 10, a player throwing a strop should be plus 20. These are things that neutrals find entertaining in a game. I eagerly await your revised index.
There was only one moment of entertainment today. The PA guy at Bournemouth was reading out birthday messages etc, and gleefully announced: "..and a big happy birthday to Mick Oxlong! Mick is 60 today and sits in the south stand.." Pearler.
Very interesting read RR and I will be following your interpretations closely throughout the season. Was there a reason you didn’t simply use xG as opposed to creating your own system to calculate performance?
I mean, this is all very hard work, impressive enough in its own right. And it will be quite interesting to see what scores you generate red rain. But please don’t pretend they aren’t opinion based. You might be using the stats that are published to generate the scores - but the scoring system is 100% generated on what you deem to be entertaining and/or performing well. There’s nothing wrong with that, and sharing it with us all is a nice thing, it is clearly a labour of love and presumably very time consuming. Just embrace it as your system. It is a little bit convoluted, but I’ll never criticise anyone for taking the time to do things like that. I might not agree, but that’s different.
I think at many times in games last season we were a hard watch. This I thought was made worse by the I was watching on a laptop and felt very disengaged from the action. It's a real shame we never got to experience the style of last season in person properly. When I'm at the game and had a few beers and with my mates, I'm usually entertained when we win just by the winning. Again this isn't a constant metric, for example away from home I tend to be less worried about how we play and just if we come away with something we have done well. We have some time been in a era of snobbery around styles of play. A lot of the time for example I find Man City boring as hell to watch. That's not to say the way the play isn't impressive is just boring to me. It is of course all subjective, a example from Boxing. Floyd Mayweather is one of if not the greatest defensive boxer of all time, incredible discipline and ability but i found it dull to watch. From Snooker Mark Selby is a 4 time world champion and one of the most disciplined tactically astute players ever to pick a cue, again I find it too dull for words to watch him over a long format (and I love snooker and enjoy tactical battles) The point for me is you can analyse it with any formula you wish but entertainment is clearly subjective. I'll be sitting down to watch the F1 this afternoon, my mate hates it. He loves NFL and stays up watching it, I think it's one of the most ridiculous mainstream sports in the world.
You are right. I am not sure that I have picked the right name for the index, but for the life of me, I cannot think of a name that describes what the index is trying to do than Entertainment. If you look at the data that I have chosen to represent in the index, it points to a description of the game, but a better word eludes me, and it is a shame because the word that I have chosen for it seems to be an emotive one.
The work you have put in is obvious and I do look forward to seeing what results you get. The issues of entertainment vs success is a very interesting one to me.
I obviously hope that the reaction will be better than it has been so far, but I do enjoy doing it because I love football and I love the research and and hard work that goes on behind the indexes