3 Things I'm Thinking About This Week
Visualising style, Darwin Nunez, and the Top 3.
Short post sharing some things I found interesting.
Housekeeping:
Last week's longer article on Tottenham is available if you missed it.
I avoid spamming your inbox with prediction numbers; if you just want to see the future then remember all data on the substack is live-updating: goals, clean sheets, matchweek predictions, win%, league table, team ratings, team styles.
1. Everton and the limits of visualisation
The above tweet and the associated article from Mohamed got me thinking about the intersection between the football ‘meta’ and data visualisation. There are inherent challenges in accurately representing certain nuances, particularly when dealing with outlier scenarios. Here is my model’s take on Everton’s profile:
This is one of my favourite team profiles. At just a glance you can get the essence: Step 1: Be great at set pieces, Step 2: Be great at defending, Step 3: Be okay at attacking, Step 4: Survive relegation?
However, when you look at all the other metrics it is just a wash of ‘nothingness’. Is that because Everton do not have a playstyle? Absolutely not. Some might argue the same applies to Ten Hag’s Man United this season… There is a style, it’s just an outlier.
To me, it raises interesting questions about how the current footballing ‘meta’ informs the presentation of ideas in the football analytics space. Indeed, it is a ‘decision’ to choose what goes into these things. We decide what to value… ‘short passing’ being the bar metric rather than ‘long passing’ is a choice. ‘High Line’ being the bar metric rather than something like ‘low block’ is a choice. ‘Intricate attack’ rather than ‘direct attack’ is a choice.
Indeed you can still infer these things but it does make me wonder about the extent to which teams like Man City and Arsenal are ruling our subconscious. It is hard to convey the rest of the Dycheian philosophy if that is our lens.
2. Does Darwin Núñez make Liverpool worse?
Some really interesting discourse this week about Darwin Nunez. My favourite piece came from
and I highly recommend you check it out:
When thinking about this, my mind kept creating parallels with Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United. Scoring goals is good. Goals are what win games. But how do we know whether the individual doing all the goals is actually bringing the team-level goals down by making the overall team worse?
3. Closing the gap on the top 3
The growing chasm between the top 3 and the others has become increasingly ominous:
This made me question what next year might look like. When doing this, I often find it helpful to scroll through the past season on FBref and look at the trends concerning what I am questioning. The past does not predict the future but the trends can at least give you an idea of what is generally obtainable.
In short, I don't think any of the others will be competing for the title next year. I have not seen a precedent for closing this kind of gap in a single year.
A realistic (or slightly optimistic) goal for NEW/TOT/AVL/CHE would be to solidify 3rd/4th next year and iterate on that to challenge in 25/26.
Thanks for reading ✌️