59 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

It's not legal to fly internationally on your own at 12?

He flew with his Dad who initially stayed with him for a month. He remained here on his own, though received regular visits from family.

Sorry if you felt mislead. Not intended.

The latest Rovers Academy Podcast was an interview with RB/RWB Jay Haddow.

Jay is a Hong Kong native who came over to England at the age of 12 on his own and Rovers approached him pretty quickly. He has been part of the Academy since then and he is a key part of our fantastic U18 side and now U23s as well.

https://youtu.be/m844HUEJMIw

Thanks for posting that @JoeH that's what I had come here to do...🙂

What did people make of what Stuart had to say?

Any questions that you wanted to be asked that weren't?

What I will also say is that to come out and say that we will be positive at QPR and then produce a game plan to do the exact opposite and then to not even acknowledge the travelling fans who are expecting a positive display is very poor indeed.

I think what he was trying to do was highlight how the team was set up. At no point did he actually defend those tactics but illustrated using the best publically available chance creation descriptor that, yes, indeed QPR created very little in the first half and indeed from open play all game.

Problem was, as we all saw, we created nothing (albeit we hit the post). So the balance in the match was wrong. But any chance to change it effectively was severely hampered by injuries.

Happy to discuss differences of opinion on tactical setups, the merits (or lack thereof) of xG & anything else. All opinions 100% valid, mine certainly has no more validity than anyone else's.

Hi all. I had the tremendous honour of recording with James Beattie recently. It was actually the day after news broke of the European Super League, which actually seems a lifetime ago.

Obviously you all know James so I don't need to say much but it's a cracking listen, he's a really top bloke.

For those of you who went to QEGS it'll be particularly interesting.

1 hour ago, Tom said:

As someone who spends a good chunk of their working life on some form of data analysis I will say first and foremost I am often in awe of the presentation and methods used in the analysis, at times it’s the theory I am not fully aligned with

For me there’s a place in football for it but I see it more in a sense of spotting weaknesses in players games and then highlighting where they need to improve. 
 

If I’m going to present anything to our ExCo or HR director then the biggest thing in my mind is the ‘so what?’ I can produce a long deck with lots of figures and stats but there has to be a key message to take away or it’s meaningless.

That’s why I find tables such as the one posted in here recently as detrimental to the ‘reputation’ of data in football, there’s no real takeaway from it but we could infer something from a positional analysis of people in similar roles etc 

So for me, time and a place but it shouldn’t be shoehorned in where it’s not needed and should always be used as a consideration to go with what the eye can see. 

Hi Tom.

The takeaway was that when John Buckley has played Blackburn Rovers have scored more than they concede. I never should've posted the entire screenshot really, it's just confused the point.

I would, however, be interested to know if you have read the recruitment document. Would be interesting to hear a professional opinion on that.

Apologies to all, this is my fault for plonking a table down without explaining it's meaning.

It's not my table, it's direct from fbref which uses Statsbomb data. The argument was around whether we won with Buckley in the team. All that table is showing is that we have a positive goal difference in the time that he has played. 

Whilst JB has been on the pitch we have scored 15 and conceded 10 in 2020/21. But, as the table shows, the vast majority of our players have a net positive (because we had a positive goal difference across the season). JBs ratio is 10th best in the squad. 

That table DOESN'T SHOW how good players are. It doesn't show Armstrong is poor for the team whilst JRC is brilliant.

Sometimes people do infer that, but I can't have it. As has been said before, football is a chaotic, low-margin game with 22 players on the pitch. To suggest that the presence of one player makes a telling difference is (for the most part) debatable. Even a player as influential as Dack or Travis. This was one of the problems with Mowbray's arguments last year about them making coming back and making a huge difference.

Don't want to add more fuel to the fire necessarily and not trying to fool Sparks' eyes, if you think Buckley isn't up to it, that's fine.

But Buckley is statistically a net positive to the side. Still a small sample in terms of minutes but to say we lose every time he starts is a bit far.

I genuinely do rate him FWIW. I see the same physical flaws as we all do but technically I think he has it. Jason Wilcox also name-checked him in our interview as Rovers' best youth product. So that'll do for me too.

7 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Personally my opinion is that he is talented but so inconsistent and nowhere near productive enough.

Regarding your logic though, that would imply that recruitment in football is a perfect science. Surely Brereton is worth 7m if we paid that? The links to Sheffield United were mere transfer tittle tattle that probably like most rumours had no truth in it, and even if they are true and he leaves, he undoubtedly has ability, but it wouldnt change the inconsistency and lack of productivity that have marred his Rovers career.

I don't really understand the toys being thrown out of the pram here. An agenda doesnt have to carry negative connotations and indeed the motive that I and others suspected proved true; Andy admitted soon after that he had intentions of trying to get into professional football which I believe may well alter the way that he analyses things, even subconsciously because it would be counterproductive to be too publically critical of anyone within football. That's not a negative reaction.

The line in bold seems needlessly patronising. People see data as important to varying degrees, and those who find using it lots to be flawed doesnt mean that those people are ignorant to its uses. I feel like I understand it but also that so much of it is flawed, both the actual data and the way that it is used. For example, making such an in-depth document, I think that there will always be an element of trying to justify the data and what you perceive that it is showing, especially when you are so passionate about it, which is risky in itself. The conclusion that there were performance based positives for example, I did not see them having watched all of the games last season and things like possession, expected goals (a particularly controversial metric) etc, I like to take a step back and think, does ranking high in such things warrant being considered as a performance based positive, and I would personally question that. 

Andy has come on here and kindly explained plenty behind the background of making the document, he seemingly knows as well as any that people will have various questions and indeed believe in the data to varying degrees, something which he acknowledges.

I absolutely agree that bias will always exist within data. But the job of a good analyst is to provide insights taking into account that knowledge of bias. Identifying a team's strengths and weaknesses is another thing that needs to be done via visual analysis as well as data, and by watching all 46 games I think I am well placed to be able to provide both. It is interesting that trying to work for a professional football club could be considered a bias, I think there may be something in that tbf. But I am happy with, and stand by, the conclusions reached in what I wrote.

Some metrics are completely dependent on the capture of the data, and the person tagging them. Wyscout data is known to not be the gold standard, Opta and Statsbomb are ahead, but on a large enough sample size differences are found to be fairly negligible. Ranking considerably higher in almost every attacking metric and defensive metric than either of the previous two seasons is interesting if nothing else, the point is that it hasn't led to better results so there is clearly a problem there. I came up with 5 or 6 things that I thought could be improved and then attempted to do that with some players. The fact is that a percentage of it will be the manager and coaching staff, which is way beyond my remit.

As for xG, I understand that it's controversial. And some models are better than others, again Wyscout's isn't the best out there. But if you said that you created more/better chances than your opponents on most occasions then you would take that every time. And that's all I am saying. Last season that wasn't the case, yet the results were slightly better. However, in this season it hasn't been. Again, this suggests a problem but not necessarily a problem that says "we're a terrible football team". Dysfunctional perhaps. Badly coached? Individual performances/errors making a difference?

Either way, this type of analysis and recruitment is what goes on at the top of the game. The fact that more and more clubs are hiring people to do this job means that they see some value in it. It may be too much, it's not for me to say.

16 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

I lost interest in anything this guy had to say when he defended Mowbray recently by claiming under nearly every metric we had progressed. Clearly after a job with the Club or already involved with the Club in some way on this nonsensical analytics lark.

I had cause to Google Glynn Chamberlain at the weekend who is our head of European scouting and I found it very refreshing that he bucked this trend somewhat by having written in an article on scouting that nothing beat casting an experienced eye over a player.

Also it might be just me, but I can't see the use of analytics tools if they can't incorporate whether or not a players wage demands. I'm sure you can spend a few hours compiling a list of the top ten players with the most passes in a certain part of the pitch blah blah but if their financial demands are out of your league then it's a complete waste of time.

Stats don't tell you if a player has heart or whether they fancy a freezing Tuesday night in February away at Barnsley etc either.

Absolutely and that is why, as again stated in the document, there are traditional scouting analysis for every player recommended. Also, if you have any time, watch the recent Stats Show videos on modern recruitment. An agreement that the visual, video and data analysis has to be in sync. In fact, I weighted all of my work towards visual scouting. It takes a long time to get to know these players and know that they are the right character for your club. God knows we need some character bringing in.

Something tells me that this won't hit the same tone as the prevailing discussion but...

No matter where on the in-out spectrum you sit hopefully there is enough in there to provoke reasoned debate.

Might want to forward to 20mins in if you aren't interested in general performance metrics discussion and want to just see the pure Rovers based stuff.

https://youtu.be/irZD0MUQ6DU

1 hour ago, Exiled_Rover said:

I wish our other strikers were allowed to play centrally.

He's ruined Brereton an Gallagher by shoving them out wide. 

The fact he'd rather play Dolan / Buckley / Elliot as a false 9 then either of our 6'+ strikers says it all about Mowbray.

What is it that you think it says exactly? That he hasn't a clue what he's doing?

First time post.

I don't understand this. I think we should probably celebrate a person getting a promotion and more money for his family. Good for him.

There are concerns for the club, from the poor results to the continued anonymity of our owners and the lack of transparency in future planning. But I don't think we need to attribute every single thing that happens to Mowbray, Venus & Waggott.