Form and Stats

[allani]

20 minutes ago, Zatman said:

That's a very strange stat to judge. Can only play what's scheduled in the fixtures

It is no more strange than saying that we have 3 points more than we had after 7 games last season.  If we played the 7 worse teams last year and the 7 best teams this year - then being 3 points worse off would suggest that we hadn't started well - whereas actually we'd probably all be quite happy that we'd taken points off our main rivals.  Similarly if we had played the top 7 last season and the bottom 7 this year then being 3 points worse off could probably be regarded as a disaster.

At the beginning of the season we were told that it was the best start to a season since 1968 (I think) because we had won 3 matches.  But those 3 matches were against teams predicted to finish 40th, 41st and 90th in the English league (or thereabouts).  To be honest failing to win any of them should have been regarded as a major shock.  I would say that actually a win and 2 draws against the teams expected to finish 1st, 5th and 7th is a hell of a lot "better".  Context is key.

[villa89]

It's all about Expected Goals or 'xG' these days. What's the 'Xg' table? That's what everyone wants to know.

[allani]

6 minutes ago, villa89 said:

It's all about Expected Goals or 'xG' these days. What's the 'Xg' table? That's what everyone wants to know.

I'm not sure many of us have any expected goals left for Villa.  Other than disappointment....

[allani]

Last night's win is very welcome.  Hopefully, if nothing else it might highlight that there is room for 2 strikers in the starting XI.  The first goal is (in my opinion) how we will get the best success this year.  Abraham and Kodjia through the middle should cause panic in most Championship defences and they should be capable of scoring 40-50 goals between them in a season if they stay fit.  I personally think that the chances of scoring 40-50 goals drops significantly if JK is pushed onto the wing.  It also gives us two targets in the box for any crosses from the wing (rather than 1 as it has been for a while).  Bruce said he'd been wanting to play 2 up top for a while so I hope that he gives this a proper crack.

Anyway, as an update on the stats: last night's result puts our season projection up to 74 points (7th place based on last year's final table).  Which is not bad - although it should be noted that the average league position of teams we have played so far is 14th.  On 1/2 season form (23 matches) our form is a little worse - 68 points projected / 11th place.  However, our full season form (last 46 matches) is more encouraging - 80 points / 5th place.  If you take Bruce's full tenure of 79 matches then our season projection is 73 points / 7th or 8th depending on goal difference.

Based on the comparison of matches played against opposition in the same league place last season - last night also helps (we lost the home game against the team that finished in 15th place last season) and so we are only 6 points down on that comparison.  Which would put us exactly on the cusp of the play-offs - either 6th/7th depending on goal difference.

The weekend match against Sheff Wed will be interesting in terms of: our half season form (we lost our 23rd last match), our full season form (we won our 46th last match).  Wednesday are also likely to be top half and our record this season against teams currently in the top half of the table is P3, W1, D1, L1.  Hopefully Bruce sticks with the more attacking formation (although hopefully he gets the two centre midfielders to play a little less deep) and plays for the win - as we definitely drew too many home matches against our promotion rivals / teams in top half last season.

[Hornso]

On 19/09/2018 at 01:25, villa89 said:

It's all about Expected Goals or 'xG' these days. What's the 'Xg' table? That's what everyone wants to know.

We're 17th 

[briny_ear]

I think the problem is (a) you set up a number of straw men and then used rather questionable stats to knock them down; (b) it looks like you started out with a point to prove then used stats to “prove” it.

 Neither of these is really a legitimate use of statistics.

 

[Villarocker]

The stats are we are 7th in the league and only 5 points off the top. If we can be so disappointed and be where we are, surely when we get better (we must do, right?) we will start to see that gap close and that can only have us close to automatic promotion? 

[villa89]

7 hours ago, Hornso said:

We're 17th 

Bruce out!

[cyrusr]

9 hours ago, Hornso said:

We're 17th 

Why are SHA up in 6th?! Even by their standards they are having a pretty poor start to the season I thought? How do they work out the xG? 

[Hornso]

1 hour ago, cyrusr said:

Why are SHA up in 6th?! Even by their standards they are having a pretty poor start to the season I thought? How do they work out the xG? 

Pretty sure it’s based on probability of scoring each chance. I think they’ve been creating decent opportunities but their strikers couldn’t hit a donkey ass with a banjo.

[allani]

We are now 13 matches into the season (including cup games) and Bruce said that we shouldn't judge the team until we'd played 12-15 matches as we needed time to rebuild.  So here is a view on our latest form:

This Season:

P13 W4 D5 L3.  If converted to Points this gives us 17 points from 13 matches.  A projection (based on continuing on the same form) of 60 points (somewhere between 12th and 14th position based on last season's final points table).

Last Half Season

P23 W9 D7 L6.  If converted to points then this would be 35 points from 23 matches.  A projection of 70 points for a full season (good enough for 9th place last season).

Last Full Season

P46 W22 D12 L12.  Which would give us 78 points (5th place).

Two ways of looking at this:

(1) Bruce is right and we need more time and our form will improve.

(2) Our form is getting worse as time passes and we are on a downward trajectory.

The difference in form across those three measurement periods has a lot to do with the spell between Boro away and Wolves home (inclusive) when we played 13 matches, won 10, drew 1 and lost 2.  We've not had anything like that run since.  The trouble is that, much like last season, we are now becoming increasingly reliant on having an incredible spell like that in order to get us back into promotion contention.  I can't see any signs of that happening - although to be fair last season we went into that run on the back of some pretty average results (P5 W0 D3 L2) so there were no really signs last season either.

[Mark Albrighton]

We’ve played 12 games mate, 10 in the league, 2 in the cup.

If we win our next 2 games (yeah, I know), that would put us on 20 points after 12 league games which would actually be 1 point better off than we were after the first 12 games of last season.

Obviously that doesn’t take into account the quality of opposition we’ve played/yet to play.

Mind you, to try and be objective. We’ve played 5 of the current top 10 teams and 5 current bottom half teams, so it’s possible a couple of the opposition sides we’ve faced will prove to be up there come the end of the season.

I promise I didn’t intend for that post to sound positive, so apologies if it did.

[sne]

Form table before today's games.

Quote

1		Sheff Wed	6	3	2	1	10:8	2	11	W
2		Sheffield Utd.	5	3	1	1	10:4	6	10
3		West Brom	5	3	1	1	9:5	4	10	W
4		Derby	5	3	1	1	7:3	4	10	W
5		QPR	5	3	1	1	5:2	3	10	L
6		Bristol City	6	3	1	2	9:7	2	10	W
7		Norwich	5	3	1	1	5:5	0	10
8		Leeds	6	2	3	1	9:4	5	9
9		Wigan	5	3	0	2	4:4	0	9
10		Middlesbrough	5	2	2	1	3:1	2	8
11		Nottm Forest	5	2	2	1	6:5	1	8
12		Blackburn	5	2	2	1	6:7	-1	8
13		Reading	5	2	1	2	9:7	2	7
14		Stoke City	5	2	1	2	8:7	1	7	L
15		Birmingham	5	1	4	0	5:4	1	7
16		Brentford	5	2	1	2	6:6	0	7
17		Aston Villa	6	1	3	2	7:9	-2	6
18		Rotherham	5	2	0	3	2:4	-2	6
19		Swansea	5	1	2	2	2:3	-1	5
20		Ipswich	5	0	3	2	3:6	-3	3	L
21		Hull City	5	1	0	4	4:9	-5	3
22		Bolton	5	0	2	3	3:9	-6	2
23		Millwall	5	0	1	4	2:8	-6	1
24		Preston NE	5	0	1	4	6:13	-7	1

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/championship/formtabelle/wettbewerb/GB2

[villan-scott]

Next 2 games are against the current bottom 2 in the table. Chances of 6 points... very very slim?

[mykeyb]

Currently 15th

[sne]

18 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

Currently 15th

So more thereabouts than there at the moment?

[jackbauer24]

Like for like is what I'm looking at this season. Top promoted replaced by last relegated (1st vs 22nd) and so on.

Therefore;

17/18                vs            18/19

Hull 3-1 (A) = +2pts = Hull 0-0 (A) UP TWO

Wigan¹ 3-2 (H) = 0pts = Barnsley 3-1 (H) UP TWO

Ipswich 1-1 (A) = -2pts = Ipswich 4-0 (A) LEVEL

Brentford 2-2 (H) = 0pts = Brentford 0-0 (H) LEVEL

Reading 1-1 (H) = -2pts = Reading 3-0 (H) DOWN TWO

Sheff Utd 1-4 (A) = -3pts = Sheff Utd 1-0 (A) DOWN FIVE

Blackburn² 1-1 (A) = -2pts = Burton 4-0 (A) DOWN SEVEN

Rotherham³ 2-0 (H) = 0pts = Sunderland 2-1 (H) DOWN SEVEN

Sheff Wed 1-2 (H) = 0pts = Sheff Weds 1-2 (H) DOWN SEVEN

Bristol City 1-1 (A) = 0pts = Bristol City 1-1 (A) DOWN SEVEN

Not going well is it... And we can't make up points versus Preston as we won their last season. We've improved on ONE result from last season, maintained status quo against five teams and had four poorer results.

Another reason to shout BRUCE OUT.

[flashingqwerty]

On 16/09/2018 at 12:16, Morley_crosses_to_Withe said:

What a pointless thread. If you’d have done the same at this point last season, you’d have likely concluded the same, but we finished 4th.

Now this certainly isn’t a defence of Bruce, but a comment on how pointless this kind of stat manipulation is to determine, we’ll, anything really. 

Nope, perform the same analysis on the previous season and the projection is 6th - so we did slightly better.

[Vive_La_Villa]

On 29/09/2018 at 16:40, jackbauer24 said:

Like for like is what I'm looking at this season. Top promoted replaced by last relegated (1st vs 22nd) and so on.

Therefore;

17/18                vs            18/19

Hull 3-1 (A) = +2pts = Hull 0-0 (A) UP TWO

Wigan¹ 3-2 (H) = 0pts = Barnsley 3-1 (H) UP TWO

Ipswich 1-1 (A) = -2pts = Ipswich 4-0 (A) LEVEL

Brentford 2-2 (H) = 0pts = Brentford 0-0 (H) LEVEL

Reading 1-1 (H) = -2pts = Reading 3-0 (H) DOWN TWO

Sheff Utd 1-4 (A) = -3pts = Sheff Utd 1-0 (A) DOWN FIVE

Blackburn² 1-1 (A) = -2pts = Burton 4-0 (A) DOWN SEVEN

Rotherham³ 2-0 (H) = 0pts = Sunderland 2-1 (H) DOWN SEVEN

Sheff Wed 1-2 (H) = 0pts = Sheff Weds 1-2 (H) DOWN SEVEN

Bristol City 1-1 (A) = 0pts = Bristol City 1-1 (A) DOWN SEVEN

Not going well is it... And we can't make up points versus Preston as we won their last season. We've improved on ONE result from last season, maintained status quo against five teams and had four poorer results.

Another reason to shout BRUCE OUT.

Win the next 2 and we’re down 1. I also think Wigan and Blackburn are better then the relegated teams. 

But I still agree with BRUCE OUT!!!

[MarkLillis]

On 29/09/2018 at 16:40, jackbauer24 said:

 

 

Not going well is it... And we can't make up points versus Preston as we won their last season. We've improved on ONE result from last season, maintained status quo against five teams and had four poorer results.

Another reason to shout BRUCE OUT.

Last season we drew at home to Preston and lost to Millwall.

However slim the possibility is, if we win the next two we pick 5 points versus last year.