relevant stats

[nose]

often when people post stats to try and prove a point i often feel obliged, along with a few others, to indicate why the stat is infact statistically irelevant, even though it may be of interest.

I have now spotted a stat of my own regarding how little the manager understands the balance of the team or the use of substitutes.

V blackpool (a), petric withdrawn, within a short time they take the lead
V wigan (h) Petric withdrawn, within minutes wigan equalise
V Man utd HT Baird withdrawn, at 1 0 down, within 15 or so minutes we were 4 0 down.

In each case with the games all in the balance the manager makes a massive incorrect call and we are punished. no wonder the team is so demoralised. baird was doing quite well protecting the back 4 and sidwell barely did anything but give man utd the ball (maybe he always wanted to play in red!) surely if you are gonna make a change you take off a player who is really killing you. Ruiz and or berba  could have also gone at HT neither was worth their pay packet.

i hate the idea of the championship, but i can see no alternative with jol in charge.

[Enter the Frei]

Baird was useless today and deserved to be subbed. I don't always get Jol's substitutions but I think we've still scored the joint most goals in the league from substitutes.

[ffcbulgaria]

don't you hate it when in FM you confirm a substitution and before it goes through the opposition scores... and there's no way to cancel the sub!

[EJL]

So the United second half onslaught was down to the withdrawal of Baird. Is that what you're saying? Perhaps it was down to them deciding to play more aggressively and 'go for the jugular'? Not every substitution decides the fate of a game.

For the record, Baird was dreadful in the first half. His passing was all over the place and his first touch resembled someone with club foot and RLS.

[Arthur]

often when people post stats to try and prove a point i often feel obliged, along with a few others, to indicate why the stat is infact statistically irelevant, even though it may be of interest.

I have now spotted a stat of my own regarding how little the manager understands the balance of the team or the use of substitutes.

V blackpool (a), petric withdrawn, within a short time they take the lead
V wigan (h) Petric withdrawn, within minutes wigan equalise
V Man utd HT Baird withdrawn, at 1 0 down, within 15 or so minutes we were 4 0 down.

Considering that so many factors impact upon a game of football, three instances hardly amount to a significant statistic. At best, it's tenuous; if I were being unkind, I'd say it was useless.

At Blackpool, the home side took advantage of Briggs' miskicked clearance to score. Had the mistake been Duff's, I could understand your thinking. How do you determine that had Petric not been substituted, Briggs would have been less likely to make that mistake? (Of course, you conveniently overlook the fact that Richardson scored shortly after coming on - a far more tangible piece of evidence.)

Similarly, against Wigan, the pattern for the half was clear before Petric's withdrawal: Wigan were dictating the play. That they continued to do so after Rodallega's introduction indicates that the substitution had no impact, but you would be hard pushed to demonstrate that it enabled Di Santo to strike an unstoppable shot for their goal.

In purely statistical terms (as we are on the subject), in the second-half of games generally, around 55% of goals are scored and teams average two substitutions (to the nearest whole number). The fact that you can find a handful of instances where one has preceded the other is to be expected.

In your keeness to discredit Jol, you have given far more credence to your statistic than the supporting evidence merits.