Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. BFS staff held a three day long year-end meeting, which included Christmas dinner featuring possibly the best roast beast ever cooked plus a healthy dose of the Boxing Day Matches. Maybe the results could have been a bit better (both Aston Villa and Newcastle lost), but then we realized that 1) we had the day off, 2) we were hanging out with family, 3) there was leftover ham, turkey and roast beef so we really had no reason to complain.
To the Data
The meeting was not all fun and games. It just seemed that way. We took some "deep dives" into some web sites to research some questions that have been on our minds. First, you will recall a few weeks ago that Dennis took issue with the NBC commentators waxing poetic about the passing skills of Aston Villa's Carlos Sanchez; Dennis contended that it was not a particularly strong aspect of his (Sanchez, not Dennis) game. To the data.
According to stats kept by WhoScored.com, Sanchez completes 84.9% of his passes. That sounds good except when you find out he's not even in the top third in the EPL - he ranks 139th of 477 players. If we exclude players who have fewer appearances than the EPL average, Sanchez ranks 76 out of 288, or just outside the top quartile. So while Sanchez isn't perhaps as bad a passer as Dennis thought, he certainly isn't anywhere near the top of the league and the announcers might want to save their superlatives for someone like Arsenal's Mathieu Flamini, who leads the league at 91.7%. Everyone who guessed Flamini as the top percentage passer raise your hands. That's what I thought. Mind you we're not saying this defines the best passer. We might argue that assists or key passes per game might be the more relevant statistic; Chelsea's Cesc
During one of the Boxing Day matches, Dennis professed some doubt about the home field advantage in the EPL. Never having looked at the issue in detail, I was agnostic. To the data.
Turns out it's real and it's spectacular. At least based on what we found for the EPL 2013-2014 season. Our analysis is based on the difference in points earned at home vs points earned on the road. On average, teams earned about 58% of their points at home and 42% on the road - or a 16% increase. In absolute terms, the home field advantage works out to about 4.2 points per year if you compare the point differential between points earned at home and half of a team's total points (i.e. West Ham had 40 points - 24 at home, 16 on the road - and if there was no home field advantage we would have expected them to get 20 points at home and on the road so they are a plus 4). On a per game basis, that's about 0.22 points per home game. Taking the per game improvement as a percentage of expected home points (half of total points), we get an average improvement of 17% for the league (i.e. West Ham earned 4 additional points at home from the expected 20, so they were 20% better than expected at home). That's our position for the moment - home field advantage improves points earned by 16-17%. Stay tuned for additional research.
This Just In
Jose Mourinho is complaining about the refs. Granted the BFS called on Fabregas was probably incorrect but I hope he gets fined for this one as he made it more personal about the referee. And it's not like others haven't had issues with referees. Aston Villa had their fourth player this season shown a straight red on Sunday and only one was deserved, plus they were denied a stone cold penalty shot on Friday, but Paul Lambert has handled it much more diplomatically. Highlights from Mourinho's postmatch interview below.
Staying With Chester
I decided not to take the Everton job in Football Manager. I'm already falling behind real time and taking the reins at Everton would mean detailed reviews of coaching staff, scouts, and players, learning the positions and tactics that work best with the given personal, and figuring out what to do in the upcoming transfer window. So from a real world perspective, you don't have time for a video game job change - #firstworldproblems. Took an easy 3-1 home win against Blackburn but stumbled in a 1-1 away draw vs last place Huddersfield (conceded a PK in the 80th minute); still sitting in third. No regrets but I confess that I did save a copy of the game at the point of the Everton offer to maybe some day play out my alternate video game future.
Pardew Set to Depart
By the time you read this, Alan Pardew will likely be at the helm for Crystal Palace. A curious move in some respects, leaving a relatively secure club for one that is in a serious relegation struggle. And don't forget Tony Pulis left CP at the beginning of the season essentially because ownership wasn't willing to spend money so it's not like Pardew is going to see a major change there. A key factor - Pardew may be tired of the
Pardew may also feel like he has chance to be a hero by saving Palace from relegation. Maybe he's just trying to win Rebecca Lowe's heart. Whatever the case, the zoo-like atmosphere at Newcastle will continue, this time in the guise of trying to find a permanent replacement. Many are calling it a win-win situation - Pardew leaves on his own terms and Newcastle is rid of him. Maybe, but it could be lose-lose - Pardew doesn't save Crystal Palace from relegation and when Newcastle looks at those interested in taking the position they find out how far their stock has fallen under Mike Ashley's regime.
The Twelve Days of EPL
Three games through the four game holiday marathon. After Thursday's matches, we'll post an evaluation of how teams of interest fared during this period. We'll be using the same scale as last year - reposted here so you can start to make your own assessments.
 | From Paul McCartney - "Simply having a wonderful Christmastime" |
| Santa obviously read your list very carefully |
| Nice enough but you didn't get the Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time you really wanted |
| Ties are a nice gift but how many do you really need? |
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| You may have been naughtier than you realized |
New Year's line up has Stoke at Man United at 7:45 and Tottenham hosting Chelsea at 12:30. Last I heard, there is no featured 10 am match, as NBCSN will try an experiment with live look-ins on each of the eight matches in progress. I'll be taking in Newcastle v Burnley from St. James' Park on ExtraTime and expect that Dennis will be doing the same with the Aston Villa v Crystal Palace match. Southampton vs Arsenal is another tasty 10 am match up. Will probably dvr the experiment to see how it played out.
Happy New Year to all.
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