Goal Difference!

[Snowball]

You obviously have reading difficulties. I can recommend a remedial teacher.

Once again personal insults keep it up, seems to be your standard.

One minor tease compared to you actually lying about me. No contest.

You TOTALLY misrepresented me. I have been in Elwood's from Day One (need me to quote the posts?) when 80% were (as usual) saying he was gash.

And I have been extolling the virtues of Long AND Hunt, posting Hunt's very good goal-rate
and suggesting they should be our front two in a 442.

[Snowball]

Once again personal insults keep it up, seems to be your standard.

And what do you do? Let's take a look.

We have a positive result after another positive result, and you enter a positive thread. To say what?

Post One. Sarcasm

No sh!t, top teams have better goal difference than lower teams, never would have thought that would be the case.

Post Two. Misrepresentation

Once again you are happy to take one day/game as evidence of something, prior to today we did not have the 3rd best, but then we won by a clear 3, and others that we were on a par with did not play.

Post Three. Downright Lying

The same Leigertwood you said should eff off back to QPR, of course we have a chance of getting into the top 6, has been the same all season almost. Couple of times that a win would have done it.

As for 4-4-2 and Long Hunt, through the months you have suggested most things on here, I guess that at some point you would be proven to be right, as it seems so important to you.







You appear to simply be a miserable sod spoiling for trouble

[Millsy]

Interesting stat about the goal difference, Snowball, thanks.

Let's hope it mean something.

[Snowball]

Interesting stat about the goal difference, Snowball, thanks.

Let's hope it mean something.

Yer welcome, 2WW. The correlation between GD and final position is very strong indeed

Last season was -.91... 91% predictive, if you like.

1 +55 102 Newcastle
2 +41 091
3 +25 079
4 +19 076
5 +16 076
6 +16 070

7 +3 069 Very small anomaly
8 +7 065
9 +5 063
10 -9 063 First real anomaly
11 +8 062 small anomaly
12 +1 60

13 -07 57
14 -10 56
15 -11 56
16 -07 54 very small anomaly
17 -15 54
18 -16 54
19 -17 54
20 -22 52
21 -03 49 anomaly
22 -20 47
23 -25 41
24 -34 34

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

point 3 there is a quoted post from you saying he should feck off to qpr, sorry if i took that to mean you had`said it, tho did not see you point out it had been altered.

[Snowball]

point 3 there is a quoted post from you saying he should feck off to qpr, sorry if i took that to mean you had`said it, tho did not see you point out it had been altered.

When? Where?

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

couple of weeks ago, not sure which thread, but was one you posted tons on, fecked if going back to look.

[Snowball]

couple of weeks ago, not sure which thread, but was one you posted tons on, fecked if going back to look.

OK, but I didn't say it.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

in which case I apologise, silly games on HNA? giving wrong impression, ok on AE but a tad annoying on The Team

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

It would be interesting* to see if our goal difference during the dark days of our season this time last year, we had a goal difference that suggested our position was possibly a false one.

Overall it makes a lot of sense in that a team that tends to win comfortably, but slip to narrow defeats, is probably a better team than one that scrapes wins but gets well beaten when they lose, even if both have a similar amount of points. You would back the former to pick up more points in the second half of the season than the latter.


* but not interesting enough to make me be arsed to check, clearly.

[Hemenbruff Royal]

Reading vs Swansea play off final

QPR and Swansea to go up.

Reading v Leeds in the play off final.

[Snowball]

in which case I apologise, silly games on HNA? giving wrong impression, ok on AE but a tad annoying on The Team

No probs, Harps.

[Snowball]

It would be interesting* to see if our goal difference during the dark days of our season this time last year, we had a goal difference that suggested our position was possibly a false one.

Overall it makes a lot of sense in that a team that tends to win comfortably, but slip to narrow defeats, is probably a better team than one that scrapes wins but gets well beaten when they lose, even if both have a similar amount of points. You would back the former to pick up more points in the second half of the season than the latter.


* but not interesting enough to make me be arsed to check, clearly.

We had a GD of MINUS 10 when Rodgers went.

That would have finished around -25 for the season (if we had not improved)

21 P 21 -10 21 Reading
22 P 21 -12 18 Sheffield Wed
23 P 20 -16 15 Plymouth
24 P 21 -11 14 Peterborough

[RobRoyal]

GD is a very good predictor of final position

No sh!t, top teams have better goal difference than lower teams, never would have thought that would be the case.

DUH. We have the third-best GD and clear of others, but are 7th.

That's a way of saying, maybe we'll end up third if we have a GD of about 22 by season's end

Or, possibly, we'll end up in 7th with the 3rd best GD.

[Snowball]

Or, possibly, we'll end up in 7th with the 3rd best GD.

If we finish the season with the 3rd best GD we'll finish 3rd or 4th, probably 3rd

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Shouldn't we be there now then, and if not why not? Looking at 2002/3 thankfully the theory was well out. If you added probably then it would make more sense.

[Snowball]

Shouldn't we be there now then, and if not why not? Looking at 2002/3 thankfully the theory was well out. If you added probably then it would make more sense.

The longer a season goes the more clear-cut GD becomes.
The shorter the season has been the more effect a couple of wins (or a string of draws has)

We aren't third now because

(a) we had 5 consecutive draws when we could have had, with a touch more luck, five wins.

(b) we lost at Bristol 1-0, letting in a poor goal and failing to convert chances

(c) we blew our opening game 1-2 when we should have won comfortably

We could add in the blown Forest game, the disaster at Boro (IMO had we not let in a 24s goal we'd've got a result)...


Against that maybe we got lucky v Norwich, and we could've lost at Leicester.

[Mr Angry]

Shouldn't we be there now then, and if not why not? Looking at 2002/3 thankfully the theory was well out. If you added probably then it would make more sense.

The longer a season goes the more clear-cut GD becomes.
The shorter the season has been the more effect a couple of wins (or a string of draws has)

We aren't third now because

(a) we had 5 consecutive draws when we could have had, with a touch more luck, five wins.

(b) we lost at Bristol 1-0, letting in a poor goal and failing to convert chances

(c) we blew our opening game 1-2 when we should have won comfortably

We could add in the blown Forest game, the disaster at Boro (IMO had we not let in a 24s goal we'd've got a result)...


Against that maybe we got lucky v Norwich, and we could've lost at Leicester.

But thats football isn't it? Its all about ifs, buts and maybes. Its screamingly obvious that, GENERALLY, teams that are towards the top of a table have better GD's than teams that are lower down the table. (I say generally because, theoretically at least, you could have a team that nick 1-0 wins, interspersed with the odd 5 or 6-0 defeat, which would mean that though toward the top of the table, they have a poor GD).

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Or, possibly, we'll end up in 7th with the 3rd best GD.

If we finish the season with the 3rd best GD we'll finish 3rd or 4th, probably 3rd

although I agree with your overall reasoning, I think this is where you take the stats a little too far. I'm sure if you compiled averages over all the league table since the year dot, then while team with the third highest goal difference probably would be most likely to finish third as well, there would most likely be a pretty wide standard deviation as well.

Yes, for the last two years, the team with the third highest goal difference did finish third, but of the previous nine 3rd best teams, only two did.

Statistics are great, but you really need to know how to use them, or you are liable to draw worthless conclusions from them.

[Snowball]

But thats football isn't it? Its all about ifs, buts and maybes. Its screamingly obvious that, GENERALLY, teams that are towards the top of a table have better GD's than teams that are lower down the table. (I say generally because, theoretically at least, you could have a team that nick 1-0 wins, interspersed with the odd 5 or 6-0 defeat, which would mean that though toward the top of the table, they have a poor GD).

Actually, it's easy to say screamingly obvious.

But we could say

"The top teams score the most goals." (Therefore the "FOR" column is a good predictor)

That is in fact NOT true



"The top teams have the best defences" (Therefore the "AGAINST" column is a good predictor)


That is in fact NOT true




GD is a very very strong indicator of the actual quality (relative quality) of sides, and "GD will out".

Sure IN THEORY we could have a weird side that wins 6 games 1-0 and then loses 6-0, is top of the league with a GD of zero. It just doesn't happen. That's another reason why it takes a season to show the GD effect. Millwall's freak 1-6 obviously damaged their GD, but over 46 games that effect will be attenuated.


Or a club could have two sendings-off and get tonked... but over a season GD is a great predictor.