Rousseau

Beat me to it! I welcome the addition of more stats, as I think it helps generate debate; xG in particular looks quite informative. Fascinating how it predicted Leicester's run.

Yes, corners, throw-ins, free-kicks in and around the box are, but lumping it into the box from the half-way line is unnecessary and just the sign of a team that can't play. However, like I said, we need to be able to deal with it. I agree our performances from set-pieces has been frustrating. Hopefully we can now deal with them and use them better ourselves.

Efe. For the Lolz. There are a few first-team regulars at Aberdeen and Hearts that could be worth a punt on; as squad players.

This is very pleasing: [tweet]846829291446976512[/tweet] Embarrassingly, the set-piece is the only way -- outside the odd counter -- teams play in Scotland. A foul anywhere near the half-way line and the first thought is to lump it into the box. It's not how the game should be played, but if it is we need to be able to deal with it.

Just got the email -- McKay isn't included in YPOTY list, so it has to be Hyndman, surely?

It is a tad early, but out of interest, who would be everyone's Player and Young Player of the Year? For me, Clint Hill has been one of the best performers. Does McKay still count as a Young Player? Hyndman also deserves special mention -- incredible to think he only arrived in January!

I always believe that a National side should be composed mainly of players from the best team in the country. As much as it pains me to admit, they are the best at the moment. However, Scotland doesn't have a manager capable of using them. Celtic play good football, their players know their roles; Strachan has them playing completely different football, where they don't seem to know what they're doing. It's the out-dated idea that you only need to get a group of good blokes on the pitch and let them do their thing. It gives me the boak, but having a core of Celtic players in the Scotland team is a good thing -- at least until we can produce the next core. All we need is a Manager capable of using them properly.

The defensive side of the game is relatively under-developed. I only really recall Interceptions -- which would take your example into account, but is not quite right -- Blocked Shots, Clearances, Offsides Won and Tackles. Clearly, a team that makes the most tackles is not the best defensive side -- usually it's the bottom-dwellers because they have to make more tackles. Defensive stats are tricky because defending is more about the team unit rather than individual actions, with positioning key among them. There is Shots Conceded, but that's more of a team stat too. Again, I never said stats were the be-all and end-all, simply a useful tool that helps to broaden our understanding of the game.

You keep taking stats in isolation. Yes, the stat will show the player made a pass; great. But the stats will also show, through the historical data, what you see with your eye in one instance: the stats will show that he's not very productive with his passes if he keeps making the wrong decisions, for his pass completion will be down, and crucially, he'll have fewer assists. It's not gospel; it never has been. It is simply a tool to broaden our understanding.

Ha! Theoretically, if Sebo and McCoist had exactly the same chance their xG would be the same, yes. However, like I said, this stat is taking the average historical probability; it's not taken in isolation. Firstly, McCoist will have more shots, from better positioning; whereas Sebo would have fewer shots, in worse positions. Then their xG would be compared to their actual non-penalty goals, probably -- for I do not have the data -- showing that McCoist would have done better than his xG, Sebo worse. xG would show that McCoist was a better finisher than Sebo. Similarly, Messi tends to out-perform his xG whereas a defender will under-perform. You're not the first to bring up finishing skill. xG has to be used in context. I was simply using the team xG to show that we created a good few chances, better than average for us, and took more chances than we usually do. Football is all about opinions; that will never change. But for me, opinions need to be based on evidence. On the one hand you have guys like Sutton who blow hot air based on nothing but their own ego, then you have guys like Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher who similarly have strong opinions but they are based on fact; the MNF guys always use a variety of stats to defend and back up their opinion. That's the way it should be done.

I've got it on. Brutal. Incidentally, Crooks looks to be playing in a deeper role. I think he could still do a job for us there -- especially with someone beside him as we now seem to be doing.

That's the point: it is a very subjective element of the game. The xG stat aims to be as objective as possible, taking into account objective historical data. Some of the data that is used to determine xG is: No one is suggesting it's perfect. The elite sides all take into account data analysis because it cuts out as much of the subjectivity as possible, helping them make better decisions. It's certainly not perfect, but it is a useful tool. Surely you would trust a mathematical/scientific model which takes into account the most objective data over someone's opinion? The irony is that everyone uses xG in their opinions after every game when they say, “We created the best chances in the game, but I just didn’t think we got the result that we deserved.” That is xG. That difference is that the above is a subjective judgement, whereas the xG stat takes into account objective data.

Yes, exactly. It's just another stat. I think it does a good job of showing how well a team does in creating chances in a game. It's always been very subjective when fans discuss it after games.

The graph does show we created 11 chances, but most were very difficult chances that we were unlikely to score -- the chances of a long range shot or shots from tight angles etc. are very small. Over the course of the game -- averaging it out -- we were expected (xG) to score 3; clearly we did better than that -- which is better than we've done all season.

I just put a request in to @11tegen11 (11tegen11.net) on Twitter. I asked last week, but he'd only got round to doing it. I think he can do them quite quickly -- some requests were fulfilled the same day. I don't know how hard it is to get the Scottish data, though -- I can never find any!

Incidentally, football shows/games in the American MLS now provide audiences with the xG to show many goals teams should score depending on the chances created. We may see it more often over here soon too.

ExpG or xG stands for Expected Goals. It measures how many goals an average team would have scored with the amount and quality of shots created. Each goal scoring attempt is assigned a number based on the chance that this attempt produces a goal. It just shows how many goals a team should score for the quality of the chances they've created. Each time the line (blue, from left to right) jumps up indicates where/when we created a chance. Some chances were missed, others taken; some were better quality chances than others. The 3.09 suggests we would've been expected to score 3 goals over the game. Clearly we did better than that last weekend. Generally under MW we've been averaging around 2 per game, but we've really struggled to take our chances so have struggled to score more than 1.

And this is the xG, which shows we consistently created good chances and tended to take the big ones -- and look how little Hamilton did! Perhaps showing how well we closed them down?

Finally got the pass map for the Hamilton game. The double-pivot is quite striking, with many connections between them and the back-four; Tavernier has a lot of the ball; Hyndman and McKay are narrow, with the width coming from Tavernier and Wallace; and there looks to be a lot of movement from the front-two -- which does look like a front-two, not Miller as No.10, although he drifted about. We'd maybe hope to see more connections into the front four players in future -- especially from Toral and Holt.

No, that's unacceptable. That's the figure we should be using to criticise the teams performance thus far.

33 points is misleading. Although we are certainly under-performing, they are having an exceptional season. Walter Smiths (2nd spell) best points tally was 93 points, but included 3 draws and 5 defeats. They would need to lose 5 and draw 1 in their remaining 9 games to come up short of that.

I remember him losing the ball early, but didn't notice PC's orders; Interesting. It might cut down on Tavernier's mistakes if he can't dally.

I'm not too bothered by BF. He has the knowledge for the role, which is not a coach. It would probably help him if he did want to become a (better) coach. As for going behind the manager's back: PLG was so weak he allowed it; PC does not seem like he would take any sh***. There is an argument against the appointment, but I'm not too concerned; there are far worse appointments. F*** it! * Ohh Barry Barry... *

It's so nice to be able to take about new things in our tactical approach. MW was a breath of fresh air last season, but it became too idealistic, inflexible and predictable. I hope we can now talk about little tweaks each week instead of the 'same old same old'.