BladesPod: Reading analysis & WBA preview

[Beans]

Evening all,

Blades Analytics rejoins me to talk about that excellent 4-0 win over Reading, as well as West Brom and a few other bits and bobs as well. Timestamps for those who want to hop about

- another star turn for Gary Madine (06:50)
- a return to form for John Fleck (17:10)
- Enda Stevens, Jack O'Connell Impersonator (21:55)
- preview of WBA away (32:30)
- a chat about United's accounts (42:38)
- finally, how we feel about the promotion run-in (48:50)

As always, thanks for listening and UTB!



https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/bladespod/id1309198119?mt=2

 

[Beans]

Huh. I really thought we played West Brom on Friday night. Oh well, ignore that part!

 

[Stretch]

Cheers lads, another great listen!

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

Stopped listening after the nonsense in the first couple of minutes.

Wednesday being the worst team to come to Bramall Lane all season even though they kept a clean sheet and left with a point.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

Another excellent ep, Beans Blades Analytics – these are a pleasure to listen to.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Stopped listening after the nonsense in the first couple of minutes.

Wednesday being the worst team to come to Bramall Lane all season even though they kept a clean sheet and left with a point.

Not sure how you work that one out.
We hardly created any clear cut chances against Wednesday whereas against Reading we created chances at will.
Fair enough Wednesday put everyone in defence parking the bus but it made it really difficult where as the Reading game was almost boring as a contest, it seemed so easy and reminded me of some of the matches we had a league 1, when you were just waiting for us to score. Being a good team isn’t just about attacking and looking good, defending and organisation also plays a part.
Reading looked better and attacked better than SW but their defending and organisation was shocking compared to SW.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

Not sure how you work that one out.
We hardly created any clear cut chances against Wednesday whereas against Reading we created chances at will.
Fair enough Wednesday put everyone in defence parking the bus but it made it really difficult where as the Reading game was almost boring as a contest, it seemed so easy and reminded me of some of the matches we had a league 1, when you were just waiting for us to score.

So Wednesday defended much better than Reading and stopped us from scoring.

Reading got battered and lost 4-0.

What am I missing here?

 

[highgreenintokyo]

So Wednesday defended much better than Reading and stopped us from scoring.

Reading got battered and lost 4-0.

What am I missing here?

I think you’re agreeing with each other. One guy in the podcast offered a bit of a throwaway comment but apparently controversial opinion in that he felt Wednesday were the worst team to visit the Lane this season. The reason given that he felt that the ultimate goal of football is to try to score a goal and win the game, and Wednesday showed no intent to do that.

PeterNdlovu feels that is grounds to dismiss the remaining excellent 58 minutes of what’s been a consistently excellent, informed, and informative podcast for the last year or so. Guess you can’t please everyone!

Cheers, though, as ever, BladesPod fellas. Listened to half on the way to work, and will listen to the rest on the way back. Loads of excellent Blades-related content at the minute.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

PeterNdlovu feels that is grounds to dismiss the remaining excellent 58 minutes of what’s been a consistently excellent, informed, and informative podcast for the last year or so. Guess you can’t please everyone!

He’ll be even more annoyed once he’s turned up for Friday’s game at the Hawthorns...

 

[Houston_Blade]

Had a listen today. Enjoyed it. I’m always nervous when we get bigged up though and it seems to be happening often!

 

[SwissBlade]

Excellent work again Beans and Blades Analytics great opinions and info.

I think i've listened to every one except the Deadbat one and i've loved them. Out of interest, has it been a conscious decision recently to step away from more of the analytical aspects that we heard in the earlier pods or is it a bit of natural evolution as the season has progressed?

For example, early season we had lots of predictions or stat based comments as to why we were doing well or why you thought we would do well, backed up stats.

Some of the analysis of the likes of Billy or Norwood or McG etc was excellent and you gave us lots of opinion based on what the stats meant. You tried to settle arguments with stats and really offered a great insight (i've started doing some training on sports performance analysis on the back of it)

What i notice now is the stat heavy content has been diluted. To me it seems the need for stats have been overtaken by the fact that we're sat second in the league and playing brilliantly, you don't need to back things up in the same way.

Its not a criticism in the slightest, just an observation.

Beans is definitely McGoldrick linking the topics and keeping the excitable Jay on topic if he strays too far

 

[Beans]

Excellent work again Beans and Blades Analytics great opinions and info.

I think i've listened to every one except the Deadbat one and i've loved them. Out of interest, has it been a conscious decision recently to step away from more of the analytical aspects that we heard in the earlier pods or is it a bit of natural evolution as the season has progressed?

For example, early season we had lots of predictions or stat based comments as to why we were doing well or why you thought we would do well, backed up stats.

Some of the analysis of the likes of Billy or Norwood or McG etc was excellent and you gave us lots of opinion based on what the stats meant. You tried to settle arguments with stats and really offered a great insight (i've started doing some training on sports performance analysis on the back of it)

What i notice now is the stat heavy content has been diluted. To me it seems the need for stats have been overtaken by the fact that we're sat second in the league and playing brilliantly, you don't need to back things up in the same way.

Its not a criticism in the slightest, just an observation.

Beans is definitely McGoldrick linking the topics and keeping the excitable Jay on topic if he strays too far

Cheers Swiss!

To be honest, it's not really a conscious thing. I think there was still quite a bit of data in this one (the Enda part had quite a bit, same when we talked about WBA) but I am conscious of repeating ourselves too much from previous weeks. Maybe we're getting better at just weaving them into what we're talking about without it being as obvious as "so, here are some stats" And as you say, at this point I think it's pretty widely known that we're a very good team with some excellent individuals.

I guess you could also say that things like Expected Goals / Points are becoming less useful now that we're so far into the season, as we have even more evidence of how good / bad teams are, with just a couple of outliers. xG suggests that Brentford should be closer to top 6; Derby should be closer to lower-midtable, but otherwise everyone else is right around where they "deserve" to be.

I've generally tried to use stats to either examine some conventional wisdom (eg, the idea that Norwood isn't good defensively) or to shine a light on something that I found interesting myself.

I did actually want to lob a few more things in about the Reading game but the conversation moved on a bit: namely that Reading completed almost twice as many passes as us (458 to 286) but it was all in completely non-threatening areas. Almost half our passes were in Reading's attacking third, and we outdid them there 141-107. Thought it was baffling how they just let us get the ball into the final third so so easily under such little pressure. And then in possession, probably the best example I've seen this season of how it doesn't matter how much of the ball you have if it's all along your back line.

 

[SwissBlade]

Cheers Swiss!

To be honest, it's not really a conscious thing. I think there was still quite a bit of data in this one (the Enda part had quite a bit, same when we talked about WBA) but I am conscious of repeating ourselves too much from previous weeks. Maybe we're getting better at just weaving them into what we're talking about without it being as obvious as "so, here are some stats" And as you say, at this point I think it's pretty widely known that we're a very good team with some excellent individuals.

I guess you could also say that things like Expected Goals / Points are becoming less useful now that we're so far into the season, as we have even more evidence of how good / bad teams are, with just a couple of outliers. xG suggests that Brentford should be closer to top 6; Derby should be closer to lower-midtable, but otherwise everyone else is right around where they "deserve" to be.

I've generally tried to use stats to either examine some conventional wisdom (eg, the idea that Norwood isn't good defensively) or to shine a light on something that I found interesting myself.

I did actually want to lob a few more things in about the Reading game but the conversation moved on a bit: namely that Reading completed almost twice as many passes as us (458 to 286) but it was all in completely non-threatening areas. Almost half our passes were in Reading's attacking third, and we outdid them there 141-107. Thought it was baffling how they just let us get the ball into the final third so so easily under such little pressure. And then in possession, probably the best example I've seen this season of how it doesn't matter how much of the ball you have if it's all along your back line.

Yeah its good that the stats are still used, but they're now seemingly used to reinforce a point rather than make the point, if that makes sense.

I like the flow of the pod, it works well and you really link it well.

Would certainly be interested in some more of these outliers and i think what would be really interesting is a bit of a prediction as we get closer to the end of the season on what the stats tell us for the play offs.

Perhaps when we're inside 10 games to go, we'll be able to see who is in the running to make that break into the Play off places. Currently there are 10 points between 6th-14th and within 5 games that group will probably be reduced.

 

[Lurker]

Another easy listening classic! Keep up the great work fellas.

 

[Fanny magnet]

Great listen again.

 

[Rob86]

Fantastic as always ! I wasn’t that nervous about West Brom, but still a bit 50/50 and now I’m saying go and batter them having listened to that !

 

[Revolution]

Enjoyable listen as ever.

I have to say I also don't subscribe to the idea that the Pigs were the worst team at the Lane this season. They were the least ambitious, probably, but they had a plan and executed it well and got what they wanted (although they have McGoldrick's miss to mainly thank for that).

Reading were very poor. Not only did they have no clue at the back, and had a lot of unthreatening possession as Beans points out above, but they gave the ball away a number of times in our half by failing to execute simple passes.

On the second goal - this is part of a trend that has developed since the Barcelona way of playing first became fashionable. We see this problem manifest itself at every level from under 9 football to the World Cup finals. Teams insist on playing the ball out of defence every time even though their players are not good enough to do it and/or the opposition are pressing the life out of them. It's ridiculous. I've lost count of the number of goals I've seen conceded in the last 2 seasons where defenders and keepers make poor decisions in and around the area when in possession. Playing the ball out is generally a good option, but there are times where you just need to clear your lines, and just before the second goal was obviously one of those times for Reading.

Finally, Madine is right: Hogan gives us a great option for a player who runs off the shoulder of the defender. He did this when he drew the good save in the second half, and would have scored had he not got his feet tangled with the ball initially. Very promising and a good option against a defence that plays a high line.