SUFC Scorecard

[SUFCScorecard]

All season I've been working on a 'project' where I individually score each of the player's contributions. It laborious but, like most people on this forum, I spend too much time thinking about the blades and it allows a 'productive' outlet for the obsession.

The approach is somewhat subjective, but it is designed to be systematic and dispassionate. I award a point for each contribution that I deem to be 'impactful'. This can broadly be described as - increasing our chances of scoring a goal, or decreasing the chances of an opponent scoring a goal.

How does the scoring work?

So the following score (+)

• passes that progress the ball past opponents, or open up space for a teammate to run into/play a progressive pass. Sideways probing passes don't score (I'm not against them, I just consider this to be a 'neutral action').
• Tackles that stop/hold up a promising attack, or regain possession for us. Tackles that just put the ball out of play generally don't score.
• Contested headers that are won, and go in the right direction (uncontested defensive headers I consider routine)
• dribbles that progress the ball past opponents
• Shots that aren't completely ridiculous
• Good crosses
• I also give extra points when we actually score a goal.

The following score (-)

• Losing possession in dangerous areas
• poor defending/losing a man
• missed tackles
• I give extra negative points when we concede a goal.

I don't give negative scores for attempts at positive play that don't come off, as long as it doesn't result in a dangerous situation for us.

This all rolls up to a metric that I am tracking as Impactful Contributions/15min. I use 15min segments as it allows better representation of substitute impact, I also organize the scorecard into 15min segments.

Attached are two items - the latest scorecard from the QPR game, and an analysis of the average impactful contributions/15min over 6 game periods through the season.


Why do this?

Apart from the obvious - work procrastination - I think its a nice supplement to the high quality statistical analysis we get these days. I am all in on xG, and other advanced metrics, but also think there is value to using the old fashioned eyeballs, applied in a systematic way to evaluate performance.

Just re-watching the games and dispassionately assessing each touch gives a greater sense of what happened in the game, and often proves some of my initial impressions from game were wrong. As an example, I was fuming that Doyle came off vs QPR, but outside the opening 15min (where he was excellent) he had actually had one of his quietest games of the season. I was extrapolating that first 15min across the whole hour he played. The drop off in his performance was actually so large I am concerned he picked up a knock because I saw a similar thing with Billy Sharp when I scored the Boro away - and it turned out to be an injury.

Anyway, if this interests you, please feel free to ask questions. I post an analysis and a bit of commentary for each game 1-2 days after each game once I've had a chance to review the full match on:

twitter.com/SUFCScorecard

If you think this is total Bo%&#@ks please feel free to rip it apart.

 

[prince albert]

First

 

[Fatlad666]

Last

 

[DSJ Blade]

Everything…

 

[SUFCScorecard]

This is the other chart I regularly publish.

Using the contributions I scored across all our games (where we earned points) as an input, this analysis breaks down who has contributed what to our points total of 24.

• Norwood is our biggest contributor being worth over 3 pts so far, or 13% of our points total.
• Interestingly just 5 players (out of a squad of around 24) have been behind over half the points to date.
• The biggest correlation here is game time, but not always. Anel has missed a few games now - and he's right up there because we haven't earned many points when he has been absent.

 

[BobblesBlade]

When did we sign Other?

 

[Edgar Allan Poo]

When did we sign Other?

Can he play wing back?

 

[bibbity bobbity boo]

I don't believe for one second that Norwood only averages 3.14 points a game. The fecker never stops pointing.



No idea what he's pointing at here, probably me at the back of the Kop.



He even did it at Reading



Anyway, fuck off Kev, you're no Ollie Norwood

 

[BladesOnToast]

Hard to decide which shots are "completely ridiculous" or not... did you count Norwood's shot from the kick-off (was it against Blackburn?)? There was something a bit ridiculous about it, but on the other hand it wasn't that far off!

 

[SUFCScorecard]

Hard to decide which shots are "completely ridiculous" or not... did you count Norwood's shot from the kick-off (was it against Blackburn?)? There was something a bit ridiculous about it, but on the other hand it wasn't that far off!

There is definitely an element of subjectivity about it - but hopefully that comes out in the wash across a game and the broader analyses and trends hold up across a few.

 

[broomhillblade]

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

 

[Snowflake]

All season I've been working on a 'project' where I individually score each of the player's contributions. It laborious but, like most people on this forum, I spend too much time thinking about the blades and it allows a 'productive' outlet for the obsession.

The approach is somewhat subjective, but it is designed to be systematic and dispassionate. I award a point for each contribution that I deem to be 'impactful'. This can broadly be described as - increasing our chances of scoring a goal, or decreasing the chances of an opponent scoring a goal.

How does the scoring work?

So the following score (+)

• passes that progress the ball past opponents, or open up space for a teammate to run into/play a progressive pass. Sideways probing passes don't score (I'm not against them, I just consider this to be a 'neutral action').
• Tackles that stop/hold up a promising attack, or regain possession for us. Tackles that just put the ball out of play generally don't score.
• Contested headers that are won, and go in the right direction (uncontested defensive headers I consider routine)
• dribbles that progress the ball past opponents
• Shots that aren't completely ridiculous
• Good crosses
• I also give extra points when we actually score a goal.

The following score (-)

• Losing possession in dangerous areas
• poor defending/losing a man
• missed tackles
• I give extra negative points when we concede a goal.

I don't give negative scores for attempts at positive play that don't come off, as long as it doesn't result in a dangerous situation for us.

This all rolls up to a metric that I am tracking as Impactful Contributions/15min. I use 15min segments as it allows better representation of substitute impact, I also organize the scorecard into 15min segments.

Attached are two items - the latest scorecard from the QPR game, and an analysis of the average impactful contributions/15min over 6 game periods through the season.


Why do this?

Apart from the obvious - work procrastination - I think its a nice supplement to the high quality statistical analysis we get these days. I am all in on xG, and other advanced metrics, but also think there is value to using the old fashioned eyeballs, applied in a systematic way to evaluate performance.

Just re-watching the games and dispassionately assessing each touch gives a greater sense of what happened in the game, and often proves some of my initial impressions from game were wrong. As an example, I was fuming that Doyle came off vs QPR, but outside the opening 15min (where he was excellent) he had actually had one of his quietest games of the season. I was extrapolating that first 15min across the whole hour he played. The drop off in his performance was actually so large I am concerned he picked up a knock because I saw a similar thing with Billy Sharp when I scored the Boro away - and it turned out to be an injury.

Anyway, if this interests you, please feel free to ask questions. I post an analysis and a bit of commentary for each game 1-2 days after each game once I've had a chance to review the full match on:

twitter.com/SUFCScorecard

If you think this is total Bo%&#@ks please feel free to rip it apart.

So PH saw in Doyle what your system subsequently showed. Perhaps we have a good manager ?

 

[SUFCScorecard]

So PH saw in Doyle what your system subsequently showed. Perhaps we have a good manager ?

a. I think we do
b. Against Birmingham Doyle was performing very well when he brought him off!!!

My biggest concern is Doyle has a fitness issue which Hecky won't disclose, but is managing.

 

[Barney]

All season I've been working on a 'project' where I individually score each of the player's contributions. It laborious but, like most people on this forum, I spend too much time thinking about the blades and it allows a 'productive' outlet for the obsession.

The approach is somewhat subjective, but it is designed to be systematic and dispassionate. I award a point for each contribution that I deem to be 'impactful'. This can broadly be described as - increasing our chances of scoring a goal, or decreasing the chances of an opponent scoring a goal.

How does the scoring work?

So the following score (+)

• passes that progress the ball past opponents, or open up space for a teammate to run into/play a progressive pass. Sideways probing passes don't score (I'm not against them, I just consider this to be a 'neutral action').
• Tackles that stop/hold up a promising attack, or regain possession for us. Tackles that just put the ball out of play generally don't score.
• Contested headers that are won, and go in the right direction (uncontested defensive headers I consider routine)
• dribbles that progress the ball past opponents
• Shots that aren't completely ridiculous
• Good crosses
• I also give extra points when we actually score a goal.

The following score (-)

• Losing possession in dangerous areas
• poor defending/losing a man
• missed tackles
• I give extra negative points when we concede a goal.

I don't give negative scores for attempts at positive play that don't come off, as long as it doesn't result in a dangerous situation for us.

This all rolls up to a metric that I am tracking as Impactful Contributions/15min. I use 15min segments as it allows better representation of substitute impact, I also organize the scorecard into 15min segments.

Attached are two items - the latest scorecard from the QPR game, and an analysis of the average impactful contributions/15min over 6 game periods through the season.


Why do this?

Apart from the obvious - work procrastination - I think its a nice supplement to the high quality statistical analysis we get these days. I am all in on xG, and other advanced metrics, but also think there is value to using the old fashioned eyeballs, applied in a systematic way to evaluate performance.

Just re-watching the games and dispassionately assessing each touch gives a greater sense of what happened in the game, and often proves some of my initial impressions from game were wrong. As an example, I was fuming that Doyle came off vs QPR, but outside the opening 15min (where he was excellent) he had actually had one of his quietest games of the season. I was extrapolating that first 15min across the whole hour he played. The drop off in his performance was actually so large I am concerned he picked up a knock because I saw a similar thing with Billy Sharp when I scored the Boro away - and it turned out to be an injury.

Anyway, if this interests you, please feel free to ask questions. I post an analysis and a bit of commentary for each game 1-2 days after each game once I've had a chance to review the full match on:

twitter.com/SUFCScorecard

If you think this is total Bo%&#@ks please feel free to rip it apart.

Fair play, that is pretty cool.

Not a big fan of xG, prefer this.

 

[VM198]

Fifteenth,

 

[SUFCScorecard]

Everything…



View attachment 145105

I spent large portions of the day today wondering what Wendell Pierce had to do with this, and whether he was in Anchorman

 

[beatific blade]

Seems to me that Mr Scorecard needs a good pinch of snuff and a night out in Dempseys

 

[Houston_Blade]

Highly subjective like you say. When you mention "using your eyes" I believe that you don't need to make some kind of statistic up (unless you're a student and need one for a dissertation/thesis) to back up what your eyes tell you.

Fair play for the effort but I'm not sure what it adds to the plethora of stats already out there?

 

[brownblade]

Not got time to analyse this right now but looks interesting mate, I will have a proper look at the weekend.

And if you enjoy doing something, keep it up

 

[SUFCScorecard]

Highly subjective like you say. When you mention "using your eyes" I believe that you don't need to make some kind of statistic up (unless you're a student and need one for a dissertation/thesis) to back up what your eyes tell you.

Fair play for the effort but I'm not sure what it adds to the plethora of stats already out there?

I suppose what I am trying to do is bridge the gap between hard statistics, and a subjective evaluation. I have found doing this that my impressions watching a game live tended by colored by big moments in a game, biases/expectations of certain players, rather than a dispassionate view of the full 90min. You can think of this like a boxing scorecard, it is subjective to an extent, but if done systematically most people will score it similarly. What I'm doing is very basic - you could get a 7yo to do it, its just taking the time to do it.

A few interesting things I've noticed while doing it that I didn't notice while watching live:

• I was early on the RND/Doyle are fantastic bandwagon because the results of my scored showed it. I'm even going to say RNDs performance against QPR was his best of the season - another high water mark, that gets me worried about the January transfer window.
• We take Norwood for granted, Tuesday was a perfect example. I heard some people slating him after the game. His impact - especially in that final 20min was immense, so many quality passes/balls, everything went through him.
• McAtee has been fascinating, like most people watching the games live I've been lukewarm on him, but I've had a different impression scoring the games. Against Sunderland he couldn't get into the game against 11 men, then turned into David Silva when given space to play against 10. Equally, the reaction of people to his Luton performance was way overboard. He was playing fine, then put a couple of shit corners in that didn't beat the first man (everyone hates that - me included), and a sloppy tackle in the space of 5 minutes. That small stretch has colored a lot of peoples opinion of him. Every other time he has played decent minutes he's been good, as productive as Berge.
• Bringing Doyle on completely changed RND's game at Preston. As soon as he came on, RND was getting released on the wings consistently - the contrast was stark. In the first hour I scored 1 impactful contribution from RND, after Doyle came on for the last 27 minutes I score 7 for him. It was the same at Swansea, Doyle was consistently hitting RND on the overlap with intelligent passes.

 

[SUFCScorecard]

Here is my scorecard for Stoke Away.

I added a bit of commentary in this tweetthread

 

[jt64]

Hard to decide which shots are "completely ridiculous" or not... did you count Norwood's shot from the kick-off (was it against Blackburn?)? There was something a bit ridiculous about it, but on the other hand it wasn't that far off!

Well you could look at which shots have xG below some certain (0.1?) threshold to get an idea of which are ridiculous based on large samples of similar shots if he doesn't want to be subjective

 

[Houston_Blade]

Here is my scorecard for Stoke Away.

I added a bit of commentary in this tweetthread


View attachment 145318

While I don't think Osborn or Arblaster were bad in any way, I don't think that they were impactful in the slightest. Arblaster was neat and tidy and put his foot in a bit. Osborn did what Osborn does and ran up and down a lot and put poor quality balls into the box for their defenders to head away. They also only played in the period of the game where Stoke retreated and we were pushing to equalise.

 

[mattbianco1]

When did we sign Other?

Not sure but he looks decent

 

[SUFCScorecard]

Well you could look at which shots have xG below some certain (0.1?) threshold to get an idea of which are ridiculous based on large samples of similar shots if he doesn't want to be subjective

I'm a big xG fan. I think one way to think about how the scorecard compliments xG is the scorecard is the input, and xG is the output. xG is to goals, as this scorecard is to xG. They are not always correlated, but across a big enough sample size they will be.

Its possible for us to play pretty well but result in a low xG because we didn't create clear shots/chances (QPR/Birmingham), the reverse is true where we are mediocre but come out with a decent xG because we have created some big chances (Preston).

 

[SUFCScorecard]

While I don't think Osborn or Arblaster were bad in any way, I don't think that they were impactful in the slightest. Arblaster was neat and tidy and put his foot in a bit. Osborn did what Osborn does and ran up and down a lot and put poor quality balls into the box for their defenders to head away. They also only played in the period of the game where Stoke retreated and we were pushing to equalise.

Definitely torn on Osborn. Pretty much every time he touched the ball he put it into the box. I scored it (+) most times as the balls were decent and went to the right areas and I want to be consistent, but there is something off about how he crosses the ball. I don't think its the delivery - the trajectory on them is fine and they normally beat the first man, I think its more to do with awareness, who is in what position in the box, when it is a good time to cross, because they never looked dangerous.

 

[Houston_Blade]

Definitely torn on Osborn. Pretty much every time he touched the ball he put it into the box. I scored it (+) most times as the balls were decent and went to the right areas and I want to be consistent, but there is something off about how he crosses the ball. I don't think its the delivery - the trajectory on them is fine and they normally beat the first man, I think its more to do with awareness, who is in what position in the box, when it is a good time to cross, because they never looked dangerous.

That’s the thing with this method. I wouldn’t say just getting the ball in the box is a +. We gained nothing from the balls in apart from making their centre halves feel better about themselves.

 

[SUFCScorecard]

That’s the thing with this method. I wouldn’t say just getting the ball in the box is a +. We gained nothing from the balls in apart from making their centre halves feel better about themselves.

This is a fair observation. I also found it surprising Osborn/Arblaster scored so highly in that final period. For transparency on how I approach this I've rescored that period for Osborn and Arblaster with notes. I am focused on each action as an input - i.e. did it increase our chances of scoring a goal (or decrease the oppositions chances of scoring a goal). The actions players take after each of these scoring contributions are assessed in their own right.

Min	Player	notes
75	Arblaster	Quick Pass out to Sachdev creating crossing opportunity (not taken by Sachdev)
76	Arblaster	Great ball over the top to Jebbison
77	Osborn	Cross to Penalty spot - Jebbison fails to challenge for it
77	Osborn	Cross to Penalty spot - Jebbison mis-controls
85	Osborn	Progressive pass up the line to Sharp (who wins free kick)
86	Arblaster	Tackle to win back possession 30 yards from Stoke goal
86	Osborn	Cross to penalty spot Ndiaye unable to challenge as Stoke player hanging off him
86	Osborn	Cross to 6 yard box, Sharp unable to control it 6 yards out
88	Arblaster	Wins possession back on edge of Sheff Utd penalty area
89	Osborn	Cross to Sharp on near side penalty area, Sharp doesn't win it
90	Arblaster	Plays progressive pass up line to Sharp who then gets tackled (claims hes fouled)
93	Osborn	Wins free kick in Stoke territory

Of those, the dubious ones that I could have gone either way on were:

- Arblaster's tackle on 88 , he didn't really do much other than poke it to Norwood - only very loosely a tackle.

- Osborn's crosses on 86 and 89. I think Ndiaye and Sharp could have challenged and won those (there is a case for a very soft Ndiaye penalty on 86) but you could also argue both crosses were easily cleared. They were scored (+) because they gave our strikers a chance to win it in a dangerous area.

 

[Houston_Blade]

This is a fair observation. I also found it surprising Osborn/Arblaster scored so highly in that final period. For transparency on how I approach this I've rescored that period for Osborn and Arblaster with notes. I am focused on each action as an input - i.e. did it increase our chances of scoring a goal (or decrease the oppositions chances of scoring a goal). The actions players take after each of these scoring contributions are assessed in their own right.

Min	Player	notes
75	Arblaster	Quick Pass out to Sachdev creating crossing opportunity (not taken by Sachdev)
76	Arblaster	Great ball over the top to Jebbison
77	Osborn	Cross to Penalty spot - Jebbison fails to challenge for it
77	Osborn	Cross to Penalty spot - Jebbison mis-controls
85	Osborn	Progressive pass up the line to Sharp (who wins free kick)
86	Arblaster	Tackle to win back possession 30 yards from Stoke goal
86	Osborn	Cross to penalty spot Ndiaye unable to challenge as Stoke player hanging off him
86	Osborn	Cross to 6 yard box, Sharp unable to control it 6 yards out
88	Arblaster	Wins possession back on edge of Sheff Utd penalty area
89	Osborn	Cross to Sharp on near side penalty area, Sharp doesn't win it
90	Arblaster	Plays progressive pass up line to Sharp who then gets tackled (claims hes fouled)
93	Osborn	Wins free kick in Stoke territory

Of those, the dubious ones that I could have gone either way on were:

- Arblaster's tackle on 88 , he didn't really do much other than poke it to Norwood - only very loosely a tackle.

- Osborn's crosses on 86 and 89. I think Ndiaye and Sharp could have challenged and won those (there is a case for a very soft Ndiaye penalty on 86) but you could also argue both crosses were easily cleared. They were scored (+) because they gave our strikers a chance to win it in a dangerous area.

Maybe if I watched it back I’d change my mind but I commented at the time that it appeared Osborn had been to the Baldock/Kozluk school of crossing. Either crossing from too deep or just hopeful punts into the box.

 

[Blade56]

Share-by, guzinters, addition and subtraction are not my strong points. Got to ask do you enjoy watching the football and shoutin at telly? Bet you have scores for people at work, don’t yer?