The Bohemian
Member
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2012
- Messages
- 472
- Reaction score
- 2,198
I am a regular punter on National Hunt racing and manage to operate at a modest profit.
My punting strategy is based on two strands: firstly I look for horses that are proven performers under the conditions (class, distance, going etc.) of the race in question. I also do a statistical analysis of each race and try to profile the kind of horse that is likely to win based on previous winners. For example, if I'm betting on the Champion Hurdle I'll be looking for a horse that's previously finished 1st or 2nd in a Grade 1 race, is aged 6-9 years old and rated 159+. By applying these and a few other rules I am able to significantly improve my chances of finding the next Champion Hurdler.
I've applied a similar approach to the challenge of finding a 20 goal striker, to help propel The Blades out of League One, by analysing all of the strikers who have scored 20 goals or more during the last 5 completed League One seasons.
Firstly, here is the full list of strikers who have scored 20+ goals in League One between 2009-2014:
Sam Baldock
Britt Assomabalonga
Callum Wilson
Kieran Agard
Paddy Madden
Jordan Rhodes
Ched Evans
Brad Wright-Philips (x2)
Stuart Beavon
Craig Mackail-Smith
Glen Murray
Ricky Lambert (x2)
Billy Paynter
Jermaine Beckford
Grant Holt
Lee Barnard
Steve Morison
Matt Fryatt
Simon Cox
Gary Hooper
Before I got too far into the analysis I decided to check the importance of having a 20+ goal striker in winning promotion from League One. Not surprisingly this assumption was confirmed: 8 of the the 19 teams with a 20+ goal striker won promotion in the past 5 seasons. This means a team with a 20+ goal striker is over 3 times more likely to win promotion than one without such an asset.
So if we accept we really need a prolific striker, how do we find him?
There is much debate on this forum and elsewhere, about the assumed need to 'spend big' in order to land the right player. Several posters are frustrated at The Blades's approach to dealings in the transfer market and, in their eyes, the club's failure to invest more heavily in landing a high profile player. So I checked out the evidence to see whether those posters were right in their assessment.
Table 1
Where the future 20+ goal League One striker was signed from
Free agent: 1
Academy: 3
Non-Lge: 3
League Two: 4
League One: 6
Championship: 1
Premier: 2
Table 2
Transfer fee paid for the future 20+ goal League One striker
Academy: 2
Undisclosed: 7
Free: 1
£100k-£200k: 5
£200k-£400k: 3
£1m+: 2
Table 1 reveals that only 3 players were signed from a higher level than League One, including Ched Evans. Eleven of the twenty players came from a club's own Academy or a lower league club, including 3 players from Non-League.
Table 2 shows the relevance of transfer fees. Where fees were paid (in 3 instances non were) they were typically for nominal amounts of less than £200k (this includes an assessment of the 'Undisclosed' fees, which all related to players from League One or below. Of these, only Matty Fryatt and Bradley Wright-Phillips, had a proven goal-scoring record in League One and may have commanded a higher fee than £200k).
Those signed for £200k or less include Ricky Lambert (£200k; Rochdale-Bristol Rovers) and Gary Hooper (£125k; Hereford-Scunthorpe). Others signed for more money who also went on to prove themselves at a higher level include Grant Holt (£400k; Shrewsbury-Norwich) and Glen Murray (£300k; Rochdale-Brighton), proving it is possible to find prolific goalscorers in the lower leagues for modest amounts.
But it is also true to say that those who invested more heavily reaped the rewards, with Britt Assomabalonga (£1.1m; Watford-Peterborough) and Ched Evans (£3m Man City-Blades) taking their teams to within a whisker of promotion.
Next I examined the age profile of the 20+ goalscorers, both in terms of the age when they were signed and the age at which they scored 20+ goals in League One.
The age range of the players listed ,when they were signed ranges from 17-27, with the average being 22. Only 3 of the 20+ goal strikers were over the age of 25 at the time of being signed by their respective clubs.
The age range for when they first scored 20+ League One goals is 21 to 29, with an average age of 25.
This clearly indicates a need to look for young talent and steer clear of strikers nearing the end of their career.
Mindful of Cloughie's declared strategy of trying to sign players with the scope to perform well at a higher level, I decided to scrutinise the performance of the players listed, once they made the step up to the Championship and Premier League. It was in this context that transfer fees seemed to have a much greater bearing on performance.
I looked at the transfer fees paid for players on our list, subsequent to them scoring 20+ goals in League One. Ten of them were sold for fees in excess of £1m following their success in the third tier. Three of these – Assamobalonga, Wilson and Baldock - are last season's qualifiers, so too early to assess their impact. Of the rest, Rhodes (£8m), Hooper (£2.4m), Holt (£2m) and Lambert (£1m) all scored 20+ goals again at Championship, SPL or Premier League Level. Fryatt and Mackail-Smith managed between 10-20 goals in the higher echelons and, of the £1m+ men, only Simon Cox failed to score at least 10 goals in a season.
Conversely, not one of the five players sold on for less than £1m managed to make the same impact at a higher level. Indeed four of those failed to manage double figures in league goals in a single season when upped in class.
So while it's possible to pay budget prices for a striker to get out of League One, it appears that money talks in the goal stakes in the higher leagues.
I looked for further clues to lead us to potential candidates for our 20+ striker, and goal record in the season prior to a 20 goal haul seemed an obvious place to start. Several in our list were in the early stages of breaking into the first team, so instead of using total goals scored I used the ratio of goals per games. This wasn't as conclusive as I'd hoped but at least gives us some pointers.
Sixteen (84%) of the nineteen (I couldn't find the data for Beavon) in our list managed a goals per games ratio of 20%. Nothing overly impressive about one goal in five, we may agree, but even at this benchmark we'd be dismissing Wilson (9%) and Fryatt (7%). Digging deeper it becomes apparent that it was Wilson's first season of significant first-team action and Fryatt was plying his trade at Championship level, having already proven himself in League One.
If we up the ante significantly and look for those strikers who had struck at a ratio of one goal in three or better before their breakthrough season, we reduce the qualifiers to nine from nineteen (47%). A word of caution here, because in doing so we dismiss, amongst other lesser mortals, Messrs Evans (26% in the Championship), Mackail-Smith (23%) and Lambert (28%).
The top five performers in our 'season before 20+ goals in League One' list are Hooper (58%; League Two), Morison (54%; Conference), Holt (47%; League One), Barnard (46%; League One) and Rhodes (43%; League One). You may note that three (60%) of these went on to score 20+ goals at a higher level.
Focusing our attention on the top goals-per-games performers of players in the early stages of their professional career may lead us to some useful conclusions but, as my analysis shows, deciding where to set the benchmark is far from straightforward.
In terms of finding players capable of continuing to score prolifically at a higher level, the market value of a player is relevant. The difficulty with this factor is we don't know the ultimate market value for most of the list until after they've made the grade at League One level, because the great majority have been recruited at a young age from a lower league club.
There are two exceptions to this rule; players who have been recruited for £1m or more from a club playing at a higher level than League One prior to their 20+ goal season. One is Britt Assombalonga, recruited by Peterborough from Watford for a fee of £1.1m. The other is Ched Evans, recruited by The Blades from Man City for £3m. Statistically Assombalonga and Evans, based on their market value, are more likely to perform well at a higher level than League One, than those valued at less than £1m.
If we focus on the select band of players who, in the course of scoring 20+ goals in a League One season, scored at a ratio of 0.66 goals or above per game, we're left with Rhodes, Beckford, Evans and Lambert. Rhodes and Lambert both went on to score prolifically at a higher level. Beckford didn't but made the somewhat unusual step of moving straight from League One to the Premier League and has struggled ever since.
Finally, if we concentrate on players who have achieved a market value of £1m+ and scored 20+ goals at a ratio of 0.66 goals per game we're left with one player, Ched Evans (£3m; 0.8 gpg).
Those that argue Evans won't be the same player having spent 30 months behind bars may wish to consider other precedents:
Marlon King served nine months in prison in 2009; upon his release he scored 12 goals in 28 games (0.43 gpg) in the Championship.
Lee Hughes served three years in prison between 2004-2007. Upon his release he scored 25 goals in 55 games (0.45 gpg) for Oldham in League One.
In summary, if we apply a statistical approach to identifying the striker equivalent of a winning racehorse, we're looking for a 22 year-old playing in the lower leagues and scoring at a ratio of at least one goal in every five games (possibly less if playing at a higher level and/or in his breakthrough season as a professional).
But if we want to find the equivalent of a Champion Hurdle winner, we're looking, additionally, for a player with an established market value of £1m+ and a proven capability of scoring at 0.66 goals per game or more in League One. Such players are extremely rare and consequently extremely valuable.
UTB.
My punting strategy is based on two strands: firstly I look for horses that are proven performers under the conditions (class, distance, going etc.) of the race in question. I also do a statistical analysis of each race and try to profile the kind of horse that is likely to win based on previous winners. For example, if I'm betting on the Champion Hurdle I'll be looking for a horse that's previously finished 1st or 2nd in a Grade 1 race, is aged 6-9 years old and rated 159+. By applying these and a few other rules I am able to significantly improve my chances of finding the next Champion Hurdler.
I've applied a similar approach to the challenge of finding a 20 goal striker, to help propel The Blades out of League One, by analysing all of the strikers who have scored 20 goals or more during the last 5 completed League One seasons.
Firstly, here is the full list of strikers who have scored 20+ goals in League One between 2009-2014:
Sam Baldock
Britt Assomabalonga
Callum Wilson
Kieran Agard
Paddy Madden
Jordan Rhodes
Ched Evans
Brad Wright-Philips (x2)
Stuart Beavon
Craig Mackail-Smith
Glen Murray
Ricky Lambert (x2)
Billy Paynter
Jermaine Beckford
Grant Holt
Lee Barnard
Steve Morison
Matt Fryatt
Simon Cox
Gary Hooper
Before I got too far into the analysis I decided to check the importance of having a 20+ goal striker in winning promotion from League One. Not surprisingly this assumption was confirmed: 8 of the the 19 teams with a 20+ goal striker won promotion in the past 5 seasons. This means a team with a 20+ goal striker is over 3 times more likely to win promotion than one without such an asset.
So if we accept we really need a prolific striker, how do we find him?
There is much debate on this forum and elsewhere, about the assumed need to 'spend big' in order to land the right player. Several posters are frustrated at The Blades's approach to dealings in the transfer market and, in their eyes, the club's failure to invest more heavily in landing a high profile player. So I checked out the evidence to see whether those posters were right in their assessment.
Table 1
Where the future 20+ goal League One striker was signed from
Free agent: 1
Academy: 3
Non-Lge: 3
League Two: 4
League One: 6
Championship: 1
Premier: 2
Table 2
Transfer fee paid for the future 20+ goal League One striker
Academy: 2
Undisclosed: 7
Free: 1
£100k-£200k: 5
£200k-£400k: 3
£1m+: 2
Table 1 reveals that only 3 players were signed from a higher level than League One, including Ched Evans. Eleven of the twenty players came from a club's own Academy or a lower league club, including 3 players from Non-League.
Table 2 shows the relevance of transfer fees. Where fees were paid (in 3 instances non were) they were typically for nominal amounts of less than £200k (this includes an assessment of the 'Undisclosed' fees, which all related to players from League One or below. Of these, only Matty Fryatt and Bradley Wright-Phillips, had a proven goal-scoring record in League One and may have commanded a higher fee than £200k).
Those signed for £200k or less include Ricky Lambert (£200k; Rochdale-Bristol Rovers) and Gary Hooper (£125k; Hereford-Scunthorpe). Others signed for more money who also went on to prove themselves at a higher level include Grant Holt (£400k; Shrewsbury-Norwich) and Glen Murray (£300k; Rochdale-Brighton), proving it is possible to find prolific goalscorers in the lower leagues for modest amounts.
But it is also true to say that those who invested more heavily reaped the rewards, with Britt Assomabalonga (£1.1m; Watford-Peterborough) and Ched Evans (£3m Man City-Blades) taking their teams to within a whisker of promotion.
Next I examined the age profile of the 20+ goalscorers, both in terms of the age when they were signed and the age at which they scored 20+ goals in League One.
The age range of the players listed ,when they were signed ranges from 17-27, with the average being 22. Only 3 of the 20+ goal strikers were over the age of 25 at the time of being signed by their respective clubs.
The age range for when they first scored 20+ League One goals is 21 to 29, with an average age of 25.
This clearly indicates a need to look for young talent and steer clear of strikers nearing the end of their career.
Mindful of Cloughie's declared strategy of trying to sign players with the scope to perform well at a higher level, I decided to scrutinise the performance of the players listed, once they made the step up to the Championship and Premier League. It was in this context that transfer fees seemed to have a much greater bearing on performance.
I looked at the transfer fees paid for players on our list, subsequent to them scoring 20+ goals in League One. Ten of them were sold for fees in excess of £1m following their success in the third tier. Three of these – Assamobalonga, Wilson and Baldock - are last season's qualifiers, so too early to assess their impact. Of the rest, Rhodes (£8m), Hooper (£2.4m), Holt (£2m) and Lambert (£1m) all scored 20+ goals again at Championship, SPL or Premier League Level. Fryatt and Mackail-Smith managed between 10-20 goals in the higher echelons and, of the £1m+ men, only Simon Cox failed to score at least 10 goals in a season.
Conversely, not one of the five players sold on for less than £1m managed to make the same impact at a higher level. Indeed four of those failed to manage double figures in league goals in a single season when upped in class.
So while it's possible to pay budget prices for a striker to get out of League One, it appears that money talks in the goal stakes in the higher leagues.
I looked for further clues to lead us to potential candidates for our 20+ striker, and goal record in the season prior to a 20 goal haul seemed an obvious place to start. Several in our list were in the early stages of breaking into the first team, so instead of using total goals scored I used the ratio of goals per games. This wasn't as conclusive as I'd hoped but at least gives us some pointers.
Sixteen (84%) of the nineteen (I couldn't find the data for Beavon) in our list managed a goals per games ratio of 20%. Nothing overly impressive about one goal in five, we may agree, but even at this benchmark we'd be dismissing Wilson (9%) and Fryatt (7%). Digging deeper it becomes apparent that it was Wilson's first season of significant first-team action and Fryatt was plying his trade at Championship level, having already proven himself in League One.
If we up the ante significantly and look for those strikers who had struck at a ratio of one goal in three or better before their breakthrough season, we reduce the qualifiers to nine from nineteen (47%). A word of caution here, because in doing so we dismiss, amongst other lesser mortals, Messrs Evans (26% in the Championship), Mackail-Smith (23%) and Lambert (28%).
The top five performers in our 'season before 20+ goals in League One' list are Hooper (58%; League Two), Morison (54%; Conference), Holt (47%; League One), Barnard (46%; League One) and Rhodes (43%; League One). You may note that three (60%) of these went on to score 20+ goals at a higher level.
Focusing our attention on the top goals-per-games performers of players in the early stages of their professional career may lead us to some useful conclusions but, as my analysis shows, deciding where to set the benchmark is far from straightforward.
In terms of finding players capable of continuing to score prolifically at a higher level, the market value of a player is relevant. The difficulty with this factor is we don't know the ultimate market value for most of the list until after they've made the grade at League One level, because the great majority have been recruited at a young age from a lower league club.
There are two exceptions to this rule; players who have been recruited for £1m or more from a club playing at a higher level than League One prior to their 20+ goal season. One is Britt Assombalonga, recruited by Peterborough from Watford for a fee of £1.1m. The other is Ched Evans, recruited by The Blades from Man City for £3m. Statistically Assombalonga and Evans, based on their market value, are more likely to perform well at a higher level than League One, than those valued at less than £1m.
If we focus on the select band of players who, in the course of scoring 20+ goals in a League One season, scored at a ratio of 0.66 goals or above per game, we're left with Rhodes, Beckford, Evans and Lambert. Rhodes and Lambert both went on to score prolifically at a higher level. Beckford didn't but made the somewhat unusual step of moving straight from League One to the Premier League and has struggled ever since.
Finally, if we concentrate on players who have achieved a market value of £1m+ and scored 20+ goals at a ratio of 0.66 goals per game we're left with one player, Ched Evans (£3m; 0.8 gpg).
Those that argue Evans won't be the same player having spent 30 months behind bars may wish to consider other precedents:
Marlon King served nine months in prison in 2009; upon his release he scored 12 goals in 28 games (0.43 gpg) in the Championship.
Lee Hughes served three years in prison between 2004-2007. Upon his release he scored 25 goals in 55 games (0.45 gpg) for Oldham in League One.
In summary, if we apply a statistical approach to identifying the striker equivalent of a winning racehorse, we're looking for a 22 year-old playing in the lower leagues and scoring at a ratio of at least one goal in every five games (possibly less if playing at a higher level and/or in his breakthrough season as a professional).
But if we want to find the equivalent of a Champion Hurdle winner, we're looking, additionally, for a player with an established market value of £1m+ and a proven capability of scoring at 0.66 goals per game or more in League One. Such players are extremely rare and consequently extremely valuable.
UTB.