FOOTBALL - As a companion piece to the “Race to 38/68/87” piece which blogger James Grayson published on the Premier League yesterday, we have looked at the current Euro Club Index assessment of the competition.
FOOTBALL – A few days ago, Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez declared that his team can win this season’s Premier League despite being 13 points behind leaders Manchester United. The improvement Chelsea needed to make from last season’s 64 points made their chances of lifting the title before the season started remote and nothing has changed. Infostrada’s Head of Analysis Simon Gleave has looked at the figures.
FOOTBALL - The Premier League this season has already developed into a two horse race for the title between the two Manchester clubs. Judging from the clubs’ current ISG coefficients which compare their performance this season with last, this weekend’s Manchester derby could make a big difference to the current race but not in the way suggested by the league table.
FOOTBALL - West Bromwich Albion lost 3-1 at Swansea City on Wednesday night, a result which has led to much speculation about why the performance level of the Baggies suddenly declined against an opponent they supposedly should have competed better against. Mark Lawrenson, for example, remarked that West Brom’s players were “believing their own publicity a bit”. Simon Gleave took a look at the ISG coefficients which compare a team’s results this season with those in the same matches last season, and found little difference between Swansea City and West Bromwich Albion.
FOOTBALL - QPR travel to Sunderland this evening with new manager Harry Redknapp in charge of the club for the first time. The Euro Club Index gives QPR 4% chance of avoiding relegation this season which means that they would be relegated in 24 out of every 25 seasons in which they found themselves in this position after 13 matches. In order to see what Redknapp’s QPR actually have to do to survive, our Head of Analysis Simon Gleave contacted analytical blogger James Grayson* to help out.
FOOTBALL - Feyenoord’s second place in last season’s Eredivisie was their best league performance for 11 years whilst the six point deficit between them and champions Ajax was the closest that the Rotterdammers had come to winning the title since 2002/2003 when they finished third, four points behind champions PSV. Their fifth place in the current league table might therefore be seen as a disappointment but the league table is not telling the whole story.
FOOTBALL - The last few days have seen both Chelsea and Queens Park Rangers sack their managers in an attempt to turn their seasons around. Making the assumption that Chelsea’s goal is to win the Premier League title this season and QPR’s is to avoid relegation, Head of Analysis Simon Gleave took a look at which of the new managers is more likely to achieve his objective.
FOOTBALL - After Manchester City’s 2-2 draw with Ajax on matchday 4, the general assessment was that City’s poor performances in the Champions League are manager Roberto Mancini’s fault and he needs to be replaced. Similar things are being said today after City’s elimination from the Champions League.
FOOTBALL - In November 2011, the then coach of FC Twente Co Adriaanse coined the term rangjournalistiek (best translated as rank journalism) referring to his opinion that the league table during the season doesn’t reflect how good or bad the competing teams are. At the beginning of this season, Infostrada’s Head of Analysis Simon Gleave went in search of different methods to try and quantify this.
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