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SAD Fact: Beware The Ides Of March

Dan — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:02:50 +0000

I was reading an interesting article at The Telegraph last night about Gabby Agbonlahor’s goal scoring record during the Winter months:-

The evidence is compelling: 10 goals in total in the 2006/07 season, but only two scored between November ‘06 and April ‘07. 11 goals in the 2007/08 season, but none between January and end of March ’08. 12 goals last season, but just two after Christmas. So when he went six games without scoring after Villa’s 1-0 win at Old Trafford this season, in mid-December, it was a case of ‘what’s new?’

His brace at Craven Cottage was more timely than was immediately obvious then. As he’s already equaled his best season’s goal tally, let’s hope he now goes on to blow his record out the water and in the process stake a serious claim to be on the plane to South Africa in the summer.

I checked into Gabby’s statistics and they stacked up with the Telegraph piece, but it got me curious about how Aston Villa have performed in general in the Premiership on a month by month basis. What I found surprised me a little.

Since 1992 it’s actually October that we have seen the lowest percentage of wins, but in terms of points earned out of those available; it’s The Ides Of March that have done for Villa over the years.

Aston Villa Premiership Performance by Month – All Time
Month	Pld	%Win	%Draw	%Lose	Avbl Pts	Pts	%Pts of Avbl
August	67	41.8%	31.3%	26.9%	201	105	52.2%
September	67	46.3%	28.4%	25.4%	201	112	55.7%
October	64	26.6%	39.1%	34.4%	192	76	39.6%
November	72	43.1%	25.0%	31.9%	216	111	51.4%
December	96	34.4%	32.3%	33.3%	288	130	45.1%
January	65	41.5%	29.2%	29.2%	195	100	51.3%
February	60	45.0%	21.7%	33.3%	180	94	52.2%
March	67	26.9%	28.4%	44.8%	201	73	36.3%
April	87	37.9%	37.9%	24.1%	261	132	50.6%
May	36	36.1%	19.4%	44.4%	108	46	42.6%
Totals	681	37.9%	30.1%	32.0%	2043	979	47.9%

OK, that’s Aston Villa’s record all time in the Premiership. Is it any better under Martin O’Neill? In a word; no. Actually it’s quite terrible. Aston Villa have not won a single league game under Martin O’Neill during March! Yes, you read that correctly and it’s a shockingly bad statistic that has to change this year if we aim to finish in the mix for European places.

Aston Villa Premiership Performance by Month – MON Years
Month	Pld	%Win	%Draw	%Lose	Avbl Pts	Pts	%Pts of Avbl
August	12	50.0%	25.0%	25.0%	36	21	58.3%
September	13	61.5%	23.1%	15.4%	39	27	69.2%
October	15	26.7%	53.3%	20.0%	45	20	44.4%
November	18	44.4%	33.3%	22.2%	54	30	55.6%
December	23	39.1%	26.1%	34.8%	69	33	47.8%
January	15	46.7%	40.0%	13.3%	45	27	60.0%
February	7	57.1%	0.0%	42.9%	21	12	57.1%
March	12	0.0%	41.7%	58.3%	36	5	13.9%
April	14	42.9%	50.0%	7.1%	42	25	59.5%
May	8	37.5%	37.5%	25.0%	24	12	50.0%
Totals	137	40.1%	34.3%	25.5%	411	212	51.6%

When you compare the all time monthly Win/Draw/Loss percentages with the last few seasons under MON, it’s quite telling that March is the only month that the current gaffer doesn’t have a superior record. However, when you look at the fixture list for this year you have to have some hope:-

March 6th – Sunderland, Home
March 13th – Stoke, Away
March 16th – Wigan, Away
March 20th – Wolves, Home
March 27th – Chelsea, Away

Leading into this sequence, the final game of February, you’ll not need reminding is the Carling Cup final against Man Utd. Yes, the confidence we would pick up should we win the trophy would be an enormous boost going into March, but this is a very kind schedule and we ought to find at least one win here regardless of what happens at Wembley.

Surely? Right??

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More Aston Villa Passing Statistics

Dan — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:40:25 +0000

Hopefully you’ve spotted that I include the number of good and bad passes in the Statshacks and maybe you find it interesting. Maybe you don’t. There’s a certain logic which suggests that the higher the number of passes, the more expansive the style of play. That’s crude and overly simplistic, but there is enough correlation that I thought I’d look at how we’ve been doing over the last few seasons.

One thing that’s immediately obvious when looking at this sort of data is the relativity. For instance, if Villa strung together 150 completed passes in a game it wouldn’t be overly impressive. However, if our opponent had only managed 75 it becomes far more impressive. Villa would have out-passed the other team by a ratio of 2:1. By the same token, 200 completed passes wouldn’t be so impressive when compared to 350 of our opponents.

This lead me to create a new metric I may find a slot for in the Statshacks in future which I’m calling ‘Completed Pass Share %’, or ‘CPS’ if you like your acronyms. It’s a simple concept, not dissimilar from possession. Basically it’s Villa’s completed passes expressed as a percentage of the total completed passes in a game. For instance, sticking with the first example above; if Villa made 150 good passes and our opponents 75 that would be 150 as a percentage of 150 + 75, which is 67%.

Quite arbitrarily, I also decided a CPS of 55% or greater would indicate that we had dominated the passing game, 45% to 55% would represent an even match and less than 45% would mean that our opponents had controlled the passing. Sure, that’s debatable, but that’s what I came up with and I’m sticking with it.

With that in mind I fed the passing stats since 2006 through some filters and came up with the following table, which I hope isn’t too convoluted:-

	Aston Villa Completed Pass Share %
	> 55%			45% – 55%			< 45%
2006/07	12			10			16
	*31.6%*			*26.3%*			*42.1%*
	4	7	1	4	3	3	3	7	6
	33.3%	58.3%	8.3%	40.0%	30.0%	30.0%	18.8%	43.8%	37.5%
2007/08	6			16			16
	*15.8%*			*42.1%*			*42.1%*
	3	2	1	5	5	6	8	5	3
	50.0%	33.3%	16.7%	31.3%	31.3%	37.5%	50.0%	31.3%	18.8%
2008/09	5			12			21
	*13.2%*			*31.6%*			*55.3%*
	2	2	1	3	6	3	12	3	6
	40.0%	40.0%	20.0%	25.0%	50.0%	25.0%	57.1%	14.3%	28.6%
2009/10	5			6			11
	*22.7%*			*27.3%*			*50.0%*
	3	1	1	2	3	1	5	3	3
	60.0%	20.0%	20.0%	33.3%	50.0%	16.7%	45.5%	27.3%	27.3%

The left hand column of data shows the games which Aston Villa had more than 55% share of completed passes. If you take the 2006/07 season you’ll note that accounts for 12 games, which is 31.6% of the season. Below that I’ve split the 12 games into won, drawn and lost. So in this case, of the 12 games that we had more than 55% of the completed passes, we won 4, drew 7 and lost just the 1 and the percentages below that row relate to the 12 games. 4 games won is 33.3% of 12 for instance.

What I found surprising is that we apparently controlled the passing game more frequently during MON’s first season in charge and we finished 11th. That is if you’re willing to accept that the number of passes can tell you about the style of play. I think it’s a useful piece of information, but on it’s own, like most statistics if isolated, it only says so much.

As we always say; there’s only one statistic that matters and that’s winning. It would be nice to dominate games playing total football and win, but I’ll take smash and grab wins over sexy losses any day. However, trawling through the data from the last few years I found some interesting illustrations of how football can defy the stats.

Most Complete Passes

Sorting our 136 Premiership games under MON by number of completed passes, 4 of the top 5 are from the 2006/07 season and all were at Villa Park.

The most completed passes by Villa during this period was 373 against Charlton in a 2-0 win back in September 2006. Charlton managed 265 passes themselves, so Villa’s CPS was 58.5%.

Villa’s record for the top 5 games with most passes was 2 wins and 3 draws, scoring a total of 8 goals and conceding 5. This isn’t exactly total domination.

Interestingly, the 6th overall most completed passes and highest placed away match was against Man Utd at Old Trafford in March 2008. Stringing together 321 passes with an impressive 82% completion rate didn’t stop Man Utd romping to a 4-0 victory. With Villa achieving a CPS of 46%, this game falls into the ‘even match’ category, yet that didn’t prevent a heavy loss.

Least Complete Passes

Unsurprisingly, the 5 lowest number of complete passes in a game all occurred away from home, but oddly enough contains a better record of 3 wins and 2 draws. 2 games were from last season and 3 from the ‘07/08 season.

The lowest number of complete passes was 109 and you might be surprised to learn that it was during the the 4-4 draw with Tottenham. That’s a game that you might have in your mind as one we might have won if not for Marlon Harewood’s clumsy challenge to give away a penalty, but the home team’s 352 successful passes means that Villa were left with a CPS% of just 23.6%.

The second worst number of passes (112) coincidentally occurred during another 4-4 draw, this time at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day ‘07, a game that was the definition of a Thrilla from the Villa. Yet it also provided our worst CPS of 19.9%.

The next three games were away wins at Portsmouth, Middlesbrough and Everton, scoring 7 and only conceding 2 with an average successful pass rate of just 126 and an average CPS of 33.3%.

This Season

The most successful passes were made during the frustrating 0-0 draw with West Ham at Villa Park and we also enjoyed a CPS of 57.1%. However, the highest CPS%was 63.5% achieved in the 5-1 win over Bolton, also at home.

You might not be surprised to learn that the lowest number of passes was made during the dreadful opening day loss to Wigan – 155. You may be a little surprised to find out that the worst CPS of just 29.1% happened in the 2-1 win over Chelsea.

The average CPS so far this season is 45.26%, which is slightly better than the last two seasons; 44.55% and 44.38%, but a little poorer than the 47.92% set in ‘06/07.

Average Pass Completion

And finally, to wrap up a numerically heavy post, let’s just check out the average pass rates over the course of the last few season with that of our competitors during the same matches.

Average Pass Statistics
Season	Aston Villa			Opponents
Season	Good Passes	Bad Passes	% Complete	Good Passes	Bad Passes	% Complete
2006/07	245.55	107.71	70%	282.97	110.92	72%
2007/08	199.32	72.63	73%	258.39	78.76	77%
2008/09	205.84	62.74	77%	264.34	67.16	80%
2009/10	218.73	66.86	77%	278.82	70.32	80%

I haven’t done anything sophisticated with the data here, just some basic grouping & simple sorting and I was easily able to see evidence of games where the passing statistics were apparently pretty decent, but Villa didn’t get the desired results and vice versa; where the passing was statistically poor, but we got the right results. That’s football.

I was most surprised to discover how well the 2006/07 compares to the last few seasons, at least when looking at passing. If you didn’t know which season we finished the lowest and had to pick it purely based on the statistics in this blog, you’d be crazy to pick that one.

However, this is one of the great things about working statistics without trying to just find numbers to cherry pick that lend weight to any preconceived ideas you might have; you actually learn something. I don’t know about you, but I like learning something and if there’s one thing to learn from this it’s that you can pass it around all day and get nothing, but sometimes you can be more direct and you’ll win games.

Arsene Wenger knows that, don’t let him tell you otherwise.

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The Long Ball Game – Warning: Very Graphic Content

Dan — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:18:40 +0000

Last month I took a brief look at how Aston Villa’s passing statistics stacked up against the other teams in the Premiership and although we’re just in the bottom half of the table in terms of the number of passes strung together, I think it was clear that we are simply efficient in our approach. To call us a “long ball team” is a mischaracterization.

Apparently Arsene Wenger has used this term to discuss the way we played against his team at Villa Park last night and it’s got Martin O’Neill all hot and bothered:-

He’s made a few ridiculous statements in his time here and that’s probably as good as any. That’s only an annoyance at the end of it all. Anybody who saw the game wouldn’t take that viewpoint. Ashley Young didn’t have time to play long balls when he was taking that left-back [Gaël Clichy] to the cleaners. It’s an appalling insult.

I’m not sure it’s such an ”appalling insult”, but since Wenger is clearly using it as a derogatory term, it’s easy to see why MON isn’t impressed. His zinger about Ash owning Clichy was absolutely spot on too. Ouch!!

Anyway, while the ever awesome OptaJoe was checking what the statistics revealed, I was checking the old Chalkboards. Here’s a few choice Tweets from OptaJoe, who you really should be following if you’re not already:-

9 – Nine Premier League teams played a higher proportion of their passes long than Aston Villa (16%) did this midweek. Reputation.

43 – Number of long balls played by Aston Villa v Arsenal last night. The Gunners hit 37. Similar.

Glossary: a long ball is aimed to a pitch area; a long pass is aimed towards a team-mate. Long = 35 yards and over. Explanation

Take that Wenger!!

So OptaJoe may have stolen my thunder with a few pithy Tweets of a 140 characters or less, but let’s take a look at the Chalkboards anyway. Looking at the passes for the whole game is just a complete cluster, so I broke it down into bite-sized 5 minute chunks, Villa on the left, Arsenal on the right:-


00-05 Minutes

06-10 Minutes

11-15 Minutes

16-20 Minutes

21-25 Minutes

26-30 Minutes

31-35 Minutes

36-40 Minutes

41-45 Minutes

46-50 Minutes

51-55 Minutes

56-60 Minutes

61-65 Minutes

66-70 Minutes

71-75 Minutes

76-80 Minutes

81-85 Minutes

86-90 Minutes

Well done if you scrolled all the way down here. What do you know, the Chalkboards match the stats from OptaJoe and don’t correlate with Arsene Wenger’s assessment. Quelle surprise!!

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Playing Cluedo And Martin O’Neill Might Be A Ninja

Dan — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:30:48 +0000

I want to take you back in time once again to August 2006, just prior to Martin O’Neill joining Aston Villa. As you’ll no doubt recall, David O’Leary had finally been given the elbow in July following an embarrassing string of events which could commonly be referred to as “washing our dirty laundry in public”. The club was surrounded with speculation about various parties interested in purchasing the club and of course there was no shortage of speculation about the manager’s position.

Villa were due to head out to Holland and Germany for their pre-season with caretaker boss Roy Aitken in charge, but he had to pull out as he was still recovering from surgery and so goal keeping coach Eric Steele was going to take over. Yes, you read that correctly. Aston Villa were about to head off on pre-season with the goal keeping coach at the helm.

There’s plenty of ways of describing how bad things were before Martin O’Neill and Randy Lerner came to Aston Villa, but that statement sums it up nicely.

However, the following day, Friday 4th, it was finally announced that Martin O’Neill was appointed as the new manager to much fanfare and that he would be bringing John Robertson and Steve Walford with him. Then they all headed off on Saturday to Holland for a jolly pre-season tour, staying at the Doorwerth Hotel, just outside of Arnhem.

Very pretty place. They’ve had many teams base themselves there since they boast impressive facilities with two FIFA approved pitches, massage area and gym. Just the place to get to know your new team and get set up for the start of the season.

To be honest, I didn’t know where the team stayed and nor did I care until I read this intriguing article in the Daily Mail which paints a fascinating picture of training under Martin O’Neill’s guidance:-

The muffled sound of agitated voices spoiled the otherwise tranquil atmosphere at a luxury Dutch hotel during Martin O’Neill’s first week in charge of Aston Villa.

Residents on the terrace glanced up from their newspapers and brunch as Olof Mellberg’s studded boots clattered over concrete to the changing rooms at the Doorwerth Hotel, near Arnhem, as the intensity of Villa’s pre-season cranked up a notch.

‘Sounds like an interesting session, Olof,’ chirped one observer to the Swedish defender.

‘Oh yes,’ the centre half said with a smile after Villa’s first team had spent an hour tearing into each other. That has raised the temperature around here.’

An hour later, after lunch, O’Neill deliberated on his findings following a few sessions with players he had clearly kicked out of their comfort zone.

‘We need to find different ways of scoring a goal,’ he said.

And therein lies the secret of Aston Villa’s success. A willingness to fight, a drive to succeed — allied to an ability to score goals.

Mmmmmn. Did I say ‘interesting’? Sorry, I meant ‘weird’. It really doesn’t strike me as an accurate portrayal of a manager in his first week on the job. And the conclusion he drew from these events? “We need to find different ways of scoring a goal”. Yeah, I don’t really buy it, but this isn’t really the point of the Mail’s article.

It goes on next to quote an anonymous ex-player who doesn’t paint MON in the most flattering of lights:-

I didn’t do any pattern play under him,’ said the forward, who had better remain anonymous in case the Irishman carries out reprisals. ‘We didn’t really do much by way of work on set-pieces either, although people will find that difficult to believe.

‘The fitness work was pretty standard. Most of our play was off the cuff. However, Martin knows what he wants: centre halves, defend; full backs, stop crosses and defend; midfielders, help out at either end of the pitch and create goals; and strikers, score them.

‘As long as you are prepared to give him what he wants, then Martin O’Neill will stand by you morning, noon and night.’

Well, that’s even weirder, but I’ll come back to that, I’m lost in the conundrum of who our mystery ex-player could be. The Mail claims he is an international and a forward, but this is the Daily Mail, they could be being a little economical with the truth here so I expanded the definitions slightly and came up with the following suspects.

OK, let’s deal with these in the order they left.

Milan Baros was frequently a waste of skin in a Villa shirt, only briefly making any attempt to string some consistent performances together, putting himself in the shop window in the lead up to the 2006 World Cup. Baros left Villa in a straight swap for John Carew at Lyon during the January transfer window, just 5 months after Martin O’Neill took over. No question who got the better side of that deal, Lyon manager Gérard Houllier must have felt like he’d just bought a car from Arthur Daley.

Juan Pablo Angel was allowed to leave on a free transfer in April ‘07 and headed off to join the New York Red Bulls where he enjoyed a very successful season in the MLS partnering Jozy Altidore, who is currently on loan at Hull.

JPA left on good terms with all parties realizing that he was getting to the stage in his career where first team opportunities would be limited at Villa and moving to MLS was a great opportunity to continue playing football.

Patrik Berger isn’t really a forward, but as this is the Mail and as he does have a mouth on him, he’s got to be a suspect. In fact, Patrik Berger was shown the door a few weeks before his contract expired at the end of May ‘08 after publicly advising that Gareth Barry should join Liverpool because they’re just so freaking awesome. No surprises that MON promptly cancelled his contract and sent him down the road kicking stones.

Luke Moore initially did well under MON and it looked like he might finally deliver on the potential he had shown. However, after shoulder surgery, he never quite returned to his best and frankly just looked lazy. He initially went to West Brom on loan in February ‘08 before a permanent switch for £3m was confirmed in May ‘08. I’ve included him as both a “forward” and “international” despite only scoring 4 goals since joining the Baggies and never adding to his 5 Under-21 caps as, once again, this is the Daily Mail we’re talking about.

Shaun Maloney never really settled at Aston Villa and was frequently the subject of stories about home sickness. Strictly speaking, he’s not a forward, but I think we’re clear why he’s in the line up by now. It was surely little surprise to anyone when he finally returned to Celtic in August ‘08 with barely more than a year and half under his belt at Villa Park.

It Was Professor Plum In The Library With The Candlestick

Alright, I’ve dragged this out a little, but there’s really only one player who fits the Mail’s description. Let’s rule out JPA right away, he left on good terms and remains on good terms, frequently tweeting nice things about Villa and seems to genuinely follow what’s going on.

Shaun Maloney remains an outside possibility as he didn’t give a glowing account of his time in Birmingham when he returned north of the border, but as he had worked with MON before it’s unlikely he’d specifically criticise training methods. Luke Moore really can’t have much to complain about and I doubt he has enough experience to criticise any manager for the methods as what does he have to compare it to?

Although he’s not a forward, I can’t rule Patrik Berger out due to his mouth, but still find myself leaning toward Milan Baros. However, there’s absolutely nothing I can think of that would have brought Neil Moxley of the Daily Mail together with either of these two recently, so I can’t help feeling this is just a case of old, previously unused quotes being used to flesh out an article.

Is Martin O’Neill A Ninja?

I said I’d come back to what I thought was the weirdest part of this article so far and perhaps you spotted it too – it’s the stated reason for the necessity for the mystery player’s anonymity:-

[...]said the forward, who had better remain anonymous in case the Irishman carries out reprisals.

What. The. F%$k?!?!

Let’s assume the mystery player is Milan Baros. What exactly is Martin O’Neill going to do to him all the way in Galatasaray? Smear his face in animal droppings and abseil through his window in the dead of night to slash his throat?

That’s it isn’t it? Martin O’Neill is a ninja!!

McLeish had no idea that the ninja was even there, let alone how much his life was in danger if he said the wrong thing.

Another weird thing is the apparent criticism of what Martin O’Neill wants from his team:-

Martin knows what he wants: centre halves, defend; full backs, stop crosses and defend; midfielders, help out at either end of the pitch and create goals; and strikers, score them.

Wow, what a crazy idea!!

Generally speaking, I pay very little attention to this sort of stuff and the reason why is pretty much contained within the article at the Mail. The author suggests that only Ollie and arguably Steven Davis have gone on to make anything of themselves, but I’d say Gareth Barry has probably done better. Regardless, the point I’d make is exactly as I said in another post recently – there isn’t a player that has left Aston Villa in recent years that I’d want back to replace anyone in the current team.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see the likes of Ollie and/or Martin Laursen join the coaching staff in some capacity, but as for anything players like Berger or Baros may or may not have to say about the manager and his training regime, I could give two shits. I really could.

On the other hand, if I hadn’t read this I may not come across Ninja MON and I’ve a feeling we may well be hearing from him again.

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Strong Financial Stewardship Sets Aston Villa Up For The Future

Dan — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:32:28 +0000

Proud History, Bright Future.

A tag line, PR spin, just a bit of marketing guff perhaps, but it’s a simple little sentence that strikes the right chord with most Villa fans. I’ve always liked it and it sums up Aston Villa at the moment as well as any four words possibly could. I’m really talking about Aston Villa under the management of Martin O’Neill and, more specifically, the ownership of Randy Lerner.

When it comes to team management it’s frequently speculated that Martin O’Neill has put Villa on a strong footing to counter any new rules imposed on clubs surrounding the nationality of players by creating the most English-centric team in the Premiership. I’m not sure this was his motivation, or even a consideration for that matter, and the last time I looked, the proposed rule changes wouldn’t have a massive effect on any of the EPL clubs, but it still leaves a satisfying feeling that that might be the case.

On the financial front, there can be few credible complaints from Villa fans about an owner who has invested both on and off the pitch to levels not seen at Villa Park before, but equally hasn’t gone crazy and saddled the club with unmanageable levels of debt.

Thanks to Pitch Invasion I was just reading about UEFA’s intentions to deal with clubs living beyond their means. We’ve all recently seen the terrible levels of debt hanging around the necks of Liverpool and Man Utd. Chelsea’s debt may have been turned into shares by Abramovich, but the club are still losing more than £40m per season. Portsmouth are in a perilous state and the situation there should be watched very carefully.

According to UEFA’s survey of more than 650 clubs throughout Europe, more than half are consistently losing money and 20% are “making huge losses, spending 120 per cent of their revenue every year.” This cannot continue and UEFA are quite right to intervene.

And if you think that a sugar daddy owner like Citeh’s Sheikh Mansour is the answer, think again. UEFA are not about to let an owner send football salaries into spiraling levels of inflation by pumping their own money through the club as their play thing.

To be clear, no one is trying to stamp out debt completely, not all debt is a bad thing, but the debts have to be manageable. If servicing a debt from 2012 onward takes the club into loss making territory they’ll find themselves excluded from European competition. The Telegraph article closes with a nice summary:-

How will the rules work?

What are the new regulations?
From the 2012-13 season, clubs will have to consistently break even – spending only what they earn – if they want to compete in European competition.

Does that mean they can’t have debts?
No, but the debt has to be affordable. If the interest on the debt means that the club or its holding company make a loss, they would fall foul of the rules. Clubs will still be able to borrow to fund new stadiums and youth academies.

What about wealthy owners?
It will be harder for them to subsidise transfer spending and player wages from their own pocket.

Which English clubs will be affected?
Chelsea and Manchester City, as they both need their owners to pay the players. Manchester United will be hit if their debts stay high. In fact, the whole Premier League could be hit: 14 of the 20 clubs made a loss in 2008.

I doubt that Randy Lerner saw this coming any more than I believe Martin O’Neill has anticipated any type of restriction on foreign players, but once again I’m feeling that warm glow that our owner is steering the good ship Aston Villa on the right course, sticking well away from those jagged rocks.

I think our club is rightly the envy of many a football fan for the way it’s run and set up for the future and it seems to me that there could be some major changes to football in the coming years that will see our club move into a very strong, viable position.

Proud History, Bright Future indeed.

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Martin O’Neill – Great Manager, Or Greatest Manager?

Dan — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:23:03 +0000

I don’t know about you, but when you’re as easily distracted as I am it’s hard to get anything done. Earlier today I was researching some statistics when I stumbled on this fantastic graph which shows Aston Villa’s Goal Difference from the Premiership years plotted cumulatively.

No single statistic can accurately depict much in football, let alone going on for two decades worth of performance in the top flight. However, it’s inescapably true that the teams with the best goal difference will generally occupy the top of the table, so it naturally follows that a graphic presentation of the cumulative growth and reduction in goal difference will be a decent indicator of the team’s fortunes along the way.

To be honest, I’ve never thought of looking at Goal Difference in this way and I found myself completely engrossed by something so simple, yet effective. I didn’t want to take someone’s work and just paste it in here without adding anything to it, so since it hadn’t been updated since October and I had the raw data myself, I decided to recreate the graph with the addition of what I think is a new football statistic.

I’ve come up with what I’m calling ‘Cumulative Win Difference‘ and as far as I know it’s not been used before. I’ve certainly never seen it anyway. At the end of the season it’s easy to deduct the number of losses from wins to give you a ‘Win Difference’, but unlike Goal Difference, that’s not a very meaningful metric. However, if you plot the same data cumulatively, in exactly the same way as Goal Difference, it becomes much more useful graphically. Basically we’re adding 1 to the CWD for a win, subtracting 1 for a loss and doing nothing for a draw.

Anyway, enough yaking, it’s probably easier if I just show you. Check it out (you can click for a full sized version):-

The more you look at it, the more you see. Especially if you have the data alongside. Here’s an overview of what I see from this graph:-

Ron Atkinson

BFR brought us into the new football era of massive amounts of money and huge TV deals with a bang with what remains Aston Villa’s best season in the Premiership so far, finishing runner-up to Man Utd with 74 points. If you thought that was a sign of things to come, you were wrong.

I love how his section of the graph starts with such a steep incline in both data series, that’s really what you want to see, but dramatic decline reveals that we were hardly any further forward by the time Ron left than when the Premiership began. The overall Goal Difference was +4 and the Win Difference was +5.

Brian Little

Brian did a good job of stopping the rot and one early run of bad form aside, made steady progress. However, as the graph shows, progress slowed and then declined around the end of his third season in charge. This is quite possibly what it looks like when a manager has taken a team as far as he can and it’s time for a change. It’s basically stagnation.

By the time he left, Little had taken the Cumulative Goal Difference to +28 and the Cumulative Win Difference to +14.

John Gregory

What a change in fortunes John Gregory brought with an absolutely stunning opening run of games. It’s not easy to pick out the finer details, but those near vertical red and blue lines at the beginning of Gregory’s section of the graph show just 2 losses in his first 23 games in charge!! If only that had been in a single season, rather than the end of ‘97/98 and the beginning of ‘98/99, and that could easily have been title winning form.

Gregory’s exit is still shrouded in some murkiness for me, but while he wasn’t immune to the odd bad spell along the way, he was a manager who I felt still had a lot to give. As shown in the summary table below, Gregory’s Premiership Win Percentage of 41.22% remains one key metric that Martin O’Neill has yet to improve upon.

By the time JG left he had taken the Cumulative Goal Difference to +61 and the Cumulative Win Difference to +34.

Graham Taylor

Taylor’s second period at the helm, sometimes referred to as GT II, but generally not referred to at all. A disastrous tenure in every sense of the word and the least said about it the better.

GT II is one of two managers who actually reduced the Cumulative Goal Difference and Cumulative Win Difference, leaving the scores at +52 and +26 respectively. You already know who the other manager was.

David O’Leary

DOL made a bright start and appeared to recover some respect for the club in his first season. I sometimes see MON’s back to back 6th place finishes belittled by critics pointing out that DOL also managed to finished 6th. Once. What’s as clear as day when you look at the trend in a graph like this is that DOL’s 6th place in the ‘03/04 season was a blip and, taking the the GT II period into context, we were heading in a very, very bad direction.

While DOL achieved 6th place in spite of a downward trend, MON has achieved the same as part of an upward trend. This couldn’t be clearer. Most of us didn’t need a graph like this to tell us that, but it’s nice to refresh the memory now and again.

Although DOL briefly peaked the CGD slightly above the level that John Gregory had handed over to GT II, from there it was heading south in a rapid way. It’s conjecture now perhaps, and I’m extremely grateful that we’ll never know for sure, but everything points to a team heading for the Championship had there not been the significant changes required to the leadership at Aston Villa.

DOL left the CGD and CWD considerably worse than GT II had handed them to him with the Cumulative Goal Difference reduced to +36 and the Cumulative Win Difference down to +20. Thanks DOL, nice work.

Martin O’Neill

After the O’Leary years, MON received a heroes welcome when he joined Villa in August 2006. It would be foolish to believe that MON didn’t know what was happening, but Randy Lerner actually began the acquisition of the club after MON was on board.

The newly restored hope and optimism surrounding Villa Park was boosted by an impressive opening sequence of 9 Premiership games unbeaten. However, a quite woeful spell from late November ‘06 though into mid-January ‘07, where Villa failed to notch a single win from 11 Premiership matches, sent MON’s team tumbling down into the bottom half of the table.

After so many years of misery, Villa fans maintained their patience and belief. It may have proven to have been a masterstroke of transfer market genius now, but there were certainly a few question marks over the then club record signing of Ashley Young during the January window. Coupled with the almost embarrassingly one-sided swap deal of John Carew in place of Milan Baros, Villa recovered their form and closed out the season as they had started it, with an impressive unbeaten run in the last 9 games, finishing 11th.

During MON’s second season at the helm, 2007/08, you can see that progress could easily be described as steady until a slight blip towards the end which was a run of 3 losses in March. The 7 unanswered goals conceded to Portsmouth, Sunderland and Man Utd are clearly visible in the blue CGD series. I seem to recall a particularly vocal bunch of McExperts populating the internet with their views of MON’s failure in the preceding January transfer window. Clearly the players were tired and it was MON’s fault that he hadn’t spent gazillions on new players during the Winter.

A flaw in that school of thought was revealed when those same tired players responded by going on a 3 game winning streak, notching up a net 14 goals in the process. You surely won’t need reminding of the 4-0 destruction of Bolton, the sublime 6-0 over Derby all capped off by the glorious 5-1 demolition of Birmingham City will you? Again, this sequence is unmissable in the blue CGD series in the graph.

The third season, 2008/09, continued the same fairly steady pace, but an amazing unbeaten run of 13 games, starting with the 2-0 win over Arsenal in November, lifted Villa into the top 3, causing mass excitement and expectation. However, it proved to be something of a false dawn.

There’s a multitude of factors that can be attributed to the appalling run of form from February ‘09 until finally registering a win in May with the limp 1-0 victory over Hull – primarily the loss of Martin Laursen, the addition of Emile Heskey and the Moscow saga. The interesting thing that the graph reveals is that although the bad run could rightly be described as a collapse, because MON restored the previous overall pace, it’s really just a blip. Although it is a significant blip and without it we would undoubtedly be better off, we’re clearly very much back on track and heading in the right direction.

One thing I certainly cannot see in MON’s section of the graph is any evidence of a manager who has taken the team as far as he can, a meme which is popular with some people. As it stands, MON has taken the CGD to +75 and the CWD to +39, finally above the peaks achieved by John Gregory, undoing the work of GT II and DOL.

Summary

Ron Atkinson’s section on the graph shows a manager who had completely lost it and was rightly shown the door, probably way too late as it happens. Brian Little’s section shows a good manager who turned things around, but possibly reached the limit of his abilities at the time. John Gregory’s section reveals a manager with more to offer, although his time that followed at Derby was less impressive and he’s now managing Maccabi Ahi Nazareth in Israel which places a question mark next to that assessment. It’s entirely possible that he left at exactly the right time, perhaps the peak of where he could have taken us, but we’ll never know now.

The GT II section shows a manager that never should have been and DOL’s graph looks like a manager who received a lucky bounce in his first season, but was exposed as an incompetent fool during his second and third seasons. We should all be grateful that there was never a fourth!

And as I’ve already made the case, MON’s section in the graph clearly shows a manager who has taken the club by the scruff of the neck and forced it back into recovery, sometimes kicking and screaming along the way.

Going Backwards At The Wrong Time

We all talk about the “big four”, “top four”, “Sky four”, call it what you will, but most people don’t appreciate just how recently Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool have achieved their apparent monopoly of the 4 Champions League places.

It may or may not surprise you to learn that those four teams have consistently occupied the top four places only in the last 4 seasons. Right around the time that Aston Villa were really suffering the decline created by Doug Ellis in association with GT II & DOL, the big four were solidifying their position at the top of the table. Not only were we falling backwards in real terms through our own failures, we were falling even further behind because the big four were pushing on further ahead.

Much like two cars travelling at 50mph in a head on crash experience the equivalent of a 100mph accident, two vehicles travelling in opposite directions at 50mph are effectively being separated at 100mph. This isn’t dissimilar to what Villa were doing. Not only has MON managed to pull on the handbrake and spin the car 180 degrees, he’s actually chasing hot on the heels of the top cars and make no mistake, their drivers have more than an eye on their rear view mirror.

This is an impressive achievement under any circumstances, but it’s fair to assume that it would have been highly unlikely to happen without an owner like Randy Lerner behind him. DOL steering Aston Villa to 6th at that particular time is one thing and certainly deserves some recognition, but for MON to return the club to that position after all the years of neglect and to do so in an environment where the top 4 positions are more or less considered locked off before a ball has been kicked is beyond impressive.

MON’s achievements to date would not be denigrated by any self respecting football fan, but it’s worth finally taking a look at his Premiership management record in comparison with his predecessors at Villa. This is a table I’ve used several times before on the blog and I’ll certainly use it again. (Click for a full sized version)

It pretty much speaks for itself. John Gregory just edges MON at this stage, but with 14 league games until they’ve played the same amount and currently running at 1.75 points per game this season, MON should just overtake Gregory with a game or two to spare.

You certainly get more goals under Martin O’Neill and less losses, which in theory sounds like superior entertainment, but I’ll accept that’s entirely subjective.

Silverware

Finally, I have focused exclusively on the the league as it’s the only way to be able to draw direct comparisons between managers and it’s our bread and butter. However, I would be remiss not to mention that two of the above managers have achieved what we all crave: winning something.

It should not be forgotten that Ron Atkinson led the team to League Cup victory in 1994 and Brian Little repeated the feat in 1996.

However, if the snow doesn’t stop us, Martin O’Neill will be leading his team to Wembley to attempt the same. I’ve every confidence that we’ll do very well in the Premiership this season, but I’d love to see us pick up some silverware!!

I suppose until MON delivers a trophy it might not be right to call him the greatest manager Aston Villa has had during the Premiership years, but he’s unquestionably great and if he’s not the greatest just yet, he’s not far away at all!!

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Something I Think Villa Fans Should Get Used To Seeing

Dan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:15:43 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty excited about the potential attacking force of the four players above and I’m optimistic that we’re going to see this foursome regularly celebrating scoring in front of cheering fans.

Stewart Downing, as the newest player, is the biggest unknown, but he looked good as a provider in his brief cameo at the end of the game at Burnley. He put in an impressive performance for the reserves before scoring on his full debut at Fratton Park in the 4-2 Carling Cup victory over Portsmouth last night.

We know he’s a natural left side player, but like the other three, he has the versatility to move into the middle or just behind the strikers. I think he’s capable of providing the missing ingredient that will release the other three to do what they do best.

Gabby Agbonlahor has bulked up during the summer and seems more willing to make a nuisance of himself, defending from the front when he’s not involved in the game. He’s also displaying a willingness to look up for fellow players in the final third much more than last season. Last season he scored 12 goals and made 5 assists in the Premiership. He’ll do better this year, keep your eye on his assists in particular.

MON has frequently asked Gabby to play a role as an attacking right sided midfielder and he’s always looked dangerous, but now he seems to have an added intelligence to his game. He’s in with a decent shout of a plane ticket to South Africa and will want to make a big impression on the England manager during the rest of the season.

Ashley Young is our most creative and dangerous player. We know it, so does every opponent we come up against and they give him the appropriate attention. I hope he’ll be honest enough to admit that he’s been guilty of wasting decent opportunities with poor deliveries on occasion this season, but he does seem to be regaining what might have been a slight drop in confidence. Perhaps he also needs to gain a little guile and street smarts to deal with being double and triple teamed so often, but he’s showing the right signs. John Robertson will no doubt be on the case.

The important thing is that he’s shown glimpses of his best form in the last few games and the addition of Stewart Downing may well be the ironic catalyst to set him free. He also needs to remind Fabio Capello why he should be thinking about taking him to South Africa which can only be good for Villa along the way.

Ashley is probably the most versatile attacking player at Villa. Although he’s a right footed player, he’s got enough quality in his left foot that he appears a natural left winger but with the dangerous ability to cut back inside to unleash with his stronger foot. He can obviously play on the right, behind the strike pair or even as a striker himself. He’s got the full toolkit and Villa fans were probably most excited during a period when MON gave him license to play a completely free role, roaming around the pitch destroying the opposition. That’s a weapon that MON knows he always has at his disposal.

James Milner has rightly built up an army of fans. At first he unfairly had his price tag held over his head, but as he’s quickly established himself as the hardest working player in Claret and Blue he’s proved his value beyond all doubt. Like Ash, he’s also guilty of wasting good opportunities with below par deliveries at times, but his work rate means he creates more of those opportunities than a lot of other Premiership players and he actually completes more crosses than he’s sometimes given credit for.

With the addition of Stewart Downing, the question has been asked about whether Milner could push into a more central position and he’s answered positively. Milner and Ash will swap wings for 10 minutes or so almost every game, but lately James has adopted a position in the hole behind the strikers, looking to pick up on loose balls around the box at times. It’s also been interesting to note Ash and Milner effectively exploiting the same channel together, linking up for periods in a lop sided attack that must leave defenders scratching their heads about how to stop the onslaught.

We’ve all seen Milner on the left during brief period, but he’s shown that he can play a dedicated role on that side while wearing the Three Lions shirt and, ironically, at the moment, is probably Ash’s greatest competition to make the squad for South Africa. Stewart Downing will want to say something about that between now and June.

The Four Horsemen

I believe this foursome are the key to Aston Villa terrorizing defenses for the rest of this season, it’s just a matter of how they’re augmented. MON has the option of using either Heskey or Carew as a second striker alongside Gabby, which leaves only Petrov behind them and that presents it’s own set of weaknesses.

Personally, I think these four lend themselves nicely to employing Petrov and, most likely, Reo-Coker as central, holding midfielders sitting in front of the back four, Ash, Milner and Downing can tie opponents up in knots playing in constantly different roles in support of Gabby up front alone.

There’s clearly going to be times when either approach will leave us exposed, but fortunately our defense are not too shabby themselves. We shouldn’t over rely on our back four and goal keeper, but I think we’d all like to see Villa approaching more games with the attitude of letting our opponents worry more about us than we do about them. We have the talent and fire power to do this now, I think that’s what frustrates most fans when they witness this talent being pinned back at home by Tottenham.

Next up, we have Hull coming to Villa Park and I’d love to see these four deliver an apocalypse to set a platform for the tough December that lies ahead. If we finish out this year strongly, I’ve a feeling that 2010 is going to be a special year for Aston Villa.

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Ashley Young Wallpaper

Dan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:30:34 +0000

A new grunge style Ashley Young Wallpaper available in 1280×800, 1280×1024 and 1024×768 here.