Confirmed Signing Jack Grealish

[coollino]

Nonsense. Stats do my head in.

I’m not talking about out watching a player for 1 game mate, you would follow it up with a few viewings to see if they are consistent and their performance is consistent over time. You don’t need stats for that. Good old fashioned scouting.

You could look at general stats for distance covered, successful passes/dribbles, but you can’t fool the eye/gut.

Doucure has good stats for distance covered etc but anyone with eyes could see he was an horrendous footballer.

I can tell from watching a few games that Grealish, KDH, Alcaraz and Ndiaye are good footballers.

but do they look good on a spreadsheet post game?

 

[blulouie]

If we do get Grealish over the line then that sends out a message to other young aspiring players who may not have been wholly convinced by Everton's 'project' that, just maybe, this is not a bad place to be at the next stage of their careers. Reckon Dibling may now push for a transfer and hand in a request.

If ?????

 

[chicoazul]

Announcement incoming.

 

[coollino]

this is the new Iwobi thread, buzzing

 

[chicoazul]

@Goat is fat.

 

[Cameron Manning]

Nonsense. Stats do my head in.

I’m not talking about out watching a player for 1 game mate, you would follow it up with a few viewings to see if they are consistent and their performance is consistent over time. You don’t need stats for that. Good old fashioned scouting.

You could look at general stats for distance covered, successful passes/dribbles, but you can’t fool the eye/gut.

Doucure has good stats for distance covered etc but anyone with eyes could see he was an horrendous footballer.

I can tell from watching a few games that Grealish, KDH, Alcaraz and Ndiaye are good footballers.

Eyes will always beat stats, “ He made 150 passes” doesn’t tell you that half of them was backwards and sideways, plenty three yard passes to a teammate, a few back to the keeper etc etc, if you like stats fair enough but better keeping them to yourself!

 

[Bluerover]

100% agree with this. Pienaar didn’t get many goals and he didn’t get that many assists but he was absolutely the key to how we played while he was here because he guaranteed us a certain amount of possession in every game. Even just simple things like guaranteeing we would retain possession from throw-ins because of his first touch helped us. Having players who you know are going to protect the ball encourages everyone else to run forward into space and moves us up the pitch as a team. Baines knew every time Pienaar got it he could bomb forward because he knew the ball wouldn’t be given away. NDiaye does that for us a bit with his dribbling but he is less reliable in his passing. Grealish at the very least will moves us up the pitch as a team because his first touch, close control and ball protection at genuinely elite. That might not result in great stats for him but it will help the team. Something which the stats nerds don’t understand. He is the opposite of Siggurdson who had good stats but was detrimental to us as a team.

Anytime Carsley was missing the team as whole was worse.

Nothing flashy, but hugely important.

 

[GrimbolandBlue]

Nonsense. Stats do my head in.

I’m not talking about out watching a player for 1 game mate, you would follow it up with a few viewings to see if they are consistent and their performance is consistent over time. You don’t need stats for that. Good old fashioned scouting.

You could look at general stats for distance covered, successful passes/dribbles, but you can’t fool the eye/gut.

Doucure has good stats for distance covered etc but anyone with eyes could see he was an horrendous footballer.

I can tell from watching a few games that Grealish, KDH, Alcaraz and Ndiaye are good footballers.

Hit the nail on the head. Stats are the harbinger of misinformation around ability atm. The sport is rife with it ever since XG became a thing

 

[Harryflashman]

I was wary of posting this as I know how this sort of stuff usually goes down on here but I have heard the same from someone who knows his dad. Apparently he will wear the number 18 shirt (maybe nod to Rooney, maybe Gazza, maybe rubbish who knows).

Number 18 you say

 

[Rehnman]

You're assuming there would be a stat that would show that though aren't? Which stat would show this and did it show it in this case? I think stats are a blunt instrument. They need someone with a brain to interpret them and someone with actual knowledge of football to watch the player and see if the stats are important or relevant. A player with superior stats isn't necessarily better than another player with worse stats. They don't take into account positioning/reading of the game, quality and choice of pass, quality of opposition, when things happen in games (i.e. some players are more clutch than others and score goals when they really matter). Stats are helpful to sift players but the final decision should always be based on the eye test. This isn't baseball.

I absolutely agree with most of that - although decent data does actually now take almost all of those things into account, the way it’s interpreted is crucial. It’s so often cherry picked for confirmation bias - not the data’s fault tho, our fault! It’s like the classic thing of rating the player who beats a man higher than the man who closes off a passing lane. It’s natural - who doesn’t love to see a technically gifted player? We bloody dream of it! But both are equally important in winning games, the latter might even be more important.

 

[John from Bootle]

Spending big money on players with no resale value nearly killed us.

This is sort of true, but not the whole story. Our problem was spending big money on rubbish players. If the likes of Bolasie, Walcott, Schneiderlin, Tosun etc had left for free but had spent 4/5 years in our first team, helping us challenge for Europe and performing to a decent standard then we wouldn't have minded so much and finances would have been healthier through a combination of more prize money, and not having to pay or subsidise wages for players who weren't good enough whilst desperately trying to find somebody to replace them.

Our problem was that we'd spend big money on players who were deadwood within a year of them signing.

 

[matty1878]

For the mystery winger from abroad and the 19 year old at left back (who is now effectively our only left back) - yeah it will.

it won’t

 

[Who's_up_for_cumpkins?]

Be interesting how much effort goes into the reveal. In theory this one should be a blockbuster.

Lunch time reveal - yeah we've got jack Grealish onto the next.

5pm reveal - WEVE GOT F***ING JACK GREALISH blue pyro and fireworks

 

[Jacko93]

The myth about stats is that they are a new thing , they arent , managers and scouts etc have been using them for decades .
They have just become more refined and more available to the general public.

True, but they mix data with knowledge to add context. Otherwise many of the data points tell you nothing. Data without context is data, data with context is information.

 

[GN!]

You can make stats mean anything 60% of people know that