What's a good result?
This isn’t my usual way of thinking about football, but it’s started to nag away at me when reading various criticisms on ToffeeWeb. Some fans will criticise pretty much no matter what happens in a match; they’ll find something to moan about and something wrong. This was even true in the Chelsea match, when a few decided that amid the euphoria and praise, there was still time to criticise Lukaku, seemingly on the grounds that Naismith had scored a hat-trick and he hadn’t.Moneyball has been discussed on ToffeeWeb before, and is responsible I think for a general raising of awareness about statistics in football. The Moneyball model is to judge players statistically on the actual outcomes they produce, rather than how good they look — the idea being that we can then make more objective judgements of players, rather than relying on traditional subjective ones. However, none of this is really my main point, I want to look objectively at what could be considered a ‘good result’, rather than judging players individually.
I remember reading or hearing about Mourinho’s attitude to winning the league being something along the lines of this: Take the bottom half of teams in the league, beat them all home and away, and then you only need to find about 25-30 points in 18 games against the top half. Obviously you will drop points against some of the lower teams, but then you have to make them up in games against top-half teams. This basically leaves you only ever having to draw the big games, and gives you a huge advantage tactically in not feeling you have to take risks to force a result. Though very few talk about this overtly, occasionally other managers give away the idea that certain games are targeted as ‘result’ games, where others would be considered bonuses.
So what is our equivalent of this? Well I’ve always worked roughly off the ‘win your home games, draw your away games’ principle. This would actually give us 76 points, which we’ve never achieved in the Premier League era. Looking back two seasons we achieved 72 points, and because it’s easier to deal in rounded numbers, let’s say our realistic target is 70 pts. This would have achieved 4th place last season.
In fact Man Utd came 4th with a record of P38 W20 D10 L8. These are nice easy numbers to use, so I’ll base the following on them. This means we should be happy with, or accept a home record of P19 W13 D4 L2 and an away record of P19 W7 D6 L6. Mapping this onto last season’s league table gives us a sense of who we should be beating, who it is okay to draw against, and who we could lose to without it actually costing us.
If you’re still with me, this means that we should beat last season’s 7th place, and everyone below, at home, draw with 3rd-6th and defeat at home to the top two would be far from disastrous. Similarly we should look to beat the bottom seven away from home (substituting in the newly promoted sides for the relegated sides), draw with the next six, and not get our knickers in a twist at losing to the top six away from home.
Of course, results in the real world don’t actually map like this but, if you’ve made it this far into what I’m saying, you’ll probably fully grasp that, for every bottom team we don’t beat, we have to replace that result with a victory over someone we could have drawn against... and so on.
So far this season, this means our fixtures have been the following:
Watford (H) (should've won) D 2-2 (-2 pts)
Southampton (A) (should've drawn) W 3-0 (+2 pts)
Man City (H) (could afford to lose) L 0-2 (-)
Tottenham (A) (should've drawn) D 0-0 (-)
Chelsea (H) (could afford to lose) W 3-1 (+3 pts)
Swansea (A) (should've drawn) D 0-0 (-)
This means we’ve only had one bad result, if we are setting our target as 70 pts, and are in fact on course for 73 pts as of now, because both our wins can be considered ‘good’ results. It also means that the West Brom away game comes in (just) as one we should expect to draw without having fallen off track.
Two important things to finish off with. Firstly, this certainly doesn’t mean I’m advocating not trying to win those games we can afford to draw or lose; we don’t want 70 pts to be a limit, but in the mid-range of our targets as something achievable and realistic. It’s more about giving a sense of objective perspective on what our results actually mean at the time. In fact, I fully believe we can go to West Brom and win, and that we should be prepared to take a little risk or two to do so... but, if we do get a draw, we’re still on for 73 pts and 4th place.
The other important point is that results will regularly be outside this mapping out process, but the key issue is that, when we drop points somewhere, we need to pick them up somewhere else. We can refer to this as substitutability. This in fact identifies winning home games against ‘lesser’ sides as an absolutely crucial area for us.
This is something we did well in 2013-14, and it was a huge problem last season, when – although we didn’t lose many – we consistently dropped two points against teams we should have expected to beat. This is why I’ve mentioned before that once our opening 10 game ‘horror’ fixture list is over, we actually face a bigger challenge to be consistent against the ‘lower’ teams, and relentlessly pick up the points we’ll need to reach the 70 mark and challenge seriously for 4th place.
So, whilst we all want to win every game, perhaps there is a place for a little perspective in analysing whether we are doing things wrong that need changing, or whether in fact we are on track and right to persist with things that seem to be working.
Reader Comments (43)
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2 Posted 26/09/2015 at 05:12:54
For example, if you take say 3 games that are tied, and try and win them in the last 30 minutes, by going for it, you risk losing some of those games, but winning just as many as you lose. Let's just say for arguments sake you win 1, draw 1 and lose 1, you end up with 4 points instead of 3. That's a good uplift in points of 33%, for otherwise drawn games.
But as fans, we'd have to be OK with losing that game from a drawing position, in context of winning another from a drawing position for the net gain of an extra point across three games. That's where expectation and living in the moment of a game starts to take over and the passion overtakes practicality ...
All-in-all, a thoughtful approach and much appreciated.
3 Posted 26/09/2015 at 06:33:52
Not quite correct mathematically as losing a game we should have won is -3 points and winning a game we should have drawn is +2 so we are still -1 down.
Also, how do you define the top 2 teams? Last week WHU were 2nd so according to your theory a loss at home to them would be an expected result, but this week it wouldn't.
4 Posted 26/09/2015 at 07:39:38
Mike, this is a good article – and a good way to have realistic expectations. Having said that, I think this is more for the fans and for Roberto's long-term strategy. I don't think Roberto will discuss this with his players before a game!
"Guys, according to the Mike Allison Chart, we are playing Man City – so it is okay to lose!" Every game is a must-win for Everton (and for every other team) and their fans. It is only when you are 0-0 at Chelsea or Man United (for example) at 60 minutes, that the manager can decide to shut shop and take the point.
5 Posted 26/09/2015 at 07:42:59
I think Michael's idea of making the APE (sorry fellas, I just couldn't resist it) part of the prematch review is great and we could have a bit of fun with it. Who knows, the manager might even take an interest in it. He might even decide on his starting formation (4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-5-1 etc) based on our APE status.
Lyndon was talking in another post about a list of things he was considering for the website. I am sure he cold set up the Allison Perspective Evaluation table as a live feature.
7 Posted 26/09/2015 at 08:25:51
9 Posted 26/09/2015 at 08:34:26
And Ajay, 4, of course you're right, I do still want to win every game, I'm really talking about how we might react to results.
This could affect decisions though. For example, if we dropped two points against a bottom side, we might be more likely to make that attacking substitution and take the risk in a game where we're level, and it was down as a draw.
And yes, everything is based on last season's table. It would be more accurate to use this season's, but if I knew this season's, I'd be down the bookies.
10 Posted 26/09/2015 at 08:41:39
Everyone is saying we look a lot fitter, but we are still near the bottom of the league when it comes down to teams who are covering the most miles on a pitch. Hopefully this bodes well in the latter part of the season, when we will see the lesser teams start to get tired.
Biggest difference to me so far this season, is I'm enjoying watching Everton play again. Let's hope it leads us to some success!
11 Posted 26/09/2015 at 09:11:55
I'd put us down as follows before the game, so in golfing terms I think we are at par. In actual games we could and should have done better and probably should have been on 12 points.
Watford 3 point - deserved 3 points.
Spurs 1 point - lucky to escape with a point.
City 0 point - played well but a point was just too big of a gap.
Chelsea 1 point - 3 points, battered them in the Stones induced bear pit.
Saints 1 point - battered them 3 points.
Swansea 3 points - 3 points if we get more clinical.
Role on WBA. Clean sheet and Gerry to start on the left. Let's get after Jonny Evans and turn these over.
12 Posted 26/09/2015 at 09:22:39
This doesn't apply when we play Liverpool; I couldn't give a fuck how we beat them.
14 Posted 26/09/2015 at 10:31:54
1. You've identified a formula which TW editors could use to calculate the anticipated delight/disgust in post-match discussions.
2. Contributors' comments, using those clever algorithm thingies, can be then measured against the 'norm' for each result and colour-coded pessimistic (grey), balanced (black) or optimistic (blue tint).
3. We could then select to read comments only in the colour we agree with (for comfort) or disagree with (for outrage) or just the greys (for insight).
4. At the end of each season, we could allocate ToffeeWebbers comments into three camps, named after historic leaders in the field.
Optimistic - Camp Dodds
Balanced - Camp Buckley
Pessimistic - Camp Marsh
17 Posted 26/09/2015 at 10:38:07
Given 12 points from the big six and 52 points from the remainder that would give a total of 64 points at the end of the campaign
So far, we have taken 4 points from our fixtures with top six clubs and 5 points from the remaining teams, which means at present we are doing okay but we won't know until the reverse fixtures against the lower teams whether the draws with Watford and Swansea were good or bad results.
Seeing as Everton need to get above the 70-point mark to achieve CL football, it will take a great deal of effort and skill against whichever teams we play and it is imperative that we gain as many points from every fixture regardless of where they happen to sit in the Moneyball league. 76 points would be nice, but let's get to the 40-point mark asap and then we can start dreaming of better things.
18 Posted 26/09/2015 at 10:44:36
If we don't put in the performances, then results won't come and all the stats in the world won't change that. You can muddle through sneaking results here and there for a while but, sooner or later, bad performances will catch up with you, as shown last season.
I have been pleasantly surprised for most part this season with performance levels. Whilst there is certainly room for improvement, it is much better than anticipated and hence the results have come.
19 Posted 26/09/2015 at 11:00:03
John - I disagree with 2 of your field leaders - my fields would be
Optimistic - Camp G
Balanced - Buckley
Pessimistic - Camp W
21 Posted 26/09/2015 at 15:18:00
We should hope and plan to win against the monied teams, but be more accepting of defeat. Being an Everton supporter helps one accept the harsh realities of life.
But Mike, I am all for using the APE for ToffeeWeb but surely we should tweak it to allow us time to criticise Lukaku, not on the lack of a hat-trick, just a lack of "insert skill, attribute here as appropriate"! Hibbo and Ossie are just not getting the game time and Barry is playing too well recently.
23 Posted 26/09/2015 at 15:58:10
25 Posted 26/09/2015 at 17:03:15
26 Posted 26/09/2015 at 17:03:31
But I cannot see the Street End getting their calculators at full time... thankfully!
29 Posted 26/09/2015 at 18:02:07
31 Posted 26/09/2015 at 21:40:37
On the pleasure scale, the win over Chelsea was a nine-pointer. A loss to Liverpool is a minus-nine-pointer. The defeat away at Southampton last Christmas was a 'get Martinez out to fuck' minus-twenty-pointer!!!
32 Posted 26/09/2015 at 22:14:13
33 Posted 26/09/2015 at 22:24:56
34 Posted 26/09/2015 at 22:32:14
But BIGGAR is best.........
35 Posted 26/09/2015 at 23:22:54
36 Posted 27/09/2015 at 03:43:06
I actually think Moyes had something similar in his thoughts and he got Everton to a point where we regularly beat the lower ranked teams using a tried and trusted playing style. I think there was one season where he almost exactly matched this model, with slightly lower expectations. Arguably, it was the biggest stick used to beat him with – that he seemed to view a point against the top teams as a bonus rather than having a crack at them.
As others have mentioned, it would be interesting to use this in match previews and reports... Roberto himself has mentioned 70 points as being the target so seeing how we might be faring on a game by game basis would be good.
The revised model might report last year's APE and this year's APE to take into account changes in league performance. Or even another metric set against a wage based table to reflect performance against financial outlay. (Now we're getting to Moneyball.)
37 Posted 27/09/2015 at 04:21:49
39 Posted 27/09/2015 at 12:00:20
40 Posted 27/09/2015 at 12:21:27
Given that we probably won't beat the entire bottom seven both home and away, we have to make it up elsewhere, why not here?
Incidentally, on the subject of the big games, Moyes got it wrong. If the game is down as a defeat anyway, you should play with no fear and have real go, with nothing to lose. Moyes played as if we 'had' a point already, and he didn't want to lose that. That's the wrong way round.
42 Posted 27/09/2015 at 12:35:30
I just find it amusing that no matter what my brain tells me (is a decent result)... I can't ever be satisfied with a draw. That sadly tells a story about how much I listen to my brain!!!
44 Posted 27/09/2015 at 13:54:27
What I think our team still lacks is that belief that whenever we go a goal down, that we can pick ourselves up and will ourselves to win. Having the Watford, Barnsley and Reading games where we had to come from behind, hopefully that builds some belief that we can stay in the game, grind out results and also win things!
45 Posted 27/09/2015 at 14:03:50
Opening day is always a bit of a lottery so I think we can take that draw on the chin; likewise, a narrow defeat to City in the form they 'were' in, and a draw away with Spurs are also understandable.
The result at Swansea though just means dropped points for my money and it'll be the same with anything other than 3 points at the Hawthorns, which is a game we really have to win — not just because we should expect to be taking 3 points, but as it's also the lead in to three much tougher matches vs Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal which we're going to need to approach with confidence if we're to have a hope.
47 Posted 27/09/2015 at 15:27:10
The points do matter of course but getting beat by the RS at home, WTF do points have anything to do with it. The emotion I felt sitting high on cloud nine when walking out of the Old Lady after the Chelsea game, was defo off planet. Points that day were not an issue.
I thought the words offered by Don Logan encapsulated the day when he said,
"It's the charge, it's the bolt, it's the buzz, it's the sheer fuck off-ness of it all. Am I right?"
As opposed to what could be construed as slide-rule football.
48 Posted 27/09/2015 at 15:56:50
Every single one of us wants us to snot them.
And I'll still maintain that poor performances warrant criticism and good performances warrant acknowledgement regardless of result. Performance is almost always the best indicator with a few exceptions. (Our 4th place finish, for example — we scraped by in so many games that season.)
But, outside of the matches, a bit of perspective and trying to understand where we are at in relation to our realistic targets would be good.
49 Posted 27/09/2015 at 18:28:07
50 Posted 28/09/2015 at 09:40:15
For example, the away match against Swansea fell under a draw category but after watching the match we all know that we should have taken all 3 points. We were all upset but when I go back and see what was expected then we say "Oh, it's okay." The Chelsea game was a draw for me and we won it, so it is a bonus.
WBA - Win
Liverpool - Win (By default, only the best is expected for this one NSNO)
Man Utd - Draw
51 Posted 28/09/2015 at 14:39:03
52 Posted 28/09/2015 at 15:01:15
Can I just say though that the 2 derby games don't count - we always want to turn them over, surely? The APE only really applies to 36 games a season IMO.
53 Posted 28/09/2015 at 15:25:32
54 Posted 29/09/2015 at 12:23:54
Watford (H) (should've won) D 2-2 (-2 pts)
Southampton (A) (should've drawn) W 3-0 (+2 pts)
Man City (H) (could afford to lose) L 0-2 (-)
Tottenham (A) (should've drawn) D 0-0 (-)
Chelsea (H) (could afford to lose) W 3-1 (+3 pts)
Swansea (A) (should've drawn) D 0-0 (-)
WBA (A) (should've drawn) W 3-2 (+2pts)
Bring on the RS... let's make it 7 points up!!
COYB
55 Posted 29/09/2015 at 21:42:42
Our current record is W3 D3 L1, where the APE would predict W1 D4 L2. The October games also bring low expectations (2 draws and a defeat) meaning we could be even further ahead. However, after that we have WDWW in November and WWWWW in December. It is going to be virtually impossible to gain points on the system, and inevitable that we will drop some at some point. This is where the substitutability comes in, and where we may need to console ourselves that the points we drop somewhere are not disastrous, but merely a balancing of the points we've already gained somewhere else. If we are dead level on the system after the Stoke game on 28th Dec, then we're doing well, and very much in the hunt for 70pts and 4th place.
However, this will have involved a very different challenge to the ones we've faced so far, which is relentlessly picking up all three points in those games we are expected to win. Incidentally there has only been one fixture this season so far that would 'expect' to win (Watford at home), and we didn't win it.
This is our big challenge this season, but based on Barkley's performances so far, and Deulofeu's last night, it is one I'm beginning to feel more confident about.
56 Posted 30/09/2015 at 22:17:38
57 Posted 13/11/2015 at 12:31:13
Watford (H) (should've won) D 2-2 (-2 pts)
Soton (A) (should've drawn) W 3-0 (+2 pts)
Man City (H) (could afford to lose) L 0-2 (-)
Tottenham (A) (should've drawn) D 0-0 (-)
Chelsea (H) (could afford to lose) W 3-1 (+3 pts)
Swansea (A) (should've drawn) D 0-0 (-)
WBA (A) (should've drawn) W 3-2 (+2pts)
Liverpool (H) (should've drawn) D 1-1 (-)
Man Utd (H) (should've drawn) L 0-3 (-1pt)
Arsenal (A) (could afford to lose) L 1-2 (-)
Sunderland (H) (should've won) W 6-2 (-)
West Ham (A) (should've drawn) D 1-1 (-)
So, despite a 1 point setback in the last 5 games, we're still 4 points ahead in our quest for 70 points. Good going and I think we should all be satisfied... with the points on the board at least. As Mike points out however, it will be tricky to keep this advantage up with so many "should win's" on the horizon. Let's see what the next 7 games bring... 21 points apparently! COYB!!
58 Posted 07/01/2016 at 22:48:44
Watford (H) (should've won) D 2-2 (-2 pts)
Soton (A) (should've drawn) W 3-0 (+2 pts)
Man City (H) (could afford to lose) L 0-2 (-)
Tottenham (A) (could afford to lose) D 0-0 (+1 pt)
Chelsea (H) (could afford to lose) W 3-1 (+3 pts)
Swansea (A) (should've drawn) D 0-0 (-)
WBA (A) (should've drawn) W 3-2 (+2pts)
Liverpool (H) (should've drawn) D 1-1 (-)
Man Utd (H) (should've drawn) L 0-3 (-1pt)
Arsenal (A) (could afford to lose) L 1-2 (-)
Sunderland (H) (should've won) W 6-2 (-)
West Ham (A) (should've drawn) D 1-1 (-)
Aston Villa (H) (should've won) W 4-0 (-)
Bournemouth (A) (should've won) D 3-3 (-2 pts)
Crystal P (H) (Should've won) D 1-1 (-2 pts)
Norwich (A) (Should've won) D 1-1 (-2 pts)
Leicester (H) (Should've won) L 2-3 (-3pts)
Newcastle (A) (Should've won) W 1-0 (-pts)
Stoke (H) (Should've won) L 3-4 (-3pts)
Tottenham (H) (Should've drawn) D (-)
Up to and including the Villa home match we were doing great. 5 points ahead in our quest for 70 points and possible Champions League qualification (which Mo Besic still thinks we're capable of achieving). Unfortunately for Mo, our results since that Villa game have been woeful. A wopping 12 points off what we were expecting according to the APE.
So we are now 7 points behind target. However, we have to factor in a couple of things. Firstly, as Mike pointed out previously, in a run of so many games that you are expecting to win, the only realistic outcome is that you are going to drop points. Second, although the results were bad, we have to accept that lady luck and one or two lapses in concentration at the back cost us big time. We're actually not that far away from a 70 points team.
Just a decent new keeper (or Robles) and a Yarmolenko away, I'd say! COYB!!
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1 Posted 26/09/2015 at 04:58:00
I'm as guilty as the next fan of wanting to win every game, and lacking 'perspective' when it comes to accepting a loss or even a draw. So kudos to you for coming up with a method that defines what that 'perspective' actually means in practical terms of points gained on a game-by-game basis. Well done.
I remember the 'win your home games, draw your away games' principle as one of the earliest I learnt, but you have put some real meat on the bones here. Perhaps we could use the system to help everyone by making the Allison Perspective Evaluation a part of every match preview. Setting the bar, so to speak, one game at a time.