Calum Chambers (Out)

[Slartibartfast]

Its not as relevant in football imo. Because its 11 a side and tactics and team set ups very differently to eachother, players accumulate completely different stats to eachother which could mislead.

Eg. a midfielder may be instructed to play more high risk long passes which compromises his pass acuracy, a striker may recieve the ball more often but in more difficult situations which ruins his shot accuracy. It gets even worse for defenders when you look at the fact Mustafi's stats actually make him look like a good player.

Has to be used in extremely light moderation at this stage imo

So why do the biggest clubs in the world use analytics? Again, they're a tool. They are not a substitute for scouting. They go hand in hand with scouting.

And analytics do not make Mustafi look like a good player (at least not CIES/Opta). I keep reading that Mustafi is rated higher than Van Dijk. Not sure where this comes from, but here's Mustafi's current profile from CIES/Opta:

Here's Van Dijk:

That's a pretty wide analytic spread.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Do you think they do it for free, come on. Traffic makes money.

How do they make money on clicks without advertising? How does that work?

What's available to us on the CIES site is just basics. They sell far more detailed information to all the big clubs. That's how they make money. They're not just a website like transfermarkt with a bunch of yahoos gather information off the internet. They are the state of the art analytic service and the official analytic parter of FIFA and UEFA.

 

[ArsenalFever]

So why do Manchester City and just about every other big club use these services, despite employing hundreds of scouts? Professionals need these tools but fans blabbering on the internet have a better understanding than the professionals?

Analytics are a tool. They can't tell you everything. But they can help to understand the strengths and weaknesses of players and, thus, to make better judgements. The idea that some guy on the internet has such a great understanding just by watching a few games and interacting with other people blabbering on the internet that they can reject a tool used by professional scouts and evaluators at every major club is simply preposterous.

Are you a member of the Flat Earth Society too?

I’m not anti analytics, I read up on stats regularly.
Actually, I could have a conversation about what people call meta physics/quantum physics.

I’m just reffering to over compensation, have no issues with science or statistics.
Yes I believe there are many non-professionals who could eclipse 30 years of someone’s work in an hour.

Are you a member of the Flat Earth Society too?

Well I guess you are, statiscally and analytically speaking.

No. Was unaware of such a society.

 

[Toby]

So why do the biggest clubs in the world use analytics? Again, they're a tool. They are not a substitute for scouting. They go hand in hand with scouting.

And analytics do not make Mustafi look like a good player (at least not CIES/Opta). I keep reading that Mustafi is rated higher than Van Dijk. Not sure where this comes from, but here's Mustafi's current profile from CIES/Opta:

Have you seen snippets of the databases clubs actually use? Or the analytical work they do, e.g. have you seen the data collected by Bielsa's leeds team on their opposition players when he did that presentation? You actually said the following, so bear with me on these questions.

What's available to us on the CIES site is just basics. They sell far more detailed information to all the big clubs. That's how they make money. They're not just a website like transfermarkt with a bunch of yahoos gather information off the internet. They are the state of the art analytic service and the official analytic parter of FIFA and UEFA.

CIES et al is a drop on a hot stone on what clubs actually use in data. It's a first, general overview, as it exactly leaves out stuff like @Red London is saying, e.g. stuff in relation to tactics like relative position, movement, where do player sprint, in which direction do they sprint etc. On top of that comes of course in person scouting.

CIES and its evaluation of players is nice and all, but nothing much more than transfermarkt, even if they say it's more scientific. There's many background factors at play with transfers you can't record because you don't know about them which go into how much a player will go for. The profiles are a neat little gimmick but that's it.

CIES has shown up in almost every transfer thread now and is purpoted as the only reliable player evaluation and profiling source, which is a bit funny and it's already getting old.

The data clubs use to profile players is vastly more in depth so it's not like the public suddenly got the tool of the pros at hand.

Like I said, it's a neat thing basically and got some nice gimmicks, but it's getting too much when it's treated like gospel and pops up in almost every thread. Got a feeling CIES is the hot trend this summer.

 

[Rex Stone]

Streisend effect in full gear here. CIES is now an AM meme, like death threats and @OnlyOne becoming a mod.

Should’ve seen my inbox after the Atletico semi final mate, death threats were no meme.

 

[Slartibartfast]

CIES et al is a drop on a hot stone on what clubs actually use in data. It's a first, general overview, as it exactly leaves out stuff like @Red London is saying, e.g. stuff in relation to tactics like relative position, movement, where do player sprint, in which direction do they sprint etc. On top of that comes of course in person scouting.

CIES and its evaluation of players is nice and all, but nothing much more than transfermarkt, even if they say it's more scientific. There's many background factors at play with transfers you can't record because you don't know about them which go into how much a player will go for. The profiles are a neat little gimmick but that's it.

CIES has shown up in almost every transfer thread now and is purpoted as the only reliable player evaluation and profiling source, which is a bit funny and it's already getting old.

The data clubs use to profile players is vastly more in depth so it's not like the public suddenly got the tool of the pros at hand.

Like I said, it's a neat thing basically and got some nice gimmicks, but it's getting too much when it's treated like gospel and pops up in almost every thread. Got a feeling CIES is the hot trend this summer.

This is what I said. Clubs pay for more detailed and extensive analytics than what's available to the public for free. That's how they make their money. They don't make it through clicks as there is no advertising on their site.

Analytics are a tool. The clubs who pay them get better tools than the ones we get for free. That doesn't mean that the tools available to us are worthless. If you actually go to the site and read the details of the methodology, you can get an understanding of what these analytics mean and how they reflect certain areas of a player's game over the period of time being analyzed.

The crazy thing is that some want to reject these analytics out of hand as though they were intended to be some monolithic declarative statement that Player A is better than Player B. This misses the point entirely. They're meant to show generally which areas of a player's game are strongest or weakest and the type of player they are. That said, I'd say their rating are fairly reflective of the overall quality of players during the period of time. For instance, over the past 6 months their ratings have Van Dijk as the top-rated center back in the Premier League with an 89 rating and Mustafi as the 31st best center back at 71.2 (tied with Bednarek of Southampton).

To compare CIES and their Opta analytics to transfermarkt is just silly. Transfermarkt is just a website that estimates player values. CIES is the International Center for Sports Studies in Switzerland. They've been doing this work for a quarter of a century. They employ the best professionals in the business. These folks even run the education programs for FIFA, proving training in football management all over the world. If you were to enroll in the FIFA Master in Management, Law and Humanities of Sport program at universities in England, Italy and Switzerland you would be taught by CIES.

The Football Observatory is just a small part of CIES, but as the FIFA website notes:

...the CIES Football Observatory has become a reference point in the demographic analysis of the football players’ labour market, the technical analysis of player performance and the scientific estimation of transfer values.

Researchers from the CIES Football Observatory are specialists in quantitative methods. The services provided include the mining of data and its visual representation.

If you think CIES is not different from transfermarkt, then you really don't understand what CIES is or what they do.

 

[Slartibartfast]

I’m not anti analytics, I read up on stats regularly.
Actually, I could have a conversation about what people call meta physics/quantum physics.

I’m just reffering to over compensation, have no issues with science or statistics.
Yes I believe there are many non-professionals who could eclipse 30 years of someone’s work in an hour.

Well I guess you are, statiscally and analytically speaking.

No. Was unaware of such a society.

Then why do you dismiss CIES/Opta out of hand? They are the most experienced and widely used services out there. The top professionals in their field. If they provide us with analytic information, why should we not take that into account? If CIES/Opta analytics are useless and you are not anti-analytics, then what set of analytics would you suggest?

Personally, I prefer to take analytics, scouting reports and my own observations into consideration. Why anyone would reject available information from top professionals in the field is beyond me.

 

[grange]

Not a single peep about CIES until this year and wish the talk on it would go away already

 

[Toby]

This is what I said. Clubs pay for more detailed and extensive analytics than what's available to the public for free.

I did acknowledge that.

The crazy thing is that some want to reject these analytics out of hand as though they were intended to be some monolithic declarative statement that Player A is better than Player B.

The crazy thing on here, right now, which is my gripe with CIES, is that exactly this and the exact opposite has happened hand in hand. Guys brought it up so much as an infallible source that it's become a source of annoyance and ridicule.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Not a single peep about CIES until this year and wish the talk on it would go away already

I've been sharing CIES/Opta analytics here for almost two years. It's only been this year that some posters decided to attack it every time somebody mentioned it.

 

[rich 1990]

I've been sharing CIES/Opta analytics here for almost two years. It's only been this year that some posters decided to attack it every time somebody mentioned it.

You've gone under the radar as squad cost and those ridiculous pie charts Say Yes posts tore this forum apart.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Guys brought it up so much as an infallible source that it's become a source of annoyance and ridicule.

Who said that? Most certainly not me. I've said time and again that analytics are a tool, not meant to be the be-all-and-end-all. They are a useful tool if you try to understand them and use them properly. CIES/Opta are the best available to us thanks to their partnership with FIFA and UEFA. The rejection of them out of hand is fine. But the ridicule to which those of us who wish to discuss them are subjected has become a source of annoyance. You can use them or not, but allow those of us who believe they can be useful to use them in peace without being ridiculed for sharing the information.

And that's all I will have to say on the subject.

 

[APierre]

@Slartibartfast clearly has shares in CIES.

 

[Toby]

Who said that? Most certainly not me. I've said time and again that analytics are a tool, not meant to be the be-all-and-end-all. They are a useful tool if you try to understand them and use them properly. CIES/Opta are the best available to us thanks to their partnership with FIFA and UEFA. The rejection of them out of hand is fine. But the ridicule to which those of us who wish to discuss them are subjected has become a source of annoyance. You can use them or not, but allow those of us who believe they can be useful to use them in peace without being ridiculed for sharing the information.

And that's all I will have to say on the subject.

I do enjoy your posting...but your question of "Who said that" when I clearly said "guys (indicating an undefined but substantial amount of posters not you) [...] brought it up as an infallible source" without indicating you personally in any way makes me wonder a bit if you're not really a shareholder of CIES

I get why you post CIES but so many numpties have jumped the bandwagon and it's a bit much of gospel reading. Got nothing to do with you, really.

 

[Red London]

I totally get that but I don’t think they should be overlooked either. Seeing something in person is the best but if you can put the analytics next to that and you see a correlation That reiterates what you see, might make you want or not want

Yh I understand, but if you havent watched a player and you judge him based off CIES stats, its not gonna give you a very accurate representation of him at all

But as you said its a good compliment as well as watching someone.
It can also be used to figure out what a player's actual role is within the side I guess. Sometimes worse players have better stats because of the way they are utilised. e.g. jorginho probably has very high pass accuracy because he is DLP

 

[Red London]

So why do the biggest clubs in the world use analytics? Again, they're a tool. They are not a substitute for scouting. They go hand in hand with scouting.

And analytics do not make Mustafi look like a good player (at least not CIES/Opta). I keep reading that Mustafi is rated higher than Van Dijk. Not sure where this comes from, but here's Mustafi's current profile from CIES/Opta:

Here's Van Dijk:

That's a pretty wide analytic spread.

Oh never saw their index ratings. just saw individual stats being compared once, guess they got cherry picked.

Yes its fine in accordance with scouting, the issue with it is determining the quality of a player for your side if you havent even watched him before. Sometimes we get linked to players we've never seen and then I see this, but I take it with a pinch of sal due to the reasons I described.

 

[samshere]

CIES out

 

[GDeep™]

CIES out

CIES needs investment.

 

[drippin]

I do enjoy your posting...but your question of "Who said that" when I clearly said "guys (indicating an undefined but substantial amount of posters not you) [...] brought it up as an infallible source" without indicating you personally in any way makes me wonder a bit if you're not really a shareholder of CIES

with those two emojis just for you. I get why you post CIES but so many numpties have jumped the bandwagon and it's a bit much of gospel reading. Got nothing to do with you, really.

I haven't seen many others mention CIES constantly here than him. It's more like zero than two others. So who are those guys who brought it up so much as infallible source?

I defended CIES with him saying its good to have and said couple of times it should not be read like the Bible. So it's perfectly understandable to think this mention of "guys" is him or surely to think he is part of them.

 

[Token Yank]

Date analytics is for nerds