Man of the Match thread

[barcanuck]

Tricky kid, this is perfect. Man of the Match means ONE MAN. It's cool you expanded it to 3 stars like in hockey. No need to go any further. 3 picks per match is more than enough to see at the end of the year who our best performers are in the fans eyes.

 

[GiantKiller]

Tricky kid, this is perfect. Man of the Match means ONE MAN. It's cool you expanded it to 3 stars like in hockey. No need to go any further. 3 picks per match is more than enough to see at the end of the year who our best performers are in the fans eyes.

The idea is to accurately deduce how consistent a player was throughout a season, I think.

 

[footyfan]

IMO 3 is good enough even in terms of consistency. Top 3 would mean top 27% of the team. Top 4 would mean top 36% of the team. Going further than that reduces the value of the award. If a player is consistently at the 50th percentile of the team, that's not really saying much. So say, hypothetically, Busquets comes 5th in every MOTM vote, he would be ultra-consistent, but still he would be 5th which is pretty low if you want to consider at the end of the season who is the best performer. 5 names every week is just a hassle.

As for ratings, you cannot get more subjective than that. For example, for me maybe a great performance would mean a 10, for others it may mean an 8. Now if for some reason, I miss out on voting for a couple of weeks, that would totally change the average rating for a player even though he may have played great in all those matches. It's even more difficult to assign a rating to a player when he plays average or bad. Not to mention, rating 11 players is an even bigger hassle.

 

[GiantKiller]

I was referring to a rating system that Trickykid mentioned in one of his posts, not expanding the Top 3 to a Top 4 and so on.

 

[footyfan]

I was referring to a rating system that Trickykid mentioned in one of his posts, not expanding the Top 3 to a Top 4 and so on.

Edited my post for ratings.

 

[GiantKiller]

IMO 3 is good enough even in terms of consistency. Top 3 would mean top 27% of the team. Top 4 would mean top 36% of the team. Going further than that reduces the value of the award. If a player is consistently at the 50th percentile of the team, that's not really saying much. So say, hypothetically, Busquets comes 5th in every MOTM vote, he would be ultra-consistent, but still he would be 5th which is pretty low if you want to consider at the end of the season who is the best performer. 5 names every week is just a hassle.

As for ratings, you cannot get more subjective than that. For example, for me maybe a great performance would mean a 10, for others it may mean an 8. Now if for some reason, I miss out on voting for a couple of weeks, that would totally change the average rating for a player even though he may have played great in all those matches. It's even more difficult to assign a rating to a player when he plays average or bad. Not to mention, rating 11 players is an even bigger hassle.

I wasn't suggesting to increase the number of players people can vote for. I don't know if 'best' should be used in this case as it wouldn't necessarily mean consistent . Take the Cesc-Busi example used earlier by a poster. Cesc may have some brilliant games and may finish in the top 3 more often and hence, getting more top 3 points. However, he may put in some poor performances unlike Busquets who, for instance, puts in steady displays week in week out and plays a crucial role at the back. So, voting for top 3 wouldn't give a good picture of how consistent a player was in a full season.

The apparent drawbacks that you mention of the ratings can also be applied to the voting system. Not many would be able to observe whatever good someone like Busquets does in a match and he wouldn't get the votes that he deserves, so he would be mostly omitted . This wouldn't be the case if players are rated, I believe. As for determining what rating means what to certain people, it's surely arguable if the variation in approach to rating a player would make a greater difference than for a player to not gather the votes that he should've. Rating a player also takes into account the poor displays something which cannot be achieved by voting a player as it's just limited to the 'good side of things', so to speak. Hence, it helps in drawing a more accurate conclusion about consistency. The point of one missing out also applies here. Also the fact that some wouldn't find it easy to choose three players when so many have good performances and some would, again, miss out on votes but in the rating system, however, everybody gets rated.

So, while it may be not be perfectly accurate, I think the advantages of utilzing a rating system outweighs it disadvantages. I also don't think that it would be an 'even bigger' hassle as you put it. It would, however, be a much bigger hassle for someone who has to go back and forth counting how many votes a player got when there are around 40 voters.

 

[footyfan]

I totally understand the Cesc-Busi example. However, if someone cannot observe whatever good Busquets does, what makes you think they will rate him properly in a rating system?

Steady consistency is no doubt important, but for example, if you're consistent enough to be the 5th best placed player on the team every game, that's not really saying much. If you're consistent enough to be top 3, for eg. like Messi, that's what will ultimately make the difference in a MOTM thread. That being said, I still consider Masch and Busi to be our 2 best performers last year after Messi. However, since I hadn't joined Barcaforum at that point, I dunno if they were top 3 in a similar MOTM thread (was there even one??).

Voters missing out on voting/rating for a few weeks does not affect a voting system the same way it affects a rating system. Because a rating system is inherently about numbers, whereas a voting system is about names. So for example, say Iniesta was the best in a run of 5 consecutive matches. Most people would vote for him as no. 1 in all 5, so me missing out will not make as much of a difference. Whereas, in a rating system, Iniesta's average rating might change because he wouldnt consistently get the 10 I would give him.

I agree with you that voting will make a big hassle for whoever is counting the votes. On the other hand, for users, giving 3 names is far easier than assigning a proper number to 11 names. The turnout can be expected to reduce a fair amount. So we wouldnt have a fair reflection of Barcaforum's opinion.

Anyway, one solution to the Cesc-Busi problem could be to have a top 3 and bottom 3. So being in the bottom 3 would subtract points from the totals (or something to that effect). How easy it is to implement remains to be seen.

Edit (I see you've edited and added something to your post, so here's my counter edit ) -

As for determining what rating means what to certain people, it's surely arguable if the variation in approach to rating a player would make a greater difference than for a player to not gather the votes that he should've.

I feel you're under-estimating the difficulty in assigning a rating. Going past the top 4-5 performers, it's difficult to assign a good rating to the other players because it's extremely difficult to compare all 11 players. For example, take Pedro and Adriano. Say you assign Pedro a rating of 6. Now if you give Adriano a rating of 5, that would mean Pedro played better than Adriano which may or may not be true and is hard to evaluate.
No doubt, this issue is present in a voting system, but (1) it's restricted to 3 players so you don't have to think as much (2) it doesn't involve a number which will be totalled at the end and which affects the final outcome. Considering that this is a MOTM thread, not gathering votes at all doesn't seem inappropriate.

Rating all players is obviously the most holistic. However, considering that this is a MOTM thread, I would argue that the effort involved in rating everyone every week (in addition to inherent biases) outweighs the benefit of having a comprehensive approach.

Besides, Trickykid doesnt have to count the votes every week. We could just take turns.

 

[GiantKiller]

Don't want to make viewing this thread awkward. Hence, spoiler.

@footyfan :

Spoiler: discussion

Didn't get time to reply so, my apologies.

I totally understand the Cesc-Busi example. However, if someone cannot observe whatever good Busquets does, what makes you think they will rate him properly in a rating system?

That would be comparatively better than one completely ignoring him for a vote, no?

In any case, I think we should put that down to a human 'error' of sorts instead of taking it as a fault of a particular system since it can be applied to both.

Steady consistency is no doubt important, but for example, if you're consistent enough to be the 5th best placed player on the team every game, that's not really saying much. If you're consistent enough to be top 3, for eg. like Messi, that's what will ultimately make the difference in a MOTM thread. That being said, I still consider Masch and Busi to be our 2 best performers last year after Messi. However, since I hadn't joined Barcaforum at that point, I dunno if they were top 3 in a similar MOTM thread (was there even one??).

Hmm... I don't really agree with your assumption in this case. That's because, considering that Busquets plays the role he does with satisfying consistency in a full season, it would be somewhat improbable that he would 'just' be the fifth best player on the team every game and that's where Fabregas comes in the Cesc-Busi example (I feel as if I hadn't explained myself well enough. so I'd like to refer to it again.) Assuming Cesc has mixed performances throughout a season, it won't be too illogical to also assume that he may finish in the top 3 more times than Busquets. Not too illogical because, being a very attack-minded player, he may have those stats ( including stats of any particular match ) that a majority of the people tend to look at. Hence, Cesc may finish with more top 3 points than Busi. At this point, I'd also like to differentiate between the words 'best' and 'consistent' in this case. Busi may finish continuously outside the top 3 or even be the one of the top 3 in some games ( I'm hinting at him being the 3rd or 4th here as 5th over the course of a season would be too low, yes. ) while Cesc may end up being one of the top players more often (pushing Busi out) but also have more poor games. So, while this may inidicate that Cesc is the 'difference maker', Busquets may turn out to be the more consistent of the two.

And no, there wasn't a similar MOTM thread before, if I recall correctly.

Voters missing out on voting/rating for a few weeks does not affect a voting system the same way it affects a rating system. Because a rating system is inherently about numbers, whereas a voting system is about names. So for example, say Iniesta was the best in a run of 5 consecutive matches. Most people would vote for him as no. 1 in all 5, so me missing out will not make as much of a difference. Whereas, in a rating system, Iniesta's average rating might change because he wouldnt consistently get the 10 I would give him.

I agree to an extent, though. Only because you're assuming that Iniesta's the best for 5 successive matches. It could be very well be a case of us playing convincingly and many of our players having an excellent match. Since you can only vote for three (not suggesting to increase), you'll have to ignore some and I have had this problem, tbh.

I agree with you that voting will make a big hassle for whoever is counting the votes. On the other hand, for users, giving 3 names is far easier than assigning a proper number to 11 names. The turnout can be expected to reduce a fair amount. So we wouldnt have a fair reflection of Barcaforum's opinion.

Points taken.

Anyway, one solution to the Cesc-Busi problem could be to have a top 3 and bottom 3. So being in the bottom 3 would subtract points from the totals (or something to that effect). How easy it is to implement remains to be seen.

Edit (I see you've edited and added something to your post, so here's my counter edit ) -

That may help. Hmm, why not create a scale of some sort that'll help the people to rate a player. For example : 10-9 may be an excellent performance, 8-7 will be good, 6-5 average, 4-3 poor and 2-1 may mean to pretend as if nothing had happened. This way may also reduce the effect on the final result by taking care of the fact that people may rate a great performance differently ( like one may go for a 10 while the other may go for an 8 ).

And no. Actually, I was too slow to fully edit the parts I had to and by that time you had already replied . Honest, lol.

I feel you're under-estimating the difficulty in assigning a rating. Going past the top 4-5 performers, it's difficult to assign a good rating to the other players because it's extremely difficult to compare all 11 players. For example, take Pedro and Adriano. Say you assign Pedro a rating of 6. Now if you give Adriano a rating of 5, that would mean Pedro played better than Adriano which may or may not be true and is hard to evaluate.
No doubt, this issue is present in a voting system, but (1) it's restricted to 3 players so you don't have to think as much (2) it doesn't involve a number which will be totalled at the end and which affects the final outcome. Considering that this is a MOTM thread, not gathering votes at all doesn't seem inappropriate.

Rating all players is obviously the most holistic. However, considering that this is a MOTM thread, I would argue that the effort involved in rating everyone every week (in addition to inherent biases) outweighs the benefit of having a comprehensive approach.

Besides, Trickykid doesnt have to count the votes every week. We could just take turns.

Yeah, you can't expect all to watch a match with full attention. Even I don't at times! As for the bolded part, didn't Trickykid make a secondary chart of Votes/game to determine consistency? He was talking about something like that...and you do get the appropriate number of points for finishing in the top 3, don't you? That's what I thought.

Ah, it's become tooooo long for comfort. Feel free to respond to it, though. Everything seems to have it's pros and cons so it might as well be subjective. The reason I supported the ratings system was for the idea of consistency. For what it does, the voting system isn't so bad either.

 

[footyfan]

Spoilers are a good idea.

@GiantKiller:

Spoiler: discussion

Good post. Your idea about scaling is great. We'll need a different thread though and that's what I was trying to get at. A MOTM thread is not designed to reward consistency, unless it is at the highest level like Messi who's in it every week basically. I think you are expecting to use the results of this thread to gauge the best performers of the season (for which the voting system is not appropriate as you rightly mention). For me, this thread is just a record of "who was the best in which game". Besides that, I personally wouldn't draw many conclusions from it (hence my Messi-Busi-Masch example).

And I agree, it's all subjective anyway. Even if you rate every player every week, at the end of the season, one might not agree with the results lol. Just look at whoscored.com as an example. They have probably the most objective rating system I know of. Yet, according to them, Messi, Xavi, Cesc, Iniesta and Thiago (in that order) all were better performers than Busquets last season. Xavi was the 3rd best La Liga player last season (after obvious top 2) yet most people think of it as his weakest season in years. Cesc, yes Cesc, was the 5th best La Liga player last season.

 

[GiantKiller]

Yep. Totally agree. The idea of consistency was brought up by other posters though, I just joined in.

 

[ammarfcb]

Don't want to make viewing this thread awkward. Hence, spoiler.

@footyfan :

Spoiler: discussion

Didn't get time to reply so, my apologies.



That would be comparatively better than one completely ignoring him for a vote, no?

In any case, I think we should put that down to a human 'error' of sorts instead of taking it as a fault of a particular system since it can be applied to both.





Hmm... I don't really agree with your assumption in this case. That's because, considering that Busquets plays the role he does with satisfying consistency in a full season, it would be somewhat improbable that he would 'just' be the fifth best player on the team every game and that's where Fabregas comes in the Cesc-Busi example (I feel as if I hadn't explained myself well enough. so I'd like to refer to it again.) Assuming Cesc has mixed performances throughout a season, it won't be too illogical to also assume that he may finish in the top 3 more times than Busquets. Not too illogical because, being a very attack-minded player, he may have those stats ( including stats of any particular match ) that a majority of the people tend to look at. Hence, Cesc may finish with more top 3 points than Busi. At this point, I'd also like to differentiate between the words 'best' and 'consistent' in this case. Busi may finish continuously outside the top 3 or even be the one of the top 3 in some games ( I'm hinting at him being the 3rd or 4th here as 5th over the course of a season would be too low, yes. ) while Cesc may end up being one of the top players more often (pushing Busi out) but also have more poor games. So, while this may inidicate that Cesc is the 'difference maker', Busquets may turn out to be the more consistent of the two.

And no, there wasn't a similar MOTM thread before, if I recall correctly.



I agree to an extent, though. Only because you're assuming that Iniesta's the best for 5 successive matches. It could be very well be a case of us playing convincingly and many of our players having an excellent match. Since you can only vote for three (not suggesting to increase), you'll have to ignore some and I have had this problem, tbh.




Points taken.



That may help. Hmm, why not create a scale of some sort that'll help the people to rate a player. For example : 10-9 may be an excellent performance, 8-7 will be good, 6-5 average, 4-3 poor and 2-1 may mean to pretend as if nothing had happened. This way may also reduce the effect on the final result by taking care of the fact that people may rate a great performance differently ( like one may go for a 10 while the other may go for an 8 ).

And no. Actually, I was too slow to fully edit the parts I had to and by that time you had already replied . Honest, lol.




Yeah, you can't expect all to watch a match with full attention. Even I don't at times! As for the bolded part, didn't Trickykid make a secondary chart of Votes/game to determine consistency? He was talking about something like that...and you do get the appropriate number of points for finishing in the top 3, don't you? That's what I thought.

Ah, it's become tooooo long for comfort. Feel free to respond to it, though. Everything seems to have it's pros and cons so it might as well be subjective. The reason I supported the ratings system was for the idea of consistency. For what it does, the voting system isn't so bad either.

THIS THIS THIS. everyone should do this for long posts. show cliffs of post and spoilers for long text

 

[GiantKiller]

THIS THIS THIS. everyone should do this for long posts. show cliffs of post and spoilers for long text

It's not that great of an idea.

 

[JonM]

Espanyol

1. Pedro
2. Iniesta
3. Fabregas

 

[Semi-Neutral]

First of all, godlike match, our entire team was so dominant, terrifying really how much better we were in the opening minutes.

1. Iniesta-Sublime skill as he was a class above everyone on the pitch the entire game, schooling Espanyol time and time again
2. Busquets-Controlled the midfield sublimely, completely dictating proceedings in the center of the park
3. Messi-Just edges Pedro out for me, always trying to get everyone else on the scoreline, relaxing as he sprayed passes left and right

Honorable mentions to Pedro, Alba, and Thiago

 

[abual3bed1]

Vs Espanyol:

Busquets
Iniesta
Pedro

Pique was so close but that horrible back pass left him out of the list.