Memphis Depay
- Thread starter Gilberto
- Start date
Joan
Well-known member
Yeah, all that too. He tries too hard to be a saviour, while we don't need one. At least not a walmart version.
He has undeniable qualities, but I'd like him to get himself together and start playing... well, normal. Would hugely help him cover his flaws.
Bobo32
Senior Member
This post doesn't answer any question I had, it's a rehash of the most basic interpretation you have about the xT stat and it's importance, mostly misunderstood.[MENTION=29755]Bobo32[/MENTION]
Here are the answers to the issues you are raising on Depay in graphs:
Excellent thread on twitter by football analyst FCAdamz:
1) Depay creates DANGER, by driving with the ball into dangerous areas
3rd in whole LaLiga in xT through progressive carries/90
(knowing that you gonna ask me about the calculation: I have explained already the definition of xT and I think you understand it now.
What they add here is that they calculated only the xT added through a progressive runs made by each player)
2) Which, as expected, means he would lose possession more often than 'safe-option' merchants who don't risk to drive with the ball into dangerous areas
3) Which ALSO means that they actually register more Goal-creating Actions (GCA) and Shot-creating Actions (SCA) through those progressive carries into dangerous areas
4) Conclusion:
That's why any team that wants to actually win football games, and not just win possession %
needs players like Depay who take the risk with the logical consequence that they will fail more % compared to the 'safe option' merchants that will never win you a football game
I can very well understand what a graph shows. I also understand what it does not show, and I've tried to make you aware of it as well. I took some time to break down a lot in my previous post, and expected you to show a bit more humility tbh.
This FCAdamz guy seems very much like an amateur btw, both in the way he presents himself and his stats and in what he focuses on, as well as his footballing understanding. But didn't you feel a little digged at from his inital post, making fun of people writing "case closed" etc? You often write like that.
I wonder if we'll ever see a Koeman-coached Barcelona without Depay on the pitch, but I am pretty certain that Barcelona would score goals and win without him.
At the moment, Barcelona pretty much plays for him to rest in defence and then try his hardest to force things each and every time he gets the ball. It isn't very succesful so far.
Birdy
Senior Member
No, I don't write like that. That's a mistaken impression.
There are many here (not you) who disrespect stats, and I emphasize maybe a lot the point when I post stats. That's prob what you refer to as 'case closed'
Then, I don't know, but you seem to not show humility when you say that an analyst seems 'amateur' and does not have football knowledge.
Where did you get that? Is your football knowledge superior to his to judge on that grounds?
Probably not
Then, again, when you throw empty attacks without explanation (like that I have misunderstood the stats) you get 0 points. You know that I assume?
Finally, I tagged you for two reasons:
1) because one of your main objection was that 'It's a graph from only 3 games' for the first one I posted.
Well, now you have one including all games, and Depay is 3rd in LaLiga in xT increase through carries.
You can't deny it anymore
2) because the analyst, through the successive graphs I reposted, replicates my argument point by point, showing why a player like Depay is valuable.
Now, about your previous post, it contained basically objections to xT model that are either unfounded or come from an idiosyncratic preference on way of playing.
I will answer the next days on it
Windhook
Well-known member
Depay is not a messiah, but he's consistent in performance, especially given he is still new at the club. Clicks well with Koeman's system and the chemistry with Ansu is good at this stage. Not sure about his performance once Koeman's gone, though. That might apply to FDJ and Dest also.
Bobo32
Senior Member
Part of why I spend time arguing with you is that there are indeed people who disregard stats, especially those calculated ones, too easily. This irritates me. Then I see you argue, but I don't like the way you do it, and I think you show a lack of understanding. This spring you first argued that the xG value of a shot was an objective fact, and then you made a U turn and said it was extremely far from the true value. Just as an example.
It is a bit of a shitty thing to write, but I really shouldn't spend a lot of time arguing here but do other things instead. I don't care about your points system, but respond the way I see fit. Maybe if you spend the time and try to argue some of the points I made I might spend more time then too, let's find out.
1) No, we do not know which games these graphs are from either. We can assume they include everything up until this week, but we cannot know.
These graphs show entirely different things to the one prior too.
First one just shows the top 10 in total amount of progressive carries/90. This gives you some of the players that dribble the most (Dest, Depay, Fekir and Vinicius are all top 5 in amount of dribbles so far) as well as some that quietly has progressed the ball a bit many times, such as de Jong and Busquets, who (still a bit surprisingly) places in the top 10 here mostly because they see a lot more of the ball than, let's say, Guedes.
What is then done is that he keeps these top 10, and compares different statistics between them. Nothing says that Depay is top 3 in that xT gained through dribbling stat in the whole league, he is top 3 out of this top 10 of players with the highest amount of progressive carries. Very unsurprisingly, players like Busquets won't compete there because he never enters zones with higher xT.
Even more strange is adding these graphs where he gives percentages of shots/goals and turnovers from these carries. Half of the chart is at 0% lol
After Depay and Fekir has dribbled forward, they often shoot or lose the ball, while Busquets or Frenkie does not. Big surprise!
2) No he does not, he even makes fun of your argument: "No. They are different players carrying the ball from different positions."
And for maybe the tenth time: I am as aware as anyone that it comes with the territory that if you play with risk you'll make more mistakes, but also get some reward when you succeed. For Depay, it has mostly been the reward of being high (although not as high as his mistake percentage) on the list of "xT gained through dribbling", which would be topped by players that like to dribble and who like to dribble long distances. That's most of what this says, and he also likes to shoot after he dribbled, if he can, while other players maybe look for the pass more.
Fati_Future_BallonDor
Well-known member
depay has been also strong at lyon and netherlands without koeman so i dont think he is dependent on him performance wise
Bobo32
Senior Member
2 bronze Ligue 1 medals in 5 years he lead that small club to! (they placed 2nd the 2 years prior though). Let's see if he can lead his current club to a top three position this year too!
CatalinR10
Senior Member
lol
Birdy
Senior Member
Only about the above:
No I never made a U turn
That's simply how you (mis)understood me for the n-th time...
I called out people saying that Dembele's header against Atleti is a 'clear-cut' chance that anyone should convert, when most models had it at 0.1 xG, which is not super low but never a clear-cut chance either
Then later, I explained to people how they should interpret the xG numbers, in particular what it means for a shot to be <0.1, what it means to me >0.1 and <0.35, what it means >0.35
And in particular, I broke chances into those groups, with the intent to make people understand probabilities, and things like:
Not to expect to see xG of 1 (which they will never) see to say it's a clear goal.
Empty net without the GK does not give xG of 1 in any model, but mostly 0.8-0.9 -> that's the highest number you can see about any attempt
Or things like comparing actual G to total xG over a whole season, which sometimes gives a distorted picture if you don't break all the attempts down into groups like the ones above.
That's all what I said.
Where exactly you see in that a U-turn, I cannot really tell
PS: About the rest and your previous posts on xT and Depay,
I will complile a longer answer tomorrow or one of the next days
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