Moneyball hits the Premier League
11:34pm
“The idea is that we were seeking undervalued assets in an inefficient market,” he said. “What we tried to do was find value in areas where most people weren’t necessarily applying the right values. And we did that cost-effectively.”
“Say you have an approach to signing players and you get it right 30% of the time and then you can discover a different approach that allows you to do the right thing 35% of the time, you have then created a 5% arbitrage. I don’t know if we can do that for soccer but I want to find out.”
This was always a question of when rather than if. The issue that bothered me was how? The end of the article poses a teaser of what we might expect in the future:
1. Number of touches - Reveals player’s fitness level, the number of times he gets into a position to receive the ball and team-mates’ willingness to pass to him
2. Shot creation - Shows the attacking effectiveness of a player, especially attacking midfielders and forwards. Measures ability to balance ball retention with creating scoring chances
3. Ability to retain the ball - Measures contribution of players who are less directly involved in attack
4. Balls won per 90 minutes - Attacking players’ willingness to defend; defenders’ ability to tackle, intercept passes and position themselves well