Paintolerance
Well-known member
If Engel is the weakest link in next seasons team then I think we will get promoted.
Maddo constantly criticising Engel
- Thread starter davidmills
- Start date
I'll repeat my standard line that stats are useful but don't tell the whole story.
Very selective stats you've picked there. Chose to leave out all the ones that show how far Engel is behind him.
Failed to mention his 17 assists (0.43 per game)
His 2.94 key passes per game
His 4.94 SCA per game
His 8.01 crosses per game
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Laughing
Well-known member
I'll have a look at the stats BG, probably tomorrow. The thing that interests me here is reliability. Maybe fotmob is rubbish, though it's the one I use for in-play trading becaause it seems more accurate than others.
Always interested in looking at this kind of information, particularly if it tells me something I don't really believe.
I take the point you are trying to make though.
There was another thread last week where lots of stats were being fired about. I quoted of fbref and someone else quoted from whoscored. They weren't identical but they were very very similar for each player.
Passing percentages within 0.2% for example.
Fbref don't provide any in play stats. Their stats don't display till usually 2 days after the match. All stats provided by opta apparently.
Laughing
Well-known member
They will be decent stats then, you would expect. It's not whether the stats are any good, you assume that most current stats sites are, at least, reasonably accurate. I want to have a look at thomas' game by game stats. Given he has played so few games, 1 or 2 games could skew his stats massively. 2 games would be about 40 percent of all his stats. See where I am coming from?
I wouldn't judge any player after 9 games of which he started 5. Not sure how many minutes he's got.
Thats not to say you haven't piqued my interest. I would look now but my old bones are sore from changing the oil metering pump in the car and I can barely be bothered with much at the minute.
Just about to shower and binge some of z nation
Also smith only had 4 starts and 2 substitute appearances this year.
Corcaigh_the_Cat
Well-known member
I was going to mention this about the Ipswich game, Davis looked inferior but it was just the one match.
What has been noticeable for me though is what's happening on each flank, workwise. Ayling is getting rave reviews of late, and fairly too, but he has a good hand on the flank helping him out in Jones. You can't say the same for the left flank.
brattleboro
Well-known member
maybe because he can see that he's all effort but poor player, thats the bottom line
Laughing
Well-known member
Morning @B_G Just looking at the fbref stats.
Firstly, Thomas has played the equivelant of 5 games for us, too few to really form a solid opinion, stat based or otherwise.
However, as I said yesterday, it intrigued me. Firstly, the way I use stats is usually in-play, and I try to get a feel for the game and what's happening so I can make decisions. This approach doesn't really apply here because the stats we are looking at are for all game splayed for boro this season. What I would say is that basing trading decisions on stats works better for me than watching the games. Let me give you an example of why. Most fans, me included, though to a lesser degree, describe chances as sitters when they are not. You read all the time, how did he miss on a shot that has an XG of less than 0.5. In other words they are missed more often than they are scored. Anywhoo.
Lets look at defensive qualities firstly.
Tackles:
Thomas commits to more tackles than Engel over 90 minutes. 3.13 v 2.47. Which btw is quite high for both of them. Not sure what that tells us. If you now look at how often they are successful with the tackle, they are very close 66% v 61%, respectively. So we could say that Thomas is a better takler than Engel, right? Hmm maybe. In teh defensive third, where most tackles matter the numbers get very close. 1.67 v 1.56. So still Thomas comes out a little bit on top. BTW we don't have the successful v unsuccesful by area of the pitch.
So lets look at how good they are tackling dribblers. This is important because I think it's an area they are both weak, defending the wing against, well erm, wingers. Again Thomas comes out on top here with the bare numbers, 2.29 v 1.49. Thomas makes more challenges on dribblers per game. Their failuer rate is 1.25 and 1.24. Almost identical, neither are great 1-v-1. I had a look at Ayling for this and he has a worse failure rate of 1.42 which surprised me. Also on a seperate note, our 3 fullbacks playing at the moment are called Luke Lucas and Luke.
Blocking:
I have some doubts about the veracity of blocks other than blocked shots. Blocking a pass, is it good play? I don't know. Anyway. Again Thomas has good blocking stats for passes 2.08 v 1.6. Blocked shots are almost identical .42 v .40.
Interceptions and clearances:
This is where Engel is superb. Interceptions 0.42 v 1.85. Thats a very big difference. The site kindly combines tackles + interceptions, so I don't have to. 3.54 v 4.33. Clearances 2.08 v 2.73. Again Engel comes out on top.
Error rate per 90 minutes. I like this stat. I have no idea how it's calculated so I have no idea how worthwhile it is, never seen it before. However they are 0.21 v 0,07. I can't really talk about this intelligently.
I did look at some other stats and Engel is a very good passer of the ball when going long and he is better with intricate through balls. I think we all know Engel is an asset going forward so didn't look at that very long.
So my conclusion from this is that in some areas Thomas has better stats than engel. In the ones that matter most engel is the better player. Neither is very good at 1-v-1's both being equally bad in their failure rate. Blocking shots, nothing in it though thomas does have quite q few more blocks in other areas of the pitch. Probably good, some of those will be crosses. Engel tends to give too much room to the crosser. Engel anticipates better and gets in many more interceptions and clearances. Finally, and I don't want to belabour this, engel has an error rate close to zero (does anyone believe that?)
So BG, the stats aren't lying Engel is demonstrably better at defending than Thomas. However, it's only 5 games for Thomas and I think we would all expect improvement as he gels with his team mates.
I did have a look on fotmob and they have slightly different stats. Thomas doesn't score well on there. I would have to look at several sites to get a "poll of polls" for the two players and I am not about to do that.
Sorry for the long post, didn't want to just say statistically engel is better than thomas, wanted to give the justification based on the stats posted.
Firstly, Thomas has played the equivelant of 5 games for us, too few to really form a solid opinion, stat based or otherwise.
However, as I said yesterday, it intrigued me. Firstly, the way I use stats is usually in-play, and I try to get a feel for the game and what's happening so I can make decisions. This approach doesn't really apply here because the stats we are looking at are for all game splayed for boro this season. What I would say is that basing trading decisions on stats works better for me than watching the games. Let me give you an example of why. Most fans, me included, though to a lesser degree, describe chances as sitters when they are not. You read all the time, how did he miss on a shot that has an XG of less than 0.5. In other words they are missed more often than they are scored. Anywhoo.
Lets look at defensive qualities firstly.
Tackles:
Thomas commits to more tackles than Engel over 90 minutes. 3.13 v 2.47. Which btw is quite high for both of them. Not sure what that tells us. If you now look at how often they are successful with the tackle, they are very close 66% v 61%, respectively. So we could say that Thomas is a better takler than Engel, right? Hmm maybe. In teh defensive third, where most tackles matter the numbers get very close. 1.67 v 1.56. So still Thomas comes out a little bit on top. BTW we don't have the successful v unsuccesful by area of the pitch.
So lets look at how good they are tackling dribblers. This is important because I think it's an area they are both weak, defending the wing against, well erm, wingers. Again Thomas comes out on top here with the bare numbers, 2.29 v 1.49. Thomas makes more challenges on dribblers per game. Their failuer rate is 1.25 and 1.24. Almost identical, neither are great 1-v-1. I had a look at Ayling for this and he has a worse failure rate of 1.42 which surprised me. Also on a seperate note, our 3 fullbacks playing at the moment are called Luke Lucas and Luke.
Blocking:
I have some doubts about the veracity of blocks other than blocked shots. Blocking a pass, is it good play? I don't know. Anyway. Again Thomas has good blocking stats for passes 2.08 v 1.6. Blocked shots are almost identical .42 v .40.
Interceptions and clearances:
This is where Engel is superb. Interceptions 0.42 v 1.85. Thats a very big difference. The site kindly combines tackles + interceptions, so I don't have to. 3.54 v 4.33. Clearances 2.08 v 2.73. Again Engel comes out on top.
Error rate per 90 minutes. I like this stat. I have no idea how it's calculated so I have no idea how worthwhile it is, never seen it before. However they are 0.21 v 0,07. I can't really talk about this intelligently.
I did look at some other stats and Engel is a very good passer of the ball when going long and he is better with intricate through balls. I think we all know Engel is an asset going forward so didn't look at that very long.
So my conclusion from this is that in some areas Thomas has better stats than engel. In the ones that matter most engel is the better player. Neither is very good at 1-v-1's both being equally bad in their failure rate. Blocking shots, nothing in it though thomas does have quite q few more blocks in other areas of the pitch. Probably good, some of those will be crosses. Engel tends to give too much room to the crosser. Engel anticipates better and gets in many more interceptions and clearances. Finally, and I don't want to belabour this, engel has an error rate close to zero (does anyone believe that?)
So BG, the stats aren't lying Engel is demonstrably better at defending than Thomas. However, it's only 5 games for Thomas and I think we would all expect improvement as he gels with his team mates.
I did have a look on fotmob and they have slightly different stats. Thomas doesn't score well on there. I would have to look at several sites to get a "poll of polls" for the two players and I am not about to do that.
Sorry for the long post, didn't want to just say statistically engel is better than thomas, wanted to give the justification based on the stats posted.