Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

[Tasavallan]

I did a trawl through all the match statistics from last season and in all games (with the exception of games against the cheeks) Hearts had the majority of the possession and in games against the other Bottom 6 clubs, that possession was over 60% with it rising to almost 75% in the home draw against Hamilton under Stendel.  In general possession in games under Stendel were higher than under Levein but both still higher than the opposition.

 

Yet all this possession did not result in wins. The problem was lack of balls into the box and even worse balls into the net.  Lack of chances resulted in lack of goals.  Opposition teams took their chances against a poor ever-changing defence in front of Mr Flopsy Bunny of a keeper (in my opinion the one main cause of losing winable games)

 

 While possession time increased under Stendel, the results did not.  Too much tippy-tappy in midfield and far too much uninventiveness in midfield resulting in back passes to the defence as the safe ball.  I recall one attacking move down the left that went from opposition bye-line to Hearts keeper from 3-4 back-passes - the opposition may have been pressing but Hearts' midfield had no nouse on escaping the position.

 

What was the worse game that Hearts threw away?  For me it was the 2-3 home defeat to Killie under Stendel where Hearts had 70% possession yet were down 0-2 at HT.  The 2-2 home draw with Hamilton is a close second.    Hearts were fine in the counter attack but totally unable to break down teams in the bottom half that just wanted to defend.

 

 

I note that the BBC Match Reports now record all the "Assists" from last season.  Not too many goals so should be able to identify top of the assists for Hearts.

[Harry Potter]

9 minutes ago, Tasavallan said:

I did a trawl through all the match statistics from last season and in all games (with the exception of games against the cheeks) Hearts had the majority of the possession and in games against the other Bottom 6 clubs, that possession was over 60% with it rising to almost 75% in the home draw against Hamilton under Stendel.  In general possession in games under Stendel were higher than under Levein but both still higher than the opposition.

 

Yet all this possession did not result in wins. The problem was lack of balls into the box and even worse balls into the net.  Lack of chances resulted in lack of goals.  Opposition teams took their chances against a poor ever-changing defence in front of Mr Flopsy Bunny of a keeper (in my opinion the one main cause of losing winable games)

 

 While possession time increased under Stendel, the results did not.  Too much tippy-tappy in midfield and far too much uninventiveness in midfield resulting in back passes to the defence as the safe ball.  I recall one attacking move down the left that went from opposition bye-line to Hearts keeper from 3-4 back-passes - the opposition may have been pressing but Hearts' midfield had no nouse on escaping the position.

 

What was the worse game that Hearts threw away?  For me it was the 2-3 home defeat to Killie under Stendel where Hearts had 70% possession yet were down 0-2 at HT.  The 2-2 home draw with Hamilton is a close second.    Hearts were fine in the counter attack but totally unable to break down teams in the bottom half that just wanted to defend.

 

 

I note that the BBC Match Reports now record all the "Assists" from last season.  Not too many goals so should be able to identify top of the assists for Hearts.

Good post bud, can remember leaving that killie game thinking how on earth did we lose that.

Our defence was a shambles though.

[Dusk_Till_Dawn]

10 minutes ago, Tasavallan said:

I did a trawl through all the match statistics from last season and in all games (with the exception of games against the cheeks) Hearts had the majority of the possession and in games against the other Bottom 6 clubs, that possession was over 60% with it rising to almost 75% in the home draw against Hamilton under Stendel.  In general possession in games under Stendel were higher than under Levein but both still higher than the opposition.

 

Yet all this possession did not result in wins. The problem was lack of balls into the box and even worse balls into the net.  Lack of chances resulted in lack of goals.  Opposition teams took their chances against a poor ever-changing defence in front of Mr Flopsy Bunny of a keeper (in my opinion the one main cause of losing winable games)

 

 While possession time increased under Stendel, the results did not.  Too much tippy-tappy in midfield and far too much uninventiveness in midfield resulting in back passes to the defence as the safe ball.  I recall one attacking move down the left that went from opposition bye-line to Hearts keeper from 3-4 back-passes - the opposition may have been pressing but Hearts' midfield had no nouse on escaping the position.

 

What was the worse game that Hearts threw away?  For me it was the 2-3 home defeat to Killie under Stendel where Hearts had 70% possession yet were down 0-2 at HT.  The 2-2 home draw with Hamilton is a close second.    Hearts were fine in the counter attack but totally unable to break down teams in the bottom half that just wanted to defend.

 

 

I note that the BBC Match Reports now record all the "Assists" from last season.  Not too many goals so should be able to identify top of the assists for Hearts.

I think this touches on why we were so limited. But I think fundamentally, the reason we were bottom of the league was because we couldn’t defend to save our lives and we had one of the worst keepers I’ve ever seen.

[Harry Potter]

1 minute ago, Dusk_Till_Dawn said:

I think this touches on why we were so limited. But I think fundamentally, the reason we were bottom of the league was because we couldn’t defend to save our lives and we had one of the worst keepers I’ve ever seen.

That keeper was on a different planet☹️, still beyond me how bad he was.

[Салатные палочки]

15 minutes ago, Dusk_Till_Dawn said:

I think this touches on why we were so limited. But I think fundamentally, the reason we were bottom of the league was because we couldn’t defend to save our lives and we had one of the worst keepers I’ve ever seen.

 

Quite unbelievable how bad he was. Confidence was absolutely shot to pieces from the off but we continued to stick with him. Although, confidence was the least of his problems. He was just a very, very poor goalkeeper. Could see how frustrated the defence were with him as well. 

[Tommy Brown]

Regarding the Hamilton home game, if you were to watch again you would be aghast at the chances missed in that game.

 

Big Uche triple miss in the first half for example.

Agree about stats though, the basic reported, tell you bugger all of how the game panned out.

 

This assists thing is pretty ignorable to me. A player can create the whole move, but because he doesn't do the 2nd last touch, he doesn't get the assist.

[Debut 4]

17 minutes ago, Dusk_Till_Dawn said:

I think this touches on why we were so limited. But I think fundamentally, the reason we were bottom of the league was because we couldn’t defend to save our lives and we had one of the worst keepers I’ve ever seen.

Agree.....It was hardly tippy tappy under Stendel.  More energy, quicker at moving the ball, better individual performances from one or two but ultimately the rot was well set in.  It shows how it can fall down , despite the good intentions, when just a couple of positions are too weak or a unit in the side can’t function competently.  

[Harry Potter]

1 minute ago, Salad Fingers said:

 

Quite unbelievable how bad he was. Confidence was absolutely shot to pieces from the off but we continued to stick with him. Although, confidence was the least of his problems. He was just a very, very poor goalkeeper. Could see how frustrated the defence were with him as well. 

something in the loan contract about him playing so many games, that was a great ides NOT. 

[1971fozzy]

Good post.

unfortunately the reason was we had the WORST goalkeeper in history and a defence that was an unmitigated disaster.  All the possession in the world means fek all when your sent out to play kamikaze football.  But lettuce leaf hands was an absolute horror of a keeper. 

[Baxfee]

We were far too slow and mostly had sideways passes.  This meant we created very little and looked lost at times. Robbie bringIng in wingers shows he feels the same. Going back to the style of the championship side where goals came from everywhere 

[Byyy The Light]

The number of times we had a throw in midway in to the opposition’s half only for it to end up at our keepers feet in 3-4 passes was incredible. No movement, no ability, strength or confidence to take the ball in tight spaces and play. Safe option backwards constantly.

[BackOfTheNet]

‘Possession wins games’ works in theory but only if you know how to move it from midfield to the box. Look no further than the Scotland game on Friday, Clarke is getting a lot of abuse for the draw and the weird team selection, playing players out of position etc, but Scotland was superior in possession. And yes Tierney and McTominay at the back is weird, but people are wrongly focusing on them as overall they were not just decent defensively but very, very secure in possession. Clarke’s issue is he put two defensive midfielders in front of the back three in Jack and McGregor. Jack would’ve sufficed there and McGregor is better in attack but when he plays for Scotland he tries to be Scott Brown and he was never great for Scotland.

 

Robertson always plays bad for Scotland and that’s because he doesn’t have players running from midfield to play quick one twos with to get a cross in, and when he does cross he doesn’t have numerous players in the box but just a lone striker. I don’t know if players like McGinn and Christie and opposite wing back to whoever had the ball were not told to run beyond the striker by Clarke or they’re just morons but that’s what possession play is all about. You have a back 3 and one DM to deal with counter attacks, the rest make runs beyond the striker to stretch the defence. But when you’ve got McGregor never playing a forward pass and wing back never going in behind what chance do you have?

[Deodato]

Excellent post. Feels like you could be on the brilliant TIFO Football channel, now owned by the Athletic. 

 

Makes me wonder what other variables need to be factored into a model, such as 'ball in play'. The tendency for many Scottish clubs to see a throw in as 'progress' up the field is baffling. You even get a round of applause. Our current manager was awful for doing this back during the Vlad season.  I bet you Celtic's ball in play stat will be way higher than everyone else if you could control for other variables. Being able to keep the ball in play means the opposition works harder. 

 

Warren Gatland used this simple statistic  for rugby (and won three grand slams), it's the sort of thing we need to factor in to football analytics. 

[Section Q]

37 minutes ago, Harry Potter said:

Good post bud, can remember leaving that killie game thinking how on earth did we lose that.

Our defence was a shambles though.

We lost a couple to Killie like that. When you have so much possession and losses, it's down to mental/confidence.

[Harry Potter]

1 hour ago, Section Q said:

We lost a couple to Killie like that. When you have so much possession and losses, it's down to mental/confidence.

And bad luck, we never got any breaks tbf.

[Norm]

2 hours ago, Deodato said:

Excellent post. Feels like you could be on the brilliant TIFO Football channel, now owned by the Athletic. 

 

Makes me wonder what other variables need to be factored into a model, such as 'ball in play'. The tendency for many Scottish clubs to see a throw in as 'progress' up the field is baffling. You even get a round of applause. Our current manager was awful for doing this back during the Vlad season.  I bet you Celtic's ball in play stat will be way higher than everyone else if you could control for other variables. Being able to keep the ball in play means the opposition works harder. 

 

Warren Gatland used this simple statistic  for rugby (and won three grand slams), it's the sort of thing we need to factor in to football analytics. 

Not to sound too American but gaining yardage through throw ins isn't a bad thing if you can use those throw ins to your advantage. Klopp spotted this and is why he hired a throw in coach. If you think how many times in a game you get a throw in, it should be one of the main things worked on. Teams spend a lot of time on corner and free kick routines but logically, you would generally expect to have more throw ins than corners and free kicks. So why not spend time on making the most of them? 

 

Instead, what you generally see in Scotland is someone launching it as far in to the middle as possible and hoping someone gets of the end of it. 

[Deid Heid]

El Gateau had hands like big, hot, floppy naan breads, this certainly was as big a factor in our league position and subsequent expulsion as anything else. I cannot believe he got a gig somewhere else (Huddersfield?)! Worst EVER keeper at Hearts.

[colinmaroon]

6 hours ago, Tasavallan said:

I did a trawl through all the match statistics from last season and in all games (with the exception of games against the cheeks) Hearts had the majority of the possession and in games against the other Bottom 6 clubs, that possession was over 60% with it rising to almost 75% in the home draw against Hamilton under Stendel.  In general possession in games under Stendel were higher than under Levein but both still higher than the opposition.

 

Yet all this possession did not result in wins. The problem was lack of balls into the box and even worse balls into the net.  Lack of chances resulted in lack of goals.  Opposition teams took their chances against a poor ever-changing defence in front of Mr Flopsy Bunny of a keeper (in my opinion the one main cause of losing winable games)

 

 While possession time increased under Stendel, the results did not.  Too much tippy-tappy in midfield and far too much uninventiveness in midfield resulting in back passes to the defence as the safe ball.  I recall one attacking move down the left that went from opposition bye-line to Hearts keeper from 3-4 back-passes - the opposition may have been pressing but Hearts' midfield had no nouse on escaping the position.

 

What was the worse game that Hearts threw away?  For me it was the 2-3 home defeat to Killie under Stendel where Hearts had 70% possession yet were down 0-2 at HT.  The 2-2 home draw with Hamilton is a close second.    Hearts were fine in the counter attack but totally unable to break down teams in the bottom half that just wanted to defend.

 

 

I note that the BBC Match Reports now record all the "Assists" from last season.  Not too many goals so should be able to identify top of the assists for Hearts.

 

Couldn't agree more!

 

Would also add St J game in Perth as far as Flopsy was concerned.

[Tokyo Drifter]

On 06/09/2020 at 08:40, Tasavallan said:

I did a trawl through all the match statistics from last season and in all games (with the exception of games against the cheeks) Hearts had the majority of the possession and in games against the other Bottom 6 clubs, that possession was over 60% with it rising to almost 75% in the home draw against Hamilton under Stendel.  In general possession in games under Stendel were higher than under Levein but both still higher than the opposition.

 

Yet all this possession did not result in wins. The problem was lack of balls into the box and even worse balls into the net.  Lack of chances resulted in lack of goals.  Opposition teams took their chances against a poor ever-changing defence in front of Mr Flopsy Bunny of a keeper (in my opinion the one main cause of losing winable games)

 

 While possession time increased under Stendel, the results did not.  Too much tippy-tappy in midfield and far too much uninventiveness in midfield resulting in back passes to the defence as the safe ball.  I recall one attacking move down the left that went from opposition bye-line to Hearts keeper from 3-4 back-passes - the opposition may have been pressing but Hearts' midfield had no nouse on escaping the position.

 

What was the worse game that Hearts threw away?  For me it was the 2-3 home defeat to Killie under Stendel where Hearts had 70% possession yet were down 0-2 at HT.  The 2-2 home draw with Hamilton is a close second.    Hearts were fine in the counter attack but totally unable to break down teams in the bottom half that just wanted to defend.

 

 

I note that the BBC Match Reports now record all the "Assists" from last season.  Not too many goals so should be able to identify top of the assists for Hearts.

 

Those five points dropped - essentially down to calamitous defending/goalkeeping - where what did for us, because we were scoring goals at home. By the time we went to St Mirren we should have been safe.

[The Treasurer]

There was a lot of dreadful performances last season, both individually and as a team, but I think still the one biggest factor in us being in the shit we were, was that horror show of a goalkeeper.

Had we stuck with Bobby or even Doyle, I'm convinced we would have picked up enough points to be well clear of danger

[busby1985]

I know it’s early days in terms of pre season, and we have played two EPL sides, but the same areas of concern, concern me. We are conceding goals from defensive errors and lack of defensive cohesion. We are also conceding goals from goal keeping errors, again. Couple that with we don’t really look like scoring, barely created against United, St Mirren or Burnley. Yes Naismith and Boyce haven’t played yet but I am a little concerned. Early days so not majorly concerned, yet. 

[Dia Liom]

13 minutes ago, The Treasurer said:

There was a lot of dreadful performances last season, both individually and as a team, but I think still the one biggest factor in us being in the shit we were, was that horror show of a goalkeeper.

Had we stuck with Bobby or even Doyle, I'm convinced we would have picked up enough points to be well clear of danger

 

Agree with that.

 

Some interesting comments on the thread.  Plenty of games stick in my mind as ones that we somehow conspired to throw points away in the end.  The 3-3 is Perth was ridiculous.  We were 1-2 up and cruising and somehow got into a position where we snuck a point with a late goal, with St Johnstone missing many good chances.  From a position of dominance to a complete meltdown, which I largely put down to the shit goalkeeping of Pereira, of course the rest of the team has to take blame too.

 

 

[1971fozzy]

3 minutes ago, Dia Liom said:

 

Agree with that.

 

Some interesting comments on the thread.  Plenty of games stick in my mind as ones that we somehow conspired to throw points away in the end.  The 3-3 is Perth was ridiculous.  We were 1-2 up and cruising and somehow got into a position where we snuck a point with a late goal, with St Johnstone missing many good chances.  From a position of dominance to a complete meltdown, which I largely put down to the shit goalkeeping of Pereira, of course the rest of the team has to take blame too.

 

 

that game in Perth was one of the most bizarre experiences. As you say coasting then that keeper just lost the plot and bang so did every other player. We were lucky to not lose it by 3 or 4 in the end only the woodwork and luck. Took an absolute hammering. 
Sean Clare’s injury time equaliser came out of nowhere and I’ll never forget Tommy Wrights reaction.

 

I can’t believe Perrera has another gig. Quite unbelievable 

[Eldar Hadzimehmedovic]

Good OP. Mix of lots of things. Carry over from CL's no-risk possession mentality and DS trying to implement a style with much more energy. The Killie game you mention highlighted a major problem we didn't get to see resolved or otherwise. They exploited our high press so easily. Brophy was able to hold up balls over our pressing players with lots of time and space. It would have been interesting to see if we could have ironed that out. 

[AndrewB]

I remember under Cathro we were having tons of shots on goal but failing to score.  Weren't we having about 20 attempts on goal per game - which is good - but goals per attempt ratio was terrible?

 

Would be nice if we could finally turn all the good stats into good results.  Keeping errors out of the game is number 1 priority, though, as noted above.  Otherwise teams can get turned over by us, get gifted a goal, and.... here we go again feeling kicks in.

 

 

[Tasavallan]

I was (and still am) bemused why Hearts persisted with Flopsy.  Even if Levein persisted with him, I do not understand why Stendel did the same.  All of us could see that the defence were nervous in front of a fumbling keeper.  It was far too late when Stendel finally went with Bobby.

 

For the record Pereira played in 20 league games last season.  I am sure points lost due to his involvement was more than the gap between 12th and 10th place.

 

I am still of a mind that Hearts were under instructions to play Pereira when he was fit.  Hearts would still be in the Premiership if Berra had crocked him in training.

[plastic_bas]

11 minutes ago, Tasavallan said:

I was (and still am) bemused why Hearts persisted with Flopsy.  Even if Levein persisted with him, I do not understand why Stendel did the same.  All of us could see that the defence were nervous in front of a fumbling keeper.  It was far too late when Stendel finally went with Bobby.

 

For the record Pereira played in 20 league games last season.  I am sure points lost due to his involvement was more than the gap between 12th and 10th place.

 

I am still of a mind that Hearts were under instructions to play Pereira when he was fit.  Hearts would still be in the Premiership if Berra had crocked him in training.

 

When you have so much possession but limited creative players, having a keeper that's good in possession is important. He needs to be able pick out the full backs pushing high up the pitch and know when to clip it into a midfielder over the press. The trade off (unless they are top class like Alisson at Liverpool) is usually that they only deliver the bread and butter saves and will not pull a worldy out the bag when you need it. See Rodger's concerns with Gordon at Celtic as an example.

 

The problem with JP is even the stuff straight at him went through him. Stendel was happy to concede chances knowing that your average bottom 6 SPL forward wasn't striking it sweetly into the corner every chance they got. They didn't need to though. 

[Jambo61]

On 06/09/2020 at 09:14, 1971fozzy said:

Good post.

unfortunately the reason was we had the WORST goalkeeper in history and a defence that was an unmitigated disaster.  All the possession in the world means fek all when your sent out to play kamikaze football.  But lettuce leaf hands was an absolute horror of a keeper. 

Think you could be more specific since we expect over £2m for our full backs!

[Tasavallan]

1 hour ago, Jambo61 said:

Think you could be more specific since we expect over £2m for our full backs!

 

Much as our FBs were excellent going forward, how often last season were they caught out of position in the opposition's half (due to the midfield losing the ball) and had to back-track on the heels of the opposition player that in-evidently ended up as a goal.   Thankfully last season's FBs were not sold on their defensive qualities.

[Rogue Daddy]

1 hour ago, plastic_bas said:

 

When you have so much possession but limited creative players, having a keeper that's good in possession is important. He needs to be able pick out the full backs pushing high up the pitch and know when to clip it into a midfielder over the press. The trade off (unless they are top class like Alisson at Liverpool) is usually that they only deliver the bread and butter saves and will not pull a worldy out the bag when you need it. See Rodger's concerns with Gordon at Celtic as an example.

 

The problem with JP is even the stuff straight at him went through him. Stendel was happy to concede chances knowing that your average bottom 6 SPL forward wasn't striking it sweetly into the corner every chance they got. They didn't need to though. 

Can still see 'that' goal (I think it was against Hamilton at Tynie)... unbelievable. As you say, just seemed to go through him!? Absolutely hopeless