shoddycollins
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2015
- Messages
- 11,512
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- Location
- In the managerless wonderland
- Supports
- Carlisle United
Like this:
[GALLERY=media, 3]16-10-23 by shoddycollins posted Oct 23, 2016 at 11:58 AM[/GALLERY]
Or at least, this is my attempt to take account of the strength of the opposition each team has faced. Shoddy points are basically how many points a team has earned compared to what an average team would have earned having faced the same opponents.
As an example, I'll use a game from this weekend. We'll go with Portsmouth v Notts County
So far this season (exclusing the Notts County game itself) teams who have played away to Portsmouth have taken 4 points from 6 games. So from this we can say that an average visitor to Fratton Park will leave with 0.66 points. Notts County however left with three points, this is considerably better than average, so they earn 2.33 Shoddy points. For comparison a team with a poor home record such as Exeter would grant you far fewer Shoddy points for a win. Cambridge only earned 0.33 Shoddy points from their win at Exeter (a win will always give you positive Shoddy points because no team is giving an average of 3 points away per home game, they'd have to be losing every game to do that).
Shoddy points can can go down as well as up since they're based on an average, and that average being zero. So from Portsmouth's perspective, County have given the teams they visit an 6 points from 6 games (exluding Pompey themselves) so that's a point per game for teams to host Notts County. Pompey earned no points so their Shoddy points from that game is -1.
It's also worth knowing that as the season progresses, Shoddy points are retrospectively recalculated. In a few weeks' time, Portsmouth will have played more home games and therefore the average number of points taken by visitors to Fratton Park will have changed and this will restrospectively alter the number of Shoddy points that Notts County earned in this game. This is so that each game is considered against the season as a whole, rather than the games played before it (otherwise there would be no data to base Shoddy points for the first game of the season on). So with each week of football played, teams won't just earn or lose Shoddy points based on the game they played that weekend, but also based on adjustments to games already played as we get a clearer idea of how good or bad their opponents are. This reflects what I often read in football forums where fans say that a result that looked like a bad one at the time may in retrospect not seem too terrible, I remember for example the Pompey fans on the opening day thinking that a draw at home to Carlisle was made even worse (than the fact Carlisle had 10 men) because it was against a poor side who would struggle to make the top half, however in retrospect, it's not so terrible, as things stand, that draw is worth 0.5 Shoddy points to Pompey, and zero to Carlisle (having earned the same as an average team would).
There are of course limitations. The idea of this is to adjust for the fact that not everyone has played everyone else yet, but it's not possible to completely remove that from the equation, this is why we have to wait till the end of the season to truly know who the best teams are. What I've done though is removed by one level, instead having a direct impact on the table it has a more indirect impact, but it's still there as we won't know till the end of the season truly how strong or weak your opponents were.
The other limitation is that some teams may have had easier games than others so far, and of course you can only beat what's in front of you. This will have reduced their opportunity to earn Shoddy points, but bigger opportunities will be still to come; and of course relative difficulties of games takes no account for things which can affect the difficulty of an individual game such as red cards, injuries and suspensions. Also by averaging out difficulty across the season as a whole it neglects the fact that teams do have good and bad spells or change manager and become a different proposition, two teams who played Pompey at home didn't necessarily come up against an equal challenge. Ultimately there are loads of ways you could attempt to factor opponent strength into the table and this is just my attempt.
By the way, if you deduct the Shoddy points from the actual points, you'll be left with a table showing the teams in order of the difficulty of opponents faced so far.
[GALLERY=media, 3]16-10-23 by shoddycollins posted Oct 23, 2016 at 11:58 AM[/GALLERY]
Or at least, this is my attempt to take account of the strength of the opposition each team has faced. Shoddy points are basically how many points a team has earned compared to what an average team would have earned having faced the same opponents.
As an example, I'll use a game from this weekend. We'll go with Portsmouth v Notts County
So far this season (exclusing the Notts County game itself) teams who have played away to Portsmouth have taken 4 points from 6 games. So from this we can say that an average visitor to Fratton Park will leave with 0.66 points. Notts County however left with three points, this is considerably better than average, so they earn 2.33 Shoddy points. For comparison a team with a poor home record such as Exeter would grant you far fewer Shoddy points for a win. Cambridge only earned 0.33 Shoddy points from their win at Exeter (a win will always give you positive Shoddy points because no team is giving an average of 3 points away per home game, they'd have to be losing every game to do that).
Shoddy points can can go down as well as up since they're based on an average, and that average being zero. So from Portsmouth's perspective, County have given the teams they visit an 6 points from 6 games (exluding Pompey themselves) so that's a point per game for teams to host Notts County. Pompey earned no points so their Shoddy points from that game is -1.
It's also worth knowing that as the season progresses, Shoddy points are retrospectively recalculated. In a few weeks' time, Portsmouth will have played more home games and therefore the average number of points taken by visitors to Fratton Park will have changed and this will restrospectively alter the number of Shoddy points that Notts County earned in this game. This is so that each game is considered against the season as a whole, rather than the games played before it (otherwise there would be no data to base Shoddy points for the first game of the season on). So with each week of football played, teams won't just earn or lose Shoddy points based on the game they played that weekend, but also based on adjustments to games already played as we get a clearer idea of how good or bad their opponents are. This reflects what I often read in football forums where fans say that a result that looked like a bad one at the time may in retrospect not seem too terrible, I remember for example the Pompey fans on the opening day thinking that a draw at home to Carlisle was made even worse (than the fact Carlisle had 10 men) because it was against a poor side who would struggle to make the top half, however in retrospect, it's not so terrible, as things stand, that draw is worth 0.5 Shoddy points to Pompey, and zero to Carlisle (having earned the same as an average team would).
There are of course limitations. The idea of this is to adjust for the fact that not everyone has played everyone else yet, but it's not possible to completely remove that from the equation, this is why we have to wait till the end of the season to truly know who the best teams are. What I've done though is removed by one level, instead having a direct impact on the table it has a more indirect impact, but it's still there as we won't know till the end of the season truly how strong or weak your opponents were.
The other limitation is that some teams may have had easier games than others so far, and of course you can only beat what's in front of you. This will have reduced their opportunity to earn Shoddy points, but bigger opportunities will be still to come; and of course relative difficulties of games takes no account for things which can affect the difficulty of an individual game such as red cards, injuries and suspensions. Also by averaging out difficulty across the season as a whole it neglects the fact that teams do have good and bad spells or change manager and become a different proposition, two teams who played Pompey at home didn't necessarily come up against an equal challenge. Ultimately there are loads of ways you could attempt to factor opponent strength into the table and this is just my attempt.
By the way, if you deduct the Shoddy points from the actual points, you'll be left with a table showing the teams in order of the difficulty of opponents faced so far.
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