[Archived] A simple analysis on Blackburn Rovers (and Kean!) since our promotion

[pedebumchin]

As no one in the media was going to bother. I thought that I would provide people with a simple analysis of why we are protesting and why Kean should not be given more time, despite what certain pundits say.

http://pedebumchin.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-media-should-not-criticise-kean-out.html

[LeftWinger]

Nice stats. 2005/06 - 50% of games won. Easy to forget how good we had it!

[booth]

As no one in the media was going to bother. I thought that I would provide people with a statistical analysis of why we are protesting and why Kean should not be given more time, despite what certain pundits say.

http://pedebumchin.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-media-should-not-criticise-kean-out.html

Very good article. When people were saying that despite not being able to win he would turn it around as performances were better, I claimed that he is in fact getting worse not better. Anyone who looks at the stats as you have, will know that.

[DE.]

As no one in the media was going to bother. I thought that I would provide people with a statistical analysis of why we are protesting and why Kean should not be given more time, despite what certain pundits say.

http://pedebumchin.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-media-should-not-criticise-kean-out.html

Good post, please send this to the idiots on Soccer Saturday, that way they won't have to do any pesky research and can still form an opinion based on truths rather than stupid quips and media cliches.

[krypton1980]

Great research there - this is what the "professional" journos should be looking at, then once they have all the facts they can make a comment. But as has been said before most don`t care about little old rovers.

[pedebumchin]

Great research there - this is what the "professional" journos should be looking at, then once they have all the facts they can make a comment. But as has been said before most don`t care about little old rovers.

I think the issue is, because we aren't at the forefront of journalist's minds they assume we fight relegation every year and that the position we currently find ourselves in is quite common.

Looking at our finishes we finished top half 6 times and bottom half 4 times... Weirdly whenever we have finished in the bottom half on those four occasions, we were 15th. (The 13th in the table refers to the position in December when Big Sam was sacked)

[malk]

As no one in the media was going to bother. I thought that I would provide people with a statistical analysis of why we are protesting and why Kean should not be given more time, despite what certain pundits say.

http://pedebumchin.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-media-should-not-criticise-kean-out.html

Come on, you haven't performed any statistical analysis at all, this is just our league finishes for the past few years lumped into a table.

Why don't we take Kean's data from last season. With 5 wins, 7 draws and 9 losses in 21 games this extrapolates into 9 wins, 13 draws and 16 losses over a 38 game season. 40 points. This has more statistical relevance than using the combined data from Kean's tenure as it represents playing each team in the league once (plus 3 twice) whereas the combined data has a mixture of teams based on the two fixture lists.

This season's data is incomplete until we reach the half way mark. This isn't to say we *have* to keep Kean until then but using the PPG stats to estimate a season's total misses crucial facts such as the relative difficultly of opponents. In the next five we have three easier games and two very difficult ones. Depending on how they go the PPG could range from 0.53 to 1.32.

You also make no attempt to account for the point spread throughout the division in a given season. If you look at http://www.soccerbythenumbers.com/2011/06/has-premier-league-become-more-unequal.html you'll see that there is a trend of growing imbalance in the Premier League where the top teams are getting more and more points compared to the bottom leagues. Now does this increase in spread come from teams at the top pulling away, teams at the bottom falling behind or both? A look at the bunching on recent final tables would suggest that it is the top teams pulling away leaving a mass of similar teams at the bottom. This would indicate a lower PPG for most non top sides. This year certainly seems to have a lot of teams at the low end of the table with very few points.

Since all we are looking at this year is surviving relegation what have teams needed to avoid the drop? I'm going to use +1 to the 18th placed side as our goal difference is poor this year.

2011 40 points.

2010 31 points.

2009 35 points.

2008 37 points.

2007 39 points.

2006 35 points.

2005 34 points.

2004 34 points.

2003 43 points.

2002 37 points.

A quick point on the 2002/03 season where a ridiculous 43 points were required for survival. Man Utd ran away with the league with 83 points and Arsenal were a solid 2nd with 78. Sunderland were abject gaining only 19 points and West Brom were terrible as well getting only 26. This meant there were a lot of points to be distributed from 3rd to 18th and led to the high survival cutoff. This likely won't be the case this year with many similar teams at the bottom and a number of good teams at the top.

Taking that figure out as an anomaly the mean required points for survival is 35.77. One could argue that 35 with a good goal difference or 36 with poor is reasonable.

Without going into any more depth for now, I'll posit that Kean needs to be on around 0.95 PPG after 19 games to get a reasonable amount of backing. Can we get 8 points from our next five games? Very, very tough but why not wait and see.

[pedebumchin]

Come on, you haven't performed any statistical analysis at all, this is just our league finishes for the past few years lumped into a table.

Fair point, but did want to keep it simple. Statistical was probably the wrong word, but I believe my point still stands. A simple analysis shows that he isn't good enough.

edit: In the interests of accuracy I have changed the title.

[JAL]

Fair point, but did want to keep it simple. Statistical was probably the wrong word, but I believe my point still stands. A simple analysis shows that he isn't good enough.

edit: In the interests of accuracy I have changed the title.

Is Stephen Keans previous record one that reads that he always starts off well only for it then to go down hill, which kind of follows the trend that you've posted.

[onlyonejackwalker]

"Since all we are looking at this year is surviving relegation"

Really? When I was asked to pay my season ticket money people were talking about the largest transfer budget ever and challenging for Europe.

The Venky's and Steve Kean - Lowering expectations dramatically.

[malk]

"Since all we are looking at this year is surviving relegation"

Really? When I was asked to pay my season ticket money people were talking about the largest transfer budget ever and challenging for Europe.

The Venky's and Steve Kean - Lowering expectations dramatically.

Fair point, I should have said all "I'm" looking for and pointed out that I mean from here. I truly expected us to have a decent year this season because we'd be solid at the back and had some nice attacking options. The injuries that have forced God knows how many different back 4s this year have made a mockery of that, well, and some pretty poor moments from all the defence really.

If the players we have at the back get back to expected form and the attackers carry on as they have been doing we'll be fine.

[Mattyblue]

Kean's been in charge for only 12 months and we are in our second relegation scrap.

To me that just emphasises that the man is just not capable, yet malk believes if we are averaging under a point a game by new year he deserves backing?

His record is unacceptable, end of.

[aletheia]

Malk

Either you work for Kentaro/Venkys/Kean or are very naive.

[Audax]

Nice stats. 2005/06 - 50% of games won. Easy to forget how good we had it!

The team having Craig Bellamy, Lucas Neill, Ryan Nielsen, Steven Reid, Michael Gray, Tugay, Brad Friedel, Pedersen, David Bentley, Kuqi and R. Savage, all around, that was a very good team. Be nice to get back to that. '04-'05 too without dredging up all of the stats.

[joey_big_nose]

Fair point, I should have said all "I'm" looking for and pointed out that I mean from here. I truly expected us to have a decent year this season because we'd be solid at the back and had some nice attacking options. The injuries that have forced God knows how many different back 4s this year have made a mockery of that, well, and some pretty poor moments from all the defence really.

If the players we have at the back get back to expected form and the attackers carry on as they have been doing we'll be fine.

Don't buy that at all. Even when we did have everyone fit we were losing games - Give down the left and Salgado down the right were having shockers, and there was very little protection in front of the defence.

The only time we have looked okay defensively is with Lowe/Samba/Givet/Olsson- a combination that only really happened because Kean was forced to drop Salgado and Dann through injury. And while it seemed adequate defensively - as opposed to the total inadequacy of the defence prior to this combination - it still wasn't that great.

The fact of the matter is we have no right back - Salgado is finished and Lowe is a midfielder (although he has done sterling work filling in). Also while we have two players who can play left back they are not specialists and have significant weaknesses. Olsson is very attacking so goes awol when the opposition breaks quickly, while Givet is extremely vulnerable to pace and trickery. On top of that Dann has looked very far from convincing.

Samba and Givet as a centreback pairing are an excellent, but elsewhere in the defence we are terribly short handed. If either Dann plays in front of either of them we look much more shakey.

[1864roverite]

Or he is totally fooking "keaned"

Statisttics can be made to look how you want them. As a Rovers fan the only stats I am interested in is POINTS gained, WINS achieved against LOSSES/DRAWS and a healthy goal ratio in the for column which ultimately adds up to a decent league position.

As it stands I despise the manager, the team looks unhealthy, the points tally is poor, our goal dfference is major in the negative and we have lost games without putting in any sort of a decent performance, we have no leadership on or off the pitch, there is no communication, we have no shirt sponsor, we have seena drop in crowds, we have seen a fall in tv appearance revenue, our attached sponsor is thinking of calling it in because of a lack of leadership, even the bloody council are involved whilst the supporters are left high and dry, accused of high treason by the idiot in charge whpo has shown himself top be nothing short of a bullshitter, liar and a liar.

That about sums it up.

You can shove your stats where the sun doesnt shine

KEAN OUT

[booth]

Fair point, I should have said all "I'm" looking for and pointed out that I mean from here. I truly expected us to have a decent year this season because we'd be solid at the back and had some nice attacking options. The injuries that have forced God knows how many different back 4s this year have made a mockery of that, well, and some pretty poor moments from all the defence really.

If the players we have at the back get back to expected form and the attackers carry on as they have been doing we'll be fine.

Malk, it's not just the personnel, it's the system. He leaves the defence far too exposed with the way he's got the team set up. The midfield are doing nothing to cover them at times. A proper manager could sort this out, we'd still concede goals but I'd be willing to bet not as many.

Look how many injuries we had in defence when SA was in charge. Our home record was pretty superb to say we weren't spending any money.

[Shaft]

You can shove your stats where the sun doesnt shine

KEAN OUT

Lower Darwen?

[pedebumchin]

Or he is totally fooking "keaned"

Statisttics can be made to look how you want them. As a Rovers fan the only stats I am interested in is POINTS gained, WINS achieved against LOSSES/DRAWS and a healthy goal ratio in the for column which ultimately adds up to a decent league position.

As it stands I despise the manager, the team looks unhealthy, the points tally is poor, our goal dfference is major in the negative and we have lost games without putting in any sort of a decent performance, we have no leadership on or off the pitch, there is no communication, we have no shirt sponsor, we have seena drop in crowds, we have seen a fall in tv appearance revenue, our attached sponsor is thinking of calling it in because of a lack of leadership, even the bloody council are involved whilst the supporters are left high and dry, accused of high treason by the idiot in charge whpo has shown himself top be nothing short of a bullshitter, liar and a liar.

That about sums it up.

You can shove your stats where the sun doesnt shine

KEAN OUT

couldn't agree more, apart from the TV revenue bit. Aren't Sky and/or ESPN contractually obliged to show a minimum of 10 live games for each team in a season. In the last two years I believe they have fulfilled that requirement. Think I read that somewhere...

Man Utd were the most shown on TV where (I think) 26 of their 38 games were on telly.

[thenodrog]

Good stats ped and a very graphic example of the difference between two top managers and two absolute dollopers.

Doesn't tell the whole story as available finance is not covered but it can be used to end all arguments about the respective qualities of our previous managers.

[Waggy76]

Fair point, I should have said all "I'm" looking for and pointed out that I mean from here. I truly expected us to have a decent year this season because we'd be solid at the back and had some nice attacking options. The injuries that have forced God knows how many different back 4s this year have made a mockery of that, well, and some pretty poor moments from all the defence really.

If the players we have at the back get back to expected form and the attackers carry on as they have been doing we'll be fine.

Well , who is going to play in midfield ? That is where the problem really lies. Also, how did Kean obtain the job in the first place ??? On his is ability to do the job or other reasons ? Personally , my money is on other reasons ...