Hurst pre-Bradford

Quoted from jonnyboy82

From what I've seen Pyke certainly ain't the answer. Lacking in forward players atm so even more surprising no one was bought in last week.

Could really come to shaft us in the coming weeks if we don't get people back ASAP.

You need to give Pyke a chance.  Out of the 7 League games he has played in, all 7 were as a sub, with only a total of 75 minutes spread across the 7 games.  Ok, he played 90 minutes in the two cup games, but they were completely different to playing a League game.

Re-Khan's injury...Hurst actually said that if anything it would've been a positive thing as he'd have been in better shape than everyone else.

He did come back fit but was injured after a week or two of pre season training if i recall.

A couple of interesting comments from Mark Hughes in his Bradford presser yesterday.

"The reality is our exchange is probably higher than theirs in terms of expected goals, but they've been scoring from outside the box from 20, 30 yards so that's obviously enabled them to to win games, but their expected goals are probably half of what they've scored, so they're riding what that wave at the moment".

In other words, if you discount all of the goals we've scored from outside the box, we haven't really scored that many at all. He's also wrong by the way, our expected goals (1.12) is only marginally lower than our actual goals scored (1.33).

"Grimsby are a good side and try and play in an attacking manner; and that may well help us because that gives us
opportunities going the other way."

The notion that we prioritise attacking threat over defensive robustness is an odd one, especially given we have the second best defensive record in the league, is an odd one. I question how much he's actually watched us, or any Hurst team, personally.

Strikes me as a man under pressure. Given Bradford's apparent problems and our relative current clean bill of health, I can't help feel this is a game we should be winning. They like to play out from the back; get the press right, as we did against Gillingham last week, and it's ours to lose, imho.

Quoted from Poojah

In other words, if you discount all of the goals we've scored from outside the box, we haven't really scored that many at all. He's also wrong by the way, our expected goals (1.12) is only marginally lower than our actual goals scored (1.33).

No he isn't wrong. Bradford have an overall xG so far this season of 8.5, but have only converted those scoring opportunities into 4 actual goals suggesting they're better than us at creating chances but terrible at finishing them.

We have an xG of just 4.6 over the 6 league games played which shows we don't really create that many high quality goalscoring opportunities (which is correct - aside from last weekend against Gillingham we've struggled to create many quality chances inside the penalty area), but primarily due to Eisa banging in a load of screamers we've outperformed the expected return on the lower number of chances we've created by scoring 8 goals.

Source: https://www.fotmob.com/en-GB/l.....eam/league-two-teams

There is one stat that is more important than any other:

Grimsby 9 points
Bradford 8 points

Everything else is froth.

The XG thing is absolute sh1te. Dreamt up by statisticians that know nothing about football, just cold data. Bradford have lost their leading scorer from last season, and their leading scorer from this season, but the XG doesn't take this into account. XG wants binning, it's totally meaningless.

Quoted from BobbyCummingsTackle

There is one stat that is more important than any other:

Grimsby 9 points
Bradford 8 points

Everything else is froth.

Succinct but absolutely correct. I appreciate a lot of fans love the statistics that go with the modern game and good luck to them, but none of it matters one jot.

I find it amazing that as someone else mentioned, if we had beaten Notts County, we would now be top of the table. Just goes to show how much difference one game can make at this stage of the season.

I remember the time years ago when tables weren't even shown until after about 10 games.

Quoted from mimma

The XG thing is absolute sh1te. Dreamt up by statisticians that know nothing about football, just cold data. Bradford have lost their leading scorer from last season, and their leading scorer from this season, but the XG doesn't take this into account. XG wants binning, it's totally meaningless.

It does take that into account. Their expected goals total being 4 goals higher than their actual goals scored total suggests that their finishing has been poor and they haven't converted the chances they've created into goals, which is entirely consistent with their best striker / finisher being out injured.

Quoted from mimma

The XG thing is absolute sh1te. Dreamt up by statisticians that know nothing about football, just cold data. Bradford have lost their leading scorer from last season, and their leading scorer from this season, but the XG doesn't take this into account. XG wants binning, it's totally meaningless.

It's not "sh1te" but it is often misinterpreted. It helps identify how many and the quality of chances a team created and best when used in conjunction with other stats. It is not meant to be definitive.

As for not taking into account the leading scorer not being available, that would depend if his replacement was as good or not. If not XG would likely go down so in effect, this would be taken into account.

Statistic now drives football at the professional level. Town used to identify transfer targets this season. The likes of Brentford have done extremely well using similar methods.

Many teams now employ teams of statisticians, especially at the top level.

Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers.
— Shakuntala Devi