This morning I posted a blog entry that discussed the odds of various EPL team's qualifying for Europe. I spent much of the post providing statistics on PPM streaks, odds of finishing in various table positions, and even R-squared values to communicate the relative consistency of slumping clubs. In all, the statistics provided a quantification of some of the qualitative observations some have already made elsewhere in the media. I felt I added value to the conversation because quantitative information doesn't just tell us how poorly or how well a club is playing, but it also allows us to make relative comparisons between clubs and within clubs throughout the whole season. As an example, that's why I went out of my way to single out Arsenal's mid-season slump actually being worse than the one that they had at the start of the season. Some may have found that conclusion counter intuitive given the prevailing narrative about Arsenal's season. If so, my goal was accomplished. If not, then kudos to the reader because they're already let numbers be one of the ways they form their perceptions of the club.
"No matter what the odds say, the last eight matches of the season will provide for some compelling soccer. Will Manchester City win their first ever Premier League title or will United fend off yet another challenge to their long-term supremacy within the league? Which of the two bitter North London rivals will gain automatic entry to the Premier League? Will Chelsea be able to slip into Champions League qualification, or might they even fall out of the Europa League qualifying spot? Might they even pull off the unlikely feat of winning the Champions League, thus fulfilling one of Abramovich's long held goals and denying the fourth table position entry into the competition? Will Liverpool stumble to their worst finish since the 1993/94 season? Only the final eight matches will tell. It's going to be an exciting end to the season!"
I emphasize the bolded section because it offers another opportunity for the use of statistics: providing perspective on a statement. I purposefully didn't belabor the point much more in the post, because I know and you know there is a very slim chance of this happening. Thus, even without statistics I provided perspective by not emphasizing it within the larger context of the post.
However, others have run with this scenario and provided none of the context I would expect of a "completely told story". I have worked with the Untold Arsenal staff in the past, and as a Gooner I enjoy some of their material as their depth of coverage is very good. Their RefWatch pieces are extremely interesting, and I regularly praise DogFace's work in that regard. Today, however, I had to take issue with the story that headlined with, "The team that finishes fourth could be put into the Europa League". The blog post explained the scenario where Chelsea wins the Champions League and can't finish higher than fourth, so only the top three EPL clubs would get into next year's competition under that scenario. Next thing you know EPL Talk saw the post, created a Stumble Upon link, and sent it out to their Twitter feed and its 8,000+ followers. Add that to the 3,000+ followers on the Untold Arsenal Twitter account that also sent out the link, and you now have 11,000 readers of the article.
Is the headline wrong? No. Is the message in the body of the text wrong, which is Arsenal better take the run-in seriously if they want to secure a Champions League spot? No. So why am I irritated? Because there's zero discussion within the blog post as to how likely a scenario this is for Chelsea. The reality is that just such a scenario has less than a 2% chance of happening according to the EuroClubIndex. Stating as much would have helped provide a ton of context for readers of the blog post. Heck, it might have even meant a separate blog post wouldn't have been written on the topic given the remote possibility, and instead would have maybe shown up as a one liner just like it did in my post. By not providing context within an article the author does not communicate to readers this bit of information - the scenario of Chelsea winning Champions League - should fit into the wider story to watch for as we close out the season. In the inverse, imagine how powerful watching a Chelsea championship within Europe's premier club competition becomes if we all know now what their likelihood of success is? Either way the odds of the outcome are an extremely piece of information left out of the story, and they make the story far more complete when they're included.
I know the guys from Untold Arsenal, so I won't assign any ulterior motives to why the story was written the way it was. I think it was an honest attempt to provide perspective to the Gooner faithful. I don't know the team at EPL Talk, so I can't speak about them either. What I can say is that this incident reminds me of how in any journalistic medium, catchy headlines, rumors, speculation, and controversial statements sell copy and drive clicks. They're red meat to a public all too willing to get into emotional debates about things that often are the minuscule trees within the wider forest at which we should be paying far more attention.
I am not asking that everyone writing about soccer build Markov chain models to explain a team's success or failure. I've even mentioned how the growing discipline of soccer analytics has led to a blossoming field were far too many analysts outstrip my analysis capabilities and free time available for such study. Thus, I have chosen to stay at a certain depth of analysis and instead use numbers as a way to tell bigger stories. I've also written and heard plenty about how soccer analytics data is far more proprietary in nature than data from other sports. I'm not asking for much. I'm just asking for a little bit of Googling to find some publicly available macro-level data to help provide readers some context about the rare scenarios that are under discussion. It helps provides perspective, both in assigning the proper attention due to the rarity of the event and a deeper appreciation if the unlikely becomes reality. We should all aspire to tell such great, complete stories. In the process we all gain a greater appreciation as to why no matter the numbers say we still play and watch the beautiful game because of its randomness and intricate outcomes.
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