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Poking football analytics until it gives up the answers
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The path to now
Understand football and you'll understand AI
What we talk about when we talk about 'analytics'
Extra time for in-play time
28 June 2026
That's bait
14 June 2026
A whole new world model
30 May 2026
Press 1 for rest defence. Then 2, 7, 4, then 1 again.
16 May 2026
Crabs, the everything app
18 April 2026
Q1 2026 · 8 posts
What's the worldview of your data?
29 March 2026
Football is a simple game...
28 March 2026
Friendly Neighbourhood Thanos
7 March 2026
What *would* Football 2.0 look like?
1 March 2026
The 'Just About Managers'
25 January 2026
Square one
21 January 2026
The Grand Rewrite
16 January 2026
Finding the bench to mark against
5 January 2026
Q4 2025 · 5 posts
'Analytics history' - there is so much to write about and share
18 December 2025
Are footballers artists or accountants?
16 November 2025
Congratulations, you have been acquired
26 October 2025
Time on the clock
12 October 2025
It's a grab bag
6 October 2025
Q3 2025 · 4 posts
Spotify for 'successful line breaks'
18 September 2025
Play smarter, not better?
30 August 2025
Answering the hardest question in football
5 August 2025
Vocabulary for chaos
17 July 2025
Q2 2025 · 4 posts
Some reading, some vocabulary
31 May 2025
Fishing for principles
10 May 2025
Looking for stability
24 April 2025
Building capacity and breaking lines
3 April 2025
Q1 2025 · 5 posts
The wobbly chair of sports software
10 March 2025
Who will win the processing war?
27 February 2025
System stability
3 February 2025
Possession adjusting: Part Two
11 January 2025
Possession is not nine-tenths
1 January 2025
Q4 2024 · 5 posts
Lessons in genAI
9 December 2024
Bias for bravery
19 November 2024
Video is all you need
31 October 2024
What's your research question?
22 October 2024
It's the incentives, stupid: when expected goals are the problem
8 October 2024
Q3 2024 · 5 posts
Positional Play and manager metrics
30 September 2024
Why is the impact of football analytics in question?
15 September 2024
Just run some more
8 September 2024
The four quadrants of football
24 August 2024
A fifth birthday
29 July 2024
Q2 2024 · 1 post
Engineering the (super)market
14 May 2024
Q1 2024 · 1 post
What do we actually know about football?
29 February 2024
Q4 2023 · 2 posts
So... everyone's a decision-maker now
14 October 2023
Purpose of innovation; process of innovation
9 October 2023
Q3 2023 · 3 posts
Time to give ball-in-play measures a kick into touch?
18 August 2023
Stop the clock
7 August 2023
When PIF comes to shove
28 July 2023
Q2 2023 · 3 posts
Is it better to be a leftie?
9 June 2023
The only rule is it has to be fun
16 April 2023
A Pandora's Box of football media stats use
12 April 2023
Q1 2023 · 4 posts
'What do you mean?': GPTs and post-Opta Forum thoughts
23 March 2023
How confident should Arsenal fans feel?
5 March 2023
High-fat data for low(er)-fat costs
15 February 2023
The European Premier League
12 January 2023
Q4 2022 · 9 posts
Goodbye 2022, Hello 2023
31 December 2022
What if you let loose a data scientist on in-match decisions?
23 December 2022
Prompt: Write an article about potential AI use in football...
11 December 2022
Everything you need to know about defensive statistics (well, the basics)
3 December 2022
What is midfield for?
13 November 2022
Manchester United says 'hello world' to data science
5 November 2022
The analytics revolution is history now
29 October 2022
If you owned a big club, would you buy Ajax?
11 October 2022
Ball control, space control, and why good teams play Pep-ball
1 October 2022
Q3 2022 · 4 posts
Where is analytics? What is analytics? An autumn 2022 update.
22 September 2022
What if we didn't care about passes?
14 September 2022
Football analytics is on the brink of a new world: 3D
27 August 2022
Do VARs dream of electric football commentators?
16 July 2022
Q2 2022 · 6 posts
How football competitions are their own competition
28 June 2022
So... everyone has hybrid data now
12 June 2022
Ralf Rangnick, and the value of practice
30 May 2022
Fear and fatigue in analytics modelling
26 May 2022
When is data 'right'?
5 May 2022
The Stats Perform Pro Forum 2022
7 April 2022
Q1 2022 · 6 posts
Get Goalside 100
21 March 2022
When will tracking data have its xG moment?
10 March 2022
The Theory of Everything (in football)
11 February 2022
FIFA's big, big plans (no, not the World Cups)
27 January 2022
What's in the way of analytics solving football?
13 January 2022
Analytics in 2022: what now?
1 January 2022
Q4 2021 · 6 posts
Pick a sport, any sport, take ideas from it
23 December 2021
Do we know football well enough to have good defensive stats?
2 December 2021
So... everyone has pressure data now
25 November 2021
Release time, and expected expected goals
11 November 2021
Where to spend your analytics money?
21 October 2021
Conference season, autumn 2021 - The What & the How
10 October 2021
Q3 2021 · 4 posts
Julian Nagelsmann's earpiece idea might not be so bad after all...
30 September 2021
Creating new data by stealing from basketball
16 September 2021
The Who, The What, and The Why of bringing advanced stats to the public
2 September 2021
Not all duels are created equal, nor are they easy to adjust
26 August 2021
Q2 2021 · 4 posts
A history of 'pitch control'
27 May 2021
Finding Messi-esque dribblers and making choices while clustering
20 May 2021
Analytics is older than you think: (re)introducing Charles Reep
13 May 2021
Soccer at Sloan 2021: A summary
3 May 2021
Q1 2021 · 2 posts
London bus analytics conferences
25 March 2021
A fab early-February for football analytics aficionados
4 February 2021
Q4 2020 · 8 posts
Where will 'analytics' go in 2021?
31 December 2020
Why diving is bad
18 November 2020
On language, stats, and football
14 November 2020
xG in FM? What does this mean?
3 November 2020
Where are all the English football players?
27 October 2020
Is this the death of formations (as we know them)?
20 October 2020
Are Man City muscling in on Liverpool's analytics crown?
13 October 2020
So, how did the pandemic transfer window end up?
6 October 2020
Q3 2020 · 9 posts
The nerd's case for exciting football
29 September 2020
Is football a 'weak link' sport?
22 September 2020
Why we could be close to a return of hoofball
15 September 2020
The case against buying Lionel Messi for €100m
29 August 2020
James Milner, Hugh Grant, and versatility
11 August 2020
The return of the 'carry the team' centre-forward
4 August 2020
Could Tim Sherwood have got 'Moneyball' to work at Aston Villa?
28 July 2020
The *real* meaning of Moneyball
21 July 2020
How would you play against the Invincibles?
7 July 2020
Q2 2020 · 3 posts
3 fun looks at home advantage
30 June 2020
Liverpool 19/20: A historically great side?
23 June 2020
Can you teach tactics in a lockdown?
16 June 2020
Q1 2020 · 1 post
What MUFC's future DoF should copy from Liverpool
21 January 2020
Q4 2019 · 9 posts
How good is 'good' and how 'good' is Messi?
31 December 2019
The silliest things you can do with advanced football tech
24 December 2019
Possession and anti-possession can be friends
17 December 2019
Making predictions in an unpredictable age
10 December 2019
Trust me. Just trust me.
3 December 2019
A defence of early-analytics' mistakes
19 November 2019
Has analytics made Liverpool boring?
29 October 2019
Attacking stats are role-dependent too
22 October 2019
Spending a Sunday with pressing stats
15 October 2019
Q3 2019 · 1 post
The value of 'certainty'
16 July 2019
Q2 2019 · 2 posts
Would you have bought Van Dijk from Celtic?
7 May 2019
'Possession adjusting': An essay.
23 April 2019
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