We are in the era of big data, and being a data scientist is supposed to be the ‘sexiest job of the 21st century’. What makes somebody good at analysing data? How should we treat context, correlation and causation? And how did data science get it so wrong with the 10k hour rule?
In the 5 UEFA Champions League seasons from 04/5 to 08/9, English clubs made up 12 of the 20 semi-finalists. In the 5 completed seasons since then they have only had 3 semi-finalists out of 20.What is going on? Are England’s richest teams really getting worse?
At a top professional football club, the identity of the head coach doesn’t matter all that much. Getting ahead as a coach is mostly about being in the right place at the right time, and avoiding getting the blame for things that are actually out of your control.
In a US Presidential election year, lots of people are analysing, modelling and betting on political election markets. Can pro sports bettors give them any pointers?
“Football is a results business” – so goes the old football cliché. But fixating on short-term results is a really inefficient thing for any organisation to do. Professional gamblers look instead for underlying value, and so should (almost) everybody else.
This is the abstract submission I put together for the 2016 OPTA Pro analytics conference. Would you have been interested to hear the presentation?
Does analytics actually work? It is unquestionably cool and fashionable. But is it over-hyped? Is Moneyball a myth? And can sports teams learn anything from professional sports bettors?
The reigning English champions are languishing down at the foot of the league. What on earth has happened at Chelsea?
