In defence of Rafael BenÍtez: statistics point out why he should stay

[dww]

Great article, we have been very good in several games this year and gone on to draw.

Goes to show that just a bit of bad luck can make a huge difference.

I think repeated bad luck indicates a more fundamental problem to be honest. We don't score enough goals/aren't clinical enough in front of goal. All the fact we have scored more than Chelsea really reflects is the period between the Blackburn and Reading games where we showed we could score many goals and the Sunderland/Derby games where we plundered **** teams. A good team needs to score goals at a consistent rate in all games.

If we did a matches in which a team scored analysis I'm pretty sure we would see that Chelsea look a lot better than us. They might even look better in the number of games in which they scored more than one.

Really we need an average goals per game and a standard deviation to compare teams in my opinion (along with the traditional league table stats).

[dww]

Can everyone please be a bit more civil. Any more of this aggressive nonsense and someone is going in the sin bin.

[terrymac]

Can everyone please be a bit more civil. Any more of this aggressive nonsense and someone is going in the sin bin.

Sorry mate, I had a the teenage ninja turtle lynch mob on my case.

[Dhav]

Can everyone please be a bit more civil. Any more of this aggressive nonsense and someone is going in the sin bin.

Can it please be Rashid, or this WUM terrymac?

[el matador]

Can everyone please be a bit more civil. Any more of this aggressive nonsense and someone is going in the sin bin.

Terrymac you're totally right. Our squad is the best out of the top4 by far and we have better players than everyone else. How we havent won the premiership under rafa by now just escapes me.

The problem is rafa - his defensive tactics and lack of football knowledge. Lets get him out. You start an internet petition and I will sign it.

[alunevans]

absolute garbage this. so all this science comes up with an explanation of bad luck (very scientific!) and a supposedly **** season from our keeper (utter bollocks!)

In defence of Rafael BenÍtez: statistics point out why he should stay
Daniel Finkelstein, The Times

Long live the Rafa-lution

I love them (the Beatles came from Liverpool), I love them not (so did Militant). I love them (they are admirably sporting and passionate), I love them not (the fans are irritatingly certain that they power their team). I love them (what a club, what a history), I love them not (when I go to watch them play my side, I usually feel that I should take a pillow).

I am, in other words, ambivalent about Liverpool. But about Rafael BenÍtez? About Rafa, I am off the fence. Dr Henry Stott and Dr Ian Graham got up from their sofas after the FA Cup fiasco against Barnsley and started crunching the numbers. Somehow they knew that it would be necessary. And the next day, the papers were, indeed, duly full of stories about the future of Liverpool’s manager.

It is worth, therefore, starting with this. There was a 91 per cent chance of Liverpool defeating Barnsley at home. That they lost did not alter their 50 per cent chance of beating Inter Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday, a game they proceeded to win. You simply cannot make judgments based on one result, or even a small clutch of results. You have to take a longer view.

What happens when you do? Using a weighted measure of goals and shots on goal (the weighting is the one we use to beat the bookies season after season), we can compare Liverpool’s attacking and defensive strength with the best in the Barclays Premier League. This allows us to see whether they are getting closer or farther away from the top side and whether there has been a dip this season.

The results are clear. In May 2005, Liverpool’s attack was 71 per cent as strong as Manchester United, now it is 82 per cent. And over the same period their defence has improved from 79 per cent of Chelsea to 89 per cent. This season? Defence shot up, then fell back, but is still higher than it was at the beginning (83 per cent of Chelsea). Attack has remained pretty constant.

The graphic is another way of looking at things. Liverpool’s ranking has been remarkably constant over three seasons. So what, if anything, is going wrong this season? (And they have gone wrong. The chance of a top-four finish is now only 58 per cent). Three things come out of the data. The first is that Liverpool are scoring a smaller proportion of their shots on target than they were. The second is that they are letting in a larger proportion. And the final point is that they are accumulating disappointingly few points for the goals they do score.

Here’s a remarkable set of statistics. This season Liverpool have scored two more goals than Chelsea and conceded the same number. Yet Chelsea have 11 more points.

If all this stuff sounds sort of familiar to you, that’s because it is broadly what happened to Arsenal last season. They had some bad luck and this year they are having good luck. That’s just the way it goes.

There are two more points worth touching on briefly. It may be that in the mix of bad luck, José Manuel Reina has added some pretty poor play. He is having a very bad season, whereas last year he was one of Liverpool’s best players. This year the star is Steven Gerrard - a player the Fink Tank hasn’t always raved about.

One thing I do want you to forget about is rotation. Our new rotation measure (of which more soon) does not show BenÍtez as the biggest rotator.

Rafa must stay.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle3420138.ece

[Vermilion]

Nonsense? How can you argue with what he is saying? United have a better squad than us, it's as simple as that. They have quality running through the team and are able to "rotate" (if you want to call it that) world-class wingers with £17m+ prospects. We are operating with players picked up on frees and hanging onto the hope that ageing members of the squad suddenly re-discover form.

I think your comment about Arsenal also shows a lack of consideration for the way their team has developed over that 2 season period and serves to contradict your viewpoint that we have an equally talented array of players; their squad has improved, ours generally hasn't improved that much. This isn't an excuse for Benitez, it's just simply the case: that we do not have as good a squad as the other three.

So very well said, i wonder sometimes if the Rafa Out mob know anything about the game. There are only so many Trophy's & Finals to win. Rafa is a superb manager, support the guy ffs.

[pezzzer]

We should be able to match Arsenal yes, at least this season but not Man U or Chelsea because they simply have so much more money than us. We can sign maybe one £15m+ player a season, they can sign four or five if they want to and they have done that for years.

So third place was a realistic target this season.

your banging your head against a brickwall mate.

because we've had (other than torres) roughly the same spending budget as spurs/barcodes we should still be able to compete with mancs/chavs

theve made there minds up mate, there agenda is against rafa and they wont let a silly thing like cold, hard, facts get in there way

[Parm]

bad season??? **** off

to the point mate!

[saveferris]

Whilst I agree it doesnt seem Reina has had a bad season by any stretch, it would be interesting to hear why he has a bad season according to the "fink tank".