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*Official* English Football Season 2014-15

Uppercut

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Right club and position (winger) but wrong era. @cpr

But yeah to clarify the rankings are

1. Not a flop/not a success but part of a great team (best ratio with 20+ assists)
2. United winger. (Best ratio with 9000+ minutes)
3. Fabregas
1. Kalou? Reyes?
2. Nani?

All three would be surprising. Although I do remember Nani owning the Fantasy leagues for a couple of seasons, so that might make sense.
 

cpr

International Coach
Thinking maybe David Silva for 1 then, I'd call him a success though.

Can't see Nani's figures being higher than Beckhams TBH, Beckham was credited with ridiculous amounts during the 99-01 era, when we were pushing 100 league goals a season on some occasions, think 2000 we ended with 97 or something akin.
 

cpr

International Coach
Yeah, it's Nani. Reyes is top if you reduce the amount of minutes needed to qualify though.
What? **** off, are you getting that from Arsenalarethebesteva.com? It all depends what you use as an assist.

Over the years I've always taken any stats I need from All Time Player Records, which is pretty decent IMO. There lists Beckham as having 152 assists in 265 games, 0.57 per game. It actually has Fabregas averaging slightly higher (126 from 218, 0.58 ApG) and Henry not far behind (144 from 258 - 0.56 ApG), Nani averages about 0.5 per game, which fits whats being said above, so it doesn't appear biased to any particular team to me

They list Reyes as having 27 in 70 games, about 0.38.... So he'd have to have been subbed off after 60 mins of every game, and the others never be subbed off, for it to be comparable on minutes.

Whoever has given you that list using some weird way to calculate it IMO....
 

cpr

International Coach
So many different analysis of what counts an as assist..

Just who are the greatest goal makers in Premier League history? | gunnersphere.com - An Arsenal blog using the same data as I posted above, puts Beckham just ahead of Henry/Fabregas with 0.57 assists per game (so basicaly one ever 157 minutes, discounting being subbed). Reyes would be miles out on that one as I said

Top 6: Most assists in Premier League history Has Beckham 6th, half the assists as the above source and 0.3 ApG, Has Reyes 5th just above on the assist per game ratio, and Cantona top.... Henry and Nani nowhere to be seen...

Really I suppose when there's no definitive way to measure what counts as an assist, then its a pretty useless stat
 

grecian

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
So many different analysis of what counts an as assist..

Just who are the greatest goal makers in Premier League history? | gunnersphere.com - An Arsenal blog using the same data as I posted above, puts Beckham just ahead of Henry/Fabregas with 0.57 assists per game (so basicaly one ever 157 minutes, discounting being subbed). Reyes would be miles out on that one as I said

Top 6: Most assists in Premier League history Has Beckham 6th, half the assists as the above source and 0.3 ApG, Has Reyes 5th just above on the assist per game ratio, and Cantona top.... Henry and Nani nowhere to be seen...

Really I suppose when there's no definitive way to measure what counts as an assist, then its a pretty useless stat
and we have a winner, give the man a coconut.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
It's a useful, if somewhat flawed stat.

Generally speaking, I don't think some players get enough credit for assists, but I speak as someone who takes as much pleasure in laying a chance on a plate for a team-mate as I do from smashing one into the top corner myself.
 

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Chances created always sounds like it would be better to me, but I actually have little idea how they calculate it.
 

Cabinet96

Hall of Fame Member
Chances created always sounds like it would be better to me, but I actually have little idea how they calculate it.
It's actually incredible how little people know about what certain stats mean. I used Key Passes (i.e. chances created) as a form of judgement for about a year before I knew exactly what it is. I'm sure you'd find most people don't even know what a shot on target is (no blocked shots don't count), and possession stats differ depending on what method is used to calculate it.

Chances created, or key passes, are just passes to a player who then shoots.
 

Cabinet96

Hall of Fame Member
So many different analysis of what counts an as assist..

Just who are the greatest goal makers in Premier League history? | gunnersphere.com - An Arsenal blog using the same data as I posted above, puts Beckham just ahead of Henry/Fabregas with 0.57 assists per game (so basicaly one ever 157 minutes, discounting being subbed). Reyes would be miles out on that one as I said

Top 6: Most assists in Premier League history Has Beckham 6th, half the assists as the above source and 0.3 ApG, Has Reyes 5th just above on the assist per game ratio, and Cantona top.... Henry and Nani nowhere to be seen...

Really I suppose when there's no definitive way to measure what counts as an assist, then its a pretty useless stat
Neither of those articles use the same methodology of minutes per assist though. No one is claiming Nani has the most cumulative assists or even assists per game. Per game is a pretty awful state btw. Only used when people are too lazy to work out how many minutes someone has played and how regularly they achieve something every 90 minutes.
 

cpr

International Coach
Neither of those articles use the same methodology of minutes per assist though. No one is claiming Nani has the most cumulative assists or even assists per game. Per game is a pretty awful state btw. Only used when people are too lazy to work out how many minutes someone has played and how regularly they achieve something every 90 minutes.
That kinda goes away from why I think its a useless stat, even if we took each game to be 90 mins for a player (which is too high), the first article had Beckham creating an assist every 157 minutes I think - obviously it'll be lower as he wasn't playing 90 mins each time he stepped on the field.

The second article saw Beckhams no of assists drop from 152 to 80, nearly halved FFS, thats not a slight anomaly in counting, its a completely different method. This seconds article gives Cantona's mins per assist as 250 if we take each game to be 90 minutes - now we know Cantona spent as much time kicking the opposition/fans to last a full 90 mins each week, so you'd expect the the real figure to again be significantly lower.

The Opta method has Cantona having 246 mins per assist, on the face of it not far from the one above, but if they've used the same amount of total assists, then you'd have to infer Cantona played nearly 90 mins each match, which above proves he didnt (I know we didn't sub him off very often, but it still happened), so can only conclude Opta have a different way of calculating assists compared to the other two.... Note Beckham and Henry fall from 1st/3rd to no where near across the articles.


Now I'm very much a stats and figure kinda guy, but I must admit I keep forgetting to follow the Opta account on twitter, all it does is sprew out really irrelevant figures that make me wonder how someone gets paid for this stuff, and this one to me proves it - they've tweeted a completely arbitrary stat that can basically be calculated on whatever criteria the statistician deems fit. I think we can all agree Beckham was fantastic getting the ball into the box from wide, few can hold a candle to Fabregas at creating from the edge of the area, Henry was a freak of nature, and Reyes really doesn't sit with this company.

As a bit of stats geekery to finish, none of these mention Scholes, using the first link (and i think the arsenal blog mentions it), his assist/game ratio is very poor, yet theres been a picture going round twitter comparing Scholes/Xavi/Pirlo, and in around the same no of league games Scholes has scored and assisted twice as much as the other two.... 3 of the most creative midfielders of the last 20 years (throw in Zidane/Iniesta in that mix, and Gerard too, who the first link puts as one of the highest creators in Prem history)
 

Cabinet96

Hall of Fame Member
I think the Scholes/Xavi/Pirlo thing is just because they played deeper. Though it is interesting. Xavi is obviously a great passer but I think the stat is that Özil in his La Liga days got more assists than Xavi and Iniesta combined.

As for the continuity of assist definitions, how can there actually be that much of a difference between definitions? Seems a pretty bog standard definition to me. Only complications are if a pass gets deflected or something. I definitely wouldn't trust that Scholes/Xavi/Pirlo thing though, just because anyone could've made it.

As for Opta, you know they deliberately don't reveal any data that's really interesting, relevant or rare right? They have to pay guys to collect it, so they don't reveal stuff for free. Clubs and media outlets pay big money for the rights to all the data. It's also not really their job to analyse it. You have to follow the right sites, blogs and twitter feeds if you want to see groundbreaking stuff.
 

Nate

You'll Never Walk Alone
Was thinking about it this afternoon. Still not sure, would be interested in people's arguments. :)
 

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