Are there facts in football or is it all about opinions?

Whenever you watch the news, or a read an article, about something you are interested in you realise just how misleading or superficial the coverage is.

If there is a story about education on TV the reporters will always speak to either Toby Young or one particular school leader (whose name I won't mention) who revels in their role as "controversial headteacher". These people do not represent anything like the views of the majority of people working in education yet any causal watcher of the news would be given the impression they were echoing the thoughts of their profession.

Or take economics, I cringe at the TV news whenever there is a correspondent talking about "the nation's credit card". It is just plain wrong. It doesn't work as a metaphor, it is just wrong in every respect.

And then there is football. Watching a live Everton game with neutral commentary is just bizarre. You hear them saying things like "quiet game from Sigurdsson who usually gets on the ball and really dictates play" or "Bernard won't fancy a game like this", as if a player raised in Brazil, with 5 years in the Ukraine, has never faced a physical opponent or a cold and wet day before.

But this also gets my thinking about how many of my opinions are formed by just repeating back nonsense I've overheard somewhere.

When I used to think Walcott had no "footballing brain" or John Barnes never played well for England was I just quoted what I'd heard Alan Green saying on 5Live? Unless you watch every match live you will always be forming your opinions based on other people's opinions. And if you watch a single match you can see a player having the game of their lives. Like I did with Emerse Fae who looked like a better Michael Essien in the one game I had seen before he moved to Reading, and never played at that level again.

Following other teams supporters on twitter, or visiting forums, is also a good way to open your eyes to their opinions. The player you always assumed they would like is often hated and vice versa.

So are there facts?

If I say Lionel Messi is the best player of all time that is an opinion. It can be debated. I can provide evidence that shows he is really, really good. But I am open to the argument that "of all time" is impossible to prove.

If someone says "Leon Osman was useless" that is also an opinion. But it is based on hyperbole and clearly untrue. You don't make 300 appearances for a top 7 team over 10 years if you are useless. I'd certainly be less inclined to take any more opinions that person had seriously.

There is room for debate, football is a game of opinions but I think opinions need to stand up to light scrutiny.

Someone like Gerard Deulofeu always seems to split opinion. Some people love a player who can go on beautiful slaloming runs, play lovely through balls and score wonder goals, and forgive the overplaying, diving, poor decision making and lack of tracking back......hang on, I've pretty much just done a list of stereotypes.

Could I hand on heart say that I've seen enough of any players outside of those I regularly watch to have a proper informed opinion on them? No.

It is also almost impossible to properly watch more than one or two players in a match at any one time.

I'm one step away from saying "the problem with Arsenal is they want to walk it in".

Can data help?

A knowledge of data can help a lot with giving a better opinion on a player. The data radar can show me quickly how good, relative to their peers, they are at a number of things.

The numbers can tell me how effective they are at the moment, within the context of the team they are playing in.

With a large data sample I can tell quite a lot about a player in a short amount of time. In fact given a straight choice between just data, 10 minutes on Wyscout or having watched a single 90 minute game I'd probably say the data would be the best option.

Football twitter agrees.

But football twitter also thinks I asked a stupid question, when I adjusted it to 3 live games or 30 minutes of clips the results changed around with live games now most popular (I would have gone for the Wyscout clips personally). But clearly, not even twitter people could watch sufficient games to have an informed opinion on everyone.

As ever it is all about a combination of your eyes and data working together. But if your eyes tell you something different to the data should you trust them?

I posted yesterday I'd never seen Matteo Kovacic have a good game. Now I've probably only maybe watched him 5 times but he has played for Inter, Real Madrid, Chelsea and Croatia. He must be good. Data says he shows up really well on key metrics but Chelsea fans tell me he hasn't been great at all for them.

I've seen live games where Raheem Sterling has missed some great chances, a knowledge of analytics shows me is OK at finishing and a knowledge of football tells me that he is great at using his pace and intelligence to make the right runs to get lots of chances. You couldn't simply transplant a player who overperforms xG into that system and assume there would be more goals because he would not get the volume of chances.

I know enough about variance to tell me the 0.4xg chance missed at the crucial time is probably just unfortunate rather than a character flaw or a sign of a bottler

But I know if the pub next European championship they'll be someone saying "Probem with Sterling is the man can't finish, put Crouchy or Defoe up top". And I doubt they'll want me to do an Optapro style run through on the big screen to show why he is wrong.

Can you even properly judge individuals?

I think the real superstars are obvious to anybody. Nobody could sit and watch Messi and not see a good player. But I think it would be really easy for someone not that knowledgeable about football to not see the worth of someone like Busquets, or even someone like Modric.

More and more I am certain that football is all about creating a balance between defence and attack.

Judging the worth of an individual player by outcomes is hard because you are only seeing them in their current role. I've seen it at League 2 level where a striker who was useless at running into space and finishing has gone on to have a good career as more of a target man player, or vice versa.

Look at the Gana debate at Everton. The level of defensive output is amazing but only necessary because of the massive spaces in the current formation, and the terrible ball retention of the front 4. If he were in a more balanced lineup his numbers would fall, but would he profile as a worse player?

Everyone can have an opinion, and like me who still boasts 20 years on about spotting Vieria and Schevchenko before anyone had heard of them, we tend to remember the successes and forget the ones who failed.

And there is a chance I'm overthinking it and most people just want me to say if someone is good or shit without digging out the spreadsheets again.