A conversation with Paul Riley @footballfactman

1. I'm joined today by one of the elder statesmen of football analytics in the UK, Paul Riley aka @footballfactman . In fact we've known of eachother via an Everton message board for a long time, little did I know that you were living a double life as a football analytics blogger with thousands of twitter followers. Take me back to the start, how did you become interested and aware of the stats side of the game?
   Apr 26Sent
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   I think it first started properly when I was trying to come up with a better way of picking fair 5-a-side teams for my weekly game at work. The lad organising it used to pick the teams after scraping ten available from a pool of about thirty. After spending so much time into getting enough players, he'd just put the teams whichever way because he'd had enough. The scores were often very lopsided and there was a the wide range of player ability and fitness too. I started recording the teams and scores and eventually had enough data to come up with a rating for everyone. It was all results based. I started to pick the teams using it. I'd get constant comments like "you're having a laugh" when people saw the teams. But the games started getting a lot closer. The wins would be by the odd goal or two, rather than by 5+ I started publishing it to people in the group. They hated it because who everyone thought were the best players were regularly low ranked. The ones who scored loads or had tricks often weren't good at actually winning. Not long after, I read Moneyball and then Whoscored and Squawka appeared on the net. I couldn't believe the obvious patterns in the graphics so I built a shots model and blogged on it. Within a few weeks Opta were in touch wanting to know where the hell I'd got the info from.

    
   Apr 26
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   I enjoy the fact that your back story involves both at work time wasting and being unafraid to be contrarian. Useful skills in independent football analysis. What are your impressions on how some of the early concepts are seen nowadays? I mean they show xG scores on Match of the Day which was unthinkable even 3 years ago.
   Apr 27Sent
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   MOTD do show it but as far as I'm aware don't discuss it or explain it. Let's face it, there's a ton of vitriol about it from all corners still. People talk about who deserves to win a game based on what happened in it all the time. But as soon as someone puts a number of value to it they become a virgin alone in the bedroom of their parent's house. People created this niche stats universe because they were tired of hearing and reading nonsense about the game from other fans, newspapers, players, managers and pundits. If you like flip flopping your football takes to contradict what you said 5 minutes ago then go ahead. The only thing worse than that is some stats person having all the numbers and still not having a clue about what they're watching. And there are plenty of those about.

    
   Apr 27
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   You certainly can't remove the context from stats. Remember when people were saying "Everton would have finished 7th without Lukaku's goals anyway" as if his presence on the pitch had zero impact on any other players? When we signed Sandro Ramirez we listened to Koeman calling him a goalscorer over and over again. You then did a piece showing that we were buying him off the back of a season of a lifetime of luck. He was racking up the goals on very low xG shots. Similarly with Sigurdsson he was way over the number of assists you would have expected off the quality of chances he created. Then you add in the signings of 27 year olds from the Turkish league, pace reliant 30 year old wingers and 1 in 10 goal scorer Bolasie. How did it all go so wrong when it was all so obviously bad at the time? Add emoji Add a GIF Add photo or video Add photo or video
   Apr 27Sent
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   It's only obvious I'd you know what you're looking for. Everton signed a ton of players looking at full on output data - goals and assists rather than the numbers that told more of the real story underneath. Managers know they're likely gone within 2-3 years so they want ready made off the shelf types who can fit right in. Unless there's a real drive from ownership and board level to build long term, managers will spend what's in their pocket on what's on offer. Of course, Everton have seemingly double downed on getting their organisational structure back to front too. They appointed a manager (Koeman) before the director of football (Walsh). Now for my money the DoF is the managers boss. The DoF hires the manager. The two obviously never saw eye to eye, there was no clear direction and it showed in the transfer policy. Everton then did it again appointing Silva before Brands. Brands has already made a show of buying young and trying to make assets and he's done pretty well. Yet Silva seemingly overruled the selling of Gana, a near 30 year old for big money. Who's in charge here? This isn't calling it all after the event. People are free to go back over our twitter timelines.

    
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   Apr 27
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   I think the frustration I had with it was we had so long under Moyes being run really efficiently. Not spectacularly but almost always finishing higher than our wages/transfer fees would normally allow. Then for the first time in about 20 years we have cash to spend and do that typical newly rich club thing of overpaying for "proven" talent from other PL clubs. £300m later and you are still midtable. In stark contrast from that lot across the park who went through their dumb phase and have come out the other side after putting a "laptop Football Manager playing virgin" in charge of football operations. Maybe these analytical types who overthink things actually do know what they are talking about?
   Apr 27Sent
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    Some of them do, some don't. For me it's all about ownership and the board being brave. Giving the power to the right people. Moyes was fairly unique in that he treated the funds available like they were his own. In general, I think coaches are a lot more churnable than I previously thought. The plan comes from the top down. The coach is the boss of the players, not the whole club.

     
    24h24 hours ago
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    I keep re-watching that scene in the Sunderland documentary where the DoF says his scouts are looking at Zlatan when they've been told the budget is tiny. He acts as though he hasn't got the clout to put a rocket up their arses.

     
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    You either follow the plan or you're out. He probably left the club before the scouts did!

     
    24h24 hours ago
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    Moving onto your work, you have clearly had some interesting experiences through your blogging, attending Opta, meeting with clubs and coaches. What has been the best thing that has come out of your work?
    23h23 hours agoSent
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    The people first and foremost. I've met and spoken to a crazily diverse bunch of people from all over the world. And the reason they speak to you is because they're crazy about football and crazy about learning about football in a different way. Naturally curious people with open minds about exploring new things. And most of them are unbelievably generous with their time and knowledge. It's a bit nuts. It's pretty much been like Open University for me. Through an extensive programme of stealing from people a lot more clever than I am and google searches, I've taught myself all sorts: basic logic, maths, probability, various software tools and languages. Philosophy, strategy, the list goes on. I'm a complete jack of all trades, master of none. It blows my mind to think just how brilliant some people's brains are in this field. I'm absolutely in awe and resort to mocking them in subtweets because I'm basically jealous.

     
    23h23 hours ago
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    It is great, and for all the abuse social media gets it is great to be able to find like minded people. Plus all those free resources like Whoscored where most of us quibble about their rankings being stupid instead of appreciating an instantly updated stats site with masses of lovely data for us to play with. You've now branched out into podcasts - both football and game show related - as a regular listener to both you are clearly enjoying the experience and making some great content. What is next on the agenda, is the dream still there for paid work within football?
    22h22 hours agoSent
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    It doesn't pay enough to make the full time switch. There's always lots I want to do that I just don't have the time for right now. I have a half finished novel from 15 years ago. I've wanted to write a book since I was a kid. My football writing has ground to a halt due to working on the pods. The dream at the moment is to be able to make a decision in terms of which project becomes the main focus going forward.

     
    13h13 hours ago
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    A £50k a year, 1 day a month ,non-exec position on a football club board to remind them to think logically would do nicely then. With the rest of the time producing content. Finally, where do you see fan generated analytics going in the next few years? Had everything useful that can be done with current data already been done?
    10h10 hours agoSent
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    I honestly don't know. I have to admit I don't read much newcomer stuff these days. Just getting my own data house in order is time consuming enough! There's tons more to be done with what's available out there. Loads of questions to be asked and answered. If you want to do this properly you need to have a lot of time on your hands. In the early days it was like having a second full time job for me. Instead of analysts coming up with their own ideas all the time, clubs should be reaching out and giving interested parties work to do that actually needs doing. Each club will have their own issues that they don't have time to give enough attention to. Doesn't have to be data. Basic admin is a problem at most clubs. In the current revolving door culture, people leave all the time taking all their information, knowledge and expertise with them. It's in their head and never even been written down. For me, the resources are being put into the wrong areas that don't effect first team outcomes enough now or in the future. The mania for performance analysis for academy kids for example. A load of work for someone that's not adding much value. The man hours worked in football by club staff is phenomenal. They're the hardest working people you meet. I can't help thinking their time could be better used.

     
    6h6 hours ago
19. one next season. Something in a similar vein maybe.