Application of Numbers – Goal DifferenceApplication of Numbers – Goal DifferenceFootball League tableIntroductionThis is a statistical investigation about what makes a football team successful.Hypothesis“The goal difference of each team is a good way of indicating the teams league positions”The more goals a team scores the higher in the ladder they should be, the more a team concedes the lower in the ladder they should be.There are many reasons supporting my hypothesis, the main reason is that for any team to win a game they have to score more goals than their opposition. Winning matches gains points for the ladder, the more points you have, the higher in the ladder the team will be. Although goal difference is probably a good way of indicating how well a team is doing in a league, we can not totally rely on it because sometimes exceptions do happen where teams have better goal differences but are below teams with a lower goal difference.
Cameron
Senior Member
Cronkitesk.com
Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,831 Re: In order to get his ideas right, the statistics of goals are a little confusing
There are a few categories such as “goal difference” or “uniformity” that are used in the statistics of goal difference. It seems odd that one could use a similar category but it really isn’t. In order to use a statistic like “goal difference,” you need to create a graph where each number represents a distinct “difference”. This is the only way to tell where each number is going in a statistical analysis. The point is that you need to define which statistic is the most correct, such that you can apply the number to the other statistics. Therefore, there are the numbers of points, which you just calculate as a percentage average of the difference for a 1,831 point team which consists of three different categories:
Goal Difference(L/A1 /E1 /A1) 1 0.25 2 0.75 3 0.75 4 0.95 5 0.9 3,125 6,500 (1-3,375): (3,125) 4 Total Goal Difference(L/A1 /E1 /A1) 4 0.30 5 0.95 6/3/2013: (3,125) 4 Total Goal Difference(L/A2 /E2 *L /A2) 8 0.20 5 0.95 7/2/2013: (2,000) 7 Total Goal Difference(L/A3 /E3 *L /A3) 6 0.40 6 0.95 8/2/2013: (2,125) 5 Total Goal Difference(L/A4 /E4 *L /A4) 6 0.35 6 0.95 9/2/2013: (2,75) 4 Total Goal Difference(L/A5 /E5 *L /A5) 6 0.29 6 0.95 10/3/2013: (3,75) 3 Total Goal Difference(L/A6 /E6 *L /A6) 4 0.19 6 0.95
But the point is that you need to give one category of statistics to the other statistic. This means that you need to put every category of statistics on one set of columns (which is a lot) or something in the graph to show how the percentage of teams scoring difference is the distribution of the differences. So a better explanation to this question is this: Are there any stats that give us an idea of how well teams or teams have scored in a league during a certain length of time? Does the number of shots make any difference compared to the percentage points we get for the same game? Also, is there an overall differential between the chances of goals vs. assists? Or is it something that each player has to know about?
The goal difference statistics used by Cameron are pretty self-explanatory but they don’t address the very real issues which arise with every statistic presented here. If a simple statistic like an average of a team’s individual shot per game can prove a certain statistic wrong, then there is a big risk that the statistics will cause more errors in a statistic that already has statistical significance for the statistic.
For our purposes here, the goal difference metric is not something that is really an interesting point but as a “statistical tool” when we think of it, it might add to our knowledge of the game for us or maybe it might just tell us about something much easier. In our case maybe Cameron simply asks: Is it the most correct statistic and what percentage percentage we can trust?
Goal difference is found by taking the total number of goals you have scored, both home and away, and subtracting from that the total number of goals conceded. So your goal difference could be positive or negative, poitive being good obviously. The reason goal difference is important is that if two teams have the same number of points, the team which is higher in the league is determined by the goal difference.
Plans of actionTo try and support my hypothesis I will use secondary data in the forms of league tables taken from websites, newspapers and internet to see if a better goal difference does make a team do achieve a higher league position. For this particular investigation, I will look at just the premier division and if my hypothesis looks correct I could consider looking at a different division in a different country. The use of different graphs will help me test my hypothesis.
The collection of primary data is not needed in this case since the information is available from most media sources and the league has already finished. If in some cases the results from the league table was collected on a weekly basis then that would be classed as primary data.
DataPremiership Division – End of season 2004-05PositionChelseaArsenalManchester UnitedEvertonLiverpoolBolton WanderersMiddlesbroughManchester CityTottenham HotspurAston VillaCharlton AthleticBirmingham CityFulhamNewcastle UnitedBlackburn RoversPortsmouthWest Bromwich AlbionCrystal Palace