My own attitude to stats in football is that they are a useful additional tool, to be used certainly, but to be used with some scepticism. Those who resort to them in preference to their own subjective feelings are usually boring to listen to and unreliable in their analysis.
It's a bit like economics. Once upon a time, when the discipline was born, it was a branch of moral philosophy. Now some of its adherents claim it as a science. (I'm simplifying, but you know what I mean). As soon as economics became a branch of science it became the final court of appeal for politicians and commentators to describe 'reality'. "We can settle this moral argument by looking at the stats". It's delusional of course. And economists, despite grand claims about their scientific status, have always made lousy prophets. They are notoriously bad about predicting the future. One year the Nobel prize for economics was shared between a Keynesian and a follower of Milton Friedman. As a piece of satire on economics that was a brilliant decision! They both used the stats in completely different ways to describe what might have been alternative universes. Yet the Nobel committee said they were both right!
It's the same with stats in football. I remember Gary Neville being given a prize as the best passer at the World Cup once. He'd had a dreadful tournament and England had flopped again, being unable - as usual - to keep hold of the ball. But apparently the stats said Neville competed most passes, so he got the prize. I know that football stats have got more sophisticated since those days, but like economics they are still far from being a science. What you decide to quantify will always be a subjective decision. Likewise with how you quantify. 'Ball progression' is a good example of what I'm talking about. The success of a particular 'ball progression' depends on how you view the game, perceive the level of difficulty involved, assess the final destination of the ball, examine the damage it has done to the opposing side etc. The notion that a neutral metric can answer these questions is obviously wrong. You have to see the game and make the call yourself. At the weekend Gini was given some shitty old passes in the first third of the field. By courage and skill he kept getting out of the mess, carrying the ball at speed away from the oppo, and depositing it on Mane's foot in the final third. But you had to watch the game, admittedly with some intelligence, to know what was going on. The abacus wouldn't tell you.
None of this means stats shouldn't be used. I'm sure Jurgen Klopp uses them. But I bet he doesn't pick a team, or settle an argument by getting the 'abacus' out. That's what I object to on here. I especially object to it when the abacus-owner 'proves' a point which directly contradicts my "extraordinarily subjective" appreciation of the game I've just watched.
Long live the "extraordinarily subjective". We all have it, whether we use stats or not. It's what makes the game so interesting.
