Jump to content

Russell and stats


vonwright

Recommended Posts

First post here for about a million years, and quite possibly the last for another million. Just read the argument about Russell's stats in another thread and felt an overwhelming urge to comment. 

You can't measure Russell's goals and assists since 2013/14, and compare them with other Derby players, without taking into account a fairly obvious fact. That is: Russell has been here a lot longer than most other players since then, and played a lot more games. So of course he's going to have more goals and assists.

Here's what happens when you rank all Derby players to have played at least 500 minutes since the start of the 2013/14 to date, in terms of minutes-per-assist or goal. I've only included midfield and forward players: 

Bamford - 115

Nugent - 138

Bent - 138

Martin - 150

Ince - 165

Ibe - 190

Ward - 208

Sammon - 211

Lingard - 219

Bryson - 221

Russell - 222

Vydra - 260

Dawkins - 264

Hendrick - 274

Anya - 357

Blackman - 377

Thorne - 385

Johnson - 426

Hughes - 440

Weimann - 494

Butterfield - 511

Camara - 576

Eustace - 1059

Mascarell - 1647

To me, this gives a fairly reasonable appraisal of Russell over the years. He's not "Camara" bad, but he's not "Ince" good, either.

He's sort-of-all-right.

(PS A few of our "mainstay" central midfielders over that time - Butterfield, Johnson, Hughes - have never contributed enough in terms of goals and assists.) 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 40
  • Created
  • Last Reply
4 minutes ago, Penelope Pendrex said:

The problem with Russell is that he had great stats to begin with but has faded badly, as discussed here:

 

Although his seasons with us doesn't suggest that he started strongly and gradually got worse.

13/14 9 goals 1 assist

14/15 6 goals 8 assists

15/16 10 goals 8 assists

16/17 2 goals 4 assists

Basically he has had a horror season last year, similar to most of the team.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These stats don't measure his inability to understand what's going on around him in a game, his decision making, his positioning, the way he just runs into players, poor standard of passing, his general touch, generally wandering around, these things frustrate me more than the things that are measurable

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, vonwright said:

Well, I've used the past four complete seasons, plus this season, with a minimum threshold of 500 minutes to be included on the list.

Do you think it fair to compare the stats of someone who's played 20 odd games with someone who's played 4 full seasons, am sure Blackmans stats would be world class if you had sampled the part season he had at Reading before he joined us, pretty abject if you then included his time with us as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Inglorius said:

Do you think it fair to compare the stats of someone who's played 20 odd games with someone who's played 4 full seasons, am sure Blackmans stats would be world class if you had sampled the part season he had at Reading before he joined us, pretty abject if you then included his time with us as well.

The basic point is that when you are looking back over four seasons - with so many changes of personnel - it's clearly fairer to compare goals and assists per minute than it is to simply look at total numbers of goals and assists. 

Is it "fair" in the sense you mean? I guess it depends what you think the stats are showing. Are they showing the ultimate worth of a player, in any team in any circumstances? Clearly not. Like you say, Blackman had some decent stats at Reading.

If on the other hand you only expect the stats to show you how much players have contributed to Derby's goal scoring over the past few years, I'd say they are indeed fair. For example they fairly reflect that Blackman has been pretty woeful for us.

Similarly they fairly reflect that Russell has contributed a decent but not-exactly-staggering amount.

Of course you need to be aware of other factors - players who only played when Derby were scoring more freely will tend to have inflated figures. But that doesn't make it pointless, or even "unfair" - it's just something to bear in mind when looking at the list.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "by season" figures are quite interesting, too. 

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2013/14 (minimum 500 minutes)

Bamford - 115

Bryson - 134

Martin - 135

Sammon - 188

Ward - 212

Russell - 230

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2014/15 (minimum 500 minutes)

Bent - 83

Ince - 134

Martin - 135

Thorne - 162

Russell - 178

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2015/16 (minimum 500 minutes)

Martin - 158

Ince - 168

Bent - 172

Russell - 180

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2016/17 (minimum 500 minutes)

Nugent - 141

Ince - 180

Bent - 200

Vydra - 306

Anya - 352

Russell - 407

(Russell really did have a shocker last year.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The first time I saw Russell I was impressed with his tracking back and helping out his fullback.

How do you measure that ?

Also statistically it would be good to weight these figures depending on how good a season we had (ie how many assists and goals we had as a team) and also the quality of the opposition when the assist or goal occurred.

Another thing which has a major difference is which of the front 5/6 position was each game in - I mean I think I have seen Will hughes play cdm no10 and wide left - surely some positions should be contributing more than others.

However you can ignore all this when it helps to proove me right with regard to Jeff Hendrick - I thought he was good !!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, vonwright said:

The "by season" figures are quite interesting, too. 

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2013/14 (minimum 500 minutes)

Bamford - 115

Bryson - 134

Martin - 135

Sammon - 188

Ward - 212

Russell - 230

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2014/15 (minimum 500 minutes)

Bent - 83

Ince - 134

Martin - 135

Thorne - 162

Russell - 178

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2015/16 (minimum 500 minutes)

Martin - 158

Ince - 168

Bent - 172

Russell - 180

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2016/17 (minimum 500 minutes)

Nugent - 141

Ince - 180

Bent - 200

Vydra - 306

Anya - 352

Russell - 407

(Russell really did have a shocker last year.)

Oh christ, what have I started? From a pedantic exercise in proving a statement to be correct, intentionally taking only one thing into consideration, to full blown analysis!

It's one thing being on the pitch, it's another to be actively involved, so you now need to find number of touches and time spent in possession, and a whole host of other variables! You could also do with analysing some trends and considering correlation and causal relation.

It's probably not worth the effort though!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, vonwright said:

The "by season" figures are quite interesting, too. 

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2013/14 (minimum 500 minutes)

Bamford - 115

Bryson - 134

Martin - 135

Sammon - 188

Ward - 212

Russell - 230

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2014/15 (minimum 500 minutes)

Bent - 83

Ince - 134

Martin - 135

Thorne - 162

Russell - 178

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2015/16 (minimum 500 minutes)

Martin - 158

Ince - 168

Bent - 172

Russell - 180

MINUTES PER GOAL OR ASSIST, 2016/17 (minimum 500 minutes)

Nugent - 141

Ince - 180

Bent - 200

Vydra - 306

Anya - 352

Russell - 407

(Russell really did have a shocker last year.)

I wouldn't describe anyone last season as having a shocker. We finished 10th and at times had good spells. Didn't we break a winning record or clean sheet record? 

But beyond Ince, none of the other outfield players impressed me consistently over the season. Russell included. He went from about 10 goals and 10 assists the previous year to very little output last. Butterfield suffered similarly. None of us know the exact reasons they all struggled (including Hughes let us not forget) but it's an educated guess to suggest Pearson, Powell, Mac and Rowett having the same job over 9 months wasn't helpful. 

This is reason (despite my GR doubts from day one) that I advocate him getting time, years even, in the job. We need stability. The last thing we need is to fire him as soon as we lose a few so that the next manager has a load of Mac, Pearson, Clement and Rowett players to work with. 

I have said it before many times, but getting rid of Clement was foolish. Everything about him prior and subsequent to that is a great guide. 

 

In essence, not a huge GR fan so far, but want to be. And even if we struggle and we moan on here, we'd be daft to get shut. Time to stick to your guns, MM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...