Forecasting international tournaments is tricky, because it’s difficult to robustly assess the relative strengths of the competing teams. Unlike league football, we only have a small sample of recent international matches to use for analysis – and these are far from perfect, because of the differing strengths of opponents, the mix of competitive and friendly…
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Cook’s Cast-offs – are they any good?
Is Paul Cook’s widely reported rejection of the majority of the Ipswich Town squad justified? After this most dismal of seasons, where the team somehow managed worsen after he replaced the hapless Paul Lambert – it’s easy to sympathise. Things haven’t been working effectively at Town for years. But is wholesale change the right strategy…
UK COVID-19 Forecast update
This is my forecast of UK COVID-19 deaths based on the England lockdown relaxation timetable. It’s more difficult to forecast now with impact of vaccines and new variants introducing more uncertainty. The outcome is highly dependent on the success of vaccine rollout, but it’s looking positive. If vaccines are effective at reducing transmission then R…
A mathematical case for masks
Small changes to coronavirus infection rates make a big difference to death rates. At a time when governments across the globe consider which policy tools can best reactivate economic activity – it’s worth evaluating how even small policy tweaks can help keep the death rate down. In my blog “How to relax lockdown without a…
The subtleties of Asian handicap betting
I’ve always had an aversion to Asian handicap betting, simply because the outcome isn’t intuitive. For example – a bet on Middlesbrough to beat Spurs is immediately understandable, a bet on Middlesbrough to beat Spurs with a handicap of 0.75 isn’t. However – there are circumstances where Asian handicap (AH) odds can be more attractive…
Mick McCarthy’s magic method – 2016/17 Season update
Last November I wrote about the peculiar characteristics of Mick McCarthy’s tactical signature – copied below. In particular, his unusual ability to deliver results with a consistently minuscule pass success rate. So, how’s he faring this season? A quick look at the stats tables reveals that Ipswich are, yet again, bottom of the pass %…
Effective player assessment (and is Wayne Rooney really playing that badly?)
Quickly assessing the ability of individual players isn’t a particularly easy task; firstly because a player’s overall effectiveness isn’t necessarily the sum of a series of data points (goals, assists, passes, tackles etc) and secondly – good quality, manipulable, player-data is difficult to get hold of. There are a few good sources of Team data…
goal projection 