Explaining the unpredictable results of Norwich, and others. « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month
By Walter Broeckx
Football is a funny game. Or a funny sport. Come to think of it almost all sports are somewhat funny. The biggest fun in any sports however is the unpredictability. In fact lots of money is sometimes won or lost with this unpredictability.
Let us take Norwich as an example. Who would on August 15 bet money on Norwich to win at home against Arsenal and Manchester United. I think you could have earned a lot of money if you would predicted them to win 1-0 on each occasion.
And such a fact is one of the reasons why football is such a popular sport. This is only an example and we could find many more of these strange results in football. Now I know some might say that some of these results could be fixed in some way. But even so this is something that happens in all divisions and countries and even in leagues when it is safe to assume that nobody will bet money on the outcome of a game.
Thinking about this Norwich result against both Arsenal and Manchester United, isn’t it amazing that both these results came after an international match? We had a break before we went to Norwich and as Norwich hardly has internationals (two I heard at the time) they had a full 14 days to prepare for us and they did a great job. Well from a Norwich point of view of course. And now Manchester United also has been the victim of a small international break it seems. Even when Robin Van Persie moved from “injured” in midweek to suddenly being back fit in the weekend.
This just shows how difficult it is for any team that has a lot of international players to leave the club to play for their country and then come back play a game for their club again. Even Manchester United suffered from this. And if I may I would like to add this little footnote to United losing at Norwich, and what the possible impact might have been from the ref.
Now I must tell you I didn’t see the game; just a few highlights and it hasn’t been reviewed yet by our panel of referees, but if you have a look at this http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/24266 and see at the bias index from the ref in charge in relation with these two clubs. I think it was a bad pick this one from Mike Riley. It will be interesting to see when Taylor gets his next United game. Norwich surely gets some “interesting” results when Taylor is in charge.
When looking at these two factors, things suddenly become a bit less unpredictable. An international break is always difficult for a team that has lots of internationals. And the ref….well we all know that they have their influence (just take a look at Referees Decisions
But apart from that there is something else that is important for the result of each game. In my mother language they say : “the ball is round” meaning that anything can happen. And in fact this is something important. Did anyone ever check if the football is really round? I know the ref has a look at the ball before the game. But how can he be sure that the ball really is a perfect round one? We assume it is but are we 100% sure?
But let us take it for a fact that it is round. Then we go to probably the most important fact of them all: coincidence.
We all know managers make all kinds of game plans trying to exploit their own strengths and trying to exploit the weaker things from the opposition. Managers can talk for hours to their players on how to do this and how to do that, but my theory is that all this talk goes out of the window from the moment the ref blows his whistle.
I say this because in theory a team could say before the game we pass the ball like this and player X runs over there and player Y runs to there and then the ball goes to player Z who gives it to X who gives it to Y and he scores. Theoretical this is possible. But well we all know it just doesn’t happen like that. Why? Well because of the other team is playing its tactical part also. In stead of the opposing player running forward he might move backwards and the whole theory is dead.
I think most games plans end within the first minute. Because then something else takes over: coincidence and chance. The ball hitting a leg, a knee and the ball going in a completely different direction and suddenly there is a gap and a goal. How many goals are born out of coincidences and chance? I think more than 50%. And this means that luck is maybe the biggest factor of it all.
Of course it helps when a manager tells his player to do this and that and to look out for that player who usually does this or that. Because smart players will then anticipate things before they happen. But even then you still depend on a lot of luck during the games.
So we have external affects on each game (like internationals or CL games), we have the influence of the ref on each game, we have the influence of a manager on a game and then we have the influence of luck in each game. A good bounce or a bad bounce can win you a game or make you lose it.
Now I don’t know how much each thing has an affect on each game. Is it 25% each? Or does the influence of the manager has a bigger impact? Of does the ref has a bigger impact? Or does luck has the biggest impact? I don’t know for sure of course as there are no stats on this.
But my gut feeling would be
- Extra games: 10%
- Ref: 30%
- Manager : 30%
- Lady Luck: 30%
Sometimes two factors can work together in your favour or against you and then you are lost of course.
But this is something you can always keep in mind when you win or lose. There are most of the time more than one reasons to win or lose a game. Unless you have Cazorla of course. He can win you any game.
Editorial footnote from Tony. Walter, myself and all the other contributors write our articles as we wish – we tend not to co-ordinate who will write what when. Then, either I or Walter try and make a schedule out of the articles and release them through the day and through the week. I only read this article from Walter about half an hour before I published it – and Walter did not know that by chance I covered a similar topic yesterday on the Arsenal History Site, where I looked at what Herbert Chapman had to say about planning. If you want to see a historic comparison click on the link.