Tactics Bored 2 - tactics harder

Tactical discussion and statistical analysis have returned. The top four got off to a mixed start, but it’s too easy to just decide trends, themes and tactical lessons from just one round of games. To do that would be foolish. As a result, Tactics Bored has brought some new techniques to serve you, the intellectual reader.

Tactics Bored sabbatical

Now, Tactics Bored has been away from these pages since the World Cup. It’s not too pretentious to suggest that just like Pep Guardiola, football’s deepest thinkers need some time off to recharge their batteries. Insight cannot be turned on and off like a type, no. Rather, it is a process, and one that has not been subject to nearly enough statistical analysis yet. But that is changing, and Tactics Bored is trying to improve things with its own contribution.

That’s why the sabbatical year was not wasted. Courses were taken, hours were spent on the football training ground with the most profound thinkers, and even more hours were spent watching second division Czech Republic league games to find out what was really taken place and developing at the vanguard of tactics.

After several demands for the last year about what’s been going on with the last year, take a look at the pie chart, for your information, about what research has gone into this season’s work to come:

Rooney heart rate examination

One of the most significant developments for football and, more importantly, for statistical analysis of football, has been the measurements of the distances covered by players, their heart rates, and the number of times they sprint. It allows teams to realise when their hardest working players might be in need of a rest, and when other players are not pulling their weight.

As such, we at Tactics Bored chose the best English player around at the moment - Wayne Rooney - and researched common opinion. An incredible work rate. One of the fastest players around. Sacrifices himself for the team, and leads the line incredibly well. Such demands must translate to some lung-busting effort on the pitch, and so we wanted to take a look at what level Rooney works at. Below we have a diagram of Rooney’s average heart rate for the 90 minutes against Spurs:

It appears that, just like Steven Redgrave, Rooney is in such perfect condition that running himself into the ground barely registers on his body anymore. What an athlete. The only other way this could have been achieved would for him to have contributed barely anything to the game, which clearly could not be the case.

Charlie Adam’s declining talents

All players eventually bow to time. Even Wayne Rooney. Even Charlie Adam. Though 29, there are just now some faint hints on his face that the game has started to take its toll on his physique, with the onset of some crows feet and a soupçon of a furrowed brow. It’s no wonder, having fought his way through Rangers, Blackpool, Liverpool and Stoke to make a career, that the efforts are starting to catch up with him.

But it’s not just his face that shows the strain, it’s the stats too. Check this fouling heatmap from a game in 2011:

And have a look at this one from the match against Liverpool last weekend:

It represents a drop off of over 900% in potentially career-ending challenges that Adam is able to make. Perhaps he’ll be able to use his experience to add in a few elbows at set pieces, but until then, he may struggle for game time.

What was causing Arsenal’s nerves?

Data and science isn’t just about the body and tactics. Sometimes, it’s about psychology. About looking at the process and wondering what the chimp inside feels, thinks, and needs. When you think of a chimp, you think of Brendan Rodgers, who has done such excellent work with Steve Peters at Liverpool. Some of the confident things that Daniel Sturridge says these days would have been unimaginable at Chelsea.

We analysed the brainwaves of the players during the game, to identify their thoughts and fears throughout the match. We wondered if Tactics Bored might discover an Arsenal side too distracted by their post-match selfie obligations, or worrying about what outfit they might wear. We wondered if it turned that the players were over confident, but in fact it was one simple thought distracting the whole squad against West Ham - this high tech MRI-type scan reveals Santi Cazorla’s thoughts, as an example: