I'm just reading Gerry Armstrong's Enjoy the Game interview and something he was asked (and answered) caught my eye: Does that still hold, for us, today?
It's hard to say whether that stat stands up today, although I am sure Opta has data that shows how many shots there are per goal scored. But back in the Eighties Graham Taylor had folders and folders of stats compiled by a small group of analysts they employed to watch and note the games. There's a chapter on Charles Reep's theories, which GT followed to a degree, and certainly adapted for his own coaching in Enjoy the Game. He also talked about it a bit in his own book. Back then, GT worked on the basis of trying to have 20 attempts on goal every game. The description of how they applied the theory varies from player to player but that was the basic aim. I've got some copies of the reports that were compiled on every game and I keep meaning to put together a post for my new site greatestwatfordwins.com to show exactly what was in those reports. Maybe I'll crack on with it today.
I've mentioned this a few times, but Gray's stats put him on average with the vast majority of strikers in the division in terms of shot accuracy and chances missed. The worst culprits at the club are Carrillo and Rich. Rich hits the target 22% of the time, and Carrillo hits the target an unbelievable 9% of the time
Was GOD the first, or one of the first, to use so much statistical analysis of the game? I seem to remember that analysis that led to what was, wrongly, called "the Long Ball" came from the 50's/60's?
I think Graham was very cautious about taking credit for inventing this because he gathered his ideas from lots of different influences but he certainly wanted to deal in facts rather than assumptions. Charles Reep had worked for Wolves in the 1950s and their title-winning team used a similar theory. The basics were winning the ball back in the final third (nowadays known as a high press) and getting the ball into the area of maximum opportunity (broadly speaking a semi circle including penalty area) quickly and directly. Other clubs definitely analysed matches in a similar way in those days but I think Graham went further than many in terms of building a game plan around these statistics – all of which were based on scoring goals, it should be noted.
Here you go Bwood_Horn, here's the piece I'd been meaning to write a while. It includes photographs of the reports Graham Taylor used to commission in the days before the computerised Opta stats. https://www.greatestwatfordwins.com/blog/2018/3/19/if-you-dont-shoot-you-dont-score
