Plus/minus, Cardiff City, 12th September 2013

Player	G	Min	GS	GA	+/-	Scored/90	Conc/90
Marshall	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Connolly	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Caulker	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Turner	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
John	1	90	0	2	-2	0.000	2.000
Whittingham	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Medel	3	269	3	4	-1	1.004	1.338
Kim	3	247	3	4	-1	1.093	1.457
Gunnarsson	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Bellamy	3	237	2	3	-1	0.759	1.139
Campbell	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Gestede	1	15	0	2	-2	0.000	12.000
Maynard	2	23	0	2	-2	0.000	7.826
Mutch	3	1	0	1	-1	0.000	90.000
Cowie	2	18	1	1	0	5.000	5.000
Cornelius	1	0	0	0	0	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Taylor	1	90	3	2	1	3.000	2.000
Games:	West Ham (A)			0 - 1
	Manchester City (H)			3 - 2
	Everton (H)			0 - 0

Plus/minus, Aston Villa, 12th September 2013

Player	G	Min	GS	GA	+/-	Scored/90	Conc/90
Guzan	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Baker	1	13	0	1	-1	0.000	6.923
Vlaar	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Luna	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Lowton	3	245	3	4	-1	1.102	1.469
El Ahmadi	3	197	3	4	-1	1.371	1.827
Westwood	3	263	3	4	-1	1.027	1.369
Delph	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Weimann	3	251	3	4	-1	1.076	1.434
Agbonlahor	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Benteke	3	270	3	4	-1	1.000	1.333
Clark	2	120	3	1	2	2.250	0.750
Bacuna	2	92	0	0	0	0.000	0.000
Okore	2	137	0	2	-2	0.000	1.314
Tonev	2	25	0	0	0	0.000	0.000
Helenius Jensen	1	7	0	0	0	0.000	0.000
Games	Arsenal (A)			3 - 1
	Chelsea (A)			1 - 2
	Liverpool (H)			0 - 1

An introduction to Plus/minus calculations, season 2013-14

Plus/minus is a regular thing in hockey and its utility can be traced back many years.

However, it's used to display how effective a team is while a certain player is on the ice; the fluid substitution system employed by that sport demands a similarly versatile but telling measure of player and lineup efficacy.  The system has its drawbacks - especially in sports such as basketball - but it remains a useful indicator of a player's performance within a team's dynamic.  

The plus/minus method of player evaluation has yet to be used in football with any regularity.  This is partly because the analysis is just beginning to see widespread use across the sporting landscape.  Applying it to football - where substitutions are marked, fixed events in game timeline - rather than the constant back-and-forth of a hockey match also makes its application curious in this setting.  This means that a regular substitute - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer for example - has far less time to influence a contest than a goalkeeper like Gigi Buffon and his plus/minus statistics would take on less meaning.

Plus/minus works far better when it's applied to an individual both in gross terms and on something of a per-minute basis.  For our purposes a gross plus/minus figure will be listed, alongside an adjusted total which shows how frequently a team scores/concedes when that player is on the park, parsed out over a full ninety minutes.

Over the course of the English Premier League season 2013-14, Plus/Minus stats for five clubs deemed as most interesting will be recorded and updated weekly; those teams are Aston Villa, Cardiff City, Manchester United, Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur.  What they tell over the course of the season remains to be seen.

Olympics no place for International Football

The United States attained a decisive qualifying victory and the Dutch became the first Europeans to begin planning in earnest for next year’s samba fiesta.  Meanwhile in Asia, Jordan enters a World Cup Playoff against the fifth-placed South American team as they hope to make their first entrance on the world’s gaudiest platform.  World Cup qualifying week has come and gone.

Mexico’s El Tri, adrift in the CONCACAF by 3 points, have decided that the manager who brought them Olympic success last year was better placed than former boss Jose Manuel De la Torre to successfully close what has been a dire qualification process.  Hope comes from Luis Fernando Tena leading a similar cadre of players to success in London against what passed for quasi-imposing opposition; the ascension is a direct result of success in a lesser tournament.

That it is seen as a lesser competition is precisely why football should not be an Olympic event.  As the United States proved so emphatically against El Tri, the World Cup is the ultimate prize for any nation fortunate enough to have a federation; the same can’t be said for an Olympic tournament.

The Games provide highs across the board for and from all nations: Bermuda’s yachting, South Korea’s unturnoffable archery and Equatorial Guinean swimming.  The two-week festival of sport should be the pinnacle of so many disciplines, ranging from recently-reinstated wrestling to (sigh) BMX racing.  Nothing compares with Olympic gold for athletes who race down ski-slopes or swim 5000 metres in open water – whereas, were Bastian Schweinsteiger, Lucas Neill or Landon Donovan presented with choosing between Olympics and World Cup, the smart money pictures them holding a golden cup – not medal – aloft.

The second-tier tournament argument is only helped by the restrictions imposed upon competing national squads.  Current Olympic regulations for males allow 3 players per nation above age 23, in effect creating a pared-down World Youth Cup – a tournament that only occurred two months ago with France victorious.  In every sport, Olympic champions are crowned the best in the world – except football.  Try matching the victorious Mexico XI from last year against Spain of 2010 and witness an unmediated slaughter. 

This varies subtly from sports like basketball.  Despite the highest standard of play occurring in the NBA, the national team from Senegal can’t qualify to play in that competition; a player must aspire to represent his country in the Olympics or FIBA Championships rather than against the New York Knicks or Toronto Raptors.  While individuals yearn for a training camp with even the poorest franchises; a nation’s collective consciousness dwells in the Olympics.   

It may be the epitome of pie-eyed optimism, but the Olympic Games should be the pinnacle for national sport.  The World Champions of football – the most global and widespread of all games – are determined at the World Cup and not the Olympic Games, creating redundancy in and already-bloated schedule. 

Concern about capturing a TV audience is misplaced.  The familiarity of football would be replaced with the unique nature of a carnival that only happens once every four years; a carnival that produces compelling sport in every event from volleyball to the modern pentathlon.  If London did nothing else (and it did), the Games shone a light on the tremendous stories that the Games regularly produce.  Football has enough of those tales – it’s time to allow other sports to enjoy their summer unshaded.

Graphic: Transfer window MADNESS!!

The summer transfer window really is quite long.  Like, over 90 days long.  

But clubs still tend to make purchases late.  For some, like Arsenal, this was an absolute gift because Mesut Özil is better than others the club may have bought earlier.  However for other slackers - stand up, Ed Woodward and David Moyes - the laissez-faire posture displayed over the warmer months left them £4 million out of pocket and the proud owners of the gangliest gangler who ever did gangle.

The graph below charts British player movement by date.  Over the course of the 2013 offseason, there were 156 paid (or undisclosed) transfers and 182 loan deals, while 125 players moved clubs for no fee.  Most activity occurred at months' end - particularly July (when standard contracts expire) and August (when the movement window expires).  

A typical day in the transfer window saw five transactions (or, about 1% of the total) with the busiest days other than Deadline day recording seventeen moves.  On the final day of the movement window, 12% of all paid/undisclosed transfers were finalized, as were nearly 19% of all loan deals.  This number is half that of the end of the Winter transfer window, when nearly 24% of 284 all deals were completed on January 31.

Jim White loves it.

Click to enlarge

United's laughable window ends with Fellaini serendipity

So one or both of Ed Woodward and David Moyes screwed up.  This much is certain.  

Entreaties to Cesc Fabregas, Luka Modric, Ander Herrera, Mesut Özil and Juan Mata went thoroughly and brutally unfulfilled.  The club is – rightfully – embarrassed by three months of low-ball bids and beat-poet serenades below player balconies that hit all the wrong notes. 

And now, as it emerges that the three men previously dubbed “impostors” who attempted to negotiate Herrera’s buyout clause in fact had legitimate United connections.  The best-known and perhaps most powerful club in Britain painted itself as indecisive, frugal and badly lacking the impetus offered by the departed leadership. 

Formerly, desir’d fillies entered the United stable after being entranced by mere nudges and winks.  In the quarter leading up to September 2^nd, the Red Devils struck out at an astonishing rate.  This left David Moyes attempting to spin a wasted summer – hardly his strength – thus finding himself exactly the situation the club hoped to avoid by acquiring one or two truly world-class players.   

However, the club’s administrative incompetence may have a serendipitous side-effect.

Marouane Fellaini was always the player Moyes was most likely to end up with.  The pair’s past relationship at Everton, his desire to play Champions League football and status as a fallback for misfiring bids for wantastays like Fabregas made him most likely to cross the Old Trafford threshold.  That he cost 4 million more than he would have a month ago … well, that’s unfortunate, but Fellaini is obviously a player of quality.  However, questions persist if he’s a quote-unquote United player.

Such concerns are answered with relative ease: he may not have a typically polished United skill set* but compensates by being the most unique midfielder in Europe.  No other central player has his combination of versatility, physical stature and ability to influence games across the entire park.  While he may not scythe balls through defences like Modric or Mata, Fellaini’s style offers defences the Catch-22 of matching him in the air or on the carpet.  It’s unlikely many teams could blunt both simultaneously.

Man U fans would certainly have preferred Johnny Kills or Özil professing undying loyalty while holding aloft a red scarf – and why not, considering they’re two of the best ten players in the world?  (According to the Guardian, the Afro-ed One ranks number 60, the sixteenth best player in England and the only one outside this year’s title contenders).  Supporters may mourn, but while Mata, Fabregas or Özil might have professed more so-called intent, Fellaini presents defences with a completely singular problem.

Heaven forbid his arrival masks the serious flaws United displayed throughout the window; the club acted not like a global power but like a desperate teen late on prom night.  A list of targets for the January anti-bonanza must be created to ensure their most coveted player arrives to ensure United keeps its reputation as a destination club.

Despite its disappointing conclusion, the success or failure of Manchester United’s transfer window should not be assessed according to the presence (or absence) of statement signings, buts whether the club actually improved their squad.  It shouldn’t matter if Fellaini was option A, B or J – only that his purchase makes United more dangerous and complete, which he does. 

While Fabregas was a good option A, Marouane Fellaini is one hell of an option C.

*Ashley Young has that polished skillset but continually refuses to influence matches in any perceivable way.