Grimes...

[Swans Jack]

He definitely had his hands on Williams head

 

[bytholwyn]

You seem to like a stat, or 10? . . . . . . .

Indeed I do. Stats are just a form of information, and I like my opinions to be informed ones.

 

[Swansea93]

He definitely had his hands on Williams head

No wonder he wanted to fuck off to West Brom

 

[Jackareme]

Interesting debate where folks that plainly dislike Grimes turn on a poster (who without adding any additional commentary) supply these pages with unadulterated raw factual data.
As Wyn says - you can choose your opinion but you cannot choose your facts.
Trust me, on this and the previous guestbook Wyn and I have had huge verbal rallies about the relevant worth of eyeballs v stats.
Problem with stats is that they sometimes don't tell the whole story. Problem with eyeballs is that they tell you want you want to be true.
Grimes was statistically VERY good on most metrics - NOT AN OPINION, A FACT - but again that is not the whole story (for many of the reasons noted above). Similarly posters who refuse to acknowledge his quality have shit in their eyes because they don't want to see what is right in front of them.
By all means have an opinion on whether you like a player, or value his style/contribution..BUT don't call out football stats as "fake news" - You make yourself look 80 years old, fat and orange.

 

[Bluenile]

I don't know how FACTUAL XGs are??

 

[Bluenile]

"Problem with stats is that they sometimes don't tell the whole story. Problem with eyeballs is that they tell you want you want to be true"

Thats the very definition of a contradiction in terms

 

[Jackareme]

"Problem with stats is that they sometimes don't tell the whole story. Problem with eyeballs is that they tell you want you want to be true"

Thats the very definition of a contradiction in terms

Huh??

 

[ajacks]

Interesting debate where folks that plainly dislike Grimes turn on a poster (who without adding any additional commentary) supply these pages with unadulterated raw factual data.
As Wyn says - you can choose your opinion but you cannot choose your facts.
Trust me, on this and the previous guestbook Wyn and I have had huge verbal rallies about the relevant worth of eyeballs v stats.
Problem with stats is that they sometimes don't tell the whole story. Problem with eyeballs is that they tell you want you want to be true.
Grimes was statistically VERY good on most metrics - NOT AN OPINION, A FACT - but again that is not the whole story (for many of the reasons noted above). Similarly posters who refuse to acknowledge his quality have shit in their eyes because they don't want to see what is right in front of them.
By all means have an opinion on whether you like a player, or value his style/contribution..BUT don't call out football stats as "fake news" - You make yourself look 80 years old, fat and orange.

Let me counter that with the thing you're overlooking most.

"Lies, Damned lies and statistics".


I agree his stats were among the best, but those stats to me were worse than damned lies (to resuse to above). The smoking gun for me is being a cdm and having hardly any injuries/knocks - reeks of self preservation rather than leaving it all out there.

 

[Andrew - North Hill]

Interesting debate where folks that plainly dislike Grimes turn on a poster (who without adding any additional commentary) supply these pages with unadulterated raw factual data.

I don't think anyone's "turned on him" JA. In fact many have acknowledged whilst debating with him that he clearly isn't a troll and his posts are otherwise excellent (and I agree).

It's the actual data itself people are debating. For example, the number of "progressive passes" a player plays is not up for debate, it is indeed factual, as you say.

But when you dig a little deeper and look into the definition of a "progressive" pass, you realise the definition is in fact utter nonsense so as to render the metric almost meaningless. It shouldn't be held up as evidence of how good or bad a player is.

The data is only as good as the context behind it - and that's where Wyn's posts (which I always enjoy by the way) sometimes come up short. For me, anyway.

 

[Birchgrovejack]

Stats can be skewed to suit narratives.
Such as goals per appearance which apparently shows LOB and Grimes as roughly the same.

If you take minutes played.
LOB - 21979 mins with 16 goals. shows LOB to score every 1373 minutes of football.
Grimes - 40640 mins - 27 goals. A goal every 1505 minutes.

If then also take into account that grimes has played a few seasons in league 2 and some of his goals were scored there. and LOB has never played lower than League 1 it also adds more value to LOBs goals.

 

[bytholwyn]

Stats can be skewed to suit narratives.
Such as goals per appearance which apparently shows LOB and Grimes as roughly the same.

If you take minutes played.
LOB - 21979 mins with 16 goals. shows LOB to score every 1373 minutes of football.
Grimes - 40640 mins - 27 goals. A goal every 1505 minutes.

If then also take into account that grimes has played a few seasons in league 2 and some of his goals were scored there. and LOB has never played lower than League 1 it also adds more value to LOBs goals.

Grimes has played one season in League One, with Northampton, in 2017/18. Similarly O'Brien has played a solitary season at the same level, in 2018/19 with Bradford, when he managed a career high 4 goals.

The reality is there is very little to choose between the two in terms of goals, especially when you factor in that Grimes has been a deep lying midfielder for most of his career whereas O'Brien has been more of an 8. But when you look at the full range of Grimes' creative stats (long balls, chances created, expected assists, actual assists, successful crosses, crossing accuracy) Grimes' Championship stats are consistently better than O'Brien's. Even in O'Brien's outstanding 21/22 season when he averaged 7.48 on Fotmob - an excellent average - he was still only average with his creative stats.

The one creative stat where Grimes falls short consistently is touches in the opposition box. This speaks to his highly restricted role. He would advance to the edge of the box but never into it. You can argue that he should have been given more freedom, but that self-discipline is a reflection of what the manager wanted.

The bottom line as far as I'm concerned is that both Grimes and O'Brien are very good Championship level players, with O'Brien excelling defensively and Grimes more of an all rounder.

The interesting thing with stats is that once you become aware of a player excelling at something that you weren't previously aware of, it then becomes something that you're more mindful of. There has been very little commentary on Ronald's defensive excellence, understandably as people are focused mainly on his attacking qualities, but now that I know he's the best winger in the league defensively, it's certainly modified my view if him and I'm more inclined to forgive his attacking inconsistency. Stats give a more rounded view of a player's qualities and weaknesses.

 

[J_B]

Ask Swans fans whether they'd like Grimes or O'Brien in the team next season and I'll predict now that the result will be overwhelmingly in favour of O'Brien.
That won't be after examining statistics but by witnessing first hand what each brings to the team.
All the stats in the world won't change that.

 

[bytholwyn]

Ask Swans fans whether they'd like Grimes or O'Brien in the team next season and I'll predict now that the result will be overwhelmingly in favour of O'Brien.
That won't be after examining statistics but by witnessing first hand what each brings to the team.
All the stats in the world won't change that.

In an ideal World I'd have both, not least because they're different players fulfilling different roles. Certainly given a choice between Grimes and Fulton anchoring the midfield in a 4-1-4-1, which we used several times under Sheehan, with O'Brien further forward, I would choose Grimes every time.

But if I had to choose between Grimes and O'Brien in a Sheehan side I'd go for the latter. Despite my stats interest/obsession (delete as you see fit) I have also tired of the low tempo variety of possession football practised by Martin and Williams. In an ideal world we'd be playing high tempo possession football of course the type Bielsa excels at (and allegedly practised by Hellberg), but I'm content with Sheehan's take on things, which seems to be about dominating the game in the opposition half.

 

[bytholwyn]

From 5 years ago, mainly under Potter. Shame that under Martin and Williams we didn't see more of this version of Grimes. Plenty of tackles from 5 minutes in. His 43 tackles won this season is 84th percentile, so the idea that he doesn't get stuck in doesn't stack up.

 

[Londonlisa2001]

Grimes has played one season in League One, with Northampton, in 2017/18. Similarly O'Brien has played a solitary season at the same level, in 2018/19 with Bradford, when he managed a career high 4 goals.

The reality is there is very little to choose between the two in terms of goals, especially when you factor in that Grimes has been a deep lying midfielder for most of his career whereas O'Brien has been more of an 8. But when you look at the full range of Grimes' creative stats (long balls, chances created, expected assists, actual assists, successful crosses, crossing accuracy) Grimes' Championship stats are consistently better than O'Brien's. Even in O'Brien's outstanding 21/22 season when he averaged 7.48 on Fotmob - an excellent average - he was still only average with his creative stats.

The one creative stat where Grimes falls short consistently is touches in the opposition box. This speaks to his highly restricted role. He would advance to the edge of the box but never into it. You can argue that he should have been given more freedom, but that self-discipline is a reflection of what the manager wanted.

The bottom line as far as I'm concerned is that both Grimes and O'Brien are very good Championship level players, with O'Brien excelling defensively and Grimes more of an all rounder.

The interesting thing with stats is that once you become aware of a player excelling at something that you weren't previously aware of, it then becomes something that you're more mindful of. There has been very little commentary on Ronald's defensive excellence, understandably as people are focused mainly on his attacking qualities, but now that I know he's the best winger in the league defensively, it's certainly modified my view if him and I'm more inclined to forgive his attacking inconsistency. Stats give a more rounded view of a player's qualities and weaknesses.

Grimes played over 50 times for Exeter in League 2 before he joined us.