Rating form - ideas needed

[PAULM03]

I've had an idea for testing if the form of a team actually has any bearing on the outcome of a game. The problem I'm having though is finding a suitable method for rating a team's poerformance in any particular game. The ideas I've had so far are: League points: This is the one that most people use. A simple league table of the last 6 games to highlight the 'form' teams. The trouble with this is that there is more than one set of results that will give an equivalent rating e.g. 4 draws are equivalent to a win and a draw (i.e. both get 4pts) but this isn't neccesarily the case is it? Goal difference: I'd probably favour this over the league points system. A team with a +6 goal difference from their last 6 games are plainly in better form than a team with a +2GD from their last 6. The problem with this is that it makes no attempt to gauge the number of goals conceded or scored. A team with 6 2-2 draws in a row would have the same rating as a team with 6 0-0 in a row despite one side appearing to have worse defenders and better strikers than the other. Ratio of goal difference to total goals: As an example if a match finished 2-1 the winners would receive 0.66pts whilst the losers would receive 0.33. The advantage of this system is that it takes into acount a teams attacking and defensive capabilities, but again it can't differentiate between high and low-scoring draws and the maximum number of points any team can get is 1, so it won't differentiate between 1-0 and 2-0 etc. So does anyone have any suggestions for a simple metric that could be used to judge a teams performance in a particular game?

[DC]

Re: Rating form - ideas needed Paul, your thread has got me thinking, and while I've been scoffing my tea down I've had an idea. You may not find it useful but here goes... When looking at a teams blind form such as WWDWL and comparing it to DDLLD you'd say the first team deserved more points. But what if you found that the first team had played 4 teams in the bottom 5 and 1 mid-table team, and the second team had played 4 teams in the top 6 and 1 mid-table team. Maybe you could base a teams performance on WHO they played? Take the premiership for example. A team ranked in the top 3 is allocated 5 points, a team based 4th down to 7th 4 points, 8th to 12th 3 points, 13th to 16th 2 points and 17th to 20th only 1 point. This is just an example. Take last night's games: West Ham beat Arsenal - Arsenal were ranked 6th in the table before kick off so West Ham would get 4 points for winning (you could multiply this figure by 1.5 as they were away = 6points) Man City won at home to Newcastle who are ranked in 16th so Man City get 2 points for winning at home. Boro beat Sunderland (away) so score 1 point * 1.5 = 1.5points Does this seem fair? Boro 1.5 points for beating bottom of the table away, Man City beating a slightly better team at home = 2points and West Ham scoring 6 points for winning at Highbury. So basically you get more points for beating a higher positioned team and even more if you win away. You could also lose points for losing to a team in a low position, so if you lost to sunderland at home, reverse the points scale - you'd lose 5 points +1.5 = 7.5 points Also if you lost to Chelsea away, you'd lose 1pt - not too harsh? It makes sense to me but you'd have to look at the teams last 5 point totals perhaps? Haven't considered draws yet. DC

[DC]

Re: Rating form - ideas needed Ok the draw would be fairly simple having thought about it... Halve the totals in the first example: So if Chelsea (5) played at home to Sunderland (1) and the result was a draw.... Chelsea would get 0.5 pts for drawing at home to a category 1 team, Sunderland would get 2.5 pts *1.5 = 3.75 points for drawing away to a category 5 team. If 2 teams played each other from the same category, say 3.... The home team would get 1.5 pts The away side would get 1.5pts *1.5 = 2.25pts

[merlin]

Re: Rating form - ideas needed ... Hi there Paul, been reading your interesting post. Whilst I am no stranger to ratings, having done these for years, I am still on a learning curve as my latest bunch of ratings having been posted on your UK Football forum.I don't think that there is any true way, as trial and error tries to bring some order into a formbook that often goes flying out of the window each week with results that no system can cater for.Seeing as you are trying to rate according to form, may I suggest a weighted form system which may suffice.Something like the last four matches could be taken and weighted, given a heavy weighting to the recent matches. As an example say you give 3 pts for a home win and 1 point for a home draw.Five points for an away win with 2pts for the away draw.Then apply the weighted form rating say, *4 most recent,*3 second last match,*2 for third last match,and finally *1 for the last match of the four.So looking at this week on the coupon, I'll pick match 1 at random:- Birmingham DWWW v Arsenal DLLL Most recent form on the right. = 3*4 = 12 .................. 0*4 = 0 = 3*3 = 09 .................. 0*3 = 0 = 3*2 = 06 .................. 0*2 = 0 = 1*1 = 01 .................. 2*1 = 2 Total.....28 ..........Total..........02 Prediction = Home Win Maybe not the complete answer, but another way to look at it.Hope that this helps.Cheers.;)

[PAULM03]

Re: Rating form - ideas needed Thanks for the input fellas, I'll reply in full later:ok Just a word on Merlin's post - I agree that weighting points according to how recent a game is has potential, but thats one step on from where I am at the minute. I want to look at sound ways to rate the performance of any team in 1 individual game, think - if you were starting a league tommorow what points system would you use to ensure that the legue table refected the strengths of the teams as accurately as possible?

[georgej]

Re: Rating form - ideas needed Paul - i had a load of halfbaked and unfinished ideas for football ratings. Start of the season - the teams would get ¼ point based on their finishing position in the league last season. (1st place, most points) ratings - % of games won, last 3 games (3,1,0), win/lose point (-1,0,1) eg Wigan v ManU rating ¼ v 4½ at start of season win% 35 v 65 (makes more sense only after a few games played) last 3 2 v 4 winner gets 1 rating point + last 3 pt results of opponent * difference in win ratio (+30% or -30% in above example) *opponents rating/average rating of the two teams draw gets 0 rating points + last 3 pt results of opponent * difference in win ratio (+30% or -30% in above example)*opponents rating/average rating of the two teams. So if Wigan draw with Man U, their rating goes up as they drew with a better team. eg wigan win = 1+(4*((65-35)/100)*(4.5/((4.5+0.25)/2)) = 3.2736 ManU win = 1+(2*((35-65)/100)*(0.25/((4.5+0.25)/2))= 0.9368 for draw, it would be 0+the rest. 2.2736 and -0.0631 for the loss, it would just use -1 pt I never fully tested this and it probably put wigan at the top of the league, but i was trying to get something that took into account the difference in the teams ratings (giant v small fry), the current form (last 3 games points) and their overall performance (%win) After this i was going to look at the players ratings - found the actim stats and was hoping to make my own. Kinda tailed off after that... Well, hope this was good for a laugh. Might look at it again when i get time. :ok

[PAULM03]

Re: Rating form - ideas needed

Ok the draw would be fairly simple having thought about it... Halve the totals in the first example: So if Chelsea (5) played at home to Sunderland (1) and the result was a draw.... Chelsea would get 0.5 pts for drawing at home to a category 1 team, Sunderland would get 2.5 pts *1.5 = 3.75 points for drawing away to a category 5 team. If 2 teams played each other from the same category, say 3.... The home team would get 1.5 pts The away side would get 1.5pts *1.5 = 2.25pts

An interesting idea, but maybe a bit too arbitrary. Take chelsea as an example, IMO Chelsea are miles ahead of anyone else in the league in terms of ability and consistency - could you make a case for assigning them their own group? i.e. a result against Chelsea is worth more than a result against anyone else. Also the league table doesn't take into account the strength of teams already played so you could be applying a weighting based on a 'false' league position.

[merlin]

Re: Rating form - ideas needed .... I see where you are coming from.What you might need to consider would be an Average Opponents statistic based on all sides played to date.This is the only true indicator as to the strengths each team has played to date. If required, I can provide you with these, no problem. Maybe there is also a case for say average goals for and against, or average points for and against.Cheers.;)

[merlin]

Re: Rating form - ideas needed .... what happened with this then Paul? Did you get anything further on the development of a rating system?;)

[PAULM03]

Re: Rating form - ideas needed

.... what happened with this then Paul? Did you get anything further on the development of a rating system?;)

Errm.. pass. I'm on it when I have time (rarely) and it looks as if it's about to become even rarer when I take 2 jobs on:sad