Performance Analysis Blogs of the Week - (16/08/12 - 22/08/12)

A significant week for Performance Analysis this week with the release of the Opta Data set by MCFC Analytics (More on that below), so here are more of the best Performance Analysis related blogs from across the Internet

Will Gurpinar-Morgan uses passing networks to analyse Liverpool's comfortable Europa League victory over Gomel (via @OptaPro)

The above mentioned MCFC Analytics Project profiled in the Guardian

An excellent interview by Zach Slaton for Forbes with the Head of Manchester City's Performance Analysis department, Gavin Fleig (follow Zach @the_number_game and Gavin @MCFCGavinFleig)

And more from Zach for Forbes about the release of the Opta Data by MCFC

Some great early work using the released data by Andy Cotgreave and also by Phillipa B (follow Andy @acotgreave and Phillipa @Philby1976)

Simon Kuper gets involved by looking at the Performance Analysis team behind Manchester City for the Financial Times (follow Simon @KuperSimon)

Nice piece by Paul Riley's different game blog, looking at why so many teams use near post corners, especially relevant given Manchester United's tactics against Everton on Monday (follow Paul @footballfactman)

Prozone take a look at some of the trends and statistics coming out of the football at the London 2012 Olympics (follow @ProzoneSports)

Mark Taylors Power of Goals blog looks at how the Manchester City vs Southampton game state altered each teams chances of winning (follow Mark @MarkTaylor0)

And finally Devin Pleuler looks at passing variables in the MLS and how something unconventional can be used to determine the better passers. (follow Devin @devinpleuler)

Thanks for reading

Performance Analysis Blogs of the Week (08/08/12 - 15/08/12)

This weeks Blogs of the week below!

A great thought-provoking discussion between some of the best "soccer nerds" in the USA thanks to The Shin Guardian featuring Steve Fenn (@OptaHunt), Rui Xu (@rui_xu), Alex Oshansky (@tempofreesoccer) and Devin Pleuler (@devinpleuler). Also congrats to Rui on Sporting Kansas City's triumph in the US Open Cup!

The always excellent Mark Taylor looks at chance creation ratios (and defends Stewart Downing!) for Opta Pro and also on his Power of Goals blog how Spanish passing improved their goal probability ratio and how a defense plays directly affects chance conversion (@OptaPro & @MarkTaylor0)

Ben Pugsley of Bitter & Blue looks at a direct statistical comparison between Manchester City's 4 main strikers from 2011/12 (@benjaminpugsley)

Finally and not analytical this time but deserves a lot of credit and is a very interesting read, Zach Slaton writes in Forbes about how Seattle Sounders broke the norm of every other MLS club and regularly gets crowds of over 38,000 (@the_number_game)

All great articles, enjoy reading!

Performance Analysis Blogs of the Week (25/07/12 - 07/08/12)

Firstly, an apology. The round of the blogs was intended to be weekly but I was unwell last week and didn't get chance to upload anything.

Secondly, I've called it blogs of the week but this is a round up of the last 2 weeks of blog posts so there's more than previously!

A post from BBC Sport showing some behind the scenes footage of how Manchester City use Sport Science (quite a few people had retweeted this one)

Analysis on transfer spending by Soccerex (thanks to Prozone Sports Blake Wooster for the tweet - follow him @BlakeyGW)

A piece from Forbes done by Zach Slaton on how FootballrRatings attempts to use a statistical model to rate football matches (follow Zach @the_number_game)

Zach has also done another piece for Forbes using the Soccernomics method to predict the potential winners of the Olympics Games Football Tournament

Some thoughts on the state of Analytics on The Score's Soccer Blog done by Richard Whittall and on the debate of spending wages vs Transfer Fees (follow Richard @RWhittall)


Some work done by Devin Pleuler at his Central Winger blog on Passing Tendancies in the MLS (follow Devin @devinpleuler)

Paul Riley's DifferentGame site has some excellent blog posts most recently about Theo Walcott's crossing ability, The impact the Europa League has on a League season and the statistical difference between 1st and 2nd choice keepers in the Premier League (follow Paul @footballfactman)

Some great analysis on the EPLIndex about Direct Free Kicks, seemed to spark something of a trend!

Following on from this Mark Taylor on his Power of Goals blog looks at Free Kick 'experts' (follow Mark @Mark Taylor0)

An excellent statistical review of the 2011/12 La Liga season by Ben Pugsley on the Bitter & Blue website. (follow Ben @benjaminpugsley)

More from Ben around the Importance of Scoring the First Goal

And more about which strikers score important goals and which ones only score once the game is won. I thought this one was really insightful.

An interview with Prozone Sports Will Jones about the future of Performance Analysis (follow Will @WMJ87)

More excellent analysis from Ben Mayhew ranking Championship fixtures by difficulty (follow Ben @experimental361)

Jason Ayto completes Part 6 of his Perfect Football Club scenario by looking at player integration, if you haven't seen the previous parts they are all well worth a read

I hope these links are useful!