Christian Benteke

[scaramanga]

Form is temporary (except for Soldado)
Poor service - couldn;t agree more. Benteke in front of Hazard & co for the Belgian national team is not exactly ineffective, isn't he?
Regression? May be the best thing that could happen for us. No disrepect, but to mention names like Rodriguez, Aguero and Costa on a Spurs rumours thread is the pinnacle of delusion. Who is the best that we can attract? Either another "Soldado type" shot in the dark on a player who is relatively decent in a different league but can more than flop in England or else a PL proven player who is willing to come to us and is not poached by the likes of Man****ty like Bony; in effect this means the likes of Benteke or Berahino. On their best days, the former in unplayable, even against a packed defence; the latter is reasonably effective.

And the only chance we can buy him in the summer is if his current goal slump continues... Having said that, he is never anonymous in a game (as we saw against us before he got that red)

As for Benteke's ability to fit into Poch's game plan - he is Rickie Lambert to the power of ten!

I'm sorry - the best thing that could happen to us is that we buy a player who looked really good for one season but is unlikely to ever be that good again?

I think you've misunderstood regression.

 

[scaramanga]

It's posted a couple of pages back. On his day, Benteke is unplayable. He also consistently scores against the big clubs - something the likes of Defoe never managed; that is the mark of a good striker. Also have a look at him playing for Belgium - with decent midfield service - and you will see why I rave so much about him. That is potentially the Benteke who we can get.

He can be the battering ram we need for teams who defend deep but equally a mobile target man when we come up against top 4 clubs. Neither Ings nor Berahino would do that; the former is more a number 10 who scores and Berahino - as someone said - looks like a modern day Vassell, with a lot of undesirable baggage.

Jenas often scored against the big clubs - was that the mark of a great midfielder?

 

[Mumorn]

It's posted a couple of pages back. On his day, Benteke is unplayable. He also consistently scores against the big clubs - something the likes of Defoe never managed; that is the mark of a good striker. Also have a look at him playing for Belgium - with decent midfield service - and you will see why I rave so much about him. That is potentially the Benteke who we can get.

He can be the battering ram we need for teams who defend deep but equally a mobile target man when we come up against top 4 clubs. Neither Ings nor Berahino would do that; the former is more a number 10 who scores and Berahino - as someone said - looks like a modern day Vassell, with a lot of undesirable baggage.

Defoe scored against Chelsea, man utd, arsenal, Emirates Marketing Project, Liverpool. Whatever big clubs did you want him to score against?

 

[Pirate55]

I'm sorry - the best thing that could happen to us is that we buy a player who looked really good for one season but is unlikely to ever be that good again?

I think you've misunderstood regression.

A 24 year old stands as much chance of Progression as Regression.

 

[scaramanga]

A 24 year old stands as much chance of Progression as Regression.

Not really - again, just a lack of understanding of what regression is.

Any player that's just had their best season ever is very unlikely to do anything other than regress.

 

[Pirate55]

Not really - again, just a lack of understanding of what regression is.

Any player that's just had their best season ever is very unlikely to do anything other than regress.

Twaddle. You only know it is their best season with the benefit of hindsight. It is simply impossible to know it at the time. For example, when would you say Messi, Ronaldo, Bale or Modrics best season was?

 

[scaramanga]

Twaddle. You only know it is their best season with the benefit of hindsight. It is simply impossible to know it at the time. For example, when would you say Messi, Ronaldo, Bale or Modrics best season was?

You can't just call an entirely valid and accepted mathematical theory on randomness and statistics twaddle. You may as well call gravity twaddle. You'll just have to trust me that it's true.

I don't know what you do for a living or where your area of expertise is - let's say it's cleaning toilets. If you were to tell me that one brand of toilet cleaner is better than another, I certainly wouldn't be calling your opinion twaddle - I couldn't dream to know as much about cleaning toilets as you. So unless you plan on going back into education and spending a few years specialising in maths and statistics it's probably a good idea that you just accept that regression exists when I tell you it does.


As for Ronaldo, etc. that's what separates the truly world class from the others - they tend to keep improving on their best years every time. The vast majority of other players have a great season followed by a less great one - they also tend to have bad seasons followed by better ones. That's how regression works.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Not really - again, just a lack of understanding of what regression is.

Any player that's just had their best season ever is very unlikely to do anything other than regress.

So we should be extremely worried about Lamela then?

 

[scaramanga]

So we should be extremely worried about Lamela then?

Nope, if you compare his current performance to his past he's likely to regress upwards. This is a disproportionately bad season for him.

 

[Finney Is Back]

You can't just call an entirely valid and accepted mathematical theory on randomness and statistics twaddle. You may as well call gravity twaddle. You'll just have to trust me that it's true.

I don't know what you do for a living or where your area of expertise is - let's say it's cleaning toilets. If you were to tell me that one brand of toilet cleaner is better than another, I certainly wouldn't be calling your opinion twaddle - I couldn't dream to know as much about cleaning toilets as you. So unless you plan on going back into education and spending a few years specialising in maths and statistics it's probably a good idea that you just accept that regression exists when I tell you it does.


As for Ronaldo, etc. that's what separates the truly world class from the others - they tend to keep improving on their best years every time. The vast majority of other players have a great season followed by a less great one - they also tend to have bad seasons followed by better ones. That's how regression works.

You probably would..... But only if the opinion didn't agree with yours.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Nope, if you compare his current performance to his past he's likely to regress upwards. This is a disproportionately bad season for him.

So will Benteke also not regress upwards?

 

[scaramanga]

So will Benteke also not regress upwards?

You can't say what a player will do, it doesn't work like that - you can only work on probability.

In all likelihood he'll end up somewhere between his really good season and this one.

 

[billyiddo]

Benteke's standout season was his debut in the prem - didn't do too much in Belgium iirc and hasn't repeated his early form consistently for Villa.

Lamela played well in Argentina and well in Italy with one particlarly good season before signing for us, so going by what Scara is saying (i think) Benteke's outlier is his good season whereas with Lamelas outlier is his poor form for us. Hence why in terms of probability Benteke will go towards his form outside of his one good season whilst Lamela should go up to his several good seasons.

Onviously that doesn't really take in to account factors such as moving countries, injuries and so on.

 

[Modric THFC]

I think that he is alright but I am not convinced that he is significantly better than several cheaper alternatives.

I also don't understand the need to spend 30m on a striker when we have Harry Kane.
Its like going out and buying a 20m keeper when we have Lloris?

We have have 4 top players in Lloris, Kane, Eriksen and Bentaleb. We need to built the team around that not lump huge money on winning the transfer window so that people can feel important for a day of two.

 

[scaramanga]

Benteke's standout season was his debut in the prem - didn't do too much in Belgium iirc and hasn't repeated his early form consistently for Villa.

Lamela played well in Argentina and well in Italy with one particlarly good season before signing for us, so going by what Scara is saying (i think) Benteke's outlier is his good season whereas with Lamelas outlier is his poor form for us. Hence why in terms of probability Benteke will go towards his form outside of his one good season whilst Lamela should go up to his several good seasons.

Onviously that doesn't really take in to account factors such as moving countries, injuries and so on.

Precisely that.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Benteke's standout season was his debut in the prem - didn't do too much in Belgium iirc and hasn't repeated his early form consistently for Villa.

Lamela played well in Argentina and well in Italy with one particlarly good season before signing for us, so going by what Scara is saying (i think) Benteke's outlier is his good season whereas with Lamelas outlier is his poor form for us. Hence why in terms of probability Benteke will go towards his form outside of his one good season whilst Lamela should go up to his several good seasons.

Onviously that doesn't really take in to account factors such as moving countries, injuries and so on.

Hmmm.... Is the above fact or fiction?

The season before he went to Villa - Benteke scored 19 goals in 37 appearances for Genk. He then scored 23 for Villa in his first season in England, two very good seasons in a row. Lamela on the other hand has only ever really had the single good season scoring 15 in Italy. Does that not actually suggest that it is Lamela where the good season was the outlier?

 

[Pirate55]

You can't just call an entirely valid and accepted mathematical theory on randomness and statistics twaddle. You may as well call gravity twaddle. You'll just have to trust me that it's true.

I don't know what you do for a living or where your area of expertise is - let's say it's cleaning toilets. If you were to tell me that one brand of toilet cleaner is better than another, I certainly wouldn't be calling your opinion twaddle - I couldn't dream to know as much about cleaning toilets as you. So unless you plan on going back into education and spending a few years specialising in maths and statistics it's probably a good idea that you just accept that regression exists when I tell you it does.


As for Ronaldo, etc. that's what separates the truly world class from the others - they tend to keep improving on their best years every time. The vast majority of other players have a great season followed by a less great one - they also tend to have bad seasons followed by better ones. That's how regression works.

I am afraid you are just trying to adapt a statistical theory to footballers form. What I am telling you is that it is not appropriate to do so. You need to make so many assumptions regarding so many variables as to make it a meaningless excersise in this context. For example, can you tell me what a players 'mean' form is? You may be able to retrospectively show a correlation for a regression to mean but you simply have no way of being able to hypothecate that a players very best year will be his last at that level until after his career is over. Some players improve year on year. That is why you simply can't say that Benteke or anyone else will never be as good again as their best year. Hence the examples I gave you.

 

[billyiddo]

Im surprised with Bentekes record there in the season you highlight as i had heard/read he wasn't especially rated at the time. Lamela isn't a forward though so i don't think you can highlight goals to prove anything about him tbh but fair enough with regards to Benteke

 

[Jordinho]

His form in Belgium couldn't have been that great.

We signed him because I thought we needed a striker like him at the club. I felt we needed a targetman so we looked around and saw Christian playing at Genk.

He actually played with a strike partner that we looked at beforehand. We were looking across several different leagues at people but went back to watch Christian again and things moved from there.

 

[milo]

I am afraid you are just trying to adapt a statistical theory to footballers form. What I am telling you is that it is not appropriate to do so. You need to make so many assumptions regarding so many variables as to make it a meaningless excersise in this context. For example, can you tell me what a players 'mean' form is? You may be able to retrospectively show a correlation for a regression to mean but you simply have no way of being able to hypothecate that a players very best year will be his last at that level until after his career is over. Some players improve year on year. That is why you simply can't say that Benteke or anyone else will never be as good again as their best year. Hence the examples I gave you.

It is very common to apply regression to mean in a sporting context. If you Google 'the curse of Sports Illustrated' you'll find loads about it.