By James Dailey
I have no doubt that intangible qualities of players exist, and that they can be difficult to measure directly. I’ve been a baseball fan since I was five and have been dabbling in related analytics for over 30 years. Baseball has been on the vanguard of the data and analytics evolution within global sport, and various intangibles have been a source of great debate for many years. For example, does a “clutch hitter” exist?
For those readers who are not baseball fans, and I am confident that is most of you, the idea of a clutch hitter is someone who performs better than usual late in games when the score is close- particularly when there are runners on base and in what is known as “scoring position.” Some people, including me, believe players respond differently to pressure. It can be a source of focus and clarity for some, while others wilt a bit or try too hard. Various statistical measurements have been developed within the baseball analytics community in order to try and quantify this characteristic.
So why am I boring you with this baseball stuff? I am not a person who believes that statistics, and particularly those in football currently, capture all variables which drive performance. I do believe there is value in intangibles, including leadership and “big game” players, and that currently available data and stats do not directly measure them.
With all of that said, there are ways to logically approach existing data and analytical metrics, with all these limitations in mind, in order to try and better understand the game and Club we love. Can I directly measure Scott Brown’s leadership? No – but I can do a pretty good job at analyzing whether the team has performed better with or without him in the lineup.
Even if Brown is an elite player when it comes to intangible skills, they are obviously not the only things a footballer must do on the pitch in order to make their team better. To continue with my baseball analogy, an elite clutch hitter who is poor defensively, with baserunning, and at hitting in non-clutch situations, is not worth playing overall. They would be best deployed as a “pinch hitter” to substitute for other players late in games when the situation calls for their specific skills.
I am not “anti-Brown” and have never questioned Brown’s legacy as a great player and captain, and believe he deserves his heroic stature at Celtic. As I’ve argued in other pieces, I believe(d) that the Celtic team was of enough quality to compete for, and possibly win, this season’s Europa League, and that Brown’s skillset could have been deployed to make a significant contribution in doing so. For example, instead of him going off injured in Copenhagen, imagine if he’d come on in the 70th minute to drive the team and help lockdown a 2-1 lead? Thirty-four-year-old legs can still look quite spry in intense 20-minute bursts! Regretfully, as a beer bellied 44-year-old, and much to my wife’s chagrin, my “bursts” are dramatically shorter. Age catches up to us all!
With or Without You
The following data compares the 16 games in the Europa League group stage and against Scottish Premiere Leagues sides over the past two seasons in which Scott Brown was not a starting defensive midfielder, with the average for the first 38 (excluding the Livingston game) combined games this season in the Europa League and SPFL. Of those 38, Brown started all but the February 23rd game versus Kilmarnock and the December 12th game at Cluj.
The 16 games in this sample include 2 games each against RB Leipzig and Salzburg and 1 versus Rosenborg, or 31% of games. The 2019-2020 sample includes 10 Europa League games and 28 SPFL games, with Europa League comprising 24% of the 38-game total. I believe this balance makes the strength of opponents in each sample relatively comparable, if not tilted a little stronger to the 16-game sample. I would also argue that the overall quality of the team was lower in the “Without Brown” sample, which is dominated by last season’s squad.
There seems to be a consensus amongst our support that the team’s performance levels have been excellent this season, and I agree. Whether it is goals scored, goal differential, the potential at 100+ league points, finishing top of the Europa League group, and reaching the Europa League final 32, this season has been a significant improvement over last. Given this high hurdle, the table above is noteworthy. Over the 16-game sample without Brown, the team has performed at levels comparable, if not slightly better, than the high levels this season.
This next comparison shows the 11 of 16 games in the sample without Brown where Celtic faced SPFL teams and compares with the average for the first 28 SPFL league games this season, in which Brown played 27. Both the comparison above and this one includes xG for and against, the differential, and then the two statistics probably most associated with Brown – Recoveries and Interceptions. I specifically included those two team statistics, as they are the two areas of Brown’s performance statistics which have held up extremely well as his overall levels have declined the past few years.
Conclusion
I have no way of assessing the direct value of any players’ intangible value to Celtic, including Scott Brown. The data I’ve shared is of a large enough sample size to offer some analytical insight, in my opinion. Given the volume of other analytical metrics I track regarding Brown’s specific individual performance levels versus his peers in the SPFL, Europa League, and most importantly fellow Celtic players, I am confident in stating the following. Whatever intangibles he brings to the team are no longer significant enough to offset his physical decline. I think most supporters probably get more enjoyment watching Brown play in the team over other players, and we all follow Celtic partly as an entertainment “product.” However, I believe that entertainment value comes at a cost – a team which is not as good as it could be.
Lubo's Boots says
An intriguing dataset James. I and fellow supporters have probably labelled Brown as being “Man of the Match” just as many times as we’ve though of him as having a “nightmare”. Possibly that inconsistency in performance is more relevant these days, but there is no doubt you believe in what you see, and my two main observations are
1. When Brown plays well, I do believe the crowd and the team get “a lift” – whatever those intangible effects are on performance overall
2. When Brown had a “Broony Moment” whether a tackle, or surviving a tackle, or just leathering a ball into somebody’s face, I think the intangible there is that the players and fans get an immediate injection of energy. It may only last half a minute and it may not contribute to genuinely better football, but that “tails up firing on all cylinders” feeling is something I genuinely believe our Captain energises the team with in those moments.
Cheers.
James Dailey says
Sorry – meant my comment as a reply to yours. Please read below.
James Dailey says
Thanks as always for reading and for taking the time to share your thoughtful comment.
The data and analytics revolution definitely is a frontal assault on our emotions as fans/supporters. We don’t like finding out that we are “wrong” in how we feel – that is a recipe for cognitive dissonance. Many people have a visceral love for Brown and “feel” his play more as a result – more so than players like Forrest. This results in huge issues with confirmation bias. For example, it is objectively true that Forrest has had a FAR superior season compared to Brown, yet the relative emotional feeling of our support could not be more disparate between the two. I would guess that there is a very large portion of our support that would argue Brown has been better this season. This is normal and part of the supporter/fan experience.
My main issue is that the Club should not be run in a way which falls victim to those normal human tendencies. This is now an arms race in analytics and it has arrived in the SPFL (St Mirren and others). Either we adapt or the other side of the city may do so better/faster than we do!
SteveNaive says
I understand your sentiments in the last comment and this seems to be supported at most by the success Liverpool have had recently. Klopp used analytics heavily at Dortmund and I remember a 442 ( I know) article when he was still in Germany where he allied this to ‘ run, run and run again’
Your excellent article was fresh in my mind today as I watched Scott Brown. I mean really watched him. For a spell in the first half your analysis was spot on. I didn’t want to believe it and looked for mitigating factors. There weren’t any. Still in the first half, he steadied his own ship ( as did others) and so did Celtic.
I’ve got to say James that second half he comprehensively dismantlement your case against him. His heat map would be very interesting to see. On a purely footballing metric, at present, at home, in Scotland, he has to start. Well played today Scott Brown, captain.
James Dailey says
Hello Steve – thanks for reading and commenting.
I agree that Brown did the things well in the 2nd half in which he still excels. His reading of the game remains tremendous and that makes within the context of aging curves, as it is an intellectual skill that accrues as wisdom…until cognitive decline begins later in life (an apparently when people run for US president these days!) When he is able to get into position, his interception and ball recovery skills remain very good.
However, people who literally love Brown have an analytical problem when relying upon subjective review of a game- it isn’t fair. You feel when he makes a good play far more than you do when he does a bad. For example, when he made a poor pass and gave the ball away (I am thinking that stat will be quite bad for the game), he often recovered the ball on his own- to his credit. That should basically net out as a “zero” analytically – 1 turnover – 1 recovery = zero. But emotionally, we get far less upset over the turnover than we do excited over the recovery. It is a sort of -1 turnover + 3 recovery = 2 emotional equation. The result is a deep reservoir of good emotional will towards Brown, and a feeling that he played far better than he actually did/does.
I can think of no better example of this than the Cluj debacle in August. I’ve analyzed that game thoroughly and he was extremely poor, including have direct responsibility for 3 of 4 goals. Most supporters to this day STILL relate to that game as the one Lenny played McGregor at LB. In reality, McGregor played quite well at that position, with the back post header for the 1st goal the one standout issue. Few remember that it was Brown’s inability to physically move out to close down on the crosser that lead to that goal. Like during the Copenhagen game at home, Lennon admitted later that he played with a toe injury that game! If Efe Ambrose had put in the performance Brown did in a game that knocked us out of the Champions League, then openly criticize Lennon on social media in the aftermath, he would have been run out of town. Brown’s deep reservoir of emotional good will was able to absorb it.
Since you asked, I’ll post some stuff on Twitter about his performance in particular. I agree generally speaking he wasn’t poor – at least that is my subjective opinion before seeing the data. I will likely do a longer analysis comparing his role in yesterday’s result compared to McGregor’s vs Killie when Brown was out. Cheers and hail hail!
Joe says
Thank you for the work you do on the analysis of the games. I think Lubo is correct in that the team/fans get a lift when Broonie does “what Broonie does” but at 34 we need to be looking for the next Broonie.
Re the baseball analysis, I watched the World Series and enjoyed it bus was totally baffled when the started on about pitcher & batter averages. Totally lost but enjoyed watching it
James Dailey says
Hello Joe,
Baseball is a very complex game with tons of nuance – as the old saying goes, nothing in sport is harder than trying to hit a 90 mile per hour round ball with a round bat when not knowing whether the pitch will drop, bend, or stay straight (unless you were an cheating Astro the past few seasons!)
It is very much a “lifestyle” sport for many in the US, as for 6 months a year it is basically an everyday routine over 162 regular season games. Ken Burn’s documentary “Baseball” is absolutely brilliant and highly recommend for a greater understanding. The sport/game has a unique anthropological history in the US.
Rolling Stone says
In recent games I have taken to watching Brown’s individual performances. One thing that I notice is that when he is dragged to all areas of the park firefighting, there is a vast area of space left in the middle from our back line to midfielders. This was the case at times yesterday, it was the case in both games against Copenhagen, as well as Aberdeen away and Livi. While Livi, Aberdeen and St Mirren cannot exploit the space, it’s clear that Copenhagen could and they certainly did.
However, it appears that our managerial team continue to believe that we can get away with the full backs bombing on and McGregor and whoever our number 10 is, playing high up the pitch (McGregor almost plays as a LWB at times given the positions he takes up). I believe that they have arrived at this position as they believe that Brown can still snuff out any danger all across the middle of the park. Unfortunately, this is far from the case.
Next time you are watching a game, try and look out for how may times Brown fails to intercept, chase down an opponent, recover from an opposition’s 1-2. It’s quite stark that he does not have the legs to effectively carry out the task asked of him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_HcFTpTCk- Copenhagen highlights. Go to 5:50. He is running in sand compared to his opposite number.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFXAzZrLLPQ- Motherwell highlights. Go to 1:30. Go to 2:59 (the beginning of the play is missed, but look at Brown’s recovery relative to his Motherwell counterparts).
Even if his performance levels were not dropping (which we know they are), the reality is that Scott is 34 years old and cannot go on for ever. Midfield is the strongest area of out team. It is likely that (contingent upon any departures/the success of Soro) no midfielders will be brought in to replace Brown. In that case, when will the decision be taken to start playing the starting midfield of the post-Brown era? Are we planning on playing him another 50 times next season, for him them to retire at the end of the year? You would expect a gradual process of phasing out of the starting XI, but it looks like it will be a ‘big bang’; starting one day, retired the next.
SteveNaive says
Thanks James. Of course there will be times in the games when Brown is outrun and outmanoeuvred. I thought there were signs of this before BR came in but he, and Neil Lennon have wrung the last ounces from him and see that what he lacks in Scotland is not hurting the team compared to what he brings. There is also the negative bias to back up his diminishing statistics. In this ( and next) most emotive of seasons we should appreciate where he has been and come to praise , not bury him. In Europe I agree completely. I’ve seen most of Ken Burns’ documentaries and they are excellent., Baseball being no exception. Seen a few minor league games as well down south. Still don’t get RBI’s though.