Do Stats & Tactics Provide Best Analysis?

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The Wire's Cedric Daniels once memorably objected to the American bureaucracies using the "stat game" as a means of "shining up sh*t and calling it gold". Whilst the comparison between Stewart Downing and a turd is not intended to be quite as harsh as it sounds, Daniels' point is nonetheless relevant to his signing - though Liverpool should be accused not of knowingly polishing said excrement, but instead being unable to perceive it through a narrow prism of statistics.

When I raised my eyebrows in reaction to Downing's £20million fee last summer, it wasn't because I'd neglected to scrutinise his much-feted crosses-per-game ratio, but because, having watched him for club and country over a number of years, I doubted that he had the technical ability or persevering self-belief to perform at a high level for Liverpool. Damien Comolli can reel off all the sabermetric analyses in the world, but judging (and then buying) a player based on his numbers and only his numbers is a fool's game. It's Championship Manager.

As has been observed elsewhere, such a supposedly comprehensive mode of inquiry criminally overlooks the intangible and unquantifiable. Stewart Downing is a decent enough player, but seems to have underperformed simply as a result of mental fragility rather than much else. No statistical breakdown could have predicted that.

In light of this, it seems the football-following world - or at least its online contingent - has lost sight of how blindingly simple the sport actually is. In the age of Twitter fandom, everyone has become an armchair tactician and statistician. Zonal Marking, Guardian chalkboards, Wikipedia stats and Opta indices are all readily available at our fervent fingertips, providing seemingly-infallible data to either support or contradict whatever the squabble of the day happens to be. Victor Moses doesn't provide enough assists? Well, blame that on Connor Sammon's cross conversion rate. Darren Bent's scoring form has subsided? Well, fools, we need only look at his average position on the field over the last ten games. I'm all for a bit of sophistication, but sometimes it becomes self-defeating.

The point of this isn't that tactical and statistical analysis of football has no worth - on the contrary, it's often hugely insightful. I, like many other highbrow-striving aficionados of the 'People's Game', have read Inverting the Pyramid, and thought it was great. I appreciate a bit of understated positional discipline in a holding midfielder as much as the next man. Indeed, in light of the recent invasion of Mourinho, Makelele and chums onto British shores and subsequent proliferation of tactical setups, such analysis appears all the more relevant. But the tendency for every dropped point to be blamed on the absence of a functional trequartista, or to prompt an exhaustive breakdown of the left-back's short-pass completion rate, has become vaguely tiresome, and often loses sight of the fundamentals of the game.

Take Antonio Valencia as a prime example - easily one of the most penetrative attackers in the country and a proponent of wing-play in its most rudimentary form. An in-depth analysis of his game would tell you little more than what's perceptible at a glance; attack the fullback on the outside, whip a ball across the six yard box, and track the fullback back when needed. The point here is not that his team's tactical setup is irrelevant to his effectiveness, but more that a simple appreciation of basic skills being performed well is often pompously dismissed in favour of an overcomplicated and overcomplicating approach.

The growing obsession with tactics also tends towards a criminal under-appreciation of that great intangible of 'man-management'. The ability to instill, revive, and sustain players' confidence is by far the most potent characteristic in a manager - perhaps even to the point that other qualities are redundant without it. For all Jose Mourinho's extensive dossiers, would he have had such a formidable team without Terry, Lampard, Essien and Drogba all playing as if they truly believed they were the best in their respective positions in the world? Likewise, say what you like about Rafa Benitez's managerial style (and I'm sure you will), but the Fernando Torres he fashioned in 2008/09 is a far cry from the one we now see in Chelsea blue. Surround today's incarnation with all the inverted wingers in the world, and he'd still struggle to hit a barn door with a cow's arse.

Indeed, take Alex Ferguson. Even the most pompously self-aggrandising United fan (if you can find one) would readily admit that he's never really mastered the tactical side of the game in the manner of his continental peers. And yet - though correct me if I'm wrong - he's had minimal trouble achieving success. The fundamental trick, it appears, is to have the best players, and have them believing in themselves. Everything else is secondary.

There are, of course, many who will tell you that it's this very lack of nous that has led to Ferguson's underachievement in Europe - and it's a fair point - though would an additional midfield body last May, for example, really have stifled the twinklings of Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets? Class, in the end, tends to shine through. (Indeed, 1999's continental conquerors were hardly the most tactically sophisticated; they simply boasted the greatness of Keane and Scholes in their prime, dictating proceedings, with the requisite level of class scattered around them. An oversimplification, yes, but perhaps still a relevant point).

Harry Redknapp's relative success again serves to illustrate the merits of prioritising the cultivation of a squad of first-rate, self-assured footballers, and working from there. When it comes down to it, the sides with the best and most undaunted players tend to go home with the trophies, and for any upset to occur, the underdogs need to be ultra-motivated above all else.

Of course, the hoarding and mollycoddling of quality footballers alone won't bring success and some degree of tactical astuteness is a fundamental quality in any halfway-decent managerial setup. Similarly, investing in a player without having examined their statistical performance may well be unwise. The point, therefore, is not that tactics and stats don't count for much, but that to isolate that side of the game somehow manages to be simultaneously both reductionist and potentially over-complicating. To condense a successful (or indeed any) side to positions and statistics is to ignore the fundamental fact that the sport is played by human beings, and is to overlook much of what is important.

To clumsily misquote Benjamin Disraeli: there are half-truths, damned half-truths, and there's Stewart Downing's chance-creation rate.

Alex Hess - you can find him on Twitter.