Follow-up from yesterday’s statistical outlook
I have to begin today`s article by again thanking Rob2k for his effort yesterday in compiling the last 8-game league table. If you haven`t seen it, cut-and-paste the link that Rob added to his comment yesterday into the search-bar at the top of your preferred search engine and hit ‘enter`.
If you`ve managed this or evaluated the table when the link was first posted onto the site, I`m sure you`re wondering what Rob2k does for a living after compiling such a detailed table of statistics.
Does he work for the FA? Does he work for a leading newspaper? Or, does he work for the government, massaging figures to compliment the propaganda machine?
More intriguingly, is Rob2k unemployed, working from his underground basement? Working for Anonymous, planning the downfall of the elite and privileged?
I`m just glad he`s inside the tent spitting out, rather than outside the tent?
In all seriousness, Rob2k hasn`t left any statistic out of his table from the last 2 months of the Championship campaign and it makes excellent reading for Whites` supporters. Across the board, Bolton Wanderers are amongst the top 3 or 4 teams in the league in positive data, but there is one of Rob`s findings that sticks out like a sore arm that`s been bitten by Suarez.
Wanderers sit 3rd in Rob`s table with 16 points from 8 games, but currently sit 15th in the real-time table. The way Rob has set out his findings for viewing, the ’15` number at the side of Bolton`s name emphasises the shift in fortunes for our beloved football club.
Now, there are two ways to look at this: 1) Bolton Wanderers are seriously punching above their weight, or: 2) Bolton Wanderers have finally found their medium and are now mixing with the correct crowd.
I`m sure some fans who will conclude it`s somewhere between the two and Wanderers are a mid-table team. But I honestly don`t think that is the case. I don`t believe I`m being an overly optimistic fan, unnecessarily bigging-up my team. Nor do I believe I`m being hyper-pessimistic and putting down my club. I just think, the current Wanderers` collective are a group of players, if handled correctly, can achieve great things in this league. But, they are also a group of players, if handled just slightly wrong, can struggle to muster a point against relegation threatened teams.
You are probably thinking, you could say that about any team is this league and you`re probably right to think so. But I believe Bolton`s ceiling of potential is a lot higher than the ‘mid-table` teams in this league.
The manager of this group of players has to ask himself a series of questions after he`s gotten to grips with the personalities and egos at his disposal. Does he stick with the existing group and work extra hard at trying to extract their full potential? Or, does he draft his own players and start again from scratch? Dougie has opted for the third option and kept the foundation of his liking from the original crop and incorporated new arrivals to fill in the gaps.
Freedman began the season with this approach but it failed miserably until Knight and Wheater were removed from the starting line-up, the three new loan-signings were drafted in and Beckford bedded into his new surroundings. The latter seemed to be just a matter of time- of course, Feeney and Danns` recruitment helped with assisting the striker- but the other two salient differences to our fortunes took some tinkering with team selections before a winning formulae was realised.
None of us know how the rest of the season will unfold, nor do we fully understand how Dougie will manage his team going forward. All I do know for sure is, Wanderers are in a much healthier position after the last 8 games, compared to how they were after the initial 8 games of the season. Statistics can be massaged to prove or disprove many scenarios of interest, but no matter how skilful Rob2k is with data-crunching, it would be futile to put a positive outlook on a Wanderers team if they reverted to their early season form.
We`ll all witness results as they come in or as they happen, but if Rob2k blesses us again with another statistics table in the future after another 8 or 10 games, I hope it reads like his latest effort. If it reads anything like the official table read after the first 8 games of the season, Rob would have to be one hell of a statistical spin-doctor if we are to take any positives away from that arithmetical car crash.