As the 2020/21 SPFL Premiership campaign concludes, Modern Fitba has decided to step back indefinitely from covering and analyzing Scottish Football. We all are extremely proud of the work we have done and the level of analysis we brought to Scottish Football, but personal and professional obligations have made it difficult to continue to provide the data and analysis up to the standards we hold for ourselves. We will still keep the site up as a point of reference and in case we ever are able to come back to operating the site to a standard we find acceptable, and we certainly might share some ..read more

The SPFL Premiership split has been a marmite addition to football in Scotland. Even 20 years since inception it’s a divisive subject. However almost everyone agrees that it does provide a bit of entertainment for mid table teams in the close of the season, and this year was no exception. St Mirren, St Johnstone and Dundee United all had a chance to secure a top 6 place, thus ensuring a (slightly) bigger slice of the pie when it came to the standing’s bonus. The difference between 7th and 6th is 0.5% of the total bonus pot which equates to around £100K. Not a huge amount but with this season’s ..read more

In my first article discussing K-means clustering, I used midfielders in the SPFL Premiership last season to demonstrate how we can use the clustering methods to come up with styles of play and players who play like each other in the league. Now even casual fans of the game are likely aware that there can be different roles for midfielders. We can use our clustering techniques to help us confirm our preconceived notions are regarding midfielders’ roles but if you “USE YOUR EYES, MATE”, you can see some type of pattern for midfield playing styles. While there are typically four or five midfield ..read more

Earlier this summer, Christian Wulff, of this parish, asked if I would help him in a scouting exercise for the 90 Minute Cynic podcasts. Christian and I would be the “nerds” that pour over the numbers to come up with a short list for a potential replacement for Odsonne Edouard at Celtic. From there, some others would take that list and grind tape on each recommendation to see if the eye test matched up with the stats. It was an interesting exercise in both applying statistical methods in a practical sense (well, imaginary shortlists are only just more practical than Football Manager I suppose ..read more

What is it that makes a player aerially dominant? I feel like the term is used frequently to describe players however it isn’t easily quantifiable. Whilst most fans and articles will point towards Aerial Duels Won or even Aerial Duel Win %’s to try and show how aerially dominant a player is, how reliable is it? ““VIRGIL VAN DIJK has enjoyed a dominant season at the heart of the Liverpool defence but the Dutchman is not the best header of the ball in the Premier League, according to a new study.” ” — The Express (April 2019) The study the article refers to is from the CIES Observatory who also ..read more

How tall is a footballer? Seems like a simple enough question. Fire up google and there you go; you might even get their weight thrown in for good measure. However, you might rightly ask: who did it come from? when was it taken? and more importantly, how accurate is it? I found myself asking all these questions when I was looking at the correlation between a player’s height and their success at given metrics. I soon realised that finding a consistent data source was problematic. I’ve not personally measured each player (although, as you will soon realise, that might have been a quicker solutio ..read more

Expected Goals may be the media darling of the analytics world, but in practice it is of very little use as an analysis metric for football managers and coaches on a practical, day-to-day level. It can tell you what has happened, but it can’t tell you why, and if you don’t know why then how can you be expected to make informed decisions in order to maintain or alter your behaviour in an attempt to give your team a better chance of winning football matches? Rangers had an xG of 3.65 against Hamilton last weekend, but that information alone is of little-to-no use to Derek McInnes as he prepares ..read more

There have been thousands upon thousands of words written, spoken, and tweeted over the last few weeks trying to dissect the issues Celtic have had this season. The theories have been varied, the blame placing has been wide ranging, and emotions have been high from many Celtic supporters trying to come up with answers. In a season where so much is at stake, it’s hard to fault any hysteria from supporters. Fans of clubs invest so much personally into their club that you can neither blame Celtic supporters for emotional reactions nor can you blame fans of other clubs reveling in the green and wh ..read more

In recent seasons the best word to describe St Johnstone’s recruitment has been ‘Domestic’, but last month, for the first time in over four and a half years the club signed a player who isn’t eligible to represent a country within the UK. Israeli striker, Guy Melamed, is the only player in St Johnstone squad who wasn’t born on the British Isles and is their first permanent foreign signing since centre back, Plamen Krachunov, in Feb 2016. Now, Melamed’s nationality isn’t important, but having spent his whole career playing in the Israeli Premier League it does make this transfer stand out. Howe ..read more

Written by: Jaymes Monte @ArabAnalytics In my debut piece for Modern Fitba I looked at which side of the pitch teams were constructing their attacks from and whether or not they were utilising their assets (best players) to best effect. In this piece I am going to look at which half attacks are initially being constructed from, how quick teams are in creating the chances that result and if there are specific types of attack from which some teams are particularly threatening. I’ll also discuss the conclusions that opposing teams can derive from this information, if they were to use it to help b ..read more