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Hypotheticals

Baleforce

Les Bennett
A lot of things get talked about post game, what if that card was given, what if the pen was scored, what if the keeper didn't slip, i'm fed up with it, its irrelevant, all that matters is what did happen.

Leading on from something in another thread, something i've seen a lot of on GG in the last year, is the idea of taking a player out of a result.

Let's use the first game of the season as an example, we beat West Ham 1-0 thanks to a brilliant header from Eric Dier, 3 points. Now lets remove him from the game, no goal, 0-0, 1 point right? I say wrong.

You can't leave it at that, how are we taking him out of the game? Did we just have ten men, that makes it easy, nothing he did would have been replaced by anyone else, which of course is nonsense, we have to allow for all the tackles and pressures he produced, how many West Ham goals did his performance stop, we have absolutely no way of quantifying that. Did someone else play that day, Verts maybe? How can we grade the Dutchman's hypothetical performance, he might have put in a brilliant cross, or scored that header himself, he might have given away a penalty or an own goal.

I see it repeatedly being used as a stick to beat managers with, Redknapp and Crouch, AVB and Bale, Sherwood and Ade, and now Poch and Kane, although not long ago it was Poch and Eriksen.

Is there any point in doing this, can any accurate data be gleamed from it, is there anything there to learn, what am I missing?
 
Totally agree. See it all the time and it's dumb. Works both ways as well, what if Gerard hadn't played against Chelsea? No slip and a league title, well who's to some one else wouldn't have made a mistake leading to a goal?
 
I have discussed this argument before at length on this site I believe. I don't have the words to express how stupid the idea is, "Imagine if we didn't have Lloris!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?", yes, not having a goalkeeper will most likely have led to more goals being conceded. "Imagine if we didn't have Kane?!?!!?!?!?!!!!!!!!", usually from someone who was slagging the kid off during his promising performances against Cypriots, Greeks, who also had no idea he existed when he was playing at Milwall or Leicester.

I find it hard not to pick apart posts for the utter brick they are, and people get defensive once you make it clear to them what the words they have used purvey, then they start answering things you haven't said, then get prickly and upset that someone would dare question their ignorant views. "I believe this because it was in the metro and my universe will cave in if questioned to provide a tad more evidence or to make a clearer argument!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". Repeat to ad nauseam.
 
Hypothetical's are hollow and meaningless not only in football but in all walks of life. But I think it's human nature to speculate on what could have been. I'm pretty sure we've all had times when we've had an argument with someone and days, months or even years later we've thought of what the perfect reply would've been and replayed that argument in our heads only with us coming out with the perfect response...

The sort of stats the media come out with though do wind me up. United without Ronaldo, us without Bale and now Kane, Madrid without Ronaldo... It's all about as relevant as those historical mockumentary's which can tell you an hour and a half long tale of EXACTLY what would've happened if the Nazi's had invaded etc..
 
Ok, but hypothetically what if it wasn't a brilliant header from Dier, but taking the ball round the keeper and slotting it in to an empty net ?
 
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