According to someone, once upon a time, a long time ago, there were three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. And, according to someone else, a long time ago, somewhere in the world, there are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.
Nevertheless, love them or hate them, statistics are everywhere in sport compiled, presumably, by people with leather patches on the elbows of tweed jackets, who used to be a member of the chess club at school after losing their dinner money to bullies and who now enjoy watching University Challenge with a cup of hot chocolate while playing Dungeons and Dragons online.
Sam Allardyce, who has made much of his scientific approach to the game - I wonder if his backroom staff includes someone of a similar description to the above who lives in a broom cupboard next to the manager’s office at United’s training ground - might disagree, but there is surely more to football than facts and figures.
I’m normally a little wary of using statistics in football because I don’t believe it is a game that can be simplified into numbers and percentages. It is supposed to be the beautiful game, not the game of graphs, figures and pie charts, but there are times when they do reveal something interesting such as the fact Steve Harper should be playing for England against Russia on Wednesday night.
Many of us have questioned whether Harper was guilty of a lack of ambition or whether he was simply too loyal for his own good in deciding to stay at Newcastle United when he wasn’t first-choice goalkeeper.
On top of that, there has even been speculation that, if the 32-year-old had decided to leave St James’s Park and play regular first-team football elsewhere in the Premier League whether he would have broken into the England team?
Harper admitted last week in The Journal that he almost left the club just over a year ago because of the constant frustration of sitting on the bench, but that playing 25 games last season had persuaded him to stay.
That decision has been further vindicated by the fact he is currently keeping Given out of the side following the Irishman’s recovery from another groin injury and, if this continues, there is bound to be a strong argument for Harper to be considered for international recognition when Steve McClaren’s present choices for the national side are Dumb (Paul Robinson) and Dumber (David James).
With this in mind and because they undoubtedly support this argument I’ve decided to draw heavily on some information provided by the Opta Stats boffins.
According to their stats analysis Harper has been the best English goalkeeper in the Premier League with an impressive 83% saves-to-shots ratio so far this season and a 100% catch success rate. He has also managed to keep a clean sheet in two of his four games.
Kasper Schmeichel was actually the top-rated eligible player but the son of Peter (should have been called Pedersen Schmeichel then shouldn’t he?!) has already announced that he will play for Denmark so he doesn’t count.
So there you have it, after four games Harper is the country’s number one, at least if you believe the statistics and I think, on this occasion, who am I to argue with the geeks?
Incidentally, if McClaren was going to pick the rest of his team on the basis of this statistical analysis it would line up like this in a 4-4-2 formation:
Steve Harper (Newcastle United)
Micah Richards (Manchester City)
Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United)
Anthony Gardner (Tottenham Hotspur)
Ashley Cole (Chelsea)
Ashley Young (Aston Villa)
Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)
Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
Stewart Downing (Middlesbrough)
Emile Heskey (Wigan Athletic)
Andrew Johnson (Everton)
If only Gerrard and Lampard could play together, we could replace McClaren with a high-tech computer called Morris...
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