http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25617-best-ever-english-football-team-revealed-by-statistics.html#.U38iPyjij8U?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=twitter&cmpid=SOC%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL-twitter

 

It's a debate that rages in pubs throughout the world: which is the best football team of all time? Brazil in 1970, Hungary in the early 1950s, the Johan Cruyff-inspired Netherlands team of the 1970s? The Barcelona team built by Pep Guardiola? Or Liverpool during the 1980s?

"The whole point of sport is to work out who the best is," says statistician Ian McHale of the University of Salford, UK. "It seems like a natural question to me to ask 'Who has been the best over all time?'"

So Hales and his colleague Rose Baker waded in. They might not have an answer to the big question – yet – but they can reveal the best team in the history of the English league.

Fans of beautiful football look away now. The greatest ever team is apparently the Chelsea team of the 2005/06 season.

Defensive skills

To figure out which team from which era tops the rankings, McHale and Baker created a statistical model of team strengths. They used this to analyse goal data from 200,000 matches in England and Wales that occurred between 1888, when the Football League was founded, and 2012 in the top four English leagues, the FA Cup and the League Cup.

 

In the model, each team scores goals at a rate determined by its attack ability divided by the opposite team's defensive skills, with an extra boost for the home team to model home advantage. Using the model, McHale and Baker could work out the most likely outcome of any English football match played over the 124 year study period – and use the results to calculate which was the all-time greatest team.

Doing so revealed that the Chelsea team of 2005/06 comes out top, followed by the Manchester United team of 2007/08 and Arsenal's 2003/04 squad of "invincibles", which went unbeaten in the league. The similarly invincible Preston North End team from 1888 came just tenth.

"As a Liverpool fan, I was convinced they would at some point be the best, so it was a bit of a surprise," says McHale – the club's 1987/88 squad is ranked fourth.

Best of the best

An alternative measure looks at a team's strongest average performance over a 10 year period, and gives the same top three teams.

A third measure, dominance, gives the probability of a team winning against the second-best team over a 10-year period. The Manchester United of 1992-2002 come out on top with a 37.7 per cent chance of beating their next best rival, closely followed by Liverpool during 1979-89 and Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1951-61.

As well as coming up with all-time rankings, the pair's model lets them set teams from different eras against each other. "Even the guys in the physics department can't time travel, but with this model you can," says McHale.

For example, a match between Manchester United's 1998 team would have a 28.9 per cent chance of beating Liverpool's 1980 team, but a 39.7 per cent chance of losing the game. There's a 31.4 per cent chance the two teams would draw.

Out of time

"I think it is interesting, but it just focuses on what happens on the pitch," says sports historian Matthew Taylor of De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. "It's very difficult to wrench them out of the social and cultural context of the period and imagine how they would compete against each other."

"You need to be careful how literally you take this," agrees McHale, because the model can't account for wide-ranging shifts in the training and diets of all players over a number of decades. "I cannot accept any modern day team wouldn't absolutely destroy Preston North End 1888."

Sanjit Atwal, who runs football stats site Squawka, says the model's top picks are in line with what he would have chosen, but he's not sure the model will work as well in other countries where football is played according to different tactics. "They are weighing attack and defence equally. In other styles of play, possession of the ball is very different."

As for whether this will settle the argument of the greatest team ever, these statistics are just more fuel for the debate, says Atwal. "Fans will take whatever they can out of the data to win an argument."

Journal reference: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, DOI:10.1111/rssa.12060

Edited May 23, 201412 yr by jack_super_class

It makes sense considering in 2005 we broke the record for most points, most wins and least goals conceded, in a league where we had to compete against Arsenal's invincibles, Liverpool's European champions and a United team containing Ronaldo/Van Nistelrooy/Rooney.

 

edit: I just noticed it said the 2006 team not the 2005 team, not sure how that can be?

Edited May 23, 201412 yr by Jonty

We probably had the better squad in 2006, but effectively had the title sewn up by about January so we started to lose focus.

 

Also this guy:

 

Haha. I can almost hear the sound of a billion keyboards typing out how stats mean nothing.

We probably had the better squad in 2006, but effectively had the title sewn up by about January so we started to lose focus.

 

Also this guy:

 

 

yeah. And i think we lost our last two games because we rested a lot of our key players? 

Personally I think the 2004-05 team was better. They're definitely the best Premier League Team of all time. Arsenal fans can shout about going unbeaten all they want but that Chelsea team got the most points ever, also won the League Cup and broke a bunch of records.

Personally i thought our 2004-05 team was better, 1 defeat, plenty of goals, and an unbelievable defense. The 2005-06 team had 5 defeats, scored just as many goals and conceded more goals. I don't really know how they came to the conclusion that the 2005/06 team was better. The 2004-05 team achieved more than the 2005/06 team.

Best ever English team... That would be Chelsea 2014/15

Courtois

Shaw

Terry

Cahill

Azpilicueta

Matic

Pogba

Hazard

Oscar

Schurrle

Costa

Highest number of goals scored

Lowest number of goals conceded

Highest number of spit-balls thrown etc, etc

Edited May 24, 201412 yr by Foggy

Haha. I can almost hear the sound of a billion keyboards typing out how stats mean nothing.

 

Yet if this study were to indicate that a Liverpool team were the best ever it would surely mean something and the whole world would surely hear about it!

Lampard Makelele Midfield partnership was incredible no doubt that 04/05 team was the greatest Premier league team of all time.

Best ever English team... That would be Chelsea 2014/15

Courtois

Shaw

Terry

Cahill

Azpilicueta

Matic

Pogba

Hazard

Oscar

Schurrle

Costa

Highest number of goals scored

Lowest number of goals conceded

Highest number of spit-balls thrown etc, etc

If that happens I will personally track you down and kiss you

Lampard Makelele Midfield partnership was incredible no doubt that 04/05 team was the greatest Premier league team of all time.

Fact aswell 95 points

We still have most goals most clean sheets and best home record ..that will never.be beaten