Footnotes

Essays on football, data, and the things that connect them.

Availability Is the Best Ability
The Wonder
Set Pieces

The Wonder

Forty-two thousand corners. The engineering underneath the set piece revolution, pipe by pipe.

The Stink
Set Pieces

The Stink

Fixed positions, rehearsed timing, collective over individual. The structural return of the dead ball goal.

The Enclosure
Set Pieces

The Enclosure

Take-on success has fallen from 51.8% to 37.9% in four seasons. The common is enclosed.

The Price of the Premier League

The Price of the Premier League

The Premier League generates more prediction market volume than Major League Baseball. What the prices tell you, and what they hide.

The Comfortable Save

The Comfortable Save

Almost 40% of outside-box shots land at a height where goalkeepers save 82% of them. A visual guide to the goal mouth's hidden geography.

The Harrying

The Harrying

Weather, distance, latitude. Twelve seasons of Premier League data, 4,451 matches. Why the north is the hardest place in England to come and win. And the one winter it didn't matter.