Thursday 28 May 2015

A Tale of 3 Coaches - The Stats


I recently overheard fans debate about whom between current coach Frank Nuttal and former coaches Logarusic and Williamson had the better starts at K’Ogalo. The popular belief is that having lost just one game out of his first twenty league games at K’ogalo, Nuttal is the man. Well, I made a mental note to find out what the stats had to say about that.  

My findings, contrary to the outcome of the debate, was that Logarusic had the better start albeit just. In the first 20 games, loga won 14 and amassed 46 points against Nuttal’s 13 wins and 45 points. This translates to a win rate of 70% for Loga compared to 65% for Nuttal. Williamson won 12 and amassed 42 points, a win rate of 60%.

Fans however like an attacking game and if we are to judge an attacking side by the number of goals scored, then we see Nuttals side have the edge, scoring on average 1.75 per game. Loga’s team scored  on average 1.4 goals per game while Bobby’s was 1.25 per game. One might argue that Nuttal had both the benefit of club legend Danny Sserenkuma and the current trio of Kagere, Olunga and Abondo to work with but that’s academic. But is Nuttal just attack minded while Loga and Bobby were masters of defense?  Well, on that front it seems like Bobby was more defensive of the two, conceding just 8 in his first twenty games.

Coach
Wins
Draws
Losses
Points
Win %age
Goals (& ave. pg)
Goals conceded
Zdvarko Logarusic
14
4
2
46
70
28 (1.4)
11 (0.55)
Bobby Williamson
12
6
2
42
60
25 (1.25)
8 (0.4)
Frank Nuttal
13
6
1
45
65
35 (1.75)
12 (0.6)

This is all academic though as at the end of the day success is judged by trophies. Though Logarusic won 2 trophies, when it came to the one that mattered most, both Williamson and Nuttal triumphed where he failed. And now Nuttal has the opportunity to extend his bragging rights by defending the league crown, going unbeaten or even leading the club to CECAFA glory. Only time will tell.


Nuttal doing the business


Monday 4 May 2015

A Perfect Start for K'Ogalo - Looking at the Numbers

I was at the City Stadium last Saturday to watch Gor Mahia overcome Ulinzi 2-0, courtesy of goals by the strike partnership of Meddie Kagere and Michael Olunga. As we watched the game, the guy seated next to me commented that it’s been a while since he watched Gor make such a strong start to the league. He commented that K’ogalo always start poorly in the league and grow stronger and therefore this should be an omen to the chasing pack. I decided to go back to the stats and see if his claims hold any water. And indeed it did hold water.  Since 2008, this has been K’Ogalo’s strongest start to the league and at this stage they are 6 points better off than last season and 5 points better off than the 2013 season, previously their best start. It is critical to note that both were title winning seasons. The next question then would be which was their worst start? You don’t need to look far, in 2012 we had only accumulated 5 points after 9 games though a magnificent run in the second half of the season saw us finish second, losing the title by a point on the last day to the brewers.

Also not lost on many is the number of goals that we have scoring during this season. Are we scoring more goals than we did at the start of previous seasons? Well so far we have scored 20 goals after 9 matched, nine goals more than at the same stage last year. Below is graph showing how K’Ogalo have performed after 9 games since 2008 season.

Year
Points
Goals
Wins
Draws
Losses
2008
12
5
3
3
2
2009
7
8
2
1
5
2010
14
7
3
5
1
2011
15
10
4
3
2
2012
5
4
1
4
4
2013
18
8
5
3
1
2014
17
11
5
2
2
2015
23
20
7
2
0

Having a strong start is instrumental in winning a league as it makes up for a possible slump as is often wont to happen in any season. It should be noted that last year between 18th June and 17th September Gor picked up only 14 points in 10 (30 points) games, including having two runs of 3 games without picking a win but because of a good first half of the season, there was a healthy gap to cushion it from rivals.
The current unbeaten streak continues at 11 games, the last league loss being the 3-2 loss to Sofapaka at Machakos last year. During this time, we have won 9 games, against Muhoroni Youth (3-1), Ushuru (3-0 and 2-0), Mathare (4-2), Bandari (2-1), Chemelil (3-1), KCB (3-1), City Stars (3-0) and Ulinzi (2-0) while drawing only 2 games, against AFC Leopards (1-1) and Sofapaka (0-0). But has this been our best unbeaten run this year? Of course not, we have 8 games to match the 20 game unbeaten run under coach Logarusic between 28th April 2012 and 27th March 2013.

On a side note, Meddie Kagere's double against KCB saw him become the 10th K'Ogalo player to score a brace or more in the league since 2008.

Another super performance from Kagere and Olunga (pix from Official Gor Mahia Website)

In the meanwhile, let the green army savour the moment!