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HibsMax
31-05-2011, 06:29 PM
After reading an earlier post about Jackie McNamara's comments in the DR re: Hearts being the 3rd force, I decided to look into this some more myself to find out what's really going on in the SPL over the past decade. Here's what I did. I looked at league placement since 2000 and determined how many years a team had played in the SPL, best/worst/average/standard deviation finishing position. I didn't do anything to account for the split, I just looked at the standings after all the games were played.

There are really two distinct categories that teams fall into:
1. teams that have been in the SPL every year since 2000.
2. teams that have been in and out of the SPL.

I took all the data and ordered it as follows:
1. number of years in SPL (because I think that the more data points you have, the more reliable the data is likely to be - and as it happens, the average league position shows that teams that have not been in the SPL continuously since 2000 finish lower in the league - with no exceptions).
2. average league position.

The Standings


Team Years Best Worst Average
Celtic 11 1 2 1.45
Rangers 11 1 3 1.64
Hearts 11 2 8 4.27
Hibs 11 3 10 6.09
Aberdeen 11 3 11 6.27
Kilmarnock 11 4 11 7.00
Dundee Utd 11 3 11 7.18
Motherwell 11 3 12 7.45
Dunfermline 7 4 12 8.29
Inverness 6 7 12 8.50
St. Mirren 6 10 12 10.83
Dundee 5 6 12 8.00
Livingston 5 3 12 8.60
Falkirk 5 7 12 9.20
St. Johnstone 4 8 12 9.50
Hamilton 3 7 12 9.33
Partick 2 10 12 11.00
Gretna 1 12 12 12.00



So make of that what you will. I won't list all my conclusions because statistics can almost be made to support any story. All I will say is that there are a few tiers in Scottish football (and more than a few tears).

Tier One : Celtic and Rangers
Tier Two : Hearts
Tier Three : Hibs and Aberdeen
Tier Four : Kilmarnock, Dundee Utd and Motherwell
Tier Five : everyone else

Celtic and Rangers are clearly head and shoulders above everyone else.

Hearts seem to have created a little separation between themselves and the rest of the pack (almost two full league positions on average). Also, Hearts are the only team outside the Old Firm that has avoided finishing 10th or worse (9th even).

To be honest, tiers 3 and 4 could probably be combined but I split them up based upon average league position and there is a small gap between Aberdeen and Kilmarnock.

I mentioned standard deviation above but haven't mentioned it yet. What that shows us is how consistent each team is. The smaller the standard deviation, the more closely grouped the data i.e., a team that finishes 1st or 2nd every year will have a low standard deviation whereas a team, like Hibs, who go from 4th to 10th will have a higher value. A low value of standard deviation means consistent, NOT good e.g.,. St. Mirren has a stddev of 0.75 but that's because they consistently finished in the bottom part of the table (10th, 11th and 12th). Without further ado, here's that data:


Team Average Std Dev
Celtic 1.45 0.52
Rangers 1.64 0.67
St. Mirren 10.83 0.75
Partick 11.00 1.41
Hearts 4.27 1.74
Inverness 8.50 1.87
St. Johnstone 9.50 1.91
Falkirk 9.20 2.17
Hibs 6.09 2.51
Hamilton 9.33 2.52
Dundee 8.00 2.55
Kilmarnock 7.00 2.68
Aberdeen 6.27 2.69
Motherwell 7.45 2.70
Dundee Utd 7.18 2.86
Dunfermline 8.29 3.25
Livingston 8.60 3.36
Gretna 12.00 n/a

Gretna has n/a because it only has one data point. It's no surprise that, again, the Old Firm is atop the heap. Reading this table can be tricky because being closer to the top is not always a good thing because teams can be consistently BAD as well as consistently GOOD. What it does show you is that Hibs are consistently inconsistent - middle of the pack. But we're certainly not alone in that respect.

Note
I didn't apply any weighting to the results meaning Hibs finishing position in 2000 carries as much weight as last season's. It's clear that finishing 3rd in 2004 has little impact on tomorrow's football when compared to finishing 10th this year. Again, there are all different ways you can prepare and present the data, it's really dependent on what story you're trying to tell (I have no agenda here) and how much effort you're prepared to put into it. I elected to keep things simple so we could get a high level view of the SPL for the last decade.

Just to show you how easily it is to present any story you want, consider this:
Avg League Position 2006-2010 (5 years)
Hibs : 6.4
Hearts : 4.8
Avg League Position 2001-2005 (5 years)
Hibs : 6.4
Hearts : 3.6

Looking at those numbers you could say that Hibs have remained consistent in their league position throughout the decade whereas Hearts actually started the decade better than they ended it (although clearly they're still ahead of us!). Statistics, huh? :wink:

Hibernian Verse
31-05-2011, 06:32 PM
Good post...but kind of suggests what everyone thinks and just fails to admit.

Aside from that, your standard deviation brought memories of frantically trying to understand it during A-Level geography...

ScottB
31-05-2011, 06:40 PM
Given Hearts level of expenditure compared to the rest, finishing any lower than 3rd is a disaster.

While they have finished third more than anyone else in the last decade, they have been no more immune to a bad season than anyone else. Personally I don't buy into this idea that any one club will ever lay claim to third place forever more.

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 06:44 PM
Given Hearts level of expenditure compared to the rest, finishing any lower than 3rd is a disaster.

While they have finished third more than anyone else in the last decade, they have been no more immune to a bad season than anyone else. Personally I don't buy into this idea that any one club will ever lay claim to third place forever more.

The level of expenditure they are applying to this is disproportionate to the rewards. I really wonder what Vlad and his guys are up to cos they may be many things but, despite the public persona, they are far from stupid. I think.

This just backs up the other data that is available that, based on income and expenditure, we are actually performing better than expected. :greengrin

HibsMax
31-05-2011, 06:46 PM
Given Hearts level of expenditure compared to the rest, finishing any lower than 3rd is a disaster.

While they have finished third more than anyone else in the last decade, they have been no more immune to a bad season than anyone else. Personally I don't buy into this idea that any one club will ever lay claim to third place forever more.
I agree and that was my initial motivatoin for digging. "Hearts the 3rd force?", I guffawed to myself. Then I looked at the numbers and it's hard to argue that they are not 3rd team over the last decade.

They might not be immune from a bad season but they've only been outside the Top Six once since 2000 and that was in 2007, and that would seem to indicate they are more immune than the rest of us.

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 06:56 PM
I agree and that was my initial motivatoin for digging. "Hearts the 3rd force?", I guffawed to myself. Then I looked at the numbers and it's hard to argue that they are not 3rd team over the last decade.

They might not be immune from a bad season but they've only been outside the Top Six once since 2000 and that was in 2007, and that would seem to indicate they are more immune than the rest of us.

Its directly related to expenditure. The top 8 in terms of expenditure are.

Celtic £316m
Rangers £279m
Hearts £71m
Aberdeen £46m
Hibs £39.1m
Kilmarnock £34.6m
Dundee United £29.9m
Motherwell £24.8m

Spooky or what??? :greengrin

There will be a few looking in that dont like this thread.

CB_NO3
31-05-2011, 06:56 PM
The things I look at are attendances and income to deter who are the biggest teams in the league, and looking at the figures we are 4th. The fact that we pay the 4th biggest wage in the league, slightly more than the sheep makes it even harder to accept that we are a club of loosers.

I dont know where our problems lie. I think its a mental problem we have as a club. Most Hibs teams I have witnessed cant be bothered turning up away to Hamiltons, ICTs and the like. Sorry I have went a wee bit off topic here, am just pi55ed off being a Hibs fan right now.

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 07:03 PM
The things I look at are attendances and income to deter who are the biggest teams in the league, and looking at the figures we are 4th. The fact that we pay the 4th biggest wage in the league, slightly more than the sheep makes it even harder to accept that we are a club of loosers.

I dont know where our problems lie. I think its a mental problem we have as a club. Most Hibs teams I have witnessed cant be bothered turning up away to Hamiltons, ICTs and the like. Sorry I have went a wee bit off topic here, am just pi55ed off being a Hibs fan right now.

Not true.

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 07:09 PM
The income table is as follows;

Celtic £568.9m
Rangers £454.8m
Hearts £73.7m
Aberdeen £70.5m
Hibs £67.7m
Kilmarnock £55.5m
Dundee Utd £40m
Motherwell £32.4m

Spookily again the clubs with the highest income fare better. The only exception is Hibs who are one better than their income suggests.

HibsMax
31-05-2011, 07:10 PM
The things I look at are attendances and income to deter who are the biggest teams in the league, and looking at the figures we are 4th. The fact that we pay the 4th biggest wage in the league, slightly more than the sheep makes it even harder to accept that we are a club of loosers.

I dont know where our problems lie. I think its a mental problem we have as a club. Most Hibs teams I have witnessed cant be bothered turning up away to Hamiltons, ICTs and the like. Sorry I have went a wee bit off topic here, am just pi55ed off being a Hibs fan right now.
The thing is, I don't think we have problems that are specific to Hibs. Excluding the Old Firm (who we know are 1 and 2) and Hearts (who I am saying / agreeing are 3rd) the remainder of the SPL faithful (five teams) finish, on average, between 6th and 7th and they are almost equally inconsistent (StdDev = 2.51 through 2.86). How do you squeeze five teams into two league positions? Easy. By being inconsistent. Actually, if you think about it, consistent inconsistency would make for a more competitive league since you don't know who's won the league before the season starts. It just doesn't work when you have two big fish in the same pond who "ruin" it for everyone else.


You could say the SPL consists of:
Celtic and Rangers (or Rangers and Celtic - I don't care)
Hearts
Five teams that find it really hard to separate themselves from one another.
Four other teams (out of ten or so) that swap in and out.




All of that said, you make a great point. It's so disappointing to see Hibs get a great result against a "big" team and then turn in a dull performance against a team we're supposed to beat - the players should be up for every game. But maybe that's part of the problem.....our expectations are too high. Maybe the list of teams we should beat is shorter than we think?

HibsMax
31-05-2011, 07:11 PM
The income...
Just to be clear, are you talking about earnings or wages?

CB_NO3
31-05-2011, 07:12 PM
Not true.
I remember when Aberdeen sacked Mcghee, Willie Miller got interviewed saying we pay the 4th or 5th biggest wage in the league, thats why he got punted. Am guessing the other 4th or 5th team was us. I doubt there is very much between Hibs and Aberdeen bar a few grand.

Who are the big earners at Aberdeen? From what I understand Diamond was there last big earner. Am guessing Deek, Liam Miller, De Graff and Ian Murray will be on more wages than the top bracket at Aberdeen.

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 07:16 PM
Just to be clear, are you talking about earnings or wages?

Income is income from published accounts. The expenditure is wages from published accounts.

Kindoff goes hand in hand with your excellent research.

NYHibby
31-05-2011, 07:16 PM
The income table is as follows;

Celtic £568.9m
Rangers £454.8m
Hearts £73.7m
Aberdeen £70.5m
Hibs £67.7m
Kilmarnock £55.5m
Dundee Utd £40m
Motherwell £32.4m

Spookily again the clubs with the highest income fare better. The only exception is Hibs who are one better than their income suggests.

Is this one year or an average? Given how prize money is distributed, you would expect finish and club income to correlated.

I wouldn't say Hibs are one better. I would say we are one worse at generating our own income (ie: excluding income from league sources).

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 07:17 PM
I remember when Aberdeen sacked Mcghee, Willie Miller got interviewed saying we pay the 4th or 5th biggest wage in the league, thats why he got punted. Am guessing the other 4th or 5th team was us. I doubt there is very much between Hibs and Aberdeen bar a few grand.

Who are the big earners at Aberdeen? From what I understand Diamond was there last big earner. Am guessing Deek, Liam Miller, De Graff and Ian Murray will be on more wages than the top bracket at Aberdeen.

The accounts don't break it down individually but publish as a whole.

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 07:18 PM
Is this one year or an average? Given how prize money is distributed, you would expect finish and club income to correlated.

I wouldn't say Hibs are one better. I would say we are one worse at generating our own income (ie: excluding income from league sources).

Its overall income/expenditure over a similar period to Hibsmax that some saddo had available.

HibsMax
31-05-2011, 07:19 PM
Income is income from published accounts. The expenditure is wages from published accounts.

Kindoff goes hand in hand with your excellent research.

For some reason I didn't even see your expenditure table the first time around. I must have been reading too quickly. ;)

As for "excellent research", all I did was look at wikipedia and take notes in Excel. ;)

CB_NO3
31-05-2011, 07:19 PM
Income is income from published accounts. The expenditure is wages from published accounts.

Kindoff goes hand in hand with your excellent research.

Does the boards wage count as expenditure? Which I believe is one of the highest in the league in % to income.

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 07:20 PM
Just to be clear, are you talking about earnings or wages?

wages are in post #6

HibsMax
31-05-2011, 07:21 PM
wages are in post #6

You could have included a link! sigh......

:is a wink necessary? smilie:

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 07:22 PM
Does the boards wage count as expenditure? Which I believe is one of the highest in the league in % to income.

Boards wages are different. Lat season Aberdeen had £301k directors pay. Hibs about £480k.

NYHibby
31-05-2011, 07:28 PM
Its overall income/expenditure over a similar period to Hibsmax that some saddo had available.

Sorry, I should have caught that from the magnitude of the figures.

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 07:30 PM
Sorry, I should have caught that from the magnitude of the figures.

Your point is correct though. It directly (almost) correlates the data that Hibsmax published.

The more you spend the better you do.

leith_hibs
31-05-2011, 07:34 PM
The things I look at are attendances and income to deter who are the biggest teams in the league, and looking at the figures we are 4th. The fact that we pay the 4th biggest wage in the league, slightly more than the sheep makes it even harder to accept that we are a club of loosers.

I dont know where our problems lie. I think its a mental problem we have as a club. Most Hibs teams I have witnessed cant be bothered turning up away to Hamiltons, ICTs and the like. Sorry I have went a wee bit off topic here, am just pi55ed off being a Hibs fan right now.


Spot on bud....it's been like this since the 80's and very depressing....BUT i wonder if playing the same teams 4 times a season must do the players heads in as well as the supporters....maybe if we moved to a 18 team league things could change for a few under achieving clubs

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 07:40 PM
Does the boards wage count as expenditure? Which I believe is one of the highest in the league in % to income.

Incidently, according to the accounts, Hearts, Killie and St.Mirren boards all work for free. Motherwells board have worked for free since 2002.

Apparently..............

Feed McGraw
31-05-2011, 07:44 PM
Hearts are a joke, but with us being such a wee, insignificant club, as opposed to their giant status, well, I just don`t understand why they are - and always have been, insanely jealous of our club and our standing in the game.

It must have something to do with their zombiesque support just not getting what it`s all about, but knowing deep down that we have something BETTER than them.

They must also realise what a horrible, horrible bunch they truly are AND getting WORSE as time goes by.

Third force, ha, soon to be a spent force. GUFFIES !

ScottB
31-05-2011, 08:09 PM
Your point is correct though. It directly (almost) correlates the data that Hibsmax published.

The more you spend the better you do.

Well, as an average, our rubbish placing this season and Hearts last year show that splashing the cash isn't a cast iron guarantee, though over the average over a period of years suggests it does...

Springbank
31-05-2011, 08:18 PM
This is great research…but…

Hearts are nothing.

So they have had a relatively consistent decade finishing on average with around half the points of the league winners. That is shabby in anyone's book.

In the early 70s it was Hibs turn. We were splitting the OF all the time and just had a perennially European Cup challenging 9IAR Jock Stein Celtic in the way.

In the 80s S.A.F. (then just AF or Fergie) had Aberdeen winning doubles and retaining leagues.

Those are actually what I understand to be achievements. I looked that word up in Wikipedia, and it (funnily enough) did not say "third place, Big club, massive debt, unsustainable business model, non-compliant pitch, death-trap stadium, sectarian support, BNP leafleting, or Steven Fulton's face"

The case rests.

The Falcon
31-05-2011, 08:48 PM
I dont think that, given the financial gulf that exists now it is nigh impossible to break the duopoly, under today's conditions.

You're right though it is great research that basically exposes a lot of the misinformation that is posted on here masquerading as fact for what it actually is, nonsense.


This is great research…but…

Hearts are nothing.

So they have had a relatively consistent decade finishing on average with around half the points of the league winners. That is shabby in anyone's book.

In the early 70s it was Hibs turn. We were splitting the OF all the time and just had a perennially European Cup challenging 9IAR Jock Stein Celtic in the way.

In the 80s S.A.F. (then just AF or Fergie) had Aberdeen winning doubles and retaining leagues.

Those are actually what I understand to be achievements. I looked that word up in Wikipedia, and it (funnily enough) did not say "third place, Big club, massive debt, unsustainable business model, non-compliant pitch, death-trap stadium, sectarian support, BNP leafleting, or Steven Fulton's face"

The case rests.

The Falcon
31-05-2011, 09:03 PM
Perhaps if the thread was titled "Hibs doing OK overall" some other posters may contribute. :greengrin

Cabbage East
31-05-2011, 09:56 PM
You got a bird mate?

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 10:00 PM
You got a bird mate?

And thats aimed at who?

R'Albin
31-05-2011, 10:02 PM
After reading an earlier post about Jackie McNamara's comments in the DR re: Hearts being the 3rd force, I decided to look into this some more myself to find out what's really going on in the SPL over the past decade. Here's what I did. I looked at league placement since 2000 and determined how many years a team had played in the SPL, best/worst/average/standard deviation finishing position. I didn't do anything to account for the split, I just looked at the standings after all the games were played.

There are really two distinct categories that teams fall into:
1. teams that have been in the SPL every year since 2000.
2. teams that have been in and out of the SPL.

I took all the data and ordered it as follows:
1. number of years in SPL (because I think that the more data points you have, the more reliable the data is likely to be - and as it happens, the average league position shows that teams that have not been in the SPL continuously since 2000 finish lower in the league - with no exceptions).
2. average league position.

The Standings


Team Years Best Worst Average
Celtic 11 1 2 1.45
Rangers 11 1 3 1.64
Hearts 11 2 8 4.27
Hibs 11 3 10 6.09
Aberdeen 11 3 11 6.27
Kilmarnock 11 4 11 7.00
Dundee Utd 11 3 11 7.18
Motherwell 11 3 12 7.45
Dunfermline 7 4 12 8.29
Inverness 6 7 12 8.50
St. Mirren 6 10 12 10.83
Dundee 5 6 12 8.00
Livingston 5 3 12 8.60
Falkirk 5 7 12 9.20
St. Johnstone 4 8 12 9.50
Hamilton 3 7 12 9.33
Partick 2 10 12 11.00
Gretna 1 12 12 12.00



So make of that what you will. I won't list all my conclusions because statistics can almost be made to support any story. All I will say is that there are a few tiers in Scottish football (and more than a few tears).

Tier One : Celtic and Rangers
Tier Two : Hearts
Tier Three : Hibs and Aberdeen
Tier Four : Kilmarnock, Dundee Utd and Motherwell
Tier Five : everyone else

Celtic and Rangers are clearly head and shoulders above everyone else.

Hearts seem to have created a little separation between themselves and the rest of the pack (almost two full league positions on average). Also, Hearts are the only team outside the Old Firm that has avoided finishing 10th or worse (9th even).

To be honest, tiers 3 and 4 could probably be combined but I split them up based upon average league position and there is a small gap between Aberdeen and Kilmarnock.

I mentioned standard deviation above but haven't mentioned it yet. What that shows us is how consistent each team is. The smaller the standard deviation, the more closely grouped the data i.e., a team that finishes 1st or 2nd every year will have a low standard deviation whereas a team, like Hibs, who go from 4th to 10th will have a higher value. A low value of standard deviation means consistent, NOT good e.g.,. St. Mirren has a stddev of 0.75 but that's because they consistently finished in the bottom part of the table (10th, 11th and 12th). Without further ado, here's that data:


Team Average Std Dev
Celtic 1.45 0.52
Rangers 1.64 0.67
St. Mirren 10.83 0.75
Partick 11.00 1.41
Hearts 4.27 1.74
Inverness 8.50 1.87
St. Johnstone 9.50 1.91
Falkirk 9.20 2.17
Hibs 6.09 2.51
Hamilton 9.33 2.52
Dundee 8.00 2.55
Kilmarnock 7.00 2.68
Aberdeen 6.27 2.69
Motherwell 7.45 2.70
Dundee Utd 7.18 2.86
Dunfermline 8.29 3.25
Livingston 8.60 3.36
Gretna 12.00 n/a

Gretna has n/a because it only has one data point. It's no surprise that, again, the Old Firm is atop the heap. Reading this table can be tricky because being closer to the top is not always a good thing because teams can be consistently BAD as well as consistently GOOD. What it does show you is that Hibs are consistently inconsistent - middle of the pack. But we're certainly not alone in that respect.

Note
I didn't apply any weighting to the results meaning Hibs finishing position in 2000 carries as much weight as last season's. It's clear that finishing 3rd in 2004 has little impact on tomorrow's football when compared to finishing 10th this year. Again, there are all different ways you can prepare and present the data, it's really dependent on what story you're trying to tell (I have no agenda here) and how much effort you're prepared to put into it. I elected to keep things simple so we could get a high level view of the SPL for the last decade.

Just to show you how easily it is to present any story you want, consider this:
Avg League Position 2006-2010 (5 years)
Hibs : 6.4
Hearts : 4.8
Avg League Position 2001-2005 (5 years)
Hibs : 6.4
Hearts : 3.6

Looking at those numbers you could say that Hibs have remained consistent in their league position throughout the decade whereas Hearts actually started the decade better than they ended it (although clearly they're still ahead of us!). Statistics, huh? :wink:

Very interesting stats:agree: I would have had the sheep higher than us though...

Kaiser1962
31-05-2011, 10:06 PM
Very interesting stats:agree: I would have had the sheep higher than us though...

I would have as well cos they did ok with Tangoman. Maybe we tend to look on the downside too often.

TrickyNicky
01-06-2011, 03:53 AM
You got a bird mate?

I think it's directed at me, he won't take " no " for an answer !

Kaiser1962
01-06-2011, 07:55 AM
I think it's directed at me, he won't take " no " for an answer !

Is he a stalker? :greengrin

HibsMax
01-06-2011, 04:24 PM
This is great research…but…

Hearts are nothing.

So they have had a relatively consistent decade finishing on average with around half the points of the league winners. That is shabby in anyone's book.

In the early 70s it was Hibs turn. We were splitting the OF all the time and just had a perennially European Cup challenging 9IAR Jock Stein Celtic in the way.

In the 80s S.A.F. (then just AF or Fergie) had Aberdeen winning doubles and retaining leagues.

Those are actually what I understand to be achievements. I looked that word up in Wikipedia, and it (funnily enough) did not say "third place, Big club, massive debt, unsustainable business model, non-compliant pitch, death-trap stadium, sectarian support, BNP leafleting, or Steven Fulton's face"

The case rests.
I'm not saying that Hearts are one thing or another but the evidence does suggest that if you use final league standings as a measure, Hearts are behind the Old Firm and above everyone else by quite a clear margin. Picking a reasonable time window is tricky. Some people might say that all that matters is the last season. Some might want to look at ALL the data. I tried to find a happy medium and picked the last decade but I admit that what happened in 2002 has little relevance to what is happening currently. That said, we HAVE to go back several years if you want to find a pattern. Maybe the last three years would be sufficient? I have the data in a spreadsheet so I can see how much the pattern changes by selecting a different historical data window.

There are other ways that we could make use of available data. We could look at results against specific teams. We could exclude ALL results for games that involve either of the Old Firm. We could include cup results. We could try and weight values using goals for / against. It really just depends on how deep you want to dig and even then the value of the results will still be questionable unless you can get everyone to agree that the data collected is relevant and manipulated in a fair way.

As for the last piece in bold, that's part of the problem when you present a case. I was looking at ONLY league position, nothing else. You're obviously of the opinion that league position is not the only measure that should be used and I'm not going to argue with that. However, league position, IMO, is a much better metric because it's representative of a 38 game season. Most cup games are one-offs and their importance shouldn't be given that much weight in my opinion. For example, St. Johnstone were in the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup but they're only managed 8th place in the last two years and before that they were in the First Division. While I think that getting to the semis is a GREAT achievement, I don't think it should catapult them higher up the standings. Just my opinion.

HibsMax
01-06-2011, 04:36 PM
Perhaps if the thread was titled "Hibs doing OK overall" some other posters may contribute. :greengrin

I tried but I can only edit the subject WITHIN the thread, not the title itself. Maybe an Admin will do that. :wink:

HibsMax
01-06-2011, 04:58 PM
Team Years Best Worst Average Std Dev
Rangers 3 1 1 1.00 0.00
Celtic 3 2 2 2.00 0.00
Dundee Utd 3 3 5 4.00 1.00
Hearts 3 3 6 4.00 1.73
Motherwell 3 5 7 6.00 1.00
Hibs 3 4 10 6.67 3.06
Aberdeen 3 4 9 7.33 2.89
Kilmarnock 3 5 11 8.00 3.00
Hamilton 3 7 12 9.33 2.52
St. Mirren 3 10 11 10.67 0.58
St. Johnstone 2 8 8 8.00 0.00
Inverness 2 7 12 9.50 3.54
Falkirk 2 10 12 11.00 1.41


Again, ordered as follows:
1. Years in SPL
2. Average league position

Dundee United above Hearts because they are more consistent (lower Std Dev).

Rangers and Celtic obviously finished first and second each of the last three years since they have Std Dev = 0.0 (plus, Best = Worst in both cases).

Although Aberdeen never finished 10th, Hibs are still above them because Aberdeen finished 9, 9 & 4 compared with Hibs 10, 4 & 6.

Looking at the last 3 years as opposed to the last decade (11 seasons) probably gives a more accurate representation and explains why Hibs fans feel the way they do. If we look over the last decade then we can see that Hibs appear to be the 4th team but as I've said before, what happened 7 or 8 years ago has little or no bearing on where we are as a team now. By looking just at the last 3 years we can see that Hibs slip down to 6th which is probably where we deserve to be, much more so than 4th I would say.

Motherwell and Dundee United above us. I wonder how many Hibs fans would rate either of those teams as better than Hibs? In a pub debate I would probably laugh in your face if you said that but over the past three years it's difficult to argue.

Andy Bee
01-06-2011, 05:42 PM
As last season could be considered a rogue season and shouldn't happen again anytime soon hopefully, what would the figures look like if last season was omitted? If you still have the spreadsheet handy Max.

HibsMax
01-06-2011, 06:14 PM
As last season could be considered a rogue season and shouldn't happen again anytime soon hopefully, what would the figures look like if last season was omitted? If you still have the spreadsheet handy Max.


Team Years Best Worst Average Std Dev
Rangers 3 1 2 1.33 0.58
Celtic 3 1 2 1.67 0.58
Dundee Utd 3 3 5 4.33 1.15
Motherwell 3 3 7 5.00 2.00
Hibs 3 4 6 5.33 1.15
Hearts 3 3 8 5.67 2.52
Aberdeen 3 4 9 5.67 2.89
Falkirk 3 7 12 9.67 2.52
Kilmarnock 3 8 11 10.00 1.73
St. Mirren 3 10 11 10.33 0.58
------------------------------------------------
Hamilton 2 7 9 8.00 1.41
Inverness 2 9 12 10.50 2.12
------------------------------------------------
St. Johnstone 1 8 8 8.00 n/a
Gretna 1 12 12 12.00 n/a


We found a way to climb above Hearts. :wink:

Andy Bee
01-06-2011, 06:33 PM
Team Years Best Worst Average Std Dev
Rangers 3 1 2 1.33 0.58
Celtic 3 1 2 1.67 0.58
Dundee Utd 3 3 5 4.33 1.15
Motherwell 3 3 7 5.00 2.00
Hibs 3 4 6 5.33 1.15
Hearts 3 3 8 5.67 2.52
Aberdeen 3 4 9 5.67 2.89
Falkirk 3 7 12 9.67 2.52
Kilmarnock 3 8 11 10.00 1.73
St. Mirren 3 10 11 10.33 0.58
------------------------------------------------
Hamilton 2 7 9 8.00 1.41
Inverness 2 9 12 10.50 2.12
------------------------------------------------
St. Johnstone 1 8 8 8.00 n/a
Gretna 1 12 12 12.00 n/a


We found a way to climb above Hearts. :wink:
:greengrin I thought it would

Kaiser1962
01-06-2011, 06:50 PM
Fascinating stuff guys.

Dundee Utd (since Potter) seem to be side that is consistently punching above itself.




Team Years Best Worst Average Std Dev
Rangers 3 1 2 1.33 0.58
Celtic 3 1 2 1.67 0.58
Dundee Utd 3 3 5 4.33 1.15
Motherwell 3 3 7 5.00 2.00
Hibs 3 4 6 5.33 1.15
Hearts 3 3 8 5.67 2.52
Aberdeen 3 4 9 5.67 2.89
Falkirk 3 7 12 9.67 2.52
Kilmarnock 3 8 11 10.00 1.73
St. Mirren 3 10 11 10.33 0.58
------------------------------------------------
Hamilton 2 7 9 8.00 1.41
Inverness 2 9 12 10.50 2.12
------------------------------------------------
St. Johnstone 1 8 8 8.00 n/a
Gretna 1 12 12 12.00 n/a


We found a way to climb above Hearts. :wink:

HibsMax
01-06-2011, 07:23 PM
Fascinating stuff guys.

Dundee Utd (since Potter) seem to be side that is consistently punching above itself.
I did things differently this time:
1. got rid of years as a measure. if a club wasn't in the SPL in a given year then I said they placed 13th. yeah, that means that some years there are multiple clubs finishing "13th" but the whole point of that is just to make sure their average is higher because they weren't in the SPL. The longer you are not in the SPL, the more 13ths you will have giving you a higher average. that's the theory at least....

2. I added weights as follows:
2010 = 10
2009 = 9
...
2001 = 1

For each team I multiply their final league position by the multiplier associated with each year. 2010 is 10 so lends twice as much weight as the data from 2005 with a weight of 5. This means that the older data has less of an impact on the final results, but it still has an impact. Whether or not my weights are "good enough" is open to debate. If a team won the league every year, they would have an average of 5.5 so that is the best score a team can get. The worst score a team can get is 71.5 i.e. 12th in 2001 and no SPL action since.

I've added a line dashed where I think the gap between two teams is significant enough to draw attention to it.



Team Average
Rangers 8.20
Celtic 8.80
---------------------
Hearts 23.80
---------------------
Dundee Utd 32.20
Hibs 34.20
Aberdeen 34.80
Motherwell 35.90
---------------------
Kilmarnock 41.80
---------------------
Inverness 53.90
Falkirk 58.90
St. Mirren 61.90
St. Johnstone 61.90
Hamilton 61.90
Dunfermline 64.10
Livingston 66.80
Dundee 67.50
Partick 70.60
Gretna 70.80


This again shows us that Hearts are up there. Some people might be happier because this data representation shows us being much closer to Aberdeen and that *feels* more correct IMO. (edit: actually scratch that, we were pretty close to Aberdeen in the last table as well).

Keith_M
01-06-2011, 07:45 PM
Is there a league table of posters with far too much time on their hands?



:greengrin

HibsMax
01-06-2011, 07:53 PM
Is there a league table of posters with far too much time on their hands?



:greengrin

LOL. Playing with numbers comes easier to some than others. :wink: