Tomorrow Liverpool plays Manchester City in the Premier League. As things stand now I don’t plan to watch this game. This entire season so far, I’ve only watched two games. First, I’d gone to a local pub to watch Liverpool’s visit to Manchester City, back in September. Liverpool got thrashed 5-0.
Then in October, I went to Wembley to watch Tottenham Hotspur play Liverpool. The Spurs won 4-1. These two remain Liverpool’s only defeats of the season.
I might consider myself to be a mostly rational person but I sometimes do fall for the correlation-implies-causation bias, and think that my watching those games had something to do with Liverpool’s losses in them. Never mind that these were away games played against other top sides which attack aggressively. And so I have this irrational “fear” that if I watch tomorrow’s game (even if it’s from a pub), it might lead to a heavy Liverpool defeat.
And so I told Baada, a Manchester City fan, that I’m not planning to watch tomorrow’s game. And he got back to me with some statistics, which he’d heard from a podcast. Apparently it’s been 80 years since Manchester City did the league “double” (winning both home and away games) over Liverpool. And that it’s been 15 years since they’ve won at Anfield. So, he suggested, there’s a good chance that tomorrow’s game won’t result in a mauling for Liverpool, even if I were to watch it.
With the easy availability of statistics, it has become a thing among football commentators to supply them during the commentary. And from first hearing, things like “never done this in 80 years” or “never done that for last 15 years” sounds compelling, and you’re inclined to believe that there is something to these numbers.
I don’t remember if it was Navjot Sidhu who said that statistics are like a bikini (“what they reveal is significant but what they hide is crucial” or something). That Manchester City hasn’t done a double over Liverpool in 80 years doesn’t mean a thing, nor does it say anything that they haven’t won at Anfield in 15 years.
Basically, until the mid 2000s, City were a middling team. I remember telling Baada after the 2007 season (when Stuart Pearce got fired as City manager) that they’d be surely relegated next season. And then came the investment from Thaksin Shinawatra. And the appointment of Sven-Goran Eriksson as manager. And then the youtube signings. And later the investment from the Abu Dhabi investment group. And in 2016 the appointment of Pep Guardiola as manager. And the significant investment in players after that.
In other words, Manchester City of today is a completely different team from what they were even 2-3 years back. And they’re surely a vastly improved team compared to a decade ago. I know Baada has been following them for over 15 years now, but they’re unrecognisable from the time he started following them!
Yes, even with City being a much improved team, Liverpool have never lost to them at home in the last few years – but then Liverpool have generally been a strong team playing at home in these years! On the other hand, City’s 18-game winning streak (which included wins at Chelsea and Manchester United) only came to an end (with a draw against Crystal Palace) rather recently.
So anyways, here are the takeaways:
- Whether I watch the game or not has no bearing on how well Liverpool will play. The instances from this season so far are based on 1. small samples and 2. biased samples (since I’ve chosen to watch Liverpool’s two toughest games of the season)
- 80-year history of a fixture has no bearing since teams have evolved significantly in these 80 years. So saying a record stands so long has no meaning or predictive power for tomorrow’s game.
- City have been in tremendous form this season, and Liverpool have just lost their key player (by selling Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona), so City can fancy their chances. That said, Anfield has been a fortress this season, so Liverpool might just hold (or even win it).
All of this points to a good game tomorrow! Maybe I should just watch it!
I told you so!