iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 29/06/2026

I have to be in school WhatsApp groups, there's *zero* reason for me to engage with Nextdoor

Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 29/06/2026

There are a few things I simply don't get about this great country, but nothing, absolutely nothing, has prepared me for the insanity that are school parents' WhatsApp groups

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 29/06/2026

He's good but I don't think he's worth it relative to what he'll cost

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 29/06/2026

I'm on twitter retirement again, but to be honest I hate this place almost as much

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 29/06/2026

Making a very brief return to this platform simply to say that I hate absolutely everything about how our transfer window is shaping up.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 24/12/2025

I've been posting football "content" over on the other side, and this one I like enough to share over here

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 16/12/2025

A thread on these frauds from West Midlands

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

This might be the most bsky-coded comment of all time.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

And then I guess the other thing I'd say is that it's not that I think that it's impossible for slighter players to be successful in the PL, it's that the adaptation for it is much longer and probably requires some changes in playing style.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

Granted, reported footballer weight is pretty unreliable, but Modric is both listed as 7-10 kg heavier than Simons and also last played in the premier league more than 10 years ago when I think it was a very different league in terms of athleticism.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

not a top player. Both these opinions can probably coexist. I'm not going to press this issue, I'm sorry for taking a shot at your writing and best of luck.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

You know what, on this point, I actually agree. I should not have done that. I think we're coming at this from different angles. You think Simons would be better in a better tactical context - that's probably true. I think that even in this context he's demonstrated enough to convince me he's

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

I've read this post 3 times, for which I blame no one but myself, and not only do I not have a better an understanding of whether Palhinha+Bentancour are effective together, I don't even have an idea of how to use the framework you presented to reach that understanding.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

This is, to quite my teenage son, waffle. "I'm just asking questions here", "I've demonstrated nothing here, but wrote a lot of words laypeople who are not subject matters experts will find very impressive" waffle.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

And I think it's entirely valid to ask why he produces less than other Tottenham attacking players, all hampered, I assume, by the same system, despite having as many touches on the ball per game as the rest of them (and more, in some cases)

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

My initial point was that he has inherent physical limitations that will prevent him from being a productive player on a top end team regardless of tactical context. I don't think he'll be a 0.16 xG+xA player on Chelsea. I think he'd be about 0.25 xG+xA player for Chelsea. Which is still very bad.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

The burden of proof is on you to justify why it's not merely interesting but useful. Your piece hasn't done that. There's a million different ways to present that data. If you're going to suggest deviating from the heterodox way of presenting it, you have to make the case why your way is better.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

No, I would expect it would look better. But not "this is a good player" better

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

My second constructive critique is that if you think the image on the left is a more useful graphical representation of passing relationships in a game than the image on the right, then please do read, like, just a single book by Edward Tufte

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

If you want substantive critique, my substantive critique is that eigenvector centrality is somewhere between irrelevant and misleading in extremely small, fully connected networks like passing graphs and is probably highly correlated to just the number of passes a player made

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

Also, goal scoring is just a bad analogy in general because it's a high variance event that requires far more games to demonstrate any kind of statistical significance.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

Correct. If you scored 1 goal in 1 game that would likely not pass muster in terms of statistical significance. If you scored 5 in 5, I'd probably have some ground to say you're a better goalscorer than someone who scored 6 in 13.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

P90 metrics are specifically meant to address the case of a player with limited minutes because they're meant to be representative in the context of the minutes played. They only become irrelevant if the minute sample is so small as to not be statistically significant. This is not the case here

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

That's not me having a go at you. Me having a go at you would be asking what university are you a professor at, so that I know which one to swerve for my kids education, because arrogance and ignorance is not a good combination for an educator.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

The analogy is not applicable to this case. Which hypothesis do you think is more likely to be proven true? A. If Xavi Simons played ~50% more minutes, his p90 output would drastically improve? B. If Xavi Simons played ~50% more minutes, his p90 output would stay roughly the same?

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

In all seriousness, I want to get back to long form writing, but I don't want to support substack because of the Nazis

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

I'm just back temporarily. I'm too busy setting up a substack where I present a relatively in-the-weeds concept from my chosen field to football audience without ever making a coherent argument on why it's useful in the football domain

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

He has not played in one game, he's played 61% of league minutes available to him, and before he got benched in the last few games, that percentage was higher. Claiming that this sample is unrepresentative is disingenuous.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

I should start a substack. You can apparently get a decent following there calling yourself an analyst despite not understanding why p90 metrics are useful to analyse player performance

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

The wider context is that Spurs touch distribution between their own players isn't unusual. Of course Chelsea players have more attacking touches - they have a much better attack. But within Spurs attack, Xavi isn't starved of touches, relative to other Spurs players

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

Nope, definitely second

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

I have news for you - that's how the touch distribution for *all* teams looks like. Attacking players get less touches than midfielders and defenders. Here's Chelsea. The highest attacking player is Neto in 8th place.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

Except that is simply not true. He sees the second highest amount of touches in the attacking third when he's on the pitch. Yes, all spurs players get less attacking touches but you can still compare them to each other and he does less with more share of these touches than all his teammates

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

He's underplayed because he's been terrible. When he plays he gets plenty of touches

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

The claim that I'm making is that he's a high usage player within the context of Spurs attack and he's doing absolutely nothing useful with that.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 01/12/2025

He has the second highest number of touches p90 in attacking third on Spurs. I don't think "rarely sees the ball" is supported by evidence. What is true is that he simply can't do anything when he has the ball because he's extremely light weight and gets easily muscled off it

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 11/11/2025

"sometimes" does a lot of heavy lifting here because even his carry numbers are *dreadful*

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 11/11/2025

One day, behavioural science will be advanced enough to explain how Morgan Rogers is considered by so many to be one of the best players in the league despite having a literal flaming pile of dog poop for statistical profile

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 10/11/2025

Someone looked it up...

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 10/11/2025

This is a very dumb stat but guess which player in the premier league has the highest take on success rate with at least 7 attempted?

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 10/11/2025

Enzo Fernandez is also 3rd in the league in total NPxG + xA (6.3) and 5th in progressive passes (80)

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 10/11/2025

Fun stat to highlight both how good he's been and also the absolutely dire state of striker quality in the Premier League: Enzo Fernandez is currently 4th in the league in total NPxG (3.8). Not 4th amongst midfielders, 4th overall.

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 09/11/2025

Apparently the biggest drawback is that its harder to go from elevated -> deep tunnel if you need to

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 09/11/2025

Since I have absolutely no idea who else to ask - what's the benefit of doing cut and cover over elevated? Elevated is cheaper and seems to have the same limitation in terms of needing to tear down buildings...

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 09/11/2025

Garnacho against Wolves yesterday. Led the team in xA (1.26) and successful deliveries into penalty area (10) and provided relentless passing threat into dangerous areas.

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Reposted by Dmitry

The Chelsea Podcast @chelseapodcast.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

NEW EPISODE! A bit later in the week than usual... but we got to talk about three games with the excellent @dmitry.mclachbot.com and ponder on the issue of our revolving centre backs. #CFC #ChelseaFC #TheChelseaPodcast #KTBFFH open.spotify.com/episode/60HF...

open.spotify.com

The Mixed Bag Episode

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Dmitry @dmitry.mclachbot.com · 03/11/2025

I mean, it's from the RBL official website. I don't know why they would have incentives to lie about it.

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