When trying to predict the future be careful not to miss a step

Walking downstairs the other day I missed a step. I missed a step and tripped. Once I realised I had not hurt myself, I smiled. Because I knew what I had done wrong.

Everton had eight shots on target against Manchester City last Saturday – the most by any team against City in the Premier League since Southampton in November 2015.

What do you make of that fact? Some pundits and fans took it as an encouraging sign, a source of hope for Everton in the future, starting at Burnley on Saturday.

I think that when we do this sort of analysis often we miss out a step. We miss a step and can trip ourselves up. The bit we leave out should come after we hear a fact but before we draw an inference from it. What we should do at that point is ask a question: what does this fact normally signify about what might happen next?

Southampton in November 2015 had eight shots on target against City and lost 3-1, the same as Everton last Saturday. In their next Premier League game they had five shots on target and scored once in a draw at home to Aston Villa. Which, I imagine, was slightly disappointing.

Southampton in their next six Premier League games lost four times, drew once – that stalemate with Villa – and won just once. It was their worst sequence of the season.

How many shots on target a team have against City signals nothing.

I went back over all of City’s Premier League games in the seven seasons from 2012-13 to 2018-19. I noted the number of shots on target by their opponents then looked at what happened in their opponents’ next Premier League game.

There was no relationship between shots on target against City and anything that happened in the next game – shots on target in the next game, goals in the next game or result in the next game. Neither was there any relationship between total attempts against City and total attempts, goals or result in the next game.

This season two teams have taken points off City. After drawing 2-2 with them Tottenham lost 1-0 to Newcastle. After winning 3-2 against them Norwich lost 2-0 to Burnley then Crystal Palace. Norwich had played well against City, though Tottenham had not particularly.

There were other reasons, beside the eight shots on target, for thinking that Everton had played well in defeat to City, but each of those other reasons also raises the question of whether it can tell us anything about the future or only the past.

The driver who picked me up from the airport last July told me how hot the weather had been while I was away. “This is now the longest heatwave for more than 40 years,” he said.

He chatted as he drove. “I have invited some friends round for a barbecue on Saturday,” he said. This was Monday. “I wouldn’t usually plan that far ahead, even in the summer, but –” he caught my eye in the mirror then took one hand off the wheel and waved it at the sunshine outside – “this is the longest heatwave for more than 40 years. It hasn’t been dry for this long since 1976.”

I thought of him that Saturday as I sat indoors looking out through a window at pouring rain. The 1976 heatwave, I discovered when I did an internet search, had ended with thunderstorms.

On Saturday in the Premier League Leicester will play at Liverpool. For Brendan Rodgers, manager of Leicester, it will be his first return to Anfield since he was manager of Liverpool.

In December 2014 pundits and fans were complaining about Liverpool’s worst start to a season in 50 years. Some wanted Rodgers out. A question occurred to me that I had not heard anybody else ask, so I answered it in the Racing Post. What had happened half a century earlier after that other bad start?

From the first 16 games of 2014-15 Liverpool had taken 21 points. From the first 16 games of 1964-65 they had taken 16 points – or they would have done if in those days there had been three points for a win.

From the remaining 26 games of 1964-65 Liverpool gained the equivalent of 45 points, or an average of 1.7 per game. And they won the FA Cup.

From the last 22 Premier League games of 2014-15 Liverpool gained 41 points, an even higher average of 1.9 per game. They did not win the FA Cup but they did get to the semi-finals in the FA Cup and League Cup. Not a great season but in the end not terrible. Rodgers kept his job, if only for a while.

Facts tell us what happened. If you do not like what happened you can complain if you want to. But if you are concerned about what might happen next, try to think it through step by step. And do not miss that step which trips so many of us. Does this fact tell us anything about the future as well as the past? And if so, what?

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