Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I've been controversial yet again...

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Today's episode has a strong theme of food so make sure you have a cuppa and biscuit close! Jane and Fi discuss jam sandwiches at 3am, chutney taste tests and we hear from correspondents on dog snacks. Plus, Jane and Fi are joined by Ian Graham speaking about his new book 'How to Win the Premier League: The Inside Story of Football’s Data Revolution'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Hannah Quinn Podcast Producer: Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You know, you might have had a fantastic time. It could have been fun time, spinster. You could have been a right goer on the quiet. Yeah, good. Could have been spinning for all you were worth. Really, really enjoying your freedoms. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open.

Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Welcome. welcome jane is having some thoughts about chutney on the podcast that brought you some quite inventive chat about fish poachers kettles well very helpful going across two hobs all of that i'm just going through a phase of buying i I think we all do this, don't we? Was it Dominic Raab, former Conservative Home Secretary? Was it Foreign Secretary?

Foreign. OK, he used to get the same or send someone out for the same Pret baguette day in... Cheese and tomato. ..day out. I think it was tuna. No, because he was accused of throwing the bits of tomato wasn't he oh was he yeah oh dear across the room right well um in the end uh when the sea was open bullying allegations

um did for him and i think he did resign anyway it just seems like a lifetime ago all that um but i'm going through a phase of buying this exactly the same sandwich every day from m&s wensleydale and carrot chutney. We were just talking about chutney because I think... Sorry. Yes, I hope you get... Are you all right? Yes, I don't even go there. Oh, God.

So I am at the moment, I can't perceive, I can't conceive of any other kind of lunch. I'm obsessed by that carrot chutney. But if you'd said to me three weeks ago, do you like carrot chutney? I'd have said, I can't conceive of any other kind of lunch. I'm obsessed by that carrot chutney. But if you'd said to me three weeks ago, do you like carrot chutney? I'd have said, no, of course not. There's something about the combination with the very mild crumbly cheese. Well, that's good.

It's a Wallace and Gromit cheese. So I wonder whether that, because I recognised your sandwich and I thought it was the Wensleydale and celery that you were very rude about when I was taste testing that and actually had it on a Monday, didn't have it on a Tuesday. I don't like celery. I'd really gone off it by Wednesday. Yeah, OK.

Hello, Craig. But that sounds much better. I know what you mean, but a carrot chutney, so is it shreds of carrot or chunks of carrot? No, just shreds. So there's only a hint of carrot. And interestingly, we've had a number of emails about pets and carrots. Pets and carrots.

Once again, this unproduced, though curiously slick podcast. It's got a theme. Can I just pause there on the carrot thing? I don't think a chutney ever really tastes of what's in a chutney, doesn't it? Just tastes of chutney. Exactly. If you did a blind taste test

between an apple, a carrot, and, I don't know, even a sweet potato chutney, you'd just go chutney, wouldn't you? You wouldn't be able to tell what the individual thing was. I think you might have hit on a very real truth there. Just taste of pickle and sweet.

It's just, it's sugary. Yeah. That's it. That's chutary. Yeah. That's it. That's chutney. If you're from the Chutney Protection League and you've got something to bung in here, let us know. Jane and Fee at Timestop Radio.

But Jenny says, catching up with the podcast, and just to let you know, we have a golden retriever called Ollie. Absolutely loves carrots, broccoli, lettuce and cucumber. Actually, he will pretty much eat anything with the exception of his worming tablet this is still a work in progress yes i think with worms you know when your kids get worms um and i'm afraid both of my children did have worms um they make their presence felt with great drama the worms but But the medication works like a dream.

Yeah. It's so quick. Ovex. Yes. And the whole family has to take it. The whole family has to take it. But with the kitties, you can just sort of smuggle it into a jam sandwich.

Although mine were a bit surprised to be offered a jam sandwich in the small hours of the morning. It's just, why this now? But that's one of those medical miracles, the Ovex, isn't it? Let's hear it for the people who came up with that. Yeah, it does really, really work.

I'm sorry Ollie's struggling with his, though. We always favoured the liquid. It's quite nice and kind of strawberry flavoured. It was the only time I've been recognised in my local hood was when I was buying a bumper pack of worming tablets for the whole family. And a very nice guy waited for me to leave the pharmacy and said

are you feet lover? Yes and I've got worms Hello Right I'm sure he still admires your work I don't know

he looked a little bit perturbed actually you know because the pharmacist just was kind of shouting do you want a big pack? OK

I went to the chemist yesterday. I've spoken before about how good my chemists are, and they are brilliant. But my medication was waiting. I didn't even have to give my name. And the lovely bloke just said, you see, Jane, you get everything for free now. Isn't it marvellous?

And I thought, yeah. She's old. She's here. She's really old. She's not paying anymore. Have you found that you've actually treated many more minor ailments since turning 60 because it is free? I'm travelling London almost relentlessly.

I mean, people think I've just come into work early. I've been on the buses since as soon as I could be for free. Oh, God, not today. Because actually public transport in London is challenging when it gets hot. Yeah, but do you remember yesterday, was it Cheryl WhatsAppped the programme, the radio programme, and just said, look, for God's sake, will you shut up?

I'm in Aberystwyth, mid Wales, beautiful place. Breathing. Yeah, it's not hot. Yeah. So, yes, we make an exemption for the Welsh area. But actually, I think the Victoria line has come in for real flack during the heat bumps because it has gone up to over 30 degrees down there.

It's really, it's just horrible. Is that the deepest line? I think some parts of it must be. Okay. Yeah, and the Jubilee line's quite fiercely underneath the ground as well. But I do wonder, because we have this huge conversation, you know, about great big projects in this country which we haven't in the past couple of decades been particularly good at

finishing jane we've not finished the homework no and we've certainly not handed it in but actually there's so much that really needs to be done in our major cities to make traveling around just comfortable because no one's going to get out of their cars if the public transport is uncomfortable fact just fact fact yeah absolutely right um we have some very serious emails and not surprisingly after the interview with mina smallman yesterday but just briefly back to dogs and vegetables libby says our dog chester loves veggies and fruit he waits somewhat impatiently as veggies are chopped in the vain hope a piece of carrot might fall to the floor. He loves his greens, with the exception of spinach,

which makes him a wise dog. Oh, Jenny says she, or Libby rather, says she can't stand spinach. I like spinach. He loves all fruit except pineapple. He chewed it a couple of times, spat it out, tried it again, but it really was the fruit too far. He stares you down with a steely look until you give him his rightful share of a pink lady.

Just be careful, of course, about grapes and raisins and onions as they are all poisonous to dogs. I did not know that. Grapes, raisins and onions. No, I didn't know about... Actually, you know, I did know about the onions. Yeah, grapes and raisins, they just seem so tiny and... Yeah, innocuous.

Yeah, but they're certainly not. Certainly not. Before we get to serious ones, because obviously the interview with Mina yesterday is deserving of our attention today, we have had some bumping-intos with the Olympians. Janie Leakey has sent us very best wishes. Always love the podcast, listen while working in Kenya. I couldn't resist sharing the story about meeting Olympians. Our three children went to St Andrew's School, situated 8,000 foot

above sea level on the edge of the Rift Valley. Our sports days were like any other, with sack races and relay races. What did you do at your sports day? My own school sports day. Oh, egg and spoon, sack, all of that stuff. Okay. Did you have any Kenyan Olympic runners in your sports day? Because this is Janie's problem. Well, no.

I did run in the mother's race at my kids' primary school. And I was not a winner. But I did do it. But it's fantastic. But this is a very extreme experience. Well, basically, they just opted out of the parents' races. We declined graciously from competing and enjoyed watching some highly competitive parents' races.

So you can imagine the headteachers had great fun in presenting winning parents with gold medals. So imagine being the headteacher that's presenting a Parents parents day gold medal to someone who's probably won a gold medal anyway so they were elite kenyan athletes they just would have been out the school fields and also we we did a really funny piece yesterday didn't we about some research that had come out of the university of texas that said attractive people live longer. Just as a caveat to that stunning headline, which maybe people think might be logical anyway because the world favours attractive people,

they didn't live longer by much, did they? No. It was actually only a couple of years. Good point, that. Was it really worth hanging on? And also, you're not the same in your, let's say you do live to your 90s. You're not the same in your, let's say you do live to your 90s. You're not the vibrant... We all age, is what I'm saying.

Yes. So is it really worth much? Yeah, but it was a huge study. It was over 80,000 people. Yeah. But there were so many questions to be asked. I mean, the number one question is who decided which people were attractive in order to you know get the right kind of matrix in order to do the research steve says if the good looks are based on high school photos the research actually says

people who were good looking at the age of 18 live longer your point people's looks and attractiveness changes also no one looks good where they're unwell. Very true. Later in life, that can happen a lot. And Susie in Barcelona says, if someone loves you and finds you attractive, even if others don't, does that count? Well, I should do. Yeah.

But, you know, sometimes when we interview these people who've done studies, Jane, there's quite a lot of me that just thinks, what a great way to earn your living. I mean, that's so pleasurable. He did look quite... He looked on fine form. He was just a healthy looking,

quite certain of his place in the universe, I thought, that chap. But he was an American academic, wasn't he? I mean, there are probably worse ways to spend your time. Yeah, but if you get a really lovely corner office and you've got some oak furniture in there, maybe you've got a reclining chair, are probably worse ways to spend your time yeah but if you get a really lovely corner office and you've got some oak furniture in there maybe you've got a reclining chair you can have a little doze in after lunch as the research comes flooding in we mustn't be rude about academia although i always i did sometimes feel when i was although you frequently i often am at the other

place where i worked you would wonder when we we decided upon a relatively obscure conversational area to feature the next day, that a phone would ring in a university office where perhaps the phone didn't ring all that often and ask somebody who'd done a PhD on Croatian folk tales, they might make themselves available at 10.35 the following morning to discuss them. And strangely enough, they usually were available. I mean, that's not to say that they don't work hard. Jane's made an involuntary noise. Let me just quickly bring in Helen and Ronald and their dog, Alba.

I've got a lovely picture here of Alba chilling on her cool mat. Now, these cool mats are great, aren't they? Has Nancy got one? She's got a cool coat that sometimes goes underneath her as a mat. OK. We wanted to tell you about Alba, who practically breaks down the door to get to the carrot left in her bed as a post-walkies treat. This obsession with carrots continues as she appears on our sides, even when we're peeling one for ourselves. Granted, she's not getting the choice between a carrot and a cut of meat

but she really does love vitamin a and cucumber and bananas as well just to add alba is called alba because she was born on my late dad's birthday he died at the age of just 54 he was a huge fan of west brom and so to remember him we called our beautiful dog alba ian albion albion yeah which i think is a clever rather lovely tribute and alba looks beautiful so um i think the baggies have already had one victory so may this be a good season for them i wonder quite a lot when i put nancy's freeze coat on which is just that was from rebecca by the way sorry hello rebecca um why we can't make clothes out of the same material for humans because it does genuinely stay cold for a very very long time what's in it cold yeah but it's weird it's just superbly cold all the time after you wet it. And then when it dries, there's a kind of, there's a very stiff,

you know, it can stand up by itself, fabric. So if I hang it up from a hook the next summer when I take it off, you know, it's like cardboard. And do you ever feel it, even on a cold day, just to see how it is? No. I'm busy. Right, let's get to some serious stuff so this is sarah in uh lester who apologizes at the end of her email saying it's a bit long and serious we don't mind long and serious at all and you make the point the racism in society needs to be discussed and it was such a big part of the story that Mina was telling us yesterday. Sarah

says don't expect this to be read out but the interview today with Mina was one of the best interviews I've heard. That woman is amazing. How well she expresses faults in the top of society that allow the racist and existing culture that also allowed her girls to be killed, to be ignored and trivialised. And Sarah makes the point that it comes on the day that the young man, the Nottingham killer, was in the news again. He's a seriously ill young man who was also at the start of his life, living as a student and becoming so ill he couldn't think or act straight. His family were not informed. He didn't want them to know he was so ill. And Sarah believes that the coverage of him has also been racist. As the sister of a young man who has the same illness as him,

I see the lack of transparency with family members. When someone is so ill, the family must know. I work in mental health and staff still hide behind the flawed logic of a seriously mentally ill person having the right for full confidentiality. This is nonsense when they can't think straight. And actually the development of that story today, Sarah, has been some really understandable condemnation from the families of those who were killed in that attack

who were finding out just how much was known about this man's mental state and the kind of things that he had done before. And, you know, therefore the idea that he was allowed to be out and living as a free person is really adding to their grief and to their distress. So thank you very much indeed for sending the email. And obviously we hope that your brother is doing all right. Yes, it's actually really, really difficult for the families of people who are so severely mentally ill.

So I do really feel for them. And I take our correspondent's point here. There is racism in this. There's no doubt about it. But heavens above, the relatives of the people who died have had the most wretched time. God, just dreadful, Jane. And it's not to, you know, it's not to excuse the actions of somebody,

but you do, in order for it not to happen again, you do have to understand more about what the rights of a person are when their illness has taken them to very violent places. Yeah. And that's what seems to be just so bewildering for so many people. And obviously more than bewildering for families who then have to deal with the loss that those families are doing. So it just needs talking about in a very clever and realistic way, doesn't it? It does. And I would love to hear from people working in community mental health services. I

understand that they have really, really up against it uh and let's face it would you i mean are you expected as as somebody who does that sort of community work to go to somebody's house to try to force them to take medication that you believe they ought to take but they don't want to take would you be expected to do that on your own would you have to go with somebody? Would you be able, are there enough people to do the jobs? I very much doubt it, frankly. And you often will have, it's not always mothers, it's often mothers caring for really, really severely mentally ill people in the community, and that must be exceptionally difficult for them.

So it's a very but i mean obviously we are not experts here but we do rely on our incredibly um worldly and just experienced uh group of listeners um you're a you're a great bunch and we'd love to hear from you about your your working lives in this area or indeed if you have a child who is so severely mentally ill that you are deeply concerned for them and for their prospects. And I think Mina's point as well about the work that she does now, which is going into schools to try and educate particularly young men about the type of messaging they might be seeing,

is so valuable because in the case of her daughters, the man who killed them had been his illness and the things that he wanted to do had been validated online in very dark places that you know most of us don't really understand we've certainly never visited you know that he had found people telling him to do things which keyed in with what his brain was telling him to do and i still think we're really unaware the people in our age group in particular who can be in charge of things i think we're quite unaware of exactly what it is that's on the dark web or quite close to the dark web or we're clueless. Yeah, or just on the Facebook groups. So we just need to see more of it, I think, don't we?

We probably do, but we don't want to, I think, is the issue. I was saying this morning when I talked to Stig and Asma on The Breakfast Show that I was really angry with myself for waking up this morning and for actually genuinely wondering what Musk and Trump had said to each other overnight. I didn't want to go there, but I did, if that makes any sense. I really checked in as soon as I could. Yeah, so did I. Yeah, but I didn't like that about myself.

Yes, because they've got you. No, they've absolutely reeled me in. They've got all of us. Yeah, and it's deeply depressing. Yeah, I tell you what we should do, though. Next time a phone call just falls off air or we can't get in touch with somebody, we should definitely blame it on a conspiracy theory.

We should immediately say, it's not a tech operator here, it's not a person who just forgot to put their Skype on. It's a conspiracy. It's a cyber attack. We're under attack. It'll be a conspiracy. By foreign forces.

Against toxic femininity. That'll be what it is. We had quite a lot of that on the show yesterday as well, didn't we? Call yourself a feminist. Against foreign forces. Against toxic femininity. That'll be what it is. Oh, dear. We had quite a lot of that on the show yesterday as well, didn't we? Call yourself a feminist. Well, yes, David, I do. I hope David's well. I don't, actually.

I don't care for his well-being at all. I hope-ish. No. No, no, no. this one comes from rebecca uh who just wanted to say that the interview with mina was too short um and do you know what we will try and get her back actually because i would agree with that and sometimes do you know what rebecca it just boils down to how long we've got a studio for um We did have some tech problems. They were just tech problems. And we only had about 15 minutes available to us,

but we will definitely try and get Mina on because she's just got plenty to say and she says it really well. Yes, I totally agree. And sometimes there really are quite dreary practical explanations for why some interviews are longer or shorter than others.

Just want to quickly thank Maria, who has pointed me in the direction of some televisual comfort in the absence of the Olympic Games. Maria says, ignore Rotten Tomatoes. On the whole, this is a brilliant drama

about female friendship and it's Firefly Lane on Netflix. Only watched one episode, but I've been slightly dragged in. I hadn't realised it was written by my favourite writer of sagas, Kristen Hanna. Actually, I wrote the original novel, and so far it's good.

So, Maria, thank you. Where is that set? It's set somewhere, I don't think they've said, small-ish city America, but I don't know which one. It's about the friendship between a girl who's relatively, she's got the great name of Kate Malarkey and her mate has become very famous televisually in the locality and it's Tully somebody.

But there's a man they have in common, can't quite work out what's happened. He's devastatingly handsome and it looks to me as though they've both had relationships with him. Oof! How unhygienic. I mean, it's set in a while ago, so I don't think there were any wipes available.

Gosh, never had a sanitiser. We watched a hilarious film at the weekend called Vengeance, which I'd never, ever come across before. We were going to watch Civil War, but actually we just weren't in the mood for it. That's romantic evening. That was, actually. But Civil War, I think you just have to be in the right mood for it,

and that may not happen, I don't know, until things kind of get better in the real world. I nearly went to see that at the cinema and then just thought, no, reality's perilously close to this. Exactly. I don't want to see it. And also, for it to be a good film, it's got to have a very realistic ending and that would be quite a dark ending.

So is Vengeance a happier? Well, no, Vengeance isn't necessarily happier, but it's one of those movies that about 10 minutes into it, we're just like, no, this, no, we're not going to do this. And then we stuck with it and it's strangely good at the end.

And I'm not sure, if you've got two hours that you need to fill, And then we stuck with it. And it's strangely good at the end. And I'm not sure, if you've got two hours that you need to fill, you've got something nice to eat, I'd give it a go. Is it a thriller? No, it bills itself as a comedy thriller. And it's not really comedy, although it's written by a comedian who I'm so sorry, but I'd never heard of him before. He's called B.J. Novak. But he's obviously quite big. just because he directs the film.

It's a B.J. Novak film. So obviously he's quite big in B.J. Novak world. But it's got a really interesting message at the end, actually, just about what we all want from the world now. And so it's got some quite clever scripting and monologues so it's weirdly compelling towards the end okay voiceover describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can navigate it just by listening books contacts calendar double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11.

And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Now, our guest today is, well, Fee was very excited about this. I'm even more excited than her because it's a man who used to work at Liverpool Football Club and did all the data analysis. Look, it's going to be interesting, okay? And this is one of those interviews you can play to your hubby if you've got one.

Or a woman who likes football. Or a woman who likes football. Or your female partner who likes football. We don't care. I just wanted to briefly mention this, which we've had so many emails about surnames and changing them or not. And this, I think, is a really interesting one from Rosa, who says, When indulging in walks around cemeteries, I often see Victorian and Edwardian tombstones saying,

Here lies such and such spinster. And I always ponder if during her life some people would have pitied her for not having managed to bag a husband but even in death that social faux pas has not been allowed to be forgotten it's there for all to see for all eternity and that i i must admit i i think i have seen the word spinster on tombstones back in back day, it wouldn't happen now, would it? I mean, of course it wouldn't happen now. But it is an astonishing thing to lumber somebody with for all eternity. Well, I remember as well in days of yore

when we used to go to church, when the births, marriages and deaths were read out, then somebody was always referred to as spinster of this parish. Oh, yeah, no, that's true. But wouldn't they also say bachelor of this parish? I honestly can't remember. I do remember those notices. They were properly peculiar, weren't they?

Weren't they just? Yeah. But also, it's unfair on lots of levels, and you're right to point it out. But also, you know, you might have had a fantastic time. It could have been fun time, spinster. You could have been a right girl on the quiet. Yeah, good. It could have been fun times, Finster. You could have been a right goer on the quiet. Yeah, good.

You could have been spinning for all you were worth. You could have been really, really enjoying your freedoms. And just to correct something that I think we said, it's from Errol. I'm writing as a follow-up to a couple of points. OK? Are you ready? Not really. First, just to clarify,

apparently we had assumed that Shakespeare, that's William Shakespeare, could have, didn't go to university. Errol points out that Shakespeare could have gone to university. On a full grant? Well, I don't know about that. Both Oxford and Cambridge in England, as well as St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh,

were founded long before Shakespeare's life. I didn't know that. Aberdeen's life. I didn't know that. Aberdeen? Sorry, I didn't know that. That's not... I don't want to pick on Aberdeen particularly. That's not nice. I didn't know about...

I didn't know Glasgow University or Edinburgh University were that old. You're being a bit anti-Scottish there. No, I really don't want to be at all. It's just like everything in Scotland is a bit like, ooh. I wanted one of my children to go to edinburgh and we went to visit it but they they didn't go in the end slightly to my annoyance so the universities go back to the 15th century or before i think i think probably errol is going to write back with more yeah uh secondly errol says fee

mentioned the thames barrier as l as London's protection from flooding. Well, spare a thought for those of us who live east of this barrier. I can only presume the floodwater that stopped from entering central London will finish up with us. That's such a good point. It is a good point. Thank you, Errol.

Yours without a tote bag. Tote bag. Yours... I went all posh and didn't know where that came from. Yours without a tote bag, Errol. Well, can we put Errol on the pile for tote bags? Because those are two very good corrections. Yeah, very good points indeed.

And sometimes people will do those maps of what's going to happen if the sea level rises and the east coast of England all the way up is so majorly, majorly threatened. But you're absolutely right. You'd want to, what, you'd feel pretty pissed off if you could see the Thames barrier from the side. You knew damn well it wasn't going to help you. From the wrong side, if that's the right way of putting it.

Right, so let's have the fantastic Steady Yourselves Against Something Firm Kids data-laden interview. Ian graham his book is called how to win the premier league the inside story of football's data revolution ian good to meet you thank you for coming in how are you i'm very well thanks jane good um well it's great to have you uh the football season the premier league anyway kicks off friday night actually doesn't it and then uh basically it's already dominating the back pages. It's like the Olympics, Wimbledon, all that stuff just never happened. There's no doubt about

it. So many of us are invested in this game. But you are looking at it in a very, very data-driven, analytical way. And that's what you did for Liverpool for over a decade. Is that right? And that's what you did for Liverpool for over a decade, is that right? Yeah, that's right. In 2012, I was hired by Liverpool to become Director of Research. What that meant was any data that was collected about football, my team's job was to collect, store, analyse, create insights and recommendations from that data. And before you came, did they have a system? Were they doing it already or did you start it all?

No, is the short answer. So before I arrived, Damien Camorley, who had been director of football at Tottenham Hotspur, was in that role at Liverpool and he was looking to start that sort of department there but hadn't started one by the time he left before I arrived let's say but in 2007 it was Damien who actually started working with me at Tottenham Hotspur and he was the sort of trailblazer for someone working inside a football club that was interested in data and the

the state of football data at the time was the data that was collected didn't really give you much insight into player performances um what kind of data was collected so you got um you got one one row of data per game so you could know who the teams were and what the final score was, who the referee was, the attendance. These things are not that important for saying whether players are any good or not. I was going to ask you about that because obviously, first of all, let's talk about the fans and the attendance. Every fan needs to believe that their presence is significant. If you just look purely at player performance, maybe it isn't. Well, it absolutely is important. In my book, there's a chapter called Home is where an extra 0.3 goals are.

So if you look at Premier League games, on average, the home team will score about 1.6 goals, the away team 1.2 goals. And that reverses, obviously, when you're away from home. So, you know, two average teams playing against each other the home team is worth 0.4 goals more than the away team and that's mostly due to the fans that's okay so that's really interesting so fans can be comforted by the fact that actually they do matter that it's not just for them to go and buy the shirts and the overpriced items connected with their support. They actually need to rock up.

It will make a difference. Yeah, they could. So this is one of the sort of trivial side effects of the COVID pandemic and lockdown was that football was played behind closed doors. Yeah. So home advantage in football, and it happens in all sports,

it's seen and it's a strong effect. But it was very difficult to untangle the reasons why home advantage existed. Was it the fans or was it the fact that the players were more familiar with their surroundings? Was it the referee? And so what the pandemic allowed was to take the fans away, but everything else stayed the same about the games. And what we saw across a number of leagues

was a big reduction in home advantage with the absence of fans. And a portion of that reduction in home advantage was because the referees stopped awarding so many... Because they weren't influenced. Yeah, so the fans, it seems that the fans' main influence is via the referees. Oh, that's interesting. OK. Now, that, of course, was the season that Liverpool won the Premier League, which is unfortunate because it would have been so much better if they'd won it another season.

You were hired, presumably, because Liverpool hadn't won the title and were desperate to win it and you I think had quite a funny encounter with Jurgen Klopp because you had to convince him that you were worth it that you were actually going to make him more successful yeah so Liverpool's owners Fenway Sports Group they also own the Boston Red Sox. And baseball was the first sport to really embrace data analysis. John Henry, one of the owners, or the main owner, was convinced you could do something similar in football, but it hadn't really been done yet.

So that was the idea behind me joining the club, was to try and see if this could be done in football. When Jurgen arrived in 2015, it was still, data analysis in football was still a new thing inside clubs. It gained a lot of traction in the media, in gambling applications, but inside Premier League clubs, it was still quite an unusual thing. And Jürgen hadn't been exposed to it before at his time in managing Dortmund in Germany. And so my first meeting with Jürgen was just to explain who I was,

why Liverpool was interested in data analysis. And I looked back at his previous season at Dortmund, which had been an awful season where they finished seventh. Yes, and you showed him some facts and figures which basically made the case for your appointment. It was as simple as that. And he went for it, as we now know. And it was kind of partly because of your involvement that Mo Salah was signed by Liverpool went on of course to score loads and loads of

really important goals but he'd previously played at Chelsea and he hadn't been that successful correct? Yeah correct yes the main sort of the main use of data analysis is to help in player recruitment looking at which transfers might improve the club. Also looking at your current players to understand, you know, who's performing well in your current team. And yeah, Mo hadn't played very much at Chelsea after having been very successful playing for Basel in Switzerland. So after leaving Chelsea, he went on to play very well for a couple of seasons in Italy for Fiorentina and Roma. And if you just looked at his data through our analysis,

but you didn't even need any fancy analysis to understand that Mo was a great player. Just looking at the number of goals he scored per 90 minutes and the number of assists he made, he looked really good. But in the UK, he'd been almost tainted by this Chelsea experience of, if he's so good, how come he didn't succeed at Chelsea? He didn't play much at Chelsea, but when he played, he was actually pretty good at Chelsea, exactly as good as we expected him to be. And so then you ask the question, well, why didn't he play at Chelsea?

There was a player called Eden Hazard, who was the first choice player at Chelsea. He was one of the best players in the world at the time. And so if Eden Hazard's your competition for a starting place, of course you're not going to play. They had Mourinho as manager as well, who tends to prefer older, experienced players rather than younger players. Salah was 21 at the time. So what doing that data analysis allowed us to see was the reasons for Mo's failure at Chelsea. They were not really marks against him in any way. It was perfectly understandable you're not going to play if Hazard's ahead of you in the pecking order so we were really comfortable with signing him whereas other

English clubs I think it was 37 million pounds quite a lot of money right my colleague has a question yeah so I'm just wondering about the very basics of what you mean by uh the data because you're so fluent when you talk about the players and when you talk about the opponents I'm wondering what it is that extra data tells you that a really decent football aficionado or a manager wouldn't know I think data only adds and it doesn't replace or subtract. There's a caricature in football of the new data people versus the proper football men. And it's, you know, man and boy, I've watched this team. I know everything there is to know.

And I'm not saying they don't know everything there is to know about a team. But as one person, there is literally only so much football you can watch. What data does is it gives a view, an imperfect view, but a systematically, objectively collected view of thousands of games every weekend. And so it gives a breadth of analysis that one person or even a team of people who have to watch games live can't get through. Isn't it going to miss the magic? Because data is always going to be an examination of what's gone before, of the past, and it cannot predict the magic of the future.

and it cannot predict the magic of the future? Well, in financial services, there's this disclaimer that, you know, future returns have nothing to do with past performance. You know, my whole thesis about analysing football data is past performance is a predictor of future performance. And that was one of the reasons we signed Salah, for example, was his past performances in Italy have been outstanding we think that gives us some signal as to how he's going to perform for us and when you talk about magic I completely agree that's why we love football is the magic moments of the game when something spectacular happens

happens yeah and Leicester City would not nobody would have predicted Leicester City winning the Premier League they just wouldn't and that season was captivating they haven't come close to winning it since but wasn't it wonderful that they did yeah absolutely and that's that's why we love football I think um after Leicester City so I certainly didn't predict Leicester City to come anywhere close to winning that title neither did any bookmaker which was why they took a bath on it but at the end of that season our systems rated Leicester as the seventh best team in the Premier League after just winning the title right and the reason was there was some luck or some variance that is very difficult to repeat

in Leicester's performances that season. All the big teams also had a very bad season. And so part of that magic of football is variance. Stuff happens in football that, you know, is a surprise to us all. And Leicester's a great example of that. I think that's why we love the game. There's this constant tension between skill and performance, things you can measure very well and understand, versus stuff happens in football, a deflection or a great save or a super shot from 30 yards. Or a scuffed shot.

Or a scuffed shot. Ends up going in and looking brilliant. Yeah, so Ginni van Alden's, one of his goals against Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final was completely mishit and went through the goalkeeper's legs. If he'd have hit that shot properly,

it would probably have had a lower chance of ending up in the opposition's net. Just for people who aren't complete anoraks, we just point out that that was the game that Liverpool were 3-0 down. It was the Champions League semi-final. They had the home leg still to come. And I think you almost didn't go. Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. So I start off the book by explaining my sort of statistical approach to the game. Almost made me lose the experience of watching one of the most magical games in Liverpool's history.

So if you're 3-0 down against Barcelona, who at the time were a significantly stronger team than Liverpool, our prediction for Liverpool's chance of progression to the final was 3.5%. Coming back from 3-0 downs, very difficult. And so that 3.5% seemed like a really low chance i thought i really want to go and see us crash out of the champions league uh but talking to some of my colleagues when i gave my prediction they their reaction was well three and a half percent that means we've got a chance that's a bigger chance than i thought we had so optimistic yeah so so yeah they really convinced me to to attend the match and i'm lucky i did because we ended up winning four nil i was

going to say four nil to liverpool so four three and they got through to the final and that was the year they beat it was a terrible game and they beat tottenham hotspur in the final yeah okay it doesn't matter whether it's terrible or not they still won uh so just very briefly you've now left jürgen klopp has left as well are they are those events linked or had you just done your time no uh I'd I'd done my time it's uh it's 11 years and it was a one of the best jobs in the world to have um but the sort of um yeah the treadmill of two games per week and two transfer windows per per season takes takes its toll I felt I'd done everything I set out to do at Liverpool and it was time for a new challenge.

And do you view the rest of your life with the same kind of data goggles on? Are you making decisions about other parts of your life based on analysis of data? That's a good question. I mean, I did make a spreadsheet of my expected distribution of payouts from premium bonds, if that answers your question.

Oh, you're my kind of guy, Ian. Well, what's the news there? Have you got a household chore, Rosa? I hope so. Well, that's one place where I don't want to do any data analysis to show up my poor performances. Have you had any good bonds win lately? Because I only got 25 quid last month. Well, if you increase your investment in premium bonds,

the interest rate becomes quite predictable. If you've only got a few, then most of the time you don't win and occasionally it's 25 quid. But the more and more bonds you buy, the more and more predictable that interest rate comes becomes so get more if you can yeah this is not the financial that's free as well it is tax-free yeah absolutely um great well thank you very much i did ask you earlier before we started speaking

on the radio whether you'd seen the highlights of the friendly game uh and you you just said no no i've not i don't need to watch those games anymore. It obviously is a massive, massive pressurised job and you obviously did it really well. So, Ian, thank you very much for coming and really appreciate it. Do you think Liverpool can... Because I was saying earlier, I think if Man City win again,

the Premier League's in danger of becoming very, very boring. Yeah, Manchester City are, in my opinion, an underrated team. They're the best club team the world has ever seen by quite a margin. They've been unlucky to not win more Champions Leagues than they have. And yeah, I make them strong favourites for this season. But I give Liverpool a higher chance than I give Leicester in 2015. Ian Graham.

And I don't know my mystic garb predictions have been so shit that I am not entirely certain that I can offer a view on what Liverpool's prospects will be for the forthcoming season. But I tell you one thing Fiona, I really hope Manchester City don't win again

because that does make the whole thing very boring. So I would actually settle for almost any other team winning, not Manchester United, because I don't want them to win. Fair enough. There we are. That's it. I've been controversial yet again. Jane O'Fee at Time Stop Radio.

Tomorrow's interview is actually with another great guest, Sarah Rainsford, who has been a correspondent in Russia for quite some time. She was chucked out a couple of years ago. And I think she's just written this most amazing and informative book about what it's like to live in Russia, about the Russian people, about her own experiences of journalism there. So she is our guest tomorrow. Thank you for all of your emails.

Can I just say that we've got an absolute load on at the moment. So if you've got something that's not pertinent to exactly what we're talking about right now, you'd do better to wait until next week to send it, if that's okay. We are on holiday next week. Oh, yes, but then when we come back, we'll have nice fresh topics, won't we? Oh, we'll have nice fresh topics.

Very fresh topics. Our topics will have been deodorized thoroughly so uh yep so don't don't feel if you want to write in that you have to write in now and also it's hot why bother goodbye Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app.

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