WHEN Benjamin Disraeli put statistics in the same category as lies and damned lies, he might have been foretelling present-day football's pre-occupation with figures that tend to distort the truth as surely as a lawyer defending the guilty.
In most instances, these numbers merely provide a refuge for managers lamenting their team's bad luck after a match in which they have suffered an unexpected set-back. "We had 99 per cent of the possession, 150 shots at goal and more crosses into th
e penalty area than in any match during my time at this club," is a not uncommon reflection following a 1-0 defeat.
The futility of such pleadings once again became apparent during a perusal of Uefa's stats sheet on the coach journey from El Madrigal to Valencia Airport on Tuesday night, following Celtic's Champions League defeat by Villarreal. These revealed that, in Denmark, Aalborg had enjoyed the bulk of the possession – 54 per cent – in their meeting with Manchester United.
Given the 3-0 victory for Sir Alex Ferguson's side, you didn't have to be present in the Aalborg Stadium to conclude that most of this possession would not have been deployed anywhere in the vicinity of Edwin van der Sar, the United goalkeeper. The significance of holding on to the ball is dependent entirely on where it is located and what use is made of it.
Even a scoreline may not be an accurate indicator of the ebb and flow of a match, or of the difference in quality between the teams. But it remains the only statistic which is truly meaningful.
