51 Great xPectations with Paul McDonald.
This week I do some basic drills, some shuttling runs on the massive world of statistics in sport. Former accountant Paul McDonald has many hats, but he is now a sports stat specialist, company founder and originator of the expected transfer values algorithm, trying to bring some sense back to crazy world and numbers of football transfers fees.
He talks me through xG – the expected goals phenomenon that you may have heard thown around, expected Threat and expected Transfer Value.
Along the way we discuss players as different as Juan Riquelme and Denis Irwin and whether stats will kill football.
The Function Room
A podcast about the big numbers, the hard sums, the mathematics that defines, runs, shapes, changes, begins, ends, every things our lives and the world around us. Hosted by Colm O'Regan. An award-winning radio broadcaster, comedian, novelist and it turns out lapsed engineer who is trying to feel useful again. Each episode sheds light on a tiny corner of a giant subject with entertaining guests and accessible talk.
- No. of episodes: 52
- Latest episode: 2025-07-07
- Science Mathematics
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