Dimitar Berbatov and small sample sizes
There's been some chatter these past couple of weeks about Dimitar Berbatov's perceived decline, with Bryan Ruiz's absence being suggested by a number of sources as the main factor. Fantasy Football Scout members can read their well reasoned and logical take on the issue here . This post is not a rebuke to that or any other post - indeed Ruiz's absence might be a legitimate reason for Berbatov's apparent decline - I just want to highlight the danger of cherry picking stats and using small sample sizes to make data fit with a convenient narrative. Using just the last three games without Ruiz seems to be a touch imprecise as we have a number of other gameweeks from this very season where Berbatov played without his Costa Rican pal (GW3, 4 and 8, plus two games where Ruiz only came on a sub - GW5 and 9). Looking at Berbatov's data simply split between those minutes with Ruiz and those without gives a closer situation than the disaster some have suggested, but we...