Author | Lightnews

Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · 2d

Thanks Nils, it’s a good point and is on my todo list to dig further into how long it takes for something like FSAA to stabilise to something useful early on in a player’s career. Even with a fairly wide HDI at that stage, there’s still potentially benefits to its use

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · 6d

Not yet, but good idea!

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · 6d

New article: "Shrinkage, Uncertainty, and Son Heung-min: Using Bayesian Methods to Identify Finishing Ability"

which discusses using a Bayesian hierarchical approach to quantifying player finishing ability, with credible intervals to express uncertainty.

pena.lt/y/2025/10/01...

Shrinkage, Uncertainty, and Son Heung-min: Using Bayesian Methods to Identify Finishing Ability

Why most finishing metrics are flawed and how a Bayesian approach gives us a truer picture of a player's finishing ability...

pena.lt

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · 9d

🎉 penaltyblog v1.6.1 is out!

✨ What's new:

- Python 3.14 support
- scipy 1.16+ compatibility
- Better numerical stability for Negative Binomial model
- New Colab notebook for implied probabilities example

pip install --upgrade penaltyblog

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · 19d

Absolutely. Also, people started sharing big (for then anyway) pre-trained networks that made it much easier to get started. I built many models in my day job back then by fine tuning BERT and ImageNet that I would have struggled to train from scratch without investing massively in compute.

Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · 19d

We can also split Massey Ratings into attack & defence:

🔴 LFC: best attack in the league paired with a mid-table defence
⚪️ ARS: Elite at both ends. They have the #1 defence and the #3 attack
🌳 Forest: A disaster at both ends of the pitch

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · 19d

Here's how the Premier League table really looks according to Massey Ratings, which account for strength of schedule.

📈 Arsenal (+1.5) & Man City (+1.3) are clear strongest overall
😬 Man Utd (-0.2) rank in the bottom half
📉 West Ham & Forest (-1.2) are worst teams by far

Massey Ratings for the English Premier League

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · Sep 23

Thanks to everyone who suggested features and reported issues. Your input shapes the package's development.

Questions or feedback welcome at pena.lt/y/contact

Install: pip install penaltyblog
GitHub: github.com/martineastwo...

Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · Sep 23

📚 Interactive Colab notebooks are available in the docs - experiment with real examples without any local setup.

I'll be steadily expanding these over the coming weeks to cover all functionality in the package.

Docs: penaltyblog.readthedocs.io

penaltyblog: Football Data & Modelling Made Easy — penaltyblog documentation

penaltyblog.readthedocs.io

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · Sep 23

🔧 Improved implied odds module:

- New logarithmic overround removal method for better accuracy
- Structured results instead of raw arrays
- Better handling of edge cases

Making it easier to work with bookmaker probabilities in your analyses.

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · Sep 23

💰 Expanded betting utilities:

- Kelly Criterion for multiple outcomes
- Arbitrage opportunity detection
- Value bet identification
- Hedge bet calculations
- Odds format conversion (decimal/fractional/American)

All functions now return structured outputs for easier integration.

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · Sep 23

⚽ penaltyblog v1.6.0 is now available!

📊 MatchFlow updates:

- SQL-style joins for nested football data (left, right, outer, inner, anti)
- Cloud storage support: read/write directly to AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, and Azure Blob
- Automatic type inference for join keys

pip install penaltyblog

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Martin Eastwood @martineastwood.co.uk · Aug 18

🚀 New article on my blog walking through the latest updates to the penaltyblog python package for football (soccer) analytics & betting

✅ New interactive pitch plots
✅ 5-10× faster goal models
✅ New Flow query DSL

👉 pena.lt/y/2025/08/14...

Penaltyblog v1.5.0: Faster Models, Smarter Queries, and a Sharper Edge

v1.5.0 delivers interactive charts, faster models, upgraded football probability grid, and a powerful Flow query language - all designed to make your analysis sharper and quicker...

pena.lt

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