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Outside the Box
Outside the Box
Dec 22, 2024 4:53 AM

Author:Duncan Alexander

Outside the Box

In football, numbers are everywhere. From touches in the opposition box to expected goals, clear-cut chances to win-loss ratios.

In the modern game, these numbers help provide the narrative, the drama, and the conversation. They are scrutinised in order to justify results and to predict future outcomes. They even dictate transfer policy and drive clubs to achieve the impossible.

But when did the numbers become so important and what do they mean?

In Outside the Box, Duncan Alexander looks back at twenty-five years of the Premier League and beyond, uncovering the hidden truths and accepted myths that surround the game. Using the archives of OptaJoe and never-before-seen data, we discover why Liverpool have gone 27 years without winning a league title and why Lionel Messi is the best player in the game’s history. Or is he?

Insightful, wry, and hugely entertaining, Outside the Box is an enlightening and accessible account of football across the decades, analysing data from the some of the greatest seasons, players, teams and managers.

Reviews

Duncan Alexander delivers his now trademark blend of dry humour and statistical insight in a format that works well.

—— Adam Bate , Sky Sports

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, it is one of the best books I have read this year or indeed any year

—— By The Minute

Freakonomics for football, and it’s great fun

—— Sunday Sport

An enjoyable and entertaining read. ****

—— Four Four Two

Plenty of statistical gems to keep fact-collectors out of mischief for months . . . an enjoyable and entertaining read

—— FourFourTwo

Through the numbers Alexander offers some fun snippets, while providing understanding of the game

—— Independent, 10 Best Football Books of the Year 2017

[An] entertaining travelogue.

—— Sport

Moore’s books are strangely inspiring. It’s hard not to be impressed by a man in his early 50s who hasn’t really ridden for two years…deciding to undertake a huge ride on a completely inappropriate bicycle. It makes the daily struggle to get motivated for ride to work seem a little weak, and whets your own appetite for a bike-based adventure. It probably won’t be quite as amusing without Tim Moore for company though.

—— Bike Radar

An epic trip… Underpinned by Moore’s pinpoint accurate observations and engaging style that has you rooting for him from the moment he pedals forward on his folding bike.

—— Peter Sharkey , Post

If you enjoyed reading about Moore's travels in France and Italy, chances are you'll love this too.

—— Road Cycling UK, Book of the Year

An epic, hugely amusing journey… Perfect Christmas fare.

—— Dorset Echo

It is well worth reading.

—— Paul Cheney , Nudge

Moore lurches from crisis to crisis in a hilarious 9,000km, 20 country, ride along the old Iron Curtain from the Norwegian-Russian border to the Bulgarian Black Sea with quasi-frostbite and a few rusted watchtowers thrown in

—— GQ

Calling it a 'proven formula' is not to take anything away from Moore's achievements, both in completing an incredible cycling journey, and then writing another entertaining book about it: to have done both three times is impressive. To keep to the successful formula, Moore first needs another ridiculous challenge as the theme of his journey: check. Then he must use wholly inappropriate equipment: check. Try to avoid any fitness training before the journey: check. Make sure that there are numerous challenges and obstacles to overcome along the way to provide amusing anecdotes: check. Finally, make sure that you can write in an engaging and humorous style: check… Tim Moore does it again, enhancing his reputation as one of the best exponents of the cycling travelogue

—— Richard Peploe , Road.cc

Tim Moore is a serial cyclist who loves to do things the hard way… His blackly comic account of his adventures will convince you that extreme cycling is best appreciated in anecdotal form

—— Jane Shilling , Daily Mail

Filled with laugh-out-loud scenes and witty comments, alongside serious reflections on the consequences of the Communist dream and reminders of how disparate Europe still remains, this book was difficult to put down

—— Rhiannon Roy , Time & Leisure

He is quite, quite bonkers - and very funny

—— The Bookseller

The Marches marks him [Stewart] out not only as a writer but as a political force rooted in geographies so different to London as to shed new light on politics itself… [A] serious politician, social critic, and practical ethnographer at work. As such The Marches is a book for walkers, for those who love the Borders, and for fathers seeking inspiration in their family responsibilities… If this is the polymath as politician, then we need more of them.

—— Frances Davis , Conservative Home

This is so much more than the story of their journey – it’s a superbly written, endlessly fascinating book encompassing history, geology, landscape, family memories, wars experienced and lives well lived.

—— Choice Magazine

One of the most unexpected and enjoyable reads of 2016… The book fizzes erudition and is delightfully leavened by the companionship of his aged and doughty father.

—— Guardian, Readers' Book of the Year

A very funny book - not jovial in the post-Wodehouse Boris mode but something more taught and Caledonian... The politician in Stewart never had a chance against the writer, a reliable adversary of consensus and cant.

—— Minoo Dinshaw , Oldie

Beautiful, evocative, and wise.

—— Malcolm Forbes , Star Tribune

The Marches is a transporting work from a powerful and original writer.

—— Harvard Press

This beautifully written account is a moving memoir of tales from along the route but also reflections on life and relationships – father and son on this their last journey together.

—— Prospect

Rory Stewart is one of the most talented men of our era. The Marches takes us from Rory’s constituency to his family house is an attempt to understand the bloody history of the Scottish borders… The quest is fascinating even if the answers are elusive.

—— Bruce Anderson , Spectator

As the book unfurls, the march along the marches turns into a eulogy to his father, part memoir, part biography, always a love story. It also contains one of the most unflinching, moving descriptions of death I have read.

—— Melanie Reid , The Times

This beautifully written book is a haunting reflection of identity and our relationships with the people and places we love.

—— Jane Shilling , Daily Mail

Stewart provides much food for thought about how we value our past history

—— Susannah Law , Scottish Field
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