Manager’s clarity of vision has ensured that confidence has blossomed at the Premier League’s surprise package. There was a period when datawallahs insisted confidence didn’t exist – which came as a surprise to almost everybody who has ever played sport at any level. There are days when you feel invincible, when every putt drops, when every ball pitches in the right place, when you claim every cross. And there are days when your club may as well be a Toblerone, when catching the easiest dolly seems an impossible feat of calculation and coordination, when your legs simply will not function. Vast screeds were written dismissing the “hot-hand fallacy”.
![[Jonathan Wilson]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2018/04/24/Jonathan_Wilson,_L.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Then, in 2020, the journalist Ben Cohen wrote The Hot Hand, which demonstrated a flaw in previous calculations and decided that the hot hand – a term from basketball referring to a player on a scoring streak – does exist. From a layman’s perspective, the tests employed always seemed so artificial to be highly questionable anyway. And it always seemed a little odd that two of the real boom areas of sports science – data analytics and psychology – would take up apparently contradictory positions: one insisting a positive mental outlook meant nothing and the other that it was essential.
![[Nottingham Forest players huddle]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8cdf25e8bf5d87bc63d9b038d304d404d32bd4ed/0_0_5053_3370/master/5053.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
So confidence in sport exists and we’re allowed to talk about it without boffins sighing disapprovingly. Which brings us to Nottingham Forest, who before the weekend fixtures sat third in the Premier League having taken four points off the league leaders Liverpool this season. There was a lot of discussion after their draw on Tuesday about whether Nuno Espírito Santo’s side had deserved it, but “deserve” is always a confusing concept in football. The result is the result and, although Liverpool won the xG 2.0–0.3, to say that Forest were somehow lucky is to ignore both how comfortable they seemed in the first three-quarters of the game, and the consistency of their results this season.
