2015

StatsBomb: Best of November

By admin | November 24, 2015
2015

StatsBomb: Best of November

gascoigne Since the beginning of the season here on StatsBomb, we have managed to put out more than 40 distinct articles from a variety of authors.  With the nature of online publishing creating a naturally rapid turnover of content, it can sometimes be easy to miss good articles. Whether you were on holiday, busy at work, in prison or otherwise disposed, sometimes it can be hard to keep up with all that goes on. Therefore, i'm going to start doing an occasional round-up post such as this to highlight the best articles that we've featured over previous weeks. Have Chelsea been found out? by Bobby Gardiner Prior to a big transfer to rival outfit Analytics FC, Bobby used location data to explore the big topic of this year's Premier League, namely what the hell has happened to last year's Champions. Noting stark differences to last year in the areas in which Chelsea have shown vulnerabilities, he managed to show that among other factors, the opposition's ability to penetrate a once formidable defence had been key to their poor start. Leicester City and their trip to the kamikaze zone by Mohamed Mohamed The rise of Leicester was similarly unforeseen and in this article Moe looked at the incredibly high goal rate in their games, their direct play and wondered if what we'd seen was sustainable? Twelve Game Premier League 2015-16 Stat Review by James Yorke Comparing rates from seasons with recorded data (2009-10 onwards), I looked at trends and attempted to spot which teams were either performing to a solid and sustainable level or skewing off one end or the other and likely to revert to a more usual level over time. How to measure defence? by Dustin Ward The question that plagues football analytics like no other: how to measure defence? One imagines legions of analytics types nervously shuffling in boardrooms or club canteens when faced with a direct question related to this topic.  Here with typical creativity, Dustin splits measures into two sections, open play and goalmouth, builds dashboards to quickly compare and contrast rates of defensive play and offer a variety of further theories around the ever thorny issue. Pass me the ball! Serie A striker involvement 2015-16 by Flavio Fusi New contributor Flavio looked at Serie A's strike force by measuring how often they received the ball and how frequently they turned this into shots.  Using "passes received" allowed a broad analysis of their involvement and gave clues towards a player's efficiency. Game states and loss aversion by Peter Owen Returning to follow up his popular debut post on decision making, Peter turned his hand to looking at game states and attempted to identify a trend towards loss aversion from within the numbers. Since publication the post has been edited to include further paragraphs on 2015-16 Leicester.   Also this month: Why have Juventus struggled? by James Yorke Are Tottenham for real? by James Yorke Chewing on the Champions League by Dustin Ward Zlatan Ibrahimovic's Mortality by Mohamed Mohamed The Race for the Top 3: Ligue 1’s Frenzied Situation by Mohamed Mohamed   As ever, thanks for reading.