Saturday Morning Ramble: Notes & Previews

Posted on October 19, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

Notes

Januzaj has signed a new 5 year contract at Man United. The fact that the player re-upped with Man United was never in doubt, but by God I bet Man United overpaid by a mile for a player who, so far, know little about. He will take time to develop, there will be good games and bad games, some patience may be required. United have done well to avoid another Pogba situation. Andros Townsend has also re-upped his contract for another 4 years. It's quite the career turnaround for a player who always had the talent but needed multiple loan spells in order to round out his game. The smoothing of those raw edges to his game is not yet complete, as is evident by his willingness to shoot from everywhere. A little more shot discipline, and a realization that he now has team-mates that are plenty capable of creating chances too, should, hopefully, lead to an eradication of his shooting from piss poor locations. Competition for wide places at Tottenham is intense, that can only be a good thing for player and team. Bale - badly herniated disk and all, according to Marca - will play some part against Malaga this afternoon. More importantly, this means Bale will be fit to play against Barcelona in a weeks time. Showdown. Great Games between Newcastle and Liverpool. The Joy Of Six. Kompany Is Injured Usually the absence of captain marvel from Man City's team sparks panic and defensive chaos. But, City coped pretty well in Kompany's absence in their last PL outing, which was, like, 91 weeks ago. Or so it seemed. The issue I have with a Nastasic/Lescott axis has nothing to do with the young Serbian, but all to do with Lescott. Specifically, can Lescott play effectively away from home without getting exposed too often? Mancini didn't seem to think so: Lescott played ~1070 minutes at home and just ~500 minutes away from home. Sheltered minutes. A Song. The Premier League Is Back No more Internationals. Please. I know there must be a few International Friendly weeks coming up soon, but I don't want to upset myself by discovering when said weeks actually are.

Previews

Newcastle v Liverpool Newcastle away might be a nice little test for Liverpool. Newcastle are a pretty good shots team and Liverpool are, well, average. Score effects play a part in this, though. Liverpool are carrying a very good save% (opposition goals to shots on target) at 86.1% or 94% better than league average. Newcastle save% is at the other end of the spectrum at 60%. I find it hard to believe Liverpool can continue to spend an average of 59 minutes per game in a winning position, that number has to regress at some point. I also think Newcastle impressive raw shots numbers will fall away soon enough. Let's call this the regression derby. Newcastle double chance is even money. Arsenal v Norwich Arsenal, at home, against sub-par shots opposition? Arsenal, moving closer to full health? Add those two things together and this should be a routine home win. Norwich aren't a bad possession team at 48.9%, their PDO is a shade under league average, but The Canaries are being butchered by the TSR and SoTR count, with both of Norwich's numbers under 40%. I'm trying to think of ways Norwich can win at The Emirates, but I don't have all day to think of those reasons, and it may take all day just come up with a single one. Except for sheer luck or the fear of Dortmund at home on Tuesday! Chelsea v Cardiff Cardiff have faced some pretty tough quality of opposition so far this season and this skews their shots number to hell. Cardiff have a Total Shots +/- of -52 and a shots on target +/- of -28. Both of those numbers will look worse after today and nor will Cardiff's point total look any better. All of Chelsea's underlying numbers look pretty darn good, except for their scoring% which sits at 24.39%. Today could be the day to improve that scoring%. Could be as tough a day for Cardiff as Chelsea want to make it. Then again, an away trip at Schalke looms for Chelsea on Tuesday, so rotation may be a thing. Everton v Hull Let's take Hull first: Hull are in the bottom four teams in TSR, SoTR, Unblocked Shots ratio and Final Third Passing% - which is really bad. Things Hull are good at: PDO at 105 and shots on target rating at 103, which is either efficient or lucky, just depends on your outlook, really. Everton are the fourth best shots on target team in the PL, have Gareth Barry available for selection again and have enough guile and talent to cause Hull serious problems. Oh, and Robbie Brady, Hull's most influential shots player (involved in 31% of all Hull shots while on the field of play), is out with a hernia op. Everton are 1.50 for the flat win. Stoke v West Brom I'll struggle to write a hundred words for this. Both teams's shots profiles in terms of TSR and efficiency (SoT rating) are awfully similar. West Brom are riding a PDO of 115, Stoke a PDO of 94. Regression to rear it's beautiful head? Man United v Southampton Apparently United have Carrick, Fellaini and Cleverly out injured. That means two of Jones, Anderson, Giggs or Bryan Robson will start. I'm not sure that will be good enough against a Southampton side that have impressed so far. 2013/14 Man United don't really look like 2012/13 Man united, at least not by the numbers. And that may be a problem when facing a Southampton team who have faced some pretty tough competition so far and come out of the other side with some mighty impressive shots numbers (+13) and shots on target numbers (+10). Southampton's save% is the real story though: 90.48% through the first seven games is 184% above league average. There is either some mighty impressive things taking place in Southampton's defensive scheme or that number is going to regress hard at some point. We just don't know if that point will be today. Southampton double chance is 7/5, then again players like Rooney & RvP exist and that may just be enough for United. Fascinating game, though. Swansea v Sunderland Sunderland have a new manager, so we need to wait to see how or if he can change this team. Swansea are aplus shots and shots on target team who also are pretty efficient at getting shots on target and preventing the opposition form doing likewise. Swansea PDO of 82.85 is the worst in the league, just behind Sunderland (83.3). Swansea are especially poor at converting their shots on target into goals, Sunderland are poor at preventing the opposition from preventing the opposition from doing the same. West Ham v Man City Do not trust Man City away from home until they prove they can be trusted. City come up against a West Ham team who are pretty darn good at restricting opposition shots on target through the first 7 games. City's strength? Managing to get a good percentage of their shots on target. City have the excellent underlying numbers and West Ham, save for their ability to restrict the opposition, don't have good numbers. Could well be a siege around West ham's box, with City being frustrated for long spells. A little biased here, but I think City may get a breakthrough eventually. The focus may then turn towards City's underperforming defensive unit, which will have to come good at some point. Man City's save% is the third worst in the league. Shirley it has to come good at some point?! Doesn't it.....

Shot Influence In 2012/13: Messi, Suarez & Bale

Posted on October 14, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

Let me start with a brief introduction on the topic of Shot Influence, or Attacking Influence, or whatever it may end up being named. What is Shots Influence? An attempt at quantifying the importance of a single player to his teams attacking output. How is it calculated? We combine player X's shots + shot assists and divide that number against the teams shots output when the player was on the field of play. EG: Player X had 4 shots and 1 shot assist. His team recorded 10 shots in that game. Player X was responsible, in some way, for 50% of his teams attacking output. Origins of Shots Influence Well, two people were sat watching Man City v Bayern Munich and became fascinated with which Bayern players were creating the most shots for their team and how that influence may look as a percentage. The genesis for that Man City v Bayern conversation was, for me, sparked by Benjamin Wendorf's work on 1980's hockey players and their shots contributions. Why is Shots Influence of interest to me? It may not be! But, I am going to try and make it interesting. Shots Influence,I believe, can tell us some pretty cool things about how important a player was to his teams attacking output. If a player has a high shots influencepercentage then we may conclude that he is very important to his team when on the field of play and something I called a 'hub player' - a player that is always involved in the attacking scheme in terms of taking shots or creating shots. Benchmarks It's way too early to be drawing any conclusions as to what numbers may separate an average player from a good player, and a very good player from a Messi. If pushed I would say that if a player is responsible for ~40% of his teams attacking output in terms of shots, then it's likely that he is a mighty good player. Previous Shots Influence work Seven weeks of Man City data <LINK> Ronaldo <LINK> Messi <LINK> Right, that's the boring stuff out of the way! I want to use three examples of players performance from the 2012/13 season to highlight how influential certain players are and how that influence can change over the course of the season. Suarez, Bale and Messi are the three examples I want to use. All three players were excellent in 2012/13, all posted really high shots influence numbers. Let's begin.

All Graphs Are Interactive

Suarez

Luiz Suarez had a monster season in 2012/13, which I had ranked as the 5th best season by a forward in the last 5 PL seasons. Still, during the summer, many Liverpool fans wanted to sell, to a certain extent, understandably, to a club that was willing to buy the player. 'Over-rated', 'inefficient', 'not worth the trouble' and 'Liverpool perform better without him' are just a small selection of words which used to criticize Suarez, and i don't entirely disagree with a lot of those words. That said, I was, and still remain, a big fan of Suarez the player. He's a 'hub player', constantly involved, almost always important to his teams attacking play when on the field. Hell, I even tried to convince @mixedknuts that he would be a good signing for Arsenal! Just how good is Suarez? Well, we need to see him to repeat last seasons level of performance before we anoint him as a genuinely consistent player who has world class ability. But my, was Suarez important to Liverpool's attack when he was on the field of play.

The chart above lists Suarez's game-by-game percentage contribution (red) and his rolling contribution. Suarez tailed off a little as the season wore on (Coutinho influence?) but Suarez's rolling attacking contribution as a percentage of Liverpool's attacking output is crazy good. When Suarez was on the field of play, 43.47% of Liverpool attacking output in terms of shots was created by Suarez. Suarez was the hub for Liverpool last year, he was vitally important when he did feature for Liverpool. Now, some of Suarez's high percentage contribution is due to his shot-happy nature and his willingness to shoot from anywhere. Suarez took 187 of Liverpool's 641 shots (29.17%) when on the field of play, but he also was a pretty good creator of shot opportunities for his team-mates: of non-Suarez shots the player was responsible for creating 90 shots assists of 551 shots (16.3%). Suarez was pretty important for Liverpool last season when he actually played. A 43.4% attacking contribution number is testament to that.

Bale

Injured, Welsh Ronaldo, shot monster. Those are the first three words that spring to mind when I think of the most expensive player in history. Bale is a fine, fine player who is an attacking monster with a skill set for the ages. Real Madrid overpaid, we all know that, but they still purchased a mighty good player. Bale's 2012/13 season seemingly convinced Madrid to pursue Bale, and what a season 2012/13 was.

Bale's rolling contribution improved as the season went on, and that may be testament to playing in the more influential central position that Bale occupied. Improvement in Bale's game was also a thing. Gareth Bale's final attacking contribution number stands at 43.23%, just a shade behind Suarez's. Only God knows what Bale's contribution number would have looked like if he had played centrally all season and not played injured in the last 5 or so games. Bale's shots only as a contribution percentage: 165 shots for 29.7%. Bale's shot assists for non-Bale shots: 75 shots assists for 19.2%. Yup, that 19% number doesn't really point to a player who couldn't create for his team-mates.

Messi

Initially, I wasn't going to include Messi's numbers in this feature, but I changed my mind. I think it's important to include the data from the footballjesus as a sort of impossible benchmark.

We know Messi is brilliant, we know he receives deferential passes from team-mates who are also excellent at creating space for him. But we didn't previously know that Messi was responsible for >50% of Barcelona's shots output when he was on the field of play.

FIFTY ONE PERCENT! We know Messi is a super freak, but I didn't expect Messi to post a contribution number that was so high, simply because the quality of his team-mates is of such a level that the shots output would be distributed a little more evenly.

Messi posted a 2012/13 number that is pretty hard to believe. Even with all the world class talent at Barcelona, He still stands out as a God amongst men.

Messi's shots only as a contribution percentage: 163 shots for 40.1%.

Messi's shot assists for non-Bale shots: 45 shots assists for 18.5%. With Messi on the field of play 40% of Barcelona's shots are taken by one player.

The Future

For the 2013/14 season I am tracking the shots influence numbers for 5 or 6 players from each PL team. Over the course of the season this should give us some nice information on who has been the most creatively important players for their respective teams. Suarez should be an interesting case in 2013/13. Which player stands out for Tottenham in Bale's absence will also be of interest.

Saturday Morning Ramble: Liverpool, Chelsea, Previews.

Posted on September 21, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

@BenjaminPugsley Statsbomb was due to record a podcast at some point midweek but September schedules, work, laziness and drinking got in the way. Oh, and some renovation work to a property next door also got in the way. That renovation work sounded like this: So, with no podcast this week I decided to ramble some on the topics that we were due to talk about.

Coutinho

@sportsanalysis posed a question to the statsbomb podcast which went a little like this: What has happened to Coutinho's form and why hasn't he created a chance for his team-mates in 2 or 3 games? It's split the answer into two parts: Team Effects Liverpool have shown excellent early form which was built on getting into the lead (early) and tightening their defensive shape and 'shelling' (LINK & LINK). Liverpool have led for an average of 65 minutes per game which, due to the extensive tactical shelling, has led to Liverpool having only 48% ball possession, a 48% TSR (Total Shots Ratio) and a 50% SoTR (Shots on Target Ratio). Once leading, Liverpool haven't had much of the ball and chance creation - Coutinho's main skill - hasn't been required as often due to the aforementioned shelling and a virtually useless counter-attacking threat when shelling. Liverpool, for over 66% of their game time, have been playing pretty defensive and this naturally will knock Coutinho's creation numbers. The Player Is....now injured for six weeks. Liverpool will miss him, but the lay-off may not be such a bad thing for the player. A short lay-off, some rest and a lot of game video may not be such a bad thing. We must remember that Coutinho is a very young player, yes he is fucking brilliant, but young players can suffer wild peaks and troughs in form as they begin to figure out the game at the very highest level. Another issue I had with expectations regarding Coutinho was the lack of a history of performance. I don't think last season's minutes played were sufficient to judge what his true talent level is. You know, maybe he is that player from last season - the creative whirlwind, the next scheming superstar - but I want to see a much larger body of work before we anoint him with the world class tag at the tender of age of 21. Given time, Coutinho will get there and be a pretty special player. But he may not be consistently excellent until 23 or 24. Chelsea TKnutso/mixedknuts/Ted seems to think something is up with Chelsea. I'm slightly inclined to agree. I wasn't as bullish as some people were at the start of the season about Chelsea, but the people that were bullish about Chelsea probably know more than I do about these things than I do. From this very early point in the season it seems like Chelsea are having issues with controlling games and creativity. But hey, maybe these things are to be expected when integrating new players and a new tactical system. It takes time for things to bed in and this makes evaluating teams with new managers mighty hard. It's going to take time for Tottenham's new players to bed in, it will take time for City's players to get used to Pellegrini's schemes and it is going to take time for Chelsea's players to get used to Mourinho's systems. My issues with Chelsea:

Age of some of the players and can Chelsea smartly rotate to prevent injuries like they did last year?
What of Chelsea's strikers? Is there enough firepower; can they score by committee?
Is Chelsea central midfield good enough for the title?

We'll only know the answers in time. There are issues for Chelsea and Mou to work through but that's the same with nearly every club at this stage of the season.

Previews

Norwich v Villa Meh. two teams who don't really know who they are yet. I like the attacking options of both of these teams, the difference between the two is while Villa are converting their chances (33% sc%) Norwich aren't (~9% sc%). Both of these teams are sub-par shots teams but it's Norwich who are struggling the most with the 18th ranked TSR in the division. Liverpool v Southampton Southampton should be a good opponent for this impressive Liverpool team. Saints are ranked 5th in TSR and 4th in SoTR in the early season shots rankings (which will change a LOT) and they keep the ball well enough for this fixture not to be a walkover for Liverpool. Without Coutinho and Suarez I do wonder about creativity if they come up against a defensive Southampton team or if they fall a goal behind. Southampton have spent just 1 minute in a winning position this season. That will have to change at some point. Newcastle v Hull Newcastle are the best team in the league in open play TSR, which is, well, mind blowing. Hull, who have faced some pretty strong quality of opposition have some sub-par underlying numbers. Newcastle with injuries to their key players are shit. Newcastle with healthy key players can out-shoot the opposition, but also have the individual quality to out-score the opposition. West Brom v Sunderland Give a shit. Two teams who are struggling mightily. West Brom can't generate offense. Sunderland can but an ~87.3 PDo is a giant anchor that is weighing them down at the moment. West Brom should pick up their home form at some point. PDC could be incandescent after this game if Sunderland lose. Chelsea v Fulham Fulham are the worst shots team in the league so far, Chelsea are the second best shots team. Chelsea's speed vs Fulham's non-speed should produce only one outcome. Could get ugly if Chelsea score early and try to work on their attacking game. Arsenal v Stoke Hughes has been impressive in the first four games going 2-1-1 but Arsenal have a lovely habit of dismantling the challenges of sub-par shots teams:

...we see the extent to which Arsenal creamed the weaker opponents. Arsenal had a record of 20-2-2 against teams with a SoTR(%) of less than 50%. That is simply an incredible record and works out to 2.58 points per game against sub-par SoTR teams.http://www.theshortfuse.com/2013/6/27/4472282/arsenal-and-the-race-for-4th-place-in-2012-13

Stoke are probably going to be a sub-par shots team. Arsenal will likely pass them to oblivion and win. Palace v Swansea Palace are struggling by the TSR count and struggling in final third passes. home form is going to be key against a Swansea side who were very good against a shambolic Valencia on Thursday night. Thursday-Sunday games are a problem and we don't know how big an effect it may have at this early stage of the season. Swansea may have too much for Palace. Cardiff v Tottenham See above. Tottenham had no added travel miles. City v United Good luck calling this one. CIty are truly dominant at home, United have RVP and Rooney. Both clubs have new managers who are figuring things out but it's City who look mighty good by the underlying numbers. It'll be interesting to see if City match power with power of if Pellegrini will be crafty and line Milner up on the right to thwart United's strong left flank. Will Toure be given licence to roam like he did in the CL to such effect? Will City line up with a 3 of Garcia holding and the big beasts of Fernandinho and Toure given licence to blitzkrieg? Who knows. It's going to be a fascinating match-up though. I'd lean City but I have a slight bias in this one. Thoughts?

Ten Points: West Ham, Newcastle & Save Of The Week (wk 4)

Posted on September 16, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

1) West Ham

West ham were an interesting team in 2012/13; good at home, absolutely terrible away from home where they were routinely and heavily out-shot. Now, that 12/13 performance away from was, or so I thought, due to West ham being a newly promoted team and thus overpowered by established PL teams. Thing is West Ham's poor shots form has continued into this new season and spread to both home and away form. This is West Ham's rolling shots +/- and as we can see it's trending in the wrong direction over these first four games. Obviously this chart merely shows West Ham's raw shots numbers, so let's look at the important shots on target information. SoT% = SoT/Total Shots

	SoT Rating	SoT% For	Prev%
West Ham	96.42	15.38	81.03

West Ham's next 4 fixtures: Everton (h), Hull (a), Tottenham (a) & Man City (h)

There is good and bad news. The Good: West Ham's SoT Prevention% is crazy good. West Ham are squeezing the opposition and forcing them to shoot from shitty angles or long distance or areas where shots are likely to be blocked. The Bad: That Sot % for figure is terrible, just horrible and it's going to have to improve quickly before a quirk turns into a trend. League average SoT for % is 31.7% after 39 games. In short, West Ham are being beaten soundly in the shots count, have a poor SoT for % number and are merely surviving up to now due to the SoT prevention number listed above and a 91% save percentage (league ave is 70%). Room for improvement.

2) Performance Of The Week

Tottenham. Crushed. Norwich. Tottenham are an interesting team to watch this year and not just because they acted out a football manager-like spending splurge for some of Europe's best players. Spurs have a fine young manager, a talented and deepish squad and lots of options in the forward/attacking mid department. But the main reasons I find them interesting is to watch how AVB attempts to mash all these pieces together to form a coherent unit and how long will that mashing take? If these new players bed in and learn the attacking scheme quickly then Tottenham will be, well, top 4.

3) Scoring% & Goals

Earlier today Mark Taylor penned an article titled A Premiership goal Drought which looks at the low number of goals, 74, scored from the first 39 games. I heartily recommend reading Mark's article which prompted the following tweets: On the topic of the final goals scored total at the seasons end.

@TheM_L_G @marktaylor0 Well, I don't think it would be the same. I'd expect it to be about 1-2% lower. — Daniel Altman (@altmandaniel) September 16, 2013

Since it's a hot topic today, I'll go on record as saying there are solid systemic reasons to think PL scoring will drop 5% this season — Ted Knutson (@mixedknuts) September 16, 2013

@altmandaniel @TheM_L_G @MarkTaylor0 I think that a 6% drop has been about the biggest in recent years. — Simon Gleave (@SimonGleave) September 16, 2013

Ted goes onto list Fergie's departure at Man United, Tottenham fixing their defense and Mourinho's PL return as possible causes. Now, I'm not going to argue with these big beasts who are far smarter than I, but I checked on a couple of year-on-year numbers to see if anything stood out. Shots In 2012/13 there was 9.17 shots on target per game and 27.8 shots per game In 2013/14 there has been 8.15 shots on target per game and 25.58 shots per game. It's clear that 13/14's numbers are slightly down from the previous year, but small samples, variance, quirks and closely fought fixtures can have effects on these numbers. Scoring% League average Scoring% over the course of a season will settle at somewhere close to ~30%. In 2013/14 league scoring% is just 23.27%. Time Spent Drawing (link) I assumed that any increases in the amount of time spent drawing may have led to a lower number of goals scored.There has been an average of 41.2 mins per game so far in 13/14. In 12/13 the average was ~46.5 minutes. Three simple categories, none of them tell us anything particularly interesting given the small number of games played thus far but if pushed I'd say that the big drop of in scoring% is responsible thus far. And we know what happens to scoring%? STill, the drop off in shots on target is curious. New systems, new players and new managers.

4) Save Of The Week

Gareth Barry take a bow.

5) Newcastle

Oh Newcastle, what is this? 7 points after 4 games, this isn't how it was supposed to look considering the shambles of the transfer window? Newcastle were shellacked in their first PL game of the season as Man City ran up the score and Steven Taylor was dismissed for a foolish elbow in a game that was fairly described as a shambles from Newcastle's perspective.

Newcastle's next 4 fixtures: Hull (h), Everton (a), Cardiff (a) & Liverpool (h)

Since that opening day defeat Newcastle toiled against a stubborn and restrictive West ham team, beat Fulham and Villa away. The common theme throughout these three games? The opposition was destroyed by the shots count. In fact, despite that opening day defeat, Newcastle have some of the best underlying shots numbers in the league. Percentage share of the shots count. TSR=Total Shots. SoTR= shots on target. Fenwick=total shots with blocked shots removed.

	Tied	Close	Total
TSR	74.14	67.06	59.80
Fenwick	74.47	69.57	60.98
SoTR	62.50	68.00	54.55

All of these numbers are nice and healthy. It makes a refreshing change to have something positive to write about Newcastle United football club. Naturally, some of these excellent numbers will regress over time. But my Lord does it make a difference when a team doesn't have a crippling list of injured key players. Things that are different so far this year: Coloccini is fit. Ben Arfa is fit. Tiote is fit. Krul is fit. Pardew isn't fucking things up. PDO has regressed nicely in Newcastle's favour and the fixture list isn't the most difficult one will ever see. Let's see where Newcastle are after ten games. There'll be no relegation battle this year. Famous last words!

6) Goal Of The Week

Douglas Costa. Golazo

7) City's Away form

There was gnashing of teeth aplenty after Man City drew yet another game at the Brittania stadium but that draw should have come as no surprise. Man City have had fairly pressing issues with away from for some time. In 11/12, the title winning season, Man City managed 34 points on the road and 55 at home. In 12/13 Man City managed 33 points on the road and 45 points at home. Last season Man City's away form was only the 6th best in the entire league. City's shots count was good, their possession was numbers were fine but they just could not score enough goals. These issues have spilled over in 2013/14 with the goal-less draw at Stoke serving as the perfect example of City's ills. A lack of chance creation or variety, no penetration and too little width are just a few of tactical items that need addressing. When Pellegrini was hired as Man City manager I wrote that fixing the away form was priority #1 and to do this the Chilean would have to fix Man City's scoring% on the road. The scoring% sits at 25% through two games but City's style of play and the disorganized feel about the team are causing concern among City fans. Pellegrini needs time to figure the PL out. The players need time to figure Pellegrini out. New manager, new players and new tactics but the same away day troubles so far.

8) Podcast!

Listen to Ted Knutson and myself discuss topics as diverse as Ozil, West Brom, Diego Simeone, Tottenham, Mourinho and Barcelona. <link>

9) Swansea v Liverpool

It should be a pretty fascinating game this evening and it'll be even more interesting if Liverpool fall a goal behind. So far this season Liverpool have tended to score early and then retreat into a defensive shell with limited counter attacking spikes. We have seen so far this season that Liverpool can defend a lead but can they break teams down? We just don't yet. Liverpool's odds to qualify for the top 4 have shortened to 11/10 and although I think they have improved mightily since Coutinho and Sturridge arrived in January I still think it's a tall task to assume Liverpool will qualify for the CL. Liverpool finished with 61 points in 12/13, can they add another 9 or 10 points in order to break the top 4? Possibly. But with Tottenham and Arsenal arguably having strengthened this Summer it remains a big ask, great underlying numbers and all. Swansea are 1.61 win or draw (double chance)

10) Move Of The Week

This is just a gorgeous football sequence. Rooney marries tremendous vision with flawless execution and the take and technique that was then displayed by van Persie is genuinely world class. Only a matter of inches and the crossbar deny this sequence the goal of the week honours.

Follow @benjaminpugsley

Mesut Özil: Career Numbers (per 90)

Posted on September 2, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

You never can be sure with deadline day deals but it appears increasingly certain that Mesut Özil has become an Arsenal player for 42m Euros. It's a happy ending to a fraught Summer. But Özil was worth the wait. Most of us are familiar with Özil's style: a graceful player, a wand of a left foot and an above average work-rate. But by far Özil's best skill and most dangerous trait is his truly elite passing ability. Almost all neutral fans will agree that Özil will be a fine addition to the Premier League. As for the Arsenal fans, all the collective pain and inertia that the summer window had wrought may suddenly fade from memory with with this signing. Unless I am very much mistaken Özil's signing will be the biggest import transfer in Premier League history at around £40m. And he may just be worth it.

Career Numbers

Shots and Goals

Team		Age	Goals p90	Shots p90	SoT p90	Sc%	Sh Acc%
Real Madrid	S 12/13	24	0.40	1.34	0.76	52.94	56.67
Real Madrid	S 11/12	23	0.14	1.09	0.35	40.00	32.26
Real Madrid	S 10/11	22	0.21	1.38	0.53	40.00	38.46
Werder Bremen	S 09/10	21	0.31	2.32	1.08	29.03	46.27
Werder Bremen	S 08/09	20	0.13	1.88	0.63	21.43	33.33

Özil's goals per90 numbers are pretty inconsistent as are his shots on target per90 numbers. This isn't a player who will score a lot, for he just isn't a shooter. Passes, Assists and key Passes per90

Team		Age	Assists p90	Passes p90	Pass%	KP p90	ToP%
Real Madrid	S 12/13	24	0.58	50.39	84.10	4.09	53.21
Real Madrid	S 11/12	23	0.60	57.45	87.10	3.61	67.53
Real Madrid	S 10/11	22	0.60	51.01	85.40	4.21	66.95
Werder Bremen	S 09/10	21	0.42	37.56	82.50	3.23	68.29
Werder Bremen	S 08/09	20	0.54	n/a	n/a	n/a	52.92

Some of these numbers may look confusing but I'll quickly run through them. here is a link to some of Europe's best players in 2012/13 and their per90 numbers (link) Assists per90 Truly elite. Off the charts elite. Ozil is going to create hell for opposition defenses. Passes per90 Good numbers. Key Passes per90 Truly elite Time on Pitch% The percentage of minutes a player actual plays against the total available. I think we have an understanding of the strengths of the player: Ozil is a creator, not a shooter. But his passing numbers - KP per90 and Assists per90 - are truly elite. Yes, there may be a slight Real Madrid boost in effect here, and some of Ozil's numbers may drop a little due to no longer playing in a team that scores 100 league goals a campaign, but this is a player of the highest quality. A game changer for Arsenal in terms of talent and a game changer for for Arsenal in terms of future recruitment of world class players.

Highlights

Liverpool's Defensive Shell

Posted on August 25, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

Despite the relative ease of Liverpool's opening pair of Premier League fixtures, six points is a pleasing return. I thought yesterday's win away at Aston Villa was mighty interesting for a couple of reasons. Firstly what Liverpool didn't do: counter attack with any great threat once they were one goal to the good. And secondly, what Liverpool did do: shelled pretty heavily. Now, I once again discussed defensive shells in last week's 10 Points column, Ted then elaborated on that topic further in fine style. Teams who have a one goal lead tend to sit back, tighten up the defensive shape in an attempt to prevent the opposition from exploiting any space and creating good goal scoring opportunities. A good defensive shell should also have a threatening counter attack element to it. Yesterday, Liverpool's shell did not have that.

Numbers

	Tied	Plus 1
Shots	4 / 1	1 / 16
SoT	1 / 0	0 / 3
Blocks For	1 / 2	0 / 4

Liverpool took the lead in the 21st minute and thereafter proceeded to shell, and shell hard. Liverpool had just 1 shot for the remainder of the ~75 minutes that remained (injury time included) and this points to the counter attacking threat being non-existent. Although there was no counter threat, Liverpool's shell worked pretty well. yes, Villa had 16 shots when Liverpool were employing varying levels of their shell but just three (18.7%) of Villa's shots were on target. Let's now look at Liverpool's shell, what it restricted Aston Villa to and how self inflicted errors on Liverpool's part gifted Villa their best shooting opportunity of the game.

The Shell

This screen grab shows us just what Aston Villa had had to break down in the second half. Liverpool were in shell mode and it became visually obvious what kind of tactics Liverpool were employing once Villa gained controlled entry into the final third. Two banks of four, ten yards apart and twenty or so yards wide. What Liverpool were aiming to do is to prevent Villa from taking shots from central positions close to the goal. Faced with Liverpool's deep defensive shell and two banks of four setup Villa could attempt the following methods of attack:

Central pass to the attacking midfielder who is dropping off.
Pass down the line for the wide player.
Shot from distance
Chip cross into the box in the hope of a knockdown/secondary ball.

Let's see how Villa fared in trying to break down Liverpool's shell. '44 Shot From Distance A failed clearance - the first of many - allowed Villa to work the ball to Weimann in a central area. The Villa player struck a fierce shot which looked destined to be on target but was blocked by a Liverpool player. This screen grab highlights just how difficult it is to get a shot through a crowd and on target. Liverpool were sat very deep with numerous bodies in front of the ball and it paid off with a vital block of a goal bound shot. '74 Snap Shot From A Secondary Ball

Villa went for option 4, the chip into the box. Three Liverpool defenders won the duel for the initial chip cross, but as Villa had hoped, the secondary ball fell to a white shirt who was able to attempt a shot from a good position. Villa were only able to attempt a shot, which was off target, due to Benteke's aerial prowess and the failure of the Liverpool midfield block to get closer to the defensive block once the ball had been chipped in. Kolo Toure, quite rightly, was extremely displeased. '79 Shot From Distance This time, Villa chose option 3 - a shot from distance. The play shifted in field from Villa's right flank and the Villa player has options. Tonev could lay off to the player immediately to his left but the better option would be a 15 yard square ball to Agbonlahor who was not only in space but had his left-back available for support. Tonev elected to shoot from distance, and given the improbability of the shot resulting in a goal, the Bulgarian wasted possession. Tonev's poor decision making prevented Villa from potentially carving out a higher quality scoring chance. '86 Liverpool Chaos, Benteke Volley The sequence of events that took place just before this screen grab were important. Villa, once again, attempted a straight chip pass which Agger, Enrique and finally Gerrard failed to clear in 3 attempts. That failure to clear led to to flicked headers by Villa players putting Benteke clean through with the keeper for a volley opportunity. It was arguably Villa's best chance during Liverpool's spell of defensive shelling and that chance came through poor defending and a sequence of failed clearances which led to the giveaway.

Final Thoughts

Liverpool's defensive shell was effective. It gave up a high number of shots, but most of them were from distance or had to find their way through numerous defensive bodies. This is what a defensive shell does, it gives up the ghost in terms of possession-based attacking play and focuses on reducing the quality of opposition chances. The reduction in quality of Villa's chances may be evident in the low number of their 16 shots that were on target. Liverpool's shell worked, although they were a little too deep at times, which may have led to some of the fatigue and errors that gifted Villa some good quality scoring chances. Oh, and Liverpool, when shelling, need to offer way more counter attacking threat than they did. A better team than Villa would have overwhelmed this error-prone Liverpool shell with their skill and speed of ball movement. A hub player like Suarez will help with the counter attacking threat.

2013/14 Shot Domination: Week 1

Posted on August 21, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

Welcome to StatsBomb's Table section. This will be the home for some of the alternative league table data that usually hides away in a database. I am not entirely sure what data I will be including in these tables, so if you, our dear reader, have any suggestions as to what stats we could include, do tell us in the comments section. I have a lot of information that I collect, so it's pretty easy for me to make a table and update it weekly. Now the table! 2013/14 Premier League Shot Domination, SoT Domination & SoT% For/Against [table id=28 /] An explanation of Shot Domination can be found here <link> SoT Domination uses the same principles but for shots on target. SoT% For - Is shots on target/total shots. It measures how efficient a team is at getting it shots onto the target. A high number is GOOD. SoT% Against - Shots on target against/total shots against. Basically, this is how efficient the opposition was in getting it's shots onto the target. A LOW number is GOOD. I'll be updating these tables on a weekly basis and adding a few more alternative tables as I think of them. Any suggestions on what data to capture and display in a table, then let me know.

EPL 2013/14 Season Preview - Newcastle

Posted on August 15, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

If Newcastle's 5th place finish in 2011/12 was the clear high point since their return to the top flight, then 2012/13 was certainly the low point. Newcastle struggled mightily last year for a number of reasons the mainstream media would never pick up on:

Regression from the unsustainable heights of 2011/12.
Regression in Ba and Cisse's unsustainable scoring% numbers from 11/12.
A PDO drop from 105 to 89.
The demands of playing in Europe
A lengthy injury list which included several key players.

Newcastle had an awful lot of things go right for them in 2011/12, but as predicted by the sharps who looked at Newcastle's underlying numbers, a big step backwards was always on the cards for 2012/13. Newcastle's 5th place finish in 2011/12 was nowhere near their true talent level. I don't believe Newcastle's 15th placed finish in 2012/13 represents their true talent level either.

2012/13 Numbers League Position 15th (41 points) Shot Dom 9th (1.06) Shots on target Dom 9th (0.94) PDO 19th (89.1) Newcastle were a middle of the pack shots and shots on target team, but Newcastle's PDO was the boat anchor that dragged this team down. That anchor nearly dragged Newcastle all the way down the the Championship, but a timely win here and there in that run-in was enough to see Newcastle retain their status. As mentioned above, one of the main reasons why Newcastle struggled so badly last term was due to their injury crisis which was caused, in part, at least, by the club's involvement in the Europa League. Long term injuries to key players such as Coloccini, Taylor, Cabaye, Tiote, Krul and Ben Arfa really hampered Newcastle's first team options. Newcastle's 12/13 Injuries Per game Not only was Newcastle's man games lost to injury number way ahead of league average, Newcastle's number got gradually worse as the season wore on, which hampered them in key games in the run-in. Looking ahead to 2013/14, it may be reasonable to expect that PDO and man games lost to injury may positively regress, and if they do this it should help Newcastle to rebound from a fraught and difficult 12/13 season. Let's now focus on the upcoming season. Personnel We have to start with the clusterfuck that is Newcastle's management team and it's structure. Pardew, rightly or wrongly, is the Newcastle manager and to be honest, he is probably a bang average manager at this level. Good enough to maximise the home advantage in the North East, but average enough to see his team over-matched away from home. has six years left of his contract, but the payoff package is quite low, apparently. Could be sacked. Kinnear brought in, laughably, as director of football. Quite what he has to offer to the modern game is up for question. Friction with squad and Pardew likely. In short, he is Smithers to Ashley's Burns. Graham Carr the ex-Man City scout may well be Newcastle's star man. Consistently finds mid-priced players who arguably outperform their transfer bet. His 'hit' list is too long to mention here. The rumours have Carr and Pardew barely on speaking terms over the positional deployment of some of his signings. Owner Mike Ashley presides, sometimes irrationally, over this schizophrenic setup. Newcastle is a club with a lot of potential - huge match day revenue, secondary revenue streams - who, with the right managemnet setup could improve on their current standing in the Premier League. To do so may mean to do away with Pardew and Kinnear. Th whole management structure at Newcastle has the potential to become a full scale war between the three parties, especially if Newcastle struggle once more. Incoming Loic Remy has been Newcastle's only signing so far this summer and Remy is... wait for it... injured! Rumours had been swirling of a move for Darren Bent, but this looks increasingly unlikely. Jordan Rhodes is another who has been linked along with a host of players I have never heard of. I'd be surprised if there were no more transfers before the window shuts. Outgoing Simpson, Perch, Harper and a bunch of youth players. Newcastle retain a squad of 27 first team pros. This seems a little on the large side, but after last years injury crisis, it is understandable that Newcastle will carry a large number of players. Conclusion Newcastle were a mess last year: Off-field issues, friction between head scout and manager, and now they have Joe Kinnear's arrival to contend with. If the off-field craziness can be kept to a minimum, Newcastle should be able to enjoy a bounceback season. Injuries - especially to Coloccini and Taylor - the sale of Ba, the regression of Cisse and the extra 10 games of European football all contributed to Newcastle having flirted with relegation last year. If 2011/12 was an unsustainable performance, then 2012/13 was the overcorrection. Newcastle's true ability probably lies somewhere inbetween those two extremes. And a finish around 10th to 12th place is probably to be expected. If we assume that Newcastle won't suffer the same number of injuries in 2013/14, and we add Loic Remy and one or two other new signings, then Newcastle simply have too many good players to be Premier League strugglers once again. Away form is a concern, squad quality isn't. 10th place. [youtube id=2kHj3yysRrI width="633" height="356"]

EPL 2013/14 Preview: Sunderland

Posted on August 13, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

Oh, Sunderland! How are we going to evaluate what kind of team you will be in 2013/14? Who are you, how will Di Canio change you? Will the Italian even see out the season? So many questions and all we can do is project and grope about blindly at what may happen. First of all, let's take a look back at what happened last season. 2012/13 Numbers League Position 17th Shot Dom Rank 19th Shots on Target Dom Rank 19th PDO 5th (103.7) Some of these numbers don't really do justice to how horrendously terrible Martin O'Neill's team was in the first third of the season. Sunderland were out-shot heavily, out-chanced heavily and, frankly, were lucky to have retained their PL status in 2012/13. Here we see Sunderland's rolling SoTR and PDO: It wasn't until game 17 that Sunderland broke the 40% barrier in terms of SoTR (par is 50%). During that early season run it was Sunderland's PDO that was keeping them afloat and likely off of the bottom of the table. Now, it was clear to me that firing O'Neill was the correct decision- hell, the Northern Irishman should have been fired six games into the season. Any team that posts 1 shot on target or less in nine of it's thirty eight games is a team that is clearly out-matched both in talent and tactics. O'Neill was correctly fired, Di Canio was hired in his stead. The Italian only had a short amount of time to work with his new charges and although he didn't improve Sunderland's underlying numbers, he achieved the most important thing, that of PL safety.

Transfers

Di Canio has made TEN new signings, and quite honestly, this was necessary. Sunderland's squad required quality and some depth and it appears Di Canio has addressed this.

IN Czech defender Celustka has joined on loan, Giacherrini, somehow, was convinced to join Sunderland in a £7.5m deal and Jozy Altidore was signed for £10m and he should give Sunderland some much needed help up front. Vito Mannone was signed from Arsenal as the #1 'keeper.

There are some nice pieces here. Altidore and Giaccherini should aid Sunderland's underwhelming attack and Mannone should be a capable goalie. I was pretty sure that Di Canio would fix what I though was Sunderland's most pressing team need, midfield. But as of the time of writing, it appears that the club is happy to stick with what it has. Creativity and the ability to retain the ball in midfield could be an issue once more.

OUT

Danny Graham has departed on loan, Danny Rose has returned to his parent club and Elmohamady, Bramble and Maclean are also gone. But it is the loss of Mignolet which may hurt Sunderland the most. At times last season Mignolet was superb and looked like an elite level 'keeper. Will his absence harm Sunderland? I guess it depends on Mannone's ability to play a full PL season as a #1, but I would guess that Mignolet will be dearly missed.

The Manager

Beneath the crazed veneer and intense stare is an intelligent man and good football coach. But can DI Canio communicate his message to the players, and if he can, are these players good enough to execute that message? I like Di Canio and I will be rooting for him, but one gets the feeling that some form of chaos is always bubbling away under the surface. Is Di Canio too hard with his players? How will he behave with the press corps? What will happen if Sunderland go on a bad run in terms of results? Will that passion and intensity, which was so beloved late last season, twist and become tiresome if the results aren't positive? These are just some of the questions we can reasonably ask of Di Canio in what will be his first full top flight season. My biggest question - and it may be the most important - is can Di Canio improve one of the worst shots +/- teams around? Another season of being butchered in the shots count will place Sunderland pretty close to being relegated. Reasons For Optimism

Di Canio and his coaching brain. A full pre-season should be plenty time for Di Canio to implement a superior tactical scheme to the one we saw last season.
Giaccherini and Altidore should add some much goals and creativity.
Sessegnon is still at the club.
A return to some sort of fitness for Brown and Cattermole will help too.
Strike force. Fletcher, Sessegnon, Altidore and Wickham should, in theory, score enough goals with Johnson and Giaccherini providing the service.

Reasons For Pessimism

This team was bad last year. Sunderland were heavily out-shot and it remains unclear whether Di Canio can fix that.
Lack of Midfield quality. Cattermole, Gardiner, Colback, Cabral, and maybe Larsson, doesn't sound like a midfield that is strong enough to control the play.
How much will Mignolet be missed. It's clear that Mannone isn't t the same level as Mignolet, but how much worse is the Italian? 5 or 6 goals? If Mannone struggles, Westwood may be brought in.
There's talk of Di Canio changing Sunderland's style and playing out from the back and to feet. A change had to be made after last season's performances, but do Sunderland have the personnel in the full back and midfield areas to play a quick, short passing game? [No. - Editor Knut]

Prediction

Ha! Really? This is a lottery. Di Canio could succeed in the North East with a new tactical set-up that his players really buy into and this would result in a lower mid table finish. If his methods don't succeed or his players aren't able to perform up to his standards, then Di Canio could be under pressure, he could go to war with his players and himself and only God knows what the outcome of that would be. Could be a relative success, or could fail to see out the season. I think Sunderland could struggle if the bets on Altidore and Giaccherini don't come good.

Links From Around The Web

Posted on August 9, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

A weekly round-up of stuff you should read. There has been tons of excellent stuff here on Statsbomb.com and I do want to link it, but if I start linking content from this site I may never stop. Instead, I impore you to go and read everything we write here at stasbomb, Now! The Best Data Graphics you will ever see (link) Really. Read this. Gladwell, Simmons and Silver (link) Three big beasts chatter away on a podcast over at Grantland. Enough said. Cosh on SIlver. Again (link) Colby Cosh swore he would never write about Nate Silver again, but here he is breaking his promise. 'Silver went to the trouble of writing a whole book about what he does, but it is in the nature of such books to be bought more than they are read and read more than they are understood' How did Mike Trout slip to #25 in his draft year? (link) Interesting article here from Fox sports. How good, or should that be, how big is Mike Trout's name? I haven't followed baseball closely for some time and I even I know who he is! Oh, this (link) is pretty good too. Gabriel Desjardin's Soccer Archive (link) Some staggering work here (but not his full archive) with data of the like I don't think we have had access too before or since. In short: the soccer analytics community can't hold a candle to any of this work and Gabe wrote this stuff over 3 years ago. He does stil write but it's about 5g technology rather than game state effects on weighted pass rates. I prodded him a week ago on shot quality and luck in soccer, but no luck. Although, this tweet from June gave rise to hope:

Read a few page of @soccerquant's book on my flight yesterday. Made me think of about 9 million things I want to analyze... — Hawerchuk (@behindthenet) June 11, 2013

Open this link at your peril (link) This is just sensational! The GIF Oracle by Jon Bois is the best collection of sports gif's you are ever likely to see. I lost about half an hout of my life in this post, and I feel lucky it was only 30 minutes. http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/516980/2009_medium.gif Wayne Gretzky was traded 25 years ago this gifweek (link) Adam Proteau of The Hockey News has a nice oral history of the trade which changed and expanded the NHL into new markets and away from it's traditional roots. This happened one day before the gretzky trade NWA [youtube id="Enter video ID (xFNZUDSVqck)" width="633" height="356"]

Links From Around The Web

Posted on July 28, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

Welcome to the weekly links round-up on StatsBomb. 5 Maths and Stats Guru's (link) With Nate Silver taking the FiveThirtyEight brand and his considerably sized brain to ESPN the Score made a quick list of 5 maths and stats guys you should know. Richard Whitall Takes A Look At Shot Quality And Shot Quality (link) I really, really wanted to include Cam Charron's links to quality and quantity but Whitall beat me to it with this article. Do read this article. This from Charron: Well… winning counts, and to win you need to score goals, and to score goals you need to get scoring chances. It sounds easy enough to suggest that you want to eschew bad shots and take good shots, but that isn’t the case. Sidney Crosby and Henrik Sedin’s teams don’t have high shooting percentages when they’re on the ice because they wait around for the perfect set up, they just plain set up scoring chances more than other players possibly can. With other guys, it’s different and for a guy with a buttload of goals in his career and the reputation of having a deadly wrist shot, Alexander Ovechkin is simply a player that takes a tonne of shots, and sometimes they go in. Replace Ovechkin with Bale/Suarez. Deep Blue v Kasparov (link) A nice short story on the controversy - including the bug in Deep Blue's system - surrounding Gary Kasparov's re-match with IBM's Deep Blue. 'At the time, Deep Blue versus Kasparov was hailed as a seminal moment in the history of computer science — and lamented as a humiliating defeat for the human intellect' Interesting Stats Breakdown Of Luis Suarez (link) There is an awful lot of information in this article from @7amkickoff, and it shows us some of Suarez's good and bad traits. I'm not a big fan of using 'big chance' but I did like the authors use of 'Sum Actions per 90'. Suarez is a hub player, he has some efficiency issues, but I believe the good really outweighs the bad in regard to the player. Soccer Passing Location (link) Gabe Desjardins: Teams have almost no chance to complete a pass inside the 18-yard box. Total passes in and of themselves do not predict a team's likelihood of winning. But a team that is able to pass into more dangerous - and lower percentage pass - areas is more likely to get opportunities to win. Do Those Who Deny Advanced Statistics Even Watch The Games? (link) A beautiful, well written article which questions the position of those who bash advanced stats in the NFL. This is excellent from John Morgan of Football Outsiders. 'Yes, we understand your hostility, your fear, because we are dangerous. We know embarrassing facts about you. We know you watch First Take, SportsCenter; we know you watch highlights on your phone, gloss opinions from PTI, unwittingly gloss opinions from people that glossed opinions from PTI; and we know you watch sports entertainment much more than you watch sports.' The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. —Bertrand Russell Why MLB batters can't hit Jenny Finch's softball pitch (link) This is a long article which sprawls across many pages and looks at many different topics. All excerpts are from a new book by David Finch. Mainly it's about Jenny Finch, MLB batters and the science of reaction time. Finch: 'Still, Pujols and other All-Stars see -- and crush -- 95-mph fastballs for a living. So why are they transmogrified into Little Leaguers when faced with 68-mph softballs? It's because the only way to hit a ball traveling at high speed is to be able to see into the future, and when a baseball player faces a softball pitcher, he is stripped of his crystal ball.' Read More: Link We are Premier League with a full shots conversion breakdown (link) This article features a hellacious amount of research and it must have taken an age to put together. There's lots of interesting information in here, some of it I like less (CCC's) than others. But do go and check it out, it has a 20 team conversion chart from the important locations of the pitch. Luck vs shot quality (link) Desjardins. This link has relevance to football. Bottom line: shot distance/location/quality is just a tiny sliver of shooting percentage (both for and against.) When you factor in the 33% regression to the mean we see in odd and even samples, shot quality accounts for just under 10% of team shooting percentage. I had a short, but interesting conversation with the author about this type of breakdown for football. The Power Of Goals On Turnovers In The Final Third (link) Mark Taylor looks at the 'Rare And Significant From The Incidental And Commonplace' over at his blog. Mark focuses on winning possession differential. It's a thought provoking article on a topic that has been well known inside the game for a number of years now. The negative reaction of The Secret Footballer when told by an analyst that final third turnovers were a crucial part of a teams performance attests not only to their existence, but probably their importance too.

Premier League Forwards 2008-13: Time On Pitch%, Shots And Goals

Posted on July 25, 2013July 14, 2022 by Simon Banoub

After a short break away from football, numbers and banging my head against the keyboard I am back. My work here at StatsBomb has mainly comprised of all things Premier League forwards and their stats from 2008-13. Think of this article (and maybe one other) as a wrap-up of all the information I have on Premier league Forwards spanning from 2008 to 2013. Right now I want to look specifically at the relationships, if there are any, between some of the numbers I have previously looked at. Do shots and shots on target begin to decay as the ToP% increases? How about scoring%? Goals, even? Let's find out. This is all about decay as time (players minutes on the pitch) increases.

Shots And Shots On Target

X axis=time (ToP%) Y axis=Statistic This chart is shows us the relationship between time (x) and shots and shots on target per90 (y). This is the full sample of players in my database with no outliers removed. The correlations for shots and ToP% and SoT and ToP% are super weak, almost non-existent. But what we can see is a slight angling of the trend line: Shots increases from ~2.75 to 3.1 as we move from left to right. Shots on target increases from ~1 per90 to ~1.2 per 90 left to right. As we move upwards in the units of x (Time) the units of y increases slightly. If I had cherry picked the sample and discarded all players who played less than a league average ToP% (44.29%) then the trend lines would be much steeper. Alas, I wanted to use the entire sample. Reasons for Increase in Shots per90 as ToP% increases? It's probably to do with survivor bias. The players that play the most minutes tend to be the best players, the best players tend to be the one's who generate the most shots and shots on target, hence the slight upward slope of the trend line. The more minutes a player plays may be a rough proxy for talent, manager trust and an ability to stay healthy. The trend line indicates -ever so slightly in this full sample of players - that the more a player plays (talent?) the more shots and shots on target he registers.

Scoring%

Now we move onto Scoring% (goals/shots on target) with ToP%. From left to right we see the trend line is decreasing ever so slightly from 35% to 31%. Reasons why Scoring% decreases? I'd love to hear some reader comments on this. I'd probably need some more time to think about it, but a rough guess would probably look like this: The more minutes (ToP%) a player plays, the more raw shots on target he records. The more shots on target a player has the more likely it is that variance will wash out and his scoring% will regress toward the mean. Random Thoughts * Colin Trainor posted some excellent articles here on StatsBomb which looked at shot locations and shot placement maps (where on the goals frame the shot would have crossed the goal line) which questioned, if I understood it correctly, whether we need to sort shots on target by quality. As I was making this chart today some interesting information cropped up: Why does a player post such different scoring% numbers each year? Now, some players, like Messi and RvP are pretty consistent in terms of scoring%, this may be due to their shot locations and shot placements. But they are the exceptions, nearly every other player has their scoring% vary somewhat. This could well be down to shot location and placement as Colin stated. But what if a players location/placement varies year to year? Does this mean that the popular train of thought that a strikers main skill, that of shot location/placement, is non-repeatable and that there are other factors involved that influence a strikers shot location? If a players shots location/placement is stable year to year then why does the player suffer the dips and spikes in scoring%. If player X shoots from the same location, why doesn't he score as much? Does variance, non-skill factors, defensive pressure, goalkeeper position play a bigger role in a players season scoring% than just static shot location? If it does, it would go a long way in helping explain the variance in season-to-season scoring% and level of regression involved in scoring%. I have highlighted a couple of names on the chart above: Adebayor and Berbatov. Adebayor posted consecutive scoring% seasons of ~13%, 35% and 58%. Berbatov posted scoring% seasons of 35%, 72% (tiny sample), 47% and 35%. Are these numbers due to the lack of repeatability of locations/placements or are these two players shooting from the same locations and merely suffering through variance/bad or good luck? Or is there something we are not currently capturing? I guess what is part of the fun and debate, which is always friendly and aimed at trying to figure out what the hell is going on, is to discover just what drives stats like scoring%. What is the constituent make-up of scoring%, it's repeatability et cetera. This is why myself and Ted created this site. Any thoughts, comment away.

Goals Per90

This is goals per90 with ToP%. Again we see a weak correlation, but a slight decline in the trend line which indicates that as x increases y decreases ever so slightly. I highlighted some of the best goal scoring performances of the last 5 years in the top right hand side of this chart. Familiar names. I think it is pretty clear why goals per90 decreases over time, it is scoring% driven. The bottom left side of this chart is really cool. It shows the groupings of below league average ToP% players and the rate at which they score goals per90. Seems to be six or seven different bands of players featured in the circled area and each group has it's own talent level curve for goals per90. I checked the data before posting and it seems sound, but my those curves are mighty intriguing.