Motion Charts: 2014/15 Scoring% & Save%

Watch as Scoring% & Save% regress as the season progresses. 

There's systemic effects in each team's scoring% and Save% numbers: distance and location and tactics will all have an effect on these two stats. But these effects aren't repeatable and don't sustain over the course of the season. Why? Luck, variance, score effects, schedule and God knows what else.



How To Read This Chart:

x Axis is scoring% (goals for/shots on target for) 

y Axis is save% (100-goals against/shots on target against)

Bubble Size tells us about a team's Goal% (bigger the better)

The Blue dot is league average in scoring% & save%

The play button is the game week. It should read 1-38 but instead it reads 1001-1038

Green = Top 4 | Red = Relegation | Blue = league average

Note how the dots tighten as we move through the season.


 

Motion Charts: The 2014/15 Premier League Good/Lucky Chart At Week 22

The 2013/14 chart can be found here.

How To Read This Chart:

x Axis is Shots on target ratio (further right the better)

y Axis is PDO (the higher on the y axis the 'luckier')

Bubble Size tells us about how many points a team has (bigger the better)

The Blue dot is league average in Points/SoTR & PDO

The play button is the game week. It should read 1-38 but instead it reads 1001-1038.

Green = Top 4 | Red = Relegation

What It All Means?

Arsenal Good shots numbers, should slide into the top 4 as usual.

Aston Villa Terrible shots numbers have improved. Can't score, won't score. Serious relegation threat.

Burnley PDO has regressed (scoring% now looks normal) and they are competing on a weekly basis. SoTR numbers have them as real relegation candidates.

Chelsea Elite SoTR numbers, a sliding PDO. Faves for title if the cyborgs don't break.

Crystal Palace Just short of a league average SoTR team, PDO is slightly below average. Heavily outpassed and hemmed in their own zone under Warnock.

Everton Consistently good SoTR is being spiked by terrible PDO (save%). Some systems (Martinez) likely involved in the PL's worst save% but some shitty luck, too.

Hull SotR was nosediving, but has recovered over the last few games. PDO has regressed to league average. In trouble

Leicester Crazy stupid high PDO has regressed to below league average. SoTR numbers are in the danger zone. Likely lack the talent to compete.

Liverpool Improving SoTR and improving PDO, both assisted by some soft recent schedule. Should compete for the top 4.

Man City Title challenging SoTR numbers with a slightly above average PDO. Injuries to continue to hinder.

Man United Slightly above average SoTR numbers with a sky high PDO. A little like Autumn Ferguson but the Shots on target ratio isn't quite as impressive.

Newcastle A league average SoTR team with a terrible PDO (caused by save%). Need to hire a competent manager and that list will not contain the name of Bernd Schuster,

QPR PDO has regressed to 95, SoTR numbers peg them as relegation candidates.

Southampton SoTR is regressing but the PDO remains high. 60% SoTR is top 4 worthy.

Stoke SoTR numbers are now around league average after a strong start. PDO has been regressing toward the mean all season and is just about normal now.

Sunderland SoTR is gradually getting worse. Now would be a fine time for Sunderland to be releagted seeing as, for once, I didn't bet on it.

Swansea SoTR is sliding, PDO is regressing. Yikes.

Tottenham Middling SoTR numbers (a surprise) and 103 PDO. I thought Pocchetino would do better. Need to keep Eriksen.

West Brom Sub-par SoTR team, PDO is about average. West Brom merely take up a space in this league that could be better used by a more interesting team. 

West Ham A 50% SoTR team with a high PDO. West Ham aren't a good team in open play (16th in open play TSR) but are riding the percentages there and even more so from set pieces. Allardyce has changed West Ham. He really has, honest. Yeah.

None of these things are new or particularly revelatory. 

Motion Charts: The 2013/14 Premier League Good/Lucky Chart

The Good/Lucky chart is a handy little scatter plot that I borrowed/stole from Michael Parkatti of the Oilogosphere. *It's always nice to give credit from the original source.

Anyway, I've been creating this chart for a good 18 months or so now and v1.0 was a simple static chart. v2.0 was a labelled bubble chart. v3.0 was an interactive bubble plot with the size of the bubble indicating a team's points total.

Below is v4.0. Fully interactive motion chart. x axis tells us these things:

• x Axis is Shots on target ratio (further right the better)
• y Axis is PDO (the higher on the y axis the 'luckier')
• Bubble Size tells us about how many points a team has (bigger the better)
• The Blue dot is league average in Points/SoTR & PDO
• The play button is the game week. It should read 1-38 but instead it reads 1001-1038.

Enjoy, let me know what you think.

 

Cyborgs & Other Stories

Cyborgs

What is a cyborg?

What do they look like?



Scary. 

What do they look like with the human skin cover?



Scary. And Chelsea have quite a few of these guys!

The graphic below contains the 34 Premier League players who have played over 90% of the available minutes in 14/15. The list contains a ton of defenders (19/34) but the really juicy bit of info is that list contains SIX Chelsea players. Southampton have 4 players on that list, no other team has more than 2 players.

Health matters. It matters even more if the players that stay healthy also happen to be your core guys on the team. This health allows for some continuity in selection for key areas of the field - 3/4's of Chelsea's back four is on this list as is 3/4's of their midfield.

Cyborgs, man. Amazingly talented, injury-proof Cyborgs.

Cyborg Graphic




Manchester City Injuries

As mentioned, Chelsea are not just a ridiculously healthy club but they have benefited from consistent contributions from their core players. Manchester City, whilst not exactly injury-riddled, have not been able to lean on their core group to the same extent Chelsea have. 

Yaya Toure leads the club with 76.9% of the minutes played (top%), Gael Clichy is in 2nd place, Demichelis is 3rd, Jesus Navas is 4th, and Pablo Zabaleta rounds out the top 5. That list contains good players, but aside from the imperious Toure it looks nothing like the kind of core group that a team can rely on. (Manchester City Minutes LINK)

Chelsea's core 6 have played 93.8% of the Premier League minutes available. Manchester City's core of Zabaleta, Kompany, Toure, Silva, Nasri and Aguero have played just 66.2% of the Premier League minutes available.

Points is: Injuries and absences matter. Most Premier League teams have enough depth to cope with a certain amount of injuries but significant injuries to the core of a team can impact on performance and outcomes. And it would be silly to suggest that Manchester City haven't been impacted by the injuries to core players.

A question: If Manchester City's core 6 had played 93% of the available minutes where are they in the table? How many points do they have? How many pundits would be talking about a great City team instead of fawning over the 'invincibles'?

The Core, As A Gang Of Four

Anyone remember this?

There's a good stat from @benjaminpugsley in that piece: Toure, Silva, Aguero and Kompany have played just 216 minutes together this season
— Sean Ingle (@seaningle) May 3, 2014

Interesting numbers in the last RT. Kompany, Toure, Silva and Aguero have been on the pitch together for just 6.8% of minutes this season.
— Danny Pugsley (@danny_pugsley) May 2, 2014

If I am not mistaken I think around 45 minutes was added to that total on the final day of the 13/14 season. Still, it is a pitifully low number of minutes and Manchester City, quite simply, cannot rely on their very best players to be available for selection on a consistent basis.

Now, if we remove Nasri and Zabaleta and say that Manchester City's core contains just Kompany, Toure, Silva and Aguero wouldn't be interesting to see how many minutes these guys have played together in the Premier League this season?

504 minutes or 24.5% of the minutes available.

Chelsea's Core:

Minutes played by this Chelsea core 4? 1521 minutes or 76.8% of the minutes available.

Yaya Toure

For all the talk in the previous point about the impact of injury to Manchester City's core, it is becoming clearer to some that the most important player for the club may well be Yaya Toure. 

Much maligned at the start of the season due to the ludicrously named Cake-Gate episode, Toure started the season sluggishly, misplacing passes, lacking spark, and most importantly for those media types, Toure's goal scoring rate had dried up from its unsustainable 13/14 level.

Despite his dip in form and some early signs of slowing in his game, Toure remains the most important Manchester City player in my opinion. And the Arsenal result hasn't hastened the author to reach the conclusion. Some tweets from over the Xmas period:

And this:

@feverpitch88 @danny_pugsley @TheM_L_G I think of him as the Controller. It all goes thru him: deep transitions, QB in the f1/3rd, all of it
— Ben Pugsley (@benjaminpugsley) January 16, 2015

A 'controller' is probably the most accurate way that I can describe the man who Manchester City miss so much when he is unavailable. Toure controls play from deep: he is an outlet pass option for defenders under the press, he is the link between the defense and the Silvas and Nasris of the world and most importantly he is the deep creator when Manchester City have the ball around the oppositions 18 yard box. Toure is City's unflappable quarterback.

He is not a player without faults, though. Toure can be suspect defensively, he can fail to track his man, he can be lethargic in the checking back but how much of this matters when in the context of the usual City game? In most games City's opponents have around 40% of the possession and only about half of that opposition possession will be in areas where Toure's suspect defensive work can be exposed. 

Complaints about Toure's defensive work are valid but those concerns occur relatively infrequently and when they are placed against all the crucial linking and attacking skills that Toure displays for the majority of games a sensible person is likely to come to the conclusion that Yaya Toure is the vital player for Manchester City.

Good Lucky Matrix

Green=Top 4. Red=Relegation. Size=Points
The further right a team is the higher their share of the shots on target. 
The higher a team is the higher their PDO is (PDO = scoring% + Save%)


Everton

Everton have taken 50% of the shots and 57% of the shots on target so why only the 23 points from 22 games? Their keepers can't make a damn save! 

Everton have conceded the 5th fewest shots on target (link) with only Chelsea, Stoke, Man City and Southampton having conceded fewer. The problem: of those 74 shots on target conceded Everton have allowed 34 goals. That leads to a pitiful 54% save%, which is way below average. 

Look:


Save% is just one of the issues troubling Everton and their increasingly beleaguered manager, Roberto Martinez, but this is a team that takes 57% of the shots on target and scores just 46.9% of the goals. 

The evil, oft-hated PDO is always the reason for the gap between SoTR and PDO - be it luck or systems. But right now the manager killing PDO is crippling this Everton team. Thing is, Save% and PDO have history with Martinez and not the good kind of history.

2 points in 6 games. 1 win in 10 games.

History





Experiments

Race For The Top 4




Ronaldo & Messi

Goals, assists & Points (goals+assists) on a game by game basis.

Goals on the x axis, assists on the y axis, Points indicated by the size of the bubble.

Shot Rate Per Minute

Updated 25/5/2015

Shots For Rate = shots for at each listed game state/minutes at each listed game state
Shots Against Rate = shots against at each listed game state/minutes at each listed game state
Shots Rate +/- = shots rate for - shot rate against

Shots F Rate	Total	Close	Win	Draw	Lose	Plus 1	Minus 1	Shots A Rate	Total	Close	Win	Draw	Lose	Plus 1	Minus 1	Shot Rate +/-	Total	Close	Win	Draw	Lose	Plus 1	Minus 1
Arsenal	0.179	0.175	0.166	0.194	0.163	0.142	0.158	Arsenal	0.119	0.112	0.161	0.092	0.099	0.164	0.099	Arsenal	0.060	0.062	0.005	0.102	0.065	-0.023	0.059
Aston Villa	0.121	0.123	0.094	0.129	0.130	0.092	0.141	Aston Villa	0.140	0.137	0.152	0.143	0.126	0.150	0.115	Aston Villa	-0.019	-0.014	-0.057	-0.015	0.004	-0.058	0.026
Burnley	0.125	0.124	0.094	0.131	0.130	0.101	0.121	Burnley	0.172	0.172	0.235	0.155	0.173	0.243	0.173	Burnley	-0.047	-0.049	-0.142	-0.024	-0.043	-0.142	-0.052
Chelsea	0.165	0.163	0.152	0.170	0.213	0.145	0.219	Chelsea	0.122	0.126	0.122	0.124	0.105	0.130	0.123	Chelsea	0.043	0.037	0.030	0.046	0.109	0.015	0.096
Palace	0.128	0.129	0.112	0.115	0.164	0.133	0.164	Palace	0.154	0.156	0.209	0.157	0.112	0.237	0.115	Palace	-0.025	-0.027	-0.096	-0.041	0.052	-0.104	0.049
Everton	0.141	0.136	0.114	0.145	0.166	0.108	0.150	Everton	0.147	0.149	0.154	0.152	0.130	0.149	0.144	Everton	-0.006	-0.013	-0.040	-0.007	0.036	-0.041	0.006
Hull	0.125	0.126	0.108	0.129	0.130	0.112	0.130	Hull	0.146	0.144	0.187	0.142	0.127	0.184	0.117	Hull	-0.021	-0.018	-0.079	-0.013	0.003	-0.072	0.013
Leicester	0.134	0.130	0.137	0.123	0.150	0.115	0.155	Leicester	0.161	0.168	0.186	0.172	0.126	0.203	0.137	Leicester	-0.027	-0.038	-0.049	-0.049	0.024	-0.088	0.018
Liverpool	0.173	0.170	0.166	0.175	0.175	0.162	0.165	Liverpool	0.121	0.118	0.152	0.112	0.103	0.153	0.080	Liverpool	0.051	0.053	0.013	0.063	0.073	0.009	0.085
Man City	0.196	0.199	0.196	0.182	0.241	0.206	0.251	Man City	0.113	0.110	0.141	0.092	0.097	0.145	0.099	Man City	0.083	0.089	0.055	0.090	0.144	0.060	0.152
Man United	0.149	0.151	0.134	0.140	0.219	0.132	0.227	Man United	0.111	0.110	0.122	0.110	0.087	0.121	0.086	Man United	0.038	0.041	0.012	0.030	0.132	0.012	0.142
Newcastle	0.137	0.140	0.117	0.137	0.145	0.132	0.152	Newcastle	0.130	0.125	0.162	0.118	0.133	0.162	0.122	Newcastle	0.007	0.015	-0.045	0.019	0.012	-0.030	0.030
QPR	0.156	0.153	0.157	0.137	0.178	0.164	0.176	QPR	0.181	0.177	0.246	0.171	0.170	0.254	0.159	QPR	-0.025	-0.024	-0.089	-0.034	0.008	-0.090	0.017
Southampton	0.148	0.145	0.150	0.143	0.158	0.140	0.155	Southampton	0.112	0.109	0.133	0.115	0.079	0.132	0.072	Southampton	0.036	0.036	0.017	0.028	0.079	0.008	0.082
Stoke	0.146	0.147	0.124	0.135	0.187	0.122	0.190	Stoke	0.133	0.131	0.167	0.134	0.100	0.165	0.097	Stoke	0.013	0.016	-0.043	0.001	0.088	-0.044	0.093
Sunderland	0.118	0.117	0.082	0.121	0.132	0.088	0.118	Sunderland	0.183	0.184	0.180	0.179	0.195	0.183	0.208	Sunderland	-0.064	-0.068	-0.098	-0.058	-0.063	-0.095	-0.090
Swansea	0.123	0.125	0.105	0.112	0.170	0.106	0.188	Swansea	0.161	0.155	0.164	0.152	0.183	0.147	0.177	Swansea	-0.038	-0.031	-0.059	-0.040	-0.013	-0.041	0.010
Tottenham	0.153	0.160	0.130	0.149	0.184	0.128	0.222	Tottenham	0.143	0.143	0.162	0.137	0.134	0.162	0.139	Tottenham	0.010	0.016	-0.032	0.012	0.049	-0.034	0.084
West Brom	0.121	0.115	0.087	0.107	0.164	0.083	0.177	West Brom	0.159	0.157	0.179	0.152	0.157	0.178	0.149	West Brom	-0.039	-0.043	-0.091	-0.045	0.007	-0.095	0.028
West Ham	0.142	0.140	0.143	0.136	0.155	0.148	0.143	West Ham	0.172	0.169	0.190	0.168	0.160	0.184	0.156	West Ham	-0.030	-0.029	-0.047	-0.032	-0.005	-0.036	-0.013
LGE AVE	0.144	0.143	0.135	0.140	0.162	0.131	0.164	LGE AVE	0.144	0.143	0.162	0.140	0.135	0.164	0.131	LGE AVE	0.000	0.000	-0.026	0.000	0.026	-0.033	0.033

Some numbers compiled using Opta data.