spurious1
Well-Known Member
- Sep 20, 2005
- 994
- 848
Everyone knows that we don't score enough goals, in spite of having near the most shots on goal in the league. So I decided to check how other teams did on that
Of course the shots per game and goals per game are correlated, even if there is a lot of spread on the high side...as we all know, we have a terrible goal return with respect to the number of shots we take, whereas Man City (at least before yesterday), has a fantastic return. If you look at the relation between shots on target and goals, the relation is even clearer, and almost linear (for most...)
for most teams, the number of goals per shots on target is pretty easily predicable, and the relationship is pretty linear, which doesn't seem surprising...the main exceptions are Man City (on the side of efficiency) and us (on the side of inefficiency) So actually the amount of shots we get on target is not really the problem; it's that apparently they are not as good as the average shot on target.
But what really matters are points...
And there you see, we follow the trend as everyone else: the shots on target per game are an excellent indicator of the points per game, better even than the goals stored. Obviously that is because that stat encompasses other things, quality of the positions the players get in, possession, etc. so is a kind of multivariate indicator of general quality. And there we fall just on the average.
A couple of other interesting stats...how about possession?
There you see two clumps around 45% and 55%, and a few outliers - Newcastle who play an efficient counter-attacking game, and Swansea (Landrup for Spurs?) who play a no-end-product possession game. The fact that the teams fall into such nice clusters might be due to the nature of the possession stat: there is a qualitative aspect to the attribution of possession, so there might be subconscious tendencies to attribute certain values.
Last one, the PPG verses pass completion
Like the SOGPG, pass completion looks like a good indicator of points gained, with the exception of Swansea and their apparently useless passing around. Basically, if you know the pass completion percentage, you can guess the PPG within about 10%, or the inverse (except for a couple of teams)
I don't know what it means, except by the most robust seeming criteria, we are where we should be. Of course, we will win 9-0 today and it will all be invalidated!
Of course the shots per game and goals per game are correlated, even if there is a lot of spread on the high side...as we all know, we have a terrible goal return with respect to the number of shots we take, whereas Man City (at least before yesterday), has a fantastic return. If you look at the relation between shots on target and goals, the relation is even clearer, and almost linear (for most...)
for most teams, the number of goals per shots on target is pretty easily predicable, and the relationship is pretty linear, which doesn't seem surprising...the main exceptions are Man City (on the side of efficiency) and us (on the side of inefficiency) So actually the amount of shots we get on target is not really the problem; it's that apparently they are not as good as the average shot on target.
But what really matters are points...
And there you see, we follow the trend as everyone else: the shots on target per game are an excellent indicator of the points per game, better even than the goals stored. Obviously that is because that stat encompasses other things, quality of the positions the players get in, possession, etc. so is a kind of multivariate indicator of general quality. And there we fall just on the average.
A couple of other interesting stats...how about possession?
There you see two clumps around 45% and 55%, and a few outliers - Newcastle who play an efficient counter-attacking game, and Swansea (Landrup for Spurs?) who play a no-end-product possession game. The fact that the teams fall into such nice clusters might be due to the nature of the possession stat: there is a qualitative aspect to the attribution of possession, so there might be subconscious tendencies to attribute certain values.
Last one, the PPG verses pass completion
Like the SOGPG, pass completion looks like a good indicator of points gained, with the exception of Swansea and their apparently useless passing around. Basically, if you know the pass completion percentage, you can guess the PPG within about 10%, or the inverse (except for a couple of teams)
I don't know what it means, except by the most robust seeming criteria, we are where we should be. Of course, we will win 9-0 today and it will all be invalidated!
