Season so far....it's hard to take in...

[Newty82]

There was also a notion that most of our passes are needless ones across the back line...unfortunately thats not true....

 

Only 25% of our touches are in the defensive third, 42% are in the middle, and 33% are in the attacking third. I was surprised at that too!

 

Attack wise? Not enough through the middle? Shots wise, 20% from the right, 22% from the left and 58% through the middle.

 

While we do pass it around at the back, it seems we spend less time than we think, inc. Me, with it in the defensive 3rd. We are quite nifty at moving the ball forward, into the attacking 3rd. We do use the wings a fair bit, mainly the left (46%)...then work it back into the middle...where we are supposed to finish it off!!!

 

But I watched closely today the 'top' teams playing...they also work it at the back, move the ball forward, hit the wings, and come back in again.

 

Also, if you are of the school of thought that we need to play more long balls...we are actually in the bracket with the typical top clubs plus the 'known' passers who all play 80-90% short passes and only around 10% long passes. The rest is made up of crosses, which we have quite a heavy use of. Very few teams in the premiership are now doing less than 80% short passes.

 

I tried to find a player shot analysis...I found one...but the total shots dont add up to the shots we have had...

 

Not surprising, Mirallas has been most wasteful...but then closely followed by Barkley...then Jelavic...surprising.

 

As always, what we perceive to be true, isnt always and is actually influenced by our own prejudice.

 

Now I must get my life back......!!!!

[Cornish Steve]

Excellent again!

 

Where do you find your stats? Shot accuracy dipped this weekend, and it would be interesting to know who is the guilty culprit.

[Newty82]

Excellent again!

 

Where do you find your stats? Shot accuracy dipped this weekend, and it would be interesting to know who is the guilty culprit.

Cheers buddy.

 

A good site I've come across actually shows that Barkley has taken most shots on average per game for us...4.3 shots per game. Which is really surprising as we are all singing his praises yet lambasting Jelavic, Kone and Mirallas for wasting chances...as I have said, all is not as it seems due to our own prejudice. However, its likely he is hitting them more from a distance, whereas Jelly maybe missing chances we view as 'being on a plate'.

 

I have an app on my phone...'Football App'...every league, player, club in the world.

 

There is also a great website...whoscored.com...brilliant stats on all sorts in world football.

 

Gotta be honest, until this weekend I hadnt been bothered, but it really irks me that people say things without substance...not just in football, but in general...its just lazy and an easy get out to say the same old same.

 

Some other things to think about now that a load of leagues have kicked off.....

 

9th in Europe for shots per game,

6th for possession,

12th pass success,

And impressively, we are 1st with least amount of shots against.

 

Good stuff.

[Cornish Steve]

And impressively, we are 1st with least amount of shots against.

 

Now there's a stat for those, including many media commentators this weekend, who believe that Martinez will fail to maintain the excellent defensive record of Moyes - although it is true that we've hardly faced the most potent forward lines in the league.

[Steve_E]

Now some here will know that I love me some stats, but you can't really take these at face value as the definite truth.

 

What definitely is a positive is that we're conceding very few shots. Some research has shown that the correlation between possession and goals conceded is much clearer than the one between possession and goals made (I'll add a link in later if I can find it, I think it was one of those articles suggested by OptaPro, but I can't find it at the moment) and I think that makes sense on an intuitive level as well. If you have the ball more, the opposition will simply have less total time on the ball in the game and they will still have the same type of play on the ball, they're probably not gonna find it any easier to create chances (though they will if your centre backs are gonna pass the ball to the opposition's attackers like we did too often in pre-season). Still, their minutes in possession per chance likely won't decrease so they will simply create less chances, hence score less goals. If they're going with a long ball to a target man and midfielders joining in and wingers tucked in in support, that's gonna take the same amount of time no matter how much possession you have. It's just that with less possession you'll have less opportunities to repeat that process. Against Norwich too I thought we were very good defensively and a fair amount of luck was involved in both goals. Some might have felt nervous giving up a lot of space in behind the defense with Wigan's defensive record, but they're just gonna have to learn that Jagielka and Distin are capable of dealing with that. They defended high up the pitch last season as well, that's not new for them.

 

If you're gonna keep the ball though, you can do that by stopping opposition's attacks earlier more often and by keeping your own possessions alive longer, possibly by taking less risks: pass it back rather than put a cross in to try and create a chance but risk giving the opposition possession. Thus, you'll be increasing your minutes in possession per chance, but because of the increased total possession not decreasing your total amount of shots.

 

The main flaw with your argument imo though is that in your view all chances are created equal, which they're not. Shots from wide angles and from outside of the box aren't as likely to result in goals as shots from the central area in the box, headed shots aren't as likely to result in goals as shots with feet, shots with defenders in between the shooter and the goal aren't as likely to result in goals as shots without defenders in between, etc.

 

You mention yourself Barkley has been our most prolific shooter and I think you'll find a lot of shots will have been from outside of the box, they're simply not gonna go in that often. So after the game you might see that we've had a lot of shots but that doesn't necessarily mean a lot of goals should be expected. I'm not necessarily saying to not shoot from outside of the box either btw, Ross wouldn't have scored against Norwich if he didn't, if they're on target the keeper might spill it into the feet of one of our own to tap it in from one of those good positions or it might be saved for a corner, etc.

 

I don't think the reason for that lack of big chances can be explained with stats, or at least not yet with the basic data available to us. For starters, all three teams we've played so far have been happy to defend a draw from the very beginning of the game, which you can't really blame them for (though I might have expected a bit more desire to win from Norwich at home). They have all sat back very deep with very little space in between the lines. Then there is the fact that our build up play still needs quite some fine-tuning. The players need to show more concentration/beter tactical awareness so they're always in the right positions so everyone has multiple options to pass it to and play can build up faster. This is especially true of the central midfielders and the centre forward who are all too high imo. They might think that standing higher will get us moving forward faster but that's not necessarily true if that means that the forward pass isn't available anymore. They need to be closer together. If Osman is the holding midfielder he should move predominantly laterally. Fellaini should make himself available to Baines if he is pressed in our or in the middle third so he can move the ball on quickly to the other side, he won't be available if he's too high up. Barkley too shouldn't always be so close to the striker. A lot of English teams still defend in some form of a 4-4-2 and he shouldn't stay too near their centre backs. Jelavic too doesn't always need to look to play off the shoulder. Drop a little bit deeper and help overload in the middle, though imo he isn't suited for that and Koné should play. And that brings me to another problem: the play of the widemen. If the striker drops a little bit deeper, then make a diagonal run into that space! If a cross comes in from the other side, then attack the far post. And for the love of god, just beat your full back once in a while, like most sides we rely on them to come up with that little bit of magic and they're not doing it so far.

 

PS:

I tried to find a player shot analysis...I found one...but the total shots dont add up to the shots we have had...

 

That might be because not all data providers count the same things as shots. Some don't include blocked shots for example as they wouldn't be able to tell whether they need to be included in the shots on target or shots off target category (which are the two parameters used to calculate shot accuracy).

 

PPS:

I haven't seen you mention the website Squawka and I think you'll enjoy that one very much. Don't know whether you're familiar with that one yet? They get their data from Opta (like WhoScored I think?) but they also visualize it themselves. You can search for players and you'll get the simple data: shot accuracy, pass accuracy, chances created, etc. But you'll also be able to see where the shots on target have gone, where the shots off target have gone, how much of the passes have gone forward, what areas the key passes have come from, etc. You can rank all of the players in the league on those parameters as well, like you can on WhoScored. But it's those visualizations that add that little bit extra. They also have those for specific matches. For example for the Cardiff-Everton game you can get a heat map to see where the action took place mainly, you get visualizations of the specific spots in the box where Howard punched, caught or failed to catch crosses. You can see where tackles, clearances, interceptions and headed duels were made and by whom and in what minute. All passes have been represented by arrows on a pitch and color-coded to represent whether they were completed or not. Crosses and corners have been differentiated as well. Same goes for key passes. And shots have been represented as well. They show wherefrom shots were taken, where they ended up and whether they were blocked or saved etc.

Edited September 2, 2013 by Steve_E

[Newty82]

Top stuff there Steve_E....I havent read it all but I will.

As I have said, I aint into all the stats...only just looked thid weekend. And, this is important for people to remember, the only reason I did dive into some stats was that there has been a clear misconception amongsta growing number of fans about how we have been playing...and a couple of lazy pundits too. And not just on this forum, but on things like facebook.

 

All I am trying to show is that we have done a hell of a lot of things right. I aint no stat expert!!!

[weebittight]

We really are blunt but that ball from The kid that no-one thought to gamble on near the end made me want to cry.

 

I am very happy with the way we are playing otherwise. Some people were forecasting cricket scores against us based on Wigan's defending last year but it is at the other end where the problem continues. Please God Roberto can get someone in who knows the location of the onion bag before the clock chimes eleven.

 

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Edited September 2, 2013 by weebittight