Lies, damned lies, and statistics

[kirku 1,332]

Saw this and thought it was a very interesting overview of the top 3. Interesting to view Farke's Swansea pre-match comments through this lens..

 

[TIL 1010 4,718]

Thanks for this. 🤔

[Midlands Yellow 3,924]

Looks like a question in an IQ test. 

[kirku 1,332]

The quality of the chances we create, the quality of those we give the opposition, and our retention of the ball is the best in the league. 

Our inability to finish the chances we create have hurt us. Swansea really don't create very much and Brentford create a lot of good chances but also concede a lot of high quality chances.

We are underperforming relative to those statistics while Brentford are slightly overperforming.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

That’s an interesting comparative, so both Swansea and Brentford are at least equal to or outscoring their expected goals. If I remember rightly in 2018/19 we outsourced our xG quite significantly too. 

This season, surprisingly, overall we are better at creating chances than the above but significantly worse at converting those chances into goals. 

Likewise at the other end we have conceded far more than the expected goals against would suggest (whereas Brentford and Swansea show much less deviation). So either teams have been extra clinical against us or we’ve just been a bit unlucky, or we’ve got a really **** goalkeeper but that’s definitely not true.. Hard to understand what the cause is there! 

Ultimately though, we can look at those stats and say clearly we are doing a lot right and have maybe been a bit ‘unlucky’. But without the cutting edge we kinda deserve what we get if we do drop out of the top 2. Being clinical when creating chances is every bit as important as creating the chances themselves. 

But hopefully we can change that soon! 

[hogesar 9,615]

34 minutes ago, kirku said:

The quality of the chances we create, the quality of those we give the opposition, and our retention of the ball is the best in the league. 

Our inability to finish the chances we create have hurt us. Swansea really don't create very much and Brentford create a lot of good chances but also concede a lot of high quality chances.

We are underperforming relative to those statistics while Brentford are slightly overperforming.

Yes. I think a few of us have said this for a while. We arent clinical or close to at the moment whilst Hourihane gets a single opportunity from 25 yards and buries it into the bottom corner. 

However, generally speaking as a coach Farke will be happy. We generally create a lot more chances than we give opposition teams as evidenced by the graphs above and that should, in theory mean that results naturally follow.

[hogesar 9,615]

Just to further add to that, it was only as recent as earlier this season when people said we were boring and uncreative when actually we were creating plenty. Remember the Derby home game, an absolute fluke of a performance but people said it meant Farke has been found out and our tactics won't work in this league anymore etc..

[Bonzo 198]

Our boys need to start shooting at the target. 

Or at least match these two other sides in this element.  

 

[Making Plans 936]

The only statistic that you need to know - if you score more goals than your opponent, you win

[Hucks6 169]

Looks like Amber weather warning 

[hogesar 9,615]

@hampton canary this is worth a look re your querying on chance creation etc.

[Yellow and Green 334]

It's just our finishing. Pukki obviously hasn't hit the heights of last time and Cantwell, Placheta, Vrancic etc haven't contributed enough. The amount of times we should at least be hitting the target, but instead spoon it over the bar, is hugely frustrating. 

You'd have to say that Buendia is the only one who has stepped up and exceeded his expected goalscoring output this season. 

Hopefully this means we're due to dish out some 5-0 hammerings soon!

[Midlands Yellow 3,924]

Who needs league tables when you can view those colourful shapes. 

[hogesar 9,615]

6 hours ago, Midlands Yellow said:

Who needs league tables when you can view those colourful shapes. 

We're top of that table too.

 

[Canary Wundaboy 1,358]

8 hours ago, Yellow and Green said:

It's just our finishing. Pukki obviously hasn't hit the heights of last time and Cantwell, Placheta, Vrancic etc haven't contributed enough. The amount of times we should at least be hitting the target, but instead spoon it over the bar, is hugely frustrating. 

You'd have to say that Buendia is the only one who has stepped up and exceeded his expected goalscoring output this season. 

Hopefully this means we're due to dish out some 5-0 hammerings soon!

If you watch our play this season it’s explained somewhat by the fact that we aren’t attacking with as much pace, partially because teams have sussed us and are packing more men into defence, restricting us to wayward shots from range. The other issue is that our counter attacking football has been dire this season. If we do get possession from an opposition corner, watch us take the ball forwards while the opposition sprint back, hold the ball up about halfway into the opposition half, then turn backwards. It’s incredibly frustrating that we fail to turn those opportunities into clear-cut chances, time after time.

[kirku 1,332]

3 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

If you watch our play this season it’s explained somewhat by the fact that we aren’t attacking with as much pace, partially because teams have sussed us and are packing more men into defence, restricting us to wayward shots from range. 

This view is not borne out by the statistics. What you've described would not produce a high xG figure.

[wcorkcanary 4,329]

Sometimes its harder to be top than part of the chasing pack. 

[hogesar 9,615]

17 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

If you watch our play this season it’s explained somewhat by the fact that we aren’t attacking with as much pace, partially because teams have sussed us and are packing more men into defence, restricting us to wayward shots from range. The other issue is that our counter attacking football has been dire this season. If we do get possession from an opposition corner, watch us take the ball forwards while the opposition sprint back, hold the ball up about halfway into the opposition half, then turn backwards. It’s incredibly frustrating that we fail to turn those opportunities into clear-cut chances, time after time.

That's kind of the opposite of what the graphs are showing!

[Jim Smith 2,314]

Pukki's form is obviously key for us in terms of how clinical we are because most of our best chances seem to fall to him.

However, I still mainain we need to look at the midfield balance. There was a spell earlier in the season where we were dominating games but not scoring enough goals to put teams away and it was also a spell where we had Rupp and Skipp together in midfield. Both good players and both actually playing well individually but i just feel that with that combo we don;t move the ball forward as quickly as we might, play a lot of short passes and it enables teams to get set against us defensively. I recall several games (Millwall, Derby etc) where we dominated for long spells but just couldn;t score and others where it was onluy Vrancic coming on late that broke the deadlock.

We've started 12 games now this season with those two as our midfield combo. We've scored 10 goals in those 12 games and of those only 6 came when both were on the pitch (i.e. 4 came after on had been subbed off). 2 of those 6 were in one game as well at Bristol when Stiepermann and Pukki were back in sync. So for me, there is a balance issue in the middle of the pitch that is perhaps giving the opponants time to crowd out our attacking players and (never thought i'd be saying this) we need to get McClean back alongside Skipp and be a bit more direct. Rupp never plays badly but he and Skipp are just too similar. 

[Jim Smith 2,314]

10 hours ago, Yellow and Green said:

It's just our finishing. Pukki obviously hasn't hit the heights of last time and Cantwell, Placheta, Vrancic etc haven't contributed enough. The amount of times we should at least be hitting the target, but instead spoon it over the bar, is hugely frustrating. 

You'd have to say that Buendia is the only one who has stepped up and exceeded his expected goalscoring output this season. 

Hopefully this means we're due to dish out some 5-0 hammerings soon!

Yes Vrancic in particular has been vety wasteful. he started the season well when coming on as sub but as a starter he's scuffed a lot of shots i would expect him to score. 

[Yellow and Green 334]

4 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Yes Vrancic in particular has been vety wasteful. he started the season well when coming on as sub but as a starter he's scuffed a lot of shots i would expect him to score. 

Yep I do like Mario but he seems to have so much more of an impact as a sub, rather than as a starter. That's not necessarily a criticism - he's probably the best super sub we've had for a long time.

[Yellow and Green 334]

6 hours ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

If you watch our play this season it’s explained somewhat by the fact that we aren’t attacking with as much pace, partially because teams have sussed us and are packing more men into defence, restricting us to wayward shots from range. The other issue is that our counter attacking football has been dire this season. If we do get possession from an opposition corner, watch us take the ball forwards while the opposition sprint back, hold the ball up about halfway into the opposition half, then turn backwards. It’s incredibly frustrating that we fail to turn those opportunities into clear-cut chances, time after time.

I agree. It's a combination of being a 'known threat' this time around, as well as teams sussing out how to set up and play against us. It seems to be playing 5 at the back and restricting space in the midfield to force us out wide.

It's a massive challenge for Farke and it will be a test to see if he can find a way of countering the parked bus inside Carrow Road every other week.

[sgncfc 1,221]

Over a 46 game season you would expect all these things to even out. At the moment we are under-performing and Swansea and Brentford are over-performing. That won't last for another 18 games. Earlier in the season it was Reading who were over-performing and they were then dragged back. If we perform in the next 18 games as we are expected to, we will finish in the top two.

That's why the smart money is on us to go up and why we are 1/3 on for promotion with every bookmaker - second favourites, marginally behind Brentford, but some way ahead of Swansea.

Keep the faith.