A few EPL shooting graphs

Messing about with the 'detailed' tab on Whoscored can be quite interesting and that you can separate out details into 15 minute segments of games allows us to look at rates for different parts of a game.  What do teams do and when do they do it?  I'll present these generally as informative with a little light analysis where I feel something is relevant but having looked at it, I've not the time to make much more of it, so take what you can.

Shots by time period

• Injury time an obvious factor
• Desperation?

Shot type by 15 minute game period

• Early shots more speculative?  We've all seen a player hit a 30 yard 'sighter' early on.
• Blocked results not intuitive here? I might have expected them to rise later on.

Percentage of shots in each half

•  Every team takes more shots in the second half than the first half.

Percentage of shots in first 30 minutes

Who tries to start fast?

Percentage of shots in last 30 minutes
 
Kitchen sink time at Loftus Road?
Anfield roar?
Fergie, sorry, Van Gaal time?

• Villa tail off horribly as the game goes on.  Something Sherwood will need to target. Fitness?
  

On target related to blocked shots

I've got a loose working theory that a blocked shot can be attributed to some degree to poor choice from the player, at least over large samples.  In contrast, 'on target' shots have been shown at team level to be of high value, repeatable and predictive.  Somewhat closer to a blocked shot in terms of value would be an 'off target' shot, I imagine a high degree of variance in 'value' dependent on how far off target the shot is.  Anyway just thoughts, but from this, I posit that a team that finds a low percentage of its shots blocked may be taking 'smart' shots.  It may be refusing a poor value, likely-blocked shot and continuing to keep possession, only shooting when sufficient space becomes available.   So we have a simple measure, the difference in percentage points between a team's rate of 'on target' (smart) shots and 'blocked' (stupid) shots.

• It's is pleasing that the prescriptive football of Van Gaal, Koeman and Mourinho is represented at the top.
• It is also pleasing that the 'run around a bit' football of Redknapp is represented at the bottom.

So just a quick post, bit of food for thought?

Cheers!

Thanks for reading!

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I've got an article on '"Arsenal, Score Effects and a Season Of Two Halves" up at Statsbomb, give it a whirl!
The weekly column resides over there now too.

Thoughts on PDO

I'm going to presume if you're here that you know a bit about PDO

*cue sage nodding*

or at least what it stands for.

*silence*

The @espnmag analytics issue (incorrectly) explains that PDO stands for Percentage Driven Output.
— Matt Cane (@Cane_Matt) February 19, 2015

It doesn't stand for anything, but we'll not get hung up on that.  That's the NHL's job, for now.  James Grayson popularised its use in football (indeed, his treasure trove blog houses 57 articles on the subject, if you're not up to speed spend a weekend over there!) and it is a very useful tool that helps describe teams that appear to be over or underachieving in relation to some of their underlying numbers.   

For example, since losing to Man City and only recording one defeat in 15 games since, Man Utd have had a giddily high PDO rating; a clear example of a team that is overperforming against reasonable expectation.  Arsenal have put up solid shot numbers, certainly better than last season, when high PDO kicked them nominally into title contention.  Later it cooled a little, they dropped off and found their way back to 4th, a more accurate reflection.  This year their PDO has been in the bin and they're two points behind Utd despite projecting to be much better, and are down in amongst the CL pack.

More examples? West Ham have spent the whole season with a high PDO, as have Swansea.  They look to be having good years.  Moreso than say Newcastle or Stoke, who are both generating a low figure.  I suspect the general skill level of these four teams to be broadly similar (In fact a model i've built ranks Stoke 9th, Newcastle 10th, West Ham 11th and Swansea 14th) and the divergence from baseline numbers can at least be partially explained by PDO variance.

So what we have is a good storytelling aid which I find interesting and good fun.

"But the table doesn't lie"

*grits teeth*

No, but it doesn't reveal all it's truths either...

Despite generally liking PDO (and in amongst the stats community not everyone does) I do have issues with its current construction.  Because it has been ported straight over from hockey, parts of it's derivation have been left unquestioned and I think there are a couple of subtle tweaks which may enhance general understanding.  You say tomato, I say tomato.  Hmm... doesn't work so well on paper.
Never mind.

As it stands PDO is:

(goals for divided by shots on target for) plus (saves divided by shots on target against)

AKA

(shooting%) plus (save%)

...then you get a grey area where some people multiply the derived figure by 1000, some by 100 or others, well, me at least, leave it as a decimal. 

Immediately in the definition and the creation of the number, we have a couple of issues.

• Why are we adding entirely different aspects together? (shooting% and save%)
• Why isn't there a standardised numerical format?

I asked Ben Pugsley, because he knows a ton more than I do: "Why is it rated to 100? Or 1000?" and he said that it was a "long held thing in analytics (...) from baseball (...) 100 is defined as an "average" " and that the usage of 1000 was purely a method to add detail and see 4 digits.

So we have elements of "this is the way it's done because this is the way it's always been done."
That's not intrinsically bad, but to me we have these figures orbiting around seemingly meaningless totals:

"PDO is 102!"
"One hundred and two whats?"

"Man Utd are at 1120!"
"I'll fit my brunch in beforehand."

Can anything be done simplify matters?

I am presuming there was a comfort found in adding your team's shooting percentage to it's save percentage; you have built a single figure for your team and you are defining what your team is doing but I feel there is more clarity in the entirely related but subtly different:

"What is my team doing and what is the opposition doing against us?"

I propose this, and I propose it with goodwill but little expectation:

(goals for divided by shots on target for) minus (goals against divided by shots on target against)

AKA:

(shooting % For) minus (shooting% Against)

This does two things:

• We are no longer orbiting around an arbitrary number, we are centering around positive or negative.  A high PDO will be positive and a low PDO will be negative.  Understanding is relatable here, we have the universal law of goal difference: positive is good, negative is bad.  It makes sense.
• We are combining the For and Against aspect of the same metric.  Just as we subtract Goals Against from Goals For to create Goal Difference, we do the same to create PDO or "Shooting% difference".

And it is entirely related why? The eagle-eyed will have noticed, we've essentially derived the same number as PDO, we've just decluttered it a bit.  The PDO of 107 or 1070 is now defined as 0.07.  A PDO of 982 is now -0.18.  Average is zero.

"We are neither positive or negative! We perform exactly as you might suspect! We are a zero team!"

I'd recommend leaving it as a two digit decimal.  In football, PDO variance rarely requires the precision for further digits that hockey desired.  A decimal is also, and again we're basing things on simple logic, the number derived from the calculation.  No further work is required.

There is plenty of work to be done to cross-over many of the metrics used in analytics and there is great complexity in a lot of the modelling that goes on.  Such work is invaluable and important but often lives in a realm beyond average understanding.  In order to attempt bridge the gaps between scepticism and reticence and understanding and adoption, existing metrics need to offer as much clarity as possible and hopefully i've shown that there are methods that can increase this without the need for structural change. 

Thanks for reading!

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Nowadays, you will find my weekly Premier League Round-up over on STATSBOMB and assorted player and team articles as and when I get round to them.  This was initially supposed to be a quick 500 word idea, but i've doubled that and being a bit speculative, I thought i'd put it back here on the rickety old blog.  Plus I know (two or three) people miss reading articles on a pink background (mobile only!) so it's one for the veteran visitors.

I'd like to thank my family, the cat and Acer computers for providing support and er...  a computer in exchange for money.  Until next time.
 

***Transfer news***

****IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT****

'The Big Ripple' would like to announce the transfer of the weekly round-up column to the larger Statsbomb franchise.  We felt unable to turn down the offer made by franchise owner Ted Knutson and as such 'The Big Ripple' would like to extend thanks for your support since it's inception a little over 10 months ago and promises to return with further content as and when it thinks of things.

The column will remain as prior with the same blend of stats, mild humour and Tottenham sections (but not when they've just lost to Crystal Palace and Alan Bloody Pardew) and will hopefully be available from early on a Monday morning.

It is hoped that this transfer will be more akin to Alexis Sanchez than Fernando Torres.

So: Monday morning, here:

http://statsbomb.com/

Thanks again!

19 Games

Halfway through the season seems a good time to compare this season & the teams competing within it to others.  Maliciously, the Premier League has already played the 20th round of fixtures, and played it so quickly that i'm behind, but still, it's worth a look at some historical trends & markers.  I've got the last 6 first half seasons I can compare & rank & this article is designed to look at some of the characteristics 2014-15 has & compare with the 5 seasons that preceded it. Data for previous years is under-available!  This gives us a sample of 120 & all rankings will be 'nth in a sample of 120'.

Chelsea v Man City

For the first time since 2011-12 we look to have a potentially enthralling 1v1 dual for the title.  Last season had Arsenal top at this point & Livepool's charge was late & long whereas 2012-13 was Man Utd's stroll.  2011-12 found Man Utd & Man City locked together at the top after 19 games with identical records, a scenario that would repeat right down to the last minute of stoppage time in the very last game & Aguero's late title winner.  The two sides ended up 19 points clear that year (both on 89 v 70 next best) & this year is shaping up similarly but with Chelsea replacing Utd in the mix.  Indeed, Chelsea's 46 point total after 19 games is only matched by Ferguson's legendary swansong & City's 43 points is only superceded by the aforementioned & the 2011-12 pair.   These are clearly two elite level teams & are superior to the rest of the league by a clear margin.  What fascinates me is how closely they resemble each other in the numbers & despite the media & casual observers happily coronating Chelsea since roughly late August, it leads me to believe that they are likely to push each other throughout.

*Of course since I wrote this, Chelsea & Man City have managed to accrue identical records, which more than reasserts my point!

Shots For
There are no historically strong pure shots teams in the league this year, the best teams rank as follows: 

1. Arsenal: 23rd/120
2. Man City: 24th
3. Chelsea: 26th

We do have the two worst shots for teams in the sample though:

1. Aston Villa: 120th/120
2. Hull: 119th
3. Palace: 111th

Swansea, Leicester, Sunderland & Burnley have all posted historically sub-par shots totals too.
In fact, there's has been a trend towards less shots over time with quite a big drop off this year.  There's a possibility methods of collecting could have changed but without knowing that we have a clear trend:

Shots Against

For there to be balance in the universe we need an equal opposite & conveniently we find similar but opposite trends in shots against.  There are no historically terrible shots against teams:

1. Burnley: 93rd/120
2. Leicester: 85th
3. QPR: 84th

We do have the best shots against team in the sample though & two more scoring very well:

1. Southampton: 1st/120 
2. Arsenal: 4th
3. Chelsea: 5th

Here we see the trend again:

Quite naturally, these figures map themselves onto shots on target:

Shots on Target For
Best:

1. Chelsea: 15th/120
2. Arsenal: 21st
3. Man City: 24th

Worst:

1. Hull: 117th/120
2. Aston Villa: 116th
3. Burnley: 115th

Shots on Target Against
Best:

1. Chelsea: 1st/120 (immediately ruined by the Tottenham game!)
2. Southampton: 3rd
3. Man City: 5th

Worst:

1. QPR: 106th/120
2. Burnley: 92nd
3. Sunderland 81st

No surprise that Chelsea and Man City show up very well in these categories & the 'bad' totals are posted by a wide mix of relegation possibles.  Again we see the natural trend that less shots-->less shots on target-->less saves.  Interestingly the goals totals have moved by a smaller degree than other components which hints at a possible increase in shooting efficiency over time:

Shot Ratios
(TSR & SoTR)

At the extremes, only Chelsea's shot on target ratio stands out as significantly high.  Arsenal, Man City and Southampton round out the best 4 clubs here & each has decent if not outstanding figures.  Similarly, the batch of worst teams are much of a muchness here, without being historically awful.

Save%

Everton's save percentage is the worst on record.  Roberto Martinez is also responsible for 4th, 7th, 18th & 30th positions whilst at Wigan.  Under par & worrying for Everton's current predicament.  Intriguingly, given the 'Pardew situation' Newcastle & Crystal Palace round out this season's top 3, in 6th & 9th overall.  Bad figures that may well improve but partially underline the problems Pardew both faces & has created himself.  In 2005-6 he guided West Ham for half a season to terrible totals then took over at Charlton & couldn't keep them up...

Man Utd, Aston Villa, Swansea & West Ham are running the highest save percentages, none of which is historically high but it will have helped some of their current success.  It's perfectly possible that these percentage could remain high throughout the season, but the list of teams that have recorded very high save percentages is littered with teams that generated a good year off the back of this & failed to follow it up once a degree of readjustment hit the following season.

One such example is... er.. Everton 2013-14 (75%).

Conversion % For

Aston Villa & Burnley are running at about 6% conversion at the half way point (quickly redeemed by Burnley in week 20!) and rank 119th/120 and 116th/120 respectively.  This is very bad.  Even worse when factored against the relegation rate for seasonal 6% shooters: 3/3.  Limping to 7% or better would be a big help.

A clutch of teams are all running decent percentages:

League average is 10%.  Some of these teams are the true elite, some of them are experiencing good seasons driven to a degree by fortune & the other team is Everton.

Conversion dominance

There are 7 teams in that chart above & 6 of them are backing up their excellent but possibly short lived high conversion rates with a similarly excellent low conversion % against ranging from 7-9%.  Some of these are the true elite, some of them are teams experiencing good seasons driven to a degree by fortune & the seventh team is Everton.

Everton are the only one of these 7 to not have a conversion dominance & are conceding at a league high rate of 13%.  Put simply, at various times, the goals have flown in at both ends in Everton games.

There are no historical outliers on either the good or bad sides here but WBA, QPR & Burnley are all running high deficits here & Newcastle & Liverpool aren't too far behind them.  The story of conversion is a powerful one when understanding the relative successes of teams during a season.  It can vary wildly & quickly but mid-term trends can be extremely informative when stood against a wider context.

Other bits

• WINS: 11 wins all but guarantees top 4, only Chelsea & Man City qualify
• GOALS FOR:  40+ goals? ^ditto
• GOAL DIFFERENCE:  +14 has been enough for top 4 since 2009, Southampton AND Man Utd join City & Chelsea in passing this test.
• POINTS: Everton 2013-14 are the only team to have more points than Man. Utd (37 to 36) & not qualify for the top 4.

Week 20, quick thoughts

As an indicator of how vulnerable some statistics can be to one game, week 20 had a few notable entries, none more influential that the Tottenham v Chelsea game which hacked a good few chunks from Chelsea's excellent defensive numbers, in particular (average shots on target rose from 2.5 to 2.8) whilst giving a much needed boost to Tottenham's generally average figures.

Elsewhere, Villa's 0-0 has seen their conversion rate drop back down to c.5%.  With a pitiful 11 goals somehow powering a half decent points total, they face an arduous season.  In contrast, by scoring 3 at Newcastle, Burnley broached the magical 7% mark for the first time since the first game.  If they can stay above it, they've got a chance.  Meanwhile, Palace look like they need a Pulis but are gonna get a Pardew & WBA have hired the right guy; never pretty but highly effective, his teams have always managed to build from a defensive base & outperformed woeful attacking figures.  West Brom's opponents are unlikely to be scoring at 12% for long.  Palace's conversion went from 6%F/11%A to 8%F/9%A under him last year & his Stoke teams never once conceded at above league average rates or ran a conversion deficit of any significance.

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Thanks for reading!

FA Cup this week & the normal blog will reappear as per usual after the next round of league matches.
Thanks for reading & if you liked it feel free to share!

Meanwhile: if you missed them:

'Unlucky Neil Warnock'

'Yuletide Round Up'

& the article that killed of Pardew (maybe)

The Big Ripple Yuletide Premier League Round Up

Arsenal/Liverpool

 Three teams have won both their Christmas fixtures so far: Stoke, Liverpool and Arsenal, so why would I use now as an opportunity to cast aspersions over their prowess? Mainly becuase there is a newly franked problem at Arsenal & it needs highlighting.  All year long, Arsenal have been posting excellent underlying shot totals.  Their results have lagged behind but it has clearly looked like Arsenal are a strong team who will eventually reap the benefit of posting these strong numbers.

Until recently that is:

The lovely huge initial gaps between the blue & yellow line & the red & green line are 'massive shot domination' AKA 'where analytics types like Arsenal'.  The recent convergence of lines is the opposite.  'But they've had a hard schedule!' shouts someone at the back.  'No they haven't, it's been kind of middling' is the correct reply.  They've won 5/7 but have played at WBA, Stoke, Liverpool & West Ham & had home fixtures against QPR, Newcastle & Southampton & have posted 4 narrow wins.

Are the injuries finally catching up? A busy schedule for a stretched squad may well have impacted here.  Flamini is functional but not the answer in central midfield, even Rosicky & Coquelin got starts which is a real sign of bare bones & the defensive absences have been relentless.  Finally, a recognised back 4 started against West Ham but for now, it seems the early season ability to stop shots has gone. And whilst shots aren't everything, it's fair to say there are concerns.

Trips to Southampton & Man City aren't too far away either, so it's not getting easy any time soon.  

Liverpool appear to be on the opposite trajectory, having spend a good 6-8 weeks living in the doldrums, the Christmas form & just before has shown great promise.  Rodgers, by now many chapters into his 'Championship Manager '01/02 Formations' book, has settled on this 3-4-3 which has alternatively given no role to either strikers or wing backs, of which they have plenty that now sit on the bench, with or without Steven Gerrard.  Has he lucked in?  Possibly, but certainly as I showed HERE a few weeks back, Rodgers has a very good record of getting his teams to improve as seasons progress & the performance against Swansea, whilst showing characteristic vulnerability at the back was blessed with bravura & attacking charm too. Here's their same shot chart:

Mario fuelled some early shot dominance & the bad period was very bad, but lo! Do we see the green shoots of recovery? 77 shots & 33 on target in the last 4 games against 45 & 13, including a non-event against Burnley but matches against Arsenal & Man Utd is exactly what Rodgers wants his team to look like.  And some of the results are following as indeed they really should in the near future as Leicester, Sunderland & Villa lie ahead.

Everton

Fulfilling my promise to write about teams i've neglected this season, we find an apt time to talk about Everton.  Rooting around last night, I spotted that Roberto Martinez teams have a habit of posting extremely low PDO scores:

Often this is fuelled by a terrible save percentage & with a league low c.54% rate, Everton are at the back of the pack here.  So much so that they actually rank 120th/120 of all half seasons posted since 2009-10.  Jamie Carragher spoke on MNF about how all year, Everton's centre backs have tended to drop back into their box as pressure mounted & almost invited better than average chances.  They are also very old: Sylvain Distin is 42 years old, Jagielka is more known for thunderbolt finishes these days & Alcaraz lived through every one of the terrible Wigan years & wears the scars well: his and Distin's contribution to Newcastle's 3rd goal was a vision of utter confusion:

So, we're in a situation where Martinez needs more & might not be able to find it.  His expensive striker appears to have wilted, he has excellent full backs & otherwise very young or very old players.  A weird mish-mash that is currently finding it hard to create any solidity.  Weirdly, the save percentage is so low that only Chelsea have saved fewer shots & they have now exceeded Arsenal & Liverpool by having the league worst conversion against from all shots.  It all looks a lot like Wigan & whilst that wasn't what Martinez was brought in to reproduce, it might be what Everton have ended up getting.

Obligatory Tottenham bit

Fan voted man of the match for the last 2 games has been Hugo Lloris, and whilst it's great to celebrate the man between the sticks now & then, it's not often the benchmark of great team performances.  And that's certainly the case but, points are still racking up at a reasonable rate & the scrum of teams below the top 2 still includes Tottenham.  The impending misery of a visit from Chelsea awaits but beyond that there isn't a scary fixture until February. The hope endures! Although it must be mentioned that every single underlying figure still paints this team as meh average. Let us hope a bit of steel can be found & used to keep up with the others.

I remarked before that after a slowish 5-2-5 start, Villas Boas only tasted defeat 3 more times that first season & after posting an identical 5-2-5 start, Pochettino has gone 4-2-1, with the only defeat at Chelsea. Maybe, just as it took Villas Boas time to get his ideas fully entrenched, it has taken Pochettino a similar amount of time?  Whilst they've ridden their luck at times (So did AVB), the team is certainly more settled now & Adebayor, Kaboul & Capoue have been largely unsighted since the rumours of bust ups.  Kane & Eriksen have become the focal point of the attack with others rotating around them & this week the media seems to have noticed that Fazio & Vertonghen are doing a decent job behind a sometimes porous central midfield.  As ever the transfer window will provide intrigue in the coming weeks.

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Thanks for reading!
Feel free to share if you like!

Other things to read: 

1. Poor old Neil Warnock
In which I decide Neil Warnock was unlucky
2. 'Under Pardew'
In which I hammer a nail into Alan Pardew's Newcastle coffin, I mean, Ashley must've read this, right? ;)

Poor old Neil Warnock

So finally we have a managerial dismissal & it's one i'm reasonably surprised about given that Neil Warnock achieved about as much as I'd expected him to: less than Pulis would have but probably a little bit more than a Solskjaer-style appointment.  The facts are hard to ignore however, one win in the last 11, three all season & despite being a generally combative and basically functional & gritty team, their chairman obviously feels that someone else could do better.  

And I actually feel that rare emotion: a touch sorry for Warnock.  Whilst the wins were never there & earlier in the season I held very little hope for his team, they had improved generally as the season moved on & it's only 4 games since they outplayed Tottenham at White Hart Lane & drew 0-0.  Not the performance of a doomed or disjointed team at all.

Indeed, when they had 9 points from 10 games & had just lost 1-3 at home to Sunderland, they looked a hell of a lot worse than they do now.  That might have been a good time to call it quits, but I guess 10 games is too short even in the modern game, in contrast, half a season & 15 points? He can't have hit his targets.

But, as ever, the poor run of results had familiar hallmarks.  Their recent conversion rate is well and truly in the bin, as we can see here:

Over the last 5 games it's running at 3%, a terrible number, but just as the 15% conversion rate from earlier in the season was likely to reduce over time, it's highly unlikely that such a poor rate will maintain.  Whilst Palace profited early on from high conversion rates, their totals here are below par but not horribly so at 10% for & 12% against:

And of course, most of us kinda know where this analysis is heading:

Did PDO kill Neil Warnock?

I mean, it's under par pretty much all year but that recent 5 game slope would make Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards think twice about strapping his skis on, it's so steep.  PDO killed Neil Warnock.

Unfortunately for Warnock, Palace have carried too many of Pulis' ways into this season & he's found it hard to put his own stamp on them; they've continued to rank 20th/20 for possession, pass completion and pass prevention & have created low shot totals.  Despite these obvious handicaps to success, 8 teams are allowing more shots & regarding shots on target, Palace have been allowing very few and improving as time has gone on. Here's the rolling shot ratios both total & on target: 

A shot on target ratio exceeding total shot ratio can sometimes be an indicator of a team taking 'smart' shots & is possibly a tactical nuance.  As recent totals have been well over 50%, I suspect that Neil Warnock will be ruing that he hasn't had the chance to finish the season.  Being beaten by Man City & Southampton is no disgrace & if that's what finally did for him then it's again harsh.  Palace's next 4 away fixtures are all classic 'relegation 6 pointers': QPR, Burnley, Villa & Leicester & I suspect that Warnock is aggrieved he's not gonna get a chance to play these games.  

So from having very bad early numbers masked by a shit-hot conversion rate, Palace ended up with pretty par numbers killed by a terrible conversion rate & the Football Gods said 'it shall not be' & out on his ear Warnock went.  I'm leaning towards the idea that they should have given him a bit more time but that's clearly not the Palace way.

The list of possible replacements looks good:

We all want Sherwood, yeah?

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Thanks for reading!



I wrote a deconstruction of Alan Pardew for Statsbomb recently, so if you missed it, head on over: HERE Check back most Mondays for the weekly blog, over this festive period it'll be more like this; bits and bobs that take my fancy.  If you like, feel free to promote via social media!

The Big Ripple 21st December Premier League Round-up

How 'bout that Liverpool, Arsenal game?

I'm leaning towards believing that Brendan is making up tactics as he goes along but if they create as much going forward as they did in this match then against the lesser lights they'll soon be well on track.  Like a repressed torrent, their shots floweth freely & inflicting such emphatic numerical dominance against Arsenal has been impossible all year, so kudos for that.  Invoking the spirit of last year with his weird 3-4-3 system, we had plenty of good, just no result.  And that's where it's confusing for the Arsenal faithful: this is probably the first time this year that they have a legitimate reason to complain about their performance rather than the result; a solitary point looks underwhelming but when you deserve less, it's all right.  But where the basic numbers of this result are interesting is that in securing a 2-2 draw despite getting creamed on the shot count (7-27), Arsenal now have clear rivals for the 'Highest Opposition Conversion Rate' award as they've sunk quickly to 13% whilst Liverpool are only a clip under the same total.

Areas of concern on both sides & whilst Liverpool's woes don't need to be restated here, most obviously for Arsenal we have another big game in which Wenger was out-thought on the gameplan.   It happened all last season for them & whilst performances have been fundamentally stronger this year, they're still 0-4-2 against last year's top 7 rivals.

The neglected 4

No, not a new subset of teams, but on reviewing these articles with the intention of preventing a degree of repetition (yes, I know I just wrote about Liverpool, again) I have established that i've not written anything this season beyond the odd brief note about Everton, Stoke, Sunderland or Swansea.  So, in a short series of well, probably 4, i'll endeavour to remedy this.  Since they managed a good result this week, we'll start with Sunderland.

Sunderland

The first thing to note about Sunderland's season is that all of their cumulative numbers are wildly distorted by the 0-8 game against Southampton.  Thanks to this result, it appears that they are getting what they deserve; they have a near level PDO, they are struggling for goals but are hard to beat & whilst wins have been rare, they're meandering along just about keeping afloat.

Pull out the 0-8 and the story changes a little, because suddenly they have a high PDO & seem fortunate; something borne out by some of their rankings:

They are teetering rather than meandering.   One figure that concerns me most here is the opposition pass %.  Only Villa & Palace rank lower here & their lack of restrictive play is clearly tactical & is slightly more effective in restricting shots, moreso with Palace admittedly.  Sunderland rank 18th for opposition shots on target and recently their shot ratios have been moving in one direction:

They are not restricting the way the opposition moves the ball & they are not restricting how often they shoot accurately at them.  This is a poor blend!  Under 43% shot TSR is a 50/50 shot for relegation & their shot on target ratio is in a similar realm.  The presence of Villa, Burnley & Hull with similar historically terrible totals offers hope but essentially they need to improve to find safety.  Hull & Villa are big fixtures in the next week before a trip to Man City on New Year's Day.  Rumours of discontent surfaced this week (source: parts unknown) & Gus might need more of his 2013-14 survival miracles yet.

But they beat Newcastle, so today, in the parlance of miserable journalism, it's 'all smiles'.

Busy periods

In any given season, it appears we have a minimum of two but potentially 5 'busy periods' of league matches.  Once at the end of November/start of December, the whole Christmas extravaganza & then maybe more, depending on fixture pile-ups as the season draws to a close.

For the purpose of this partial study, I have deemed a busy period to be either:

•  3 games in under 10 days or 
•  4 games in under 13 days

This just about prevents the survey including any period in which games were played a week apart.  We are not interested in periods in which there are matches from other competitions (such busy periods appear all year round) and are intending to identify if when faced with quick league games, do certain clubs prioritise & succeed at a higher rate than others?  Any such period will present extreme demands on the fitness of a squad and may require heavy rotation of players.

With a busy period upon us, I have the figures for only five clubs but will publish & be damned:

What we can see here in the top right hand corner of the chart is that Man City, Man Utd and Liverpool haven't gained points at a lesser rate during such periods in comparison to the rest of their fixtures.  In contrast, Chelsea & Arsenal have noticed a slight drop off.  Are they less well prepared generally? Or are they less focused on the league?  We know that Chelsea have a clear bi-focus with the Champions League each year, could this be reflected here?

It's tough to be dogmatic, as the differences are slight and these figures take place over different managerial reigns for all of the clubs bar Arsenal.  However, some truths are visible:

• Alex Ferguson, long a proponent of league focus, had an incredible record in the 4 seasons here: 26-5-5 at 2.31 PPG.
• Man City have not lost the final game (3rd or 4th) of a busy period since losing to Arsenal in April '07, 16 months prior to being taken over by Sheikh Mansour.
• Chelsea have a very poor final game record of 7-3-7, their sole defeat this season being the 3rd game in a fast turnaround series.
• In 2013-14, Man City won the title despite playing 16  of their games (42%!) in such circumstances, in the period studied Chelsea are the team closest with 13 in 3 different seasons, including their title win of '09/10.

 In the clubs studied there is a decline in points gained in the later fixtures:

• Game 1: 1.96 PPG
• Game 2: 2.03 PPG
• Game 3: 1.84 PPG
• Last game (3rd or 4th): 1.74 PPG

Obligatory Tottenham bit

Three wins in a week, and once more all is rosy in the garden.  As a general point, we've seen repeated excellence from Kane (21), Eriksen (22) is becoming more influential by the week, Lamela (22) showed again why everyone should like him & not pine for Aaron Lennon(!?), Bentaleb (20) and Davies (21) have recently cemented starting spots & with Adebayor AWOL the only player over the age of 27 is Soldado (29).

There is potential here!

Thanks for reading

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Christmas is quite obviously a complete mess for many reasons, so I will try and get out articles and columns on an as and when basis until it settles down after the New Year.  I am still , and seemingly always will be, working on a manager appraisal & have 101 other ideas to go with too.  If you like what you read, please share freely on Twitter or in your forums or wherever.  Thanks again & roll on Boxing Day! ;)