One of the major problems when attempting to add context to football statistics is that many of the recorded events are highly situational. It is relatively easy to produce a chain of events from touches to passes to key passes through to shots and ultimately onto goals. But the urgency and frequency at which a side attempts these actions and the commitment in effort and manpower that their opponents put into preventing a successful conclusion, depends greatly on the state of the game. Current score, time remaining and the relative abilities and expectation of each side are the three most obvious indicators of the current game state.
It is hugely tempting to collect every positive action performed on the field of play and relate those numbers to match outcome and often the results appear to confirm a connection. Shooting at goal is to be preferred to having to stop a similar effort from your opponent. Therefore, it isn't surprising to see that the winning teams in the EPL during 2011/12 out-shot their opponents by an average of 3.5 shots per match.
However, averages almost always fail to capture the full nuance of a situation. Although 180 of the 2011/12 matches where there was an outright winner saw the winning side out-shoot their opponent, a not insignificant 110 matches saw the loser out-shot the victor. Nearly 40% of result games went to the loser or tie in terms of shots.
Goalscoring, in a low event sport such as football contains a lot of random variation and out and out luck in a single match. If Stoke had filled in the corners of the south stand as proposed in 2011, thus creating a windbreak to the gale that habitually blows towards the Boothen End, if Shawcross hadn't won the toss against Southampton and spurned tradition by turning the sides around, if Southampton's defenders had heeded the mantra of "never let the ball bounce", then Begovic might not have scored the fastest goal by a keeper on a Saturday in November.
However you define it, luck or randomness may play a part in an out-shot side winning the game, but other factors, such as the tactical approach of each side under the influence of the underlying game state is an obvious additional candidate.
Many sports that incorporate game state analysis have either greater numbers of scoring events than football, making a draw at full time much less likely or positively balk at the thought of a draw and actively legislate against such an outcome by incorporating overtime. Therefore, the draw is firstly, uncommon in these sports at the end of regulation and often eliminated by extra playing time.
This isn't the case in football, the relative low scoring nature of the game results in around half of the playing time being spent with the scores level. Secondly, the draw at full time does represent a safe haven for a side that is content with a point. So, a tied scoreline in football is much more likely to still see widely differing intentions displayed by a side and their opponents compared to other sports, because it is a scoreline that can persist at the final whistle.
In dealing with game states, therefore, we must address the issue of the tied scoreline. Once the massive rump of time spent level is given a more team specific outlook, we can begin to see if the out-shot teams took advantage of a fair wind or actively adjusted to a renewed and diversified challenge from a ultimately defeated rival.
Above are the 290 games in 2011/12 that ended with a winning team, showing the influence of average game state on the shot differential experienced by the winning side. Game state is customized stat, so as a general indicator, zero along the horizontal axis indicates a side that was consistently behind expectations for large parts of the match. For example, a good side that couldn't break down weaker opponents until very late in the game or a side that achieved a "come from behind" victory. Values of 1.5 or more comprise sides that were generally well in charge of the game from a relatively early stage or weaker sides that held superior opponents and won late on.
Correlations using single matches as a data point are notoriously weak, but even if a few outlying games may have pulled the line of best fit downwards, the correlation appears clear. The longer an ultimate winner was behind or a stronger team was held by a weaker rival (denoted by the decreasing size of the number along the horizontal axis), the more likely they were to have out-shot their opponents on their way to victory.
On the other side of the game state mirror, an acceptable scoreline for the majority of the game, denoted by a positive value along the horizontal axis appears to indicate that in 2011/12, either by design or through necessity (or a combination of the two), a majority of such sides won despite being out-shot in the match. A side sitting on a lead and defending shots or an underdog defending from the outset and catching their more illustrious opponent on an effective, but rare counter, for example.
Rather than averaging out the detail and manner of victory, by including average game state, the typical manner and frequency of how EPL sides achieved their wins when faced with particular in game situations starts to become more apparent.
Clearances, for example follow the opposite trend. A side that either led relatively early or held a superior rival, before winning tended to account for the majority of the clearances seen in the match.
The opportunity to make clearances depends partly on the willingness of the opponent to proved such opportunities. In short, the kind of stats a side records is greatly dependent upon the average game states they experience either during a single game, a run of matches or an entire season.
The full-time result tells you very little about how a side arrived at such a favourable outcome. A team may lead from the first minute or overturn an early deficit with a couple of late strikes. Sides that win from prolonged bouts of poor in running scorelines (by their standards), also tend to win the majority of the corners, attempt more aerial crosses, make more forward passes and accrue more key passes. They also take the majority of longer range shots and see more efforts blocked than their immediate opponents. These trends are reversed, in general for teams that win matches where they were satisfied with their position for large parts of the game. Paradoxically therefore, a play-maker whose side creates a couple of early goals is less likely to accrue a large amount of key passes in such a match because the team priority may have switched to defence.
An approach that adds game context to the stats could be used to look at the kind of actions individual sides take to achieve an acceptable result, this time compared to their own usual average. Swansea are known for their possession based passing style, but their commitment to passing the ball in the final 3rd was strongly dependent upon game state as shown in all their matches from 2011/12.
For example, they traveled to Anfield as big outsiders with just a 10% chance of winning the game at kick off. Therefore, they were perfectly happy for the game to remain scoreless, because with every passing goalless minute, their points expectation from the game edged upwards from it's paltry beginnings towards the reality of a single point gained. So they rarely ventured into Liverpool's final third when compared to their usual way of playing. And they similarly reproduced these lowly final 3rd figures when they enjoyed the benefit of any early goal during their much less onerous trip to Villa Park. By contrast the Swans attempted almost 100 more final third passes than was usual for them when they trailed early at home to Newcastle.
Talent may dictate a side's ability to attempt final third passes, but game state is also a powerful driver of their desire and need to exhibit that talent.
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| You were more likely to see Swansea passing in the final 3rd when they were doing poorly 2011/12. |
As a further example, Spurs under Redknapp became a much more aerially orientated attack in poor game states. Once again there is a strong trend, this time for more aerial crosses to be played into the box as they tried to turn around the game state. Spurs' red card assisted romp against Liverpool was their most comfortable game during 2011/12, an early Modric goal was quickly followed by Adam's dismissal and the number of crosses into the box throughout the game was well below their seasonal average. Unlike the Sunday game in mid December at Stoke, where a couple of first half Etherington goals had them chasing the comeback for much of the game and they bombarded the box with well above numbers of crosses.
Plots like these may more clearly illustrate what you can/could expect from a team in certain circumstances. If you got the upperhand on Swansea in 2011/12 you could expect to have to deal with more passes in more dangerous areas, while Spurs increased the amount of aerial balls they played into the box. Just as importantly, Swansea's output of long balls for instance, remained relatively constant regardless of game state, so defenders were unlikely to find themselves chasing back into the corners with anymore frequency if they were defending a good game position against Swansea.
Equally, the individual player statistics are strongly tied to the game states and the needs of their side in that game state. An apparent decline or upswing in an individual raw stats, such as headed clearances, assists or final 3rd pass attempts could have as much to do with the ebb and flow within recent matches, as it has any real decline or improvement from the player concerned.
In short, quantifying a player or team's abilities is often tied to fully appreciating their need to show off that ability to the full.
