Game State and Blocked Shots.

I've written a fair bit about game state and how it impacts on how a side approaches a match s the time elapses and occasionally the score line changes.

I don't use score differential to define "game state", instead I use a measure of how well each team is fairing based of their pre game expectation.

This can be defined as the expected points based on the current score and time elapsed or the expected success rate of a team, again when measured against a pre kick off baseline. The choice is entirely up to you.

The advantage of this approach is primarily when the game is tied (which it is for a fairly significant portion of most matches). Instead of counting offensive production for both sides at this score differential, there's usually a clear indication of which of the two teams is happier with the stalemate and which is not.

You also get a gradual movement of game state that incorporates the often omitted variable of time elapsed.

It's intuitive as to what might happen as game state ebbs and flows over the course of a match, as unhappy teams perhaps become more risk taking in order to change the current status quo, while pregame underdogs are forced or chose to attempt to bank their above expectation gains by becoming more defensive.

One slight problem with this approach is that it assumes a relatively balanced competitive edge between competing teams and further assumes that those needing to change the current scoreline are capable of attempting to do so.

Not to be harsh, but it's difficult to envisage a situation where Manchester City felt the need to protect a lead against say Newcastle or where Newcastle were technically able to up their attacking intent against the champions.

So often the presence of  clearly superior teams can skew conclusions. "Possession leads to wins" arose largely because better sides also had high levels of possession, but the possession was a byproduct of other things they did, rather than the primary driver of their results.

Remove Barca etc from the data and the relationship between possession and wins tended to disappear.

Therefore, firstly here's why "zero goal differential" (the game is level) shouldn't be regarded as a single game state.

Here's a sample of matches from the 2018/19 Premier League, involving games where one of the Big 6 wasn't playing. Thus the games weren't particularly one-sided from the outset.

Initially, I've simply counted the shot volume from regular play for teams when the score differential is zero (the game is level). The vertical axis records my version of changing game state, a larger negative value indicates that a team that is doing badly compared to the expectation at kickoff.

Typically, this may be when a home favourite is level a fair way into the game and a points expectation that may have been 1.75 expected points at 3 o'clock has fallen back towards one point as the clock ticks on towards 5.

Those above the blue score differential line of zero are doing better that they hoped for, they might have expected to average less than a point from such a game, but they are edging closer and closer to a point, with a possibility of nicking all three.

Each point represents a goal attempt and it's clear that the lions share are being taking by the disgruntled favs.

If we re-examine our intuition, it's likely that if the beneficiaries of the stalemate aren't taking that many shots in the match, they're doing things to prevent the ones at the other end going in.

Learning from the likes of Pulis and Dyche that will likely include blocking shots.

Next I built a simple xG model (just location & type), but also included the game state factor, not just at zero goal differential, but at all score differentials to see if it told anything about the likelihood a shot would be blocked or not.

I eliminated games where a red card had been shown, for obvious reasons.

The bottom line was that game state was a significant factor in correlating with whether an attempt was blocked or not, along with location and shot type. And the larger the decrease in a side's pre-match expectation when the attempt was taken, the more likely it became that the shot was blocked.

In short, without the superstar teams, run of the mill games appear to follow the "hold what we have" and "this is disappointing, let's crack on" mentality.

This is one route to improve the much criticised problem of single xG races, where one team scores early and then drops anchor, but whether it is a universal improvement to a predictive model is a question of over fitting the past and potentially screwing up the future.