Macro look at combined Attack/Defense in the Premier League

As we come down the stretch, I wanted to take a quick look at the shots and goals numbers for & against. Lots of times we only see the Shot Ratios (i.e. TSR, SoTR, GF%) posted but they do not give us the actual quantity of shots each team has taken and given up.

I know scatter plots can be tough to read/decipher but, for me, this is the best way to show where teams stand.

*This is the 3rd post of 3. The 1st post covered Attack and the 2nd looked at the Defense. 

Attack & Defense Combined

Shots on Target Differential vs Total Shots Differential

We can see that their is a clear top 5 teams with Man United lagging behind. The race for the 3rd and 4th Champions League spots looks like they could come down to the last game of the season.  Extremely tight.

Meanwhile, Sunderland are just abysmal. How they are not sitting at the bottom table is fascinating.

Everton, stand out as outliers, along with Chelsea, in over performance of shots on target. Chelsea are thriving off this, while Everton haven't been able to capitalize.

Goal Differential vs Shots on Target Differential

*If you are not familiar with PDO please check out the Glossary along the top of the page.

Analytics tell us to expect Man United's PDO to regress toward the mean (100). Many, mistakenly, think that if a team carries a very high PDO for a lengthy period of time that it will, in turn, have a game or multiple games where the team has a terribly low PDO. This is gamblers fallacy which many confuse with regression to the mean. 38 games is a small sample and good/bad fortune can last over the course of the season (or even more), even if it is unlikely. For example, Man City finished last season with ~112.0 PDO.

**Just for clarification, I am not saying Man United's PDO will stay high (It could fall off a cliff, for all I know). I am just trying to clarify that over the last 10 games (for all teams) anything can happen. The previous 28 games do not determine the PDO of game 29. Much like flipping a coin and getting heads 10 times in a row doesn't mean the odds of getting tails is higher on the 11th flip**


That is the end of this short 'series' of blogs. Hopefully, you found it somewhat informative and/or made you think about things a little different.

Cheers,

Clarke
Follow @footyinthecloud