Saturday 18 April 2015

League One Week 43: Three games to go

It’s been a while since I had the chance to look at the lower leagues so apologies for that.
Bristol City’s astronomical PDO has seen them promoted and it’s only a matter of time until they claim the title.
To be fair the red half of Bristol have also been a very good shots team throughout the season, but there have been a handful of teams with consistently better overall shot share (Corsi/TSR) and shots on target share rates.

Position Team Played Won Drawn Lost Goals For Goals Against Goal Difference Points
1 Bristol City 43 27 11 5 86 36 50 92
2 Preston 42 23 13 6 71 36 35 82
3 Milton Keynes Dons 42 23 10 9 84 40 44 79
4 Swindon 41 23 7 11 70 47 23 76
5 Sheffield United 43 19 11 13 63 50 13 68
6 Chesterfield 43 19 10 14 67 52 15 67
7 Rochdale 42 18 6 18 69 57 12 60
8 Fleetwood Town 43 16 11 16 45 48 -3 59
9 Barnsley 43 16 10 17 56 59 -3 58
10 Peterboro 43 17 7 19 47 51 -4 58
11 Bradford 42 15 12 15 51 53 -2 57
12 Doncaster 42 15 12 15 52 55 -3 57
13 Gillingham 43 14 14 15 60 63 -3 56
14 Oldham 43 14 13 16 53 64 -11 55
15 Walsall 42 13 15 14 42 42 0 54
16 Coventry 43 12 15 16 46 56 -10 51
17 Scunthorpe 42 13 12 17 55 66 -11 51
18 Port Vale 43 14 8 21 50 60 -10 50
19 Crewe 43 13 9 21 39 72 -33 48
20 Leyton Orient 42 12 11 19 55 59 -4 47
21 Notts County 42 11 14 17 41 54 -13 47
22 Crawley Town 43 12 11 20 47 73 -26 47
23 Colchester 42 12 8 22 51 72 -21 44
24 Yeovil 43 9 10 24 33 68 -35 37

The three point gap should be enough to see Preston secure the second automatic promotion spot and being second in both shot share and shots on target share it is, remarkably, exactly where they “deserve” to finish.
You can’t help but feel sorry for MK Dons. Third place and probably being left to the volatility of the playoffs, but they are far and away the best team in both shot share and shots on target share.
It’s tough to swallow a season like that not ending in promotion.
It is, however, hard to fault Chesterfield, Sheffield United and Swindon being in the playoff places. Doncaster especially so can consider themselves a bit unfortunate not to be there or thereabouts.

Position Team Played Shots for total Shots against total Corsi/TSR shots on target for total shots on target against total Shots on target share Shooting % For Save % PDO
9 Barnsley 43 406 490 0.453 161 217 0.426 34.79 72.82 107.61
11 Bradford 42 437 414 0.513 191 159 0.546 26.71 66.68 93.39
1 Bristol City 43 537 448 0.545 223 171 0.566 38.56 78.95 117.51
6 Chesterfield 43 520 398 0.566 214 182 0.54 31.32 71.44 102.76
23 Colchester 42 445 496 0.473 194 213 0.477 26.27 66.2 92.47
16 Coventry 43 442 416 0.515 170 163 0.511 27.06 65.63 92.68
22 Crawley Town 43 340 615 0.356 120 264 0.313 39.16 72.35 111.5
19 Crewe 43 336 620 0.351 161 260 0.382 24.23 72.31 96.55
12 Doncaster 42 499 399 0.556 210 163 0.563 24.77 66.26 91.02
8 Fleetwood Town 43 438 564 0.437 180 199 0.475 24.99 75.88 100.87
13 Gillingham 43 402 550 0.422 165 220 0.429 36.36 71.36 107.73
20 Leyton Orient 42 472 416 0.532 216 175 0.553 25.46 66.27 91.73
3 Milton Keynes Dons 42 610 340 0.642 260 140 0.65 32.32 71.45 103.77
21 Notts County 42 428 589 0.421 179 235 0.432 22.91 77.02 99.92
14 Oldham 43 440 422 0.51 175 177 0.497 30.3 63.82 94.12
10 Peterboro 43 469 478 0.495 189 189 0.5 24.86 73.03 97.88
18 Port Vale 43 455 513 0.47 184 223 0.452 27.18 73.09 100.27
2 Preston 42 573 373 0.606 231 132 0.636 30.75 72.73 103.47
7 Rochdale 42 436 421 0.509 186 179 0.51 37.1 68.15 105.25
17 Scunthorpe 42 443 503 0.468 190 218 0.466 28.94 69.73 98.67
5 Sheffield United 43 484 402 0.546 194 153 0.559 32.46 67.32 99.79
4 Swindon 41 531 352 0.601 231 152 0.603 30.31 69.09 99.4
15 Walsall 42 478 409 0.539 159 178 0.472 26.42 76.41 102.83
24 Yeovil 43 437 430 0.504 156 177 0.468 21.16 61.58 82.74

Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, Leyton Orient’s relegation fight is one of the most unwarranted I can think of; well above 50% in both shot share and shots on target share, its been a brutal PDO run that has left them battling the drop.

Already relegated Yeovil can, to some extent at least, consider themselves unlucky as well. But their PDO slump is exacerbated by their poor shot numbers – in this instance not the share, but the raw quantity.
Yeovil have taken the eighth fewest shots and the second fewest shots on target. When you don’t have the sheer number of shots to your name it makes things a lot more volatile and means accidents, isolated poor play or just bad luck can have a much more significant influence.
I suspect this plays a big part in Yeovil’s position.

One can only imagine how bad Crawley’s season would have been without a mammoth PDO boost. It’s quite remarkable that with three games to play they have a decent chance at staying up; breath-taking indeed.
The other relegation places are going to be quite the scrap and although I have my preferences of who “should” stay up, when it gets this close, there’s not much you can predict safely.

















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