Bundesliga 2014/15: Klopp's finale and who deserved relegation

I’ve dipped in to the Bundesliga a couple of times this season, mostly, it has to be admitted, to gawp at the goings-on at Dortmund.
But I also spent a bit of time actually watching the Bundesliga too this season and it was just about the only one of the five major European leagues to have any real form of race on the last day of the season.

Position	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals For	Goals Against	Goal Difference	Points
1	Bayern Munich	34	25	4	5	80	18	62	79
2	Wolfsburg	34	20	9	5	72	38	34	69
3	M'gladbach	34	19	9	6	53	26	27	66
4	Leverkusen	34	17	10	7	62	37	25	61
5	Augsburg	34	15	4	15	43	43	0	49
6	Schalke 04	34	13	9	12	42	40	2	48
7	Dortmund	34	13	7	14	47	42	5	46
8	Hoffenheim	34	12	8	14	49	55	-6	44
9	Ein Frankfurt	34	11	10	13	56	62	-6	43
10	Werder Bremen	34	11	10	13	50	65	-15	43
11	Mainz	34	9	13	12	45	47	-2	40
12	FC Koln	34	9	13	12	34	40	-6	40
13	Hannover	34	9	10	15	40	56	-16	37
14	Stuttgart	34	9	9	16	42	60	-18	36
15	Hertha	34	9	8	17	36	52	-16	35
16	Hamburg	34	9	8	17	25	50	-25	35
17	Freiburg	34	7	13	14	36	47	-11	34
18	Paderborn	34	7	10	17	31	65	-34	31

Indeed, the chaos around the relegation places made for gripping viewing on that last afternoon.
In the end Stuttgart completed their great escape by winning at Paderborn in a result that also relegated the hosts.
Stuttgart actually came from behind to win both their last two games – vs Hamburg and Paderborn.
But did Paderborn and Freiburg deserve to be relegated?

Position	Team	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
5	Augsburg	458	458	0.5	150	170	0.469	28.67	74.71	103.38
1	Bayern Munich	583	257	0.694	238	95	0.715	33.61	81.05	114.66
7	Dortmund	567	288	0.663	190	112	0.629	24.73	62.5	87.23
9	Ein Frankfurt	426	430	0.498	171	195	0.467	32.75	68.21	100.96
12	FC Koln	362	463	0.439	126	161	0.439	26.97	75.16	102.13
17	Freiburg	385	515	0.428	158	200	0.441	22.79	76.5	99.29
16	Hamburg	364	494	0.424	114	189	0.376	21.92	73.55	95.47
13	Hannover	384	458	0.456	145	161	0.474	27.6	65.21	92.81
15	Hertha	297	425	0.411	107	156	0.407	33.62	66.67	100.29
8	Hoffenheim	501	453	0.525	171	157	0.521	28.65	64.96	93.61
4	Leverkusen	554	299	0.65	192	128	0.6	32.3	71.08	103.38
11	Mainz	437	482	0.475	145	175	0.453	31.04	73.15	104.19
3	M'gladbach	424	522	0.448	174	151	0.535	30.46	82.78	113.24
18	Paderborn	454	492	0.48	140	177	0.442	22.15	63.28	85.43
6	Schalke 04	418	537	0.438	153	174	0.468	27.46	77	104.47
14	Stuttgart	411	472	0.466	138	179	0.435	30.43	66.47	96.9
10	Werder Bremen	415	499	0.454	170	163	0.51	29.4	60.14	89.54
2	Wolfsburg	522	418	0.555	205	144	0.587	35.13	73.6	108.73

Well, it seems Paderborn at the very least can consider themselves unfortunate and arguably fully undeserving of relegation.
Certainly their overall shot share was a very respectable 0.48 (only ninth worst in the division).

And while their shots on target share throughout the season was less impressive, it only dropped to sixth worst.
However, the kicker is, of course, that Paderborn had the worst PDO in the league.
That mark of 85.43 was a full eight points below their nearest relegation contender (Hannover) and ten less than the next (Hamburg).
I’ve not watch much of Paderborn to suggest any of the reasons for this awful PDO.
According to WhoScored Paderborn did take the third highest percentage of shots from outside the 18 yard box (47%), and the joint fewest (along with five others) inside the six yard box (5%), and were fifth worst at taking shots from central areas (59%).

Combine that with being the equal second worst (with two others) at allowing shots from within the six yard box (8%) and eighth worst at allowing attempts from the centre (62%) and we begin to see some of their problems.
But still, Hamburg were worse in their own six yard box (9%) with Stuttgart not far behind (7%).
Either way you splice it, it seems that to me that Paderborn were at least a little lucky to go down.

A similar, though slightly weaker argument, can also be made for Freiburg who will be plying their trade in Bundesliga 2 next season too.
However, the real beneficiaries from this are Hamburg and (to a lesser extent) Hertha Berlin, who both posted some rather poor shot share numbers.
Indeed were it down to me I might have relegated Hamburg just for their 37% share of shots on target. But that was only “good” enough to earn them a second successive relegation playoff, which they duly won, beating Karlsruhe 3-2 on aggregate.

Further up the table Borussia Monchengladbach certainly rode their luck and the second highest PDO in the league to get in to the Champions League places. With rather average shot share and shots on target share numbers (certainly for a top three team) unless great strides are made with either the playing staff or tactics (or possibly both) it seems unlikely BMG will cause too much trouble in the Champions League next season.
And they could even slip back considerably in the Bundesliga.

But of course the real story of the Bundesliga season was the aforementioned adventures in Dortmund.
It’s quite remarkable that despite owning a PDO score just two points better than poor Paderborn that BVB still managed to finish seventh.
Is that the cost of one departure (Lewandowski) too many?
Perhaps more remarkably, Dortmund continued to improve their shot share and shots on target share numbers throughout the season - moving from 0.645 and 0.583 respectively in week nine to 0.663 and 0.629 by the end. Wow.
But their PDO remained stubbornly sunk well below 90. 
If Dortmund had managed to reach a PDO over 90 they surely would have easily finished in the Europa League spots. And somewhere near 100 may have even seen them recovering sufficiently to battle with Leverkusen for fourth.
That would have completed a quite remarkable turnaround from the mid-season horror show that was the Bundesliga table.

But it was not to be and Klopp’s intended fairytale ending is, while not quite a nightmare, certainly a bittersweet one.

So as we can see, from the Bundesliga season, while a shorter schedule has the advantages of generally being less demanding on players, it certainly does not help with the sample size and leaves the possibility for a greater effect on natural football variance to take effect.