Championship Week 14: Bristol City's early season woes

We’re more than a quarter of the way in to the Championship season so it’s probably worth taking a look at how the three promoted teams are handling the step up.
And because of the alphabet, I’m reviewing Bristol City’s progress first.

Looking at the league table which never lies*, it appears to have been a pretty tough start for the trio of new entrants, with the Robins, finding the going toughest.
*it does

Pos	Team	Played	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Brighton	14	8	6	0	19	11	8	30
2	Hull	14	8	4	2	21	8	13	28
3	Burnley	14	8	4	2	20	13	7	28
4	Middlesbrough	14	8	3	3	23	9	14	27
5	Derby	14	7	6	1	21	10	11	27
6	Birmingham	14	7	3	4	19	15	4	24
7	Reading	14	6	5	3	21	13	8	23
8	Sheff Wed	14	6	5	3	19	16	3	23
9	Cardiff	14	5	7	2	15	11	4	22
10	Fulham	14	5	5	4	26	20	6	20
11	Brentford	14	6	2	6	20	20	0	20
12	QPR	14	5	4	5	22	23	-1	19
13	Wolves	14	5	3	6	20	20	0	18
14	Ipswich	14	4	6	4	16	21	-5	18
15	Blackburn	14	3	6	5	14	14	0	15
16	Huddersfield	14	3	5	6	14	18	-4	14
17	Nottm Forest	14	3	5	6	11	15	-4	14
18	Preston	14	2	7	5	10	13	-3	13
19	Leeds	14	2	7	5	12	19	-7	13
20	MK Dons	14	3	2	9	12	21	-9	11
21	Bristol City	14	2	5	7	16	26	-10	11
22	Bolton	14	1	7	6	10	20	-10	10
23	Charlton	14	2	4	8	11	24	-13	10
24	Rotherham	14	2	3	9	15	27	-12	9

To be fair I didn’t have the greatest expectations for Bristol City this season: their promotion was based on a massive PDO score with very nice but not spectacular shot share numbers.
Thus my pre-season caution and initial non-surprise at their league standing had been fulfilled.

But even a cursory glance at the shot metrics being put together across the Championship shows their relegation threatened position is not really warranted.
Admittedly the overall shot share (Corsi/TSR) at 11v11 is below break-even, but the unblocked shot share (Fenwick) and shots on target share are both top ten worthy.
Clearly something is going right at Ashton Gate.

Unfortunately, it is PDO which accounts for their current position.
A below average shooting % (24.24) and an awful save % (second worst at 60.34) giving them a league worst PDO of just 84.

So clearly these positive numbers are down to score effects from being continually behind and when their PDO does turn those impressive shot shares will die away, right?

Maybe not.
For a bit more of a deeper insight, let’s take a look at how Bristol City are playing when the scores are level.
Only one team has played fewer minutes with the scores level (Rotherham), so these numbers need to be taken with some caution.
But, in 482 minutes out of a total of 1,351, the Robins have been quite impressive indeed.

Yet again though, when we get to actually putting the ball in and keeping it out of the net, it gets ugly. Very ugly:

I could show you the “Good vs Lucky” graph for these, but it’d be pointless as Bristol City are so far off the bottom I’d need to extend my y-axes down to hell.

The reasons for this could be many, some of which can probably be answered in part.

Is it a case of shooting from hopeless positions and just trying to get the effort on target?
Well no.


Bristol City have the joint most non-headed shots from inside the six-yard box (10 – Brighton and Hull), and are equal sixth in non-headed shots from the centre of the 18-yd box.
They do not produce headed chances from those locations at the same rate, but I would happily take that situation given the lower conversion rates typical to headed chances.

It seems the only place they are really sacrificing taking shots is outside the 18-yd box. The difference between this total and league average accounts for the whole difference in Bristol City’s shot total from the league average.

So are they conceding a boatload of high quality chances?
Based on pure location data, I would again say no.
They’ve given away a dozen more shots from the sides of the penalty area than the league average, something which should be cautiously monitored, but aside from that everything else is pretty much mid-table.

The only problem I see on the horizon is their shot shares at one-goal up are truly awful – a 0.312 overall shot share being the “highlight” of the bunch.
That does not bode well but is from an even smaller sample size (282 mins) and I can imagine has probably been influenced by a massive tactical decision to hold on to whatever rare leads they have acquired.

Reassuringly most of these numbers back up what I've seen in limited opportunities of watching Bristol City.
The two Sky broadcast games I watched, against Nottingham Forest and the Severnside derby against Cardiff, saw Bristol dominating the games pretty well.
In the Forest game they had the advantage of two early goals, against Cardiff David Marshall and some slightly erratic finishing kept them from taking a comfortable lead.

So assuming the save % improves and the level score shot share stays the same then I would suspect the  Robins will eventually move into mid-table safety sooner rather than later.


PS. Along with the two other promoted clubs I'm hoping to have a closer look at Blackburn soon. Rovers' stats are interesting at the moment.

THE DATA TABLES RETURN

Here's the 11v11 shot data table after 14 games because I know you can't get enough sortable number fun:

Position	Team	11v11 Corsi	11v11 Fenwick	11v11 SoT	11v11 Goals Rate	11v11 Sh%	11v11 Sv%	11v11 PDO
6	Birmingham	0.458	0.414	0.452	0.56	36.54	76.19	112.73
15	Blackburn	0.549	0.584	0.6	0.56	22.22	73.81	96.03
22	Bolton	0.48	0.479	0.429	0.32	17.65	72.06	89.71
11	Brentford	0.459	0.449	0.447	0.46	29.09	72.06	101.15
1	Brighton	0.576	0.566	0.571	0.66	29.69	79.17	108.85
21	Bristol City	0.474	0.516	0.532	0.41	24.24	60.34	84.59
3	Burnley	0.441	0.446	0.52	0.59	29.69	77.97	107.65
9	Cardiff	0.462	0.429	0.466	0.61	29.17	83.64	112.8
23	Charlton	0.434	0.451	0.47	0.35	20.37	67.21	87.58
5	Derby	0.552	0.544	0.565	0.67	30.77	80	110.77
10	Fulham	0.458	0.468	0.483	0.6	37.68	77.03	114.71
16	Huddersfield	0.511	0.496	0.452	0.44	26.92	71.43	98.35
2	Hull	0.544	0.574	0.598	0.72	32.81	81.4	114.21
14	Ipswich	0.483	0.498	0.491	0.43	29.09	63.16	92.25
19	Leeds	0.492	0.458	0.442	0.37	23.91	67.24	91.15
4	Middlesbrough	0.541	0.544	0.567	0.72	31.94	83.64	115.58
20	MK Dons	0.45	0.437	0.354	0.3	25.71	67.19	92.9
17	Nottingham Forest	0.542	0.538	0.508	0.39	14.75	76.27	91.03
18	Preston	0.528	0.558	0.55	0.45	22.73	66.67	89.39
12	QPR	0.54	0.54	0.548	0.51	34.92	59.62	94.54
7	Reading	0.653	0.647	0.653	0.63	30.3	65.71	96.02
24	Rotherham	0.453	0.456	0.422	0.33	24.07	64.86	88.94
8	Sheff Wed	0.47	0.475	0.49	0.55	36	71.15	107.15
13	Wolves	0.492	0.496	0.45	0.44	27.59	71.83	99.42

Championship Week 9: New beginnings

Welcome to the 2015/16 version of The Only Statistic That Matters.
First an apology for my tardiness at putting this out but sometimes life, among other things, gets in the way.

This season I’m collecting a whole load more data which I’m still working out what to do with, what is useful and what can add value to understanding how this wonderful sport we so love works.
One of the big changes I’ve made with the data I’m tracking this year is to use 11v11 wherever possible.
I noticed last year that on occasions there seemed to be big swings in shot stats involving games with a red card (Brentford’s 41 shot mauling of Blackpool being the prime example).
In ice hockey, where many of these metrics originate, the power play/penalty kill (where one team temporarily has a player less) are separated out from full strength (5v5 in that case) play.
Yes, it will make for a smaller sample size, but I’m hoping the sample I’m left with will be more accurate as to the real skills of the Championship teams.

The good point about starting coverage at this stage in the season is that many of the metrics have started to settle down – at least they were doing so at this time last season.
We are still dealing with a small sample size in terms of shots though.
The average team will have taken (and conceded) 118 shots so far, meaning a couple of goals here or freak deflections there can still make all the difference in the table and in the numbers.

I’m also recording where the shots are being taken from, at least in broad geographic on-pitch locations.
These are the standard ones that I’m sure many of you will be familiar with already, but just for clarification we have: inside the six yard box, the central area of the 18 yard box immediately in front of the six yard box, the sides of the 18 yard box, and outside the 18 yard box.
The six yard box and area in front of it collectively being the Danger Zone.
Headers are being recorded separately from shots: inside the six yard box and outside (the vast majority of these take place in the central 18 yard box area so there seems little point in also using the sides).

Season so far

So now that’s cleared up, or at least some of it, let’s have a look at where we are so far.

Pos	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against	Goal Diff	Points
1	Brighton	9	6	3	0	13	7	6	21
2	Middlesbrough	9	6	2	1	17	5	12	20
3	Reading	9	4	3	2	14	7	7	15
4	Hull	9	4	3	2	12	7	5	15
5	Birmingham	9	4	3	2	14	10	4	15
6	Cardiff	9	4	3	2	13	10	3	15
7	Burnley	9	4	3	2	12	10	2	15
8	Ipswich	9	4	3	2	15	15	0	15
9	Derby	9	3	5	1	10	7	3	14
10	Wolves	9	3	3	3	12	11	1	12
11	Nott'm Forest	9	3	3	3	9	9	0	12
12	Sheffield Weds	9	3	3	3	12	13	-1	12
13	QPR	9	3	3	3	14	17	-3	12
14	Fulham	9	3	2	4	15	14	1	11
15	Leeds	9	2	5	2	9	11	-2	11
16	Huddersfield	9	2	4	3	10	11	-1	10
17	Charlton	9	2	3	4	9	12	-3	9
18	Blackburn	9	1	5	3	10	10	0	8
19	Brentford	9	2	2	5	12	17	-5	8
20	Rotherham	9	2	2	5	11	17	-6	8
21	Bolton	9	1	5	3	6	12	-6	8
22	Preston	9	1	4	4	6	10	-4	7
23	Milton Keynes Dons	9	2	1	6	8	13	-5	7
24	Bristol City	9	1	3	5	11	19	-8	6

Middlesbrough being in the promotion spots will not be a surprise to many. Brighton being top probably will be, but shouldn’t be. I was cautiously optimistic about the Seagulls before this season given their very good shot metrics last year.
With very good shot numbers again it seems this season they’re actually scoring and saving shots that last year they should have been.
At the other end, I had much higher (mid-table) hopes for at least two of the promoted teams.
But while it may make pretty grim viewing for the trio right now, as we’ll see shortly, only MK Dons are making a particularly bad start, with Preston and Bristol City bitten by horrible luck and variance in and in front of goal.

For the eagle-eyed among you, Reading  (0.681 shot share, 97.78 PDO) and Middlesbrough (0.530 shot share, 126.38 PDO) do not fit on the chart.

Again, Reading  (0.714 shot share, 97.78 PDO) and Middlesbrough (0.531 shot share, 126.38 PDO) do not fit on the chart.

Shooting stars

The early statistical stars of the season are without doubt Reading.
They started off at around an 80% shot share but that was never going to be sustainable and are now in the region of 68-72%, depending on which flavour of metric you prefer.
The secret of this is defence.
The Royals have conceded just 67 total shots – almost half the league average.
And while doing that, they’ve also been very nicely above average at taking shots (137, 3rd best).
That is quite simply superb.
There may be other reasons for this such as the fixture schedule so far, but they have played (and outplayed) Burnley and Ipswich, while they matched Derby in shots despite being down to ten men for half the game.
In fact, Ipswich (in that memorable Friday night hammering) are the only team to reach double figures in shots taken at 11v11 and are the only team to out shoot Reading.
I suspect much of that was due to the massive score difference leading to Reading sitting back.
So certainly at the moment, Reading look like legitimate promotion contenders.
There is still a long way to go, but boy do the early stats make positive reading.

Rotherham

Somewhat lost amid the row about a certain West London team was the news that Steve Evans left (by one method or another) the manager’s post at Rotherham United.
While his personality can rub people the wrong way, last season he did a fine job keeping the small budget Millers up and it was only a horrible PDO score that saw them slide towards the relegation zone.
Their shot metrics were give or take mid-table obscurity.

Unfortunately for Evans, in the summer he was forced to sell some key players without being able to replace them sufficiently and the results this year have been rather ugly.
Rotherham are bottom in overall 11v11 shot share (taking just 43.3% of all shots in their games), second bottom in unblocked shot share (again 43.3%) and third bottom in shots on target share (40.7%).
Getting burned a bit by PDO as well (93.94) meant there was nowhere to hide and so Evans left the club.
Perhaps the real killer for Rotherham has been the quality of shots taken by opponents.
The Millers have conceded 40 danger zone shots (most) including nine from within the six yard box.
The next worst teams have only conceded six close in, with the average being three and a combined 25 from the six yard box and danger zone respectively.

Whether anyone else will be able to improve performances given the talent drain at the club it will be tough to do, but I’d suggest they look at the defensive side of things first.

Let’s talk about Brentford

Well nobody else is, so I may as well give the developments at Griffin Park a bit of coverage, eh?
I had actually really hoped to give Brentford a wide-ish berth this season and just let the club get on with what they are doing and see how it goes.
I had not expected to be writing about sacking the manager in my first post this early in the season.
There's been a lot of heat and not much light in the comments that I've seen about the Brentford situation this week. Hopefully this will add some much needed light to the discussion.

Like just about everyone else in the world I have very little idea of the exact reasons why Marinus Dijkuizen was sacked on Monday.
But it seems fair to look at the numbers and see what’s been going-on on the pitch.
And the numbers do not make great viewing.

At the time of Dijkuzien’s sacking, while the all situations metrics looked just below average, these were buoyed by a positive piece of play when up a man against Bristol City.
In 11v11 it was not pretty. In the bottom eight in both overall shot share and unblocked shot share (47.4% and 45.4%), the Bees were third worst in the Championship with a shots on target share of just 39.7%.
That is a quite remarkable turnaround from last season.
When we look down into the raw shot numbers there seems to be a likely dearth of quality scoring chances.
Although there were 27 shots taken centrally in the 18 yard box (above the 22 average at the time), there was just one solitary shot form inside the six yard box. And no headers from inside the six yard box too.
While not damning, those numbers are not exactly warm and fuzzy either.

However, if we look at the shot shares when scores are level in the game, this makes a bad situation look even worse.

Pretty horrific yeah?
Taking 40% (or even worse just 30%) of shots when the score is tied is an awful position to start a game from.
Yes, the PDO score is kind of bad as well, but a team would need a mammoth PDO up around 120 to be surviving that kind of shots performance.
As a result, by the completion of week eight, Brentford had spent as much time at one goal down as they had at level scores.

I cannot say with anything other than guess work that these are the sorts of figures the management team at Brentford would be using to make the decision, but it seems a likely path.
Brentford were not in their lowly position by an awful run of bad luck. This league position was not a quirk of fate. Shots-wise at least, it was fully deserved.

And although it may make some fans or media happy to see the experiment with analytics in Griffin Park apparently fail so quickly, that Dijkuzien was let go at this early point probably says loud enough that there was a realisation that his role and input was not working out.
That is what the analytics should be doing; helping make informed decisions at the appropriate time without reacting to isolated events.
Tuesday’s home defeat by Birmingham was another shots horror show, so it will be interesting to see how Lee Carsley beds-in and if he can turn this poor start around.

League One Week 14: Introducing more Football League fancystats

I made a discovery earlier this week - Footstats has also been doing the data for League One, League Two and the Conference.
So, now I've got the Championship stats going along nicely I'm going to expand and publish the tables for those three leagues as well every week.
Due to cup games and such there's a few teams with games in hand, but most of the league is now on 14 games played, so we'll pick it up from there.

Sadly I doubt I'll have time to write any summaries up for the three lower leagues, but I'll try to do periodic updates.

Anyway... to the data....

Position	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals For	Goals Against	Goal Difference	Points
1	Bristol City	14	9	5	0	30	15	15	32
2	Peterboro	14	8	2	4	22	14	8	26
3	Preston	12	7	4	1	23	11	12	25
4	Milton Keynes Dons	12	7	2	3	27	15	12	23
5	Notts County	13	6	5	2	20	12	8	23
6	Sheffield United	13	7	2	4	21	18	3	23
7	Swindon	12	6	4	2	25	15	10	22
8	Oldham	14	5	7	2	21	16	5	22
9	Rochdale	13	6	2	5	23	15	8	20
10	Chesterfield	13	5	4	4	23	20	3	19
11	Fleetwood Town	14	5	4	5	15	13	2	19
12	Bradford	14	5	4	5	18	18	0	19
13	Crawley Town	14	5	2	7	13	23	-10	17
14	Colchester	14	4	4	6	19	20	-1	16
15	Leyton Orient	13	3	6	4	15	15	0	15
16	Barnsley	13	4	3	6	20	22	-2	15
17	Doncaster	12	4	2	6	12	20	-8	14
18	Port Vale	14	3	4	7	17	23	-6	13
19	Gillingham	14	3	4	7	13	20	-7	13
20	Coventry	14	3	4	7	15	23	-8	13
21	Yeovil	14	3	4	7	12	23	-11	13
22	Crewe	14	4	1	9	12	30	-18	13
23	Walsall	14	2	6	6	11	15	-4	12
24	Scunthorpe	14	3	3	8	17	28	-11	12

Couple of brief notes:
There's some  horrible possession teams in League One. Crawley are the chief culprits, but Gillingham, Crewe and Notts County are not far behind.
Speaking of Notts County - look at that PDO. A 120 score 13 games in - that's going to regress at some point one would expect.
If and when it does.... ohhh boy - that is going to be spectacular.

Position	Team	Played	Shots for total	Shots against total	Corsi/TSR
16	Barnsley	13	144	165	0.466
12	Bradford	14	146	156	0.484
1	Bristol City	14	185	140	0.569
10	Chesterfield	13	167	132	0.559
14	Colchester	14	189	163	0.537
20	Coventry	14	133	119	0.528
13	Crawley Town	14	122	239	0.338
22	Crewe	14	113	195	0.367
17	Doncaster	12	129	142	0.476
11	Fleetwood Town	14	179	164	0.522
19	Gillingham	14	114	205	0.357
15	Leyton Orient	13	146	134	0.521
4	Milton Keynes Dons	12	161	111	0.592
5	Notts County	13	123	190	0.393
8	Oldham	14	151	110	0.579
2	Peterboro	14	181	150	0.547
18	Port Vale	14	172	174	0.497
3	Preston	12	178	113	0.612
9	Rochdale	13	153	143	0.517
24	Scunthorpe	14	131	175	0.428
6	Sheffield United	13	155	142	0.522
7	Swindon	12	139	87	0.615
23	Walsall	14	163	125	0.566
21	Yeovil	14	145	145	0.5

Leaders Bristol City own the second highest PDO score, but have much better underlying shot data. Some of that may be down to score effects from leading frequently. I cannot see that really being the explanation for Notts County's performance though.

Position	Team	Played	shots on target for total	shots on target against total	Shots on target share
16	Barnsley	13	59	80	0.425
12	Bradford	14	62	60	0.508
1	Bristol City	14	73	57	0.561
10	Chesterfield	13	70	58	0.547
14	Colchester	14	74	68	0.521
20	Coventry	14	54	54	0.5
13	Crawley Town	14	41	86	0.323
22	Crewe	14	61	86	0.415
17	Doncaster	12	50	57	0.467
11	Fleetwood Town	14	80	52	0.606
19	Gillingham	14	43	73	0.371
15	Leyton Orient	13	57	55	0.509
4	Milton Keynes Dons	12	70	53	0.569
5	Notts County	13	54	73	0.425
8	Oldham	14	63	45	0.583
2	Peterboro	14	69	58	0.543
18	Port Vale	14	68	70	0.493
3	Preston	12	67	40	0.626
9	Rochdale	13	62	58	0.517
24	Scunthorpe	14	62	76	0.449
6	Sheffield United	13	59	56	0.513
7	Swindon	12	68	46	0.596
23	Walsall	14	50	54	0.481
21	Yeovil	14	53	54	0.495

Preston North End, however, look very good value for their lofty perch, and Swindon Town could well be dangerous as the season continues - especially with two games in hand.

Position	Team	Played	Shooting % For	Save %	PDO
16	Barnsley	13	33.89	72.49	106.38
12	Bradford	14	29.03	69.99	99.02
1	Bristol City	14	41.11	73.68	114.79
10	Chesterfield	13	32.84	65.5	98.35
14	Colchester	14	25.68	70.58	96.26
20	Coventry	14	27.78	57.41	85.19
13	Crawley Town	14	31.72	73.25	104.97
22	Crewe	14	19.68	65.12	84.79
17	Doncaster	12	24	64.9	88.9
11	Fleetwood Town	14	18.74	74.99	93.74
19	Gillingham	14	30.24	72.6	102.84
15	Leyton Orient	13	26.32	72.73	99.05
4	Milton Keynes Dons	12	38.56	71.7	110.26
5	Notts County	13	37.05	83.57	120.61
8	Oldham	14	33.32	64.46	97.78
2	Peterboro	14	31.88	75.85	107.74
18	Port Vale	14	24.99	67.15	92.14
3	Preston	12	34.34	72.51	106.85
9	Rochdale	13	37.1	74.14	111.24
24	Scunthorpe	14	27.41	63.16	90.57
6	Sheffield United	13	35.61	67.85	103.46
7	Swindon	12	36.78	67.39	104.17
23	Walsall	14	22.01	72.23	94.24
21	Yeovil	14	22.64	57.42	80.05

Position	Team	Played	Corsi/TSR	Shots on target share	PDO
16	Barnsley	13	0.466	0.425	106.38
12	Bradford	14	0.484	0.508	99.02
1	Bristol City	14	0.569	0.561	114.79
10	Chesterfield	13	0.559	0.547	98.35
14	Colchester	14	0.537	0.521	96.26
20	Coventry	14	0.528	0.5	85.19
13	Crawley Town	14	0.338	0.323	104.97
22	Crewe	14	0.367	0.415	84.79
17	Doncaster	12	0.476	0.467	88.9
11	Fleetwood Town	14	0.522	0.606	93.74
19	Gillingham	14	0.357	0.371	102.84
15	Leyton Orient	13	0.521	0.509	99.05
4	Milton Keynes Dons	12	0.592	0.569	110.26
5	Notts County	13	0.393	0.425	120.61
8	Oldham	14	0.579	0.583	97.78
2	Peterboro	14	0.547	0.543	107.74
18	Port Vale	14	0.497	0.493	92.14
3	Preston	12	0.612	0.626	106.85
9	Rochdale	13	0.517	0.517	111.24
24	Scunthorpe	14	0.428	0.449	90.57
6	Sheffield United	13	0.522	0.513	103.46
7	Swindon	12	0.615	0.596	104.17
23	Walsall	14	0.566	0.481	94.24
21	Yeovil	14	0.5	0.495	80.05