Why did Middlesbrough buy Jordan Rhodes and is he worth £11m?

Last week Ted Knutson answered a question from Marco Jackson about Middlesbrough’s purchase of Jordan Rhodes.

I’d wondered at the time of the purchase if it was money well spent, especially when Boro were reportedly pursuing Ross McCormack too – a long-time favourite of mine for several reasons.
But Ted’s answer that Rhodes’ data had dropped off and he was posting below average numbers intrigued me. In what way had it changed?


So, I dove in to the WhoScored database to check out his stats.
WhoScored only has data as far back as the 13-14 season, Rhodes’ second at Blackburn, so that does take out his most prolific season in the Championship.
But 13-14 saw him post pretty similar goalscoring numbers to the previous year so it’s probably a fairly safe comparison to make, and we have two consecutive seasons of data at least.

First up, here are Rhodes’ radars from the 2013-14 and 2014-15 full seasons at Blackburn.

As we can see, there’s not too much difference really.
Identical NPGs/90 in each season, his all shot conversion % is higher in 13/14, this dips a bit in 14/15 so he takes more shots per game, but his shooting % from shots on target rebounds instead.
Also noticeable that his key passes/90 fell away almost totally last season, but they weren’t very high to begin with.
All-in-all pretty good numbers for a pretty damn good Championship striker.

So let’s have a look at this season at Blackburn and the data Middlesbrough had to work with when making their decision.

Yikes! Everything went down aside from his all shot conversion %.
Most worryingly, his shots/90 was down by almost a full shot: that’s not the way to correct a scoring slump and falling shooting %.

So what went wrong? And why, bearing in mind these worrying numbers, did Middlesbrough still pursue Rhodes and eventually pay north of £9m?

A striking headache

First we need to understand the attack Rhodes has been a part of the past few years.
As I detailed in an earlier post, both Gary Bowyer and presently Paul Lambert favour an aerial dominated attack – the most aerial attack in the Championship in fact.
In the last two seasons Bower’s Blackburn averaged the most headed attempts /90 in the whole division (4.1 in 2014-15 and 4.0 in 2013-14) with only Ipswich for company (3.9 in 2014-15) and everyone else a full one shot per game behind.
This season they are still ticking along at around 3.7 headed attempts/90, with Ipswich closest at 3.1.
The difference is stark.

Rhodes is a more than capable header of the ball, but he is no Peter Crouch or Andy Carroll. In fact, he’s not even Rudy Gestede, or perhaps more importantly, his partner is no longer Gestede – and that’s the biggest problem as far as I see it.

Rhodes lost his strike partner for around £6m last summer and Rovers have failed to replace him - and its easy to see why.

Gestede was a particularly important player for Blackburn largely because of his physical presence and he was a shot monster - being top in headed attempts and within the top six of all shot attempts by players with meaningful time on pitch both those seasons.

He rarely directly assisted on goals for Rhodes though. Indeed, examining the videos of Rhodes’ goals for the last two seasons it’s hard to spot a Gestede assist in there. (There is, however, some hilariously comical defending at times.)
And the numbers bear this out. But his influence is shown by a moderate key pass total.

However I suspect Gestede was more effective as a decoy, distraction or just a threat in his own right and as a result the pair worked as a unit very well.
His presence alone would have drawn the most attention from opponents’ biggest physical defenders – particularly at set pieces – while he was still able to remain effective. Gestede accounted for 4.2 and 4.0 shots/90 those seasons, more than half of which (2.7 and 2.3 respectively) were headed.
This allowed Rhodes more freedom from imposing defending and a good foil to work off and the pair managed at least seven shots/90 between them both seasons they were together.

But then last summer Villa came calling and being still under a transfer embargo Rovers were unable to resist the cash. That is quite some offensive output to replace in one go.
Rovers tried to do so in the summer (and winter) transfer windows and from within, but have pretty much failed.

Supporting cast

Bengali-Fode Koita arrived as did Nathan Delouneso (who has since departed on loan to Bury) as did Tom Lawrence who returned to Leicester City and is now out on loan at Cardiff City.
(It’s probably unfair to put Lawrence in this group as a direct replacement for Gestede, he’s certainly not that type of player, but he was a forward brought in during the summer to bolster the attack.)
Koita was perhaps the least ineffective of the initial trio, managing 1.0 headers on goal/90 in a limited 700 minutes.

But the most effective replacement came from within – Shane Duffy has doubled his headed attempts /90 output this year (from 0.7/90 to 1.4/90) in more than double the playing time too.
Unfortunately Duffy is a central defender.
This obviously means his threat and support to Rhodes is limited to pretty much set pieces only.

Rhodes has done his part, seeing his headed attempts increase by almost a third from last season, but without an effective strike partner for most of the season it’s been a lonely time for him and opposing teams have been able to focus their defensive tactics on shutting him down, without a proficient partner in crime to worry about.

All of which means his actual foot-based attempts have dropped by almost a full shot /90.
And yet Rhodes remained, to all intents and purposes, Blackburn’s top shot taker this season.

The Middlesbrough dilema

So was it still a risk for Middlesbrough to go after Rhodes? Yes. I was querying it myself, especially at the sums involved.
But taking this wider range of data into mind I believe it was a far more calculated risk  – along with a lot of hope/expectation that in a better playing environment Rhodes would return to his form of the previous few years.
He’s a proven goalscorer at this level and clearly Middlesbrough believe in that record rather than half a season in a poorly functioning attack - this is obviously evidenced by the £2m of performance related payments in the deal.

And while the cash may seem a large sum, it’s worth remembering Rhodes was bought by Blackburn for £8m and is still only 26 – pretty much in the prime of his career for the next few years.
So yes, a gamble, but not as big a gamble as it seemed at the time I would suggest.

And the question that follows of course… has he performed as Middlesbrough expected?

Well, we know he’s had trouble finding the net, scoring just his second goal this last weekend against QPR, but what about his other numbers?

Well, believe it or not, this radar is probably prettier viewing than the previous one.
Yes, his conversion% and shooting% are through the floor, but his shots/90 is through the roof - he’s managed to out-perform both those seasons at Blackburn considerably.

This is just a small sample size so far and of course Middlesbrough would have expected a few more goals from their (potentially) £11m man, but he certainly seems to be putting in the work and getting the chances, it’s just a matter of a couple falling right for him I suspect.

Here are some more of Jordan Rhodes numbers over the last three seasons to give you an idea of his production at Middlesbrough:

Football is not an exact science as we all know, but after looking at this data so far I think Middlesbrough fans should be a lot happier about their investment.
Perhaps a slightly scuffed shot bobbling over the goalkeeper after a defensive howler (as it did at Loftus Road) is just what Rhodes needs to get himself going again.

Finally, I'd just like to add that of course I don't have access to as much data on the subject as I'd like and with Ted's experience at Brentford I'm sure he picked up some deeper data of Rhodes than just this.
Also thanks to the StatsBomb teams for sharing the radar drawing tool with me too.

And if anyone is interested, the list of Blackburn's top shooters this season is an interesting one to say the least and speaks volumes about why the club finds itself well off the pace despite good shot share numbers.

Blackburn top shot takers this season (min 300 mins)	Age	Position (s)	Apps	Mins	Total/90	Out Of Box/90	Six Yard Box/90	Penalty Area/90
Bangaly-Fodé Koita	25	AM(LR), FW	14	702	2.7	0.8	0.3	1.7
Jordan Rhodes	26	FW	25	2179	2.6	0.3	0.5	1.9
Tony Watt	22	FW	9	379	2.4	0.5	0.2	1.7
Chris Brown	31	FW	13	474	2.1	0.4	0.4	1.3
Ben Marshall	24	D, M(LR)	37	3234	1.9	1.3	-	0.6
Shane Duffy	24	D(C)	37	3251	1.8	0.2	0.1	1.5
Simeon Jackson	29	AM(L), FW	11	316	1.7	0.6	0.6	0.6
Jordi Gómez	30	D(C), M(CLR), FW	12	896	1.7	1	0.1	0.6
Tom Lawrence	22	AM(CLR), FW	21	1188	1.7	0.7	0.1	0.9
Danny Graham	30	AM(L)	11	965	1.5	0.1	0.1	1.3
Chris Taylor	29	AM(CR)	12	557	1.5	0.3	-	1.1
Craig Conway	30	AM(LR)	31	2478	1.3	0.8	-	0.5
Elliott Bennett	27	D(CR), M(CLR)	15	1042	1.2	0.7	-	0.5
Elliott Ward	31	D(CL), DMC	4	301	1.2	-	-	1.2
Hope Akpan	24	DMC	31	2496	1.2	0.4	0.1	0.6
Darragh Lenihan	22	DMC	16	1152	1.2	0.8	-	0.4
Matt Grimes	20	Midfielder	8	385	1.2	1.2	-	-
Nathan Delfouneso	25	AM(LR), FW	15	727	1.1	0.4	-	0.7
Corry Evans	25	DMC	26	2028	0.9	0.6	-	0.3

Middlesbrough vs Hull City: The Championship's big guns

Friday night features the Championship’s two best teams statistically speaking – Middlesbrough host Hull, in a game that could go a significant way to deciding the promotion fates of these two teams.

However, were the season governed purely on shot-based analytics, rather than the reality of the league table, both teams would be comfortably clear in the top two.

Pos	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Burnley	37	21	11	5	60	30	30	74
2	Brighton	37	18	14	5	50	34	16	68
3	Middlesbrough	36	20	7	9	47	23	24	67
4	Hull	36	19	9	8	50	22	28	66
5	Derby	37	16	13	8	50	35	15	61
6	Sheffield Wednesday	37	15	14	8	53	36	17	59
7	Cardiff	37	15	13	9	48	40	8	58
8	Ipswich	37	16	10	11	46	43	3	58
9	Birmingham	36	15	10	11	40	34	6	55
10	Preston	37	13	13	11	35	34	1	52
11	Queens Park Rangers	37	12	14	11	46	42	4	50
12	Wolverhampton Wanderers	37	12	11	14	45	50	-5	47
13	Leeds	36	11	14	11	36	41	-5	47
14	Nottingham Forest	37	11	13	13	34	35	-1	46
15	Reading	36	11	11	14	41	42	-1	44
16	Blackburn	37	10	13	14	36	36	0	43
17	Brentford	36	12	7	17	48	58	-10	43
18	Huddersfield	37	11	9	17	48	52	-4	42
19	Bristol City	37	10	10	17	34	58	-24	40
20	Fulham	37	8	13	16	56	63	-7	37
21	Milton Keynes Dons	37	9	10	18	31	49	-18	37
22	Rotherham	37	10	6	21	43	62	-19	36
23	Charlton	37	7	11	19	34	66	-32	32
24	Bolton	37	4	14	19	36	62	-26	26

While Middlesbrough have continued on their good form from last season, though arguably at a lesser level in a lower quality league this term, it is Hull that have been a cut above the division.
We can see that Hull started off relatively slowly (given their current standards) but were still above average (50%) in all three 11v11 shot share metrics.

But once Steve Bruce’s team found their stride around week 10 things really took off and the Tigers have never looked back – continually dominating games and outshooting opponents at a near 2:1 pace.
Middlesbrough too had a comparatively sluggish start to the season, but similarly, although to a lesser extent, improved after week 13 and have been hovering around 55% 11v11 shot shares since then.

To emphasise how good these shot share numbers are, the clubs are within the top four with regards to all shot share (Corsi/TSR), unblocked shot share (Fenwick) share and are actually the best two when it comes to shots on target share.

It’s also worth noting as well that there is virtually no difference between the teams now in shooting %, save % and as a result PDO (our catch-all metric for 'luck' and variance). They are both around league average at converting shots on target in to goals (circa 30%), way above the league average (circa 70%) in saving shots on target, and have a PDO of around ten points above average (100) suggesting they have been on the positive side of luck and variance - but no more than each other.

But returning to our shot share metrics, what gives Hull such a significant (approximately 5% points) advantage in all three?

Aitor Karanka’s team has been known for its defensive strength throughout his tenure and Middlesbrough went an ungodly amount of time without conceding a goal earlier in the season, so has Steve Bruce managed to top this?
Well yes. Bruce’s team have quietly bettered Karanka’s defence – at least in terms of shots conceded (by 22 in total; eight fewer from the danger zone, excluding headers).

Combine this with the best attack in the league in terms of numbers and location (most total attempts – 561; most six-yard box shots – 23; second most shots from the centre of the 18-yard box – 113; most danger zone shots – 136; best danger zone shots difference – 65) then Hull City is a pretty formidable beast.

This of course is not totally unexpected given Steve Bruce remained in place after the club’s relegation and retained most of his players as well.

Middlesbrough’s attack is the real difference between the two sides however.
Boro are pretty much league average in total shots taken and while they are slightly above average in terms of attempts from the danger zone, this is nothing to write home about.

Cracking Karanka's shell

However, this is all driven by Karanka’s game-state tactics.
At even score Boro can drive the bus as much as anyone, in fact they are third in Corsi and Fenwick (just behind Hull and Reading in both cases) and fourth in shots on target share.
However, when taking the lead Boro become a far less threatening side, claiming just 47% of all shots taken.

Hull, in contrast, do ease off a little, but still take almost 53% of all shots when one goal up.
And when two goals to the good Hull really drive home their advantage. Boro however remain in the Karanka shell.

	2+ Corsi	1+ Corsi	0 Corsi	1- Corsi	2- Corsi
Hull	65.7%	52.7%	58.7%	66.7%	67.4%
M'boro	47.9%	47.3%	56.7%	58.3%	66.7%
Difference	17.8%	5.4%	2.0%	8.4%	0.7%

These trends are by-and-large replicated for both Fenwick and shots on target share as well.
Indeed, such is the magnitude of Karanka’s switch in style that Boro’s Corsi drops off more than any other team in the top six and only four other sides (Ipswich, Preston, Leeds and Bolton) do worse when taking the lead.

It’s likely this approach by Karanka will not have escaped many regular Championship watchers, but it is reassuring to see this visual theory validated and eye-opening to appreciate how pronounced it is.

With Burnley pulling away of late and set to have at least a four point lead over one of these teams after the match, it is a crucial one for their respective promotion challenges.
However Middlesbrough face (on paper at least) a much tougher run-in, including both other top four rivals – Burnley and Brighton – and it may be an imperative for Karanka’s side to claim all three points in this home fixture.

If Boro do manage to take the lead, it will be telling to see if they revert to their normal tactics and can manage to hold on, or for once appreciate the importance of the game and push on.

Karanka's future

As a final aside, I was intrigued by this week’s discord emanating from the Riverside Stadium and questions over Karanka’s future at the club.
It’s impossible to say what would happen if Karanka were to leave Teeside – would a replacement be better or worse, more or less likely to secure promotion. But what is clear is the job Karanka has done in taking Boro to the brink of promotion for two successive years – no easy task.
Stresses and strains happen in high intensity jobs such as managing a football club with high expectation and scrutiny, and it’s surprising these flash points don’t happen in public more often.
If fences have been mended and Karanka achieved a desired break from the office for even one weekend, then it is probably for the best for the club and its promotion chances.

Data table

Position	Team	11v11 Corsi	11v11 Fenwick	11v11 SoT	11v11 Goals Rate	11v11 Sh%	11v11 Sv%	11v11 PDO	Points
9	Birmingham	0.468	0.439	0.459	0.53	27.69	79.08	106.78	55
16	Blackburn	0.531	0.561	0.549	0.51	23.29	72.5	95.79	43
24	Bolton	0.502	0.502	0.456	0.38	24.31	66.28	90.58	26
17	Brentford	0.487	0.476	0.458	0.45	28.29	71.11	99.4	43
2	Brighton	0.52	0.528	0.52	0.6	33.33	75.94	109.27	68
19	Bristol City	0.492	0.518	0.504	0.39	24.11	61.87	85.98	40
1	Burnley	0.449	0.466	0.517	0.66	37.91	79.02	116.93	74
7	Cardiff	0.491	0.485	0.513	0.56	29.94	75.17	105.1	58
23	Charlton	0.401	0.404	0.448	0.34	22.54	64.57	87.11	32
5	Derby	0.539	0.534	0.554	0.56	29.75	70.87	100.61	61
20	Fulham	0.467	0.457	0.474	0.49	33.74	68.51	102.25	37
18	Huddersfield	0.551	0.546	0.514	0.47	30.26	63.89	94.15	42
4	Hull	0.6	0.617	0.625	0.72	29.71	80.95	110.67	66
8	Ipswich	0.501	0.508	0.52	0.53	28.93	72.11	101.04	58
13	Leeds	0.481	0.449	0.418	0.45	29.46	73.72	103.18	47
3	Middlesbrough	0.541	0.552	0.572	0.69	29.11	82.2	111.32	67
21	MK Dons	0.436	0.43	0.416	0.37	25	70.06	95.06	37
14	Nottingham Forest	0.502	0.51	0.5	0.47	18.79	78.52	97.32	46
10	Preston	0.496	0.504	0.502	0.52	27.42	73.98	101.4	52
11	QPR	0.515	0.52	0.527	0.54	28.66	72.34	101	50
15	Reading	0.604	0.598	0.558	0.49	25.81	66.67	92.47	44
22	Rotherham	0.474	0.458	0.449	0.4	29.08	64.74	93.82	36
6	Sheff Wed	0.507	0.508	0.538	0.57	32.17	71.54	103.71	59
12	Wolves	0.452	0.449	0.436	0.45	31.78	70.06	101.84	47

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.

Championship Week 46: The beginning of the end

Well that was quite an end to the Championship season to say the least.
It seems all the excitement that left the title and relegation races in the final few weeks fell in to the playoff race on the final day of the season.
That was quite some experience watching those four games go down to the last goal to decide the final two playoff places.

Position	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals For	Goals Against	Goal Difference	Points
1	Bournemouth	46	26	12	8	98	45	53	90
2	Watford	46	27	8	11	91	50	41	89
3	Norwich	46	25	11	10	88	48	40	86
4	Middlesbrough	46	25	10	11	68	37	31	85
5	Brentford	46	23	9	14	78	59	19	78
6	Ipswich	46	22	12	12	72	54	18	78
7	Wolverhampton Wanderers	46	22	12	12	70	56	14	78
8	Derby	46	21	14	11	85	56	29	77
9	Blackburn	46	17	16	13	66	59	7	67
10	Birmingham	46	16	15	15	54	64	-10	63
11	Cardiff	46	16	14	16	57	61	-4	62
12	Charlton	46	14	18	14	54	60	-6	60
13	Sheffield Wednesday	46	14	18	14	43	49	-6	60
14	Nottingham Forest	46	15	14	17	71	69	2	59
15	Leeds	46	15	11	20	50	61	-11	56
16	Huddersfield	46*	13	15	17	58	75	-17	54
17	Fulham	46	14	10	22	62	83	-21	52
18	Bolton	46	13	12	21	54	67	-13	51
19	Reading	46	13	11	22	48	69	-21	50
20	Brighton	46	10	17	19	44	54	-10	47
21	Rotherham	46	11	16	19	46	67	-21	46
22	Millwall	46	9	14	23	42	76	-34	41
23	Wigan	46	9	12	25	39	64	-25	39
24	Blackpool	46*	4	13	28	36	91	-55	25

Of course the headline from most of the media was what a complete collapse to Derby’s season – but of those four teams it should really be focused on Ipswich (and to a lesser extent Brentford) who consistently improved as the season went on.
I pointed out throughout the season that Derby’s lofty perch was acquired by a probably unsustainable PDO and thus it proved – even if it did take a little while to come back down to almost earth.

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
10	Birmingham	46	614	724	0.459	204	235	0.465	26.47	72.77	99.24
9	Blackburn	46	694	650	0.516	217	219	0.498	30.41	73.06	103.47
24	Blackpool	46*	528	746	0.414	154	245	0.386	23.38	62.86	86.23
18	Bolton	46	584	728	0.445	194	243	0.444	27.84	72.43	100.26
1	Bournemouth	46	767	528	0.592	270	154	0.637	36.3	70.78	107.08
5	Brentford	46	710	632	0.529	266	215	0.553	29.32	72.56	101.88
20	Brighton	46	663	579	0.534	185	179	0.508	23.78	69.83	93.62
11	Cardiff	46	577	632	0.477	173	183	0.486	32.95	66.67	99.61
12	Charlton	46	475	751	0.387	168	220	0.433	32.14	72.73	104.87
8	Derby	46	602	584	0.508	215	196	0.523	39.53	71.43	110.96
17	Fulham	46	601	712	0.458	193	246	0.44	32.12	66.26	98.38
16	Huddersfield	46*	662	637	0.51	237	212	0.528	24.47	64.62	89.1
6	Ipswich	46	675	605	0.527	228	174	0.567	31.58	68.97	100.54
15	Leeds	46	529	706	0.428	158	218	0.42	31.65	72.02	103.66
4	Middlesbrough	46	663	532	0.555	214	150	0.588	31.78	75.33	107.11
22	Millwall	46	610	601	0.504	171	217	0.441	24.56	64.98	89.54
3	Norwich	46	740	431	0.632	243	154	0.612	36.21	68.83	105.05
14	Nottingham Forest	46	673	649	0.509	213	205	0.51	33.33	66.34	99.67
19	Reading	46	599	574	0.511	185	204	0.476	25.95	66.18	92.12
21	Rotherham	46	618	618	0.5	189	203	0.482	24.34	67	91.33
13	Sheffield Wednesday	46	600	568	0.514	166	181	0.478	25.9	72.93	98.83
2	Watford	46	668	632	0.514	252	206	0.55	36.11	75.73	111.84
23	Wigan	46	547	539	0.504	155	186	0.455	25.16	65.59	90.75
7	Wolverhampton Wanderers	46	598	641	0.483	198	203	0.494	35.35	72.41	107.77

Indeed, one wonders how Derby’s season would have progressed had the Rams only enjoyed league average (100) PDO all season long.
Yes, there may be some talent effects in PDO, but considering that a 100 PDO would probably have seen Derby hovering somewhere between 13th (their overall shot share) and where they actually finished in 8th, which also matched their shots on target ranking.

In fact Ipswich, with a give-or-take league average only finished sixth despite having the sixth highest overall shot share and fourth highest shots on target share.
Mick McCarthy should be pleased with the way he brought his team together.
From a decidedly slow start the team consistently improved its shots and shots on target share to finish the season well above 50% and 55% respectively.

Brentford too had a slow start but again slowly and steadily improved throughout the season.
Yes their shot stats are boosted somewhat by the massacre of Blackpool, but Mark Warburton and the players should be congratulated for not getting distracted by the announcement over the manager’s future near the end of the season.
Yes, it is more than likely the right decision and you would expect the manager and players to maintain a professional approach, but these sorts of changes can have an impact in unexpected ways.
In this case, it seems to have motivated Warburton and the squad as since then they have continued to improve in the shot metrics.

My biggest concern for the playoffs is Middlesbrough.
I was a big fan of Middlesbrough and their excellent shot metrics early in the season, but it is impossible not to notice their deteriorating metrics since that great start.
They still have very good numbers but the slide is undeniable and not a good trend to be owning. I wouldn’t expect them to maintain the early season score at up around 65%+, but you would expect it to flatten out somewhere – continuing its descent is worrying.

So that leaves Norwich as the only remaining playoff team to look at. And the Canaries have been exemplary all season.
Top in shot share and second in shots on target share, the only thing to scupper Norwich’s season was some awful PDO in the first half of the season.
Local derbies are horrible to predict, so I’m not going to.
But on the balance of the season Norwich are the team which deserve to win the playoffs and return immediately to the Premier League.

Looking at the season as a whole, it is noticeable how quickly the top eight broke clear from the rest of the league and how at the midway stage the bottom three teams were also decided.

Considering the shot metrics it is remarkable how quickly these settled down in to pretty consistent measures that by-and-large lasted the length of the season: Norwich, Bournemouth and Middlesbrough at the top; Blackpool, Leeds and Charlton at the bottom.

By contrast PDO remained more volatile throughout the season with a few teams witnessing remarkable fluxes all the way through – Charlton and Derby to name just two.

Let’s see which of these factors had a stronger impact on the final league table.
This season has appeared something of a volatile one, particularly for the lower 16 teams, as it were.
Indeed, the overall shot share produces a rather relationship (if reasonably weak) to points gained by teams – an r2 value of 0.322.

When we then look at shots on target share we get a much greater link – here we see an r2 value of 0.6848.

But the strongest relationship involves PDO – a mighty r2 score of 0.7555.
The powerful hold that PDO had this season was reflected in some of those teams with poor shot numbers finishing much higher up in the final table and the reverse – good shots teams near the bottom of the table.

It sure was a fun season and I’m looking forward to the playoffs now.