Can Neil Warnock turnaround Cardiff City?

It's been quite a while since my last post, here's hoping I can make it more regular for the rest of the season.

The Severnside derby kicks off the return of the Championship.
Like most local derbies it draws a decent amount of attention and this one has the added Wales vs England element too.
However this one is likely to attract a bit more scrutiny given the events at Cardiff during the international break.

Paul Trollope lasted 11 games in charge and in some respects its surprising he lasted that long.
I'm not usually one for sacking a manager early but in Trollope's case I'm not convinced it was going to work out.
He'd already switched from his initial 5-3-2 formation and tactics, and credit to him for that, but according to the data things were getting worse, not better.

It’s a shame it ended this way as statistically speaking, the season appeared to have started fairly well.
For the first six weeks Cardiff had a decent overall shots on target share above 50% at 11v11 and at level score situations.
However, the Bluebirds' all shot share (Corsi/TSR) only once made it above 50% either under all conditions or at level score situations.

But (poor) shot quality matters.

And when we look deeper into the data we can see why the results did not reflect this limited early season promise.
Trollope's attack, whether by design or simply through not having any other options, had been focused on headed and long range attempts at goal.
While a varied attack can prove profitable (see Brighton), Cardiff have exchanged a sizeable amount of shots from prime positions into headed attempts.
This is not a good exchange to make.

By week 11, Cardiff had taken the third fewest footed attempts at goal in the danger zone (six-yard box and centre of the 18-yard box) in the division - only Rotherham and Ipswich have taken fewer.
Despite being middle of the pack defensively, Cardiff have the joint fifth worst danger zone shot difference - again Ipswich and Rotherham are two of the teams below them.

Looking at the headed attempts at goal, the situation is give-or-take a near perfect mirror image.
Cardiff have the directed the third most headers at goal (behind only Barnsley and Aston Villa), and have conceded the third fewest.

While it may delight commentators to regularly swing the ball into the box, such a one-sided attack does not usually prove effective as headers are much less likely to be scored than attempts from the feet.
Sadly, Cardiff have the second lowest % of their shot attempts being taken from the centre of the 18-yard box (Ipswich lowest).

In fact, Cardiff have been making almost two thirds (63%) of their attempts on goal as headers outside the six-yard box or shots from outside the 18-yard box.
It is entirely possible that taking so many attempts from poor locations is playing a part in the awful shooting % figure.
By contrast, Cardiff have forced just 56% of attempts at goal from these poorer locations.



So instead we have Neil Warnock joining the show.

Personality-wise, Warnock has had something of a love-hate relationship with Cardiff fans. He’s generally been complimentary about the club and its fans, but during his travels around the league he’s managed to rub a lot of Bluebirds up the wrong way.
Still, this isn’t a popularity contest – this is, of course, a results driven business and following guiding Rotherham to safety last year and his wealth of previous experience, Warnock would seem to be an obvious choice.

But how much of last year’s great escape was down to Warnock’s influence and is he likely to have a similar effect on Cardiff?
Well, having gone through the data I’m not convinced Warnock had that big an effect on Rotherham’s survival.
He took over from Neil Redfearn after 30 games with Rotherham battling Bolton, MK Dons and Charlton to avoid relegation.

Credit where it's due?

In the end the Millers completed the task relatively easily (nine points above safety), but I suspect that may be as much down to the awfulness of the other three teams as to Warnock’s magic.
As you can see in the chart below, at level score Rotherham’s all shot share (Corsi/TSR) and unblocked shots share (Fenwick) remained pretty unchanged from Warnock’s start to the end of the season.
There was a slight uptick in shots on target share (green line) but this still never broke the 45% mark – hardly earth shattering but useful at the bottom of the table.

The biggest changes, however, came in the rate Rotherham scored their goals and kept them out.
The Millers’ combined shooting % and save % (PDO) was its lowest of the season (just) when Warnock took over – 17 points below league average.
By the end of the season Rotherham’s PDO had made up 15 points of this difference – with the save % being the main benefactor by more than 10 points.
And it’s so much easier to win games sneaking the odd goal when you’re not shipping them constantly.
Combined with a smaller but important increase of five points in shooting % and Rotherham were just a shade under league average in these key metrics by the end of the season.




So could Warnock have instilled a tactical change to improve these measures?

Well, in all his changes gave Rotherham one extra shot from the centre of the 18-yard box per 7.5 games… so two more shots from this area during his spell in charge than Redfearn would have expected.
But there were ten extra headers inside the six-yard box compared to Redfearn and shots taken from outside the 18-yard box were cut down significantly.
So it is possible this could have accounted for the increase in shooting %.

How about defensively?

Well, aside from a very small drop in the number of headers allowed inside the six-yard box, this does not make great reading.
Warnock’s team conceded more shots per game from the centre of the 18-yard box (+0.5), the sides of the box (+0.24) and outside (+0.9) than Redfearn’s side averaged.
The increase in shots outside the box would be far less of a concern if it meant shots inside the box were being pushed out, but this did not happen.
Of course, the situations may have been different – perhaps Warnock’s defensive system meant opposition players were closed down more frequently when taking shots resulting in poor quality chances.

However, there’s little evidence in my data to suggest anything other than a more normal save % and shooting % driven recovery.
Indeed, at level score under Warnock 35% of shots on target taken were hitting the back of the net and more than 86% of shots on target conceded were saved – both way above league averages of 30%-70%.

For Cardiff fans, it seems that it might be a case of more of the same as regards the aerial based attack, although there may be a focus to not shoot from distance so much.
Also, it is probably fair to say that Cardiff's squad is more talented than Rotherham's (especially given the free agent signings made in the last week) so one would hope Warnock can get more out of this talent.
But perhaps its most notable that in this young season Cardiff have the second lowest shooting % and save %, to give a PDO of just 78.44 – lowest in the entire division by some way.
It’s safe to say the team is due something of a rebound, how much we will have to wait and see.

Championship Week 25: Charlton sack Peeters, Leeds' troubles grow

So, Bob Peeters’ chickens have finally come home to roost.
Charlton’s sacking of Peeters (and subsequent appointment of Guy Luzon) was probably the biggest story of this week in the Championship and comes smack in the middle of the transfer window.
With the team in relative mid-table safety it might seem a strange dismissal to many, but it was probably the right one in the long term and really could have been done sooner.

Position	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals For	Goals Against	Goal Difference	Points
1	Bournemouth	25	14	6	5	55	27	28	48
2	Derby	25	14	6	5	47	23	24	48
3	Ipswich	25	13	8	4	41	23	18	47
4	Middlesbrough	25	12	8	5	38	17	21	44
5	Brentford	25	13	4	8	41	35	6	43
6	Watford	25	12	5	8	44	29	15	41
7	Norwich	25	11	7	7	46	30	16	40
8	Wolves	25	11	7	7	29	33	-4	40
9	Sheffield Weds	25	9	10	6	20	21	-1	37
10	Blackburn	25	9	8	8	35	34	1	35
11	Cardiff	25	9	7	9	33	35	-2	34
12	Birmingham	25	9	7	9	30	38	-8	34
13	Nott'm Forest	25	7	10	8	33	35	-2	31
14	Charlton	25	6	13	6	24	29	-5	31
15	Huddersfield	25	8	7	10	34	43	-9	31
16	Bolton	25	8	6	11	27	32	-5	30
17	Reading	25	8	6	11	30	40	-10	30
18	Fulham	25	8	4	13	35	44	-9	28
19	Brighton	25	5	11	9	27	32	-5	26
20	Rotherham	25	5	11	9	21	31	-10	26
21	Leeds	25	6	7	12	26	37	-11	25
22	Millwall	25	5	8	12	24	41	-17	23
23	Wigan	25	4	8	13	25	34	-9	20
24	Blackpool	25	3	8	14	19	41	-22	17

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’ve been concerned about Charlton’s underlying stats pretty much all season.
Back in week seven I highlighted the Addicks rather precarious position (along with Reading) and they rode that PDO wave until late October when it finally started to break.
At week six Charlton were sitting in fifth (Reading in sixth) and full of early season promise for many Championship watchers.
But since then the Addicks’ shot metrics have remained pretty much unchanged (a bit of a dip with then recovery to where they were), with PDO being the only long-term fluctuation.
Looking at their position now, Charlton are the (joint) worst team for overall shot share (Corsi/TSR), the third worst side in terms of shots on target share, and heaven forbid what would happen if they hit a prolonged spell of maintaining a season total PDO of below 100 average.
That PDO score has already seen an almost inevitably major fall – from up around 120 at week 13 to now a shade over 102 (just above average) 12 games later.

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
12	Birmingham	348	407	0.461	108	133	0.448	27.78	71.43	99.21
10	Blackburn	395	343	0.535	130	121	0.518	26.92	71.9	98.83
24	Blackpool	285	402	0.415	90	124	0.421	21.11	66.94	88.05
16	Bolton	316	388	0.449	100	130	0.435	27	75.39	102.38
1	Bournemouth	412	294	0.584	152	89	0.631	36.19	69.66	105.85
5	Brentford	333	365	0.477	128	124	0.508	32.03	71.77	103.8
19	Brighton	377	329	0.534	105	98	0.517	25.72	67.35	93.07
11	Cardiff	324	370	0.467	99	109	0.476	33.33	67.89	101.22
14	Charlton	274	387	0.415	88	117	0.429	27.27	75.21	102.48
2	Derby	331	334	0.498	118	109	0.52	39.83	78.9	118.73
18	Fulham	324	372	0.466	106	118	0.473	33.01	62.71	95.73
15	Huddersfield	369	359	0.507	130	121	0.518	26.15	64.46	90.61
3	Ipswich	368	363	0.503	121	99	0.55	33.88	76.77	110.65
21	Leeds	297	376	0.441	82	117	0.412	31.71	68.38	100.09
4	Middlesbrough	371	268	0.581	120	73	0.622	31.66	76.71	108.38
22	Millwall	330	331	0.499	99	115	0.463	24.24	64.34	88.59
7	Norwich	423	258	0.621	134	89	0.601	34.33	66.3	100.62
13	Nott'm Forest	365	317	0.535	104	113	0.479	31.73	69.03	100.76
17	Reading	315	320	0.496	95	108	0.468	31.58	62.96	94.54
20	Rotherham	349	357	0.494	107	106	0.502	19.63	70.75	90.38
9	Sheffield Weds	335	308	0.521	90	89	0.503	22.22	76.41	98.63
6	Watford	349	364	0.489	125	110	0.532	35.2	73.64	108.83
23	Wigan	305	303	0.502	86	103	0.455	29.07	66.99	96.05
8	Wolves	358	338	0.514	106	108	0.495	27.36	69.44	96.8

Although in stats terms that’s a pretty steep and quick drop off [see graph below], it feels like Charlton’s decline has been more of a slow motion car crash given the length of time it’s taken for them to descend from their lofty perch.
Given how tight the bottom half of the Championship is, it may be a high speed car crash if their PDO does continue dropping and hit below 100.
Many Charlton fans are upset with owner Roland Duchatelet and his ways of moving players and, apparently now, managers around his clubs.
But in this instance it’s hard to fault the decision to sack Peeters – but once again it seems to have been made following a PDO crash, rather than change in actual performances.

Someone else experiencing a pretty severe PDO crash is Leeds manager Neil Redfearn. While things are looking a bit nervy for Charlton, Leeds fans should be very worried indeed.
Leeds are third worst in terms of shot share and dead last in shots of target share. Perhaps more worryingly for Leeds, without such a massive PDO boost at the start of the season, the team is now staring the relegation places full in the face.
For most teams that would probably signal a change in managers (yet again, in Leeds’ case) but does Neil Redfearn deserve the opportunity to try and save the season?

Well actually, he probably does.
Looking at the graph we can see that Leeds’ shot share and shots on target share have both been steadily increasing over the course of the season – and Redfearn has had a hand in that twice. (The brown lines indicate a change in managers).

This is part of a larger post I’m hoping to do, but because owners use small sample sizes to judge managers, sadly so must we.
The table below shows how Leeds' managers over this season have performed during their time in charge.

Leeds United managers	Champ games played	Total shots for	Total shots vs	Corsi/TSR	Total SoT for	Total SoT vs	SoT share	Goals for	Goals against	Sh%	Sv%	PDO
Hockaday	4	27	59	0.314	8	15	0.348	2	8	25.00	46.67	71.67
Redfearn	4	39	71	0.355	15	19	0.441	8	2	53.33	89.47	142.81
Milanic	6	71	103	0.408	16	43	0.271	4	10	25.00	76.74	101.74
Redfearn	11	160	143	0.528	43	40	0.518	12	19	27.91	52.50	80.41

First up was Dave Hockaday.
Even ruling out the PDO slump, Hockaday’s time in charge was epically bad. A shot share and shots on target share of barely 30% are just horrific. There really is no other way to describe that.

Then came Redfearn’s first spell, this one as caretaker.
Immediately we see an uptick in shot share and, more significantly, shots on target share. To be honest, it would have been tough to get any lower, but Redfearn did fairly well in that regard, although his positive perception was aided by an out of this world PDO of 142.

Massimo Cellino obviously wasn’t sold on this and brought in Darko Milanic for a 30-odd day reign of, well, odd-ness.
Milanic got the team to record its first period of shot share of 40% so far in the season, but had a shots on target share of just 27%. I may go back and look at those games in more detail to see where the shots were coming from, but the only thing I can think of is either lots of those shots were futile and being blocked, or they were coming from a very long way out.
That, or Leeds' need for a decent striker was even more urgent than it seemed at the time.
The PDO of near average 101 means Milanic more or less got the results he deserved.
And those results got him the sack.

Cellino again turned to Redfearn, this time on a slightly longer term basis and Redfearn has really turned the team around, or so it would seem.
Averaging more than half the shots and shots on target for each game over this spell, Redfearn has the team playing more effectively and is slowly but surely pulling the season-long scores up.
But could an awful PDO of 80 during that spell really mean the end for him soon?

It wouldn’t be the first time a manager has been sacked for a ridiculous PDO slump when otherwise performing fairly well, but it could be a mistake if the new boss changes a much improved formula.
Or perhaps he (it’s always a he!) will be the luck recipient of a PDO bounce.

Random thought

As a final side note, can anyone explain to me why Redfearn would experience two wildly extreme PDO scores in his two spells in charge with basically the same players?
Assuming not much changed tactically in those two spells, this gives another crutch to the "PDO is largely random variance" theory.