1) Apologies I know it's a touch wasteful to take up a point all by myself, but I wanted to apologize for not posting more 10 Points articles. I have been super busy setting up one site, trying to set up another, learning new skills andprepping the end of season articles. 10 Points is my favourite article to write and I promise next year, barring holidays or death, I will write this article every week.
Done, forgiven?
2) Offensive and Defensive Shot Efficiency I have no idea what to call this chart. Hell, someone may have already made a chart like it and created a champion name for it. If so, let me know etc etc.
In short this chart looks at two things:
Defensive Shots Efficiency=Shots on Target Conceded/ Total Shots Conceded.
Offensive Shots efficiency=Shots On Target/Total Shots.
Get it?
Sortable
Team
%SoT A
%SoT F
Arsenal
36.29
33.51
Aston Villa
29.46
31.57
Chelsea
36.14
34.41
Everton
33.25
33.45
Fulham
32.28
33.65
Liverpool
31.59
31.19
Man City
27.06
35.23
Man Utd
31.51
38.42
Newcastle
38.36
33.60
Norwich
33.33
31.56
Qpr
34.19
30.04
Reading
35.96
30.72
Southampto
39.12
30.45
Stoke
29.52
29.40
Sunderland
32.11
33.77
Swansea
35.53
33.04
Tottenham
35.95
30.58
West Brom
30.36
33.72
West Ham
35.98
31.50
Wigan
33.26
34.01
The lower the Defensive Shots Efficiency Number (%SoT A) the better. an City, Villa and Stoke are the top 3 teams at restricting the oppositions shots from becoming shots on target. This could be due to shot blocking, closing down shooting lanes or forcing opposition teams to shoots from poor shpots locations. Arsenal and Chelsea are in the bottom 5 of this metric.
As for Offensive Shots Efficiency (%SoT F), the higher number the better. Man United are leading the league by a distance, City are second. The North East clubs are both in the top 5. This column/metric/measure just seems odd to me, maybe it is all about shots discipline rather than shots location. I need to look more into this.
Anyhow, sort away, play around.
3) Benteke Danny has some great stuff up around the site on Christian Benteke and his increasing influence on his Aston Villa team as shown by his tremendous IPP. Last night when Aston Villa really, and I mean really needed a win, Benteke came up big once again.
Benteke is young enough to grow with this strong group of young players. The disappointement lies in the fact that he may well be too good to stay and grow up with these players. His value is high, he is coming off the back of a very strong season personally and on a team who will barely survive relegation. Players like that, in circumatances like this rarely stay at the club.
It'll be a shame for Villa, but they will make a huge profit on a player and get to recycle the money on more talent. Big fish eat little fish.
4) Liverpool Going strong. Well, kinda. The Merseyside club still has the flat track bully tag attatched to them. A 0-6 win away at a collapsing Newcastle club was impressive. Coutinho, Suarez's replacement, was impressive. The mind boggles that Inter, so devoid of imagination at times, sanctioned the sale of this super creative 20 yo for such a meagre fee. Anyhow, I digress.
Liverpool's Percentage Of Time Spent Winning With PPG 
This is Liverpool's Time Spent Winning with Points Per Game. As we can see they fit pretty tightly (r2=0.769). Liverpool had a tough start with games away at West Brom and home to City, Arsenal and United and this is evident in their low ppg and TSW% after the first 5 games.
Since then, Liverpool have been going great guns, gangbusters even. The last 10 games have seen Liverpool collect 1.7 points per game, which when normalized over 38 games is 64.6 points, which is slightly off CL qualification form. There is work to be done at Liverpool, squad strengthening to made, but the arrows this season have been mostly positive. The underlying #fancystats really like Liverpool and if they can get off to a good start next year a CL qualification run could be on the cards.
5) Doom QPR and Reading are down.
Reading declined to spend upon their promotion to the PL and it has showed. They have been dire by the shots count and but for an unusually high scoring% they may well have less than 20 points at this stage. Life in the Championship may not be so bad for Reading, who will be financially secure with the parachute payments and will try to build again under Adkins.
QPR are a fucking mess, however. Financial mismanagement, a bloated squad, a January transfer window which looked to me like a desperate gambler chasing his losses by throwing even more money onworse bets. Their wage to turner ratio is horrible and I fear for them if they don't bounce straight back up. lessons need to be learned, $'s need to be offloaded from their wage bill.
Maybe they keep the big guns, have Fernandes swallow horrnedous losses for a year and try and blow the competition out of the water a la Newcastle. It may be their only shot. Failure to be promoted probably spells financial ruin and maybe a death spiral to make Leeds blush.
6) Swansea's Offensive Output. It has been mentioned on this site before that Swansea are quite a curious team. 42 points from their 34 fixtures so far yet their offense is anaemic to a certain extent. Swansea have been shutout a staggering 14 times this year. (41% of games) but why?
Let's look at SoT and Scoring%
Swansea's scoring% is plenty consistent from about 8 games in, but it's shopts on target that have been declining all season. But why? fatigue, over reliance on Michu, a stagnant attacking scheme, opposition tactics?
Swansea 20 games ago, were registering half a shot more per game. Doesn't sound a lot, but when the average shot on target has just a 30% chance of being a goal a team needs all the shots on target it can get.
Help needed not only for Michu but in terms of attacking depth and variety.
7) Bale The Welsh Ronaldo won the PFA player of the year yesterday and some say deservedly so (he also, somewhat ridiculously, won the young player of the year). Bale has been sensational, and along with Lennon the duo have been good for around just under 50% of Spurs shots and shots assists this term. The question is: If Spurs fail to qualify for the CL does he stay or does he go? Answers in the comments section.....
8) TSR I think we have gotten to the point now by which we understand that TSR is heavily influenced by game state and team tactics at positive game states. Still, as an overall, easily accessable stat which looks at team strength it's fairly good. Interestingly, in hockey they call this CORSI and use it as a proxy for possession.
Anyhow, here is each teams TSR, shots for and against and Total Shot Count in a sortable table:
Team
TSR
Shots F
Shots A
Total
Arsenal
59.87
555
372
927
Aston Villa
41.13
415
594
1009
Chelsea
58
558
404
962
Everton
58.06
562
406
968
Fulham
42.37
419
570
989
Liverpool
62.95
683
402
1085
Man City
63
579
340
919
Man Utd
54.18
518
438
956
Newcastle
51.57
494
464
958
Norwich
42.94
377
501
878
Qpr
46
466
547
1013
Reading
38.16
345
559
904
Southampton
55.73
486
386
872
Stoke
42.23
364
498
862
Sunderland
40.31
385
570
955
Swansea
47.02
457
515
972
Tottenham
64.64
605
331
936
West Brom
45.28
436
527
963
West Ham
44.47
454
567
1021
Wigan
48.31
444
475
919
If the warning I gave about the need to include game state wasn't enough, just look at Man United's rank by TSR. 8th place. EIGHTH. Fuck.
Southampton look good by this overall, flawed method, Sunderland are right down there in second to last. If you want to see action and shots, watch Liverpool. If you want to take the girlfriend along to watch a PL game and show her the excitement and thrills that the best of England has to offer don't take her to watch a Stoke game. She will never watch football again.
9) The Race For 4th. This is a really interesting battle and it may well be a defining one for the North London Clubs. At the start of the season I picked Spurs 3rd, Chelsea 4th and Arsenal 5th. That order may well come true if Spurs can win at the bridge. Can Arsenal maintain form and win out? Maybe, and Arsenal's history as a flat track bully is going to help them in games vs QPR, Wigan and Sunderland.
But it may not be enough, for Bale is back and so is Lennon. If this duo had stayed fit the race for 4th may well have been over already and Arsenal would have been the ones on the outside looking in, getting used to a new reality of the Europa league.
Thoughts? Who misses out? I say Arsenal.
10) New York City Sheikh Mansour, Man City's owner, may well have won the race to own an expansion franchise in North America according to multiple reports.
New York and City, well that means only one thing: