@lisboncanary Two articles by Ted Knutson (CEO of Statsbomb and, prior to that, an analyst at Brentford) about development of Statsbomb's data analysis of GKs: https://statsbomb.com/2018/11/intro-to-goalkeeper-analysis/ https://statsbomb.com/2018/12/introducing-goalkeeper-radars/
Right the time has come to make some tables of numbers, and then go hmmmm at them. Take aways from looking at the avg strength of remaining home and away opposition for rest of season? We have the hardest work to do at home, but the easiest away challenge. Watford are the opposite to us, and have the worst away form too. obligatory comments - anyone can beat anyone in the championship / injuries play a big role too CHEEKY BONUS STAT! - if you listen to Watford fans many of them seem to think theyre doing better now due to keeping Deeney out of the team these days. However the stats say that when Deeney has started this year theyve got 1.79ppg. When he hasn't theyve got 1.88. A fairly inconsequential difference. so....hmmmmmm.
Remarkable how strong Watford's home form is, considering they've also got more of their hard home fixtures out of the way.
Yup its impressive. However id argue our away form has been even more so. Best away form in the league, and the average position of teams left to play is 18th. That's very strong. Put it another way, average position of our away opposition so far - 11.5 average position of Watfords home opposition so far - 10.7
Statto used to do nice tables like this but seem to have stopped doing it for the champ since 2017. Not sure if anywhere else still does it but a nice way to visualize who's done well and where. Based on this i did some calculations of what points each team might get based upon form against different parts of the table.
As you can see based on this we finish top, Swansea come second. (Only problem with this is the sample size for us against top 12 home is heavily weighted to the bottom half of the 12 - I would suggest 7 points is more likely - leaving us on 93 ish)
I've no figures for you Robbie but I saw a number of efforts off target that I'd normally expect players to test the keeper with in the last game.
Per infogol: Vrancic 50 shots, 11 on target, xG 4.32, goals 3. Cantwell 35, 9, 2.5, 3 Stiepermann 23, 11, 1.75, 1 McLean 24, 3, 0.98, 1 Rupp 23, 4, 1.04, 0 Generally xG agrees well with goals scored, but I do wonder if that shot volume is a bit on the high side. Vrancic, McLean and Rupp have had a combined 97 shots at goal, of which just 15 were on target. That's 5 times per game that those 3 are failing to trouble the goalkeeper, and based on xG they can't have all been good chances. When Rupp/McLean shoot, the average xG is about 0.04 - which feels more like wasting possession than a good chance. Perhaps an argument for what Stiepermann brings to the side, he hits the target far more than anyone else. Stats are from infogol if you want to check anyone else.
Yes, this is the message from the stats, rather than "poor finishing". Goals come from creating big chances for someone; it doesn't matter that much who has the chance.
Hmmmmmm indeed. Great stats BC, but although Brentford have lost 3 in a row it's a bit hard calling them Bentford. The home/away advantage we have could be the telling factor given our present 7 point lead. Your final position stats also look good but I'd agree that around 93 points is more likely given that is what our current points per game (2.07) would produce. As for the shots on target stats these do not reflect whether the shooter is going for the corners or merely producing an easy save for the keeper. Vrančić and Cantwell usually fall into the latter category and thus show more misses.
I think when commentator, current player, ex player, DF or indeed any other coach / manager or a combination of all are constantly saying game after game that we should have scored more or a player should have done better in front of goal that's good enough for me.
So here is what DF said on this "topic" post-match Saturday (as quoted in the EDP): "The 1-0 result is actually a joke. The game should be buried at half-time. When I think not only of the goal but all the other situations. Teemu, Mario (Vrancic), Emi (Buendia), all central with shooting chances. If we could pick three players to put in those positions I would choose those three. Max Aarons thought he was offside when Kenny McLean plays him that long ball into the box with the keeper behind him. He could have run into the empty goal. We should have been at least 3-0, 4-0 at half-time." Taking the xG values from Infogol, our four best first-half chances were: 7' Pukki 0.28 9' Vrancic 0.14. 17' Pukki 0.60 (Goal) 38' Buendia 0.43 Do those values really justify saying that we "should" have been "at least" 3 or 4 goals up at half-time? If DF had said "could", then yes, but "should", definitely not! Vrancic failed to convert a 1 in 7 chance, Pukki failed to convert a 1 in 3 chance, Emi failed to convert a less than 1 in 2 chance. In what sense "should" one or other of them have scored?
There's more than the shot analysis involved though. Had we scored a second goal from one of those chances the game could have opened up more, perhaps allowing more chances and more goals. As for DF, my German isn't up to choosing between those subtle differences in a post game interview, so I think I'll cut him some slack, especially as he avoided saying 'for sure' on this occasion.
What xG value some geek attributes to players is irrelevant, any idiot with half a footballing brain could see that we should have scored more. It wasn't just DF who said we should have scored more it was the sky news chap watching the game, the x pros on Quest and even the Rotherham manager pretty much said it after the game. If you watched the highlights objectively I suspect even you might think it, but you wouldn't admit it because it doesn't suit your agenda. And there's been plenty off other games like this during the season. Anyway I've come to the conclusion that you either know little about football or are just trolling.
Vrancic had 2 chances in the 1st half . The 1st one was perhaps a 0.14 chance. The 2nd was more like 0.4 chance where he dragged it left form 12 yards out . Clearly enough chances to be more than 1 up at half time and does it really matter if DF said should instead of could ?