Blog Posts

  • Cornering the xG market

    Man United concede the most xG per corner in the Premier League. Chelsea the least. In practical terms it means that United should be expecting to concede a goal from a corner situation once every three games. For Chelsea it’s more like every six games. Considering they both concede corners at similar rates, that’s quite…

  • February Tweetbag

    Questions from twitter… My models tie in with the players most people would suggest: Kevin De Bruyne and Mo Salah. De Bruyne has absolutely blitzed his expected assist totals. Ozil might have created more but Kev’s are getting converted. Salah has also very done well in this category: Then comes Salah’s goalscoring exploits. Unbelievable stuff:…

  • Some words on passing ‘analytics’

    When Opta record a pass during a game, they attach numerous qualifiers to help describe it. This is helpful as it provides context. However, when the media present it to us, either on telly or in print or even on dedicated football stats wesbites, you’ll not find those qualfiers nor the context. This is not…

  • Pressing Matters – Closing Down Metrics

    So Mike Goodman’s piece about Arsenal for NordicBet and Will Gurpinar-Morgan’s Statsbomb piece finally jolted me into doing something about measuring ‘pressing’. Now, when I was a lad, it was called ‘closing down’, but if you’re a football hipster it’s ‘pressing’ and the higher up the pitch you do it, the better you are. Or…

  • Wayne Rooney – Shot or Hot?

    Former Boy Wonder Wayne Rooney is increasingly coming in for stick from Everton fans as the season wears on. Today I ran a poll on the Everton forum I read: I updated my chance creation numbers this week and saw this: KPs are key passes – passes which lead directly to shots on goal. xA…