JPL Shooting Stats & More after Gameweek 5

As we head into the 6th weekend of the Jupiler Pro League, I take a look into some basic statistics and infer how well the teams have been playing.

Shot Matrices

Dominance

Firstly, I look at the JPL team's "shot-dominance" – all credit due to Ben @experimental361 for this concept – by comparing the shots a team takes and faces, per game. 

• Standard has overall "shot supremacy" in the JPL so far: far outshooting their opponents and facing the lowest number of shots per game.   
• OHL’s defence has been the busiest, Standard’s the least busy. 
• Genk & Zulte both outshot by their opponents. Genk has the more over-worked defence of the 2, but Zulte is hovering close to the overworked territory. Both teams have top-6 aspirations – both need to limit their opponent’s more, it would appear, in their bid to do so.

Efficiency

"Shooting efficiency" (again, hat-tip Ben) is defined by the number of shots taken to score one goal. The rule-of-thumb being: 'the fewer the number of shots a team must take to score 1 goal, the higher their level of shooting efficiency, or, the better they are in front-of goal'.

• Ostende – the league leaders – have been clinical in front of goal needing roughly 6 shots to score 1 goal, which when they take over 13 shots per game, on average, implies a high return. 
• But it is Waasland Beveren, the second-highest goal scorers in the JPL, that are the most efficient at turning their shots into goals, despite taking a below-average number of shots per game.
• At the other end of the spectrum, Gent and Charleroi are so far struggling to convert theirshots into goals as well as teams further up the table are.

Defence

To assess the effectiveness of a team’s defence, we approximate by comparing the number of shots a team faces per game to the number of shots it has faced per goal conceded. Good defences limit the number of shots taken by the opposition as well as limit the number of goals they concede.

• What immediately catches your attention in the chart above is the extreme outlier: Gent. The Buffaloes have by far the most effective defence at dealing with shots in the JPL. They limit their opponents to about 10 shots per game (only Lokeren and Standard face fewer), and have conceded a goal only every 25 shots from their opponents’. 
• Standard face the lowest number of shots per game but have the third leakiest defence in the JPL. 
• Anderlecht’s defence also strays into ‘leaky’ territory despite facing the fourth lowest number of shots per game in the JPL. 
• At the opposite end of the x-axis OHL’s defensive frailties are fully exposed by this chart: they are overworked and leak goals.

Possession Game

I compare a team’s average possession statistic to their shots on target ratio (SoTR), which measures one team’s share of the sum of their & their opponent’s shots on target.

• The chart generally shows that the teams higher up the league have higher possession statistics as well as higher SoTR values. The exceptions are STVV and Zulte, which both have SoTRs than 0.5, but tend to have less possession of the ball in their games.
• Standard has the highest SoTR in the League at 0.66, translating to: 66% of the total shots on target in their games, eg if there are 15 shots on target in a game, Standard had 10, their opponent had 5. 

What's Luck Got To Do (got to do) With it?

Who need's luck when skill has spoken? Asides from just typing the worst pun on Tina Turner's classic in history, I try to assess the 'luck' JPL teams have had thus far. To do so, I turn to the PDO (credit due to James Grayson) vs. SoTR, or the 'good/lucky', matrix. PDO is the sum of shots percentage – which is the percentage of shots on targets that are converted to goals – and the save percentage – which is the percentage of an opponents’ shots on targets that are not converted to goals. PDO measures luck, averaging to 1000.

• STVV and Ostende are riding high on luck so far, with PDO values in excess of 1100, which is down to both teams scoring a high number of goals from a relatively low number of shots (than compared to, say, Anderlecht, Club Brugge & Standard, and to a lesser extent, Gent & Charleroi).
• Gent’s above average PDO is more down to their high save percentage & the stellar performances of Matz Sels. 
• Standard look to be due for a change in their fortunes some point soon. Whether or not that will come Sunday afternoon when they visit Club Brugge in what looks to be the most exciting fixture of the JPL so far this season, will be fascinating to see. 

Thanks for reading, I appreciate any feedback on how to improve. Cheers, Charlie.

JPL Gameweek 5: Anderlecht 1-0 Lokeren, Match Review

Anderlecht’s stuttering 1-0 victory over Lokeren will feel like a deep sigh of relief for the club, after a week in which off-field drama may have sent Anderlecht’s jittery start to the campaign into a tailspin.

Les Mauves' performance left a lot to be desired and most watching the game will feel that they still need to be more clinical in front of goal. Lokeren came to the Constant Vanden Stock as a well-organised unit that made life tough for a shaky Anderlecht. 

For the most part it was a poor game, however, there were some distinct positives coming from the game for Anderlecht, most notably in the performance of Kara Mbodj, who looked very assured alongside Olivier Deschacht in the centre of defence - an encouraging sign of an immediate response to his shaky start to his life at Anderlecht last week against KV Oostende. Additionally, the performance of Stefano Okaka, who came on as a second-half substitute, and Dennis Praet’s persistence will give Besnik Hasi some positive reassurance after a dispiriting week.

Anderlecht started the brighter of the two sides and, in truth, should’ve been 1-0 up after 10 minutes, when Andy Najar’s pass found Praet free in the box after a good run, but the young midfielder fluffed his chance. Lokeren’s Patosi caused Anderlecht problems with his movement, preoccupying both Defour and Tielemans, in turns. Defour and Najar in Anderlecht’s midfield pulled the strings for most of the first half, but the team lacked any cutting edge. This was most evident in Matias Suarez who over the course of the game was caught offside three times and looked distinctly off the pace. As the referee’s whistle blew for half-time, though, the dejected whistles and boos from the crowd, as well as plentiful empty seats in vision captured all of the frustrations at Belgium’s biggest club.

The second-half saw Lokeren start much the brighter of the two sides, but it was Anderlecht against the run of play that made the best chance in the early-stages of the second-half, hitting the post within five minutes of the restart. Certain second-half moments typified the worst side of Anderlecht’s game: Praet getting caught offside when looking directly across the line at the linesman from Defour’s pass, Obradovic taking a foul throw-in, and Steven Defour taking a free-kick twice in two different positions, not to mention the referee ordering Proto to take a goal-kick again after initially distributing to Deschacht who was still inside the 16-yard box. It was frustrating to watch.

The turning points in the game, however, happily - for him at least - came in time with Hasi's substitutions: on the hour-mark Okaka and Acheampong replaced Sylla and Najar, and just before the 90 minutes were up Imoh Ezekiel came on for Obradovic. Okaka’s strength and directness made for a refreshing change to the spectacle and he forced a good save from Lokeren’s Barry on the 73^rd minute after a surging run. 

As much as Anderlecht grew into the game, Lokeren grew tired, and the one time their organisation faltered came in the dying minutes of the match. Ezekiel’s first major contribution to the game was a neat one-two with Praet, who intelligently found space in the box after losing his man and deftly rolling the ball home in the first-minute of stoppage-time. Praet celebrated by running over to hug his manager and the rest of the team soon joined in. The display of solidarity in the celebrations was as important as the victory itself, and demonstrates, above all, that this team is able to get over a dramatic week. Just.

JPL Gameweek 5 (21/08 - 23/08) Preview

An exciting weekend of football lies ahead in Belgium beginning tonight when Racing Genk travel to newly-promoted STVV for the Limburg Derby. The game promises to be an interesting encounter, not least because it gives both sides the opportunity to go level on points with KV Oostende – the league leaders – ahead of their game away at Standard Liège on Sunday. But, more about that later…

Friday: Limburg Derby
 
Genk has so far performed inconsistently, whereas STVV has taken most people by surprise, most notably in their opening day victory over Club Brugge. Nevertheless, the Canaries do look like a strong outfit for a newly promoted side and offer two of the most enjoyable midfielders to watch in the JPL so far in Edmilson Junior & Dompé. Genk has significantly more resources but have looked fairly suspect defensively so far. Interestingly, both teams share exactly the same records after 4 games played: 2 wins, 1 draw & both teams lost to reigning champions Gent. STVV has yet to score a goal in the first-half of a JPL game, which possibly indicates they are slow starters, potentially taking a long time to suss out their opponent’s weaknesses. Close game to call, but I think STVV will manage to sneak it by a goal.

Finally: DERBYDAY! STVV - KRC Genk 20.30u! Komop STVV! Boodschap van de fans: If you give us 90 minutes we will give you a lifetime. #STVV #jpl #stvgnk

A photo posted by Sint-Truiden (@stvv373) on Aug 20, 2015 at 10:34pm PDT

 

Saturday: Mid-table battles and a chance for Brugge to bounce back

Saturday’s biggest game sees Club Brugge travel to Waregem to face Zulte Waregem, both teams have really flattered to deceive so far in the league. Brugge will be looking to exorcise some demons after their well-fought, but inevitably draining, Champions League loss to Manchester United midweek. I can see Z-W holding Brugge to a draw. Elsewhere, Mechelen host the other promoted side OH Leuven, which will give both sides a great opportunity to move further up the table, OHL will be more confident after their first league win last weekend. Waasland-Beveren host bottom-side Mouscron, a game that Mouscron will be desperate to mark their first victory of the season in. And, Westerlo face a tough match travelling to Charleroi, where the team in black-and-white will be desperate to return to winning ways having had no midweek Europa league ‘commitments’.

Sunday: Fun-day all round

Sunday will be fascinating throughout. The first game on the ‘day of rest’ sees Anderlecht entertain a Lokeren side that will be buoyed by its strong performance in their 2-0 defeat of Mechelen last Saturday. The home-side, however, goes into Sunday’s game in almost complete disarray (see Tweet below). After their defensively inept and rather embarrassing 3-1 loss to league leaders KV Oostende last Sunday, this week has seen enfant terrible Anthony Vanden Borre openly criticise his manager and teammates to the press, resulting in his demotion to the Youth Squad, which then led to some rather ugly back-and-forth, resulting in Team-Captain Silvio Proto denouncing AVdB’s actions and words as unacceptable. All the while, it seems like we are only getting half the picture and that Anderlecht is in fact in an even bigger shambles than the one its lacklustre and disorganised performances would so far suggest. Intriguing, indeed & I can see Lokeren causing even more upset at Les Mauves expense…

No team, no leaders on the pitch, no defence, silly system, unhappy players, fans are divided... Things are going great 😕😕 #rsca #sad

— Sp. Anderlecht news (@Sporting_AND) August 20, 2015

From one troubled giant to another, this time in the form of Standard Liège. Les Rouches’ sub-par start to the new domestic and European season under new-Coach Slavoljub Muslin continued on Thursday with a disappointing, and apparently inept, performance against Norwegian opponents Molde FK. The performance of Les Rouches was evidently so bad that Muslin intimated much of his team ran less (ie put less effort into the game) than Molde’s 40-year-old captain (see Tweet below also). Is Muslin best starting with a 4-4-2 system? Is he better with a 4-5-1? What is Knockaert’s best role? Apart from Knockaert, has anyone else actually shown up so far this season? These are all questions Standard, and, importantly, their supporters, will look for immediate answers this Sunday when they take on the undefeated current league leaders, KV Oostende. Oostende has been the real bright-spark of this season so far: scoring more than every other team and playing an exciting brand of football. They will be tough to beat riding high on the back of their 3-1 crushing of Anderlecht last weekend. I personally can’t see Standard getting anything more than a draw.

Muslin: "Leur capitaine de 40 ans a couru plus que certains de mes joueurs" http://t.co/o9kEXBQufk #rscl #zonerouche

— Zone Rouche (@Zonerouche) August 21, 2015

 
In the final game of the weekend Gent travels to Kortrijk, a fixture that Gent takes the upper-hand in based on last season’s encounters: out of the 4 meetings they had Gent won 3, Kortrijk 1. Gent has yet to really get out of first-gear so far this season, and it is high-time they make a statement. I’ll expect them to win.


Thanks for reading. I'd like to do more of these sorts of things, so I'd appreciate your feedback - cheers!

The Belgian Jupiler Pro League: what do we know before Gameweek 4? A look at the stats

Gameweek 4 of the 2015/16 JPL season begins this evening when Club Brugge entertain Kortrijk at the Jan Breydel Stadium. While we are only 3 games into the season some questions are already being asked of the bigger teams, and rightly so. As the league table stands, Brugge are outside the top-6, Genk have looked poor and disorganised since winning 3-1 against OH Leuven in gameweek 1, and Anderlecht - yet to be convincing at all - share the top spot with surprise stories so far STVV and KV Ostende.

I'm taking this opportunity to go through some of my statistical observations of the season so far in an attempt to shed some more light on what we have seen.

To begin with, I use Ben Mayhew's (@experimental361) 3 'shot-matrices' to illustrate a few key trends:

1) Generally speaking, the teams that have shot more than their opponents are further up the table.

The chart below plots the number of shots JPL teams have taken per game on the x-axis, and the number of their opponents' shots they have faced per game on the y-axis. As a rule of thumb, the teams in the bottom right quadrant are in the "sweet spot": they outshoot their opponent and allow their opponents to shoot less than the average. 

2) Most teams have not yet put their shooting boots on.

In an attempt to measure the effectiveness of JPL team's attacks (offense), the chart below plots the number of shots the teams take to score 1 goal against the number of shots they take per game. Gent have yet to find their shooting boots - no surprise as two of their 3 goals scored have come from the penalty spot. Standard, Charleroi & Club Brugge are also all yet to really excel in front of goal. Interestingly, Waasland Beveren and Westerlo have been efficient at converting their shots into goals, but are not getting enough shots in. An interesting outlier is Mouscron, stranded up there: ineffective in front of goal but taking slightly above average number of shots per game, so they can take some reassurance that they are doing the right thing, they just need to improve their accuracy!

3) Standard and Anderlecht's defensive frailties should be watched (and if playing against them, exploited).

While Anderlecht & Standard's defences deal with a below average number of shots per game, they are tending toward a leaky defence, in the case of Anderlecht, and have a leaky defence, in the case of Standard.

4) More possession does not = victories (duh!)

In the chart below I've plotted the average percentage of possession JPL teams have of the ball, and their Shots on Target Ratio (SoTR), which is calculated by dividing a team's shots on targets by the sum of their shots on targets and their opponents shots on target. If a team has a SoTR value of over 0.5, they take more shots on target than their opponent, and vice-versa. The teams in green - ie the top 6 - are mixed: 3 of them tend to have more possession in games, 3 tend to have less, but what they all have in common is that they take more shots on target than their opponents. An interesting one to analyse from the standpoint of Belgium's bigger teams is Club Brugge: they tend to have more possession than their opponents but have so far conceded more shots on target than they have taken: B- for Club Brugge. Must do better.

More to follow, big debt of gratitude for the statistical and graphical inspiration from the wonderful @experimental361.

Lowzer's Low Country Revue: Thoughts on Anderlecht 1 - 1 Gent

Both teams scored headed-goals from roughly the same position at the same end of the pitch, both in the beginning third of either half. Idrissa Sylla’s looping header on 12 minutes - his third league goal in three games, and an early bet for this year's top-scorer - came from a lovely cross from Steven Defour. Sylla took full advantage of Sels getting caught in two minds over whether to commit to meeting the cross. Laurent Depoitre’s near-post flicked-header on 60-minutes came from a great cross from Thomas Foket. 

While Anderlecht had the better of the first-half, Gent were much better in the second-half. The introduction of Moses Simon, who replaced Rafinha, stretched Anderlecht’s defence and created more space for Depoitre. In turn, Depoitre’s movement improved and Dejaegere and Milicevic dictated play much more commandingly than Anderlecht’s midfield were able to in the first-half.

Anderlecht possess a veritable coterie of attacking options, which was demonstrated in the introductions of Imoh Ezekiel and Stefano Okaka in the second-half. But in truth, the team lacks a balance and seem to lack a transitional player in spite of Defour-Gillet-Praet-Tielemans all purporting to fill this job description. In the post-match interview, I believe I heard coach Besnik Hasi bemoan the number of long balls his team played, which gives some insight into the problems they had when they were inferior to their visitors for large parts of the second-half.

The scoreline may suggest there was not much separating the sides on the day, which is only part of the story. Gent’s slow start to the season continued in the form of their slow start to this game, but later came signs of encouragement, and Asare & Simon on the left-hand side of the team look like a good combination. Anderlecht’s first real challenge in an opponent revealed the work they still have to do in terms of making the in-game transitions from defence-to-attack. Also, their defence still looks suspect.

Lowzer's Low Country Revue: Club Brugge vs. KV Mechelen, 1 August 2015 - Gameweek 2 in the Jupiler Pro League 2015/16

Club Brugge have not had a great start to this season, but today managed to exorcise some early season demons as they dominated Mechelen, beating them 3-0.

The boys from Bruges in blue and black will probably be kicking themselves they didn’t score a couple more goals. But, with the second-leg of the Champions League qualifier against Panathinaïkos coming up on Wednesday, this was an important victory.

The first real chance of the game fell Club Brugge’s way. Four minutes in, Obbi Oularé’s head was met by De Bock’s cross, but he headed wide. Cissé – Mechelen’s only standout player in the game – then came close in the sixth minute of play forcing a smart save from Bruzzese. Mechelen looked like they came with the intention of being very physical – two of their players received yellow cards in the first 8 minutes of play for some vicious challenges. You can also see from the table below that Mechelen committed many more fouls than did Club Brugge.

Club Brugge’s front-three of Tuur Dierckx, Boli Bolingoli and Obbi Oularé entertained the home crowd with their energetic attacking football. Each individual in the trio offered something different: Dierckx’s trickery, Oularé’s physicality and aerial threat and Bolingoli’s ability to find space, which when combined certainly seems like a front-line to keep an eye on this season.

Dion Cools, who impressed going forward, on 43 minutes hit a good strike down low forcing a save from Mechelen’s GK Jean-François Gillet who’s parry fell to Ruud Vormer, who opted for a delicate lob rather than smashing home but his effort was cleared off the line and it felt like the frustration was building. Then, in stoppage time of the first half, the ball broke loose about 20 metres from the goal and Oscar Duarte drove a shot that took a huge deflection into the net: 1-0 Brugge, lucky? Yes, but it was the just reward for their persistent pressure.

Abdoulay Diaby replaced Bolingoli at the beginning of the second-half and made a fairly immediate impact eight minutes in when his excellent run into the Mechelen box was brought to an abrupt hault by Seth De Witte and the referee awarded Club Brugge with a penalty. Diaby converted with a left-foot smasher sailing past Gillet. Duarté was involved in Brugge’s second-goal when he got a hold of the ball in his own half and hit a tremendously weighted diagonal cross-field pass over the last Mechelen defender to match the blind-sided run made by the impressive Dierckx, who took it past the Malinois keeper and finished with consummate ease.

The Brugge barrage continued and Oularé and De Sutter will be disappointed they were unable to add to their team’s tally, but in the end Club Brugge will be relieved that they are back to winning ways and that they kept a clean sheet. This was a crucial victory that will give the team an important morale boost ahead of their difficult game against Panathinaïkos on Wednesday.

My man of the match: Tuur Dierckx

Match Statistics

	Club Brugge	KV Mechelen
Shots	20	7
Shots On Target	6	3
Fouls	17	24
Yellow Cards (Reds)	1 (0)	3 (0)
Corners	6	3
Offsides	5	2
Possession	51%	49%