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: across the North Sea - looking into how Aleksandar Mitrović will fare at Newcastle...

It now appears to be a formality: Anderlecht’s Mitrović will join Newcastle United for somewhere in the region of €18 million. At 20 years of age, Mitro has two full seasons of experience in Belgium’s top flight as well as over 20 games in the Champions League and the Europa Cup combined. Yet, because he is joining from the Belgian Jupiler Pro League (JPL), perhaps some will ask ‘is he really worth €18 million’? Is it a risk for the Magpies to take on a striker from the Belgian league?

Newcastle fans will be hopeful Mitro is someone:

1. who can score regularly
2. who will contribute positively to the team
3. who will prove to be a good bit of business, should they sell him on (as all teams outside the top-4 inevitably do...)

I’ll try to look into each of those points individually.

Will Mitrović score regularly for Newcastle?

Mitro’s goalscoring record over the past two JPL seasons is illustrated in the table below:

Games Played	Mins Played	Goals Scored	Assists	Goals + Assists	Goals p90	Goals / Assists p90
69	5694	36	11	47	0.569	0.743

 

On average, Mitro scored every other game in the JPL, which is pretty regularly. Additionally, he was involved in an Anderlecht goal (by either scoring or making an assist) once every 121 minutes of game time.

Last season Mitro was in fact the top scorer in the JPL, scoring 20 times, playing 37 games. It is important to provide some context to assess how impressive that record actually is.

Below, I’ve used data from Eurosport.fr to compare the basic statistics of JPL top scorers over the past 5 seasons. Alongside Mitro, you’ll find two other pretty big names: Carlos Bacca and Ivan Perišić. 

Name	Ivan Perišić	Jeremy Perbet	Carlos Bacca	Hamdi Harbaoui	Aleksandar Mitrović
Club	Club Brugge	Mons	Club Brugge	Lokeren	Anderlecht
Season	2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014	2014-2015
Age at 1 Jan of latter year	21	28	26	28	20
Games Played	37	35	35	36	37
Mins Played	3027	3029	2967	2678	3184
Goals	22	25	25	22	20
Assists	10	4	6	1	4
GoalsPer90	0.654	0.743	0.758	0.739	0.565
Goals or Assists Per90	0.951	0.862	0.940	0.773	0.678

 

Both Perišić and Bacca scored more goals in a single season than Mitrovic did. Both of them did not just score more, but they also contributed more assists and therefore were involved in more goals for their team than Mitro was. One way of reading this is that Bacca and Perišić were better team players than Mitro. Both Bacca and Perišić's records show that they averaged higher contributions to their teams’ goals (by scoring and/or making an assist) per 90-minutes than Mitro did. They were both, on average, involved in pretty much a goal a game. Mitro’s goals or assists per 90, however, is not at all disrespectful at 0.68 – meaning he averaged either scoring or making a goal once every 132 minutes. 

It is also important to bear in mind that Mitro became the top scorer in the JPL at the age of 20 – only Perišić was roughly comparable. At 20, Mitro certainly has a few years to develop before hitting the sweet-spot. 

So, yes Mitro can score goals. Plenty, in fact: if Newcastle got 20 goals from him this coming season, I am sure most St James' Park regulars would be over the moon. However, (and it bears repeating) when compared to other forwards who have been top scorers in the JPL, Mitro contributes fewer goals to the team overall. And, he makes these goal scoring/assisting contributions less frequently than peers. 

So, will he contribute positively to the team?

I've answered this question from both sides: how Mitro will contribute to Newcastle, and how the team may influence his game.

Mitrović scores a lot of headed goals, so naturally he would enjoy a regular supply of good crosses. Unfortunately for Mitro, last year’s Newcastle side recorded the lowest cross accuracy (number of accurate crosses / total number of attempted crosses) in the EPL. However, this could be a matter of not having had a target man, rather than being unable to hit the target(man). Mitro will certainly offer Newcastle’s attack a new dimension with his aerial ability.

In a similar vein, Mitro could be characterised as a penalty box striker. He will rejoice in finding out that Newcastle’s ‘danger zone’ chance creation is pretty high. Using Paul Riley’s fantastic ‘Expected Goals’ data (here) Newcastle shot 51 shots on target from the danger zone – defined as the area 10 yards from the goal-line in length by the 6-yard wide. This was 8^th highest in the league and indicates that Newcastle create an above average number of chances in the penalty box.

On the downside, Newcastle generally makes fewer passes per game than the average EPL team. They also averaged below 50% possession in the EPL last year. Added to that, they exhibited above average bad touches/control and number of times dispossessed in games (all data from WhoScored.com). I raise all of these points because some strikers can tend to put their head down if they don’t receive enough of the ball in games, and that normally makes them less effective. I saw more than a handful of games last season where Anderlecht were frustrated by their opponents (particularly in the play-offs) and as a result Mitro began to drift away from the game. If he does not get the service, his head starts to dip and this negatively affects his performance. All the stats I have mentioned indicate that Newcastle tend to have less possession than their opponents, and when they do they have above average lapses while in possession (or, unforced errors, if you zill). This could bode poorly for Mitro’s morale especially if they play him as a lone striker.

Lastly, is he worth the money then?

Time will tell, obviously. Below, I’ve used data from transfermarkt.com to provide context for the reported sum Newcastle has paid Anderlecht for Mitro. I filtered the transfermarkt data down to show a list of the top fees paid for strikers under 21 in the English Premier League (EPL), and have shown a select bunch. In 1^st place is the record fee paid for Raheem Sterling. I skip a few places to then show #9 Romelu Lukaku who moved from Anderlecht to Chelsea in the 2011/12 season for a whopping €22 million (unadjusted for inflation). As context, this shows that teams in England have paid more for relatively more inexperienced and unproven strikers from Belgium (and, more specifically, Anderlecht). Mitro’s move to Newcastle would put him in tied 10^th largest fee (again, not adjusted for inflation) paid for a striker, under the age of 21, to the EPL.

Rank	Name	Age	Date	Team	Sum Paid (€mill)
1	Raheem Sterling	20	2015/16	Manchester City	62.5
9	Romelu Lukaku	18	2011/12	Chelsea FC	22
10	Arjen Robben	20	2004/05	Chelsea FC	18
11	Robbie Keane	20	2001/02	Leeds United	18
12	Cristiano Ronaldo	18	2003/04	Manchester United	17.5
13	Ryan Babel	20	2007/08	Liverpool FC	17.25
14	Thierry Henry	21	1999/00	Arsenal FC	16.1
15	Obafemi Martins	21	2006/07	Newcastle United	16

 

Conclusions

If Mitro can bring his solid goal scoring record from Belgium with him to the EPL then he will be a good signing for Newcastle. Newcastle’s summer spending may yet increase further and Mitro, alongside all the other new arrivals will need time to gel. However, combined with Georginho Wijnaldum’s arrival, Mitro's arrival could be big news. It certainly seems as if Wijnaldum and Mitro have improved upon the Newcastle attacking options of last year.

How Steve McClaren handles Mitro will certainly be interesting especially if he rotates his squad regularly. Mitro’s near ever-present record for Anderlecht last season provides no indication about his reaction to being dropped – he has an infamous attitude so being dropped will naturally cause friction – so it will be interesting to see how that is handled by the player and the rest of the team.

Newcastle certainly have bought someone who will improve their team. I look forward to seeing one of the JPL’s brightest stars test himself out in the EPL. I wish him all the best.