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.

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.