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 (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!

Lowzer's Low Country Revue: Expected and Actual Outcomes in the Belgian Jupiler Pro League 2014/15 Season - Part One

After the initial euphoria died down after Gent became Jupiler Pro League champions for the first time in their history at the end of May, something kept popping up in the aftermath, namely how unlikely the Buffalo's title victory was... 

At the beginning of the 2014/15 season, very few predicted Gent would eventually be crowned champions. I remember in February, when Gent beat their Flanders' rivals - and the then league leaders - Club Brugge 2-1, I began to think they looked like an outside chance (see here for my piece on Football Every Day from Feb) - but an outside chance at best. Surely they could not topple Club Brugge and Anderlecht?

In April I saw odds of 14-1 on Gent winning outright flash up on Unibet. As time went on, I kept asking the questions more: "could they actually do this? is it possible? is this going to happen?!" See the below tweet exchange with Jonas Van De Veire (who works at KAA Gent) from May, which summarises the progression of the odds:

@SatThereThinkin 35/1 at the start of the season.

— Jonas Van De Veire (@Jonasvdv_) May 18, 2015

But were Gent the team that most outperformed expectations?

It is hard to see past Gent winning the JPL as being the biggest overperformance of expectations of the 2014/15 season. However, with the next couple of posts I aim to look into a little bit more detail at the differences between expected and actual outcomes of the past season.

One fairly simple method of comparing the actual (observed) outcome to what is expected, is by using the bookmakers' odds as a proxy for "expectations". I have done this previously, and it naturally assumes that the bookies' are generally accurate with their odds. The methodology is explained at the end of this post.

In short, when I look at the data, Sporting Charleroi is the team that most overperformed expectations over the course of the regular season (the first 30 gameweeks), and Zulte-Waregem is the team that most underperformed expectations. If you look at the table below, you will see Charleroi highlighted in green and Waregem highlighted in red:

Belgian Jupiler Pro League – Regular Season Expected Position and Points (Bookies’ odds) vs. Actual Position and Points – Season 2014/15
Team	Actual Points	Actual Finish	Expected Points	Expected Position	Diff. Between Actual and Expected Points	Diff. Between Expected and Actual Position
Club Brugge	61	1	57.926	2	3.074	1
Anderlecht	57	2	58.560	1	-1.560	-1
Gent	57	3	50.655	4	6.345	1
Standard	53	4	51.418	3	1.582	-1
Kortrijk	51	5	41.129	8	9.871	3
Charleroi	49	6	38.019	10	10.981	4
Genk	49	7	44.350	6	4.650	-1
Lokeren	42	8	45.896	5	-3.896	-3
Mechelen	41	9	39.681	9	1.319	0
Oostende	38	10	36.148	11	1.852	1
Westerlo	33	11	33.728	12	-0.728	1
Waregem	31	12	41.181	7	-10.181	-5
Mouscron-Peruwelz	26	13	33.002	13	-7.002	0
Waasland-Beveren	26	14	29.910	14	-3.910	0
Cercle Brugge	24	15	28.554	15	-4.554	0
Lierse	22	16	28.502	16	-6.502	0

--------------------------------------------------------------

Methodology Explained

1) I first calculate the 'Expected Points' per game: using odds from football-data.co.uk, I averaged the odds of eight different bookmakers on each game. I used the average of the odds to convert to 'Expected Points'.

2) Taking the example of the Genk-Anderlecht game in GW 27 (which ended 1-0 Anderlecht), the average of the bookmakers' odds were: 3.3 home win, 3.31 draw and 2.18 away win. I put these all as the denominator under 1 to get a %age chance of the odds.

3) The odds then became 30% Genk win, 30% draw and 46% Anderlecht win = totalling 106% - the 6% being the bookmakers' profit. So, to convert these figures into workable ones, I divided all these odds by 1.06 (or, 106%) to ensure the odds added up to 1.

4) In so doing the odds became 28.5% Genk win, 28.4% draw and 43.1% Anderlecht win.

5) To convert these odds into 'Expected Points' you multiply the odds by the points for winning (3) and points for drawing (1) - e.g. Genk (3*0.285) + 0.284 = 1.1 points; and, Anderlecht (3*0.431) + 0.284 = 1.6 points, ie Anderlecht favourites to win.

6) So, with Anderlecht, there expected points = 1.6 and actual points = 3 (difference being 1.4 points)

7) I then summed up all expected points of the 30 games played and compared them to actual points in the 30 games, ie expected vs actual.