Teams that can hit you on the counter attack at any moment are incredibly hard to defend against, especially when speed merchants such as Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott are running at your defence. So which teams have impressed in the counter attack and how have they been so successful? We can start to answer [...]
The first thing I noticed about Mousa Dembélé was his technique, every shot, touch and pass had something I haven’t seen in a player. Nothing was quaint or delicate, the ball was always moved deliberately and powerfully. He’s a great player to watch. Martin Jol has gone even further: He has definitely become an important [...]
Research has been conducted looking into whether referee’s are biased towards certain teams or individuals. Manchester United tend to have a reputation from rival supporters for ‘Fergie time’, gaining more penalties than other teams at home, especially with Howard Webb. Marouane Fellaini even stated that referee’s were biased towards English players following his head butt [...]
With the Premier League now entering the last 10 games of the season it is the perfect time to use statistics to draw conclusions about why your team produced success/failure. Last week my focus was on chance conversion rate. This week the focus is on crossing accuracy. The table directly below portrays the total crosses performed [...]
Of course, I don’t need to tell you that the more chances a team creates the more likely they are of scoring. But do the teams creating the most chances score the most goals? The stats below show the chance conversion rate for each individual team. Not surprisingly, top of the league Manchester United also [...]
This article looks at how well each Premier League team has fared against the teams in the top half and the bottom half of the league this season. We take a look at which teams have taken the most points against the teams in the top half, as well as which teams have scored and [...]
This article takes a look at which teams are creating the most clear-cut chances this season; which teams make the most of these chances; and which teams are the most reliant on clear-cut chances to score their goals. A clear-cut chance can be defined as a situation where a player should reasonably be expected to [...]
Looking at last season’s data, we can see what seems like a radical change when we compare the graph with that of four years previous. The ‘tail’ of the correlation has disappeared completely and the entire line seems to be moving towards something more linear. This is the effect of teams such as Wigan, and more [...]
In this article, I will be moving on from the 2008/09 season (Part 1) to look for some similarities or trends. In the 2009/10 season there is a similar curve in the line of best fit, and teams that are relegated could be accused of being inefficient. However, there is the beginning of a change in [...]
In this article I am looking at the late goals in the EPL as historically more goals are scored 76-FT then any other time range. Currently there have been 124 goals scored 76-FT making up 20.8% of total goals and 2011 this was 22.3% and 2010 it was 23.2% and 2009 it was 23.6% and [...]