By Danny Pugsley
Welcome to a little project.
Both here at StatsBomb and over at my more regular home at Bitter and Blue there has been a lot of great work of late looking shots; areas such as placement, distance and conversion. My particular interest though has been to take a step back from this: to look at how shots are generated; what are the successful drivers behind getting a shot at goal and are there are any patterns that a side displays?
The germ of the idea, as, admittedly, a lot of the areas of analytics that spark my interest, was formulated with hockey with some great work having been done over the past couple of seasons (example here) led by Eric Tulsky, who had a paper presented on this subject at last years MIT Sloan Conference.
So, what do we measure? Well, for a start all the data has to be manually recorded so as much as the possibility of watching endless Premier League games thrills me, for now we will have to stick to just Manchester City. (Incidentally, one of the successes of the venture in hockey is the way in which it has spread across the NHL with a number of teams now having this data recorded).
Essentially, every time City either make a final third entry or concede a final third entry this is recorded. We note the entry type (carry, header, turnover or short, medium or long pass), the individual making the entry and the outcome (dispossessed, turnover, corner won, fouled or shot (inside and outside the box) with the shot outcome (saved, wide, blocked or goal)) also noted. Once processed, this then produces the following tables on a weekly basis, with the following tables being City's early season totals after the Newcastle and Cardiff games:
Team entry summary
Team
Carry
Turnover
Header
Short pass
Med pass
Long pass
Total
City
21
2
0
62
28
3
116
Opposition
8
2
0
14
8
11
43
Outcome per entry type
City
Enries
Dispossed
Turnover
back out
Corner won
Fouled
Total shots
Shot in box
Shot o/s box
Blocked
Saved
Wide
Goal
Shots p/e
Goals p/e
Carry
21
8
4
0
1
2
6
5
1
1
3
1
1
28.57
4.76
Turnover
2
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
50.00
50.00
Header
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
n/a
n/a
Short Pass
62
12
21
10
5
1
13
11
2
4
2
6
1
20.97
1.61
Med pass
28
7
8
2
2
0
9
8
1
0
3
3
3
32.14
10.71
Long pass
3
1
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.00
0.00
Total
116
28
35
12
8
4
29
25
4
5
8
10
6
25.00
5.17
Opposition
Entries
Dispossed
Turnover
back out
Corner won
Fouled
Total shots
Shot in box
Shot o/s box
Blocked
Saved
Wide
Goal
Shots p/e
Goals p/e
Carry
8
1
2
1
0
1
3
1
2
1
1
0
2
37.50
25.00
Turnover
2
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.00
0.00
Header
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
n/a
n/a
Short Pass
14
7
3
0
1
0
3
1
2
1
1
1
0
21.43
0.00
Med pass
8
0
8
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.00
0.00
Long pass
11
2
6
1
0
0
2
2
0
0
1
0
1
18.18
9.09
Total
43
11
19
2
1
2
8
4
4
2
3
1
3
18.60
6.98
Entry per individual
City
Entries
Carry
Turnover
Header
Short pass
Med pass
Long pass
Hart
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Zabaleta
11
2
0
0
7
2
0
Clichy
20
2
0
0
12
5
1
Kompany
2
0
0
0
0
2
0
Lescott
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
Toure
14
0
0
0
6
7
1
Fernandinho
9
1
1
0
3
4
0
Silva
23
3
0
0
16
3
1
Navas
14
7
0
0
5
2
0
Aguero
8
4
0
0
4
0
0
Dzeko
5
1
0
0
3
1
0
Garcia
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
Nasri
5
1
0
0
3
1
0
Negredo
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
Milner
2
0
0
0
2
0
0
Total
116
21
2
0
60
28
3
Outcome per individual
City
Total
Dispossed
Turnover
Back out
Fouled
Corner won
Total shots
Shot in box
Shot o/s box
Blocked
Saved
Wide
Goal
Shots p/e
Goals p/e
Hart
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
n/a
n/a
Zabaleta
11
2
5
1
0
0
3
3
0
1
0
1
1
27.27
9.09
Clichy
20
4
7
2
0
2
5
5
0
1
2
1
1
25.00
5.00
Kompany
2
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
50.00
50.00
Lescott
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0.00
100.00
Toure
14
2
7
2
0
1
2
0
2
0
0
1
1
14.29
7.14
Fernandinho
9
4
1
1
0
1
2
2
0
0
0
2
0
22.22
0.00
Silva
24
5
6
2
1
2
8
7
1
1
2
3
1
33.33
4.17
Navas
14
5
4
1
1
1
2
2
0
1
1
0
0
14.29
0.00
Aguero
8
3
4
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
0
12.50
0.00
Dzeko
5
1
0
1
1
0
2
2
0
0
1
1
0
40.00
0.00
Garcia
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
100.00
0.00
Nasri
4
0
1
2
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
1
0
25.00
0.00
Negredo
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
100.00
0.00
Milner
2
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.00
0.00
Total
116
27
35
12
4
7
29
25
4
5
8
11
6
25.00
5.17
Ben also took a retrospective look at the zone entries for the Champions League final, and whilst the purpose of the project is to ultimately look at the data over the course of a season, it may also shed an interesting and insightful light on individual games.
We can also see over even such a short sample size that City appear to favour certain entry types (short pass or carry) with certain players also driving these entries.
What was interesting to compare between the two games in particular (which you can do with the data dump over at Bitter and Blue) was the increased number of turnovers against Cardiff than against Newcastle, the use of their full backs high up the field and how certain players (notably Edin Dzeko and Jesus Navas) had far less entries.
There is the data dump over at Bitter and Blue which I will update weekly and this is a topic I will return to regularly here as the season progresses but in the meantime I'd be interested in any initial thoughts or comments.