EPL 13-14th February 2016
EPL 13-14th February 2016
The usual weekly look at the shot statistics behind the weekend's games in the English Premier League. This saw the league leaders end a difficult fixture spell with their first defeat which ended and undefeated run of 7. That has closed up the top four now separated by 6 points.
%matplotlib inline
import league_analysis
from IPython.display import display, HTML
epl = league_analysis.epl
league_analysis.blog_weekly_header(epl, '13/02/2016', '14/02/2016')
Bournemouth 1-3 Stoke
This result surprised me. I think Bournemouth have genuinely been unfortunate for much of the season. This is backed up by the statistic rankings above, Bournemouth are currently 15th in the league just 4 points off the relegation zone. However their team rating is 11th, above Watford, and their PDO, is again back to rock bottom after briefly lending that position to Liverpool. It is certainly still possible that Bournemouth are relegated. My prediction is that there are enough poorer teams below, for Bournemouth to avoid that fate. I somewhat hope so, because either they have been rather unlucky or there is something systemic about they way they play that would be really interesting to observe for a second full season. Also, their matches are generally entertaining.
Chelsea 5-1 Newcastle
The shot statistics don't quite show the extent of how well Chelsea controlled this game. That often happens with a team that takes an early enough lead that there is no real urgency/onus on them to attack. Three goals in the first 17 minutes. Newcastle have clearly upped their game since Christmas, but they still have a relegation battle on their hands, dropping back into the bottom three with Norwich's point hosting West Ham. Still, Newcastle are no longer in the top three favourites to be relegated.
league_analysis.display_current_runs(epl)
What of Chelsea. That is now 10 games unbeaten, the next nearest is Southampton with 6 (which, given that no one can score against them may well be prolonged). Sort of more like the form of champions, but their team rating is still just 9th. Let's look at those last 10 games:
stats = league_analysis.last_x_game_stats(epl, 10)
league_analysis.header_stat_tables(epl, stats=stats)
Well first of all, Chelsea are third equal in points for the last ten games. Not outstanding given that they are the only team to remain unbeaten for those ten games. Their team rating is 4th, but their PDO is 1st. So what can we conclude? Not much, but perhaps Chelsea are a team that should be on the edge of Champions' league qualification, but had a fairly bad start to the season from which they are not quite good enough to recover sufficiently. Where sufficiently means something like 5th.
Newcastle on the other hand are 14th in team rating over the past 10 games, showing a reasonable progression from where they have been all season. This suggests to me their signings in January have made a difference and if they can just stay out of bad luck they can definitely survive the drop. So far, their PDO rating of 19th suggest they haven't quite seen the fruits of their progression just yet.
Crystal Palace 1-2 Watford
The big news here is that Palace out-shot their opponents. Still they lost, bringing their winless run up to 9 games and dead last in our last-ten-games table. Think about that, Aston Villa are 4 points better off than Palace in the last ten games. More worringly, although a last ten games PDO of -0.17 is bad, and ranking them 18th in the league, their poor form can be just as well explained by their 20th placed team rating. So, on 32 points the big question here is, could Crystal Palace be relegated? Well, 32 points is a pretty decent target already. It seems unlikely that Aston Villa can catch them, and Norwich have almost as bad recent form. So it will depend on Newcastle, Sunderland and Swansea. It seems likely at least one of those will fail to catch Palace. Still Palace fans will want another win and soon:
league_analysis.compare_fixtures(epl, ['Crystal Palace', 'Norwich', 'Newcastle', 'Sunderland', 'Swansea'])
Games against West Brom (also on 32 points) and Sunderland look good candidates, but they are away from home. After that a tricky run of fixures in Liverpool, Manchester United and Leicester.
Everton 0-1 West Brom
Wow. We thought Newcastle were fortunate to beat Bournemouth earlier in the season.
Norwich 2-2 West Ham
Norwich really really needed these three points. Really could have had them. That is six without a win now for Norwich with Leicester and Chelsea next up it could easily extend to 8 without a win. West Ham are still ahead of Liverpool and joint with Southampton, though I suspect both will finish (probably even comfortably) above West Ham. Still, West Ham have a positive team rating and are in the top half of the league. That has to go down as (so far) a pretty successful season for West Ham.
Sunderland 2-1 Manchester United
Sunderland have out-shot both Manchester United and Manchester City this season. Rare indeed. This was a pretty deserved victory even though Manchester United managed an extra shot on target. Pretty promising for Sunderland in a season that has not seen a lot of promise. Home and away form shows that Sunderland have been equally bad at either, whereas Newcastle have decent home form. Note also the Manchester clubs' away form, both significantly worse than their home form despite this home loss to Sunderland. Leicester and Tottenham both producing away from home.
display(HTML('<h2>Home Form</h2>'))
league_analysis.header_stat_tables(epl, stats=epl.home_team_stats.values())
display(HTML('<h2>Away Form</h2>'))
league_analysis.header_stat_tables(epl, stats=epl.away_team_stats.values())
Swansea 0-1 Southampton
Southampton continue to do what they are good at. They are preventing teams from scoring. I'm sure there is a lot more interesting things to say about Southampton but it will have to wait for more in-depth analysis (which means me waiting for statsbomb to produce one). Southampton will be pleased with an away victory which even with that only moves them up to 12th in the league away form, compared to 5th home form. In any case, Southampton have not been lucky this season so they'll be pretty happy to have ridden through some rough results in the first half to find themselves currently 6th equal with West Ham. It would be surprising if they do not finish above West Ham and surely Manchester United are not entirely safe from Southampton. However, Liverpool and even possibly Chelsea could strike from below.
Swansea are not doing an awful lot wrong they just need more points. With Newcastle doing better since Christmas, Swansea look vulnerable.
Arsenal 2-1 Leicester
First of all, they may have required an injury time winner, but Arsenal were clearly well on top. It may have been that the relatively soft red card was the reason Arsenal dominated, but that does not change the fact that Arsenal deserved to win this game. It certainly bunches up the top four a bit more. Manchester City starting to look a bit far behind, if they were 6 points behind Leicester but in second place you would possibly favour them or at least give them a good chance of taking the title. Four points on either Tottenham or Arsenal would also be far from insurmountable, but it seems likely that one of Tottenham or Arsenal will have a pretty decent finish to the season, meaning that Manchester City would have to have a near flawless end. That is assuming Leicester drop more than six points themselves.
On that note, having come through a pretty difficult sequence, Leicester now have a pretty gentle run; Norwich, West Brom, Watford, Newcastle, and Crystal Palace all look winnable. Even after that, Southampton will be tough but then Leicester face Sunderland, West Ham and Swansea, again, all winnable. A tricky finish to the season might not matter as they could be 9 points up by then.
That said, most of the top four have actually played each other and as a result none look to have very menacing run-ins. Would it be so impossible for Manchester City to win all 12 remaining matches? Probably yes, but going undefeated and dropping just 4 or 6 points seems possible.
For my money, Tottenham look pretty good now. But that London derby with Arsenal in three weeks' time looks like it might be, ..., interesting.
league_analysis.compare_fixtures(epl, ['Leicester', 'Tottenham', 'Arsenal', 'Man City', 'Man United'])
Aston Villa 0-6 Liverpool
Well, this was a bit of a demolition. As is often the case, the 6 goal difference was probably a little down to luck. It's luck that Liverpool have been due. I say that is often the case because once a team has a three goal advantage their shot rate tends to dip considerably. Thus if they do end up scoring 6 or so goals it is usually on the back of a high conversation rate for at least the final three goals, and they may well have had a pretty high conversion rate for the first three as well. In other words, you don't tend to score 6 goals against premier league opposition unless most things go your way. There are exceptions. But this was not really one of them. But well deserved good news for Liverpool.
Manchester City 1-2 Tottenham
A massive three points for Tottenham. Much will be made of the pretty fortunate penalty award. More importantly Tottenham were comprehensively out-shot in this game, and that is depsite their winner coming in the 83rd minute. I think a lot of narratives will be written suggesting that Manchester City are all but dead in the title race. However, let's not forget, Manchester City are currently top for team rating, albeit by a slim margin over Tottenham (who themselves have a big lead over Liverpool). If Manchester City are to win the title they will need pretty close to all 36 points from their remaining 12 games, but they are clearly one of, if not the, best teams in the league.
Tottenham are probably now favourites.
Bonus Graphs
A little bonus graphs plotting team points versus their team rating and PDO for the season. This mostly visualises Leicester's over-performance and Aston Villa's underperformance. Keep in mind, team rating and PDO are not flawless measures of skill and luck. So this is Leicester's overperformance according to this team rating metric of skill.
def get_team_rating(league, team):
return league.team_stats[team].team_rating
def get_points(league, team):
return league.team_stats[team].points
def get_pdo(league, team):
return league.team_stats[team].pdo
league_analysis.scatter_stats(epl, get_x_stat=get_team_rating, get_y_stat=get_points,
title='Points/Team Rating', ylabel='Points', xlabel='Team Rating')
Here is the PDO graph. Check out Bournemouth and Liverpool. Sunderland are also an interesting case. What this likely means is that Sunderland have had more than an average amount of luck, but they may have benefitted from this luck in ways that have not really affected their haul of points. So for example they may have been fortunate to lose a couple of games 1-0 when it should have really been more like 4-0, but they haven't gained any points from this.
It is worth noting that the top four are all above the trend line. For me, if Liverpool had a positive PDO, they may well be in the top four positions.
league_analysis.scatter_stats(epl, get_x_stat=get_pdo, get_y_stat=get_points,
title='Points/PDO', ylabel='Points', xlabel='PDO')
Thanks for reading.
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