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A few statistics about this season...


Unbelievable Jeff
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I know statistics can't prove everything, but I thought a comparison between last year (our most successful in a long time) and this year is pretty apt. So here goes:

 

2016/2017

 

Possession: 53.2%

Shots per game: 14.6

Shots on target per game: 4.7

Pass Success: 80.8%

Dribbles won per game: 9

Tackles per Game: 20.1

Interception per Game: 14.3

Shots conceded per game: 10.4

 

2015/2016

 

Possession: 49.3%

Shots per game: 13.7

Shots on target per game: 4.4

Pass Success: 77.7%

Dribbles won per game: 7.1

Tackles per Game: 18.8

Interception per Game: 18.6

Shots conceded per game: 12.2

 

Now, looking at the above statistics you would expect us to be having a better season this year.

 

I think there is one main statistic here that explains the difference this season, and it's within the Interceptions statistic, and the speed with which we turn defence into attack. Last season we intercepted more, and these tend to be in the middle of the pitch, which means we could defence into attack more when the opposition wasn't set. This meant Mane and Long could get hold of the ball in more dangerous situations, with a higher defensive line for the opposition and an ease for us to put balls over the top to chase.

 

So far our best midfielder in relation to Interceptions (other than Romeu as he is a staple) is Hojberg with 1.1 per game. Last season it was Clasie with 2.5 (Clasie averages 0.9 this season but historically has averaged over 2 for his last 4 years of career).

 

I think therefore, we need the following:

 

- A new striker. We are scoring less even though we're having more shots, and more on target. Striker must have pace and ability to finish.

- A new partner for Oriol, one with the ability to intercept and play long balls. Honestly, this player should be Clasie, so maybe it's a case of getting him into some form.

 

Anyway, this may all be bull****, but I thought it was interesting, and some of you may do as well.

Edited by Unbelievable Jeff
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That's interesting cheers. Unfortunately the main stat for us this season is goals, it would be interesting to see a stat of where our shots on target we going in relation to the goal, are they all being kicked down the keeper's throat or have we been unlucky with some excellent saves. Also it would be nice to see forward pass completion rates.

 

Maybe if Clasie had a run in the team alongside Romeu his interceptions would improve to his usual levels but maybe that would mean Hoj would play less.

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I know statistics can't prove everything, but I thought a comparison between last year (our most successful in a long time) and this year is pretty apt. So here goes:

 

2016/2017

 

Possession: 53.2%

Shots per game: 14.6

Shots on target per game: 4.7

Pass Success: 80.8%

Dribbles won per game: 9

Tackles per Game: 20.1

Interception per Game: 14.3

Shots conceded per game: 10.4

 

2015/2016

 

Possession: 49.3%

Shots per game: 13.7

Shots on target per game: 4.4

Pass Success: 77.7%

Dribbles won per game: 7.1

Tackles per Game: 18.8

Interception per Game: 18.6

Shots conceded per game: 12.2

 

Now, looking at the above statistics you would expect us to be having a better season this year.

 

I think there is one main statistic here that explains the difference this season, and it's within the Interceptions statistic, and the speed with which we turn defence into attack. Last season we intercepted more, and these tend to be in the middle of the pitch, which means we could defence into attack more when the opposition wasn't set. This meant Mane and Long could get hold of the ball in more dangerous situations, with a higher defensive line for the opposition and an ease for us to put balls over the top to chase.

 

So far our best midfielder in relation to Interceptions (other than Romeu as he is a staple) is Hojberg with 1.1 per game. Last season it was Clasie with 2.5 (Clasie averages 0.9 this season but historically has averaged over 2 for his last 4 years of career).

 

I think therefore, we need the following:

 

- A new striker. We are scoring less even though we're having more shots, and more on target. Striker must have pace and ability to finish.

- A new partner for Oriol, one with the ability to intercept and play long balls. Honestly, this player should be Clasie, so maybe it's a case of getting him into some form.

 

Anyway, this may all be bull****, but I thought it was interesting, and some of you may do as well.

 

Good post. Interesting reading

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A new partner for Oriol, one with the ability to intercept and play long balls. Honestly, this player should be Clasie, so maybe it's a case of getting him into some form.

 

This was the advantage of having a partnership at the base of midfield. Wanyama didn't need to spray balls around because he could just win it, then play it five yards to Schneiderlin or knock it forward to an attacker on the break. It's impressive to watch Romeu do both jobs but may not help the team.

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This was the advantage of having a partnership at the base of midfield. Wanyama didn't need to spray balls around because he could just win it, then play it five yards to Schneiderlin or knock it forward to an attacker on the break. It's impressive to watch Romeu do both jobs but may not help the team.

 

I loved playing the 2 midfielder's. I really wanted us to sign Gueye from Villa in the summer.

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What's our conversion rate between shots attempted and goals actually scored I reckon it must be a lot lower than last season. It feels like we need a bucket load of chances to get one goal while the opposition seem to be far better at converting their chances against us this season.

 

Well, basically it's just above half what it was last season...

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I think it simply shows that we aren't as bad as many people think.

 

We've got the foundations in our play, just needs everything to come together. I would be considerably more worried if we were losing games with no possession, shots or other positive stats.

 

I think the shots are slightly skewed this season. I think we do shoot from range more often now than last season because the midfielders are much more involved on the edge of the box and quite often the ball works its way into space near the edge.

 

I also think we had a higher conversion rate last season because we had Pellè/Long (when they were on form) and played a lot of crosses. A header from a good cross is arguably easier to score (with Pellè's height and Long's jump) than a chance at the edge of the box. We don't have that dominating CF type player anymore, meaning it's not as much of a guaranteed way to score as it was at times last season.

 

We scored the highest percentage of headed goals last season if I remembered correctly. This season our crossing has been atrocious (by our full backs) but we've looked at our best playing (or trying to play) intricate football around the box and penning in teams. Unfortunately, that style of play requires confidence and some players have clearly lacked that so far. I think it's why Boufal has been such an exciting player so far.

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Some more stats to add to this around shot conversion rates:

 

Here is the average conversion rate in the Premier League (not including Saints):

 

5093 shots

581 goals

Average Conversion rate of 11.41%

 

Our current conversion rate is:

313 shots

19 goals

Average Conversion rate of 6.09%

 

If we even had the AVERAGE conversion rate in the Premier League, we'd have scored 36 goals this season, good enough to be 6th best in the League, and only currently outside the current top 5.

 

We NEED a new striker, we don't seem to need a new Manager. The fault here is with Reed and the board for not purchasing a striker in the Summer.

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What an alternative Premier League table would look like if it was ranked comparing performance vs. squad value…

 

 

3rd from bottom

 

http://www.squawka.com/news/20-to-1-every-premier-league-club-ranked-by-performance-vs-squad-value/880348

 

 

Have you got one that cross references price of STs v distance traveled? Given that we have STs close to £London prices/£top6 prices and the widest/most far-flung ST fan base in the PL (based on some dodgy RL metric from way back when).

 

I for one am not rushing to put £50 of fuel in the car on Sunday, leave home at 08-00 and arrive back home at 17-30 .. to watch (probably) one goal (and it's a toss up which side scores it) .... damn my sense of entitlement ... I much preferred going to Swindon/Wycombe/Ipswich/Norwich/ Walsall/Peterborough midweek (!) knowing we would be entertained and we had something to play for too!

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Would a new super striker resolve EVERYTHING?

 

I very much doubt it.

 

Shots stats are very very misleading - for example those that watched us vs Palace (lost 3-0) would say we had 1 shot all game - but the stat site says we had 20 that day

 

You would need to break the 300 "shots" into how many in the 18 yard box, how many were in the 6 yard box ect ect before you start blaming all our seasons woes on Jay and Longs poor shooting.

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Would a new super striker resolve EVERYTHING?

 

I very much doubt it.

 

Shots stats are very very misleading - for example those that watched us vs Palace (lost 3-0) would say we had 1 shot all game - but the stat site says we had 20 that day

 

You would need to break the 300 "shots" into how many in the 18 yard box, how many were in the 6 yard box ect ect before you start blaming all our seasons woes on Jay and Longs poor shooting.

 

Like this:

 

Saints Stats.JPG

 

Here is the Everton equivalent:

 

Everton Stats.JPG

 

Here is the United equivalent:

 

United Stats.JPG

 

Almost identical. Anything else you need?

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Like this:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2310[/ATTACH]

 

Here is the Everton equivalent:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2311[/ATTACH]

 

Here is the United equivalent:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2312[/ATTACH]

 

Almost identical. Anything else you need?

 

Nope - case closed. Jay and Long are proper ****!! 320 shots this season and 22 of those inside the 6 yard box. Only 19 goals scored.......

 

Wonder if Long can be coached to shoot better like he did last season? Didnt he score 15 or 16 under Koeman? Maybe Tadic too

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Nope - case closed. Jay and Long are proper ****!! 320 shots this season and 22 of those inside the 6 yard box. Only 19 goals scored.......

 

Wonder if Long can be coached to shoot better like he did last season? Didnt he score 15 or 16 under Koeman? Maybe Tadic too

 

You can't coach form, you know that. You can try to change it, but frankly I just feel sorry for Puel.

 

We just need a new striker.

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You can't coach form, you know that. You can try to change it, but frankly I just feel sorry for Puel.

 

We just need a new striker.

 

Who? Bournemouth and Palace have scored nearly twice as many as us - is there nothing we could learn from them before we try and get Ibrahimovic and Aguero

 

Just struggling to see how adding a new striker would solve things - unless that striker is world class, which really isnt our style.

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Who? Bournemouth and Palace have scored nearly twice as many as us - is there nothing we could learn from them before we try and get Ibrahimovic and Aguero

 

Just struggling to see how adding a new striker would solve things - unless that striker is world class, which really isnt our style.

 

We don't need to go that high to improve upon our strikers though. In the interim I'd go for someone of the Llorente ilk.

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We don't need to go that high to improve upon our strikers though. In the interim I'd go for someone of the Llorente ilk.

 

I think we already have players of Llorente ilk and Puel simply can’t get them to score so what would be so different?

 

Llorente averages a goal every 3.4 games - we already have players with similar records?

 

Jay before Puel - averages a goal every 2.8 games

With Puel it’s 1 every 5.3 games

 

Shane Long before Puel - averages a goal every 3.7 games

With Puel it’s 1 every 13.5 games

 

Tadic before Puel - averages a goal every 4.5 games

With Puel it’s 1 every 26 games

 

Boufal before Puel (Lille) – averages a goal every 3 games

With Puel its 1 every 11 games

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Ta for the figures. Who took the shots? JWP all with his left foot when faced with 11 e.g. Man U players and all his team mates behind him etc? You've made a number of assumptions none of which can be either correctly controlled or factored in to make any type of this analysis worthwhile. For example, a lot of people have said Pelle would thrive in this system. Why? If he were played as SL is he would be out of position and given that he is far slower than SL it would be unlikely that he would be in the right position. It assumes that the chance would fall to him/the striker. It assumes that he would get a shot on target. That it would be one good enough to test the keeper, etc, etc, etc.

 

Look at the Burnley game. VVD went up front. He had one shot from inside the box towards the left of the goal as Heaton/the visiting fans would have seen it and he put it wide. Even if he had not who is to say he would have scored? Look at the header he had. He won it against possibly 4 of their defenders, got ok purchase on it but hit it straight at Heaton. Would any other attacker e.g. Slimani have done as well or better? Looking at all of those chances in that game how many of them were 'good' chances, how many fell to the right player and how many of them made Heaton have to make a difficult save? None as far as I recall, certainly in the second half when he was 10 feet or so right in front of us.

 

Now let's return to Slimani. Pamplemousse Puel decided to publish his dad's 'please keep me in a job' plea so I went and had a look at the Leicester forum which is why I've picked up on Slimani. 30 million quid and he's apparently good in the air. When Leicester throw crosses in to him it's a good idea but it seems they rarely do. As a side note their fans essentially describe Ranieri's tactics as somewhat baffling and repeat much of what is said on here namely the players don't quite seem to understand the system, aren't happy with it but (unlike us) they seem to have a number of players who have reverted to form (i.e. they're crap e.g. Morgan). Now would we as Saints fans like to see a team throw in crosses for VVD to have to defend against. Ignore the other centre-back, just VVD? I hope so because he'd eat them up all day long. Unless Slimani (who seems to have failed to impress overall) is an especially difficult opponent then I would expect VVD to come out on top - Slimani won't be playing, by the way - but this doesn't necessarily mean that he wouldn't score, he wouldn't give VVD a hard time, he wouldn't create opportunities for other players, that any number of other things might not happen.

 

Do I think we need a clinical striker? Yes. This is by the bye, however. Even with Austin in the side - and I do consider him to probably be sufficiently good - we were hardly prolific and as I've mentioned elsewhere Nice do not seem to have been especially so under Puel's tenure. This possibly does reflect the philosophy of "steal a goal and then keep it tight" which seems to be CP's MO. In addition, as I indicated elsewhere this style has been said to be different from the previous template espoused by Les Reed and this indicates that it is part of the now 'quiet as a mouse' Guan's comment about a 'change of direction'. So while I do think that either one of our strikers needs to go on a scoring run or someone else who can do so needs to be obtained I do not believe that this will change much other than that we will pick up more points and a sufficient number to stay in this league. The interesting game will be Swansea because they have done well in terms of some measurements (there is a thread by Baggy Trousers on this which purports to show how well we are doing and Swansea, currently bottom of the league, come 10th in two of those measurements indicating that they are a good team and they have a new coach who should get far more out of them than Bradley did. If they do well and they pick up by beating us then I think that we are likely to be in a great deal of trouble because this squad strikes me as mentally weak.

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I think we already have players of Llorente ilk and Puel simply can’t get them to score so what would be so different?

 

Llorente averages a goal every 3.4 games - we already have players with similar records?

 

Jay before Puel - averages a goal every 2.8 games

With Puel it’s 1 every 5.3 games

 

Shane Long before Puel - averages a goal every 3.7 games

With Puel it’s 1 every 13.5 games

 

Tadic before Puel - averages a goal every 4.5 games

With Puel it’s 1 every 26 games

 

Boufal before Puel (Lille) – averages a goal every 3 games

With Puel its 1 every 11 games

 

We have no players that are at all similar to Llorente, so not sure who's game you think is comparable.

 

Can I also ask, are your stats for Llorente using this seasons goals, or career like you have for the rest?

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The BBC Leicester match build up has a stat that our conversion rate is 6.1% which they say is the lowest in the PL. The club have to find away to improve that. A new striker seems the best option but I'm not holding my breath I reckon the club will just soldier on with Long and Jrod and hope they hit some form.

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