Wednesday 11 December 2013

Manchester United 2012/13 - Less Shots, More Quality

I hope many readers are now be familiar with the expected goals model that I’m using on InsideFPL. Rather than counting up a team’s shots on target as I focused on last year, or look at total shots, or shots in the box, I am now able to give every shot an independent ‘value’ based on the location of the shot, the type of shot (foot/header), the pass type (cross/headed/regular) and the situation (set piece/open play). The goal value for each shot is determined from the typical shot:goal conversion rate from all similar shots and is called “Expected Goals” or xG.

Shots En Vogue

The xG model is in vogue right now and is a good step up from just assuming many shots are equal.  You may be familiar with similar models from folks like Paul Riley (@footballfactman) and Colin Trainor (@colinttrainor) as well as my personal inspiration over the summer 11Tegen11 (@11tegen11). 

Anyway, to the point of this post, my model stands up very well for all team’s goals scored last season with a correlation value of 0.933 (R^2=0.870) but as you can see from the image below breaks down when it tries to deal with the top scoring clubs. This analysis excludes penalties. I also need to ‘fess up I've noticed five of 2012/13’s games missing from my data currently.


Basic xG model vs. Actual Goals Scored for 2012/13 seasons (exc. penalties)

Model Break No. 1

5 teams - Chelsea, Liverpool, City, Spurs and Arsenal  - scored within a few goals of each other last season (excluding penalties) but the model has up to a 10 goal difference them all.

Model Break No. 2

Could not explain how Man United managed to score 12 more goals than their nearest rival despite a lower xG.

(You’ll notice also Aston Villa veering from expectations but I haven’t looked at them in much more detail yet).

Do We Need A Fergie Factor?

Not being able to explain the goal scoring of these top clubs, especially the team that wins the league, is a big kick in the teeth any stats model. It’s all well and good having a nice straight line through all the middle of the table clubs but if you need to start using words like ‘luck’ or ‘world class’ or ‘Ferguson’ to explain why a team can do something others clubs can’t the model starts to lose value.

What did United Excel At?

I looked at the numbers to see if I could find a particular element of the game that Man Utd could claim they bossed and quickly saw that they had the highest ratio of Expected Goals to Shots of any team (xG/S), and by a good margin too. This could be conceived as “Shot Quality”, i.e. given your team takes 1 shot what is it’s expected goal value, or how good is the average chance you create?

I biased each team’s xGT value from the first chart with the amount it’s “shot quality” xG/S value was above or below the league average to get the following results:


Biased xG model vs. Actual Goals (exc. penalties) for 2012/13


Fixed or Fudged?

The correlation is only slightly improved but the good news is it’s “fixed” United - i.e put htem on top, as well as the group of CHE/LIV/TOT/ARS. However, rather than fixed I’m tempted to say “fudged”. but have I biased the data to get what I wanted to see?  Thinking about what xG per shot actually means on the pitch however - it’s a very important thing. Imagine your team just created 1 or 2 “golden” chances per game. I’d certainly take that over 10 frustrated or speculative shot from outside the box.  

You can also imagine what it means if your team cannot achieve a high xG/S.You’re forced into lots of shots that perhaps you don’t want to or shouldn’t take (bad decisions/no options), you don’t have the skill to pick the lock on a stubborn defence, or you cannot counter attack effectively.

Did Mancini Break City?

Looking at the chart above Man City are the team that are really below the line and should perhaps have ended the season with a lot more goals (and points) than they did.  I can’t explain this any further at this time than to point out Man City “looked” like they had problems last season, Mancini was sacked and this year, with just Fernandinho different really (Negredo = just another striker), they are storming teams. 

It’ll take a deeper look into the numbers for City but having just one team to fix rather than 6 is much more reassuring. Could an unfit Aguero struggling with injury make a difference? I’m also tempted to speculate that attack pace/tempo might be what lifts Villa above the line and drops City below it.

Quick Wrap-Up

Dist. xG/S across Lge 12/13
Back to United, their xG/S was way above the league average last season and a good way above even 2nd place City’s as this little graphic shows (click to zoom). Could this be what a deep playmaker on his game like Michael Carrick brings to a team?

To quickly conclude, I haven’t done anything further with xG/S yet other than to look  briefly at this season’s data and can tell you Arsenal and City and then Liverpool are highest so far the season, Sunderland and Hull are bottom. United are doing okay, above average, but not great.





Friday 13 September 2013

6GW Point Projections




I've worked with InsideFPL.com to create new point projections for this season.

You'll need to sign up to their free newsletter pronto to get access and this goes out around midday today (GMT).

Captain Rankings are essentially just the coming week's projections sorted from top to bottom but I'll have a post up on InsideFPL later today to go through the likely candidates.

Monday 2 September 2013

GW3 Match Centre

This way please for GW3 Match Centre.

Tomorrow on InsideFPL.com I'll be rounding up the first three weeks of player performances. Eden Hazard currently tops the ratings. 

On Wednesday I'll be looking at each team's xGF and xGA this season and comparing that to last season's records and this season relative results.

Wednesday 28 August 2013

GW2 Match Centre

These match reports are now done using the new data as described yesterday. I've not yet got the technical stuff sorted out to quickly display the player ratings in a neat way so will just type out the key player's scores this time around. For a more visual experience I advise you to open up GW2 Player Ratings in a new window and use the search box to view each team's player ratings.

As a quick reminder xG (xGoals = Expected Goals) is a totting up of each team's shots and likelihood of a goal based on shot position, assist type, whether it was header or not, and situation. From this individual player xG and xA (xAssist) can be worked out to determine their xPts. Currently this is attacking points only, no appearance points or bonus points.

Fulham 1.0 - 2.4 Arsenal
Fulham tried to attack but just haven't got the quality or team right yet with new signings in key positions although Darren Bent got straight into the danger zones when he came on. Walcott had several good chances. Cazorla's shooting was mostly limited to long-range efforts. Giroud looks good for a 1 goal in 2 games kind of season.

Top Attack Ratings (xPts)
Fulham::Bent (1.5), Taarabt (0.9), Berbatov (0.6)
Arsenal: Walcott (5.1), Cazorla (2.1), Giroud (1.9), Ramsey (1.8)

Aston Villa 0.9 - 0.6 Liverpool
Liverpool got it away with a little here but Rodgers got his tactics right to limit Aston Villa's chances. They wanted a clean sheet and got one, Villa are much better as we've seen on the counter-attack, When  asked to break a team like Liverpool down they lack a real midfield schemer. Benteke is always good for a goal though as is Sturridge. these twos don't need many chances.

Top Attack Ratings (xPts)
Aston Villa: Benteke (1.1)
Liverpool: Enrique (1.4), Sturridge (1.4)

Everton 1.7 - 0.5 WBA
1.7 xG is just the average a home side should get against an average away defence so this is a failed opportunity here for Everton to show they can compete amongst the heights of Premier League goal-scoring. Either that or WBA can defend as well as Chelsea. That Fellaini tops Everton's xPts is an indication of how packed the Baggies penalty box was.

Top Attack Ratings (xPts)
Everton: Fellaini (2.3) Barkley (1.7), Mirallas (1.3)
WBA: Morrison (1.2), Long (1.1)

Cardiff 1.5 - 2.0 Man City
The weekend' highlight and a high scoring game with plenty of chances for both teams, Cardiff equipped themselves really well and if they can match this performance again this week against Everton their attacking players may warrant some interest. This may be a case of complacency for Pellegrini though who had his first taste of how not to defend defending from set pieces in the English game

Top Attack Ratings (xPts)
Cardiff: Campbell (4.2), Gunnarsson (2.4), Kim (1.1)
Man City: Silva (2.9), Aguero (2.0) Zabaleta (2.0)

Man Utd 1.2 - 0.4 Chelsea
Mourinho set out to stifle and suffocate and managed it with some ease. A real lack of ambition shown going forward for Chelsea should pretty much provide you with Mourinho's intentions this season. He'd be happy winning every game 1-0 and the high cost of players like Hazard will take a dip if he keeps the shackles on. Moyes has to considered be in the same boat though. He's more caution than cavalier.

Top Attack Ratings (xPts)
Man Utd: Rooney (2.1), Van Persie (1.5), Welbeck (1.2)
Chelsea:: Oscar (0.8), Ivanovic (0.8)

Newcastle 1.1 - 0.6 West Ham
Pretty much business as usual for these two team this season. A game of limited chances with plenty of set pieces played into packed penalty boxes. At least Newcaslte showed they can keep a clean sheet which was important for them.  

Top Attack Ratings (xPts)
Newcastle: Goufrfran (1.7), Marveauz (1.6)
West HamL Morrison (1.3), Nolan (0.7)

Hull 0.4 - 0.6 Norwich
Another game lacking any attacking quality and decided by a penalty goal and shaped by an early red card for Hull. Getting a clean sheet with 10 men and keeping the xG down to deserve it is very impressive. Norwich's new addition's up front do not look like they'll change the Canaries attacking returns away from home.

Top Attack Ratings (xPts)
Hull: Livermore 0.6), Brady (0.6)
Norwich:: Howson (0.8), van Wolfswinkel (0.8)

Stoke 1.5 - 0.9 Crystal Palace
Stoke look like they will go at least go for games this season and Crouch and Adam look half-decent fantasy options at £6m. It's hard to judge Palace yet based on two difficult games but relying on any of their players for your team looks difficult to do.

Top Attack Ratings (xPts)
Stoke: Walters (2.8) Crouch (2.6), Adam (1.7)
Palace: Chamakh (1.0), Moxey (0.9)

Southampton 1.2 - 0.6 Sunderland
Another interesting game in judging the prospects of two teams who are in a state of transition going into this new season. Southampton's attack will have to do a lot better than this if players like Lallana are going to get on our radar. Lambert still looks central to the best parts of their attack. For Sunderland it's too early to write off Johnson or Giaccherini yet but their £7m price tags will be hard to justify.

Top Attack Ratings (xPts) (xPts)
Southamptn: Lambert (2.6), Rodgriguez (1.6)
Sunderland: Dong-Won (1.4), Johnson (0.9), Giaccherini (0.9)

Tottenham 1.6 - 0.4 Swansea
Laudrup's mentality here was similar to other away managers this weekend. Try and get a clean sheet. Swansea did their usual job of preventing any chance of real quality, denying Soldado in particular and allowing Spur's less clinical midfielders the lion share of chances. . Spurs's new-look midfield did look strong defensively but with the Swan's lack of ambition going forward the jury is still out. The Emirate will be a real test.

Top Attack Ratings (xPts)
Spurs: Paulinho (3.7), Dembele (1.8), Chadli (1.6)
Swansea: : Chico (1.0), Shelvey (0.9)








Tuesday 27 August 2013

New Fantasy Football Stats (Primus Inter Pares)


What Alan Shearer Says
I was watching Match of the Day on the opening day of the season and they flashed up a graphic for Alan Shearer to talk about it.  The graphic contained stats for Daniel Sturridge and Coutinho's excellent performances at the end of last season. As well as Appearances, Goals and Assists they talked about shots on target.

This time last year they wouldn't have done this but over the subsequent twelve months underlying data like shots on target has slowly crept into the mainstream game as a meaningful stat to indicate what's going on under the bonnet of a football match.  I'm obviously pleased to see this, because it is important, but I am now ready to take it on a level or two.

Not All Shots Are Equal
Spending so much time looking at shots on target, comparing these against other shot data (like total shots, shots in box) and evaluating them against actual goals and, more importantly for us, fantasy football points I've become fully aware of the limitations. My FSCORE metric and Point Projections last season were predominately based on team's and player's shots on target.  I discussed the limitations  in this post, identifying a crop of important fantasy football players where the model just didn't fit. 

I've spent the summer months researching new data sources and am pleased to be able to vastly increase the quality of the data. Instead of looking at just shot totals, whether on target or not, or in the box or not I will now be incorporating the following:
  • Shot Zone: 6 yard box, central penalty box, side of penalty box, outside of box
  • Assist Type - attempt from a cross or pass
  • Attempt Type - Header or Shot (with foot)
  • Situation - Set Piece of Open Play
I have to again bow to 11tegen11 for his initial analysis of this earlier this summer. Shot Zone is the most important of these. It's common sense. The closer you are to the goal, the better the chance you have of hitting the target and scoring a goal. Shot Zone's is the most important single improvement to the model this season but the other factors should not be overlooked. 

For headed attempts the chance of scoring in the 6 yard box is relatively very good but the conversion rate for headers drops more quickly further from goal than it does for regular shots (with a foot that is). Similarly for set pieces, if the resultant shot or header is not close to the goal it's harder to score than it is for a shot from open play from a similar position.

Here's a table of just some of the most important "shot criteria":

Shot Criteria Typical
Conversion
Rate
Any shot or header in the 6 yard box (Zone A) 35-50%
Shot from a pass in open play from central penalty box (Zone B) 25%
Shot from a set piece in 6 yard box or central penalty box 25%
Header from a cross into 6 yard box (open play) 18%
Header from a set piece in 6 yard box or central penalty box 15%
Shot from a cross in open play from central penalty box 10%
Shot from either side of penalty box (open play) (Zone C) 10%
Header from centre of penalty box (from a cross) 9%
Shots from outside the box (Zone D) 5%

Using the Model
Once the data is collated I add up each team's and player's shots to give an expected Goals value (xGoals)and an expected assists value (xAssist) and then combine both of these with the point scoring rules in FPL to determine expected points (xPts). You can see this in action already over at InsideFPL. I'll be doing weekly team and player ratings using xG for Teams and xPts for Players. 

xG and xA will also contribute significantly for improving the Player Point Projections. Assists will be much better modelled. Knowing whether a player is creating good chances or not is something that simply counting key passes cannot tell you. Leighton Baines is a great example of this. He racks up lots of key passes every match but looking closer at this new data you can see most of his crosses result in headers in shot zone B (9% conversion). Compare this to Theo Walcott who doesn't create half as many key passes but when he does they typically result in shots in the 6 yard box (35% conversion). 

There's also real super potential in drilling deeper into the type of shots a team creates or concedes, and then using this to determine what type of shots are most likely in any given fixture and which players will likely get these chances. 

There's a tonne more I could waffle about but this is it for now (like what is Zone BD?). I'll be doing Match Centre for GW1 and GW2 very shortly using this data and as mentioned you can take a look at Player Ratings (xG, xA, xPts) for GW2 over at InsideFPL.

Friday 23 August 2013

GW2 Captain Rankings

Gameweek One was fun, right? Quite a drawn out affair for my own team, hanging on to hopes that Luakau would do something. Quickly moving on then.

The captain pick this week is not straightforward with no "gimme" games. I expect Everton to score the most goals this weekend of any team and Jelavic looks sharp and central to the attacking setup at Goodison.  Van Persie's place at the top of the rankings this week is a reflection of his and Manchester United's indomitable record at Old Trafford. Chelsea look a little vulnerable and not yet the defensive monsters they were under Mourinho last decade.

Arsenal are an enigma. They were unlucky not to score more against Villa last week but still looked way off the pace, but then go and put Fenerbace to the sword. A lot depends on Fulham and how they approach this game.

Spurs are heavily fancied and Soldado leads captain polls on various sites. On what evidence I ask?! I'm not personally into the new look Spurs yet. They'll have to do a lot more than they did against Palace. 

I am probably going to captain Van Persie. If I have a moment of madness I'll pick Sturridge instead. If I could take a free punt it would be on Jelavic.

Friday 16 August 2013

GW1 Captain Rankings

Phew. Thought I wouldn't make it. If you didn't know already I've joined up with InsideFPL.com for this season and have been blogging there (here) for the last few weeks. Please follow me over, we're working on some great stuff!

But here are the Point Projections / Captain Rankings for GW1! Chelsea's double gameweek pretty much makes ranking the non-chelsea players difficult but you can filter the data easily to see how players like Walcott and Van Persie might do.  Also note that this list includes all players so you may see some odd names in there. Right click and 'Exclude' to hide them

I'm pretty sure Hazard (C) is the one this weekend. Hands up if you're going to captain Lukaku instead? 

I haven't finished my own team yet but the core is in place. I'll have more on that next week. 

So, see you soon and good luck this weekend.


Thursday 15 August 2013

Fantasy Premier Pre-Season Guide [Winners]

Thank you all for the response to the giveaway post on Monday. I never knew I had so many people following along. To be honest, it's hard to tell from the other side of the computer screen.

Here are the winners of Monday's giveaway. This "competition" was run on Twitter as well as mentioned, so I picked the 5 winners at random from the 100 or so people that entered.
  • Jody Sanham  
  • Stu
  • legriff
  • Ervin Ang (@DieHardCFCFan)
  • Crossbar
I've contacted the winners from Twitter direct 'cos I can do that there. For Stu, legriff and Crossbar please email me at shots_on_target@hotmail.co.uk and I'll send you the details on how to claim your copy. Well done! In case of attempted fraud I've taken a note of your blogger profile IDs so will be able to sort any funny business out should it come to that.

For those who've missed out and who would still like a copy of this guide I've also got a 20% discount code 'SOTFRIENDS' (without the apostrophe). You can use this code to get a discount on any of the packs InsideFPL have. Take a look.





Tuesday 13 August 2013

Fantasy Premier Pre-Season Guide - Free Giveaway

I've got 5 free copies of InsideFPL's Pre-Season Guide to give-away. I played a major part in putting this guide together, it's full of ace strategy and analysis, point profiles and projections for every player in the game, recommended picks, suggested GW1 teams and much more. I have been pretty much referring to this guide myself to put my own team together.

For a chance to win a free copy simply leave a comment on this post.

You can also a 20% discount by entering the coupon code SOTFRIENDS. Take a closer look at all the guide has to offer over on at InsideFPL.com . Winners will be announced tomorrow.

PS - I'm running this same give-away on Twitter today and if you have an account there you'll be able to enter twice @shots_on_target

Friday 2 August 2013

Pre-Season Guide [by InsideFPL]


I've been working a lot with InsideFPL and we're very proud to announce the imminent release of our Pre-Season Guide for Fantasy Premier League 2013/14. It's quite special, even if we say so ourselves.We appreciate doing well in fantasy football is not just all about picking players, it's about playing the game too

As well as a comprehensive review of players the guide is also packed full of exclusive strategy and analysis, including a statistical evaluation of form vs. fixtures, a breakdown of point-scoring across several seasons, an introduction to game theory and much, much more. You'll also get team by team breakdowns with stats, profiles and point projections for every player in the game.

The Pre-Season Guide is scheduled for release next week, 6th August.  You can follow this link for a closer look and to receive a 30% 'Pre-Order' discount.

Here's more on what's inside:

Team and Player In-Depth Analysis
Profiles for every team and every player including analysis of last season's points and orecast points for this season using our powerful prediction engine

The Best Teams
3 complete and optimised FPL teams for GW1 complete with transfer strategy plus our own team and thoughts for the new season.

Exclusive Strategy
Strategies to manage your team through all 38 gameweeks, including transfers and wildcards, your budget and team value and sound decision making

Is This for You?
The guide contains everything you need. Whether you are a new player who wants to some simple and concise advice, an experienced pro looking for some thought-provoking analysis, or you just want that extra edge to win your money league.

Early Bird Offer : 30% Discount
Follow this link to register your interest, check out a free sample, and claim a 30% discount. Get a free sample chapter

Monday 15 July 2013

FSCORE (more analysis)

Following suggestions from a couple of wise readers this post is going to deconstruct F.SCORE some more, to see how it's accuracy varies when modelling FPL points based only on a player's statistical performances, by

  • GW range through the season - do stats paint a better picture of FPL points midseason? (thanks to Lucien for the suggestion)
  • FPL Points scored - how do stats explain points scored between high vs. low scoring players? (thanks to 2ndMan)
  • FPL Points vs FSCORE vs Team
There's also the small matter of the OMGFPLPRICELIST is released!  If you hadn't figured by now, I am blogging at InsideFPL which is a place for much more direct fantasy football content, the answers so to speak. This site will remain where the questions get asked ;) So please do check out InsideFPL for more from me. 

I'll have more of what the future holds soon enough but for now back to the hardcore stats!

F.SCORE vs Actual Points Through the Season
I've plotted Points Scored / 6GW and FSCORE / 6GW through the season to see how the model varies at different stages.


6 week rolling avg. 

At the start of the season FSCORE and Points hold pretty well but then actual points scored goes up quite suddenly around GW13-15 until GW27ish when it drops right down below.  In other words teams/players score goals at an expected rate per shot (etc.) at the season starts, mid-season they score more goals per shot, and then start missing loads at the end of the season.

Needs a fair bit more investigation this one!


F.SCORE vs Actual Points by Overall Points Scored
Points 0-75  R=0.90

Points 75-210   R=0.83

It's quite easy to see the correlation gets worse the higher the points scored, but thankfully not horrifically so.  There's definitely an unacceptable spread as pointed out in my last post at the 150pts mark.  I suggested last time that this could be due to Game State and Shot Zones but assists from set pieces or penalties will also factor heavily I think. 

F.SCORE vs FPL Points by Team
I observed last time that this spread featured players like Mata, Hazard and Tevez over-achieving their stats (above the line) and the likes of Jelavic and Cisse under the line, and hastily assumed that this was because the above-the-line lot were from freer-scoring teams.

In retrospect, this assumption needs testing and in truth I just went head-over-heels to take a closer look at Game State following 11Tegen11's own analysis. Back-tracking some then, let's take a look at how total F.SCORE for team's compare with their total FPL points..

For FWD & MIDS - FPL TAEM Points vs. FSCORE

This is pleasing and backs up the assumption that "truly better" clubs tend to turn their     chances (a.k.a. stats/FSCORE) into goals and FPL points.  Sunderland's little leap from the line needs to be checked out!

CONCLUSIONS
Firstly, quick-posts-before-bed seem to turn into epics! In general the correlations are still very strong between underlying player or now team stats and FPL points scored. There are significant variances from club to club (or elite club's players vs. non-elite)  and at different stages of the season and the aim of further analysis is to determine the data-driven factors that cause these variances and build that into FSCORE and Points Projections.
  • The FSCORE model works better for low-scoring players than high scoring ones.
  • At season start teams score goals and convert shots to point at closest to expected rate
  • Mid-Season they score more
  • End Season they score less
  • Players in teams who 'score for fun' (Utd) generally convert chances at a better rate than those who can be consider high scorers but easily "frustrated" (e.g. Liverpool)






Friday 28 June 2013

More evalutation of FSCORE vs. FPL points

A few weeks ago I presented the top ranked players from 2012/13 according to my fantasy football performance index, FSCORE.  

In this post I'm going to take that a little further and look some of the players that performed to model and those that performed above or below their straight-up statistical performances and try and fathom the difference. In a later post I will also follow up on excellent suggestion by Lucien Gan* and see which periods of the season yield the best results to the model.

* - Lucien's blog "Transfer History Analysis" is a great read for FPL managers

Overall Correlation with FSCORE and Points
The graph below shows the XY plot for all the Premier League players this season.  The correlation value (R) is 0.952 and R-squared is 0.907.



If defenders are removed from the sample this relationship improves to R= 0.96 R-squared=0.92 which is as I expected. Modelling the probability of a team/player securing a clean sheet needs a few more years of head-scratching that I've not yet undertaken :)

All in all, this demonstrates that there is a extremely positive relationship relationship between a players underlying statistical performance, shots,SoT, etc - and the amount of points he'll score in FPL.  Remember that FSCORE does not take actual goals, assists or points scored into account. FPL points and FSCORE are distinct.

We pretty much knew this already but I am impressed with the strength of it.  Early last season I looked at and found strong correlations between FPL points and individual attacking stats, particulary shots on target, which of course is what led me to aggregate the individual metrics into FSCORE (and give this blog it's name!)

I Walk The Line
This being said though, and as can be seen by the graph above, there are certainly players who well outperform the model (above the line), and those that under-perform (below the line).

Below I've highlighted a group of  players who interest me the most. They all are starting to register decent points so will be of relevance to FPL managers, but have a pretty big and unfavourable spread in terms of FSCORE. 

It's the players who are  furthest from the line that we're interested in and these are:

FSCORE FPL PTS Model Variance
Mata MID CHE 160 212 +25%
Hazard (Eden) MID CHE 154 190 +19%
Tevez FWD MCI 155 169 +8%
Walters MID STO 159 141 -12%
Koné FWD WIG 159 140 -14%
Vertonghen DEF TOT 160 136 --18%
Agger DEF LIV 162 134 -21%
Defoe FWD TOT 156 124 -26%
Osman MID EVE 154 122 -26%
Huth DEF STO 157 112 -40%
Cissé FWD NEW 159 113 -40%
Jelavic FWD EVE 158 99 -59%

The immediate thing to strike me is that the two players to stand with their head and shoulders above the others are both from Chelsea, a top team, and the next best is Tevez, whose also from a top team.  

I could get down and dirty in the numbers but will make a small leap-of-faith assumption that we all do already and that is players in better teams (note - not better players) get higher quality chances and therefore score more goals, assists and FPL points. 

Shot Zones and Goal States
Why do players in better teams score more then? I have been following recent posts by 11tegen11 about Shot Zones and Goal States and I think these are the data-driven answer to the variance in the model.. 

Shot Zone is where on the pitch shots are taken from. This is actually built into FSCORE already, distinguishing between whether they are taken inside or outside the penalty box, but more can be done. Goal State regards the current scoreline in a game, whether it's an edgy 0-0 or a team are rampaging 5-0, and how a teams' likelihood to convert chances changes significantly with the state of the game. 

Over the summer I'll be developing FSCORE and the Point Projections to incorporate both these factors. I think they will improve the reliability and accuracy considerably and am dead excited about it :)

11tegen11 - Analysis of Dutch Football




Wednesday 19 June 2013

Opening Fixture Preview

InsideFPL have done a nice preview of the opening 6 gameweeks. Click here or click the preview image below to check it out.


InsideFPL 6GW PREVIEW







Thursday 23 May 2013

Final F.SCORE Rankings

Below are the final player rankings using the F.SCORE metric - determined on underlying statistics only, mostly shot data, and not counting actual goals scored or assists at all.

Through the season these rankings were done on an average basis, as long as the player had featured in half of the available minutes. For the end of season rankings though I've done both the average score, and cumulative.

First the rankings by average F.SCORE per game.



And now cumulatively over the season...


F.SCORE/10 FPL PTS
Suárez 259 212
Bale 246 249
van Persie 232 262
Cazorla 201 205
Michu of  200 190
Ba 190 153
Benteke 183 166
Lambert 181 187
Nolan 180 149
Fellaini 179 167
Gerrard 179 185
Giroud 172 121
Walcott 170 194
Lukaku 169 159
Snodgrass 160 152
Mata 160 212
Koné 159 140
Walters 159 141
Cissé 159 113
Berbatov 157 163


F.SCORE this season has a correlation with FPL points of 0.963* which makes it an excellent indicator when wanting to know which players are scoring points for a reason and which just get lucky for a few games. Remember it's based on underlying stats only (the process) and the actual game points count results only (the output of the process). In a post next week I'll go over some of the highs and lows of the FSCORE model this season and which players over or underperformed the stats model.

* - deserved to be in a big bold font :)