Stats

[Tommykins]

This thread may well only be frequented by those of us who think that football statistics are in the least bit relevant. 

 

Firstly, a bit of background, in more recent times there has been a large evolution in the statistical approach to professional football, a long time favourite of american sports, we've seen the beginning of  soccer-metrics. Now this might have one time been only the domain of either big statistics companies, or someone with way too much time on their hands, however the recent advent of FourFourTwo Stats zone (http://www.fourfourtwo.com/statszone/fixtures/214-2013) for the A-League allows for some really interesting insights into how teams play, where teams are most effective and where they tend to struggle. If you're interested, there's a couple of books which go into some serious detail on the subject Soccernomics by Stefan Szymanski and The Numbers Game by Chris Anderson and David Sally are just two of a a recent spate of books coming out on the topic.

 

Anyways, a recent look at how Melbourne Heart played on the weekend against Western Sydney. Its easy (and correct) to say that we were lucky to escape with a draw by looking at the rawest of statistics (shots, posession, passes in attacking half) however there are some much more damming stats. Firstly, the always helpful player influence bar, which tells you where players are most active (location on the pitch) while the size of their name indicates the amount of influence they had on the game (passes - completed and attempted, as well as other statistics).

 

 
 

Even this small snapshot is a fair critique of Hearts season, the areas that the Heart are influencing are very deep (admittedly against a very good WSW team), however a quick look at the Western Sydney image shows you everything that is wrong with our game plan, Ono, Hersi and Mooy influence the game some 20-40 yards further up the pitch compared to their Melbourne Heart counterparts, allowing for the creation of much more attacking and dangerous play.

 

It is also worth looking at the dreaded long ball statistic from Melbourne Heart, the raw data isn't good, only 15 of 61 (a touch under 25%) of passes deemed long were completed (around twice as many as last week against Adelaide, at a lower success rate). But this doesn't tell the whole story, we've often criticised the need to play long balls from the back line (its worth noting that some of these passes aren't so much passes, as clearing balls, this isn't accounted for, but is deemed not to have hugely skewed the data.) we played 37 balls out from our defensive third, of which 7 were successful (which is under 1 in 5 passes leading to a completion), to call this ordinary is being kind.

 

The last thing I'll leave you with is shot location. If you look at where Melbourne Heart is creating their chances from, you can see why we're not only scoring rarely, but needing an awful lot of shots to do so. For this, we'll imagine that you stretch the edges of the 6 yard box outwards to create a central corridor for your pitch, you'd expect (and hope) that most of your chances are being created in this region, however in Melbourne Hearts case, only one of the seven shots they took this week came from within this corridor.

 

 

 

Western Sydney had 21 shots from within this same corridor. 

 

 

And while this certainly isn't the only defining factor in a shots success, there are certainly ways to make it easier for yourself, by moving to acute angles, you're starting off at a serious disadvantage. So next time Robbie Slater tells you that Melbourne Heart has taken around the same amount of shots as Sydney FC, tell him to dig a little deeper.

[ThePolo]

Different aspect to look at the game, would be interesting to compare each season against eachother and see if there's a trend

[Murfy1]

Great idea for a thread.

 

You have to wonder what Aloisi and co see, given how the stats so clearly show that our passing is ineffective, and the chances we create and the shots we take are poor.

 

 IMO we've only scored 2 well constructed goals this season, out of the scant 7 goals we've scored. The first was Williams second goals against CCM, and the second was Migliorini's second goal against Adelaide. The things that catches my eye with both of those goals is how many players we have in the final third, and the fact that those players in the finals third are making good runs. With Migliorini's second goal, we impressively had Behich advanced to the final third to cut the ball back for Migliorini, whilst Mifsud and Golgol were both making good runs off the ball in the box (and Ramsay might have been as well).

Something as simple as getting players into the final third makes a big difference, and as the player influence bars show above, our opponents do it often and effective against us, whereas few of our players seem to rarely venture into the final third at all.

[Tommykins]

Melbourne Heart should have comfortably won on the weekend

 

Take that in for a minute, as I'm fairly sure that is the first time this year that this is the case. The first thing to take into account is shots, while last week we briefly touched on the location of shots as a good indication of how successful a shot is likely to be and that Melbourne Heart was ordinary in this regard. This week was the polar opposite, Sydney took 2 goals very well, but the stat sheet otherwise reads very well for Melbourne Heart.

 

 

This is both heartening and soul destroying news for Melbourne Heart, they kept shots to a minimum, they kept them to distance, they kept them out wide and still coughed up two goals, the saying that when things are going wrong, they really go wrong seems to be very apt here. The two goals come down to a ridiculous mix up between Migliorini and Murdocca and one that Redmayne will feel he should have saved. The Melbourne Heart shot graphic however, shows something to be hopeful about. 

 

 

Those blue lines? That would be on target shots that were saved, so it seems that Melbourne Heart came up against a keeper at the top of his game, which is something that will be no solace to any supporter, player or administrator involved with the club. However, its worth remembering, that a performance of this quality wins more games then it loses, as much as WSW can feel aggrieved to not have taken home the 3 points last week, as can Melbourne Heart this week, and we're talking about an away game. Yikes.

 

Your Mate.

 

Mate Duganzic has had a bit of a rough trot this season and has been (rightly or wrongly) coping it from the fans. However his cameo off the bench was arguably the bright spot of the game, his mazy runs on the right flank were a highlight of years gone past, and he used to be the one player that could be relied upon to create good chances from the wides areas of the pitch. Much to the delight of many fans, he created 5 chances last week, one of which was the assist for Mifsud (not the greatest assist you'll ever see, but an assist none the less) 

 

 

Where yellow indicates an assist and light blue indicates a chance created. This is fantastic news and the first time that we've had a wing player truly influence a game in a positive fashion, more of this please, Mate.

 

More to chew on

 

This was also the first time that Melbourne Heart made less clearances then their opponent for the year (which could easily be read as the frailty of the Sydney FC defence), created more chances, our pass completion in the final third of the pitch was above 65+, more then half of our passes were forward. And while you'd rather win ugly, then lose well, there is at least some light at the end of the tunnel for Melbourne Heart if this keeps up.

 

Right of way

 

After trawling through the statistics for Melbourne Heart, there is a really worrying trend which emerges around 2/3 to 3/4 of the shots Melbourne Heart concedes are from the right hand side of the our defensive unit, given the debacle that has been selection at right back this year, this isn't overly surprising, but not something that you'd want to continue. 

Edited December 16, 2013 by Tommykins

[jw1739]

 

Right of way

 

After trawling through the statistics for Melbourne Heart, there is a really worrying trend which emerges around 2/3 to 3/4 of the shots Melbourne Heart concedes are from the right hand side of the pitch, given the debacle that has been selection at right back this year, this isn't overly surprising, but not something that you'd want to continue. 

Presumably they mean our right-hand side? The way it reads at first glance is that it's our LB position that is the issue. 

[Tommykins]

Yep, good pick up JW, will fix.

[Murfy1]

An impressive article/blog that statistically shows how we've been travelling under Aloisi: http://galbertson.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/melbourne-heart-and-john-aloisi/

[jw1739]

An impressive article/blog that statistically shows how we've been travelling under Aloisi: http://galbertson.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/melbourne-heart-and-john-aloisi/

This article confirms statistically what we have all felt intuitively for a long time. It shows that Aloisi's game-plan is fatally flawed, both in terms of attack and defence.

 

To quote the conclusion:

 

'My conclusion – It is time for Melbourne Heart to part ways with John Aloisi. They have the worst ratio in the league for shots on target and shots inside the box, the eighth worst for total shots, have recorded the fewest shots on target and are the worst side at converting their shots into shots on target.

They may not concede the most shots or shots on target but this matters little when they create so few chances themselves and when they rank last at saving shots on target. This is largely down to the fact that they also allow more shots from inside their penalty box than any other side and allow the largest percentage of the shots they concede to be from the same area.

Aloisi has had thirty-seven games and two six month pre-seasons to shape his squad and instil his game plan. Sadly, he has failed to do this successfully.'

[Red or Dead]

 

An impressive article/blog that statistically shows how we've been travelling under Aloisi: http://galbertson.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/melbourne-heart-and-john-aloisi/

This article confirms statistically what we have all felt intuitively for a long time. It shows that Aloisi's game-plan is fatally flawed, both in terms of attack and defence.

 

To quote the conclusion:

 

'My conclusion – It is time for Melbourne Heart to part ways with John Aloisi. They have the worst ratio in the league for shots on target and shots inside the box, the eighth worst for total shots, have recorded the fewest shots on target and are the worst side at converting their shots into shots on target.

They may not concede the most shots or shots on target but this matters little when they create so few chances themselves and when they rank last at saving shots on target. This is largely down to the fact that they also allow more shots from inside their penalty box than any other side and allow the largest percentage of the shots they concede to be from the same area.

Aloisi has had thirty-seven games and two six month pre-seasons to shape his squad and instil his game plan. Sadly, he has failed to do this successfully.'

 

#AloisiOut

[KSK_47]

Unlucky

[belaguttman]

He doesn't say anything about the hot weather or the cold weather

[Red or Dead]

He doesn't say anything about the hot weather or the cold weather

Maybe our players need some advice from Cristiano Ronaldo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF5Mr9uRLco