SebastianBlue
President, International Julian Alvarez Fan Club
- Joined
- 25 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 51,602
Sky Sports has just posted Adam Bate's brief statistical analysis of our defensive performance thus far in light of the result against Monaco. Whilst it is likely not as positive as some may like I am always interested in these articles which provide metrics that are normally behind Opta's paywall (i.e. expected goals, errors leading to shots, and the like) as they are more useful for actually benchmarking performance and outcomes (assessing in a vacuum is a useless endeavour).
http://www.skysports.com/football/n...ot-the-issue-for-manchester-city8217s-defence
Bullet-point findings for those that would rather not give clicks to SSN:
Although the strong indication is that goalkeeping has been one of our main issues so far, it is also important to remember that this does not analyse (and there is no way to do it, anyway) if our attacking metrics would be negatively affected by having a goalkeeper with better shot stopping ability but lesser distribution skills (i.e. if our conceeded goals would go down but our forced goals would also drop, leaving us in a similar position). There would also be an argument to be made that expected goals and conceeded goals might actually rise in that scenario as we would likely have more trouble controlling possession and thus would invite more shots on goal.
I just thought this was worth sharing for discussion (or, really, affirmation for many). Feel free to merge if there is another thread with a similar focus.
http://www.skysports.com/football/n...ot-the-issue-for-manchester-city8217s-defence
Bullet-point findings for those that would rather not give clicks to SSN:
- Our expected goals (based on position of shot relative to goal) in the league thus far is 19 (same as Chelsea), whilst our actual conceeded goals is 29—this suggests that our defensive setup is actually sound but individual player performances have let us down
- Our errors leading to shots (9) is actually lower than all of the other top six clubs bar United (exactly half of Spurs' total of 18)—this suggests that our system (and defenders) is not more error prone on the whole (as some believe), we are just punished more efficiently for our mistakes (which also suggests there is non-anecdotal evidence for the goalkeeping issues we have all discussed at length)
- Our save percentage of 59.2% is the lowest of the current top six, with Spurs having the highest at 76.9%—again, this suggests that goalkeeping has in fact been one of our main weaknesses this season
Although the strong indication is that goalkeeping has been one of our main issues so far, it is also important to remember that this does not analyse (and there is no way to do it, anyway) if our attacking metrics would be negatively affected by having a goalkeeper with better shot stopping ability but lesser distribution skills (i.e. if our conceeded goals would go down but our forced goals would also drop, leaving us in a similar position). There would also be an argument to be made that expected goals and conceeded goals might actually rise in that scenario as we would likely have more trouble controlling possession and thus would invite more shots on goal.
I just thought this was worth sharing for discussion (or, really, affirmation for many). Feel free to merge if there is another thread with a similar focus.
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