I've gone to town on this tonight and built upon the analysis I did after the Spurs game, because I felt Shots on Target conversion rate was so important.
I've often spoken about the magic 40% shots on target conversion rate threshold, which I came to after analysing our results against shots on target conversion rate for the past season and a bit. I've now gone back over all 187 games under Pep Guardiola to see if there are any trends.
Cue exhibit A...
This shows a variety of stats over the three and a bit seasons of Pep. What we notice is that in 13 games so far this season we are actually having more shots per game, more goals per game and a higher conversion rate and shots on target conversion rate, above that 40% threshold. So everything should be swimming right? Well no, as we'll see later. The first alarm bell is the win % is significantly down from 18/19 and 17/18, and this season the opponents are having more shots on target than before, and their conversion rates are higher too, particularly compared to last season, but we need to delve deeper.
Exhibit B
This shows how often we achieve different "Shots on target conversion rate" brackets and our results against these. You can see, quite obviously really, just how much of a difference a higher conversion rate is. in fact, we have only lost 4 games and drawn 3 out of 91 where we achieve a "shots on target conversion rate" of 40% or above, in fact the record stands as thus:
Below 40%: Pld: 96, W: 52, D: 23, L: 21, Win %: 54.2%
40% and above: Pld: 91, W: 84, D: 3, L: 4, Win %: 92.3%
Why is this? Well naturally the better your conversion rate the more goals you score etc. but we'll explore this in more detail in Exhibit C. What you can also see for 19/20 is there is a split, in 5 games we have over 50% shots on target conversion rate, hence why we have recorded some big wins and this over 13 games has a big effect on our average conversion rate. However, we already have 7 games below 40% and 4 below 30%, and if you look at Exhibit D you'll see these are the games where we slip up.
Exhibit C
This shows all the stats from Exhibit A against the "Shots on Target Conversion Rate" brackets. There are several key points to note:
- Our shots per game and shots on target per game are remarkably consistent across all brackets, demonstrating that we tend to create a consistent number of chances, so it's not so much the number of chances that is the issue, but the conversion rate.
- Equally, the opposition's shots per game, shots on target per game and goals per game are all remarkably consistent, and their average conversion rate fluctuates between 20-35% but this doesn't correlate with our win %, again demonstrating that we get a spread of different opponents in each bracket so again the key to the results is our own conversion rate.
- We can see how markedly the win % changes against the conversion rate. There is a huge shift in win % once we push over the 40% threshold, we still record a majority of wins between 20-40% largely because in many of those games we are wasteful, but so clearly dominant that we restrict the opponent and keep clean sheets. However, we are far less secure there because we score fewer goals and therefore the 1 or 2 chances the opposition take become so much more important.
- As you can see, once we hit the 40% threshold we go over 3 goals per game, which correlates strongly with our win %, indicating that 3 is the "magic" target to hit in our games to all but guarantee a win. As we have seen this season 2 v Norwich and 2 v Spurs haven't been enough and 2 v Palace became a nervy game with Ederson needing to make a couple of excellent saves.
So onto exhibit D
This monster is every game played under Pep, ranked by Shots on Target conversion rate. You can see at the bottom of all the bad results, whilst up at the top we have the more memorable games. Some key findings:
- We have had 100% conversion rate on 2 occasions, our opponents have had 17 such instances. Not surprising given we have a lot more chances, but it's still high.
- Remarkably, in each of the 3 games we have dropped points in this season, the opposition have had 100% conversion rate. In each of those games, we had a conversion rate of under 30%.
- The only times we have dropped points above 50% conversion rate are the 2-2 draw away to Arsenal where we had just 3 shots on target, and the 4-3 defeat at Anfield where despite scoring from 3 out of 4 shots on target our defensive frailties that day cost us as we conceded 4.
I know a lot of it is self-explanatory but I think it shows just how important particular thresholds and levels of finishing are in determining our success this season. It is probably the most fundamental aspect and controllable variable we have to influence our results and there is a clear level beyond which we are near infallible. Thus, I think this really sums up that Pep is spot on in his assessment and that especially with Laporte out leaving us prone to the opposition having clearer chances on our goal and therefore a better conversion rate themselves in certain games, that we need to raise our game at the other end to compensate. Having Laporte and/or Kompany allows us to get away with conversion rates between 20-40% more often because we kept clean sheets and snuffed out chances, this season we simply can't afford to be because we don't have the protection.