No, I’m not talking about the best places in the US for bird hunting. I’m talking about score differentials. As a Chelsea supporter, there are things I notice, and one of those things I notice is that we don’t seem to spend nearly enough time ahead in our matches. Now, to be frank, we do spend a lot of time ahead. We are still in 6th place, after all, it’s not like we’ve become a relegation or even mid-table side (yet). It’s just that we need to spend more time winning.
A lot of folks this season love to point out our “two worst wins in like forever” as a standard for the status of our season. But the reality is the extreme differential in the scoreline of those two is more anomaly than statement. It’s like getting a bad paper cut. It stings, and might even make you tear up depending on the cut, but afterward you just shrug it off and move on. At least most folks do. Some, like those mentioned above, love to revel in it, almost as if pigs to mud, in their desire to I suppose slag our current manager.
The funny thing about this is that there are plenty of reasons to do so at this point in the season, and those two matches really aren’t even relevant enough to climb near the top of the list. I will, however, address in a more generic manner how we’ve done this season in terms of differentials. Because honestly, unless we are tied on points and it comes down to the season’s differential tally, losing 3-0, 4-0, 5-0, 6-1, who cares. All of them are big losses and embarrassing in their own way.
Differentials – How Do We Categorize This?
The easiest way to track score differentials into buckets is this:
- Goal Differential is more than +1 – Denoted GD > +1
- Goal Differential is +1 – Demoted GD +1
- Goal Differential is 0 – Denoted GD 0
- Goal Differential is -1 – Demoted GD -1
- Goal Differential is more than -1 – Denoted GD < -1
Top clubs want to prioritize those top three buckets. This should be obvious. I mean, how do you win points? You minimize the time spent:
- Being behind – This leads to 0 points. Nasty.
- Being tied – This leads to 1 point. Still pretty nasty.
- Being up by one goal – This can lead to #2 by conceding a goal. Dangerous.
Sounds simple enough, right? For the big clubs it is. Below is a table showing the minutes breakdown as a percentage of total for each of the top 12 PL clubs this season so far, with the above category buckets in place:
I have the teams listed in table place order, so you can see some obvious trends. For one, the amount of time spent at Game State “GD < -1” gets progressively worse as you go down the list, and notice the big drop first after Spurs at 3rd, then Arsenal at 4th. Manchester United and Chelsea are both definitely in the “bottom half of the top of the table” in this area, that’s definite.
Additionally, that “GD -1” Game State is massively worse beyond the Top 2 of Liverpool and Manchester City. One other brief point I want to mention is that farthest right one, the “GD > +1”. Notice how the five clubs above Chelsea are all in double digits. This is probably what is setting us apart the most right now as a club, and putting us in the 6th spot, even though we are yes, only one point out of third, somehow.
Remember those three points I mentioned above? We are spending over 90% of our game time at risk of only getting one point or less. We simply as a club aren’t winning by large margins. If you look at even just the final scores, you will see that of the 31 matches we’ve played, only 10 matches have a +2 or higher final differential.
Of the other Top 6 clubs, we surprisingly aren’t the worst in this though.
As you can see above, here’s how each club fares:
- Liverpool – 15 matches +2 or higher
- Man City – 19 matches +2 or higher
- Spurs – 10 matches +2 or higher
- Arsenal – 12 matches +2 or higher
- Man Utd – 8 matches +2 or higher
- Chelsea – 10 matches +2 or higher
This is why all four of Spurs, Arsenal, Man United and Chelsea are within a point of each other right now, Arsenal of course with a game in hand still.
I’ll reiterate, it’s those three items above on winning points. And they definitely play out. The worst teams lose too many matches. As teams get better, they start minimizing the losses, but draw too many matches. Still not enough points. The better teams stop drawing so much, but they win a lot of matches by a single goal, which is simply too risky (unless you are 2004/05 Chelsea, and can dominate defensively). The best teams start maximizing their wins by 2 or more goals.
And it should be pointed out, this serves so many goals:
- When you are up 2 or more goals, you can rest starters
- In the same vein, you can rotate in your bench and youth more
- The earlier you are up 2 or more goals, the more in control of the match, and the more able to rest a bit for the remainder, and not have to wear yourselves out
- If you are capable of winning by large margins, you can risk starting bench/youth players against bottom-table sides with less concern over the result
- You can focus on Champions League matches more easily
- Your bench and youth can play more cup minutes, as they are getting more match time overall, which benefits in both directions.
- This should seem obvious, but being good like this helps draw better players during transfer windows, and allowing the cycle to continue
So to my point up near the top, those two losses, the one by 6 and the one by 4, while sure, they sting, and it sucks, what hurts more in my eyes are the 5 other losses we had, and the 6 draws we’ve had. Those 11 matches are worth 27 points. The other two are worth 6. And let’s be honest, it could always be worse. We could be Spurs. Seven losses by a single goal. At least they finally broke their draw-duck.
