I wanted to take a look at the shooting to goal efficiency in the PL last season, given the terrible job Chelsea did for where in my opinion they should have been. Thanks to Understat.com for the raw data, I gathered up the shooting and goal data for the 20 PL clubs in 2018-19, over the six individual time splits (15 min intervals).
Above is a static chart showing the breakdown. It’s sorted by the Overall shots per goal ratio, putting Liverpool up at the top. The thick bars are the Shots Per Goal, and the thin bars are the actual goals scored.
Here’s an interactive Tableau thingy, for those that want to actually see the numbers on the hover, and sort, etc.
Things I noticed that were interesting:
- Liverpool in the 76-90 minute period were simply insane. 24 goals and a 5.75 shots per goal clip… wow.
- Man City however, were the most impressive coming out of each half: 1-15 – 20G at 5.35, and 46-60 – 21G at 6.76.
- Chelsea were surprisingly good in the final period, too, with 18G at 6.61 shots per goal.
- Fulham…. lol. how do you score 2 goals at a 30.5 rate in the 16-30 period, then score 10 at an 8.3 rate in the 31-45? So bizarre.
- Or Leicester, right before the first half… what the heck? 3G at 27.67 rate? Simply unacceptable for a Top ten side.
- Watford in the 61-75… 16G at a 4.44 rate. WOW.
- Wolves and Palace in the 76-90… Wolves with 17G at 7.12 rate, and Palace with 15G at a 7.80 rate. Shows good effort to save some points from bad situations.
I haven’t pulled in any extra data, like possession numbers, but I’d not be surprised if that played a part. Pressing, fitness levels, etc. too. Teams with the ball more, forcing the opponent to defend more, will likely see better results at the end of halves, as tired defenders make mistakes. And teams playing a lot of vertical football, on the other hand, probably seeing worse results to end out the first half, especially, from all the sprinting to beat high lines, and aggressive play.
There’s no direct correlation to having the goal bar be longer than the shots per goal bar, I didn’t set it up that way, but it sure seems that if you aren’t outrunning it you weren’t very good last season. Things seem to work out that way, right?