As you may know from reading this blog, I've been digging through some of the Opta/Guardian Chalkboards data on shot and goal creation in the Premiership and I finally had the time to take a quick look at some of the season totals to update the numbers I reported at the half-season mark.
A quick caveat: the numbers are subject to the definitions of match situations used by Opta/Guardian Chalkboards, of course. When comparing match situations, this sometimes makes things tricky and is worth keeping in mind (but obviously it doesn't stop me from doing the data analyses). It also means that we're sometimes comparing apples and oranges when it comes to match situations - more on that in a few days.
Also, a quick benchmark: there were a record total of 1,063 goals this season. This translated into 1.4 goals per team and match (1.398684 to be exact), and thus 2.8 goals per match. I'll take a look a trends in scoring before too long, so stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, I wanted to see how these 1.4 goals per team and 2.8 goals per match were created.
For the record, below are the numbers of goals created from different match situations in the Premier League in the 2010/11 season, according to the Opta/Guardian data. Drum roll please ....
Clearly, as was already the case by the end of December, the vast majority of goals in the 2010/11 season were created from open play - in fact, at a rate of .936 per team/match. The remainder (about .46 per team and match, since 1.4-.94=.46) were generated from corners (.186), penalties (.108), fast breaks (.083), and free kicks (.036). Another way to think about these numbers that it took teams 1.07 matches to score a goal from open play, 5.38 matches to score one from a corner, 9.26 matches to score a goal from a penalty, 12.05 to score from a fast break, and 27.78 matches to score a goal from a free kick.
A quick caveat: the numbers are subject to the definitions of match situations used by Opta/Guardian Chalkboards, of course. When comparing match situations, this sometimes makes things tricky and is worth keeping in mind (but obviously it doesn't stop me from doing the data analyses). It also means that we're sometimes comparing apples and oranges when it comes to match situations - more on that in a few days.
Also, a quick benchmark: there were a record total of 1,063 goals this season. This translated into 1.4 goals per team and match (1.398684 to be exact), and thus 2.8 goals per match. I'll take a look a trends in scoring before too long, so stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, I wanted to see how these 1.4 goals per team and 2.8 goals per match were created.
For the record, below are the numbers of goals created from different match situations in the Premier League in the 2010/11 season, according to the Opta/Guardian data. Drum roll please ....
Clearly, as was already the case by the end of December, the vast majority of goals in the 2010/11 season were created from open play - in fact, at a rate of .936 per team/match. The remainder (about .46 per team and match, since 1.4-.94=.46) were generated from corners (.186), penalties (.108), fast breaks (.083), and free kicks (.036). Another way to think about these numbers that it took teams 1.07 matches to score a goal from open play, 5.38 matches to score one from a corner, 9.26 matches to score a goal from a penalty, 12.05 to score from a fast break, and 27.78 matches to score a goal from a free kick.
Yet another way to slice these numbers is to look at what portion of the overall goal pie each type of goal constitutes. That is, how much did each match situation contribute to all goals scored? These numbers are shown below.
As the pie chart shows, most goals were scored from open play (almost 70% of them). In contrast, the smallest source of goals is free kick situations at 2.63%. As we know, the line between open play and corners as well as free kicks is sometimes fuzzy. So keeping that fuzziness in mind, we see corners (13.77%) dominating free kicks (2.63%) and fast breaks (6.15%). In 2010/11, 8% of all goals in the Premier League came from penalties - it strikes me as a high number, but I can't quite tell why.
In a couple of days, I'll take a look at how individual teams created goals from different match situations - as you might imagine, these overall numbers for the league hide some really interesting differences across clubs.
In a couple of days, I'll take a look at how individual teams created goals from different match situations - as you might imagine, these overall numbers for the league hide some really interesting differences across clubs.
