I've been looking for a positive way to say goodbye to Blackpool who were relegated after playing a single spirited and entertaining season in the Premier League. So here's my swan song for the Tangerines.
Corners are neither the most common nor the most efficient way to score. But as it turns out, Ian Holloway's men were the season's Corner Kings. Yes, Blackpool won the Premier League corners award. To see why, below are a couple of graphs of shots created by teams in the aftermath of a corner, as well as goals created from corner situations (all based on Guardian/Opta chalkboards data). They tell us several things.
First, teams were fairly similar across the board in the total number of shots they were able to generate from corner situations. The average was 2.1 per team and match, with most teams clustering right around the average. The only truly strong performer in terms of generating shots were Sunderland; the true underperformer were Wigan. So in terms of turning corners into opportunities, Blackpool were right there with the best teams in the league at over 2.1 shots produced from corners. But that's not all.
In fact, Newcastle and Blackpool averaged over .3 goals per match from corners; the next four high performing teams on this metric were Fulham, Chelsea, and the Manchester clubs. Clearly, Blackpool did something right. But, wait, they're still tied with Newcastle.
The blue regression line tells us that there is a slightly positive correlation between corners and goals, but we also see lots of outlier clubs (located away from the regression line). Here, you can see, for example, that Sunderland was a clear outlier - and not in a good way: the Black Cats produced the most shots from corners, but were woeful in terms of turning them into goals. Aston Villa didn't look so good here, either, but Wigan were worst on all fronts: they generated very few shots from corners, and hardly any of these turned into goals.
But check out Blackpool: they were the biggest positive outlier. Not only did they generate a fair amount of shots from corners, they also turned them into goals. Since corner kicks alone don't win you matches, it was obviously not quite enough to save them. But who is to say it's all about winning with corner kicks anyway?! I for one hope to see BFC back in the Premier League before too long, so best of luck to the Tangerines in the Championship next year.
Corners are neither the most common nor the most efficient way to score. But as it turns out, Ian Holloway's men were the season's Corner Kings. Yes, Blackpool won the Premier League corners award. To see why, below are a couple of graphs of shots created by teams in the aftermath of a corner, as well as goals created from corner situations (all based on Guardian/Opta chalkboards data). They tell us several things.
First, teams were fairly similar across the board in the total number of shots they were able to generate from corner situations. The average was 2.1 per team and match, with most teams clustering right around the average. The only truly strong performer in terms of generating shots were Sunderland; the true underperformer were Wigan. So in terms of turning corners into opportunities, Blackpool were right there with the best teams in the league at over 2.1 shots produced from corners. But that's not all.
Fast forward a bit to producing goals from corner situations and we see that Blackpool and Newcastle led the league, as the graph below reveals.
To resolve the tie, I would argue that Blackpool did better than Newcastle on corners if you consider that it took them fewer corners to produce the same number of goals. The next graph shows you that this was indeed the case. It charts the average number of shots from corners by the average number of goals from corners per team for the entire season.
But check out Blackpool: they were the biggest positive outlier. Not only did they generate a fair amount of shots from corners, they also turned them into goals. Since corner kicks alone don't win you matches, it was obviously not quite enough to save them. But who is to say it's all about winning with corner kicks anyway?! I for one hope to see BFC back in the Premier League before too long, so best of luck to the Tangerines in the Championship next year.
