Captain Sensible – Gameweek 7

The recent shortage of clean sheets has prompted me to have a look at what is actually going on. Is what we have seen so far this season the new normal?

So what I have done is to run a comparison looking at the 2014/15 season and this one so far for 7 teams selected semi-randomly: Arsenal, Burnley, City, Hull, Liverpool, Southampton, WBA. And I have looked at 6 metrics (all per game): goals, goals conceded, chances created, shots on target, attempts in the box conceded & goal conversion.

The results present an interesting picture.

With the one exception of Southampton, all the teams have scored more goals per game so far than 2 seasons ago. For the likes of City and Liverpool there has been a big jump in goals scored. On goals conceded it is more mixed - Arsenal, Hull and Liverpool have been conceding more, Burnley and Southampton are roughly at par and City and WBA are conceding less.

For chances created, most of my 7 teams are actually creating LESS chances this season, quite the opposite of what you would expect since they are scoring more. This applies to Arsenal, Burnley, City and Hull. WBA are at parity. Only Southampton and Liverpool are actually creating more chances per game than they did 2 seasons ago.

Attempts in the box conceded are pretty consistent across the 2 seasons in most cases. Only Hull and WBA are notably different and both are worse than they were in this regard.

And then, finally, we come to goal conversion (and this is where it all makes sense). 5 of the 7 teams have seen huge leaps in the percentage of goal attempts they are converting into actual goals. Arsenal up from 11.6% to 17.2%. Burnley up from 6.5% to 9.6%. City up from 12.4% to 17.0%. Hull up from 7.7% to 13.2%. Liverpool up from 8.8% to 13.7%.

WBA also have a slightly increased conversion rate. Southampton are the anomaly, their rate has fallen from 10.6% to 6.9%.

So, what is to be made of this? Of course this season is a small sample but that's inherent in the original question. Essentially I wanted to know whether what we have seen so far is freakish or a sign of things to come. And the evidence is that it is probably freakish (either that or goalkeeping is a dying art).

Looking at goal conversion percentages will often tell you a story and in this case the story is that a lot of teams have probably been lucky to score as many goals as they have. It isn't that they are creating more chances, or better chances. It's just that more of their shots have been going in the net.

When this happens with a player you can usually expect a reversion to more normal levels of finishing. As far as I can see, the same can be anticipated for teams in general and as that happens the goalfest should slow down and the clean sheets should return.

As a footnote, the individual exception among the 7 teams is Southampton. Their underlying stats are clearly improved from an attacking perspective and at par from a defensive perspective (and 2014/15 was a good Southampton defensive season). But their goal conversion has fallen significantly. So reversion for Southampton may lead to them scoring more, not less (unlike the others in this mini-study). Their players (especially attackers) could well be better prospects going forward than they currently look.

Liverpool's improved scoring may also be somewhat more sustainable as they are actually creating a lot more chances than they did. Of the big teams it is City and Arsenal whose performance so far may be most misleading. Those two have had the biggest jump in goal conversion but have actually had a fall in chances created.