Brilliant, thank you for this Hedge.

It's a tricky one - it's certainly felt that the defences have been far less predictable, but the clean sheets stats don't seem to particularly support this. Perhaps we were just spoilt by the attacking returns of Mendy, Robertson and Alonso in the opening games of last season?

Defenders can't defend as well as the used to as teams strive to be 'entertaining'. No need for stats to tell you that.

What's a 'community' article anyway?

I want Vote Up button for this article

nice work Hedge. Some obvious team like Man U and Spurs regressing end of last season, start of current will impact CS stats. Liverpool playing much higher up the line, City don't have the same quality without Laporte and Kompany. Also - who knows what the current 'big six' really is!

Excellent article. Well done. It confirms my sense that this season is more unpredictable for the DEF/GKs. Last couple of seasons I went for 3 heavy hitters at the back, which worked beautifully well (and against the common thread of the Scout 'template'). I started this season the same, but have now gone to all cheap defenders - most expensive being 4.7. There are a number of

Interesting article, I’m still happy holding my Pool defenders as those CS will come. Also, all those with a cheap defence who have been getting away with it will be found out.

One point, I don’t think it’s good practice to say, x data is an outlier so I’m going to remove it, unless you remove the extremes from both ends.

People with Son ditching after the international break?

I’m looking at moving Son, Pukki to Maddison, Wilson for free.

Thanks for sharing!

My guess is that teams are playing it from out the back more often than ever. Especially the top teams have been very aggressive with this and are pressing harding than ever.

When teams get this wrong the opposition scores an easy goal (like we've seen several times this year) and when they get it right they're already in their opposition's half with plenty of space.

This is why there is less CS this year especially with the 'big 6'.
Some teams who aren't pressing as hard and are still getting just as many CS , like Burnley & Crystal Palace which is why on average across the competition it's only slightly down

Great article, thanks. Been holding Liverpool double up all season and in terms of expected points they're performing perfectly well for their price. Just being let down in terms of actual points by freak goals (Willems) and the individual mistakes of a second choice keeper (Ings, Maddison).With the underlying stats remaining strong and Allison's return imminent, I'm confident of a return to actual points from them. Facing the worst United attack in living memory next is a good place to start too!

My sense of your analysis is that you (perhaps unconsciously) have bent the statistics to produce a result the justifies your intention to keep your premium priced defenders.

The important statistic IMO is not the absolute number of clean sheets in a season. It is how the clean sheets are distributed. And this year they are more evenly distributed across the league and not dominated by Man City, Liverpool and the other big clubs.

The price difference between a premium defender and a budget defender is around 2.0 to 2.5 million. That is a lot of money that could be used to upgrade to higher scoring mids and forwards.

Right now a backline consisting of AA, Robertson, Maguire and Otamendi has tallied 120 points at a total cost of 25.1 million. A back line of consisting of Van Aanholt, Lundstram, Pieters and Dunk would cost you just 19.5 million (even less if you had bought them a few weeks into the season) and has produced 139 points. I commend your effort but IMO your analysis is unsupported by your own facts.

I would be more interested in a CS analysis of the first 19GW and the second 19. I think the likes of city, Liverpool and possibly Chelsea will have really tightened up by then and come into there own for the run in.

Teams are trying to generate goals. Wingbacks that attack and lots of teams, even small teams play with 4 attacking players.

How Newcastle scored more than 2 goals shows that attacking even with relegation-level talent can consistently soil clean sheets

For statistical analysis we should also compare number of goals. If it has risen, it should predict something (more goals means less clean sheets imo).

Total number of clean sheets is quite irrelevant also. If even let us say four to five teams are solid at the back, we can have decent defense with them. Especially because of Tomori, Soy and Lund. Add also more expensive TAA + Robbo and Ota + Zinch to this equation and it should be quite decent pool to choose from for the "defensive spine".

Nice article. There is a general point as well, isn’t there, about how we have less defensive style teams in the league now such as Chelsea or even Spurs or Man U of previous years. The big teams are more committed to pouring forward and keeping the opposition on the back foot than shutting down their own back line, so perhaps it follows from that there’s less predictable clean sheets? And that doesn’t just go for Pep and Klopp at the top, it goes for Potter and Farke at the bottom of the table too...

I’ve always felt that the number of clean sheets in the start of a season is higher after a tournament FREE summer. And yeah, by that I mean a World Cup or a European Championship and not a Copa America.

My theory is that it gives teams and defences more time to gel and train together.

But considering this season’s unpredictability and low no of CS’s the theory is either just wrong or the tactics have changed. There is really not that many defense first kind of coaches managing the bigger teams now, wouldn’t you agree?