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Best Chance of Goals Over The Next Six

12 November 2014 49 comments
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In an attempt to analyse the fixtures from an attackerโ€™s perspective I have looked at the opponents each team faces over the coming weeks and the likelihood of scoring goals against them. For this I have focused on the average goals conceded per match (AGC) of all teams.

Average Goals Conceded Explained

I have added together the total AGC values of each team’s next six opponents to show which have the best and worst forthcoming fixtures from an attacking point of view. Each AGC value is tailored as to whether the team has conceded home or away.

Taking top-placed Newcastle as an example in the next six, they face QPR (average of 2.8 goals conceded per away match by QPR), whm (average of 1 goal conceded per home match by West Ham), bur (1.5), CHE (1.33), ars (1.2), SUN (2.4) giving Newcastle’s next six opponents a total score of 10.23 over those fixtures.

Results

Based on the score for each team, I have listed them in order from easiest fixtures to toughest.

1.ย Newcastle Unitedย 10.23

2.ย Swansea Cityย 9.80

3.ย Leicester Cityย 9.47

4.ย West Ham Unitedย 9.27

5.ย Liverpoolย 9.13

6.ย Aston Villaย 8.87

7.ย Queens Park Rangersย 8.77

8.ย Southamptonย 8.60

9.ย Sunderlandย 8.47

10.ย Tottenham Hotspurย 8.03

11.ย Stoke Cityย 7.93

12.ย Evertonย 7.87

13.ย Manchester Cityย 7.70

14.ย Hull Cityย 7.63

15.ย West Bromwich Albionย 7.63

16.ย Arsenalย 7.60

17.ย Chelseaย 7.33

18.ย Manchester Unitedย 7.27

19.ย Crystal Palaceย 7.27

20.ย Burnleyย 7.13

Conclusion

While on paper Chelsea have one of the kindest runs, their opponents in the next six are actually relatively stingy in terms of conceding goals. Doubling up on Chelsea attackers may not be the best policy. West Brom, Chelsea’s next opponents at Stamford Bridge, have only conceded five goals away from home. Diego Costa still looks like a good prospect, but is it really worth investing in Eden Hazard as well?

At the top of the table Newcastle clearly have a strong chance of goals over the next six. This makes cheap options such as their attacking midfielder Mousssa Sissoko a strong option.

Investment in Swansea attacking assets also looks key, with Wilfried Bony and Gylfi Sigurdsson offering the best route into their strong goalscoring potential.

49 Comments Login to Post a Comment
  1. J0E
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • Has Moderation Rights
    • 16 Years
    11 years, 29 days ago

    Interesting analysis - shows that a set of fixtures on paper may not actually be that strong when you dig deeper into the stats. Chelsea's position is a real eye opener.

    Certainly looking to get Sigurdsson back in after reading this.

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    1. JK - Cønt โญ
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 14 Years
      11 years, 29 days ago

      Get him back

      missed his 8 pointer v Arsenal then? ๐Ÿ˜‰

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      1. J0E
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • Has Moderation Rights
        • 16 Years
        11 years, 29 days ago

        Yep...he's penciled in for after the MCI game.

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        1. Alberto Tomba
          • 12 Years
          11 years, 28 days ago

          Tadic -> Siggy will be my move then.

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    2. rickardinho
      • 11 Years
      11 years, 29 days ago

      Yeah, I had an inkling about this too. Hull, Stoke, WBA, etc aren't pushovers defensively, even though they look tasty on paper

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    3. footballoholic
      • 16 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      Cheers Jonty. Didn't realise this was published! And it makes much better reading now.

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  2. rickardinho
    • 11 Years
    11 years, 29 days ago

    How many CS's do people predict from this run of Arsenal fixtures?

    SOU sto NEW liv QPR whm

    I can't see any apart from QPR, and I've got Austin and 3 other good Def fixtures that week, so may drop Chambers in GW14 to help fund a move for Coleman... would give me Baines-Coleman-Naylor-Wisdom-3.9 until Jan WC.

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    1. Dino
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 16 Years
      11 years, 25 days ago

      If Koscielny comes back I'd say 3/4 maybe 5 if lucky.

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  3. Margarido
    • 13 Years
    11 years, 29 days ago

    Shouldn't you cross this stats with Average Goals Scored from each team in the same set of 6 fixtures?

    This article only tells half of the story...

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    1. J0E
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 16 Years
      11 years, 29 days ago

      I think with all community articles they offer an insight into fantasy football management and hopefully spur others on to offer further insight. This offers a great insight into the stinginess of defences. There is another side to look at likelihood of scoring. Feel free to carry out that research - always keen to get more submissions.

      Of course for the full research there is our season ticker which weighs up likelihood of scoring with likelihood of conceding. That is essentailly this article mixed with the other you are proposing in pictoral form.

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      1. Margarido
        • 13 Years
        11 years, 29 days ago

        Clearly JonTy.
        I might consider your case.
        Let me dive into it…

        But that was a good start.

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      2. rickardinho
        • 11 Years
        11 years, 29 days ago

        Do the fixture difficulties get automatically updated in the ticker as the season goes on (by an intelligent member of the site), or do i have to set it myself?

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        1. J0E
          • Fantasy Football Scout Member
          • Has Moderation Rights
          • 16 Years
          11 years, 28 days ago

          We update the ticker's difficulty settings regularly throughout the season. There is also the functionality to import your own figures as well.

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    2. Gilles
      • 11 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      These numbers above multiply by average goal per game:
      Chelsea 2,55 x 7,33=18,66
      Newcastle 1,18 x 10,23 = 12,09
      Southampton 2,09 x 8,60 = 17,98
      Swansea 1,36 x 9,80 = 13,36
      Man City 2 x 7,70 = 15,40
      WHam 1,73 x 927 = 16,01
      Etc.
      Will try tout do the others tomorrow ๐Ÿ™‚

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      1. robdag
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 13 Years
        11 years, 28 days ago

        I don't think that's the best way to combine the metrics. It doesn't really make sense to multiply them.

        I would do the expected goals scored over the next 6 game weeks and take the midway point between that figure and the expected goals conceded by opponents as calculated in the article.

        For example:

        Chelsea expected scoring = 2.55 x 6 = 15.30
        Chelsea opponents expected conceding = 7.33

        Estimate goals scored by Chelsea: 11.32 (average of 15.3 and 7.33)

        Etc.

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    3. footballoholic
      • 16 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      I did consider that. The reason I didn't go for it is to look simply at the fixtures alone. If you look at number of goals scored by a team, then you would also have to consider the proportion of their goals scored by a player.

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      1. Kalix
        • 14 Years
        11 years, 28 days ago

        I think to say that limiting it to defences means you are limiting it to "fixtures alone" doesn't rewally hold water. Defences != fixtures

        You can't simply ignore the fact that City have Aguero & Burnley have Ings. your data assumes both teams will score the same number of goals vs an opponent.

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        1. footballoholic
          • 16 Years
          11 years, 28 days ago

          The original title was supposed to be 'fixture analysis' to look purely at which team has the better fixtures not how many goals a team is going to score.

          If I were to consider the fact that City have Aguero & Burnley have Ings as you say, then City would always have better fixtures than Burnley, when in fact, what they have is a better team.

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        2. terrypaulpearce
          • 11 Years
          11 years, 28 days ago

          Another way to think of it is that the number represents how many goals each team's opponents should let in against the 'average team'. Clearly Man City are better than average and Burnley worse, but as Footballaholic implies, when you're actually using the info you aren't just looking at which attacking team to buy into, but which player.

          So the best way to use it would be to look at a player and say 'well, form says he's good, but looking at his fixtures, I'd better modify that expectation'. It doesn't mean at all that Chelsea will be 17th in terms of goals scored, but rather, that Chelsea might be 17th in terms of the difference between 'expected number of goals scored without looking at the fixture list' and 'expected number once fixtures are taken into account'.

          So if you were thinking about Sakho (form 5.5) versus Welbeck (form 4.5) as a potential transfer, for instance, and were minded (for whatever reason) to go for Welbeck, you might look at this and think twice based on the fact that Arsenal's upcoming opponents are a fair bit stingier (based on home/away form as relevant) than West Ham's. You don't take the attacking team's goals into account because you're already doing a better version of that by taking into account that individual player's form.

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  4. Balrath123
    • 12 Years
    11 years, 29 days ago

    Any Advice Please.. 1 FT & 2m ITB or Have Been Trying Not To But Is It Time To Use WC
    Begovic Myhill
    Lovren Gibbs Naughton Coloccini PVA
    ADM. Barkley Sterling Fabregas Wanyama
    Pelle Sakho Aguero

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    1. J0E
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • Has Moderation Rights
      • 16 Years
      11 years, 29 days ago

      Best to put up on the main article. This is more specific chat about this community article.

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  5. Chris_White
    • 14 Years
    11 years, 29 days ago

    As much as I like Swansea as a team, I'm not sure their style of play will produce a lot of goals over the next period of games. I do sense they will get quite a few CS's though, so I might opt to double up on their defensive assets.

    Newcastle will soon turn sour again imo. Not any offensive assets that are tempting either. Again, might buy Dummett as they have upped their resilience.

    Leicester City...not much to say. Might have a good run, but won't score much and no appealing options.

    As for Chelsea, I do agree that we probably won't score a lot. The winter months are usually about grinding the results out, something Mourinho knows everything about. Costa and a defender will do.

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    1. rickardinho
      • 11 Years
      11 years, 29 days ago

      Good point. Siggy is probably the right choice for SWA, but Bony is a step too far. I may consider Bartley-Naylor double-up if Bartley looks nailed.

      I like that there's several good 3.9 options now.. yun, saylor, bartley...

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  6. Saint Steve-O (@EliteFPL)
    • 11 Years
    11 years, 29 days ago

    Nice write up

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  7. Piggs Boson
    • 14 Years
    11 years, 29 days ago

    Nice article. I'm keeping Cisse for now, despite the obvious risks.

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  8. Zep
    • 15 Years
    11 years, 29 days ago

    Thanks...

    Fairly useful analysis that when used in conjunction with other fixture difficulty indicators may highlight some potential anomalies...

    I will however be very surprised to see Chelsea in the bottom half of the 'goals scored' table in the next 6 games...

    Have you considered how you might add to this idea by merging each teams score with their own 'average goals scored' at home or away, depending on where each game is being played?

    This might make it more relative to the team in question, taking into account their own scoring form as supposed to the other teams' defensive form...

    Perhaps this will make it too convoluted...

    Overall though, this is a very interesting perspective to take when viewing fixture difficulties...

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    1. Zep
      • 15 Years
      11 years, 29 days ago

      Ah I see this question has already been asked... and answered...

      Nothing to see here... ๐Ÿ˜‰

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  9. thebikeryogi
    • 12 Years
    11 years, 29 days ago

    so i'll just get costa and not take a hit to upgrade cesc into hazard. though, its likely chelsea with score 3. more stats to confuse an already confused manager. but thank you...if things workout somewhat as per AVERAGE GOALS CONCEDED theory, i'll be interesting.

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  10. Kalix
    • 14 Years
    11 years, 28 days ago

    Why not also include Average Goals Scored?

    Also, all this work is basically just the Season Ticker ๐Ÿ˜›

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    1. Kalix
      • 14 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      I know, because I wrote a C++ & Python program to do these kinds of calculations for me...then I found this site ๐Ÿ™‚

      much easier than updating it myself ๐Ÿ˜€

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  11. terrypaulpearce
    • 11 Years
    11 years, 28 days ago

    It is really interesting and good work.

    But it doesn't take account of the quality of the opposition. What would be ideal is to factor in the goalscoring prowess [represented by average number of goals scored] of the teams that make up those averages [home or away as relevant]. For example, West Ham's home average of 1 goal conceded is made up of playing AVL [average 0.33 scored away], MCI [2.17], LIV [1.6], QPR [0.4], SOT [1.2] and TOT [1.4]. The average of these six figures [all away averages as we're considering West Ham's home record] is 1.18 -- this is what we might expect the Hammers to have conceded by now. So by conceding an average of 1, West Ham have actually 'beaten the spread'. In a way, the .18 difference is a more important figure than the 1, because it represents how many goals they've conceded *compared to what we'd expect them to have conceded given their opposition. In this way, we'd account for some clubs having had easier or harder fixtures.

    So, if you took that 0.18 and added it to the equivalent figures for QPR, bur, CHE, ars & SUN, you'd have a potentially much more useful figure for Newcastle. Do that to the whole table and you may have a different story.

    On the other hand, you may have a life.

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    1. footballoholic
      • 16 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      Cheers. I agree, this is would definitely be a better way of looking at it. But you could say average goals scored values are also influenced by quality of opposition and the whole thing becomes complicated. Very interesting nonetheless and I will try and do this when free.

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  12. Alberto Tomba
    • 12 Years
    11 years, 28 days ago

    This makes me want Siggy back!

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    1. Alberto Tomba
      • 12 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R8xTu68r54

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  13. Steevo
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 11 Years
    11 years, 28 days ago

    A) Clyne, Fabregas, Welbeck
    B) 4.7def, Downing, Costa

    What say you?

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    1. terrypaulpearce
      • 11 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      B for sure, with Collins WHM or Taylor SWA for the defender. Southampton have some tough fixtures, Costa better than Fab, Downing on a par with Welbeck atm, maybe better.

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  14. robdag
    • Fantasy Football Scout Member
    • 13 Years
    11 years, 28 days ago

    I have prepared an analysis to also take into account the Average scored by each team (H/A).

    I have used a similar methodology to estimate the number of goals scored over the next 6 Gameweeks for each team (using season Home/Away record so far).

    I have then taken the average of that figure for each team and the expected number of goals conceded by opponents (as calculated in the article)

    I can then get a better estimate of goals scored by each team over the next 6 Gameweeks:

    1. Chelsea 11.32
    2. Southampton 10.35
    3. West Ham 9.93
    4. Man City 9.80
    5. Everton 9.43
    6. Arsenal 9.05
    7. Swansea 8.90
    8. Newcastle 8.72
    9. Liverpool 8.47
    10. Man Utd 8.18
    11. Leicester 7.98
    12. Spurs 7.22
    13. Sunderland 7.48
    14. Hull City 7.42
    15. Crystal Palace 7.38
    16. QPR 7.23
    18. Stoke and WBA 7.22
    19. Aston Villa 5.83
    20. Burnley 5.17

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    1. robdag
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 13 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      Spreadsheet here.

      Whipped it up quickly on my lunch break so doesn't look very pretty at the moment.

      https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pL82VGUzpnUSFgbxjpd4zvtz_DbbfPdwjP4788VqlZs/edit?usp=sharing

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      1. Kalix
        • 14 Years
        11 years, 28 days ago

        Put the goals scored and conceded values into the Season ticker...and it'll look bootiful in no time ๐Ÿ˜€

        Good work btw, this seems much more accurate than New, SWA & LEI as the top scorers! ๐Ÿ™‚

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    2. footballoholic
      • 16 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      Great work. The scores definitely give a better estimate of how many goals a team is likely to score.

      The original title was supposed to be 'fixture analysis' to look purely at which team has the better fixtures.

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      1. robdag
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 13 Years
        11 years, 28 days ago

        Cheers. I may produce another spreadsheet when I have a time that uses the last 6 games averages instead of season averages as it may give a better indication on current form.

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        1. footballoholic
          • 16 Years
          11 years, 28 days ago

          I did consider that, but while it takes current form into account better, the small sample means AGC values become dependent on quality of opposition.

          Ideally, there would be a way to solve this issue like what terrypaulpearce has suggested above.

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          1. Dino
            • Fantasy Football Scout Member
            • 16 Years
            11 years, 25 days ago

            I second this.

            You are basing the goalscoring prowess of a team on the results they have had so far and the figures for teams like Chelsea, United and Southampton will really be skewed by the quality of the opposition they have faced to date.

            E.g. Look at Aston villa results before their fixtures changed. If you took their expected goal scored and conceded per game and projected them into the next 6 fixtures your projections would have been way off.

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    3. terrypaulpearce
      • 11 Years
      11 years, 28 days ago

      Spurs should be 7.87 as per spreadsheet; position is right @ 12th, assume just a copy paste error.

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    4. Podge
      • 14 Years
      11 years, 27 days ago

      This is class, can you keep updating this each week please ๐Ÿ™‚
      Great work.

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    5. Dino
      • Fantasy Football Scout Member
      • 16 Years
      11 years, 25 days ago

      Ps you are also not able to take account of swings in form (past and future) due to player injuries changes in tactics or just general upswing/downswing in players' form for whatever reason.

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      1. Dino
        • Fantasy Football Scout Member
        • 16 Years
        11 years, 25 days ago

        Take Benteke for Aston villa for example. Aston villa's threat goes up immeasurably with him in the team compared to without.

        Another example is Liverpool with Sturridge.

        A few more are Ulloa, Naismith, Pelle, Austin etc who hit a great run of form for no apparent reason and returned unsustainable conversion rates v some of the top teams.

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