Stat of the Week: 19 Nov 2007
By Keefaz On Mon 19 Nov 2007 |
in association with NewcastleStats.com
This time out, I’ve decided to avoid all controversial subjects and take a look at the bread and butter of football: goals. This will be part 1 of a series in which we’ll take a look at how, what and when goals are both scored and conceded. Nothing that could cause any arguments there… right?
All stats are based solely on the Premier League.
Goals Part I : When Are They Scored?
Yes, in this first part, we’ll find out when goals are scored and see what, if anything, that will tell us.
Chart 1 - In Which Half Are Goals Scored?
So, of the 811 goals scored under the 7 full-time managers in our Premier League history, 8% (that is, 71 goals) more were scored in the second half than were in the first. While that is the case overall, our goal record under managers is quite varied:
Chart 2 - In Which Half Are Goals Scored? By Manager!
Three of our previous gaffers saw their teams score more goals in the first half than in the second perhaps suggesting they run out of ideas or try to consolidate after the break rather than take changes. Interestingly, Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle scored 14% more goals in the second half (144 goals in the second compared to only 109 in the first).
We can go into still more detail, though! Check it out:
Chart 3 - When Are Goals Scored? By Manager!
Just take a moment to take it all in. Go on! We’ve broken the 90-minute match into six parts and shown the percentage of goals scored in each part. As you can see, Dalglish and Allardyce both inspire(d) last gasp goals on a regular basis: 32% of the goals scored by their teams coming in the last 15 minutes of the match. Allardyce’s sides also score more in the middle of the first half than any other Newcastle team in the premiership.
Keegan’s sides seem to have been dangerous at any time with a fairly even distribution of goals throughout the course of a match. A similar pattern is shown for Sir Bobby, so maybe this ability to conjure a goal up at any time can be seen as being the hallmark of a successful Newcastle side?
When we average these out, this is what we find:
Chart 4 - When Are Goals Scored?
As we can see, fewest goals are scored at the start of each half as teams try to ‘keep it tight’ for the opening minutes. Almost exactly the same number of goals are scored in the middle 15 minutes of each half: 118 in total for the first half and 123 for the second. Perhaps it’s no surprise to see that, whether by luck or judgment, we score most goals towards the end of each half when the opposition side has least time to reply.
It will be interesting to see how these stats compare to when we concede goals which is what we’ll be looking at next time on Stat of the Week!
That’s it for this week. Please bear in mind our usual disclaimer: *No actual science involved.
Until next week, Keep The Faith. NS
Thanks for joining us this week. If you have a suggestion for Stat Of The Week and would like to see your name up here somewhere, let us know your idea!
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Really good and really interesting post. I expect (and other readers maybe :)) new useful posts from you!
Good luck and successes in blogging!
Sent in on: November 27th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Lies damned lies and statistics. The only thing that counts is the number of goals and the ability or inability to prevent the opposition from scoring.
Statistics give no indication to the quality of the foootball you are watching, or the turgid tactics that may have been employed to achieve the statistics the author seems to revel in.
I suggest he gets back in his anorak and stand on the end of the platform at Central station taking down train numbers like he used to before he tried to reduce the beautiiful game to a series of numbers.
Sort of thing I would expect Sam to use to defend himself and distract the gullible from his appalling positional gaffs away from home (five players out of position at the Mackems)
Sent in on: November 20th, 2007 at 10:42 am