{"id":1883,"date":"2018-06-05T08:05:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T08:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/?p=1883"},"modified":"2018-06-05T09:35:14","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T09:35:14","slug":"what-do-the-numbers-really-mean-interpreting-englands-match-statistics-at-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/?p=1883","title":{"rendered":"What do the Numbers Really Mean? Interpreting England\u2019s Match Statistics at the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alex Twitchen<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It won\u2019t have escaped most people\u2019s attention that the World Cup begins on Thursday 14th<\/sup> June with Russia, the tournament hosts, playing Saudi Arabia.\u00a0 England begin their campaign on Monday 18th<\/sup> June against Tunisia with a more muted sense of expectation than before.\u00a0 As in previous tournaments England\u2019s matches will be dissected by an army of pundits ready to offer their expert verdict on the team\u2019s performances, but during this World Cup every pass, movement and attempt on goal will be scrutinised and supplemented by an increasing array of statistics that try to provide a more insightful analysis of each game.\u00a0 Whether on television, newspapers or through social media you will find England\u2019s performances measured by such things as: time in possession of the ball, number of shots attempted, the quality of these shots, percentage of completed passes, number of corners and free-kicks awarded or conceded, distance covered by each player, and the types of passes between players.\u00a0 But what do these statistics really mean, how, as spectators and fans, might we interpret these numbers and use them to inform our own verdict on England\u2019s performances?\u00a0 In this blog I will outline two of the most commonplace statistics and show why we should treat them with a degree of scepticism if we really want to know how well or badly England have played.<\/p>\n

Time in possession of the ball<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most common metrics used is time in possession of the ball.\u00a0 Since the inauguration of the Premier League in 1992 the title winning team have been in possession of the ball for an average of about 55% to 60% of the time across all their games during the entire season.\u00a0 Leicester\u2019s amazing 2015-16 title performance is the exception since they won the league averaging just 44% of possession.\u00a0 During the 2017-18 season Manchester City averaged just under 72% of possession but Swansea were relegated despite averaging 45% of possession which was more possession than 7th<\/sup> placed Burnley (44%), 10th<\/sup> placed Newcastle (42%) and 15th<\/sup> placed Brighton (44%).\u00a0 Putting this another way Swansea were relegated having had more possession during the season than Leicester had when they won the title two years earlier.<\/p>\n

Whilst having more possession of the ball is important, it is not necessarily a reliable measure of success.\u00a0 \u00a0Arsenal fans might appreciate this observation when their team lost 3-1 at home to Manchester United last December with Utd being in possession of the ball for just 27% of the game (https:\/\/www.transfermarkt.co.uk\/arsenal-fc_manchester-united\/statistik\/spielbericht\/2872256<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If we require a further lesson we should look back to the last European Championships when England lost to Iceland having had possession for 68% of the game and making twice the number of passes.\u00a0 It is possible that England could, like Leicester, defy the numbers and win the World Cup having had less possession over the course of the tournament than their opponents.\u00a0 This is unlikely, but we should exercise caution in assuming that having more possession of the ball is a straightforward indicator of a successful performance.<\/p>\n

The number of successful passes completed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another popular metric that you may see concerns the percentage of passes each player and the team successfully completes.\u00a0 As with percentage possession time the number of successfully completed passes can be mis-leading because it does not identify the type of pass, where on the pitch the pass was made or the extent to which the pass helped to create, either directly or indirectly, a goal scoring chance.\u00a0 Take this as an example, a Centre-Back has a pass completion rate of 85%, on face value this seems pretty good but when we look more closely at the passes we see that they are predominantly short passes played backwards and sideways when not under any pressure from an opponent and unlikely to help create a goal scoring chance.\u00a0 Compare this to another Centre-Back whose pass completion rate is only 50% but many of these completed passes have helped to create a better attacking threat and led to more goal scoring attempts.\u00a0 In this example you begin to wonder about the value of the metric since it tells us very little about the outcome of the actual passes completed.<\/p>\n

Final thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n

This World Cup and England\u2019s performance, like no other previous tournament, will be dissected, analysed and examined through the application of statistical metrics.\u00a0 Yet, as with any form of statistical analysis, we should ask important questions about what the numbers mean and how they might otherwise be interpreted.\u00a0 What seems an impressive number could actually distort our understanding of what is really happening on the pitch.\u00a0 The increasing use of statistics in football is certainly welcomed and provides some different insights into the game, but we should also view them from a critical and sceptical perspective and not let these numbers dominate our interpretation and understanding of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alex Twitchen It won\u2019t have escaped most people\u2019s attention that the World Cup begins on Thursday 14th June with Russia, the tournament hosts, playing Saudi Arabia.\u00a0 England begin their campaign on Monday 18th June against Tunisia with a more muted sense of expectation than before.\u00a0 As in previous tournaments England\u2019s matches will be dissected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,94,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alex-twitchen","category-football","category-football-world-cup-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1883"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1886,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions\/1886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}