Premier League 2010-11 Post-Mortem: The Offenses

I have posted a series of tables below showing SRS rankings for goals scored at home, away and overall.  These served as the foundation for my predictions.  Here is a summary of the results:

Home Offense

Home Offensive SRS
Team	HGF	SOS	SRS
Manchester United	2.579	1.588	0.991
Newcastle United	2.158	1.596	0.561
Chelsea	2.053	1.632	0.421
Liverpool	1.947	1.608	0.339
Bolton Wanderers	1.789	1.611	0.178
Manchester City	1.789	1.643	0.146
Arsenal	1.737	1.626	0.111
Stoke City	1.632	1.626	0.006
Everton	1.632	1.649	-0.018
West Bromwich Albion	1.579	1.596	-0.018
Blackpool	1.579	1.596	-0.018
Wolverhampton Wanderers	1.579	1.611	-0.032
Tottenham Hotspur	1.579	1.637	-0.058
Fulham	1.579	1.658	-0.079
Aston Villa	1.368	1.611	-0.243
Sunderland	1.316	1.646	-0.330
West Ham United	1.263	1.620	-0.357
Blackburn Rovers	1.158	1.614	-0.456
Wigan Athletic	1.158	1.661	-0.503
Birmingham City	1.000	1.643	-0.643

Note:  HGF = home goals for, SOS = strength of schedule, SRS = Simple Ranking System

Manchester United led the league in goals scored at home with 49 or 2.579/match.  Newcastle United, with 41 goals, was the only other team to exceed 40 goals.  Man United's opponents only allowed an average of 1.588 goals/match in road games which was the lowest opponents average in the league.  In other words, at home the Red Devils faced the toughest schedule of defenses in the league.  Yet they still outscored their opponents by 0.991 goals/match which is a tremendous achievement.

Bottom of the list is Birmingham who scored only 19 home goals, exactly 1 per match.  Their opponents allowed an average of 1.643 away goals so the Blues underperformed against their competition.  An additional 0.643 goals/match would have given them 12 more goals over the course of the season which would surely have allowed them to earn enough points to avoid relegation.

Away Offense



Away Offensive SRS
Team	AGF	SOS	SRS
Arsenal	2.053	1.146	0.906
Chelsea	1.579	1.178	0.401
Manchester United	1.526	1.184	0.342
West Bromwich Albion	1.368	1.140	0.228
Blackpool	1.316	1.123	0.193
Manchester City	1.368	1.193	0.175
Tottenham Hotspur	1.316	1.175	0.140
Blackburn Rovers	1.263	1.187	0.076
Aston Villa	1.158	1.184	-0.026
Liverpool	1.158	1.199	-0.041
Sunderland	1.053	1.167	-0.114
Everton	1.053	1.178	-0.126
West Ham United	1.000	1.158	-0.158
Fulham	1.000	1.181	-0.181
Wigan Athletic	0.947	1.152	-0.205
Bolton Wanderers	0.947	1.181	-0.234
Birmingham City	0.947	1.187	-0.240
Wolverhampton Wanderers	0.842	1.170	-0.327
Newcastle United	0.789	1.181	-0.392
Stoke City	0.789	1.208	-0.418

Note:  AGF = Away Goals For

Arsenal led the league in away goals with 39 or 2.053/match.  In fact they are one of only two teams (Blackburn the other) to score more goals away than at home.  They also led the league in away points earned with 31.  Normally that's a sign of a champion, but their home performance wasn't good enough.  The Gunners were the only team with as many home losses (4) as road losses.

At the bottom, Newcastle and Stoke tied for fewest goals scored away, each with 15.  Newcastle had the biggest differential between home and away goals scored with 26 or 1.368/match.  That's a huge drop off.  It makes one wonder if there is something about St James' Park that encourages scoring.  This stadium saw the highest goals/match with 3.58 versus a league average of 2.80.  Getting back to away performance Newcastle and Stoke both underperformed their opponents by about 0.4 goals/match which would be worth about 8 goals over the season.  Not enough to send them to Europe but certainly would have moved either team up a spot or two in the tightly packed mid-table.

Overall Offense

Total Offensive SRS
Team	GF	SOS	SRS
Manchester United	2.053	1.386	0.667
Arsenal	1.895	1.386	0.509
Chelsea	1.816	1.405	0.411
Manchester City	1.579	1.418	0.161
Liverpool	1.553	1.404	0.149
West Bromwich Albion	1.474	1.368	0.105
Blackpool	1.447	1.360	0.088
Newcastle United	1.474	1.389	0.085
Tottenham Hotspur	1.447	1.406	0.041
Bolton Wanderers	1.368	1.396	-0.028
Everton	1.342	1.414	-0.072
Fulham	1.289	1.420	-0.130
Aston Villa	1.263	1.398	-0.135
Wolverhampton Wanderers	1.211	1.390	-0.180
Blackburn Rovers	1.211	1.401	-0.190
Stoke City	1.211	1.417	-0.206
Sunderland	1.184	1.406	-0.222
West Ham United	1.132	1.389	-0.257
Wigan Athletic	1.053	1.406	-0.354
Birmingham City	0.974	1.415	-0.442

No surprise that Manchester United had the best overall offense nor that Birmingham had the worst overall.  Their performance reflected their final placement in the league.  Blackpool played the toughest defenses which was a contributing factor to their relegation.  Fulham had the easiest overall schedule but still underperformed their competition.

Impact of Relegation from Premier League to Championship

Last week I posted about the promotion of teams from the Championship to the Premier League and how playing at a higher level will impact the stats of those teams.  Now I will take a look at the teams relegated from the Premier League and how their stats are affected when playing at a lower level.

	Points	GF	GA	% Promoted
Premiership Results/Match	0.85	0.97	1.71
Championship Results/Match	1.56	1.46	1.17	27%
Change	0.70	0.49	-0.54

The newly relegated teams score 0.49 more and allow 0.54 fewer goals per match which is an improvement in net goal differential of 1.03 per match.  Teams that are promoted into the Premier League see their goal differential decrease by 1.15 per match so it appears that moving between these two leagues will have about a ±1.1 goal/match impact on goal differential.


Applying the rate changes from the above table to the results of the 2011 relegated teams will give us the following projections for their Championship performance in 2012:

Club	League	Season	Matches	Points	GF	GA
Birmingham	Premier	2010-11	38	39	37	58
	Championship	2011-12	46	80	67	45
Blackpool		2010-11	38	39	55	78
	Championship	2011-12	46	80	89	70
West Ham United	Premier	2010-11	38	33	43	70
	Championship	2011-12	46	72	75	60

The 80 points that I'm projecting for Birmingham and Blackpool will probably not be enough to earn a Top 2 finish and automatic promotion.  Over the past 19 seasons, the teams that finished in the top 2 in the Championship have averaged 90 points.  The teams that have finished second averaged 86 points.  Only 4 teams out of 38 have earned auto-promotion with 80 or fewer points.  I would expect that all three teams will vie for a playoff spot next season.  The average points earned by teams that were promoted through the playoffs is 76.


I noted above that 27% of teams relegated to the Championship are able to turn around and earn promotion the following season.  The rate at which teams promoted to the Premier get relegated the following season is 47%.  So why would relegated teams that are dropping into a lower-level league be less likely to earn promotion?  I think that there are two factors driving this:

1. There are only two automatic promotion spots in the Championship.  The third spot is contested by the four teams ranked 3rd through 6th.  So that's three additional matches that would have to be played (the last of which has to be a victory) to earn promotion.  These teams are pretty comparable so anything can happen and usually does.
2. The loss in income that results from relegation often forces teams to sell key players to help stay profitable at the lower level.  So as talent level diminishes, the chances of earning promotion also diminish.

My early picks for the two promotion spots in 2012 are Reading and Cardiff City.  I expect that the three relegated teams will be in the playoff mix along with Nottingham Forest.

Premier League Season Wrapup

The season ended on Sunday with Manchester United as champions for the 19th time.  Chelsea and Manchester City rounded out the top three with Arsenal fading into the 4th and final Champions League spot.  Tottenham finished strong to grab 5th place and a spot in the Europa league season.  At the bottom, Birmingham and Blackpool joined West Ham as the teams relegated to the Championship.  Here is a recap of my predictions for the final weekend:

Predicted Score				Actual Score				Pts
Aston Villa	1	Liverpool	1	Aston Villa	1	Liverpool	0	-10
Bolton Wanderers	1	Manchester City	1	Bolton Wanderers	0	Manchester City	2	-10
Everton	1	Chelsea	2	Everton	1	Chelsea	0	-10
Fulham	1	Arsenal	2	Fulham	2	Arsenal	2	-10
Manchester United	3	Blackpool	1	Manchester United	4	Blackpool	2	15
Newcastle  United	3	West Bromwich Albion	2	Newcastle United	3	West Bromwich Albion	3	-10
Stoke City	2	Wigan Athletic	1	Stoke City	0	Wigan Athletic	1	-10
Tottenham Hotspur	2	Birmingham City	1	Tottenham Hotspur	2	Birmingham City	1	30
West Ham United	1	Sunderland	1	West Ham United	0	Sunderland	3	-10
Wolverhampton Wanderers	2	Blackburn Rovers	1	Wolverhampton Wanderers	2	Blackburn Rovers	3	-10
							Total	-35

Not a strong finish for me, predicting only 2 of 10 outcomes correctly and one score correctly.  No more predictions or projections for this league until next season, but stay tuned for more stats as I reveal the best and worst teams in several categories in future posts.