Premier League Post Mortem: The Defenses

Last week I posted the Offensive SRS ratings for the Premier League.  Today we will review the defenses.



Home Defensive SRS
Team	HGA	SOS	SRS
Manchester City	0.632	1.193	0.561
Manchester United	0.632	1.184	0.553
Chelsea	0.684	1.178	0.494
Liverpool	0.737	1.199	0.462
Arsenal	0.789	1.146	0.357
Blackburn Rovers	0.842	1.187	0.345
Stoke City	0.947	1.208	0.260
Aston Villa	1.000	1.184	0.184
Tottenham Hotspur	1.000	1.175	0.175
Birmingham City	1.158	1.187	0.029
Fulham	1.211	1.181	-0.029
Everton	1.211	1.178	-0.032
Bolton Wanderers	1.263	1.181	-0.082
Newcastle United	1.421	1.181	-0.240
Sunderland	1.421	1.167	-0.254
Wolverhampton Wanderers	1.579	1.170	-0.409
West Bromwich Albion	1.579	1.140	-0.439
West Ham United	1.632	1.158	-0.474
Wigan Athletic	1.789	1.152	-0.637
Blackpool	1.947	1.123	-0.825

Manchester is a tough town to score in with both City and United tying for the fewest home goals allowed.  City played a slightly tougher schedule so they get the nod as having the best defense at home.  Their rating of 0.561 is equivalent to about 11 fewer goals (19 x 0.561) than an average team would have allowed.  Overall their offense was only slightly above average so we have to give credit to their defense for carrying them into a 3rd place finish and a group spot in next season's Champions League.

Bottom of this table is Blackpool with a horrendous -0.825 rating.  They managed to allow more goals at home than any other team despite playing the lowest scoring offenses overall.  The additional 0.825 goals they allowed relative to their competition is equivalent to 16 goals over the course of the season.  This is why they deserved relegation.  Even a slight reduction in home goals allowed would have allowed them to earn enough points to avoid that fate.



Away Defensive SRS
Team	AGA	SOS	SRS
Fulham	1.053	1.658	0.605
Chelsea	1.053	1.632	0.579
Manchester City	1.105	1.643	0.538
Everton	1.158	1.649	0.491
Manchester United	1.316	1.588	0.272
Wigan Athletic	1.421	1.661	0.240
Tottenham Hotspur	1.421	1.637	0.216
Arsenal	1.474	1.626	0.152
Sunderland	1.526	1.646	0.120
Stoke City	1.579	1.626	0.047
Liverpool	1.579	1.608	0.029
Newcastle United	1.579	1.596	0.018
Bolton Wanderers	1.684	1.611	-0.073
Birmingham City	1.895	1.643	-0.251
Wolverhampton Wanderers	1.895	1.611	-0.284
West Ham United	2.053	1.620	-0.433
Aston Villa	2.105	1.611	-0.494
Blackpool	2.158	1.596	-0.561
West Bromwich Albion	2.158	1.596	-0.561
Blackburn Rovers	2.263	1.614	-0.649

Fulham and Chelsea tied for fewest goals allowed in away matches.  Fulham's tougher schedule means that they had the best defense on the road.  The Cottagers were one of three teams (Everton and Wigan the others) to allow fewer goals away than at home.  Unfortunately their excellent defense was offset by a sub par offense which prevented them from earning some valuable points on the road.

Blackburn brought up the rear in away goals allowed.  They allowed 43 on the road versus only 16 at home which is the largest differential in the league.  They were pretty successful at home and this saved them from relegation.



Total Defensive SRS
Team	GA	SOS	SRS
Manchester City	0.868	1.418	0.550
Chelsea	0.868	1.405	0.537
Manchester United	0.974	1.386	0.412
Fulham	1.132	1.420	0.288
Arsenal	1.132	1.386	0.254
Liverpool	1.158	1.404	0.246
Everton	1.184	1.414	0.230
Tottenham Hotspur	1.211	1.406	0.196
Stoke City	1.263	1.417	0.154
Sunderland	1.474	1.406	-0.067
Bolton Wanderers	1.474	1.396	-0.077
Newcastle United	1.500	1.389	-0.111
Birmingham City	1.526	1.415	-0.111
Blackburn Rovers	1.553	1.401	-0.152
Aston Villa	1.553	1.398	-0.155
Wigan Athletic	1.605	1.406	-0.199
Wolverhampton Wanderers	1.737	1.390	-0.346
West Ham United	1.842	1.389	-0.453
West Bromwich Albion	1.868	1.368	-0.500
Blackpool	2.053	1.360	-0.693

Manchester City and Chelsea tied for fewest goals allowed but Man City gets the award for best defensive team by accomplishing this record against a tougher schedule.  Blackpool gets the sack.  Despite playing the easiest schedule of opposing offenses they managed to be the only team in the league to allow over two gaols per match.  They're back where they belong in the Championship next season.

League Championship Weekend Wrapup

The Championship finished their regular season on Saturday and congratulations to Queens Park Rangers and Norwich City who earned automatic promotions to the Premier League.  QPR finished first with 88 points, 4 points ahead of the Canaries.  QPR was awaiting word from the Football Association which was ruling on irregularities concerning the economic rights of player Alejandro Faurlin.  There was the possibility of a points deduction which could have cost them the title.  However, the FA fined QPR instead so the Rangers get to bring home the trophy. 

Rangers return to the Premier for the first time since relegation following the 1996 season.  For Norwich they last played in the top flight in 2005.  Since then they struggled and were actually relegated into League One, one level below the Championship, after the 2009 season.  They bounced back and won the League one title in 2010 and then earned a second consecutive promotion this season.

The playoffs are all set.  Swansea City will face Nottingham Forest while Cardiff City takes on Reading.  Playoffs schedule can be found here.  Swansea managed to get third place, finishing ahead of their Welsh rivals Cardiff based on goal differential.  Nottingham's win over Crystal Palace gave them the points they needed to stay ahead of Leeds United who beat QPR on Saturday.

The Championship bids farewell to the three relegated teams, Preston North End, Sheffield United and Scunthorpe United.  Preston had the longest current tenure at this level of any team in the league, having been here for 11 consecutive seasons.  Scunthorpe's stay was brief, just one season as they return back to League One after earning promotion from there last year.  Sheffield United ends a four-season run after relegation from the Premier League and will also be returning dropping to League One.  Moving up from that level will be champions Brighton & Hove Albion and runner-up Southampton.  The third spot will be filled by the winner of the League One playoffs.

After the jump I will review the results of my weekend predictions.

Projected Premier League Champion: Arsenal

In order to project the champion of the Premier League we need to project the score of each remaining game for all teams.  My method takes average goals scored and allowed for each team and compares this to the average goals scored and allowed for all of their opponents to determine the scoring potential for both home and away games for each team.

Let me demonstrate with an example.  Through games ending March 7th Premier League leader Manchester United has scored 39 goals in 14 home games or 2.786 goals per game.  This is the best home goals per game average in the league by a wide margin.  Next best is Newcastle United at 2.133 goals/home game.  Man U's home-game opponents allow an average of 1.689 goals/game in their away games. So when playing at Old Trafford, Man U is scoring 2.786 - 1.689 = 1.096 goals per game more than their opponents typically allow.  This margin between home goals scored per game and opponents road goals allowed per game is the best in the league.  In other words, they are extremely effective scoring goals at home.  They are also quite effective at preventing goals at home.  They have allowed only 0.643 goals/game (9 goals in 14 games) versus opponents that typically score 1.129 goals per game on the road, a margin of 0.486 goals, also the best in the league.  This is all borne out by their home record which is an impressive 13 wins and 1 draw with no losses.

But home games are only half the story.  How do the Red Devils perform in away games?  They are pretty average.  On offense, they score 1.600 goals  versus opponents that allow 1.211 goals at home, a difference of 0.389 goals.  Defensively they allow 1.400 goals against opponents that average 1.510 goals scored, a difference of 0.110 goals.  As a road team Manchester United is decent , but not decisive.  As a result their road record is mediocre with only 4 wins in 15 games to go along with 8 draws and 3 losses.  They crush their opponents at home, but merely break even on the road.  This is their Achilles heel.

Getting back to my opening point of predicting the score of each game, if you take the home team's average home goals scored and compare to the road team's average road goals allowed and adjust for each team's opponent averages, you can estimate the number of goals the home team will score.  Follow a similar process for the road team to estimate the number of goals they will score.  Apply this method to all remaining games and you can project how each team will perform for the balance of the season.  Add these results to the games that were completed and you get a full-season projection!  So without further ado, here are my projected final standings for the Premier League:
 

		Overall
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	38	27	6	5	81	37	44	87
2	Manchester United	38	23	11	4	82	39	43	80
3	Chelsea	38	23	7	8	69	33	36	76
4	Manchester City	38	20	12	6	58	33	25	72
5	Tottenham Hotspur	38	19	10	9	56	45	11	67
6	Liverpool	38	15	8	15	49	47	2	53
7	Sunderland	38	12	16	10	44	43	1	52
8	Everton	38	11	16	11	53	52	1	49
9	Bolton Wanderers	38	11	16	11	53	53	0	49
10	Newcastle United	38	12	12	14	57	54	3	48
11	Aston Villa	38	13	9	16	50	63	-13	48
12	Fulham	38	9	19	10	41	42	-1	46
13	West Ham United	38	10	11	17	48	65	-17	41
14	Stoke City	38	11	7	20	41	50	-9	40
15	Blackburn Rovers	38	11	7	20	49	64	-15	40
16	Birmingham City	38	8	16	14	36	53	-17	40
17	Wolverhampton Wanderers	38	10	7	21	45	64	-19	37
18	West Bromwich Albion	38	9	10	19	51	71	-20	37
19	Blackpool	38	9	9	20	54	76	-22	36
20	Wigan Athletic	38	5	15	18	35	65	-30	30

Arsenal is currently sitting in second place three points behind Man United.  However, Arsenal is an excellent road team.  They average 2.077 goals scored on the road against opponents that average only 1.031 home goals allowed.  So Arsenal is nearly as effective scoring goals on the road as Manchester United is at home.  Arsenal is also a very strong home team scoring 2.0 goals per game against opponents that allow 1.551 goals.  I think this balance between home and road performance will carry them to the title this year.

The color coding corresponds to UEFA and relegation places for next season.  The top 3 teams will be placed in the UEFA Champions League group stage.  4th place goes to Champions League qualifying and 5th place goes to the UEFA Europa league.  The bottom 3 teams will be relegated to the English League Championship.  I will be updating these projections each week.  I also will be adding projections for other leagues in the near future.  Coming up next, the aforementioned League Championship.