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.

Another scoreless draw: MLS 0 Fans 0

The MLS was hoping to generate some buzz with the debut of the new Live Strong Park in Kansas City.  Unfortunately this matchup featured two of the worst teams in the league, Kansas City and Chicago, and the match ended in a scoreless draw.  Coming off a weekend that featured three 0-0 results the MLS has a real scoring problem.  So far this season the league is averaging only 2.32 goals/match.  By comparison the English Premier and Championship Leagues averaged 2.80 and 2.73 goals/match respectively.


The scoring drought is not a recent phenomenon.  The table below shows average goals/match for every MLS season going back to the inaugural 1996 season:

Season	Goals per Match
1996	3.37
1997	3.26
1998	3.57
1999	2.86
2000	3.19
2001	3.28
2002	3.01
2003	2.89
2004	2.61
2005	2.87
2006	2.62
2007	2.66
2008	2.81
2009	2.53
2010	2.46
2011	2.32

So far 2011 is the lowest scoring season in the history of the league.  This and the prior two seasons have been the three lowest scoring seasons ever.  Interesting to note that the league averaged over 3 goals/match for six of its first seven seasons, but hasn't reached that level since 2002.

One of the consequences of the lack of scoring is that more matches end up in draws.  I think this is because teams know they can still earn a point even if they don't score and can prevent the other team from doing so.  so they start to play conservatively if they can't score an early goal.  So far this season 39% of all MLS matches have ended up in draws.  In the higher-scoring English leagues, the draw rate was 29% in the Premier league and 27% in the Championship.  Also, the MLS has had 14 0-0 draws in 112 total matches.  That's exactly one out of every eight matches (12.5%) ending scoreless or effectively at least one match/week.  The Premier had 6.6% scoreless matches and the Championship 7.2%.


For better or for worse, American sports fans like to watch sports that feature offense.  The MLS isn't providing that.  Even hardcore soccer fans, like myself, don't enjoy watching 0-0 matches.  This league is playing the same game as everybody else in the world but is not getting the same results.  Not sure how attendance is faring but the league needs to do a better job of developing new talent or import more talent from abroad to reverse the trend.  Otherwise attendance will suffer and the league as well.

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.