Champo Stat Pack: Royals race, Preston lefties, Cov to kick on
The Championship is back this weekend and Benjamin Bloom has tried to get one step ahead of the action by diving into the numbers, with odds from Betfair throughout.
SNAIL RACING – Barnsley, Derby, Peterborough and Reading
I’m normally the last person to try and set expectations for teams at the bottom of the Championship. It’s snail racing down there and I’m always very cynical about the idea that as the season gets to the business end, a team who’s been poor all season will somehow turn into world-beaters and win all their games in hand.
The normal standard to survive in the Championship is just under a point per game; over the past ten seasons on average if you scored 45 points you’d have been safe. This is why it’s snail racing, a point per game can be accumulated pretty slowly and with plenty of defeats and few wins. It feels like when we’re talking about this season I need to find something that’s slower than a snail and drop my ‘45 to survive’ catchphrase.
To be completely accurate, reaching 45 points in a season requires 0.98 points per game. I’ll deal with Barnsley and Peterborough first as they haven’t had points deductions which tend to muddy the waters somewhat. Barnsley currently have 0.56 points per game and project to reach 26 at that rate, Peterborough have 0.7 points per game projecting a total of 32.2. I think you’ll agree on the basis of the past decades these would not be good totals.
The two teams with points deductions make for interesting and confusing projections, obviously their real points per game in terms of results is different to what’s actually on the table after the deduction. Reading are currently in the safe space of 21st, their real points per game is 0.93 projecting a 42.78 total, take off the six to get 36.78. Derby’s points per game with the deduction is a mighty 1.25 projecting a 57.5 total, take off the 21 and they are tantalisingly behind Reading on 36.5.
It seems the biggest factor in the current snail race is the Derby points deduction. Compared to historical evidence the Rams are performing far better than your average relegated teams. If the projections are any kind of a guide then Barnsley and Peterborough are goners with Derby and Reading looking like they’re going down to the wire.
Derby to beat Peterborough – 20/23 (Betfair)
TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT – Preston, Bournemouth and QPR
A couple of columns ago we had a look at the Championship teams who had the highest percentage of attacks down the right-hand side of the pitch, so in the interests of balance here’s a look across the pitch to the left-hand side.
I would set this up as a top three, but it’s a tie for second and third place between Bournemouth and QPR who both constructed 41% of their attacks down the left-hand side of the pitch. With QPR it feels like we’re only ever seconds away from discussing Illias Chair and Chris Willock so here we go again. Looking at their seasonal heatmaps Chair and Willock both favour the left-hand side of the pitch, Chair in the main gets first dibs on that side either playing inside left or drifting over there from the 10 position. Willock tends to be the one to play right-hand side in a front three, but in a front two is able to head left and dovetail with Chair joining in from further back. Props also need to go to Yoann Barbet who plays on the left-hand side of the Rangers back three, he’s played every minute of the season and his 48.1 accurate passes per game are key to building up attacks.
Bournemouth also come in on 41% of attacks down their left-hand side and are joint second. The first name to come to mind here is left-back Jordan Zemura, who has picked up three assists during a breakthrough season at left-back in Scott Parker’s 4-3-3 shape. Zemura loves to combine with winger Jaidon Anthony who he knows from the youth ranks, with Phillip Billing completing the Bournemouth left and collecting 14 goal contributions on the way.
Our number one most left-sided team is Preston North End who come in one percent higher than QPR and Bournemouth on 42% of attacks going down their left. Given they changed manager already this season it’s hard to know quite where to place the reasoning, but left centre back Andrew Hughes is third in their squad for minutes played with Josh Earl ahead of him at wing-back enjoying a breakthrough season at Championship level. Add into the mix experienced left-footed central midfield Daniel Johnson who leads the way with 80.1% pass success percentage and things become clearer.
Daniel Johnson first goalscorer v Reading – 13/2 (Betfair)
THE xG FILES – Coventry City
The general feedback I’ve been receiving from Coventry fans in recent times is frustrated optimism. Hopefully those two words are not an impossible contradiction, with Coventry giving off the vibe that they’re the odd tweak away from being a really decent side.
The season started in tremendous fashion. At the October international break Coventry sat third in the table with 22 points from 11 and bang on the fabled two points per game standard. It’s an interesting quirk of the numbers that the post October 2 form for Coventry has seen an identical 22 points go on the board, however this ‘two little ducks’ took 19 games meaning their PPG has gone from 2 to 1.15 – a 43% drop.
Given this is the xG files, it’s my duty to ask what can we ascertain from expected goals when it comes to Coventry? I looked in search of an overperformance and regression to the mean but honestly can’t find one. In an attacking sense those first 11 games saw 16 goals scored from an xG of 16.53. From an individual point of view it was Viktor Gyokeres firing in the goals with nine in those first 11 games, but his seasonal xG of 10.97 is also very much in line with his output of 11 goals scored.
The positive part of these findings are that if there was little or no overperformance in the early part of the season for Coventry, perhaps what’s going on now could be seen as an underperformance and they’ll be trending up again soon. This past midweek they lost at Cardiff with a superior xG and on the basis of chance creation could also reflect negatively on their inability to beat Blackpool, Millwall, Huddersfield and Swansea. Adding just a point for each of those five games would see Coventry tied with Middlesbrough in sixth place.
The xG numbers track fairly accurately for Coventry and given their xG difference is the 7th best in the division, the Sky Blues may finish a couple of places higher than their current spot in 12th. I should also say well done to the Coventry fans, as you can imagine I have a lot of fans reporting to me about how their team is actually better than they look and perhaps on this occasion that assertion wasn’t completely driven by bias.
Coventry to beat Barnsley – 4/7 (Betfair)
Odds correct at the time of publication. 18+ Please Gamble Responsibly. Visit begambleaware.org