Why West Ham Have Been Brilliant So Far

By Matthew

18 February, 2021 • 3:05 GMT

As at the time of writing, West Ham have played 24 premier league games this season and have racked up 42 points which sees their Points Per Game(PPG) stand at 1.75. Last season after 24 games, the hammers only had 23 points. How quickly has things turned around for them? Well, very quickly, I would say. Currently, they sit 2 points above defending champions, Liverpool, are level on points with Chelsea and just 11 points from log leaders, Man City. Though, I must admit that this 2020/21 season has been very unpredictable mostly due to the void stadia every game week and also, congested fixtures. 

So what has David Moyes done so far? Has he found the right tactical tweaks to his system or have West Ham been a product of luck?  

To begin with, David Moyes has successfully shifted the mentality of the club – he took over from Manuel  Pellegrini – from possession based to a more defensive but direct approach of playing. Possession based teams like Man City need quality players who can hold the ball even when under pressure, but since West Ham have not much of such players, they are flourishing playing without the ball. The players sit back and absorb pressure from the opposition, try to break play and then counter – with direct passes rather than short ones. Declan Rice has been very instrumental in this style of play for David Moyes as he connects the midfield and the defence.  Rice – who Frank Lampard had shown so much interest in – plays in a double pivot alongside Soucek and has a very good eye for a pass. 

For a region of about £20million, West Ham brought in Thomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal, Czech Internationals. Vladimir Coufal has played the “flying fullback role” since he joined. He creates attacking threats in the wide areas when he overlaps and is quite good at getting crosses into the opposition box. He has also created the most chances from open play for West Ham this season and surely, this is impressive from a player many deemed was a defensive right back. As for Soucek, he has arguably been the best player for his side this season. One of his strengths lies in how he provides late runs from his deep position when West Ham are in their attacking phase. In few words, West Ham have made good, astute and shrewd signings recently.

Let’s talk about set pieces. For starters, a set piece is usually corner kicks, free kicks, penalties or any other situation when the ball goes dead. West Ham might not have a throw-in coach like Liverpool do, or Arsenal’s Andreas Georgson, but whoever is their set piece coach deserves some accolades. They might not have a free kick specialist like Southampton’s James Ward-Prowse but one thing that data shows us is that at present, West Ham have scored  13 goals from set pieces that are not penalties. This is one of the reasons behind their scintillating performance this season. As if that isn’t brilliant enough, they have conceded the fewest goals from set pieces this Premier League season. Yes, it is safe to say they are masters of set pieces. 

Extensive Data Analysis

PPDA [PASSES PER DEFENSIVE ACTIONS]

PPDA is a data metric used to measure the intensity of how teams press to put it in very simple terms. The higher the PPDA, the lower the intensity of a team’s press and the lower the PPDA, the higher the intensity of a team’s press. Generally, defensive teams - “prime Inter Milan” – usually have a very high PPDA because they don’t press their opponents as they tend to invite and absorb pressure. Like I stated earlier on, Moyes has transformed the hammers into a defensive side, and so, they rank third on the table of teams with a high PPDA this Premier League season. With a PPDA of 17.66, they are behind West Brom(17.80) and Newcastle(17.89). 

GOAL DIFFERENTIALS

West Ham have scored 37 premier league goals already. On the goals scored table, they sit in seventh place and are just 3 goals shy off Chelsea in sixth. Many might try to downplay their brilliant goal scoring due to the fact that about thirty-five percent of these goals have come from dead ball situations but still, goals scored remains goals scored. 

They are eight on the expected goals, xG, table with an xG of 36.02. They are currently outperforming their expected goals by just one goal. This shows that they might not create many high value chances, but one thing they definitely don’t do is to waste the little ones they create.

Having conceded 28 goals already this season from an xGA(expected goals against) of 29.22, they are relatively doing well at the back and not just going forwards. West Ham have a goal difference of 9.

FORMATIONS

Recently, I was checking with a friend, the number of formations West Ham have played with this season and found out that they have played with ten different formations already. 

With the 4-2-3-1, Moyes’ side have played over a thousand minutes (1080), have scored 14 goals and have let in 14 also. 555 minutes they have played with the 5-4-1 formation, have scored 12 goals and have conceded 8. 3-4-2-1 and 3-4-3 are among the formations, they have favoured this season.   

     West Ham's formation in win against Aston                               Villa

SELECTED PLAYERS

Thomas Soucek has scored the most goals for his team despite being played in a deep role. With 8 goals in 2160 minutes played, he has been ridiculously good. He has an xG of 6.24 and an xG per 90 of 0.26.

      Thomas Soucek in action for the hammers

Michail Antonio is the team’s recognised striker especially after the sale of Sebastian Haller – pronounced ‘Halayer’ – to Ajax. Antonio has a huge physique which is one of his strength as a striker. He has only managed to play 1083 minutes due to injuries sustained but as made those minutes count by providing 5 goals and 3 assists. 

Jesse Lingard scored two dazzling goals on his debut for the side. 2 goals in 265 minutes is a good way to revive his failing footballing career. Only time will tell if his West Ham move would prove to be a good one or otherwise.

Note: All statistical data provided are for the Premier league only, doesn’t include any other competition West Ham partake in and are provided as at the time of writing.

  

Football Meets Oligarchy

By Matthew

23 January, 2021 • 23:05GMT

“I was bored and wanted a new challenge”, Roman Abramovich told the BBC when he was asked on why he had bought Chelsea Football Club – never knew boredom could make someone buy a football club. Back in 2003, Chelsea was a struggling club owned by Ken Bates who would later go on to buy Leeds United. Chelsea was in debt and since on-pitch performances weren’t good enough to bring in much revenue, the club was struggling to meet up with its interest payments. Abramovich engrossed in buying a football club, probably to get out of boredom, Chelsea in need of a buyer who would pull it out of its potential bankruptcy, a match was about to be made in heaven.  

Many clubs were offered to Abramovich; Portsmouth FC, the red side of Manchester and then the club he would eventually buy, Chelsea. According to sources, the deal was finalized in just 15 minutes. Why did he choose Chelsea? Why wouldn’t he? One, Chelsea is located in London, a great place to ply all kinds of trade, and then he probably wanted to showcase his Billionaire status since Chelsea desperately needed cash at that time. So, who is Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich? 

Abramovich was born in Saratov, Russia in 1996 into a low class Jewish family who were originally from Lithuania and was raised by relatives since he was orphaned at the age of 4. He started work as a street trader and then worked as a mechanic at a local factory. In 1986, there was an economic and political restructuring of the Soviet Union, a reform called “perestroika”. Seeing this reform, he ventured into different businesses one including the sale of imported rubber ducks from his abode in Moscow. He later ventured into the trading of oil - the source of the resources he obtained to become an oil merchant remains obscure. At that time, Oil business was risky and not many went down that lane, but those that took the risk including Abramovich, were rewarded heavily. In 1993, he had made enough money to be considered as a business partner by many other rich Russian business men. Boris Berezovsky also known as Platon Elenin - most probably a pseudonym - a mathematician, former member of Russian Academy of Sciences and a wealthy man who had made his first fortune from selling locally produced cars, beckoned on Abramovich. He wanted him and Abramovich to bring many of Russia's oil companies under one organisation that they would own and control. Abramovich agreed and their business plan was a success.

         Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich

As at this point the Soviet Union had collapsed and Russia had entered its post communist time, Boris Yeltsin was Russia's first post communist president. In 1996, Yeltsin kicked off his re-election election campaign but something was missing, he needed money. Realising this, he called on Russia's biggest oligarchs, a group Abramovich belonged to - oligarchs are very wealthy people who also have political powers and then run the country to an extent. He told them he would implement privatisation of state assets if they would assist him financially and influence the media to ensure he got re-elected. Yeltsin won the election and as promised, sold most of Russia's assets to the oligarchs at a fraction of their market value. It was reported that Berezovsky and Abramovich bought a particular state asset worth $3 Billion for just $100 million. The oligarchs became politically affluent and wealthy at a time Russia was suffering from economic depression. Before the end of his tenure, Yeltsin was ill and was forced out largely because he was despised by Russia's citizens.

Vladimir Putin was the man to become Russia's next president and had promised the public that he would smash the oligarchs and bring all their assets back under state control. Many of the oligarchs didn't see Putin as a threat and started to work out a political reform. Abramovich, not underestimating Putin, quickly became an ally of the man many of the oligarchs had despised. The aftermath of their despise? Their assets were seized and they were jailed on the charge of tax fraud. Abramovich retained all of his assets but had to abandon any plan of a political reform, something he never really wanted anyway. Also, Abramovich pumped cash into Putin's projects, built him a palace and bought him a 57m yatch worth £25 million, all of these Abramovich denied.

           Vladimir Putin and Roman Abramovich                                  (background)

Berezovsky refused to be a friend of Putin and thus, his fallout with Abramovich. Berezovsky also said that Abramovich and Putin conspired against him and  took away his fortune. The issue was addressed in court where Abramovich and Putin were vindicated and Berezovsky found to be a false witness. About a year later,  Berezovsky was dead - believed to be suicide. The state later bought Abramovich's asset rather than seize it, for $13 Billion in 2005.

Abramovich a governor of a Russian province from 2003 to 2008 has been a key ally of Putin and his suffering from it presently as he is currently banned from entering the UK - a different story entirely - and unable to visit his club. From very humble beginnings to becoming a man who would eventually buy a football club out of boredom, Abramovich has probably been  Russia's biggest oligarch.

Soccermatics: xG, Expected Goals

13 January 2020 • 2:59 GMT

Whether we like it or not, stats, data, mathematics are now a big part of football. How do we explain a doctor of particle physics being an integral part of a football club? Someone said, " football isn't rocket science but scientists are driving it in that direction". Some fans see data revolution as a threat rather than as a tool. Unsurprising, I fall into this group probably because I never really liked Maths - I mean, it was a miracle if I had a B in maths and if I had a D, it was expected. But why would some see it as a threat? Simple. Because when simple things become too complex, we displace the simplicity of it. Football is a simple game but where is the simplicity when I have to be a maths guru to understand it?

One of the evangelists of data in football is Matthew Benham, owner of Brentford Football Club who is also the owner of SmartOdds, a betting company. Of no doubt, betting companies make so much use of data, stats and Benham has also brought in the ideology to his club. As much as it hurts to admit, Brentford have been a successful club being run on this data revolution and are closing in on promotion to the Premier League.

There are many data metrics in football today. Some are used to analyse games - xG, xA, PPDA - while some are used in scouting and recruiting players - moneyball. So today's piece of writing is on xG, expected goals.

In football, every shot that a player shoots is given a quality value of 0-1. This value tells us if the shot should have become a goal clearly or if it was to difficult to become a goal, just like probability in maths. Before the invention of Expected Goals, there was an assumption that in every 10 shots a player takes, at least one must result in a goal. But this assumption has become outdated because there is no account of what types of shots they were or how far the shots were from goal. So what then is an expected goal?

An expected goal, xG is a data metric that measures the probability of a shot resulting in a goal using a considerable number of factors. Factors like, the distance of the shot from the goalpost, the angle of the shot( a tight angle or an open angle), was it a 1V1 situation, was it an headed goal or not and so on. There are different xG models today. While some take into consideration whether the player took the shot with his stronger foot or with the weaker, some don't. Some also take into consideration if the player was closed down by several players while taking the shot and some don't. Like I said or wrote, there are different xG models. There is no xG model that takes the player taking the shot into consideration, if it was Messi or Batshauyi. There is no such bias. According to the Opta model, the closer the shot is to the goalpost, the higher the xG.

         photo credit: Nouman

In this scenario, Tammy Abraham scored this goal. According to the Opta model, the shot had an xG of 0.10 which is a low value xG. A low value xG shot is less likely to result in a goal. The shot had a low value xG because Abraham was closed down by two players and the angle of the shot was a tight one. This means Abraham outperformed his expected goal by 0.90. An xG of 0.10 also means that in every 10 shots, only one would result in a goal. An xG of 0.02 means that in every 100 shots, only two would result in a goal. An xG of 0.80 means in every 10 shots, 8 would result in a goal. Simple, isn't it?

          Heung-Min Son is outperforming his xG

This season after 16 appearances, Heung Min Son has racked in 12 premier league goals but his xG of 5.39 according to the Understat model tell us that he should have scored 5 goals and not 12. This means Son is outperforming his xG by 6.61 (12 - 5.39). In simple words, Son should have only scored 5 goals but he has scored 12. This makes Son a very clinical striker and probably the most clinical in the Premier League. But let's not get carried away, this could mean Son is a very clinical striker or that Son has just been lucky. Also, it is quite impossible for a player to keep outperforming his xG by this margin. 

Also according to the Understat model - I use the Understat model a lot, well  because it's free - Sheffield United have scored just 8 goals this season despite having an xG of 16.8. This tells us they are underperforming their xG by 8 goals. In simple words, they should have scored 16 goals but they have only managed to net 8. This means that Sheffield have really poor strikers or that their strikers have been extremely unlucky.

There is more to xG as we have xGA (expected goals against), NPxG(Non Penalty expected goals) and so on but in order not to make this look like a maths tutorial, I have decided to round it off here. Don't fret if you didn't quite get today's article, you might just read it all over again or just join the "get rid of stats" campaign.