Premier League Attacking and Defending Universe

Sometimes we get so deep into the weeds here (Joshua Zirzkee’s game to game forward pass reception rate compared to his positional compadres) that it can be worth it to step back and take a look at the overall universe of the league. Who is good, what types of play do they use to accumulate these goods and how do they attack and defend primarily?

Now this is with my much more rough xG model where I try purposefully to not let these huge chances outweigh everything (ex: Nunez stealing Salah’s shot in CL worth .99). Here the max a shot can be worth is .58, under the assumption basically that most shots above .4 are very slightly different than a .4 shot and that is mostly random luck that can really get overly weighted. If instead of 4 0.4 chances, a team had 4 0.8 chances right now their attack would look much better and I don’t think sustainably so. Pens are also thrown out here…overall I look at penalty box pressure a lot which I think simulates that better than actual pens drawn but here they are all out.

What we see is Man Utd have not got much from set plays at all this year, I have them down for the tied-fewest shots and the lowest xG/shot from set plays overall.

Three teams have really pushed xG on set plays, Arsenal unsurprisingly and then Villa and Forest. All 3 teams are right at the top in terms of xG created per set piece, all 30-40% higher than league average…Brentford is also right near the +30% mark but have had very few set play opportunities.

Spurs, Bournemouth and Man Utd create the least xG per set piece chance at 73-78% of league average.

Man City, Brighton and Arsenal are settled teams, their open play attack works through long possessions to output. Liverpool are sort of becoming one as the overall style to generate transitional chances is not really there anymore, even though I think their best chances come from almost Klopp muscle memory.

The teams who love to create in transition or off takeaways have been Newcastle, Spurs, and Wolves so far. Wolves are in their own sort of low-wattage attack with Everton and the recently promoted teams…Forest’s main edge on these teams is via set plays. The goal vs Liverpool maybe clouded my mind a bit and I thought Forest were some rampant team who is dominant on the break. This data, though cloudy in some ways and rough around the edges, suggests that’s not so.

Here we are looking at how effective teams are at progression and how quickly they get shots off in possession. The scale is all twisted because of how slowly Saints attack, adding acres of white space between them and other attacks who would look slow without Saints like Liverpool, Leicester and Brentford.

Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest both seem to be maxing out quickness of shot generation by minimizing progression efficiency, Ipswich is just an overmatched offensive team. Forest play the toughest passes on average (lowest expected progression efficiency) with Bournemouth the 4th lowest. Newcastle are down there playing the 3rd toughest passes, but still getting to average in progression efficiency overall.

Brighton, Chelsea and Saints play the easiest passes with City just 5th.

Fulham have looked just incredible against their soft schedule to start the year, one of the stories of the year for me.

The shadowy logos are a bit eery. Liverpool’s transition to a “Make You Beat Us” team defensively shows up well with their orange-ness here, something you would not have ever seen under Klopp.

Leicester’s dead ball defense has been comically bad so far this year, allowing 75% more xG per opportunity than the average team, basically double what the best attacking teams have done. Brighton, Man City (on an incredibly low number of set pieces faced) and Spurs have been bad but when Leicester is so bad it doesn’t look all that bad in comparison. Wolves have just faced the most set pieces and Saints have the combo of both bad defense on each set piece (20% worse than average) and facing the second most.

Chelsea and Forest have defended set pieces the best per set piece faced so far.

Brighton stand out as a team who gives up a huge share of their production against on the break…I thought Bournemouth would be there as well but they are pretty dark orange here.

Southampton and Brentford are not in good spots at all, giving up loads of easy progression while opponents are incredibly quick to get shots off. Everton are worst in the league in progression efficiency allowed, but at least slow the rate of shots generated like Villa and Forest do.

Spurs force opponents into the toughest passes by a large margin over Bournemouth and Southampton. Southampton being on the other end of the progression efficiency table with opponents playing theoretically tough pass types is a bad sign for the type of pressure they are putting on passers and receivers.

Ipswich and…Liverpool allow the easiest passes, a total wild change from the Klopp days where the press forced tough, vertical balls constantly. Slot has made Liverpool a tough to get break down defense, like he had Feyenoord at last CL season.