By Ed Valentine

Ruud Van Nistelrooy scored 150 goals for Manchester United. Only one of those goals was scored from outside the box. Arguments were made by some fans saying that Henry was better in terms of all round game and could do more in more midfield areas of the pitch. Other fans claimed that the mark of a striker was the ability to get in free positions at close range and hit the target. Henry’s influence seems to have evaporated over the years as the current Arsenal squad has scored 19 Premier League goals between them in 2014-15 - all of these have been from inside the box as the graphic below displays.

The next graphic shows where Arsenal has created chances on the pitch. Over half have come from the area in front of the 18 yard box but no goals have been scored from this position.

37% of the 19 goals have been low centre indicating that they are tap ins from about 6 yards. This would give rise to the idea that the ball arrives at the goal scorer’s feet from a pull back at the bye line.

Arsenal’s shot accuracy for the 2014-15 season. Less than half of the attempts have hit the target.

In the next post I will look at Goal Probability Added (GPA) - a metric which is becoming increasingly important and looks at a player’s actions over their career and how much those actions increase or decrease the chances of the team scoring when they are on the pitch.

Data courtesy of Opta

By David Butler

Not for the first time this year the media has referred to Tottenham’s ‘Europa League hangover‘ as a cause of their poor domestic form. This week the Independent in England reported that this was "their fourth defeat at home this season in the league, with each failure coming after they have played in the Europa League midweek".

The theory goes that playing on a Thursday evening in the Europa League gives teams only a limited recovery time for a Sunday fixture and that a long journey back to England from remote European destinations can cause fatigue. So does playing in the Europa League cause poor domestic performance? 

I collected data since the beginning of the Europa League competition in the 09-10 season for English teams that reached the group stages. Since the 09-10 season nine English clubs have played in the group stages of the competition; Tottenham, Manchester City, Fulham, Everton, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Swansea and Stoke. Others have entered the competition but have failed to qualify for the group stages. English clubs have played 86 group stage matches to date. I also collected data on the 86 Premier League matches for these clubs for the Sunday after their Thursday European match (for the group stages only). I had to drop 10 observations from the sample as the teams competing in Europe played each other the following Sunday once and nine other times they didn’t play on the Sunday and had a longer rest period to their next domestic match. This left 76 matches that had a constant time gap between the Europa League and a domestic match.

As the pie-chart below shows, the clubs in the Europa League group stages have actually won more domestic matches following a Thursday night match than they have lost. There has been 33 wins, 28 loses and 15 draws on the following Sunday. The chart also breaks this down for matches played after home and away Europa League encounters. Interestingly, clubs have won more matches domestically having played away on a Thursday night than they have when they played at home. There may not be much in the ‘travel effect’ hypothesis.

While I only look at results after group stage matches and don’t control for the difficulty of a fixture or rotating squads, the moderate sample allows some insight to the ‘hangover’ phenomenon.   

As Tottenham have played in the competition over the last four seasons they provide an interesting case. In the 2011-2012 season Tottenham actually collected maximum points in the six games after their Europa League group stage matches (18), beating the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal on Sundays. The exact opposite of a hangover! In 2012-2013 Tottenham won four of the six Premier League matches and lost two.  In 2013-2014 they won two, drew one and lost three.  This season they have lost all four so far.

Given this past success after Europa League matches one would really have to question the idea of a ‘hangover’ as a cause of Tottenham's home defeats after the Europa Cup this season. While the competition structure has remained constant over four years for the club, their human capital hasn't. 

Why do some leap to the conclusion of a hangover effect?  I think this is a case of an availability bias. We may be taking a mental shortcut, thinking the possibility of Tottenham losing on Sunday is higher simply because recent, and easy to remember, examples of Sunday losses following a Thursday match exist. When all the data is collected the shortcomings off relying on memorable matches becomes apparent.

Next I want to control for the factors mentioned above and I will look at individual teams and their post Thursday night points compared to their total points haul.

By Robbie Butler

Last season Liverpool almost won their first Premier League title and first Championship since 1990. It becomes clearer by the week that this was driven by one factor; an ability to score goals. The sale of Luis Saurez and the absence of Daniel Sturridge through injury has left the Reds languishing in mid-table after eleven games. The 14 goals they have scored so far means they will probably be a million miles away from the 101 they managed by the end of last season, come next May.

Amazingly however 101 goals was not the most last year. Man City scored 102!. David Butler has shown here that the team that scores the most goals generally wins the league. That was true again in 2013-2014 and has caused some to question the quality of defending in the Premier League. Gary Neville recently wrote a fabulous piece on the death of defending in the Premier League and argues that stopping attackers from scoring is becoming a lost art.

Neville hits so many points on the head. Defending is now much harder than before because both institutions (rules) and incentives have changed so much since he started out that it's impossible to defend today like players did in the past. Just take a look at this Roy Keane "tackle" on Oldham's Neil Pointon. Before you do, watch out for three things:
           1. Pointon's reaction.
           2. The reaction of the Oldham players.
           3. Trevor Brookings' comment on the tackle.

Pointon simple gets to his feet. The Oldham players don't surround Keane or the referee. Brooking says the words "definitely worth a booking". You don't say Trevor.   

So is the art of defending dying or indeed dead? Are there now more goals scored in the Premier League than ever before? The data tells us no. Below is the number of goals scored in each English top-tier season from 1976-1977 to last season, adjusted for the number of teams. 

The trend is downward. The figure controls for the fact the league moved from 22 teams to 20 and back again before resting on 20 since the 1995-1996 season. Watching the Premier League today, I am compelled to agree with Gary Neville; the art of defending does seem to be dying, Yet the data tells us the number of goals being scored is in decline. An interesting puzzle. 

By John Considine

By David Butler

I always keep an eye on the nationality of the footballer awarded the Man of the Match award (MOTM) by Sky Sports in English Premier League matches.

Below is a graph which shows the allocation of MOTM awards this season by nationality. To date 106 awards have been given out by Sky Sports reporters. There were 4 matches where the report did not disclose the MOTM. Unsurprisingly, England comes out on top with 33 awards.  Approximately 40% of players in the Premier League are English so this is not unusual. What some may find surprising however is why this domestic performance is not transferring to the international stage.

Spain and Belgium come in 2nd and 3rd respectively. The big over achievers are the Senegalese. Sadio Mane, Papiss Cisse and Diafra Sakho have won the award seven times between them. The Irish only had one MOTM award until James McCarthy, Shane Long and John Walters all scooped the prize last weekend.

By Robbie Butler

One of the cornerstones of microeconomics is that people respond to incentives. Pick up any principles of economics textbook and you'll probably be confronted with the four principles of decision making before you end chapter 1. One of the four is that people respond to incentives. Thanks to the British Horse-racing Authority (BHA) we are now going to see if horses do to.

Enter Mad Moose. Some of you may have heard about the enigmatic 10 year old who in January was banned indefinitely from racing after failing to start, when under orders for a fifth time, in the Grade 1 Tingle Creek at Sandown in December 2013. In fact, in some of the recent races were the horse did "start" he was so far behind when he got going that all chance of winning the race was gone.

The decision of the BHA was interesting. Those in charge claimed that the decision to ban the horse was based on the fact that they wish to protect punters from betting on a horse without getting a run. For those unfamiliar with betting, when a horse is "under order" (white flag raised) no money can be returned. Mad Moose backers lose out every time the horse fails to run when under orders.

The question as to why the BHA feels the need to do this must be posed. Surely, the horse's odds reflect the chance he may not start? Anyone that reads Mad Moose's form will see the letter "R" (refused) before his name on numerous occasions. It's not as if this information is hidden or there is a lack of transparency. If a punter still wishes to back the horse why should they be prevented from doing so?

Thankfully, last week Mad Moose was granted permission to start running again. I wonder what the horse thinks? Will this punishment work? Hardly. The horse surely didn't know he was suspended! 

If he does start (as hoped) in his next race, maybe we can surmise that horses do in fact respond to incentives. Unless he enjoyed his time off that is. If he fails to start again I wonder what trainer Nigel Twiston-Davis will do? As they say, you can bring a horse to water...but you can't make him start! 

By David Butler

With Robert Pires, Freddie Ljungberg and Luis Garcia plying their trade in India, Didier Drogba having a spell in China and David Beckham, Robbie Keane and Thierry Henry based in States, I started thinking about labour mobility for footballers. I think it’s fair to say the lure of a bumper contract for elite players who have spent the bulk of their careers in the English Premier League has caused many older professionals to move to foreign destinations to play football.

The question I ask is whether Ireland was a leader on this front –  offering a retirement home to the great footballers in their professional dotage?

In the 1970’s and 1980’s the destination for many elite English footballers was our domestic league, the League of Ireland. Below is a list of elite English players who ventured to Ireland late in their career to play football. The average age of those that arrived from 1973 to 1989 was 35 and a half. Only George Best was in his 20’s, and given his extravagant lifestyle this was probably nearer the end of his career than your average footballer. The list includes some very famous names including Bobby Charlton, who signed for Waterford,  and Gordon Banks who played for St.Patricks Athletic. Both Charlton and Banks were part of the English World Cup winning team in 1966.

While many other famous players arrived at Irish shores to play football before the 1970’s such as Raich Carter (1953) and Dixie Dean (1939), and some non-English based elite players such as World Cup winner Uwe Seeler with Cork Celtic in 1978, it seems that the migration of elite talent to the League of Ireland really began to take off in the 1970’s. From my count 16 elite players came from England between 1973 and 1989, I may have missed some others. Most of the players below were accessed here from a  interesting piece written by Colm Murphy for the Dundalk FC magazine.

With the development of the game internationally and thanks to the lowering of transport costs, many new options have since opened up for the Premier League stars. This has widened the labour market for aging footballers and presented them with far more lucrative options near the end of their careers in locations around the world that Irish clubs cannot compete with. 

Now, migrating to the States, India or China for elite footballers in their 30's is seen as a natural step in their career, but the next time you see a player heading off from the Premier League, usually to warmer climes, keep in mind that the aging talent often migrated but just didn't travel as far!

By John Considine

Last year I presented a list of some of the sports books that received favourable treatment from the Revenue Commissioners (here).  At the time I expressed surprise that Brian Cody did not appear on the list.  I was also surprised at the lack of more recent GAA people on the list.  Things seem to have changed.  The updated list of GAA related sports writing means that those puzzles are no longer really an issue.  Cody makes the list as does DJ Carey, Sean Og O'Halpin and Donal Og Cusack.  In fact, gaelic games sports writing dominates the list.  The first table below presents gaelic games writing.

It is interesting to compare the list of GAA books with that of other sports.  Allowing that I might have missed a couple of sports books from the extensive list of all books gaining favourable tax treatment, it seem that there is as many gaelic games books as all other sports books on the list.  The list of other sports books is presented below.

By Robbie Butler

It’s interesting to note the trend in English trained horses arriving each Friday night in Dundalk. This is somewhat the opposite of what most assume when we speak about racing. Generally, it is the Irish that take to the air and the seas and arrive in the UK in large numbers for events such as Royal Ascot, Cheltenham and Aintree.

As I have mentioned previously, horse racing in Ireland is one of the few sports where the industry operates on the same standing as that in Great Britain. This is largely thanks to the on-going and substantial support offered to the industry through the Exchequer. While some of the funding provided by the State is channelled into capital investment, the bulk of monies received are used in the prize fund for each race. 

A quick look at last Friday’s race cards will explain why English trained horses are arriving here. The equivalent to Dundalk’s all-weather meeting was also staged in Wolverhampton. The table to the right lists the prize money for the winning horse in each race at both tracks. (Dundalk prize money is presented in pounds sterling for comparison purposes). 

Dundalk offered substantially more prize money to each winning horse. The biggest prize of the night was just over £27,000. This compares with just over £9,000 in Wolverhampton. Is it any wonder that Marco Botti's English trained Pelerin travelled over and took the big prize back to the Newmarket? In fact, Newmarket was also on last Friday. Botti could have made the short trip from his stables to the course. However, the biggest prize on offer was £17,013. A substantial amount but not the £27,000 plus on offer in Ireland. 

Botti isn't the only trainer to spot this. The Friday before the English trained Sir Maximillian took home £21,667 for trainer Ian Williams.  This could be the start of things to come.