Halfway Point Analysis: Shots on Target Ratio

Firstly, a quick explanation of just what shots on target ratio is. It is the share of of the shots on target in a game. 5 shots on target a piece will result in a 50% share. 6-2 shots on target will result in a 75%-25% split of the shots on target.

The following is the shots on target ratio table.

Shots on target ratio

It is another great number for the Blues of Manchester who hold a near 10% lead over Tottenham who are the 2nd placed club. A 70% SoT ratio after 19 games is a staggering achievement, albeit one that has not led to a higher points total that would be reflective of that impressive shots ratio.

The usual suspects populate the top 7 positions but not necessarily an the order one would expect. Tottenham and Everton round out the top three, United are back in 7th.

As for the bottom, Aston Villa are struggling mightily. Injuries and a tough schedule are starting to bite hard at Paul Lambert's men and the return of senior and experienced pro's cannot come quickly enough.

Home and Away Split.

Below is the share of the shots on target ratio between the home teams and away teams.

Badly formatted graph, I know, but red is home and blue is away. 54.59% is the home teams share of the shots on target. The difference is not huge but significant enough so as to be worth mentioning.

Teams Of Interest

Below I shall highlight some of the teams or pairs of teams who have the most interesting and changing shots on target ratios.

The top two

The two Manchester clubs, the top two sides in the country both have excellent SoT ratio's. On e team has the more dominant, City, and the other team is seeing it's moving average ratio decline as befits a team who has not out-shot the opposition from games 16-19. United's moving average is rapidly moving toward being described as league average. Strange to say such a thing for a team who sits atop of the table and have a 90%+ chance of winning the league title according to some.

Improving

Sunderland were a team who were desperately struggling early in the season and I wasn't shy in saying so. But let's give Sunderland their due's and credit them for being able to turn around a number that was frighteningly low in to a quickly improving number, although it still lies way below average. What sparked the life into Sunderland's SoT ratio? I do not know the answer but whatever has been tweaked, hindsight tells us it was the right thing to do.

Relegation Rivals

Two of the teams in a pretty fierce battle to be relegated are Reading and QPR.

QPR, some say, have very little chance of surviving whilst other believe that Reading are not in possession of the necessary quality to survive in this unforgiving division. Either way we can plainly see that QPR are recording a far more impressive SoT ratio % and for a relegation threatened team a 46% number is pretty impressive. The issue with QPR is their ability to convert their shots on target into goals at a decent clip, and they are failing at doing so. This is one of the main areas of statistical weakness in QPR's season so far.

Reading on the other hand are converting their chances at nearly double the rate that QPR are doing. And it is this higher conversion 5 that is covering for the league's worst SoT ratio, a dismal 37.36%.

Shots on target ratio is a useful indicator of which teams are the most effective at generating quality scoring chances and having the ability to get those shots on target and preventing the opposition from doing likewise. What happens after that is a mix of shooter skill, goalkeeper skill and luck.

Thanks for reading.