An explanation:
You know when you watch a PL game on TV and occasionally the broadcaster puts up a territory map and it doesn't really make much sense.
Example:
Well, if we convert this percentage (100) into a per 90 number then we can talk about the amount of time each team spends in the attacking zone or the neutral (middle third) zone or their own defensive zone.
The Halfway Point In 13/14
This table is sortable so sort away and figure out things like which teams have been hemmed into their own zone, or which teams spend a lot of time in the middle third of the pitch.
| O Zone Time | N Zone Time | D Zone Time | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chelsea | 27.8 | 40.5 | 21.8 |
| Tottenham | 27.7 | 41 | 21.4 |
| Everton | 26.9 | 38.6 | 24.7 |
| Man City | 26.9 | 41.8 | 21.4 |
| Man United | 26 | 40.4 | 22.7 |
| West Ham | 26 | 39.1 | 24.9 |
| West Brom | 25.7 | 39.8 | 24.5 |
| Arsenal | 25.6 | 40.2 | 24.1 |
| Liverpool | 25.5 | 39.2 | 25.4 |
| Norwich | 25 | 37.7 | 26.4 |
| Southampton | 24.7 | 40.3 | 25.1 |
| Newcastle | 24 | 42.3 | 23.7 |
| Hull | 23.7 | 41.5 | 24.8 |
| Swansea | 23.5 | 43.9 | 23.6 |
| Cardiff | 23.4 | 39.9 | 26.9 |
| Palace | 23.4 | 39.1 | 27.5 |
| Sunderland | 23.3 | 39.8 | 26.9 |
| Aston Villa | 22.8 | 41.8 | 25.4 |
| Fulham | 22.2 | 41 | 27.7 |
| Stoke | 22.1 | 40.9 | 27 |
Score effects and tactical setups certainly play a part in skewing some of these numbers, so we need to be wary of drawing too many conclusions.
Man City and Tottenham have spent the least amount of time in their own defensive third. Fulham, Palace and Stoke have spent the most amount of time in their own defensive third.
Anyhow the table is up there, so play around with it.
Repeatability
So I took the average number of minutes spent in each zone for all 20 teams and split that information into two groups: first 10 games and the next 9 games. Not perfect, the number of games don't match and there may well have been scheduling imbalances that could skew these numbers, but anyhow, these are the r2 relationships between the two groups of games:
| r2 | |
| Offensive Zone Time | 0.444 |
| Neutral Zone Time | 0.569 |
| Defensive Zone Time | 0.586 |
The average number of minutes spent in the defensive zone is the more repeatable of the three of zones that I tracked. Why is that? No idea.
Visualized
Let's go back now and look at the average number of minutes each team spends in the attacking zone and the defensive zone:
By the naked eye there appears to be a slight relationship between being a team that spends a lot of minutes in the attacking zone and being a team who does not spend a lot of time in their own defensive zone. The r2 between the two sets of numbers above is r2=0.607 which is pretty good, although not great.
It's all very intuitive really: Good teams spend a lot of time attacking and thus not too much time defending. That principle again shows up when talking of the amount of time teams spend in the attacking and defensive zones.
Final Word
Good teams: Chelsea, City, Tottenham and Man United.
Bad Teams: Stoke, Fulham, Palace, Cardiff, Sunderland
These teams pass the 'smell test'. These numbers don't look too far out to what we intuitively know about the good and bad teams of the 13/14 PL season so far.