The Halfway Point in 2013/14: Time Spent Winning/Losing/Drawing

The results aren't that surprising

Time

Sortable table.

Man City are really good: the highest average minutes per game spent leading and the fewest minutes per game spent losing. And it's worth noting just how low Man City's minutes spent losing actually is - 6.7 minutes per game or 120 minutes total.

Aston Villa are really struggling to take and maintain the lead in their games.

Palace, Sunderland, Fulham and Norwich have spent the highest average minutes in a losing position.

It's worth noting that these numbers will tend to level out to what I will call 'more sensible' levels as the season progresses. An example of this is that Man City are unlikely to sustain such a high 'winning' minutes or such a low 'losing' minutes. It's unlikely.

The relationship between Time Spent Winning & Goal Difference is r2=0.842. That is a very strong correlation, but it's to be expected.

Here's how that correlation has changed over the first 19 games of the season

The relationship between goal difference and time spent winning is getting stronger week-by-week, but again, this is pretty intuitive. Good teams spend more time winning because they tend to outscore teams who do not possess as much talent as they themselves do.

Time At Close Game States

This next table is minutes spent exclusively at Close Game States (~84% of all game time).

Posting a high number of minutes at Plus 1 will likely have a strong impact on a teams shots numbers. Score effects kick in and teams that spend a lot of time at plus 1 will likely be out-shot by their opponents but not outscored. It's complicated, but that hyperlink helps explain a few things.

Everton spend a lot of minutes drawing. A lot.

I'll return to this table in the next couple of articles in order to look at shots rates per minute at these close game states.