I set this blog site up a few months ago with the intention of writing about my findings from analysing the less obvious numbers in football. The reality is that collecting the data is far more exhausting than I expected it to be so until now twitter has had to put up with my ramblings, and the odd graph.
I have a few articles in the pipeline but I thought I would start with QPR and, in particular, their forthcoming fixture versus Stoke. Why QPR? Well, they’re my team, and given our record-breaking away form, I was keen to see how we might go about reversing our fortunes on the road, starting with the game at Stoke (an extra special fixture for the club given the Mark Hughes connection).
Stoke are on a decent run of form sitting 6th in the 5-game form table and 10th in the league overall, and they can boast impressive wins this season away at Everton, Spurs and Man City as well as a home win against Arsenal in which they took a 3-0 lead.
So how have they gone about it?
The following radar summarises Stoke’s general attacking approach (produced from stats by Michael Caley).
The radar, left, provides an indication of Stoke’s speed of attack and quality of shots taken (based on shot location and assist type) which is displayed in relation to the league averages for the metrics considered.
Crudely speaking, faster attacks result in better conversion rates and shots are more likely to be successful the closer they are taken to the goal. Similarly, shots assisted by through balls are generally more productive than those from crosses. You can read more about the effect of attacking speed from Colin Trainor here, and on shot quality by Michael Caley here.
From Stokes radar left, a higher than average proportion of their shots have come from fast attacks and crosses. Their shot choices are well mixed, reflecting the league averages.
Long balls can account for speedy attacks, however, in the second radar to the right, you can see that Stoke aren’t the long ball team they might once have been. 
Only 15% of their passes are long balls nowadays which is equal to the league average. Instead, many of their attacks build from counter and direct play, often focusing passing down the flanks. Stoke are 4th in the league for dribbles per game, when considered in relation to the time spent with the ball, and 3rd in the league for shots taken on the counter. A high percentage of their shots are headers, no doubt in part to their preference to cross the ball, and they are turning a high proportion of set pieces into shots.
Stoke are not used to having to break down a tightly packed defence, with slow build-up play and inch perfect through-balls. Instead, they are soaking up opposition attacks before exploiting the width and getting the ball into the box quickly, creating chances at times when the opposition defence is most likely out of position or not correctly set.
So, how do we beat them?
Well, we can start by slowing down the pace of Stoke’s attacks by reducing their opportunities to play direct and on the counter. And, this can be achieved by sitting deep and remaining compact, defensively. Stoke would still find space on the flanks to get crosses in, but our defence should be better set to challenge anything coming in to the box. Naturally, you would see an increase in speculative low quality shots from outside the box too, but these are the shots you should prefer to concede.
But will it work?
We can take confidence from our fellow strugglers, Villa, Leicester and Burnley, who have all left the Britannia with 3 points this season after limiting Stoke’s preferred attacking style. However, I point to Burnley as the exemplar.
Stoke 1 – 2 Burnley
Burnley gave up 72% of the possession to Stoke, and were 20 shots worse off, only registering 5 shots themselves. However, they nullified Stoke. Considering the Whoscored screenshots above, reading right to left from the top left, Burnley’s heatmap demonstrates how they compacted themselves and sat back, with most of their touches occurring on the edge of their own box. As a result, most of Stoke’s attempted dribbles occurred deep in Burnley’s half, where space was limited.
Despite registering so many attempts, Stoke were restricted to an unusually high proportion of low quality shots from outside the box, most of which where closed down quickly and blocked. Stoke were allowed to get their usual crosses in, however, these were generally from slower build-up play and Burnley’s defence were generally organised well enough to either intercept these or compete for the danger zone headers.
As a fan of football, it’s not really how you want to see football played; it’s not the ‘right’ way. However, in their book The Numbers Game, Anderson and Sally demonstrated that keeping a clean sheet was worth more points than scoring, after all, if you’ve not conceded you will win at least one point, if not three.
When you’re down on your luck away from home, surely the right way of playing is that which is going to give you the best chance of bagging some points, even if it’s just the one. With that in mind, I would be happy to see the lads have a go on Saturday; have a go at frustrating Stoke, making them play differently to how they clearly prefer. And, by picking our opportunities to counter carefully, you never know, the travelling fans might just get to sing a few chorus’ of “How sh*t must you be, we’re winning away”.
Not All Goals Are Equal 