Manchester United OPTA Statistics

[listen_up_fergie]

http://home.skysports.com/optastats.asp?clid=1&clubname=Manchester+United&cpid=8

I thought it would be a good idea to look at our OPTA stats at various points of the season, and to archive some of the stats for future reference. Stats don't always give us the complete picture, but nevertheless I think if used properly they can be a useful analytical tool.

OPTA Stats till Nov 5th


Team MANCHESTER UNITED League Rank
Games 10
Goals 15 2
Shots 113 6
Conversion % 13% 5
Passes 4519 3
Pass % 82% 3
Crosses 256 10
Cross % 27% 3
Tackles 327 13
Tackle % 67% 20
Fouls 152 15
Yellow Cards 17 11
Red Cards 0 11


Looking at the stats, we can see that our goalscoring form has improved from last season. IIRC, last season we had the most shots of any team in the league, but our conversion % was the lowest. This time around, we aren't topping the shots table, but at least our conversion % has improved in terms of ranking (the actual percentage still seems a little low). Its good to see that we are tied second in terms of number of goals scored, but there's definitely room for improvement.
Looking at where the goals have been scored from, 13 are from inside the box, whereas only 1 is from outside the box. With Ruud scoring 8 of our goals so far, this is no surprise that most of our goals are from inside the box. But this also reflects Scholes relatively poor form this season, as in the past we could always expect at least a couple of goals from outside the box from him.
It is also important to note that 13 of our goals so far have been scored by our strikers, primarily Ruud and Rooney. This has been brought up before and hasn't gone unnoticed by us, so it's going to be a bit redundant for me to point out that we need more goals from our midfield.
Also, it's important to note that before the game against Chelsea, we had only scored 1 goal from a header (Ronaldo against Boro). This could reflect several things most notably poor service from the wings and poor use of indirect setpieces.

An interesting statistic to look at is our tackling. According to OPTA, we are currently the worst tacklers in the league, with only a 67% success rate. We also aren't putting in enough tackles to begin with, since we rank 13th in terms of number of tackles (although once the Chelsea game gets taken into account, this will change). It could show that in previous games we weren't closing down players quick enough and that players were sometimes lazy with their tacking.


Shooting Player Shots Shot %
1 Ruud van Nistelrooy 29 48%
2 Wayne Rooney 25 36%
3 Paul Scholes 15 33%
4 Cristiano Ronaldo 11 36%
5 Alan Smith 10 40%

Passing Player Passes Pass %
1 Paul Scholes 575 76%
2 John O`Shea 462 74%
3 Rio Ferdinand 443 74%
4 Mikael Silvestre 422 78%
5 Alan Smith 418 76%

Crossing Player Crosses Cross %
1 Paul Scholes 46 30%
2 Cristiano Ronaldo 37 24%
3 Wayne Rooney 27 23%
4 John O`Shea 24 19%
5 Darren Fletcher 21 26%

Tackling Player Tackles Tackle %
1 John O`Shea 40 69%
2 Alan Smith 39 73%
3 Paul Scholes 31 69%
4 Mikael Silvestre 29 64%
5 Darren Fletcher 28 73%

Dribbling Player Dribbles Dribble %
1 Wayne Rooney 104 53%
2 Cristiano Ronaldo 72 54%
3 Ji-sung Park 51 54%
4 Ruud van Nistelrooy 31 75%
5 Darren Fletcher 27 59%

[Republic of Mancunia]

An interesting statistic to look at is our tackling. According to OPTA, we are currently the worst tacklers in the league, with only a 67% success rate. We also aren't putting in enough tackles to begin with, since we rank 13th in terms of number of tackles (although once the Chelsea game gets taken into account, this will change). It could show that in previous games we weren't closing down players quick enough and that players were sometimes lazy with their tacking.

For a few moments I thought that was a damning indictment of a statistic that would prove we didn't put enough tackles in. I then thought it may have something to do with us being one of the top passing teams, therefore maybe we have the ball more and don't need to tackle as much.

It would be interesting to see where the other top passing teams are in terms of tackles attempted although coming bottom in % of tackles won can never be a good thing. :(

Interesting stuff l.u.f.

[listen_up_fergie]

For a few moments I thought that was a damning indictment of a statistic that would prove we didn't put enough tackles in. I then thought it may have something to do with us being one of the top passing teams, therefore maybe we have the ball more and don't need to tackle as much.

It would be interesting to see where the other top passing teams are in terms of tackles attempted although coming bottom in % of tackles won can never be a good thing. :(

Interesting stuff l.u.f.


I thought of the possession/passing thing as well. In that case, not ranking high in terms of total number of tackles wouldn't be too much of a worry.
But its the tackling success rate that worries me. I can't really remember what our stats for this were last season, but IIRC Keane and Heinze were our best tacklers last season and their absence really shows in terms of how well we do winning the ball back.


EDIT: I've followed your suggestion and taken the stats from other teams.
Chelsea top the rankings in terms of number of passes and passing %. Like you hypothesized, they don't need to put in as many tackles due to their superior passing, and so they rank 17th in terms of total number of passes. However, their tackle % is the highest in the league. Tackling % IMO is more important here.
Arsenal, who rank 2nd in terms of passes and passing %, put in ever fewer tackles than Chelsea (they are ranked 18th), but their tacking % ranking is 5.
I then decided to take a look at Wigan, to see if anything about their tackling or passing could explain why they are sitting above us in the table, and I cannot understand why they are third: http://home.skysports.com/optastats.asp?clid=111&clubname=Wigan+Athletic&cpid=8
They rank poorly in terms of both passing and tackling.
Moving on to Spurs: they rank 4th and 5th for passes and passing % respectively, and their tackles and tackling % are 6 and 4, respectively.

[Motterman]

If Brown stays fit, and Smith keeps up the standard he set in the Chelsea match, the tackling stats should improve dramatically. If Fletch's confidence gets a bump after that match, his stats should improve in every area too.

[Dark Savante]

Passing Player Passes Pass %
1 Paul Scholes 575 76%
2 John O`Shea 462 74%
3 Rio Ferdinand 443 74%

---

:confused:

I wonder how many of those are lateral...

[MtP07]

Passing Player Passes Pass %
1 Paul Scholes 575 76%
2 John O`Shea 462 74%
3 Rio Ferdinand 443 74%

---

:confused:

I wonder how many of those are lateral and to the other team...

FYP ;) :D

[GrodZilla]

Passing Player Passes Pass %
1 Paul Scholes 575 76%
2 John O`Shea 462 74%
3 Rio Ferdinand 443 74%

---

:confused:

I wonder how many of those are lateral...

Actually I don't think that john has been a liability in defence, he has done well stopping opposing wingers by just standing up and taking the ball of them... he totaly neutralized Lennon for example..

[Dark Savante]

Actually I don't think that john has been a liability in defence, he has done well stopping opposing wingers by just standing up and taking the ball of them... he totaly neutralized Lennon for example..
It's a passing statistic though. His passing has been hideous this season. Shows how the stats never tell the whole story.

[listen_up_fergie]

Passing Player Passes Pass %
1 Paul Scholes 575 76%
2 John O`Shea 462 74%
3 Rio Ferdinand 443 74%

---

:confused:

I wonder how many of those are lateral...

With the injuries to Heinze and Neville especially, I'm not surprised. We generally tend to play using our fullbacks rather than through the middle (even more so with Keane injured). Of all our fullbacks, I think O'Shea has played the most number of games so the number of passes should be pretty high.

The problem with these stats is that they aren't too descriptive. It would be interesting to see breakdowns on some of them, such as long passes, short passes, key passes, etc.

[GrodZilla]

It's a passing statistic though. His passing has been hideous this season. Shows how the stats never tell the whole story.

Ha ha, my bad... :o

And of course stats like this are alwas to be taken with a pinch of salt.. giving 24% of your passes to an open opposition centerforward is not the same as putting them over the sidline.

All in all I think it is a very "American" way to analyze sports. But as al systems it has it's pros and cons..

[Mac_Howard]

Stats are a compression process - they compress much information into easily digested form - and so they lose information. In particular they lose the "quality" of the measured events - a 5 yard lateral pass to an unmarked colleague counts the same as a 50 yard defence splitting pass. The skillful attack midfielder threading his passes through the eye of a needle can have a lower completion ratio than a defender who does little more than move the ball on. Also, because play in soccer is continuous, it's extremely difficult to generate meaningful stats and events are not always easily defined - is winning a 50-50 ball a successful tackle? No? Is winning a 60-40 ball a successful tackle? What percentage would define a successful tackle?

They're useful for investigating a subjective observation - did this player really play as well as he seemed to - but you have to be careful not to distort or the exaggerate their message and to see that all relevant stats are used.

[listen_up_fergie]

Stats are a compression process - they compress much information into easily digested form - and so they lose information. In particular they lose the "quality" of the measured events - a 5 yard lateral pass to an unmarked colleague counts the same as a 50 yard defence splitting pass. The skillful attack midfielder threading his passes through the eye of a needle can have a lower completion ratio than a defender who does little more than move the ball on. Also, because play in soccer is continuous, it's extremely difficult to generate meaningful stats and events are not always easily defined - is winning a 50-50 ball a successful tackle? No? Is winning a 60-40 ball a successful tackle? What percentage would define a successful tackle?

They're useful for investigating a subjective observation - did this player really play as well as he seemed to - but you have to be careful not to distort or the exaggerate their message and to see that all relevant stats are used.

True, stats are also all about correlations, not cause and effect. Stats definitely need to be used with extreme care, but we shouldn't overlook the fact that sometimes stats are useful for comparison. After all, they sort of rely on a law of averages and do have some degree of truth in them, albeit a very generalized one as you pointed out.
I think as the season wears on, our league position will reflect a change in some of our stats, most notably pass % and conversion %.

[listen_up_fergie]

I thought I'd just revive this thread, just a couple games before midseason to see how our stats have changed at all, and their possible ramifications.

So here are how the stats look following the clash against Aston Villa:


Team MANCHESTER UNITED League Rank
Games 17
Goals 31 2
Shots 208 2
Conversion % 15% 2
Passes 7618 1
Pass % 80% 3
Crosses 454 2
Cross % 27% 4
Tackles 564 5
Tackle % 70% 17
Fouls 240 14
Yellow Cards 27 9
Red Cards 0 15


Comparing the stats from after 10 games and after 17 games, we see that there has been a significant improvement in the number of shots as well as the conversion %. A very important trend IMO because obviously it means that we're going to improve our scoring chances and hence get better results.

Another seemingly significant change is that we have improved our league standing in terms of number of crosses, which could partly explain the increase in number of shots on goal. It could be an indication that we are making better use of our wings or it could mean nothing at all. I personally think these stats do have a bit of importance when corroborated with empirical observations - I certainly think that we're not playing as narrowly as we did at the start of the season especially in the last three or four games.

Our tackling seems to have improved a little bit in terms of both number of tackles (league position) and tackle %; but I'm still not entirely sure what it means.

Now for the individual player stats:


Shooting Player Shots Shot %
1 Wayne Rooney 58 41%
2 Ruud van Nistelrooy 51 57%
3 Paul Scholes 26 42%
4 Cristiano Ronaldo 14 36%
5 Alan Smith 12 50%

Passing Player Passes Pass %
1 Paul Scholes 1,024 76%
2 Rio Ferdinand 739 74%
3 Alan Smith 733 74%
4 John O`Shea 721 78%
5 Wayne Rooney 625 76%

Crossing Player Crosses Cross %
1 Ryan Giggs 66 30%
2 Wayne Rooney 64 24%
3 Cristiano Ronaldo 61 23%
4 Paul Scholes 51 19%
5 Darren Fletcher 43 26%

Tackling Player Tackles Tackle %
1 Alan Smith 76 69%
2 John O`Shea 66 73%
3 Paul Scholes 53 69%
4 Rio Ferdinand 49 64%
5 Darren Fletcher 46 73%

Dribbling Player Dribbles Dribble %
1 Wayne Rooney 171 53%
2 Cristiano Ronaldo 123 54%
3 Ji-sung Park 71 54%
4 Ruud van Nistelrooy 58 75%
5 Darren Fletcher 41 59%



Nothing really there that stands out, other than that statistically John O'Shea seems like a good player (incidentally, the Actim Index currently has him as one of the top 5 defenders in the league). Of course, we know that empirically that isn't the case, although I think O'Shea gets a lot more stick from fans than he should.

From watching games, I think most of us will agree that we are playing better now than we did at the start of the season, and this is somewhat reflected in the change in stats. However, I have to once again include the disclaimer that stats aren't everything, and that they are only a small part of the big picture.

[bigtoga]

All in all I think it is a very "American" way to analyze sports.Those pesky Americans and their system-that-the-rest-of-the-world-can't-copy-fast-enough...

[listen_up_fergie]

I just thought I'd update this thread to show how our improved performances are reflected statistically (most of it is really no surprise).


League Rank
Games 29
Goals 58 1
Shots 366 3
Conversion % 15% 1
Passes 12534 4
Pass % 79% 3
Crosses 767 5
Cross % 26% 6
Tackles 955 6
Tackle % 70% 16
Fouls 407 16
Yellow Cards 47 10
Red Cards 2 12

[prymetyme]

seriously you guys dont doubt statistics, theyve told us that john o'shit is the 2nd bess passer and that the usnationals are the 5th team in the world.

dont doubt stats :p

[listen_up_fergie]

Of course there will be anomalies - statistics should be used as a guide, not an absolute truth.