Premier League Shot on Target Analysis

SOT Corner
with Jonny Grossmark

Welcome to SOT corner and a review of the 4 Saturday Premier League games have just finished and I am going to highlight why you should bet around 85% of the time during the game ie as time decays as this will give you an edge over your friends who only bet just before a game .

I am going to show you the data that I looked at to decide if a trigger bet should have been made. 

Norwich 0 Southampton 0 HT 

If I open up my excel sheets I can see that Norwich have lost 0% of games when 0-0 HT at home in the EPL this season and Southampton have won 0% FT. I have no worries about this being a small sample as in running goal expectation has no interest in what happened in 1974. 

I am looking to see if I want to trigger a bet on Norwich Draw No Bet so i looked at the danger ie Southampton winning the second half and Norwich had one shot on target (SOT) in the first half and Southampton 3 so this does not induce confidence in a trigger on Norwich Draw no bet as only around 18% of teams win when a lower amount of SOT FT so in effect you are betting on Norwich and thinking their shot on target production will improve. 

A major factor in trigger betting is the weather and the pitch looked like a mud bath so the advice was NO BET. FT 0-0. 

Norwich 2 SOT Southampton 5 SOT. 

Average home SOT for 0-0 FT in EPL is 3 and away SOT is also 3 so we could argue that there was expectation of a Southampton goal but given the rain/snow you would be mad to take any notice of the SOT in this game. 

Average away SOT for a 0-1 FT in the EPL this season is 4.14 but this game cannot be profiled due to the weather.

If you are serious about betting at any level then you should not ignore the academic output in this area. It was Dixon and Robinson (1998) who discovered that when the away team scores the first goal of a game in the early part of the first half then this accelerates the expected goal production to the HOME team.

I use an excel sheet to see how this works in the EPL and have written many articles on how the early away goal effects goal expectation.

My conclusion is that an early goal (I use 0-20 mins as my time band ) will accelerate goal expectation to the Home team ie they should score more goals then expected before the game started so if you backed Under 2.5 goals in this game then your bet was sunk when Sunderland scored on 20 mins.

90% of games where the away team score the first goal 0-20 mins this season have ended BOTH Teams to score YES , with the BTTS No made up of bottom 6 teams so my initial thought when Sunderland scored the first goal was would QPR fightback ? 

HT QPR 1 Sunderland 1

In this situation we have a new trend that has formed which is 46% of games where it has been 1-1 HT in the EPL have ended FT DRAW this season with just WBA(2), SPURS(2), Arsenal(2) and Reading(1) winning at Home full time.

The question on my mind was could QPR join them ?

At HT the QPR SOT was 3 and the Sunderland SOT was 1 so to back Sunderland + 0,25 goals in the second half looked a non starter.

The average away SOT when the away side win FT when 1-1 Ht in the EPL this season is 6.38 so the profile re an away win just did not fit unless you had the thought that Sunderland would accelerate SOT production and there was not anything to suggest that would happen .

There was no trigger in this game for me and at 2-1 it is interesting that BET365 were promoting the 2-2 scoreline as 2-2 FT does not fit the profile of this game . Average SOT for the away team is 5 when 1-1 HT > 2-2 FT in the EPL this season and Sunderland only managed 1 second half SOT

In summary the QPR second goal impeded goal expectation to Sunderland which at HT was very low anyway. The danger of backing QPR - 0.25 goals at HT was the possibilty of a 1-1 FT score. You could argue in hindsight that i have failed to understand Dixon 1998 and Grossmark 2012 /13 as the early away goal accelerates goal expectation to the home team but the DRAW data re 46% Draws FT put me off the trigger.

QPR Draw no Bet would have been a bet to nothing in my eyes at HT.

Aston Villa had to win this game to put pressure on Wigan, Historically the three teams that have gone done have conceded the most shots and using this strategy produces QPR and Reading and Villa as likely to be relegated so we shall see if this data holds at the end of the season.

Reading 1 Villa 2 and the stat that stands out is that no AWAY team had won the second half this season when 1-2 HT.

The betting was Villa + 0.25 goals so the question is would you trigger the bet ?

My thought at HT was that there was so much at stake in this game that a trigger bet would be madness. It was very interesting that at HT there was 3SOT and 3 goals and my experience tells me to avoid games like that.

FT Reading 3SOT Villa 4SOT

There was a case for thinking that the second Villa goal should have resulted in further goal(s) but this game fits the only other 1-2 HT > 1-2 FT like a glove . Wigan v WBA was 1-2 Ht > 1-2 FT and 4SOT v 4SOT . The goals are not in the same order but are in the same time band . 32 33 45 v 31 43 44.

I have spent years looking at football data and if you believe that football is random then don't read my artcles but if you believe that goal expectation will give you a massive edge then you need to work really hard to build an understanding and a database.

We are here to help you on your SOT journey.

No BET.

The first thing to remember in the WBA game is that at HT 1-1 there were 46% DRAWS FT in the EPL this season and that there are very few teams that have won FT this season at HT when 1-1 HT but WBA were in that league.

At HT I would never have wanted to trigger a bet on Swansea and at 2 SOT v 1 SOT Swansea did not look very inspiring.

Swansea only had one SOT in the second hald and WBA managed 3 and have now won FT when 1-1 HT at home more times then any other EPL team (3).

I would never had triggered a bet on WBA at HT as the draw FT was a big danger. Once WBA scored on 61 then expectation of a fight back was close to zero with my data which is why i am so confident that goal expectation analysis has such an edge.

FT 2-1 and 1-1 HT reads average Home SOT of 4.75 and away SOT of 4.75. In this game the FT SOT was 5 v 2. In my eyes Swansea were never going to score in the second half.

If you are obsessive about power tables and betting on pre off goal expectation then we have some bad news for you over the next few weeks.