Which Premier League Top Scorer Would You Like in Your Team?

As national leagues across Europe draw to a close, it is a favoured time to produce lists of top scorers. With the Premiership being the toughest and most advanced domestic league - as José Mourinho likes to remind his colleagues - the top scorers of this competition are of particular attention. Sergio Agüero inherits the golden boot from Luis Suárez, having scored 26 goals, 5 more than first contender and season revelation Harry Kane. Premiership debutants Diego Costa (20), Charlie Austin (18) and Alexis Sánchez (16) complete the top 5.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

But do these single scores tell us all we need to know? For instance, how do Agüero’s 26 goals for vice-champion Man. City compare to the 18 Charlie Austin managed to put in for bottom-of-the-table and relegated QPR? Impossible to say? Let’s give it our best shot! In this post, I will argue that if we are to choose the most useful top scorer based on a single number, the simple count measure, by which penalties count as much as field goals, calls for an adjustment. Furthermore, while people like to take single-number mental shortcuts, considering several informative “stats” in conjunction is likely to yield a much more accurate and nuanced view of top scorers’ relative performances and utility to their teams.

Why is an adjustment in light of penalties due? First and foremost, whereas scoring a field goal tends to involve a unique skill, in the case of a penalty, the reduction of a team’s conversion rate by having the second best kicker shoot the team’s penalties tends to be negligible. Having Yaya Touré as designated penalty shooter instead of Agüero is highly unlikely to make a real difference for Man. City, for instance. Second, while a field goal requires finishing as well as positioning/preparation, a penalty only involves the finishing aspect. Third, it is not uncommon for a team to "award" its best scorer and/or striker with the task of taking the spot kicks exactly to provide him with the chance to up his goal tally.

An accurate efficacy measure for scorers, so I argue, ought to take into account the above qualifying features of scoring penalties. At the same time, however, spot kicks tend to involve enhanced pressure as – in contrast to most field situations – the “norm” is for the player to score. To reflect the above particularity, then, I propose for a penalty to count half of a field goal. This year's top 5 rank would remain unchanged, though the differences become smaller – e.g. as Agüero scored 5 times from the spot kick, whereas Sánchez none.

While efficacy is key, efficiency, i.e. one’s output (i.e. goals) compared to input (i.e. time played) is also crucial. For instance, say one striker scores 20 goals over the 38 league games, playing all of them, and another striker totals 20 goals appearing in only 20 games. The latter is obviously preferable, i.e. more efficient, as he needed less playing time to score the same number of goals. This implies one could be fielding someone else in the 18 remaining games, who may again score goals. Efficiency measures come with a note of caution, though: the numbers involved have to be large enough so as not to be sensitive to small changes. In case of the Premiership top scorers, however, all scored more than 15 goals and were fielded over 2,000 minutes, implying the efficiency stat is meaningful.

The efficiency ranking, i.e. the adjusted goals (efficacy) divided by the number of minutes played over the season, multiplied by 90, leads to the following ranking of average number of penalty-adjusted goals scored per game:

Adjusted goals/90 mins represents the number of goals scored on average during 90 minutes
given the player's actual scoring rate when fielded (with converted penalties counting for half)

The efficiency numbers show important additional information: when playing, Diego Costa was the highest scorer of the lot – the difference with Agüero being less than meaningful. 

Source: dailystar.co.uk

But perhaps a lot of the credit should go to Chelsea and Man. City, respectively, for being the two highest scoring teams in the league? To see how these top scorers performed relative to their teammates, let’s indeed look at their relative efficacy, i.e. the number of adjusted goals they scored relative to the number of adjusted goals scored by their team overall. Charlie Austin then turns out to be the undisputed champion, scoring 41% of QPR’s adjusted goals, followed by Kane with 35% of Spurs’ and Agüero with 30% of the Citizens’.

Do efficacy and efficiency capture everything we’d like to know about our top scorers? The answer is "no" as scoring essentially is a means to the end goal of the team winning points. So we also want to know how many points these players’ goals actually won for their team, i.e. valuing the goals they scored by their importance. To measure importance, I propose a measure that is the average of two numbers: the first is the increment in the number of virtual points resulting from the goal. For instance, if you score the 1-0, your team’s virtual points from the game go from 1 to 3, so +2 as a direct result of the goal. The second number is the end-of-game increment in points resulting from a player’s goal(s). For instance, if you scored the 1-0 and the game finishes in 2-2, then, without your goal, your team would have had 0 points instead of 1, so the increment is 1. The overall importance of such a goal would thus be (2+1)/2 = 1.5. The maximum number of points a player can contribute in a single game is limited to 3 and penalties again count as half a field goal.

The beauty of this importance measure is twofold: First, it relates goals to points, which is what matters in the end, e.g. if you score 5 goals, it makes a big difference for your team whether you scored all in a 5-0 victory or, instead, put your team up 1-0 on five different occasions. Second, both being part of a successful (e.g. Chelsea) and a less successful (e.g. QPR) team has its advantages and disadvantages, allowing for a more levelled comparison of players’ individual contributions, irrespective of the quality of their team: as part of an unsuccessful team, it is harder to put in the goals, but when you do, it is more likely to be one that matters. The importance measure yields a clear “winner”:

Note that efficacy is expressed as number of goals;
importance as number of points won (both on Y-axis)

Harry Kane’s goals won Tottenham Hotspur a clean 24 points, no less than 7 more than did Aguëro’s goals for City. The goals of Diego Costa, our most efficient player, turn out not to have resulted in that many additional points for Chelsea: out of the 16 games he got himself on the score sheet, in 8 of those his goal(s) made a difference of less than a point. The average point contribution of Kane’s goals is 1.2, nearly double that of Diego Costa’s. After re-scaling the importance measure to account for time played - meaning allowing all top scorers as many minutes as the one who collected most, viz. Austin - Diego Costa jumps Austin and Sánchez, but Kane remains far ahead of both Diego Costa and Agüero: the PFA's Young Player of the Year's goals then yield 28.5 points; Agüero’s 20 and Diego Costa’s 18.

Will those who scored more/less important goals repeat this again next year? That, luckily, is impossible to predict. We'll have to tune in again to the Premier League next season!

Who would you choose for your team if you could only pick one? J

Third-Party Ownership for Dummies – So What Is the Problem, Really?

UEFA recently started creating a big fuss about Third-Party Ownership (TPO), depicting it as a major potential threat to professional football. I will explain briefly what TPO is about and summarize three main reasons why it can indeed be considered hazardous to the integrity of the game.

What is TPO?

Typically, when a player is transferred from one team (“team A”) to another (“team B”), the acquiring team (B) pays a transfer fee to the selling team (A), entitling the acquiring team (B) to the “ownership rights” of the player. Concretely, this means that if team B was to sell the player again later on, team B, in turn, would be netting a transfer fee for the player – ideally, one larger than what was previously paid to team A, so as to make a net profit.

In case of TPO, it is no longer a transaction involving only - or even mainly - the clubs; rather, an athlete’s “ownership rights” are in the hands of a third-party owner, which has invested in the athlete under the assumption a substantial amount of future transfer fees can be generated out of him/her. So in case a player, whose “ownership rights” are in the hands of a third-party owner (“C”), is being transferred to a team B, the transfer fee team B is paying will be cashed in by C, with team A being left empty-handed (assuming, for simplicity, the player is 100% third-party owned).

The threats of TPO to the integrity of the game

At first sight, it may seem as if TPO merely implies a player can cash in earlier on his/her future potential, handing on the risk to a third party. At closer inspection, however, the game of football risks to suffer greatly from TPO, mainly for the following reasons:
                                                       

1.       Third-party owner C will receive a return upon its investment if and only if the player is being transferred. Each time the player moves teams, C will be passing by the cash register, implying C's goal will be to have the player move teams as often as possible.
                                                        

2.       An even more serious problem concerns “conflict of interests” as TPO threatens to fundamentally alter the relationship between an athlete and his/her agent, substantially increasing the power of agents. Let me illustrate this by means of an example. In a system without TPO, the power, even of a “superagent” such as Jorge Mendes, largely resides in his/her network and is thus informal. Ultimately, the agent is hired by the athlete, to take care of those aspects the athlete would like to entrust the agent with. José Mourinho, for instance, employs Jorge Mendes to take care of Mourinho’s business for him. 

Source: 101greatgoals.com

A potential – but not yet material – conflict of interest arises when Mendes is also representing some players belonging to Mourinho’s team – in this case Chelsea – but not others. After all, the agent has an interest only in those athletes in his/her “portfolio”. Mendes, thus, may encourage Mourinho to pay particular attention to those players when it comes to giving them playing time.

The reason why this potential conflict of interest does not need to materialize is because the agent is in a subordinate position to the athlete.The athlete can easily hire and fire his/her agent. So Mourinho's interests will be Mendes's; Mendes's interests won't necessarily be Mourinho's.

This dynamic between athlete and agent stands to change fundamentally as a result of TPO. In the case of Mourinho, his “ownership rights” are in the hands of a third-party investor, in which superagent Mendes happens to have a major stake. So no longer is Mendes merely “hired” by Mourinho, Mendes now actually “owns” Mourinho, let it be indirectly. Such a structure may make any request by the agent potentially much more persuasive: Mendes's interests will now also be Mourinho's. In economic terms, TPO thus risks reversing the "principal-agent" relationship: whereas without TPO, Mendes would be Mourinho's agent, with TPO, Mourinho stands to become a pawn in the portfolio owned by Mendes.

                                                                      

Mourinho-Mendes relationship in a world without (left) and with (right) TPO

The fact that we currently are still living in a world with TPO may not be alien to why, e.g. the Belgian football press prophesied an even brighter future for Chelsea's Charly Musonda Jr. as he recently dumped his former agent for…Jorge Mendes.

Source: voetbalspot.be

3.       Another real threat posed by TPO again relates to clubs and coaches losing out control to agents and parties who are in it for the money. Third-party owners may offer their players to teams, which normally would not be able to afford the transfer fee, in return for certain conditions, e.g. that they will always be fielded. In the short term, this essentially implies the manager having to cede team decision-making to business interests. In the longer term, it also exposes the club to the danger of being substantially weakened as it is to receive no compensation, i.e. transfer fee, when the “star player” moves on and, thus, without means to find a suitable replacement.

While not directly related to TPO, the case of (former) Chelsea loanee Thorgan Hazard to Belgian Zulte-Waregem serves to illustrate both mentioned aspects. First, Hazard's entourage negotiated that their poulain would have to be awarded the captain's band, confronting coach Dury with a foregone conclusion and upsetting the dressing room. Second, while, under impulse of Hazard, Zulte-Waregem peaked to become vice-champion, after the golden boot had left - without receiving any compensation - the club quickly found itself fighting relegation (admittedly, other key players had left the club as well). Whereas fans may prefer such peaks and troughs, Zulte-Waregem's stability and balance, arguably, did not seem to have fared well by the Hazard saga.

Rather than claiming that, say, Mourinho, will necessarily give in to any demands by his agent, with or without TPO, I have sought to illustrate how TPO stands to change relative power and the incentive structure involved. While UEFA may have its own rationale for strongly opposing TPO, my intention has been to summarize the main reasons why, from a long-term perspective of the good of the game, it's recommendable putting up a fight.

"Mineirazo": When the Tactical Meet the Coaching Mistakes

Many of us are yet to fully comprehend Brazil’s 1-7 semi-final elimination against Germany at last summer’s World Cup they hosted. Alternative explanations are abound, e.g. Zico's on FIFA's website. As I am yet to come across a “satisfactory” one, I will share mine.

As the case for many historic disasters, in entirely different spheres, I argue that the Mineirazo can be put down to a combination of tactical failings and inadequate organisational culture. As football psychology coach Dan Abrahams puts it in his book Soccer Brain, “[w]hilst the odd tactical mistake can happen it is primarily mindset and coaching culture that…spark[] great games, champagne moments… It is mindset and coaching that can, conversely, generate poor performances, nightmare matches…”

The coaching mistake

As I was on the plane destination Mineirão – an omen perhaps? – for Belgium’s first group game, I was startled when watching the on-board pre-World Cup reportages featuring interviews with the Brazilian players. The message of the twenty-something-year olds was univocal and boiled down to this: ‘Mark our words, people of Brazil, we are going to make up for the maracanazo, set history right and bring the World Cup home. We are the chosen generation of players to make this happen.’ This youthful optimism reflected just how eager they were to bring joy to their people. The one to protect the overenthusiastic youngsters from inviting unreasonable pressure onto themselves, however, and to canalize this positivism into a winning mindset, tactical discipline and focus on a common goal was the coach. As for the coach, as Abrahams puts it, “Optimism, yes – ignorance, no!”

It seemed, though, that Scolari took little decisive action to prevent his youthful team’s optimism turn into ignorance. This was manifested in two different ways. First, for a coach to cultivate a winning mindset amongst his players should not be confounded with not having contingency plans for when things don't go that smoothly. Rather than believing they are too good to fall behind, players should have the conviction that even if one or two goals down, they are going to bring this game home and how to make that happen.

In Abrahams’s words: “The champion…doesn’t allow herself to become engulfed in emotion as she competes.” If this is what marks the champion, then Brazil clearly was not one: after conceding a first and second goal against Germany, it was clear from the players’ collective (non-)reaction they had never given it any serious thought what to do in case this situation would arise. With the third goal came the realization that the World Cup for them was over and that they were not going to deliver upon their promise. No longer were they professional football players who would see this game out with minimal damage, they all just wished they were somewhere else and it seemed most of them already were.

Source: lanacion.cl

Imperatively, there had already been a clear warning the Seleção were not in control of their emotions as players broke into tears before taking a penalty kick in the shootout concluding their second-round game against Chile. Following such a clear mental breakdown of players during a game in which Brazil flirted more than once with elimination, one would expect a psychologically seasoned leader such a Scolari to mentally prepare his troops for a scenario different from raising the trophy Bellini-style on July 13^th – even if only to raise the chances that the latter actually would happen. And, although the eventual win against Chile may have put sand into their eyes, after Neymar’s injury, reality should have kicked in that World Cup victory would not come as a walk in the park.

Second, it is important to realize that in a short tournament, as opposed to a league, luck and elements such as a refereeing decision, an injury or suspension may have a huge impact. Most favourites appreciate that it therefore has little sense to claim they are going to win the competition, but rather that they stand a good chance of getting far in the tournament. Not the Brazilians. They were sure to win, which reflects neither an accurate understanding of the opposition, nor of the structure of the competition. One can point to the absence of Neymar and Thiago Silva in their semi-final game, but it is exactly such factors – which are far from uncommon – that, over a run of a maximum of seven games, can prove decisive and, again, something for which one ought to have a contingency plan.

The (two main) tactical errors

In all honesty, before the start, I expected Brazil’s poacher Fred would come out as one of the tournament's top scorers. After five games, however, his main “contribution” had been to steal a penalty in the very first game. His nickname “o Cone” (the cone) may perhaps show too little appreciation for his main role of permanently attracting defender attention onto himself, thus creating space for Neymar. Now, with Neymar out due to injury, however, there was no-one for Fred to attract attention away from. Rather, he would have to create the danger himself, something he had shown to be utterly incapable of during the previous games. Still, although Fred’s role had become obsolete following Neymar’s injury, Felipão surprised by yet again having a spot for “o Cone” in his starting line-up.

In addition, fielding only two centre-backs in combination with very attacking wing-backs implied little defensive security, especially against an opponent of the likes of the Nationalmannschaft. The defensive formation was particularly risky considering it was untested and ad hoc, in response to Thiago Silva’s absence. Naturally, the wing-backs could have realized, at least at some point, they had better provide more defensive support to their two central-defensive colleagues who were all too often left drowning.

Is it really fair to blame the coaches then? After all, we all know how these Brazilians are: they see a ball and all they can think about is performing a samba-like jogo bonito. Was such tactical indiscipline really characteristic, though, of Oscar, Willian, David Luiz and Ramires under Mourinho; Dante under Guardiola; Hulk under Villas-Boas; Fernandinho under Pellegrini; Marcelo under Ancelotti; Paulinho under Sherwood; Thiago Silva and Maxwell under Blanc? These are world class players who, when playing for their clubs, hardly resemble the headless Brazilian chicken European romanticists may fantasize about. Oscar, for instance, is considered to have become one of the trequartistas who works hardest for his team you may find in the game – under Mourinho.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

The combination of tactical and coaching errors leading to the Mineirazo is all the more surprising as the CBF had intentionally sought to combine tactical savvy (Parreira) with motivational knowhow (Scolari). Brazil’s most cardinal sin then perhaps was to categorically cling on to domestic coaches. With the game evolving rapidly, it would indeed appear that opening up to other ideas is a necessary requirement to stay competitive in the global arena. A piece of anecdotal evidence may be that an English coach is yet to win a Premier League title. Another, that Sir Alex Ferguson is believed to have made his career sustainable in part by having embraced evolutions in mainland European football by hiring Portuguese Carlos Queiroz as his assistant. Indeed, it is not so much about the coaches' nationality per se, but, in Abrahams’ terms, about their mindset and coaching culture.

Courtois vs. Cech: And the Winner is...Chelsea FC

José Mourinho intended to keep it secret who would be his “number 1” in goal until the league kicked off. His choice was between 32-year-old incumbent Petr Cech and the ten years younger Thibaut Courtois, Belgium’s national goalie, who was returning from a loan spell at Atletico Madrid, where he became champion in La Liga and played the Champions’ League final. News reports indicated Cech had appeared nervous at the training ground a couple of days before the first game, possibly indicating he was to be benched.

On the first league day, it was indeed Courtois who made his appearance. Chelsea beat Burnley 1-3 after having been 1-0 down. In the first home game, Leicester City was the opponent. After a goalless first half, the Match Of The Day commentator concluded it had been the poorest half-time performance of Chelsea under Mourinho ever. The Blues turned the game around in the second half, beating Leicester 2-0. Gary Lineker asked Mourinho after the game whether “strong words” had been said during half time. “Objective words”, replied the Special One.

When Diego Costa opened the score, the path to victory had already been paved by Courtois, especially with an incredible foot-save in a one-on-one with Leicester striker Nugent. The confidence demonstrated by Courtois also with some – easier – aerial interventions – as Alan Shearer in the BBC studio indicated – is all-important for the rest of team: to know there’s a really solid lock on the door serves as a confidence boost to the entire team. Quite arguably, Chelsea had won the game with Courtois’ save(s) – Diego Costa’s and Hazard’s goals merely sealed what had already been won. Already in his first home game for Chelsea, the Belgian youngster had convinced the most ardent Cech fans he was the obvious choice going forward.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

When Lineker asked Mourinho about the decision, the Special One confirmed it had been a tough choice – Mourinho is known to have placed more faith in Cech after he returned from a severe head injury in 2007 than the goalkeeper had had in himself at the time, setting the Czech up for years of successes at Chelsea. When Chelsea won the Champions’ League final only two years ago, Cech had a big stake in it – saving penalties during extra time and shootout. Today, he’s still considered to be outstanding – and a club monument at Chelsea.

The Portuguese explained in the post-game interview that when he must choose between (the interests of) individual players and club, he chooses the club. Courtois had a 2-year contract left at Chelsea and in case he would not play, they were likely to lose him to a competitor. Mourinho is known for predicting even the most unlikely of events – this was an easy shot. Club over players. Mourinho is willing to sacrifice his lieutenant for the good of the army – not his own glory.

When he benched Casillas at Real Madrid for Diego López, people suspected a clash of egos was what was going on. Sacrilege. Mutiny. None of that. After the 2014 CL final and the World Cup, people are starting to realise that what Mourinho was trying to do, was set up Real for a new successful era. Let’s see if they will manage to win La Liga with the reinstated San Iker. Given Real’s impressive midfield and frontline, their fate will probably be not as bleak as the one of the Spanish national team – of holding hands while going down together. But to win another trophy, Real will need to score plenty of goals.

What about Petr Cech? His career is far from over. He has the choice between remaining at Chelsea as a cherished substitute or become number one at pretty much any top club in the world – happy to take on an experienced goalkeeper likely to remain top of his game for a couple of more seasons. I would advise him to elect the second – it’s not admitting defeat, it’s choosing wisely. 

Cech will remain Mourinho fan for life. Why? ‘Cause he understands it’s not at all personal. It has nothing to do with Cech not being good enough today – not even necessarily not as good as Courtois is today. And the Happy One will not force him to choose either the exit or the bench option, for the same reason.

Source: tn.nova.cz

Few youngsters get the love from Mourinho Courtois is getting – not by words, but by deeds. Courtois must be special. Personally, I will never be a real fan of him, due to his Racing Genk past. Objectively, he’s probably already the best in the world in his position – and likely to get only better over the years to come.

Chelsea have their new number 1 for the next decade. How’s that for a boost of confidence? Money cannot buy you a team that will become champion. But it does hire you a genius, i.e. someone who – according to Einstein’s definition – does not solve, but prevents problems.