‘Scoring against City has become difficult’
FOOTBALL ANALYST MARK TAYLOR LOOKS AT THE STATS BEHIND STOKE CITY KEEPER ADAM DAVIES’ FINE START TO THE CAMPAIGN...
STOKE City has a rich history of employing excellent goalkeepers. The late, great Gordon Banks, down through internationals and club regulars to waning, larger than life figures and even a smattering of emergency outfielders have filled the position over the years.
The current incumbent is Adam Davies, player of the month in September, having dislodged the struggling Jack Butland.
The position is a lonely one, where Banks v Pele saves are rightly lauded, but also errors remain in the memory long after the final whistle.
Traditionally, keepers have been evaluated by clean sheets and save percentage. But the flaws in this approach is readily seen.
Unless some estimation of the difficulty of the save is made, Banks’ once-in-a-generation save from Pele in the 1970 World Cup carries the same weight as a keeper picking up a routine, weakly-struck shot from 30 yards.
Modern football analytics has begun to tackle this problem by recording where goal attempts are taken from. This is combined with post shot attributes, such as how well the shot is struck or headed, where on the goal it is directed and whether the attempt has swerve or dip or is deflected on its path towards the net.
Using a mythical “average keeper” as a baseline we can use this information to see how well a keeper is performing, based on the quality of shots he has faced and the number of goals he allowed.
Davies has been a Championship ever-present since Stoke’s 5-0 capitulation at Leeds in early July and while we should always be wary of drawing firm conclusions from limited datasets, it is an encouraging sign that he has allowed two fewer goals than would be expected from the quality of chances faced over that period.
Shot-stopping is a keeper’s bread and butter, but other aspects of play are also relevant.
Pertinent to Stoke, Michael O’neill, as he did with Northern Ireland, has prioritised defensive stability and Davies appears to be playing a key role in organising the defensive structure of the team.
Above is a shot map that shows where on the field each chance conceded Davies in goal originated.
Larger circles are better opportunities and just the five orange ones ended up in the Stoke net.
Meanwhile, pictured right is where on the outline of the goal each on target attempt was headed from the shooter’s perspective.
Larger circles are more difficult to save and orange circles represent goals, blue are saves. 82 attempts left the head or boot of an opponent in the first plot, but just 19 needed Davies to make a save.
We can quantify each of these stages and again the signs are encouraging for Davies as Stoke allowed a quality and quantity of
chances that are averaging just over one goal per game.
This figure is further reduced when we examine the rate at which these opportunities are converted into dangerous, on-target attempts.
Either through defensive pressure, causing the opposition to misfire or good positioning by defenders resulting in a blocked shot, Stoke are performing well at preventing the opposition working the keeper.
And even when the shot is on target, opposition conversion rates take another hit due to Davies’ shot-stopping performances. In short, scoring against Stoke has become a very difficult task for the opposition since Davies’ elevation to a starting role. Stoke’s defensive set-up, anchored by Davies, is enjoying a virtuous sequence of events in limiting the quality and quantity of chances created by the opposition, prevention of those attempts hitting the target and above-average shot-stopping by the keeper. It’s a marked departure from the recent past, when at least one of these goalprevention skills were below par. And while that might not always be the case, a new start in the process of building strong foundations from the back has begun.