December 30 2011

Crystal Palace

Jamesey looks at an analysis of CPFC's progress at the half-way stage of the season.

"Lies, damned lies and statistics" - most of us will be familiar with this phrase popularised by the US writer, Mark Twain, and widely attributed to the 19th century British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli.

Whichever view you take of how accurately a breakdown of statistical evidence can help decisions over team policy and selection, the latest figures published by HOL member "Phil O' Sophical" make very interesting reading.

Incidentally, the current movie, "Moneyball", based on a true story, went towards making a strong case that careful analysis of players' performance could help a small and modestly financed club punch well above its weight in the US baseball league. Sound familiar?

That, of course, is another story.

With the kind permission of "Phil", I have taken some of his latest conclusions and highlighted a few points, hoping that we can reach a wider audience than on Palace Talk threads, which, believe it or not, are not read at all by many HOL members!

In an article last October, "For the record again", we took a look at Palace's performance a quarter of the way through the season and without going into chapter and verse, matters were looking good to put it mildly. The team performance stood up very favourably with the results from the past decade at that point in time.

In the second quarter, Dougie Freedman's team has has slipped from second place in the 11-year table after 12 games to sixth on current form, but we are still there or thereabouts and still ahead of two of the teams, at this stage, that made it to the play-offs.

CPFC is very much a team of two extremes.

The defence has been outstanding, conceding only 22 goals to date, the lowest of any of the Palace defences in the last 11 years; yet Shots on Goal Against at 140 is the second worst in the past 5 years, second only to the Burley team of last year (149). The difference is that Jules has only conceded 15.71% of those shots compared with 27.52% (41 goals) last year, his best ever score.

However, goal scoring is a massive problem. Every season it looks as though we can't score fewer goals but every campaign, we seem to find it more difficult and 22 goals is the fewest we have scored at this stage in the past 11 years, 3 fewer even than the Burley team of last year.

We were doing pretty well at the 12-game mark with 17 goals but scoring only five times in the last 11 league games does not make for happy reading. Our overall 110 Shots on Goal For is also the second lowest in the past 5 years with only Burley's team being worse on 108 shots.

Not enough chances are being created (we should be 120+ at this stage) and overall only 20% of the ones we have created have been converted, a five-year low and a huge fall off considering our conversion rate was 32.7% at the 12 game stage.

We are still quite reasonably placed in the league but we face some awkward tasks. To have any chance of the play-offs either the existing attack needs to find its form very rapidly or surely an in-form striker or two must be borrowed or bought in the January window.

Thanks again "Phil" for sweating over those computer print-outs and let's fervently hope that your third quarter analysis will bring some better news although many might be well satified with a mid-table finish after the traumas of recent years.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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