Shot Happy Goal Shy

The old adage of ‘if you don’t shoot you don’t score’ perhaps needs updating for the 21st Century because there are several players who DO shoot but still cannot score.

Mario Balotelli is the obvious starting point. In four league games he’s registered 20 shots but is yet to trouble the scorers. Is it bad luck, poor decision-making or just a lack of ability?

Ultimately, these are all factors but as far as we are concerned is he a good goal scorer bet?

Top 10 shots per game players without a goal

We have taken the top 10 players in the league on a ‘shots per game’ basis who haven’t scored and tried to examine if they are a good value bet to find the net this weekend.

Firstly, we have re-jigged the data so that everything revolves around a per90 minute base; judging players on goals per game isn’t fair if they come on as a sub with five minutes to play.

The column ‘ExpG90’ is the expected number of goals (per 90min) each player theoretically would have scored so far this season based on their shot positions if they were an average player in the Premier League.

Mario Balotelli comes out top because of his large number of shots (5.8 per90) with a decent proportion from inside the box. Craig Gardner falls down because he only manages 0.2 shot per90 from inside the box, the rest being long-range efforts.

When adjusting for home advantage we create ‘Exp Odds’ the expected anytime goalscorer odds of said player if he continues at his current shot rate and quality.

A quick comparison with the actual odds suggests we have more than a 10% edge on Marko Arnautovic, Ricardo Vaz Te and Lukas Jutkiewicz.

Does that mean I should run and place a bet on these players immediately? No.

Statistics should be the starting point of analysis not the end game. For example Marko Arnautovic and Ricardo Vaz Te aren’t automatic starters, whilst Lukas Jutkiewicz could be considered a ‘below average’ striker.

The questions to ask are:

• Will he play 90min?
• Who are the opposition?
• Is the player below average or struggling for form?
• The quality of shot positions.

Remember we live in the real world but as a starting point statistics can throw up some interesting betting questions.