This Week in Stats: Stoke’s crosses hurt Manchester United
Week four in the Premier League saw lots of goals scored from crosses. Manchester United were among the teams punished for not dealing with them.
The Premier League got underway with a highly anticipated match at the Etihad stadium. Manchester City and Liverpool both had seven points going into the game. Most people expected a close match, but in the end it was anything but.
It was always going to be difficult for the Reds after Sadio Mane was sent off. It wasn’t just slightly one-sided after that though; Liverpool didn’t have a single shot.
City were doing well enough before Mane kicked Ederson in the face, but afterward it was just silly. pic.twitter.com/Do5b83Wsj1
— Caley Graphics (@Caley_graphics) September 9, 2017
Jurgen Klopp appeared to accept the defeat early on, as he withdrew Mohamed Salah at the break, and Roberto Firmino midway through the second half. He will be concerned at how easily City tore through the Reds’ rearguard time and again.
Despite only having 13 shots, the home side put 10 on target and had five Opta-defined clear-cut chances. Mane is a pacy forward, not a key defender. His early exit shouldn’t have affected Liverpool’s defense so badly. Yet Klopp’s team equalled an unwanted statistical record.
Joint fewest total shots (13) to allow 10 on target too for any PL team since 2009/10 too. 10 men a huge factor, but still not great
— James Yorke (@jair1970) September 9, 2017
While not quite such a rare feat, five clear-cut chances from 13 shots is also not pretty. Of the nine times a team has had five big chances from that few shots (or fewer) since August 2015, Liverpool have been on the receiving end three times. One of City’s five goals came from a cross, when Kevin De Bruyne assisted Gabriel Jesus at the end of the first half. They were far from the only team to profit from crossing this weekend.
Harry Kane got off the mark for the season
By some strange quirk of fate, Harry Kane has never scored a Premier League goal in the month of August. He then scored twice in his first match in September, as Spurs won 3-0 at Goodison Park.
As a statto, you don’t put any stock in the notion of curses or jinxes. It’s just random chance that Spurs’ main striker hasn’t scored in the opening month of a season. What was clear from the stats for this campaign is he was long overdue a goal.
After three matches in the 2017-18 Premier League, Kane had taken considerably more shots than anyone else. He had racked up 24 goal attempts, 10 more than Romelu Lukaku in second place.
Even if he only converted shots at the average rate of around 10 percent, he should have scored a couple of goals from 24 efforts. Kane is obviously better than average, which makes his blank even more unusual. He was always going to revert to the mean before long, and Everton bore the brunt of that.
His first goal was an unusual one from a stats collecting perspective. It was clearly a cross; Kane admitted as much himself. Yet as the ball sailed into the net, it gets recorded as a shot. Twenty-four shots without a goal in August, and then his first cross in September ends in a goal.
His first genuine shot this month found the back of the net too. Ben Davies got Spurs’ first crossed assist of the campaign as Kane made it 3-0 in the first minute of the second half. He now has two goals from 28 shots, so expect more reversion to the mean soon.
Next: Ranking the transfer windows of all 20 Premier League teams
Are crosses the way to hurt Manchester United?
Going into this weekend, United had yet to concede a goal in the Premier League this season. That’s not to say their opponents have not had any decent scoring opportunities though. The Red Devils conceded an Opta-defined big chance in each of their first three matches.
When you dig a little deeper, you discover all three were assisted by crosses. Diafra Sakho for West Ham and Tammy Abraham for Swansea missed headers, then Islam Slimani missed a golden chance in injury time for Leicester.
Whether Stoke’s pre-match opposition analysis picked up on this or not is open to debate. The Potters didn’t attempt a particularly high number of crosses in the match; Stoke sent 15 into the United box, when they’d averaged 20 in the first three games this season.
The home side certainly profited from their crosses though. They generated three big chances, and more importantly both of their goals, by delivering the ball into the United box from wide areas.
Jose Mourinho’s team conceded three-or-more big chances three times on the road in the league last season. Two of those games were against Chelsea and Spurs, which is fair enough, but have Stoke highlighted the best way for the lesser sides to hurt United?
Crossing isn’t generally a productive way to score goals. On average, it takes around 80 crosses to score a goal. The 60 crosses United have faced so far this season have generated six big chances, including the two goals for Stoke.
Much like Harry Kane they may now revert to the mean, and allow another 180 crosses before conceding a goal. They face fellow cross-sufferers Everton next, so a goal from a cross may well be on the cards next week too.