This Week in Stats: United’s attack continues to dry up

Manchester United won a tight match against Tottenham, Swansea’s attack is in trouble and Crystal Palace continue to show signs of life.

Soccer is at heart a form of entertainment. Jose Mourinho cares not for those ideals, though. The Portuguese manager cares about winning, and to that end, his side emerged triumphant in the big match of the weekend, as Manchester United beat Tottenham at Old Trafford thanks to a late Anthony Martial goal.

Spurs won the shot count 13-11, and had an extra shot on target than their hosts did. In the 77th minute, Dele Alli had a clear-cut chance and poked it wide, then four minutes later Martial scored the winner. One great chance each, but three points for United.

Tottenham dominated the ball, with 55 percent of the possession. It wasn’t all in safe areas either, as they completed 99 passes in the final third, to United’s 65. They weren’t able to translate that to action in the United box, though.

Both sides have averaged around four completed final third passes per touch in the opposition box this season. In this match, it was 2.6 for United but 5.8 for Spurs. Mauricio Pochettino’s boys didn’t complete any of their 14 open play crosses either.

Spurs had the ball in good areas, but United defended well. They restricted Spurs to 1.1 expected goals, their lowest figure on the road this season. Mourinho can look back on a job well done.

But for the third league match in a row, the Red Devils failed to break the one expected goal barrier. In their last 270 league minutes, United have generated 2.1 expected goals; Crystal Palace racked up 2.2 on Saturday. Defensive soccer has its place, but if the goals dry up you have an issue. Think on, Jose.

Swansea can’t generate shots on target

A glance at the stats from the Emirates suggests Arsenal should have won easily enough. The shot count was 17 to four in their favor, and they had four clear-cut chances to Swansea’s two.

But it could have been very different. The visitors’ two great chances came before Arsenal had generated any. Sam Clucas scored his, before Jordan Ayew had one saved shortly before halftime when Swansea led 1-0. They would prove to be the Swans’ only efforts on target in the match.

Having a low tally of shots on target is also not exclusive to this match. There are individual players at other clubs who have had more shots on target than Swansea have this season.

It’s not down to being inaccurate with their shooting either, as Swansea have had the fewest shots in total, too. Gylfi Sigurdsson created over a quarter of their chances in 2016-17, at a rate of 2.2 per 90 minutes played. His move to Everton has led to a massive shortfall; Tom Carroll leads the way in chances created at 1.4 per 90 this term.

Just over a third of Swansea’s shots on target total has fallen to Tammy Abraham. The on loan Chelsea player has had seven, and while he’s a talented kid, he’s only 20 years old. The Swans are hugely reliant on him at the moment, and that’s a big ask for a young player at the start of his career.

Both before and after the Arsenal match, a lot was made of the fact Swansea had only conceded one goal in their opening four away league matches this season. The expected goal figures tell a different story. Paul Clement’s side conceded a total of 5.8 xG and only offered up 1.3 themselves. Their haul of five points from those games was extremely fortunate.

Swansea’s early-season fixture list has also been relatively kind. The fans in South Wales need to prepare for a very long, hard 2017-18 campaign.

Palace are heading in the right direction

Crystal Palace have featured in this column a lot this season. When a team fails to score for seven weeks but then beats the champions, it’s kind of inevitable their numbers would warrant a deeper look.

It took them until the 96th minute to salvage a point against West Ham on Saturday. No wonder the two managers displayed such contrasting emotions when Wilfried Zaha made it 2-2.

Palace certainly deserved something from the match, and in reality deserved to win. West Ham had two shots on target and scored them both, whereas the home side had nine.

Eight of their efforts on target came from inside the box, and in total they had four Opta-defined clear-cut chances. In their 86 league matches since August 2015, Palace have only had four top quality opportunities six times.

This was also only the second time they’ve had nine shots on target in that period. By their statistical standards, this was a high-level attacking performance by Roy Hodgson’s men.

Next: United squeak past Tottenham: 3 things we learned

As for West Ham, they may have got a morale boosting win at Spurs in the Carabao Cup in midweek, but they’re still in trouble in the league. Their underlying stats aren’t too bad, but they are below average at both ends of the pitch when it comes to shot conversion.

Joe Hart may have made seven saves at Palace, but his save percentage is still 8.3 percent below league average. The Hammers will have to hope it is the calamitous version of Liverpool who show up at the London Stadium next weekend.