The Week in Stats: La Liga’s top five

This week we take a closer look at Spain’s top five, the teams that don’t have any comebacks and more.

Calling the shots

Just one side in Europe’s major leagues have managed to win with fewer shots on goal than Rayo Vallecano had against Eibar on Friday. Perhaps inevitably, that club is Burnley, even if their knack of eking out hard-fought/underserved wins has largely deserted them this season.

It’s no surprise to see those masters of economical shooting, Pal Dardai’s Hertha Berlin, in there as well. They’ve often taken the fewest shots of any Bundesliga team in recent years while also consistently finishing towards the top of the table.

If we broaden out the remit to include both of Europe’s major international club tournaments, then FC Vorskla Poltava matched Burnley’s feat (namely winning despite taking just three shots) in the Europa League at the end of October. A quick search of Wikipedia reveals that Vorskla come from the Ukrainian Premier League, in which they finished third last season.

Seven teams have won a match in those competitions while only managing a single shot on target. The big surprise here is that they include free-scoring Borussia Dortmund, during BVB’s away win over Wolfsburg at the start of November.

Don’t call it a comeback

https://twitter.com/FOXSoccer/status/1069626061606936576

Going into Saturday’s clash with Hoffenheim, this season Schalke had been defeated every time one of their Bundesliga opponents had scored the first goal of the game.

They managed to break that run with Nabil Bentaleb’s second-half equalizer, which came from a dubiously-awarded penalty and continued his 100 percent record from the spot in the Bundesliga

That leaves just 10 teams in the big five leagues who’ve yet to win a point after conceding the match’s opening goal.

The Premier League has been by far the hardest division to come from a goal down in, with half of those sides playing in England.

Only Juventus and PSG have won every match that their opponents have scored first in, with Dortmund and Napoli the other teams to have averaged two or more points per game.

Home discomforts

Southampton’s 2-2 draw with Manchester United on Saturday, which saw them surrender a two-goal lead, was the last game in charge for their luckless manager Mark Hughes, who’s been badly let down by what, on paper at least, is a talented forward line.

As well as bringing about Hughes’ sacking, the result also meant that Southampton are the only Premier League club without a single home victory to their name.

Five other sides in Europe’s major leagues share that dishonor. At the start of the season, few people would have expected them to include Monaco, who won the Ligue 1 title in 2016-17.

Their 2-1 defeat by Montpellier on Saturday means that they’ve already lost five home league games. When they won that French championship just 18 months ago, Monaco were defeated at home only once all season long, something they repeated when finishing runners-up last season.

Since being appointed amid great fanfare on Oct. 13, Thierry Henry has still yet to oversee a home win in any competition, with three defeats and one draw at the Stade Louis II to date.

While Manchester City’s and PSG’s 100 percent home records hardly come as a surprise, it’s good to see Borussia Monchengladbach alongside them. The ever-entertaining German side currently lie second in the Bundesliga, under the guidance of their eternally underrated head coach Dieter Hecking.

For the record, Chievo are the only side without a league win of any kind this season.

La Liga’s top five

As we approach the midway point of the La Liga campaign, it’s worth comparing top-line stats from the same time last season for the current top five.

Two things immediately stand out. Firstly, although Madrid’s woes have dominated the headlines, Barcelona have also been performing at a markedly inferior level compared to the same period last season.

The second issue relates to expected points, which is a useful metric as it allows us to see how many points a side’s performances would have produced on average.

So while Alaves are an incredible 15 places better off in the table than last season, when they were second from bottom after 14 games, their overall performance levels have only improved marginally. And this means that they’re very unlikely to be able to maintain their current league position.

If we ranked La Liga teams by expected points rather than actual points won, Alaves would only be 13th — just one place higher than they finished in May.

Barcelona have been conceding goals at an eye-watering rate over the past few months, despite restricting opponents to fewer shots.

Worryingly for Barca fans, the expected goals conceded (xGA) numbers, which measure the quality of the chances that a team have allowed their opponents, show that this isn’t down to bad luck.

The Catalan giants have let in 19 goals from an xGA of 18.38, so they’ve gotten what they’ve deserved defensively. For the record, the same is true of Real Madrid, who’ve conceded 19 times from 17.72 xGA of chances.

The above charts are a good demonstration of both Madrid’s decline and why Alaves’ form seems to be unsustainable.

Madrid are managing 16 percent fewer shots on target per match, while the quality of the chances that they’ve created is down by 27 percent.

Alaves, meanwhile, have improved their goalscoring opportunities only slightly but have netted eight more goals from those openings. This translates as a 24 percent increase in xG producing an extraordinary 80 percent rise in goals scored — and that just isn’t likely to last.