AZ’s 4-3-3

The starting line-ups

AZ went into this match unchanged from the 3-2 Cup win at the Amsterdam ArenA. Maarten Martens, who missed much of the first half of the season through injury, started as the central playmaker behind Charlison Benschop, who saw his excellent performance earlier this week rewarded with another start. Pontus Wernbloom, sold over the winter window to CSKA Moscow, was replaced in central midfield by rising star Adam Maher, who partnered set-piece specialist Rasmus Elm.

Ajax’ 4-3-3

Frank de Boer undoubtedly had a lot of home work over the past few days, as his team slumped to a miserable performance and a rare home defeat against AZ just three days earlier. A lack of ball retention in building from the back and impotent wing attackers summed up just the most eye-catching problems in the Amsterdam side during that particular match.
For this outing he replaced Ismael Aissati, who had all sorts of trouble keeping the ball in his team’s possession during the previous encounter, with Lorenzo Ebecilio, bypassing Nicolas Lodeiro here. A second change saw Vurnon Anita shifted out to right back to replace youngster Ruben Ligeon, with Daley Blind facing up with tricky AZ winger Roy Beerens at Ajax’ left back position.

The first half

After AZ had dominated the first few minutes of the match, Ajax slowly got more of a grip on the game. AZ by that time had seen Beerens head over from a clear cut chance after an early error of judgement by Blind. As so often is the case with two formations that effectively cancel each other out, it were midfield choices that proved influential early on.

Rasmus Elm stuck close to Christian Eriksen and Adam Maher did likewise with Theo Janssen. This left Eyong Enoh with a lot of freedom during Ajax’ spells of possession. In return, when AZ had the ball, Janssen and Enoh did a decent job of marking Maher and Martens, so that Elm was AZ’s main focal point in midfield passing. The end result of this simple piece of math was AZ being more able to convert their possession into goal scoring chances, drawing on Elm’s distribution qualities. Furthermore, as expected, Roy Beerens kept having the better of Daley Blind, while, at least for the first half, the latter’s offensive input did not make up for the defensive frailties induced by his presence.

An interesting tactical difference with the match just three days earlier concerned a key concept of modern football tactics: pressing. While Ajax lack all sorts of pressing in the previous match, and paid for their high line as a consequence, they had a better grip on their opponents this time around. When possession was lost in AZ’s half, the AZ players were well pressured, often resulting in counter attacks being eliminated early on.
However, Ajax still display a strange attitude towards possession of the ball. All too often, possession of the ball is deemed a goal in itself, and a dangerous sort of round-about is initiated in their own half. By now, opponents know that Ajax values possession that highly that they are willing to voluntarily re-circulate the ball among their centre-backs and goal keeper, even under severe pressure. This led to repeated losses of possession on their own half, under AZ pressure, which should be credited too.

In short, more Ajax pressure allowed AZ less opportunities to take advantage of the space behind the defensive line and exploit Benschop’s pace, but Ajax’ own half give-aways under AZ’s pressure were all too frequent. And it was one of these simple own half give-aways that led to AZ’s first goal. Enoh failed to complete a pass inside Ajax’ own third of the pitch, leading to a dangerous turnover from which the free-kick occurred that Rasmus Elm fired home, scoring his fifth direct free-kick of the season.

The second half

While one might have expected AZ to take advantage of the situation, they seemed to lower their level of pressure in the second half. AZ defended closer to their own goal, making it harder for them to capitalize on turnovers, which Ajax still granted now and then.

At the hour mark, De Boer made some changes. Eyong Enoh, yellow carded already, was removed for Bulykin to enter as the new striker, with Siem de Jong taking a central midfield role. This saw Theo Janssen return to the deep-lying playmaker role that was thought out as Ajax’ plan A before the season had started.

It’s a pity that in-match data are still not available for the Eredivisie matches, as it would probably have been much easier to demonstrate Ajax’ second half performance with some chalkboards at hand. Christian Eriksen might be isolated as the driving figure of Ajax’ improved second half performance. Partnered by Siem de Jong and Theo Janssen, rather than Janssen and Enoh in the second half, he turned in a marvelous passing performance, resulting in longer spells of Ajax possession and a significant higher fraction of defensive possession being successfully transferred into final third attacks.

With Nicolas Lodeiro having replaced the ineffective Lorenzo Ebecilio, Ajax started to find their rhythm. In a left wing move, where Daley Blind should be credited for providing the offensive input that warranted his selection today, Lodeiro pressed Poulsen into conceding an own goal equalizer. At the same time, AZ had had some opportunities of themselves, as Ajax defended further away from their goal and the offensive minded midfield failed to consequently press AZ’s technically skilled midfield enough.

In the end

Overall, a draw would feel like a reasonable result to this game, where AZ clearly won and dominated the first half, and Ajax saw their risk-taking later on rewarded.

With an average of 3.29 goals per game, this 2011/12 season has been one of the most entertaining ones that the Eredivisie has produced, if high scoring football games mean more entertainment to you, that is! No other season in the past 28 years did produce so many goals per game, and the current season is on its way to break the 2010/11 number of 3.23 too. In comparison with other leagues in Europe, the Eredivisie sees significantly more goals per game than the Serie A (2.47), Bundesliga (2.86), La Liga (2.60) and Premier League (2.80) do.

Offense

Let’s first look at the offensive end of the teams’ performances. The next graph will plot the teams according to the amount of chances created and the conversion rate of those chances.

Teams in the upper right hand corner are exactly where they want to be, creating an above average number of shots and converting them well too. This holds true for PSV, Ajax, Twente and AZ, while Heerenveen does quite well mainly due to their efficient conversion.

Teams in the lower left quadrant disappoint both in creating and finishing chances, which is most notably the case at Excelsior. Both VVV and De Graafschap mainly create too few chances, while N.E.C.’s and RKC’s problems lie in the conversion of chances created.

In the upper left, teams with an adequate number of chances, but a problem in conversion can be identified. This is the case at Groningen, while also Feyenoord could do with an improvement in conversion, which would shift them to the right among the title contenders. Problems at Roda and, to a lesser degree, Utrecht are more in creating chances than in converting them.

Considering the fact that most teams are more of less found along an imaginary line from bottom left to upper right, which represents a correlation between the amount of chances created and conversion, Roda’s lower right position is quite an outlier. Their conversion of 0.284 is second by only the tiniest of margins to Heerenveen and AZ, while their 11.2 chances per match is only 13th out of all 18 Eredivisie teams.

Defense

The defensive performances are plotted along the same lines. The vertical axis represents the number of chances allowed, while the horizontal axis represents the conversion rate of chances allowed.

Ideally, teams would want to find themselves where Twente and AZ are, limiting both the number of chances and the conversion rate of their opponents. Vitesse, on the left side of the diagram, draw heavily on reducing their opponent’s conversion rate, and still allow more shots than the average Eredivisie team. This suggests (though does not prove) an excellent performance by returned goalkeeper Piet Velthuizen.

The upper right hand is where teams with defensive trouble would be found. De Graafschap and Roda mainly suffer from failing to stop shots from going in, whereas Excelsior and VVV allow roughly 7 and 6 shots per match more than the average team does.

Outliers in the bottom right corner are Ajax, and to a lesser extent Groningen, who successfully limit the number of shots on target, but suffer from a high conversion rate by their opponents, suggestive of (but again not proof of) a below-par goalkeeper performance. Interestingly, both teams changed their goalkeepers compared with last season, Groningen voluntarily by strangely benching Luciano (although he has featured again in the previous two matches) and Ajax involuntarily after the departure of Stekelenburg. Last season’s numbers would have put Groningen (13.9 shots conceded ; 0.105 conversion) just inside the desired left lower quadrant and Ajax (9.8 shots conceded ; 0.090 conversion) well in there.

In the end

A few simple diagrams have seen us updated on the performances on team level in the 2011/12 Eredivisie so far. With the competition finally getting underway again next weekend, these indices will serve as a benchmark to compare the performances in the second half of the season.

1.       Even more goals than usual

Already known to be a high scoring league, the current Eredivisie season saw even more goals per match than it did in the past. The present number of goals per match for the 2011/12 season stands at an amazing 3.29 per match, the highest goal scoring rate in 28 years. Compare this rate to the other leagues in the UEFA coefficient top-10, where none of them even comes close to three goals per match and see for yourself that the Eredivisie is truly an unusual competition in terms of the amount of goals scored.

Teams took more shots in this year’s Eredivisie than they did a year before. The number of shots per game per team went up from 12.9 to 13.8, nearly a shot per team more. Note that Infostrada does not count blocked attempts among shots, making comparison with other data sources precarious. The increase in the number of shots, however, did not increase the number of shots on target, which remained constant at 7.3 per team. Obviously, this indicated a decrease in accuracy, which dropped from 56.7% to 53.1%.

The conversion rate increased slightly, which, given the unchanged amount of shots on target, was responsible for the slight increase in the number of goals scored. Where away teams’ conversion remained constant at 20.6%, home teams increased their conversion slightly, from 22.7% to 23.8%. In other words, to score a goal, home teams needed an average of 4.2, rather than 4.4 shots on target. Away teams needed 4.8 shots on target to score one goal.

2.       The decline of the double holding midfielder system

In tactical terms, one development stands out in this year’s Eredivisie, and it may well be responsible for the slight increase in the number of shots and goals. Teams seem to abandon the double holding midfielder system that dominated the 2010/11 season. Ajax may be the most hotly debated among teams abandoning such a system, as Frank de Boer’s ‘holy 4-3-3 system’ meant the abdication of the double holding midfielder as soon as he took up the Ajax’ manager role.

But it also applies to Fred Rutten at PSV, as indicated in this year’s season preview. Rutten consequently went with a screen of two holding midfielders in his first two seasons in Eindhoven, but converted to a more offensive minded midfield trio of Strootman, Wijnaldum and Toivonen. Comparing the stats from the past and present season underlines this offensive move, as the number of shots created per game went up from 17.7 to 20.0, with a comparable accuracy of 57.5% in 2010/11 and 56.8% in 2011/12. The quality of PSV offensive play is also reflected in their conversion, which went up from 22.8% to 24.9%. PSV’s defensive performance ,along the same parameters, is roughly comparable, if not a notch improved too.

Last year’s runner-up, Twente, also abandoned the double holding midfielder system, as perhaps the most offensive thinking manager of the Eredivisie, Co Adriaanse, proclaimed early in his days in Enschede. While under Preud’homme, Twente generally fielded Wout Brama and Theo Janssen in controlling midfield positions, Adriaanse prefers two of Landzaat, Fer and Willem Janssen to provide offensive input, with Brama holding the midfield by himself. Also, his tendency to convert creative winger Nacer Chadli to a more central role fits this picture.

Other examples along this trend contain Feyenoord, who let go of pure holding midfielder Marcel Meeuwis. New manager Ronald Koeman prefers  talented distributor Jordy Clasie to hold the midfield, with El Ahmadi and Bakkal in more offensive tasks.

3.       The rise of the central playmaker

Always a mythical term, the number 10 position, seems on the decline from a worldwide perspective. With most sides cropping the center of the pitch when playing superior oppositions, the general trend seems to be for the playmakers to move out wide. Not so much in the Eredivisie though, where the double holding midfielders are on the decline and the central playmaker firmly holds ground. Players like Ajax’ Christian Eriksen, AZ’s Adam Maher, Heerenveen’s Fillip Djuricic and Heracles’ Marko Vejinovic prove that the, preferably young, technically gifted and ambidextrous, central playmaker is a vital ingredient for many of the Dutch clubs.

Of these four players, only Vejinovic (21) is aged over 20, which goes to show that the Eredivisie is still and excellent learning school for talented creative midfielders. The rise of the 4-3-3 system sees them playing from a slightly deeper position than the 4-2-3-1 would do and it allow them to receive passes and dictate the game, more than having to come at the end of offensive moves. Furthermore, the presence of a second (offensive) central midfielder relieves these young players of the responsibility to solely dictate the offense of their team. In such, the traditional number 10 may not be all that traditional and Holland may not be that far of the trend in football worldwide.

4.       An outstanding early run catches the spotlight

Last season it was Groningen, this year it’s AZ. The team that overachieves itself to obtain a place among the three best teams in the league: PSV, Twente and Ajax (in no particular order). This may sound like a bold statement, and predicting football results is a highly dangerous ground, but with 18 teams competing, there will always be under- and overachievers at the halfway point of the season. AZ’s net shots on target created is only 2.8. In other words, on average AZ has 2.8 more shots on target than they allow their opposition to have. This ranks them fifth in a very important performance parameter, behind PSV (6.2), Ajax (5.3), Feyenoord (4.5) and Twente (3.4). AZ’s excellent result in the first fourteen games seemed highly dependent on their conversion (28.6%, 1^st), compared with an decent rate of only 18.3% (3^rd) goals conceded per shot on target. On the long run, it seems unlikely that they will maintain the top position, and their run of 4 points from the past 4 matches indicated a return to average already.

When mentioning an overachiever, it may also be interesting to find an underachieving team. Based on the net number of shots on target, N.E.C. would be your team to expect more of in the second half of the season. Ranking 7^th with 0.6 shots on target more than their opponents, their abysmal conversion has let them down severely. N.E.C. even ranks 3^rd in terms of shot accuracy (56.2%), but only 13.8% of these accurate shots hits the back of the net, leaving only bottom team Excelsior behind them and needing a staggering 7.2 accurate shots to score a goal, or 2.7 more than the average Eredivisie team does.

A fair metric

As has been presented earlier, there is a workaround for this. 11tegen11 has previously presented a metric to account for the importance of goals scored in terms of how many points they did win for the team that scored them. This metric factors in the quality of opposition and the venue by looking at the average bookie odds presented for the match. It deducts a chance for both teams to win the match, and for the match to end in a draw. The resulting estimated chances develop during the game, with possible shifts when goals are scored. This allows to also account for the timing of the goals, with dying seconds winners being rewards much more points than early opening goals.

Goals

The result of this metric is an open, honest and fair appreciation of the contribution that each individual player’s goals made to the chances of his team winning points. The following table presented these points for the first half of the 2011/12 Eredivisie.

The most valuable player in terms of goals scored is Vitesse’s Wilfried Bony. His 9 goals won on average 0.67 points per goal, for a total of 6.01. Bony is followed quite closely by Roda’s Sanharib Malki, who also scored 9 goals. Feyenoord’s John Guidetti, on loan from Manchester City, completed the top-3, mainly due to a relatively high number of goals scored, while Bas Dost, who scored most goals in the first half of the Eredivisie, comes in fourth.

Assists

An interesting addition to this table is to value to players who provided the assists for these goals. Of all 494 goals, 374 were credited with an assist. The remaining 120 consisted of direct free-kicks, intercepted passes, individual actions, etcetera. Please note that free-kicks and penalties are not provided with assists for the player in question being fouled.

The most value in terms of assists has been created by Heracles’ Marko Vejinovic, whose 6 assists earned 4.58 points. Newly promoted RKC-player Braber came in second with 3.95 points from 5 assists, while Heerenveen’s Luciano Narsingh, who provided a shared highest number of 10 assists, came in third with 3.87 points. Ajax’ Christian Eriksen, who shared Narsingh’s number of 10 assists, only came in 28^th with 1.66 points, reflective of the fact that only 2 of his 10 assists were provided with the score of the match level.

MVP

Both above tables combine for the Eredivisie 2011/12 first half of the season Most Valuable Player ranking.

Again, based on his impressive goal scoring value, Vitesse’s Wilfried Bony tops the list. He adds 1.12 points from 3 assists to his 6.01 points from 9 goals to finish at 7.13 points from the first 17 matches. Runner-up is Heracles’ Willy Overtoom, thanks to a combination of an 8^th place in the goals chart and an 11^th in the assists chart.

The top-10 consists of a nice mix of players with 8 different teams presented. Most players mainly scored their points with goals, like Bony (1 – Vitesse), Guidetti (5 – Feyenoord), Malki (6 – Roda), Cabral (7 – Feyenoord) and Toivonen (9 – PSV). Other players mainly contributed through assists, like Tadic (3 – Groningen) and Narsingh (4 – Heerenveen). Finally, some players contributed well in both categories, like runner-up Overtoom (2- Heracles).

Interestingly, neither the top scorer in terms of raw numbers of goals (Dost) or assists (Narsingh and Eriksen) made the top-3 of the MVP ranking. And PSV’s winger Dries Mertens, who set the Eredivisie alight by scoring 11 goals in the first 7 rounds of Eredivisie football, only makes a 15^th place overall with a combined total of 22 goals and assists, for 4.56 points.

Data: Infostrada Sports (@InfostradaLive)

Words along that line will sound familiar to anyone who has ever watched football managers comment on their pre-match intentions. A simple Google search for the terms “Eredivisie and “de nul houden” [Dutch equivalent of “keeping a clean sheet”] comes up with quotes from nearly all managers and players from all teams. Of course, keeping a clean sheet contributes highly to winning matches, but on the other hand, you’ll never win without scoring a goal. So how does this conflict of interest between defensive and offensive intentions translate in terms of results? How important is it exactly to prevent the opponent from scoring? And does it matter whether you’re playing a home or an away match? And what if the mission failed, how important is it to keep the opposing team from scoring a second goal, or when you’ve just scored yourself, to chase a second goal?

It’s questions like these that the following post will address. And it’s not the first to do so. It all started with a remark by Chelsea’s director of performance analysis, Mike Forde, when interviewed by Simon Kuper. Forde stated in the interview that “there is a stronger correlation between clean sheets and where you finish than goals scored and where you finish [in the Premier League].” This led Chris Anderson to quantify the relation between goals conceded and points won in an excellent post on Soccer by the Numbers.

As it turned out, Chris showed that a clean sheet was worth around three goals in the 2010/11 EPL. His excellent post was followed-up by Omar Chaudhuri, who expanded the data across two seasons in the four big leagues, to come up with around the same number.

Eredivisie data

Data from the first half of the 2011/12 Eredivisie is shown in the graphs below, which shows how many points team won on average in relation to the number of goals scored (upper graph) or conceded (lower graph).

Teams that failed to score a goal won on average only 0.14 points, while a singly goal scored resulted in 0.98 points on average. Teams that kept a clean sheet won on average 2.72 points. As the graph below illustrates, conceding a single goal lowered this number to 1.72, and another goal lowered this further to 0.72. This means that the incremental value of scoring a single goal over failing to score is 0.98 – 0.14 = 0.84 points, while the incremental value of conceding a single goal over keeping a clean sheet is 1.72 – 2.72 = 1.00. So in general, conceding a goal while the score is still 0-0 hurts the prospected points won from the particular match more than scoring a goal helps that same prospected goals tally.

Home and away matches

The following graph presents the same data, with the value of goals scored split out between home and away matches. This shows that single goals scored at home are worth more than single goals scored away from home (incremental value 1.00 vs 0.67), while second goals scored, reversely, are worth slightly more away from home (0.93 vs 0.82).

The final graphs depicts the points won according to the number of goals conceded, again split out between home and away matches. This shows that a clean sheet is worth slightly more at home than it is away from home (2.79 vs 2.64). To concede a single goal reduces the points won in home matches by 0.83, while in away matches this is much more costly at 1.15.

Applying this information

This raw data should provide invaluable input to the game plan going into a match. After all, one of the most important aspects of a game plan going into a football match is how to balance between offense and defense.

Data from this Eredivisie season show that the incremental value of a goal scored at home is 1.00, while the incremental value of a goal conceded at home is 0.83. Away from home, these figure are quite different. The incremental value of a goal scored away from home is only 0.67, while for goals conceded away from home this is 1.15.

In other words, a goal scored at home wins 24% more points than conceding a goal would cost the team. Away from home this is quite different, as goals conceded away from home cost 72% more points than a goal score would win. This stresses the general importance to attack at home while the scores is still 0-0, and defend the clean sheet in away matches in the same situation.

Defending a lead, or chasing more goals?

Curiously, things are a bit different when a goal has been scored. The incremental value between a single goal scored at home and a second one is 0.82, more or less the same as the incremental value of conceding a single goal at home, which was 0.83. Away from home, the incremental value between a single goal scored and a second one is 0.93, which is much higher than the 0.67 points added by scoring the single goal. So, when going a goal up away from home, there generally is more value to be gained by chasing the second goal than there was chasing that first one. Reversely, when playing at home, there is less value to be added in chasing a second goal than there was in chasing that first one.

In conclusion

A survey of 2011/12 Eredivisie data do more or less reproduce the numbers presented by Chris Anderson at ‘Soccer by the Numbers’ and Omar Chaudhuri at ‘5addedminutes’. Taking this analysis a bit further, the reduction in points won from a match when conceding a single goal is shown to be higher away from home.

Looking at incremental values between 0, 1 and 2 goals scored should help managers to make a rational choice whether to focus on offense or defense going into the match, but even more so when going a goal up or down. It seems, in away matches in the Eredivisie, defending a 0-0 score line generally seems a wise thing to do, but when going a goal up it seems wise to chase the second goal a bit more than you did the first one. The reverse is true for home matches, as a single goal scored at 0-0 wins much more points than a single goal conceded would cost, while a second goal scored wins about as much as a single goal conceded would cost.

Twente’s 4-3-3

The starting line-ups

Coming off a series of three draws in their last four home games, Twente aimed to break the trend with a slightly offensive variant of their usual system. The versatility in the 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3 crossover system lies in the behavior of central midfield Denny Landzaat. This time around, he didn’t sit beside Brama, but rather played in an advanced role beside central playmaker Nacer Chadli.

With top scorer Janko starting from the bench again, Twente played the same starting eleven as they did in the 6-2 win at Utrecht last week.

N.E.C.’s compact 4-5-1

Manager Alex Pastoor gained a lot of credits for keeping Excelsior in the Eredivisie on an extremely tight budget last season, playing some flashes attractive football in the process. His move to N.E.C. initiated high expectations in Nijmegen and many pundits deemed N.E.C. likely to be the overachievers this season. Unfortunately for Pastoor, the results didn’t pick up as expected in his first matches at N.E.C., with finding the target and converting shots on target being the main problems. Things do look a bit more brightly as of recently, with the away win at Feyenoord and last week’s final minute draw at Groningen.

Against Twente, Pastoor played the same eleven as he did last week, apart from the absence of central defender Van Eijden, which meant a first start for Hungarian defender Zoltan Szelesi.

The first half

N.E.C. surprised their opponents with a wave of pressure early on. They did so from a very compact 4-5-1- formation which took excellent advantage from the space conceded in behind Twente’s advanced full-backs and in front of the back line, where Brama seemed unable to cover that entire area on his own. Despite creating a series of goal scoring chances, N.E.C. seemed unable to convert, a problem that so often showed itself this season. At times N.E.C.’s compactness showed Pastoor to take a leaf out of Arrigo Sacchi’s coaching book with regard to the movement of defensive, midfield and offensive lines and having the outfield players move as a well coordinated unit.

Twente produced a short spell of initiative around the tenth minute, which resulted in two goal scoring chances for Nacer Chadli, but the Moroccan international failed to open his goal scoring account so far. Immediately after this short spell, the compact playing N.E.C. team regained control of the match and starting building chances.

They did so by smartly using their single striker in a target man role, having Zeefuik receive a ton of difficult balls played out from defense. The N.E.C. striker did an excellent job winning duels from Douglas in order to provide both an outlet from defensive pressure and a stepping stone for N.E.C.’s offensive breaks. All in all, Zeefuik, who failed to score a goal in 597 minutes of competitive football this season, provided an excellent display of the usefulness of a non-scoring striker.

The second half

After hearing his team being whistled off their own pitch by Twente’s fans, Co Adriaanse turned things around at half-time. He introduced top scorer Mark Janko for winger Emir Bajrami, a move that fixed several out-of-position issues at once. Janko played up top, with Luuk de Jong in the advanced midfielder zone and Nacer Chadli coming from the left wing.

Both De Jong and Chadli immediately displayed more comfort and routine. Luuk de Jong, despite his tall stature, tends to thrive when he is able to receive the ball at feet and make probing runs at defenders. Nacer Chadli, the presumed central playmaker of Twente’s 2011/12 season, doesn’t quite display the movement that this position demands, though the departure of Bryan Ruiz shifted a lot of pressure onto his shoulders. Add to that the fact that Chadli only just returned from a three months injury and this issue may still come good for Twente.

As if to illustrate their appreciation for the manager’s half-time changes, Twente produced an early second half excellent chance that involved Nacer Chadli crossing from the left wing, Janko laying off with a header and De Jong closing in on Janko, only just failing to open the score just yet.

The opening goal was only minutes away then, as Luuk de Jong was able to pick up the ball on the half-way line. He did not find the slightest of pressure on his path towards the N.E.C. box and fired in from the edge of it, finding the corner of the goal.

The changed game

As is so often the case, the opening goal changed the game. N.E.C. was forced to trade their compactness for more pressure, conceding more space in the process. Pastoor brought on an extra striker as Melvin Platje replaced Nick van der Velden, which meant a switch from 4-5-1 to 4-4-2, as system much more adept at playing in an open space game. Shortly after coming on, Platje provided Zeefuik with an excellent through ball, but N.E.C.’s conversion issue troubled them again. Before today’s game they ranked 17^th in that regard, needing on average 7.3 shots on target to score a goal, and today’s failure to convert any of their many chances against Twente won’t improve that number.

With Twente’s second goal, where Chadli opended his account for the season, firing in from a nice Luuk de Jong assist, the match was effectively over. Only having score more than once in five of this season’s fifteen Eredivisie match, there seemed no way N.E.C. could produce two goals in the remaining twenty minutes of the match.

In the end

Based on the result, Twente beating N.E.C. 2-0 at home doesn’t sound all that bad, but judging the game by the score line leaves a lot unmentioned. On one hand, N.E.C. deserve a lot of credit for their smart compact playing style, which made life difficult for Twente. On the other hand, their failure to convert any chances in this game illustrated where their game needs fixing.

Twente disappointed in many regards. Too many players played way beyond their usual levels, with left-back Tiendalli and out-of-position Chadli the most obvious examples. Introducing Mark Janko, and shifting De Jong and Chadli to more familiar positions fixed the game for Twente, but the only reason they were still in contention at that point is the above mentioned conversion issues of their opponents.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, and along that same line, don’t judge a game by its score line.

Heerenveen’s 4-3-3

Manager Ron Jans had been searching for the right balance in his midfield for most of the past season, but he has definitely got his team going at present. Going twelve matches unbeaten, Heerenveen possesses the best offense in the league by some standards. Still the only team to have scored in every Eredivisie match of this season, going into this match Heerenveen ranked third in the league in terms of conversion, scoring with 27.7% of their shots on target.

The starting line-ups

Jans has his team operate from a 4-3-3 formation, with Sven Kums conservatively holding the midfield in front of centre backs Gouweleeuw and Zomer. Former captain and centre back Breuer has been shifted out to left-back. In front of Kums, Viktor Elm, who plays his brother Rasmus today, plays a box-to-box role, while Filip Djuricic shines in his role of advanced playmaker. Up front, Oussama Assaidi, easily Heerenveen’s most prolific attacker, misses out today. Rajiv van la Parra, who returned from Caen this summer, after initially leaving Feyenoord’s youth academy for the French club, fills in the left wing position.

AZ’s 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3

AZ’s formation contains a lot of hybrids, crossovers and variety, making it hard to catch them in simple and plain formational notation. They operate with a four-at-the-back defense, but like to advance either a full-back or a centre back into midfield in possession. Their midfield three generally consist of two more holding players with Maher in a central playmaking role in front of them, and this was how they intended to start the game too. But they tend to advance one of the holding midfielders regularly, shifting from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3, like they did when going an early goal down today.

A crucial absence seemed the suspension of midfielder Pontus Wernbloom, who started all but one of this season’s Eredivisie matches for AZ. Today, Erik Falkenburg, more of an offensive midfielder, started beside Rasmus Elm in the holding role, and later on took on more of his usual offensive game. Centre back Nick Viergever missed out, with Ragnar Klavan partnering Niklas Moisander in defense.

The opening phase

Heerenveen started the game much better than AZ did. The home side took all of the initiative and a series of excellent shots was the result. After the first five attempts were cleared out, either by goal keeper Esteban, the inside of the post, or goal line clearances, Heerenveen striker Bas Dost found the back of the net with a close range attempt coming from a corner.

Up until that moment, AZ was merely overrun in midfield, where they failed to win their share of tackles. The absence of Wernbloom seemed hard felt, although Heerenveen’s dominance was that clear that it is doubtful whether the presence of a single player would have altered the picture here. Now facing a goal down, AZ manager Verbeek advanced Erik Falkenburg slightly, with a 4-3-3 being more applicable than the 4-2-3-1 that AZ started the game with.

Despite Heerenveen still having the best of play, AZ found the equalizer rather quickly, when Jozy Altidore crowned an excellent ground combination through the heart of the Heerenveen defense. This led to a short period where Heerenveen sat back more than they did earlier and paying the price in losing the initiative for a short while. Another goal going against the run of play was then scored when Heerenveen executed a pitch-perfect counter from a weakly executed AZ corner. Rajiv van la Parra found the back of the net.

The ensuing part of the first half

In the remaining fifteen minutes of the first half, Heerenveen did not make the same mistake again. This time they kept the pressure on AZ, winning an excellent rate of tackles in midfield. Man-of-the-match Jeffrey Gouweleeuw missed an excellent opportunity to extend his team’s lead when he was allowed to fire in a shot at the end of a clean break that he initially lead out of defense himself.

AZ manager Verbeek, generally known for voicing his opinions, be it verbally or by substitutions, acted even before half time by removing young Adam Maher, who played a rather invisible game and was also held responsible for the break that led to Heerenveen’s second goal. Gudmundsson was introduced to play at the left wing, with Brett Holman moving inside, offering more work rate and tackling for the struggling AZ midfield.

The second half

Only three minutes were played in the second half before the match was over. Understandably, AZ manager Verbeek had his team increase their stance in order to find a way back into the match. But the advanced defensive line was not paired with any sorts of pressure on the ball when Gouweleeuw was presented all sorts of time to pick out a delicious long pass. He found Djuricic in behind AZ’s d-line and the 19-year old Serbian playmaker provided a cool finish.

Only two minutes after conceding this goal, AZ, who had conceded only 8 goals in 13 matches prior to this match, conceded a fourth. Ramon Zomer finished from close range, the assist again coming from Jeffrey Gouweleeuw in a left wing cross in an attack that started from a corner.

Further into the second half, Luciano Narsingh made things even worse for the leaders as he finished another ball in behind AZ’s defensive line to make it 5-1

In the end

Heerenveen fully deserved this victory based on their freshness and eagerness to win the midfield battles. AZ’s midfield, where offensive midfielder by nature Erik Falkenburg filled in for the suspended Pontus Wernbloom, never seemed up to the task. Come the second half, Heerenveen clinically punished AZ for failing to pressure the ball when they tried a higher defensive line to fight their way back into the match.

A combined performances analysis in terms of creating chances, finding the target and converting into goals follows the simple principle that the amount of goals scored is a direct result of the number of shots created, multiplied with the fraction of shots on target, multiplied with the fraction of on target shots converted. Conversely, the amount of shots conceded results from multiplying the number of shots conceded with the fraction of on target shots conceded and the average opponent’s conversion.

Offensive conversion

Ranking teams according to the conversion rate of chances creates reveals huge differences. On average, nearly one in four shots on target produced a goal, with 22.4% of shots on target hitting the back of the net.

 The best team is this regard is AZ, who converted 29.2% of their shots on target. On the bottom of the table, Excelsior converted only 10.3% of their shots on target, nearly three times less. In other words, AZ scored a goal per 3.4 shots on target, while Excelsior needed 9.7 shots on target to score a goal.

At the top of the table, a cluster of well performing teams was found around the 27-29% range, with Heerenveen, Utrecht and Roda following the example set by league leaders AZ and title pretenders Twente and Ajax. Although producing by far the most shots on target, PSV’s 24.2% conversion is slightly lower than the leading group of teams show.

More variation is found near the bottom of the table, with RKC and N.E.C. finding some explanation of their recent dip in form and surprisingly low conversion rates for Feyenoord (18.1%) and Vitesse (19.8%).

Defensive conversion

Ranking teams according to the amount of goals conceded per shot on target will reflect both goal keeper performance and defensive performances, making it hard to distinguish the different contribution of both. The table below shows the team’s performances in this regard.

Differences are less outspoken in terms of defense than they are in terms of offense. The top of the table is again for AZ, conceding with only 14.3% of shots on target, while the bottom team, Ajax, conceded a goal with no less than 30.6% of shots on target. Yes, that’s correct, Ajax concede most goals per shot on target. Last season they managed to top the table, with 15.9%, almost half of what they concede per shot on target this year.

Looking beyond the shocking Ajax performance, we can see why Roda struggles this year, giving up a goals with 28.8% of shots on target being converted. An interesting observation is the fact that despite playing a possession based dominant game, Twente are the second best team with 18.1%, even though one might have expected their opponents to have relatively more shots coming from counter attacks, a renowned source of quality chances in terms of conversion. Twente’s excellent defensive performance may highlight Nikolay Mihaylov’s development as one of the top goal keepers in the Eredivisie, as well as Twente’s excellent overall defensive job.

In the end

This post concluded a mini series looking at performances in the Eredivisie. Teams’ performances are broken down into creating shots, finding the target and converting, and on the other hand, to their defensive performances along the same three scales.

When teams do better in one or two of these scales, while disappointing in the other, this may reflect a difference in playing style, formation, player quality, or a ton of other reasons. The interesting thing, though, is that it reveals patterns that may be different to observe with the naked eye.

Most regular Eredivisie viewers would have concluded that Ajax conceded too many goals, but to see them ranked bottom of the table with regard to defensive conversion might be surprising. It also feeds the debate as to how long Frank de Boer will continue to have confidence in Kenneth Vermeer, with 5 million euro summer acquisition Jasper Cillissen on the bench. AZ’s excellent season so far seems reliant on being the most accurate convertors in the league, while also showing the best defensive conversion rate. Is this a reflection of AZ’s strikers and defenders outperforming their rivals, or is AZ overachieving at the moment with a return to average numbers and a dip in form likely to happen? Will Excelsior be able to shift the balance a bit, turning on the offense where they convert to lowest fraction of the league, while sacrificing a little bit of their third place offensive conversion?

This post could never have been created without the support of Infostrada Sports, who’ve provided the data for the analysis.

The starting line-ups

Lyon’s 4-2-3-1

Rémi Garde had his team operate from the same formation as he did in the match in Amsterdam, with several first team starters by now returned from injury. Most importantly, creative forward Lisandro made his first start since August, playing as an advanced midfielder / support striker to Gomis. Also returning were captain Cris at centre-back and all-round midfielder Gourcuff in central midfield.

Ajax’ 4-3-3

Since the match away at PSV on September 18, Frank de Boer took a step away from trying to install Theo Janssen in a deep-lying playmaker role, and in turn fields a genuine holding midfielder. In the match against PSV he started with Anita, but Boilesen’s hamstring injury forced Anita back to the left-back spot, introducing Eyong Enoh in his beloved destroyer holding midfield role. This concept was continued in the clashes with Twente and AZ, and Enoh also started Ajax’ three last Champions League matches, earning three clean sheets.

Severe selection problems  for De Boer concerned the striker role, with Sigthorsson, Siem de Jong and Bulykin all out injured. Uruguayan international Nicolas Lodeiro was granted his first start ever since starting his injury-plagued Ajax career back in 2009/10. By nature more of an offensive midfielder, Lodeiro played a deep-lying false nine type of striker role, creating space for overlapping runs by Eriksen and Sulejmani. Boerrigter was unavailable through injury, allowing Ebecilio a start at the left wing.

The first half

In the first match between both teams, Ajax set out rather optimistically and paid the price for that stance with a handful decent Lyon counter attacks. In this particular match, Frank de Boer seemed to have tuned his team more defensively minded. Several differences with Ajax’ usual playing style were to be noted.

First, and most importantly, they played with a much lower level of pressing compared to Ajax’ usual style. Lyon’s centre-backs were allowed time on the ball, with Eriksen consequently shadowing defensive midfielder Källström, rather than advancing to press higher up the pitch. With both formations being mirror images, Ajax looked happy to sit back in a mixed zonal-man-marking system, where most of times regular combinations of the same Ajax- and Lyon players moved across the pitch.

Another change was induced by the role Lodeiro played upfront. He often positioned himself rather deep, more in the advanced midfielder zone than the striker area. This proved an essential point in the match, as his stance consequently allowed Ajax a passing option when looking to play the ball out from defense. The diagram below illustrates this very well. In the first half, Lodeiro received no less than 24 passes, 16 of which came from Ajax’ own half. His subsequent 16 of 21 passes completed confirmed that he did not only receive the ball, but kept possession too. In this way, Lodeiro allowed his team to obtain slightly more possession than Lyon over the first half.

The second half

Lyon expressed much more urgency in the second half and advanced their defensive line. Ajax still sat back, but had much more problems playing the ball out from the back. Lyon’s urgency was also expressed in their crossing. In the first half, they made seven crosses, all of which failed to reach a Lyon player, and in the second half they attempted twenty crosses, reaching a Lyon player with only three of them.

This represented Ajax’ philosophy to rather sit back and absorb, than prevent the crosses coming in in the first place. Both Vertonghen and Alderweireld never looked under threat from Lyon’s rather direct offensive game.

Lyon’s more offensive approach resulted in a more open game, with the French team pushing and Ajax looking to profit from quick breaks, goal scoring attempts that have a proven higher success rate in terms of scoring goals. Just that finishing touch missed though, as Sulejmani, among others, missed an excellent opportunity to convert one of Ajax’ quick second half breaks.

Overall, both teams created a comparable amount of chances, 17 for Lyon versus 15 for Ajax, but the quality of chances created by Ajax seemed higher, with 8 of their attempts coming from inside the box, and most of their 8 second half chances arising from counter attacks.

Near the end of the second half, Lisandro, just returning from injury,  faded more and more, and the introduction of Ederson in the 73^rd minute installed some new energy up front, as was illustrated by the fact that Lyon created 9 of their 17 attempts after his introduction. Although most of them were long range attempts, Ajax goal keeper Vermeer was forced into some crucial saves during this final phase of the game.

In the end

Overall, both teams put in a comparable performances, but, just like in the first clash in Amsterdam, they did so in very different style. In Amsterdam, Ajax was the aggressor, while this time Lyon was forced to play for a win, playing at home and needing more than a draw to prevent themselves from having to overturn a seven goal difference in the final game.

Ajax was forced to deploy a non-natural in the striker role, but saw this working out very well. Most notably in the first half, Lodeiro proved a reliable passing option to play out from the back and his deep-lying striker role seems quite an asset for Ajax, at the very least when facing quality opposition. Excellent individual performances by goal keeper Vermeer, centre-backs Vertonghen and Alderweireld and also by holding midfielder Enoh ensured that Ajax either kept Lyon out of their own box, or dealt with their attempts. The resulting long range efforts, or hopeful crosses were dealt with rather comfortably.

For details on the data used in this analysis please check the ‘data’ paragraph in the previous post, and, when comparing this analysis with other data sources take particular note of the fact that Infostrada does not count blocked shots.

Shot accuracy

In order to analyze offensive and defensive performances, this update adds depth to the previous analysis. The quality of the shots created and conceded is presented as the fraction of shots fired on target. The planned third update will focus on the conversion of on target shots into goals, or for defensive performances, the prevention of the opposing team turning their on target shots into goals.

The left-hand table below ranks all Eredivisie teams according to the fraction of shots they fired on target, while the right-hand table ranks teams according to the fraction of shots allowed on target. For your convenience, both tables have been sorted so that teams are ranked in decreasing order of offensive or defensive performance going down the list.

 On average 52% of shots was on target, which sees slightly more variance in offensive performance than in defensive performances. Teams spread out from 61.3% to 45.2% according to shots created, and from 46.6% to 60.6% according to shots allowed.

Offensive analysis

The top team with regard to offensive accuracy was Feyenoord, who found the target with over 61% of their shots, outscoring the average Eredivisie team by almost 10 percentage point, or overachieving 20% in terms of offensive accuracy.

Another team doing very well in terms of offensive accuracy is PSV, who also create most shots of all teams. A remarkably good score is found at N.E.C., who only occupy the 15^th place in the league table, having scored only 12 goals in 13 matches.

At the bottom of the table, Heracles, currently ranked 9^th in the table with a decent 19 goals from 13 matches, are found to have the lowest accuracy of 45.2%. This may help to explain their struggle to turn their success in terms of possession (3^rd in the league with an average share of possession of 55.3%) into goals (one goal per 34.0 minutes of possession, 10^th in the league).

Other teams with disappointing accuracy are top half teams Groningen (14^th, 49.1%) and Heerenveen (16^th, 47.9%).

Defensive analysis

Two teams stick out positively in terms of the quality of shots conceded. Vitesse and AZ allow their opponents to find the target with just 46.6% and 46.7% of shots. Also N.E.C, sticks out positively again, with only 47.6% of conceded shots being on target.

Of the top teams, both Ajax (52.9%) and certainly PSV (55.5%) seem to allow their opponents too much shot accuracy, sticking out negatively in comparison with fellow title pretenders AZ and Twente (49.0%). The worst performance in this department is for Groningen, whose opponents have found the target with over 60% of shots.

Combined analysis

Teams doing well in terms of preventing their opponents from finding the target while creating a high fraction of on target shots themselves should move up in the shots table when we replace the ‘net shots’ table with the ‘shots on target’ table.

The net ‘shots on target’ table shows that PSV do enough in terms of the raw net number of chances created to maintain the top position, despite being outperformed in terms of defensive accuracy. Feyenoord leap to the second place, thanks to their excellent offensive accuracy, combined with Ajax’ mediocre offensive and defensive accuracy.

Groningen drop from fourth to sixth, seeing their 6.2 net overall shots turn into only 1.8 net shots on target. NAC lose some ground due to their atrocious defensive accuracy, while both N.E.C. and Vitesse move up slightly in the net shots on target table. The rest of the table remains more or less as it was.

In the end

Creating shots and preventing opponents from shooting is one thing, finding the target is quite another. Looking at shot accuracy, and the defensive counterpart ‘accuracy of shots conceded’, allows to see where teams concede ground to their rivals in terms of turning dominance into goals.

The third and final part of this series will put the icing on the cake as we’ll look at conversion, the fraction of on target shots turned into goals, or prevented from going into the goal. While the move from the sheer amount of net shots created to the amount of net shots on target created has helped the insight in terms of offensive and defensive performances, the addition of the performance in terms of conversion will provide the missing piece of the performance puzzle.

This post could never have been created without the support of Infostrada Sports, who’ve provided the data for the analysis.