A season review in stats

[Steve Mackan]

I've just published a piece on The Pinch digging into United’s 25/26 season through the numbers. One for the nerds, of which I know there are a few.

The TL;DR is that 13th-place reflects a bang average finish as per the league table, but underneath that, there's a much more volatile spread of performances/results, which are anything other than average (for very good and very bad). That makes it (IMO) a fascinating season once you swallow down a lot of emotions about the team.

It remains crazy to me that from the day after QPR (H) until 28 February, we took more points than any other team in the Championship over a 20-game spell — yet still finished where we finished. Anyhow, I've broken it down into 6 main chunks:

• Outcome vs Performance
• Creating Chances
• Defensive Control
• Possession & Territory
• Game-State
• Individual Impact

In writing up and creating a S-tonne of graphics, I'm aware I got bogged down in what I thought was interesting, so I'd love to hear any thoughts on what is missed here.

 

[knowsnowt]

First.

 

[blade too long]

thirst

 

[Chief]

Great read, but I do dispute one section;

Blades touch more boxes?

Not in my experience.

 

[Steve Mackan]

Great read, but I do dispute one section;

Blades touch more boxes?

Not in my experience.

You're getting something wrong in build-up

 

[Selly]

Great read, but I do dispute one section;

Blades touch more boxes?

Not in my experience.

Too direct - you need to probe down the wings and through the centre - if you try and pump it into the box too early it will simply get knocked away...

 

[Balham]

Top work Steve Mackan .

Interesting to see that Djibi Soumaré was one of our better midfielders in terms of progressing the ball and winning it back. The kid has something.

 

[Glenluce Blade]

Ridiculous bit of work from Steve Mackan Even I understood it and I'm very much an eye test aficionado (despite my best efforts)

 

[finlaytheblade]

Ridiculous bit of work from Steve Mackan Even I understood it and I'm very much an eye test aficionado (despite my best efforts)

There's a long article in the pinch which is worth a read.
It seems to me if Wilder gets the surgery right and some support from the owners next season could be a good one

 

[Selly]

That's a great piece of work.

Now on this:



This looks to support the point that we fluctuated wildly - but I have no idea how different the above is to the rest of the league - is there any way to show an average fluctuation?

 

[Bladesman]

That's a great piece of work.

Now on this:

View attachment 236755

This looks to support the point that we fluctuated wildly - but I have no idea how different the above is to the rest of the league - is there any way to show an average fluctuation?

Feel a bit seasick looking at that graph.