New Blades Data Dashboard

[Steve Mackan]

I've made a new data dashboard on The Pinch.

Hope some fellow nerds get something out of it. But first, for all the people who like a good graph, I'd be really keen to get any thoughts on how it all works.

I'm biased, but I don't think any other club really has this. Yes, the dashboard comes entirely from publicly available data. But what we (Riley and me) noticed, was that this data is often so often under-explored at club level, which makes sense because it's bloody labour of love to do. So, we've tried to dig a little deeper whilst providing data that can actually be explored.

This isn't a series of screenshots or tables you can't sort. We've built something that (with fingers crossed it all works) is a proper statistical sandbox. You can sort tables, search tables and interact with graphs. You can isolate stats from one game and compare them with another. Altogether, there are 12 charts/tables, covering Team Stats, Match-by-Match stats and Player Stats.

Now, I'm totally prepped for the xJUYEC (expected 'just use your eyes' comments). And I have a lot of sympathy with anyone who dislikes the way data in football is covered. But our intention with this is to make Blades By Numbers a bit of a playground; the entire opposite to the StatManDavification in mainstream media, with nobody shoving the xG of a shot down your throat.

Those are a lot more words than I'd planned. Hope a few of you have a play around! And any feedback hugely appreciated.

Ta, Sam!

 

[DifferentClass]

Love a good bit of data porn

 

[Geordie Blade]

Phwoooaaarrrrr. Love it.

 

[Cassius Kray]

This is interesting, thanks. There are some stats I've not seen before and being able to easily compare them (e.g. across matches) provides additional insights. Appreciate the definitions under each visual as well.

Where do you get the data from (I see 'Opta' but I don't know where Opta publish this)? Is it a data feed or are you planning on manually updating it? Is there any particular reason you chose Datawrapper to create the visuals?

For some of the XG data, such as finishing performance, I wonder whether it would be useful to include an additional column for performance as a %? May not make a big difference with the current values but it could be interesting to see who has the worst performance relative to their opportunities, as well as the worst performance overall.

A minor point but you might wish to consider bars over the doughnut charts for the player share visuals - radial visualisations are generally considered bad practice for anything more than couple of values because it's more difficult to intuit sizes and therefore make comparisons (it's not immediately obvious, for instance, that Burrows' share of xg is almost exactly half of Peck's).

 

[Steve Mackan]

This is interesting, thanks. There are some stats I've not seen before and being able to easily compare them (e.g. across matches) provides additional insights. Appreciate the definitions under each visual as well.

Where do you get the data from (I see 'Opta' but I don't know where Opta publish this)? Is it a data feed or are you planning on manually updating it? Is there any particular reason you chose Datawrapper to create the visuals?

For some of the XG data, such as finishing performance, I wonder whether it would be useful to include an additional column for performance as a %? May not make a big difference with the current values but it could be interesting to see who has the worst performance relative to their opportunities, as well as the worst performance overall.

A minor point but you might wish to consider bars over the doughnut charts for the player share visuals - radial visualisations are generally considered bad practice for anything more than couple of values because it's more difficult to intuit sizes and therefore make comparisons (it's not immediately obvious, for instance, that Burrows' share of xg is almost exactly half of Peck's).

Thanks CK - really appreciate those thoughts.

1. The Data - it comes from publicly available Opta sources, mostly FBref but FotMob for shot-by-shot xG used for the 0-0 tables
2. Datawrapper - because it's the only such software to be integrated with Substack; and, to be fair, it's a pretty solid tool, and see #3
3. The extent of manual work is limited to building everything in the first place; now it's all setup we can paste raw data into googlesheets and datawrapper has the functionality to pull the info from google - which is handy for semi-automation
4. Extra % column - really like this idea, and definitely something we'll look to add as we go along and note improvements down
5. Noted re the donuts - I suppose what I liked about these charts that it would clearly show where most of our xg/xA comes from, but you're right that it makes it harder to intuit differences; another one for the list
6. Thanks very much for the thoughtful responses!

 

[DI36O]

This is great that you've done all this specifically for united so thank you.

I like looking at data. I find it difficult to make many inferences from it in football especially early in the season. That Hull game for instance, that baffles me how our stats are so good. And 4 for prevention against Bristol City seems insane. There's nothing wrong with data itself though, its just the conclusions we find ourselves drawing from it.

Anyway thanks again for making this and I'll keep checking it over the season. Hopefully some positive patterns emerge.

 

[Tray]

This is fantastic, thank you!

I can now use the positive stats to back up my hopelessly optimistic view on things

It backs up that we have looked better recently (not much better, but better).

I don't know if this is possible/useful at all, but I've been really interested/annoyed at how utterly useless I perceive us to be in the 5/10 minutes straight after half-time after half time. Are there any stats to back that up?

 

[Beans]

This is fantastic, thank you!

I can now use the positive stats to back up my hopelessly optimistic view on things

It backs up that we have looked better recently (not much better, but better).

I don't know if this is possible/useful at all, but I've been really interested/annoyed at how utterly useless I perceive us to be in the 5/10 minutes straight after half-time after half time. Are there any stats to back that up?

Given our league position it's not pretty however you slice it, but we are particularly crap between 46-60 mins, yes. Conceded an impressive 10 times in that segment so far, most of any team.

We're also the only team in the league yet to score between 31 and 45, so the middle half an hour of games has basically been a total disaster - scored 3 conceded 16.

Championship - Goal time statistics

Goals scored and conceded per 15 minutes in English Championship

www.soccerstats.com

 

[Tray]

Given our league position it's not pretty however you slice it, but we are particularly crap between 46-60 mins, yes. Conceded an impressive 10 times in that segment so far, most of any team.

We're also the only team in the league yet to score between 31 and 45, so the middle half an hour of games has basically been a total disaster - scored 3 conceded 16.

Championship - Goal time statistics

Goals scored and conceded per 15 minutes in English Championship

www.soccerstats.com

Eeshk that's rough. 10 goals is mad, think there has been a huge mentality problem this season, and this is allowing teams to have all the momentum for the 2nd half.

Just hoping Sunday has given them the confidence to push on now, we started the 2nd half really strong, but given the opposition I'm not sure it signals a sign of things to come! Cheers Ben

 

[Balham]

Given our league position it's not pretty however you slice it, but we are particularly crap between 46-60 mins, yes. Conceded an impressive 10 times in that segment so far, most of any team.

We're also the only team in the league yet to score between 31 and 45, so the middle half an hour of games has basically been a total disaster - scored 3 conceded 16.

Championship - Goal time statistics

Goals scored and conceded per 15 minutes in English Championship

www.soccerstats.com

Scored 3 conceded 13 but still pretty awful and that's after Campbell's second on Sunday which was scored in the 48th minute.

Compare us to Coventry in that period: they're F16 (two against us) A4

 

[Beans]

Scored 3 conceded 13 but still pretty awful and that's after Campbell's second on Sunday which was scored in the 48th minute.

Compare us to Coventry in that period: they're F16 (two against us) A4

Gah, sorry yes, typo and too late to edit! Yes, for clarity, we have a -10 GD between the 31st and 60th mins, scoring 3 conceding 13.

I respectfully decline your offer to compare us to Coventry this season

 

[Steve Mackan]

This is fantastic, thank you!

I can now use the positive stats to back up my hopelessly optimistic view on things

It backs up that we have looked better recently (not much better, but better).

I don't know if this is possible/useful at all, but I've been really interested/annoyed at how utterly useless I perceive us to be in the 5/10 minutes straight after half-time after half time. Are there any stats to back that up?

Only more optimistic now. I note too that we are looking pretty damn hot on NTT20's 5/10 xG form tables.

 

[Steve Mackan]

We've just updated Blades by Numbers now... with a couple of exception where we're waiting on sources.

Most surprising thing for me, and it's not something expressed on the site, is that we're now posting the second highest Set Piece xG (behind Cov).

 

[PTBlade]

Absolutely fantastic, I'm cancelling my Porn Hub subscription for this.
Well done guys.

 

[Steve Mackan]

Just updated the data for this week. A few top lines here:

• ️ Blades strike first fast — Sheffield United have opened the scoring in 4 of their last 5 matches, striking in minutes 4, 41, 11, and 25 (and QPR was 0-0).
• Four new names on the scoresheet — Cannon, Peck, Hamer, and Bamford all opened their accounts in a week over the last 3.
• Set-piece specialists — Chris Wilder’s side rank 2nd in the Championship for Set-Piece xG (10.11), converting just 6 goals from those dead-ball situations.
• Winning the early xG battle — Per the xG @ 0-0 table, United have generated the greater share of xG in 6 of their last 9 matches before the first goal is scored.
• Bamford impact alert — In just 109 minutes, Patrick Bamford has produced 1.7 xG — the 4th-highest total in the squad this season.
• xG gap closing (slowly) — Despite continued underperformance across all expected goals metrics, the Season xG Dashboard shows the Blades are narrowing the deficit.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Just updated the data for this week. A few top lines here:

• ️ Blades strike first fast — Sheffield United have opened the scoring in 4 of their last 5 matches, striking in minutes 4, 41, 11, and 25 (and QPR was 0-0).
• Four new names on the scoresheet — Cannon, Peck, Hamer, and Bamford all opened their accounts in a week over the last 3.
• Set-piece specialists — Chris Wilder’s side rank 2nd in the Championship for Set-Piece xG (10.11), converting just 6 goals from those dead-ball situations.
• Winning the early xG battle — Per the xG @ 0-0 table, United have generated the greater share of xG in 6 of their last 9 matches before the first goal is scored.
• Bamford impact alert — In just 109 minutes, Patrick Bamford has produced 1.7 xG — the 4th-highest total in the squad this season.
• xG gap closing (slowly) — Despite continued underperformance across all expected goals metrics, the Season xG Dashboard shows the Blades are narrowing the deficit.

Steve…..I’m sure you do these posts to grab dozens of likes ha ha.

Very impressive and professionally produced data…..much appreciated and here’s another like…you deserve it.

I’d be interested to see stats regards our “park the bus” policy…..which must be deliberate from the manager.
Find it noticeable how when it’s even we’re quite good….having decent control pushing our centre backs up field playing possession football.
When we go a goal behind….we are generally more attacking.

However when we have a lead and the game enters the last 20 minutes….sometimes even 30 minutes…it’s concerning how
Almost every player drops back deep. The whole defence seem to be camped in our area and we just boot it clear back to the opposition.
All of our sudden our plays can’t pass to feet and lack composure….and we struggle to retain possession.

We did this last season too….the irony is….at Championship level when we sit back inviting pressure we’ve generally held out and won.
However in the Premier league this tactic was a disaster because when we sat back inviting pressure the PL players always seemed to find a goal.

 

[Steve Mackan]

Steve…..I’m sure you do these posts to grab dozens of likes ha ha.

Very impressive and professionally produced data…..much appreciated and here’s another like…you deserve it.

I’d be interested to see stats regards our “park the bus” policy…..which must be deliberate from the manager.
Find it noticeable how when it’s even we’re quite good….having decent control pushing our centre backs up field playing possession football.
When we go a goal behind….we are generally more attacking.

However when we have a lead and the game enters the last 20 minutes….sometimes even 30 minutes…it’s concerning how
Almost every player drops back deep. The whole defence seem to be camped in our area and we just boot it clear back to the opposition.
All of our sudden our plays can’t pass to feet and lack composure….and we struggle to retain possession.

We did this last season too….the irony is….at Championship level when we sit back inviting pressure we’ve generally held out and won.
However in the Premier league this tactic was a disaster because when we sat back inviting pressure the PL players always seemed to find a goal.

Haha! If the data was bad, I'd still be doing them -- but I think, now with Seriki/Tanganga making up a relatively normal RB/RCB, we're performing closer to what the data says.

I agree that when we do step off we look poorer. However, I think it would be difficult to measure that this season because we've played in so many different ways already. A few more games with this settled 4-at-back and I'll have a proper look into that.

 

[Steve Mackan]

A few top lines from our latest data update. I think it got a bit lost in what was a disjointed display v Norwich that we really should've killed the game off before 60 mins.

Set-piece impact — Blades have scored 32% (8) of their 25 goals from set pieces this season.

Final-third presence — Against Norwich, United recorded 42 touches inside the box, the most since the Bristol City opener.

Year-on-year xG 'improvement' — Comparing 24/25 to 25/26 Blades are posting a better xG now than last year… nothing to crow about, but it shows the points should follow.

Danny Ings’ xG share — After a slew of chances misses v Norwich, Ings now accounts for 9% of the club’s 30.80 xG.

Full-backs creating — Harrison Burrows and Femi Seriki are rising in expected assists, contributing 11% and 9% of our 23.4 xA total.

Control of chance quality — United have generated 70%+ of total xG in 5 of the last 6 matches, which is frankly, pretty exceptional.

Strongest 0–0 platform — At 0–0 vs Norwich, Blades posted a +0.88 xG difference, the best position of the season at that scoreline.

xG vs reality — We’re still underperforming xG and xGA, but recent matches show meaningful improvement…

We may or may not make the play-offs, but one day soon, Sheffield United Football Club will be outperforming our non-penalty xG.

 

[Balham]

Lovely work Steve Mackan

One quick observation: the top scorer section compares goals against non-penalty xG. Sydie Peck therefore looks to be around par when in reality he should be at -2.1. Either the expected goals section needs to be total xG or the goals section needs to exclude penalties for it to be fair

I also read on the forum that Djibril Soumaré and Alex Matos are awful footballers who should be jettisoned as soon as possible. However, Soumaré is fourth on the defensive contributions list if a total is added with Matos in third. Jairo Riedewald is second which would suggest that all three are doing the defensive part of the defensive midfielder pretty competently. I accept that there's work to do on Soumaré's positioning and Matos' possession but neither should be written off just yet.

 

[Steve Mackan]

Lovely work Steve Mackan

One quick observation: the top scorer section compares goals against non-penalty xG. Sydie Peck therefore looks to be around par when in reality he should be at -2.1. Either the expected goals section needs to be total xG or the goals section needs to exclude penalties for it to be fair

I also read on the forum that Djibril Soumaré and Alex Matos are awful footballers who should be jettisoned as soon as possible. However, Soumaré is fourth on the defensive contributions list if a total is added with Matos in third. Jairo Riedewald is second which would suggest that all three are doing the defensive part of the defensive midfielder pretty competently. I accept that there's work to do on Soumaré's positioning and Matos' possession but neither should be written off just yet.

View attachment 227173

Nice spot on the top scorer section! Will correct that.

On Soumare/Matos - I would say their numbers (from fewer minutes than most) are a bit noisy owing to them coming on as subs with an instruction to "break it up". That said, on Matos, he certainly can shift and is quite tidy at nicking the ball, either as an interception or a tackle. It's what he does next that's the problem. He feels like a player who hasn't got the on-ball technique or passing to be a 4/6-type midfielder. Which makes me wonder, at this level, what is he?

 

[ReeceofBDTBL]

We absolutely will make the play offs