goon True, but I will say we’ve had more touches in the penalty box than any other team this season. It figures that we will get more penalties.
I mean that may be the case, at least this season.
As can be seen above we have the second highest touches in the opposition box and the most penalties. That being said, Spurs currently have the most touches in the opposition box and have not been awarded a single penalty.
Also as can be seen below, last season we had the most touches in the opposition box, even more than City but had 1/3rd of the penalties that were given to them. So it's a bit more complicated than more touches in opposition box = more penalties.
Theoretically speaking having more touches in the box may give you a higher probability of being awarded penalties, however in practice that's not necessarily the case. Fulham, Brentford, West Ham and Leicester were all top 5 in the number of penalties awarded they were 12th, 9th, 13th and 17th in the table for number of touches in the opposition box. Maybe the theory itself has an issue in that having quick breaks into the box may lead to more desperate challenges by opposition trying to keep up with runners around them as opposed to a defender who is part of a set defence facing a team camped outside their box with no real space to play in.
Anyways, my original point wasn't to argue about the theory of what kind of actions lead to penalties etc, as over the last season and the course of this one it's clear that there are factors other than possession in the opposition box which can contribute to winning pens. Rather it was to refute the idea that we are creating just almost as much as we were last season as our xG is only slightly off our average from last year.
That claim doesn't take into consideration that at this point of the season we have been awarded 0.37 penalties per game compared to 0.07 penalties per game last season. That's more than 5 times the amount and will obviously make our numbers seem better this year.
- Our non penalty xG this year is 1.39 and we are in 11th place on that list whereas last season we had a non penalty xG of 1.82, and were in 3rd place on that list.
- Our defensive stats have become much better, with an xAG of 1.08 compared to an xAG of 1.42 last season.
- Overall the xG differential between the two was 3.23 last season compared to 2.48 this season so we are some way off that. In terms of xG differential we were 3rd overall last season and currently in 11th place.
Our position in the table is promising but unless we improve on our chance creation, I fear that it will be only a matter of time until we start to fall adrift. A strong defence can only carry you so far if your attack is not firing.
