Aim Here
15-04-2018, 12:40 AM
So, today I decided to work out how 'effective' the players were by seeing how often league goals were scored or conceded while they happened to be on the pitch.
I scraped the data from the SPFL website, did a little bit of scripting and spreadsheeting and I've put the results below. I think they might be interesting.
The main statistic I've used is goal-difference per minute - the rate at which goals are scored minus that at which goals are conceded while the player is on the pitch. I figure that's a crude indicator of how effective a player is. Note that you can't just take the best 11 players here and make them a team (well you probably can't, anyways). Teams are, well, teams and not just a collection of individual players, and the performance of a player might rely on a bunch of other factors (perhaps players only function well as part of a partnership with one or more specific players, for instance). Still, might be a fun thing to look at. Also, I'm quite mistake-prone, so bear in mind it's not gospel. If you think you've spotted a mistake, you're probably right.
Some things to note:
The effectiveness depends on how much a player played since the start of the calendar year compared to last year. Our most effective players are ones we signed in January, and the ones we ditched tend to be at the bottom half. It's a clue as to how we've improved since then. Rherras is an exception here, but he has a low sample size (only on for 30 minutes against Motherwell, during which time they scored).
Stokesy is the least effective player with significant amounts of game time. This does surprise me, since his on-the-pitch flaws were less evident than, say, Simon Murray.
Barker is also surprisingly low in the table, given how useful he looks when charging upfield with the ball, but he hasn't played since hobbling off in the Rangers game, so it might just be due to mostly playing last year. It would be interesting to see what happens when he's on the pitch with Boyle and one or more of Allan, Kamberi and Maclaren.
Efe and Paul Hanlon are slap-bang in the middle of the table because they've played in almost all the league games so they almost mathematically have to be average. John McGinn is, surprisingly, a little *below* average, with similar amounts of game time. Go figure.
We can't say much about the keepers because only Rocky has significant amounts of game time. If I was looking at them, I'd not bother about the goal scoring rate or the goal difference rate, just the goals conceded.
Player
Time on pitch (mins)
Goals scored
Goals conceded
Goals scored/minute
Goals conceded/minute
Goal difference/minute
Jamie Maclaren
574
13
5
0.022648
0.008711
0.013937
Florian Kamberi
810
17
7
0.020988
0.008642
0.012346
Scott Allan
652
13
6
0.019939
0.009202
0.010736
Oliver Shaw
525
9
5
0.017143
0.009524
0.007619
Ryan Porteous
275
7
5
0.025455
0.018182
0.007273
Daniel Swanson
291
5
3
0.017182
0.010309
0.006873
Cameron Bell
164
2
1
0.012195
0.006098
0.006098
Martin Boyle
2616
42
30
0.016055
0.011468
0.004587
Lewis Stevenson
2700
43
33
0.015926
0.012222
0.003704
Dylan McGeouch
2483
40
31
0.016110
0.012485
0.003625
Darren McGregor
1569
23
19
0.014659
0.012110
0.002549
Paul Hanlon
2790
42
35
0.015054
0.012545
0.002509
Efetobore Ambrose Emuobo
2906
44
37
0.015141
0.012732
0.002409
Ofir Marciano
2610
41
35
0.015709
0.013410
0.002299
David Gray
471
7
6
0.014862
0.012739
0.002123
John McGinn
2688
40
36
0.014881
0.013393
0.001488
Steven Whittaker
1353
23
21
0.016999
0.015521
0.001478
Marvin Bartley
1756
23
21
0.013098
0.011959
0.001139
Deivydas Matulevicius
72
3
3
0.041667
0.041667
0.000000
Simon Murray
1462
21
21
0.014364
0.014364
0.000000
Ross Laidlaw
270
3
3
0.011111
0.011111
0.000000
Fraser Murray
19
0
0
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
Brandon Barker
1315
18
19
0.013688
0.014449
−0.000760
Vykintas Slivka
825
10
12
0.012121
0.014545
−0.002424
Anthony Stokes
1447
18
24
0.012440
0.016586
−0.004147
Faycal Rherras
31
0
1
0.000000
0.032258
−0.032258
I scraped the data from the SPFL website, did a little bit of scripting and spreadsheeting and I've put the results below. I think they might be interesting.
The main statistic I've used is goal-difference per minute - the rate at which goals are scored minus that at which goals are conceded while the player is on the pitch. I figure that's a crude indicator of how effective a player is. Note that you can't just take the best 11 players here and make them a team (well you probably can't, anyways). Teams are, well, teams and not just a collection of individual players, and the performance of a player might rely on a bunch of other factors (perhaps players only function well as part of a partnership with one or more specific players, for instance). Still, might be a fun thing to look at. Also, I'm quite mistake-prone, so bear in mind it's not gospel. If you think you've spotted a mistake, you're probably right.
Some things to note:
The effectiveness depends on how much a player played since the start of the calendar year compared to last year. Our most effective players are ones we signed in January, and the ones we ditched tend to be at the bottom half. It's a clue as to how we've improved since then. Rherras is an exception here, but he has a low sample size (only on for 30 minutes against Motherwell, during which time they scored).
Stokesy is the least effective player with significant amounts of game time. This does surprise me, since his on-the-pitch flaws were less evident than, say, Simon Murray.
Barker is also surprisingly low in the table, given how useful he looks when charging upfield with the ball, but he hasn't played since hobbling off in the Rangers game, so it might just be due to mostly playing last year. It would be interesting to see what happens when he's on the pitch with Boyle and one or more of Allan, Kamberi and Maclaren.
Efe and Paul Hanlon are slap-bang in the middle of the table because they've played in almost all the league games so they almost mathematically have to be average. John McGinn is, surprisingly, a little *below* average, with similar amounts of game time. Go figure.
We can't say much about the keepers because only Rocky has significant amounts of game time. If I was looking at them, I'd not bother about the goal scoring rate or the goal difference rate, just the goals conceded.
Player
Time on pitch (mins)
Goals scored
Goals conceded
Goals scored/minute
Goals conceded/minute
Goal difference/minute
Jamie Maclaren
574
13
5
0.022648
0.008711
0.013937
Florian Kamberi
810
17
7
0.020988
0.008642
0.012346
Scott Allan
652
13
6
0.019939
0.009202
0.010736
Oliver Shaw
525
9
5
0.017143
0.009524
0.007619
Ryan Porteous
275
7
5
0.025455
0.018182
0.007273
Daniel Swanson
291
5
3
0.017182
0.010309
0.006873
Cameron Bell
164
2
1
0.012195
0.006098
0.006098
Martin Boyle
2616
42
30
0.016055
0.011468
0.004587
Lewis Stevenson
2700
43
33
0.015926
0.012222
0.003704
Dylan McGeouch
2483
40
31
0.016110
0.012485
0.003625
Darren McGregor
1569
23
19
0.014659
0.012110
0.002549
Paul Hanlon
2790
42
35
0.015054
0.012545
0.002509
Efetobore Ambrose Emuobo
2906
44
37
0.015141
0.012732
0.002409
Ofir Marciano
2610
41
35
0.015709
0.013410
0.002299
David Gray
471
7
6
0.014862
0.012739
0.002123
John McGinn
2688
40
36
0.014881
0.013393
0.001488
Steven Whittaker
1353
23
21
0.016999
0.015521
0.001478
Marvin Bartley
1756
23
21
0.013098
0.011959
0.001139
Deivydas Matulevicius
72
3
3
0.041667
0.041667
0.000000
Simon Murray
1462
21
21
0.014364
0.014364
0.000000
Ross Laidlaw
270
3
3
0.011111
0.011111
0.000000
Fraser Murray
19
0
0
0.000000
0.000000
0.000000
Brandon Barker
1315
18
19
0.013688
0.014449
−0.000760
Vykintas Slivka
825
10
12
0.012121
0.014545
−0.002424
Anthony Stokes
1447
18
24
0.012440
0.016586
−0.004147
Faycal Rherras
31
0
1
0.000000
0.032258
−0.032258