Guest Article – Are Liverpool Really The Unluckiest Team In The Premier League?

Time for another guest article now and this time we are going statistics heavy. A big thanks to Anthony Kendrick who has collated this data driven article (you can follow Anthony here) so without further delay, Anthony lets see if you can debunk the myth

	Hit Woodwork	Goals Scored	Goals-Woodwork Ratio
Newcastle	100	1168	11.7
Aston Villa	101	1117	11.1
West Ham	128	917	7.2
Everton	131	1197	9.1
Tottenham	147	1320	9.0
Manchester City	151	1093	7.2
Chelsea	154	1560	10.1
Manchester United	166	1802	10.9
Arsenal	185	1621	8.8
Liverpool	205	1523	7.4

This article is a response to Talksport’s recent article which claims the unluckiest teams in terms of the number of times they have hit the woodwork in Premier League history.

You can view the article here:
http://talksport.com/football/premier-league-stats-which-clubs-have-hit-woodwork-most-history-top-10-revealed-here?utm_source=Direct

The top ten teams who have hit the woodwork were all in the top eleven in terms of both success (counted as points per game) and total goals scored. The one exception is Blackburn Rovers, who hold tenth place in both, with 927 goals in the Premier League era, which is only ten more than West am in 11th place.

This is proof that more successful teams have more shots, and are therefore more likely to hit the woodwork more often.

There are some trends – a few of the sides are clearly unluckier, such as Liverpool who do indeed have a higher ratio of hitting the woodwork compared to goals, an average of 7 goals per hit of the woodwork. West Ham. But Manchester United, Aston Villa and Newcastle cannot count themselves unlucky with an average of 11-12 goals for every shot hitting the woodwork.

It would be great if further research could be done on the number of total shots, and other general attacking statistics since the start of the Premier League. Another factor which also must be considered is the number of seasons which have been played in the Premier League. A team such as Blackpool, who have only been in the Premier League for one year would never be considered an unlucky team. In fact, the sides which make it have all been in the Premier League for the most seasons.

Cheers Anthony for that statistical breakdown, are Liverpool really that unlucky or do they perhaps make their own luck. I guess that’s the beauty of statistics that they can be used to slant an argument any way you want, but I must for me as a Data Analyst by day it certainly makes for interesting reading.

Anthony will be chipping in with some more content from time to time but if you would like to get involved then feel free to send your work over to realfootballmanwordpress@gmail.com and I’ll make sure it has a home here at Real Football Man HQ.