2013-14 Goals Per Game

[sholas fan club]

As I'm a bit of a saddo who uses spreadsheets all day at work, and someone bitterly disappointed by the (permanent) exile of Ben Arfa, I thought I'd try and see just how important he was to the team even last season among other things.

Players are ranked below based on the average minutes per goal that their on-field contribution produced. This is was to try and show the overall importance of a player's presence beyond goals and assists in terms of their overall effect on the attacking success of the team. I've split into pre and post Cabaye as well as a means of seeing whether their was an obvious impact on the tactics of the team. Defenders are not included. I only included players with over 450 mins (5 games)

Not sure how to insert this as a table as apologies for the horrific formatting. Minutes per goal are shown in brackets, and rankings are in the order of with Cabaye, without Cabaye and total. (Premier League games only). Will update with the full list later, players to add are Anita, Cisse and De Jong.

Player

Cabaye 1st (50.3) 1st (50.3) N/A
Remy 2nd (57.4) 4th (56.4) 1st (61.4)
Shola 3rd (71.2) 7th (65.3) 2nd (83.2)
Gouffran 4th (75.3) 2nd (55.5) 6th (139.8 )
Ben Arfa 5th (76.6) 3rd (55.8 ) N/A
Sissoko 6th (77.8 ) 6th (62.6) 4th (128.2)
Tiote 7th (92.0) 9th (75.5) 3rd (125.1)

Key points worth noting;

1. The shift in the effectiveness in attacking tactics is obvious post-Cabaye. The strategy which Pardew was able to make work for him was direct football to a big strong target man. By sidelining HBA he was either left with no players capable of creating chances or was not able to give them effective on-pitch strategies to break down opponents (either way he is culpable)
2. Only one of the top 5 are still with the club. Was it a good idea to let 2 of those players leave for no fee?
3. The fact that Tiote was the 3rd most important player to our ability score goals in the second half the season illustrates how much we capitulated once one goal went in (we were less likely to concede the first goal with Tiote fit)
4. I thought Cisse was a better player than the stats illustrate, being 9th only ahead of Luuk de Jong and behind Vurn is pretty indefensible.

[Al-Calo]

Put what you have so far into a table, had to guess at the labels:

Spoiler

	Overall	Overall	Cabaye	Cabaye	No Cabaye	No Cabaye
Player	Rank	min/G	Rank	min/G	Rank	min/G
Cabaye	1st	(50.3)	1st	(50.3)	N/A	N/A
Remy	2nd	(57.4)	4th	(56.4)	1st	(61.4)
Shola	3rd	(71.2)	7th	(65.3)	2nd	(83.2)
Gouffran	4th	(75.3)	2nd	(55.5)	6th	(139.8 )
Ben Arfa	5th	(76.6)	3rd	(55.8 )	N/A	N/A
Sissoko	6th	(77.8 )	6th	(62.6)	4th	(128.2)
Tiote	7th	(92.0)	9th	(75.5)	3rd	(125.1)

The easiest way is to copy and paste from excel into this - http://www.textfixer.com/html/csv-convert-table.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - choose TAB as the separator, make HTML table code, take that into Notepad++ or similar, find and replace "<" to "[" and ">" to "]". Annoyingly, the forum still reads new lines within the table and puts them above it, so you have to strip those out as well until it's one big, long unintuitive string.

Code: Select all

[table][tr][td][/td][td]Overall[/td][td]Overall[/td][td]Cabaye[/td][td]Cabaye[/td][td]No Cabaye[/td][td]No Cabaye[/td][/tr][tr][td]Player[/td][td]Rank[/td][td]min/G[/td][td]Rank[/td][td]min/G[/td][td]Rank[/td][td]min/G[/td][/tr][tr][td]Cabaye[/td][td]1st[/td][td](50.3)[/td][td]1st[/td][td](50.3)[/td][td]N/A[/td][td]N/A[/td][/tr][tr][td]Remy[/td][td]2nd[/td][td](57.4)[/td][td]4th[/td][td](56.4)[/td][td]1st[/td][td](61.4)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Shola[/td][td]3rd[/td][td](71.2)[/td][td]7th[/td][td](65.3)[/td][td]2nd[/td][td](83.2)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Gouffran[/td][td]4th[/td][td](75.3)[/td][td]2nd[/td][td](55.5)[/td][td]6th[/td][td](139.8 )[/td][/tr][tr][td]Ben Arfa[/td][td]5th[/td][td](76.6)[/td][td]3rd[/td][td](55.8 )[/td][td]N/A[/td][td]N/A[/td][/tr][tr][td]Sissoko[/td][td]6th[/td][td](77.8 )[/td][td]6th[/td][td](62.6)[/td][td]4th[/td][td](128.2)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Tiote[/td][td]7th[/td][td](92.0)[/td][td]9th[/td][td](75.5)[/td][td]3rd[/td][td](125.1)[/td][/tr][/table]

Nice work though, and Shola

[tomtom94]

Didn't expect Gouff to be so high up.

Basically shows the impact Cabaye leaving had on the club, and Remy too Here's hoping their replacements can get going... please...

[Remember Colo]

Great work, and a lot of work put into it. The only thing maybe worth noting is that you can't necessarily put all correlation up to the effect of Cabaye, seeing as his sale also aligns with several other players not playing, or playing less through injury. E.g. in the second half we had less Remy and basically no Ben Arfa. Which isn't to say they necessarily cause the change, but they along with other factors affect the second half numbers too - not just Cabaye.

[Colly]

Didn't expect Gouff to be so high up.

Basically shows the impact Cabaye leaving had on the club, and Remy too Here's hoping their replacements can get going... please...

Gouffran was fantastic for the first half of the season after not looking quite up to pace for his first few months here, grafting up and down the left wing but also popping up with loads of key goals around the penalty area. I think people forget that when dropping into default 'Pardew picks his favourites' nonsense.

Also, where were these minutes per goal stats when Shola was getting slated? He's fantastic!

[Micky Quim]

Tiote 3rd???!