Aston Villa 2013/14 Season Review

There has been a lot of talk recently about the future of Paul Lambert as the manager of Aston Villa. There is a feeling among the fans that the performances this season, and particularly in the later part of this season, have failed to show any signs of progress and once again the club finds itself in the midst of a relegation battle.

So, in looking to establish whether Paul Lambert is showing any progress, there are a number of different aspects that we can look at. The most basic, but inherently most important, is the total number of points gained. Last season, Aston Villa acquired 41 points from their 38 matches, giving a return of 1.08 points per match. This season, Villa have picked up 35 points from their 34 matches so far, giving a return of 1.03 points per match. A very slight decline here, which works out at just under two points over the course of the season.

However, this is a very basic measure, which fails to really get into the details of how the season has progressed. The second measure that we shall look at is ‘Total Shots Ratio’ or TSR. This is simply a ratio of the number of shots that a team has had during their matches to the number of shots conceded in their matches. It simply represents the proportion of shots in a match that the team has had.

Here, we can see that there does seem to be a significant improvement between last season and this season. Last season, the TSR dropped below 40% after the tenth match of the season and it was not until the late season run that it came back up above this point, eventually finishing off at 41.8%. This season, we can see that it does not drop below 45% after the sixth match of the season, rising to above 50% for a moment, before settling at around 47.5%.

Does this change in TSR represent an improvement defensively in limiting the number of shots conceded, an improvement in the number of shots offensively or a combination of the two? Looking at the data, after 34 games this season, Aston Villa have taken 296 shots compared to 328 conceded. Comparing that to the 2012/13 season, after 34 matches, Villa had taken 285 shots and conceded 410. So, while there is a very slight increase in the number of shots taken, the vast majority of the change comes from a big improvement in the shots conceded.

One caveat is that all shots are treated equally in this analysis. Clearly, the position that the shot is taken from is hugely important – a shot from five yards out is far more likely to lead to a goal than a hopeful effort from 35 yards. However, the point still stands that taking more shots and conceding fewer shots is likely to correlate with an improved performance overall.

It is all very well taking shots, but shots on target are far more important than shots off target for obvious reasons. We can perform exactly the same analysis as before, but this time, we exclude those shots off target.

There is less of a difference in this metric. Up until around game 17, the two seasons are pretty much similar. Here, we can see the awful Christmas period in 2012/13, starting with the 8-0 capitulation to Chelsea and followed by the poor home defeats against Tottenham and Wigan. However, as the season progressed, the good finish to the season saw this work its way back up from a trough of 37.0%, finishing at a more respectable 43.1%. This season, we can see that, after the initial expected volatility, this has levelled out at just over 45%.

Again, slightly better, but not quite such a big difference as the TSR showed. Comparing the actual numbers, we find that last season saw 132 shots on target for Villa compared with 171 against at the corresponding point of the year. This season, there have been 122 shots on target compared with 147 against.

As with the TSR, we can see that there have been significant improvements in defence. The shots on target conceded have fallen by just over 14%, but there are concerns offensively. Previously, we saw the total number of shots have risen fractionally, but here we see that Villa have actually had fewer shots on target this season than they did last year. Clearly, the defensive stability has come at the expense of attacking promise.

While shots on target are more important than shots off target, it is goals that win football matches, not shots. A team could have 20 shots to their opponent’s 1, but that means nothing if they lose the match 1-0. So, as we have done with shots and shots on target, we can look at the ratio of goals scored for Aston Villa

Again, we can see the recurring theme that this season is fractionally above last season. Since game 15, it has hovered at just above 40% this season, while we can again see the poor winter spell last season. The improvement from around game 24 onward last season is quite clear in this chart, as the line has a steady upward trajectory from the trough of 27.8%, finishing the season at 40.5%.

Last season saw 47 goals scored and 69 conceded in the 38 games, giving an average of 1.24 goals scored and 1.82 conceded per game. In comparison, after 34 games of this season, there have been 35 goals scored and 49 conceded, working out at 1.03 goals scored per game and 1.44 goals conceded. So, not only have the number of shots on target fallen, the goals scored per game has also dropped quite alarmingly.

On the face of this, with the exception of the number of points actually gained, this season would appear to have been an improvement as a whole over last season. The statistics seem to show that improving the defensive stability has been a key feature of this season, seemingly at the expense of some of the attacking threat.

However, is that true? Christian Benteke is obviously the key player in terms of Aston Villa’s attacking threat. His 19 league goals in 2012/13 made up 40.4% of all the goals scored – a higher proportion for one player than any other club saw. Three of those goals were penalties, leaving him with 16 non-penalty goals.

A number of people have done very good work on expected goals, giving shots different chances of resulting in a goal, depending on where on the pitch they were taken. Based on this, the expected number of non-penalty goals that Benteke should have scored last season, based on analysis of his shots, was just under 10, significantly fewer than the 16 that he actually scored¹. This season, he has scored 8 goals compared to an expected return of just over 7 goals.

So, those six extra goals that Benteke scored last season compared to the number that he should have scored result in a significantly proportion of those extra goals that Villa scored in 2012/13. If he had scored the 10 goals that he would have been expected to score, Villa would have averaged 1.08 goals per game – remarkably similar to the 1.03 goals per game scored this season.

Based on that, we could conclude that the defensive stability has not come at the expense of attacking options – rather Villa overachieved offensively last season.

So, what is the problem for Villa fans? On the face of it, the team has improved from last season. The issue comes from a comparison between the end of last season and this season. The last 10 games of the 2012/13 season saw Villa pick up 17 points, scoring 21 goals. The team was playing a more appealing style of football, there were impressive returns and, most importantly, there were clear signs of improvement and progression.

That excellent run boosted the metrics for last season to a point where they finished just below those for this season. However, the fact that there does not seem to have been any improvement since that run has grated with fans. While last season was pretty disastrous by most measures, fans were actually relatively optimistic over the summer due to the progression that the team had made.

This season has seen virtually no sign of progress. As the charts earlier show, once the values had established themselves, the line is virtually flat. If anything, there is a very slight downward slant, suggesting that the team is actually declining as the season progresses. It is that lack of progression and symptoms of decline that is causing the Villa fans to question the future under Paul Lambert.

The second part of this article will look in more detail at individual players to try and establish where things have improved, where things have declined and which areas of the team need to be strengthened in the summer.

1. 'On Shooting Statistics'

CiCi Bellis: Future Tennis Superstar?

The week started with cold and gusty conditions, but ended in bright sunshine. However, while the weather in Carson might have been rather inconsistent through the week, the performances of Catherine Cartan Bellis never varied.

The 14-year old American started the week with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Madison Appel and finished the week with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Raveena Kingsley and rarely looked troubled during the intervening period. At just 14-years old, it gave her the biggest title of her career thus far – the U18 International Spring Championships. It was her second Grade 1 junior title of the season after she lifted the 50^th edition of the Grade 1 Coffee Bowl in Costa Rica back in January and propelled her into the top 40 of the junior rankings.

Bellis is still unbeaten in junior tennis in 2014 with three Grade 1 titles already

A short drive inland for Bellis, another week and another title at one of her favourite tournament. Two years ago, she reached the final of the U14 tournament at the age of 13, last year, she won the U16 tournament having just turned 14. This year, she lifted the U18 title having just turned 15. She was only troubled once during the tournament in a hard fought semi-final against fellow prospect, Sofia Kenin, where she was forced to battle back from 4-2 down in the third set.

She still has not lost a junior ITF match in 2014 – 18 wins in 18 matches has propelled her up the junior rankings. Indeed, there are only three players in the top 100 juniors that are aged younger than her. Already though, she has moved into the top 15 of the rankings – her third title of the year at the Easter Bowl has marked her out as a serious contender for junior Grand Slam titles in 2014. Given that the likes of Bencic and Konjuh no longer play junior tennis, her actual seeding will be even higher.

She has also started to make strides in the senior tour. In her first tournament in Rancho Santa Fe, she qualified for the main draw, beating a top-700 player in Ching-Wen Hsu, before losing in three sets to Julia Boserup – a player aged eight years older than her and now ranked inside the top-250 in the world following a run to the quarter-final in the WTA event in Monterrey.

It would be no surprise to see Bellis challenging for Junior Grand Slam
success in 2014

Proving that was no fluke, she dispatched two top-500 opponents the following week in qualifying for Surprise for the loss of a combined six games – both Ashley Weinhold and Sally Peers beaten by the same 6-2, 6-1 scoreline. Her biggest test came in the first round against the former world number 29, Sofia Arvidsson. Still ranked inside the top-150, the Swede was forced to battle all the way by a player less than half her age, eventually progressing 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.

Given a wildcard onto the clay in Orlando, she recorded further impressive wins over Sina Haas and Katerina Kramperova before pushing another top-150 player Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the quarter-final.

While her best results have come on the hard courts, she is a player that has the potential to dominate on all surfaces. She grew up playing on clay courts in the Burlingame Country Club in North Carolina, where she used to practice with possibly the greatest clay court player in history, Chrissy Evert. She cruised to the U16 National Clay Court Championships last July without dropping a set just a month after winning the U18 International Grass Court Championships. She added a further two Grade 4 ITF titles on hard courts to prove her potential.

In an age where players seem to be getting taller and taller, she will be an exception. She will be dwarfed by the likes of the 6`2 Maria Sharapova and 6`0 Victoria Azarenka. She expects to grow to around 5`7, but there are plenty of smaller players that have enjoyed great success. Her movement around the court is a huge attribute – she is lightning fast to the ball and sets herself early. Her defence is top quality already and her forehand is a real threat – she can hit virtually any shot off that wing.

She has also gained experience of travelling for major tournaments. Last year, she won back-to-back Category 1 events in Europe in both singles and doubles. In two tournaments containing many of the best U14 players in the world, she dropped just one set in eleven matches in the AEGON International Teen Tennis and Les Petit As. The French title was particularly notable in a tournament previously won by the likes of Kim Clijsters, Martina Hingis and Dinara Safina.

In a time where the mental side of the game is becoming more and more important when it comes to reaching the top of the game, her comments after her semi-final last week were particularly interesting. She explained that “I was trying to go for a little bit too much, so I had to go back and start grinding more and waiting for the right shot.”

Bellis has the talent to go right to the top of the game

This ability to understand what was going wrong and to make changes during the match is a valuable skill and the patience that she needed to pull it off is something that is often lacking for many players. She can hit the forehand very powerfully, but it is a very consistent shot. Rather than simply ball-bashing, she waits for the right moment before unleashing the big shots.

Having turned 15 on Tuesday, she is now eligible to play ten senior tournaments in the next 12 months, unless she is able to gain some extra tournaments through the merited increase system. It would be a surprise if she does not compete in the remaining three junior Grand Slam events this year – indeed, she will be one of the favourites to win the US Open, despite being up to three years younger than some of her rivals.

It would be no surprise if she picks up a first ITF title in 2014 – it seems a matter of time until she wins either a $10k or $25k event. I would also expect her to be given a wildcard into either the qualifying draw or possibly even the main draw at the WTA Stanford event. She already has a close relationship with the tournament, having grown up in the area, and if she continues these impressive results, it would be a great chance for the tournament to showcase a huge talent.

With the American public looking for a potential successor to Serena Williams, a number of players have come and gone as the future of American tennis. The likes of Coco Vandeweghe, Melanie Oudin and Sloane Stephens have all been mentioned as potential stars, but none have quite managed to make that step. It is early days still, but just days after her 15^th birthday, there are plenty of signs that CiCi Bellis could be a real contender.

Having already pushed top-150 players, it would be a huge surprise if Bellis were not to make the top-100 in the next few years. Could she go even further? I have watched plenty of young players over the years, but very few have shown the potential of Catherine Cartan Bellis.

Betting on Tennis Handicaps

The games handicap market is a popular market when it comes to tennis betting. As with other sports, it is a market designed to give two selections around the 50:50 mark by giving the favourite a games handicap to overcome. For example, the Auckland final of 2013 saw Agnieszka Radwanska take on Yanina Wickmayer. Radwanska was priced at 1.25 in the markets compared to 3.87 for Wickmayer. However, by giving Radwanska a -4.5 game handicap, it gave us a market where Radwanska was now priced at 1.88 and Wickmayer was priced at 2.04.

The question that this article will look at is whether certain players tend to cover the games handicap more often, and whether we should take the middle handicap that is offered.

Alize Cornet's performance against the handicap in 2013 was quite remarkable

I have collected handicap lines and results for 2,344 WTA matches that were played in 2013. This excludes matches that finished in a retirement, plus a couple of matches where the handicap markets were not priced, so the data was not available. Despite these exclusions, the sample covers the vast majority of matches played in 2013.

The majority of the middle line handicaps were half-game lines, i.e. -3.5 games as opposed to either -3 or -4 games. However, there were a reasonable number of full-game lines in the sample, so the push comes into play. The push is where the final result equals the handicap line and the bet is void. In the sample, there were 54 matches that resulted in a push.

The table below shows the performance of the top 10 players in the end of year WTA rankings against the handicap:

Player	Covered	Failed	Push	Total Matches	Covered %	Failed %
Serena Williams	48	31	1	80	60.0%	38.8%
Victoria Azarenka	24	26	1	51	47.1%	51.0%
Maria Sharapova	20	23	1	44	45.5%	52.3%
Agnieszka Radwanska	35	38	2	75	46.7%	50.7%
Li Na	33	24	1	58	56.9%	41.4%
Petra Kvitova	25	41	3	69	36.2%	59.4%
Sara Errani	36	26	2	64	56.3%	40.6%
Jelena Jankovic	38	28	1	67	56.7%	41.8%
Angelique Kerber	32	32	2	66	48.5%	48.5%
Caroline Wozniacki	27	31	1	59	45.8%	52.5%

If the handicap lines were being set correctly, we would probably expect to see players covering in the region of 45-55% of the time and failing 45-55% of the time. It would not be exactly 50% as the prices on the handicap line are not always 50:50 – often one of the players is a slight favourite on the handicap line. As we can see, there are five of the players in the top 10 that fall between these rough guidelines.

The biggest outliers are Petra Kvitova and Serena Williams. Petra Kvitova is well-known for somehow taking almost any match to three sets, particularly when she is the favourite. As a result, she will often struggle to cover the handicap unless she wins at least one of the sets convincingly. This is borne out by the figures, which show that she only covered the handicap in 25 of her 69 matches in 2013 – a fairly miserable 36.2% of the time. In contrast, backing the handicap on her opponent would have resulted in winning 59.4% of the time, with a push resulting on three occasions.

On the flip side, Serena Williams was able to cover the handicap an impressive 60.0% of the time. Given she is almost always a huge favourite, she usually has large handicaps to cover, but is clearly able to regularly cover these handicaps.

In total, there were 111 players that played at least 15 matches in the sample. The top ten players in terms of covering the handicap are listed below:

Player	Covered	Failed	Push	Total Matches	Covered %	Failed %
Olga Govortsova	18	8	0	26	69.2%	30.8%
Alize Cornet	40	16	2	58	69.0%	27.6%
Alison Riske	11	5	0	16	68.8%	31.3%
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni	12	5	1	18	66.7%	27.8%
Simona Halep	38	18	2	58	65.5%	31.0%
Yvonne Meusburger	15	8	0	23	65.2%	34.8%
Virginie Razzano	11	6	0	17	64.7%	35.3%
Elena Vesnina	27	14	2	43	62.8%	32.6%
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova	30	18	1	49	61.2%	36.7%
Jamie Hampton	25	16	0	41	61.0%	39.0%

While the sample is relatively small for some of the players, there are a couple of players in there with very impressive figures. Alize Cornet was able to cover the handicap in no fewer than 40 of her 58 matches in 2013 – a phenomenal 69.0% of the time. Even if she were the favourite in every handicap market, this is still far higher than we might expect. Similarly, Simona Halep’s 65.5% is very impressive and reflects her rapid and unexpected rise up the rankings during 2013.

Obviously though, there are players that perform very poorly against the handicaps and they are shown below:

Player	Covered	Failed	Push	Total Matches	Covered %	Failed %
Tamira Paszek	2	14	0	16	12.5%	87.5%
Arantxa Rus	4	11	0	15	26.7%	73.3%
Nina Bratchikova	5	10	1	16	31.3%	62.5%
Nadia Petrova	7	14	1	22	31.8%	63.6%
Julia Goerges	12	23	2	37	32.4%	61.2%
Su-Wei Hsieh	12	23	2	37	32.4%	61.2%
Lara Arruabarrena	5	9	1	15	33.3%	60.0%
Sofia Arvidsson	8	16	0	24	33.3%	66.7%
Timea Babos	8	15	1	24	33.3%	62.5%
Heather Watson	8	15	0	23	34.8%	65.2%

There are some very poor performances here from a number of players. After her awful 2013, it is no real surprise to see Tamira Paszek on this list, nor the likes of Heather Watson, who struggled through illness, or Julia Goerges, who is consistently overrated in the markets.

The second question to look at is whether it is worth giving an extra game on the handicap in exchange for an improved price. As an example, today’s semi-final between Agnieszka Radwanska and Alize Cornet has a handicap line of -5.5 with the Pole at 2.14 and the Frenchwoman at 1.794. If we were hoping to back Agnieszka Radwanska, how much of a difference would it be between backing her at -5.5 at 2.14 or -6.5 at 3.03? Similarly, if we wanted to back Cornet, should we back her at +5.5 at 1.794 or +4.5 at 2.18?

Of the 2,344 matches in our sample, there were 1,654 matches that were won by the favourite. Of those 1,654, in no fewer than 1,174 of those matches did the favourite cover the handicap. In other words, when the favourite won the match, they covered the handicap on 71.0% of occasions. If we were to increase the handicap by one game, then this figure changes to 937 matches that cover the handicap or 56.7% of the matches. Out of 1,654 matches where the favourite won, there were 237 that would not have covered a handicap that was one game larger than the generally offered line.

Tamira Paszek rarely covered the handicap in her matches in 2013

If we look at matches where the outsider failed to win the match, but covered the handicap, we find that there are 480 matches. There were 54 of these matches that finished as a push, meaning that there were 426 matches that would have paid out as a winner on the outsider on the handicap, despite losing the match. If we take one game from the handicap, i.e. instead of having to cover a +4.5 handicap, they must cover a +3.5 game handicap, we find that there are now just 261 matches that would have paid out as a winner – a fairly significant fall. Of the 480 matches where the favourite won, but the outsider either covered or gained a push on the initial handicap, 62.7% still cover or push on the new handicap.

As we might expect, when the outsider wins, they tend to cover the handicap on the vast majority of occasions. Of the 690 matches where the outsider was victorious, the outsider successfully covered the handicap on no fewer than 688 occasions. There were just two matches where the outsider was victorious and did not cover the handicap – Stefanie Voegele beating Mona Barthel in Luxembourg and Melanie Oudin beating Michelle Larcher de Brito at Wimbledon, both as very fractional outsiders with just a +1.5 handicap.

If we move the handicap on the outsider down by a game, we find that 680 still cover the handicap with eight further matches now failing to cover. Those matches were:

Winner	Loser	Handicap + 1	Scoreline
Yanina Wickmayer	Mona Barthel	+1.5	6-4, 1-6, 7-6
Julia Cohen	Nina Bratchikova	+2.5	0-6, 7-6, 7-5
Sara Errani	Nadia Petrova	+1	6-4, 0-6, 6-3
Alize Cornet	Lourdes Dominguez Lino	+0.5	3-6, 7-6, 7-6
Donna Vekic	Magdalena Rybarikova	+0.5	7-6, 1-6, 6-3
Karin Knapp	Dinah Pfizenmaier	+0.5	2-6, 7-6, 7-5
Vania King	Monica Puig	+1.5	1-6, 7-6, 7-5
Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor	Klara Koukalova	+1	7-6, 1-6, 6-3

Two of these matches now result in a push, rather than a win, while six now become losers when they used to be winners. However, out of 690 matches, this is a small sample that actually change their result.

So, what can we conclude from this. In terms of backing the outsider on the handicap, it would seem to depend on why we are backing the outsider. If we are expecting the outsider to keep it tight, but not actually win the match, then it would appear that we are best off using the original middle handicap – there are quite a large proportion of matches that would become a loser for a relatively small change in the odds by taking a more aggressive handicap line.

However, if we are backing the outsider on the handicap because we expect there to be a reasonable chance of the player winning the match, then one would be advised to take on the smaller handicap – there were very few occasions when an outsider became a loser on the handicap from taking the extra game in 2013.

In terms of backing the favourite to cover the handicap, the picture is less clear. Whilst there were still plenty of players that would have covered the more aggressive handicap, there were 20.1% of all those that would have covered the handicap before that no longer cover the handicap. This is a reasonable figure, but we can often see significant rises in the prices by taking an additional game, so we might consider it a risk worth taking. It would seem that we need to judge on an individual basis depending on the increase in the odds that we see.