Championship Week 39: Breaking-down Bournemouth's strikeforce

The last round of Championship matches before the international break was certainly an action packed one at the top end of the table – unless you happened to watch the Watford vs Ipswich game.
Although to be fair, that was quite a finish at Vicarage Road – it was the previous 93 minutes which anyone who watched will happily never see again.

Position	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals For	Goals Against	Goal Difference	Points
1	Bournemouth	39	21	10	8	82	40	42	73
2	Watford	39	22	6	11	78	46	32	72
3	Middlesbrough	39	21	9	9	59	30	29	72
4	Norwich	39	20	10	9	76	43	33	70
5	Derby	39	19	10	10	69	43	26	67
6	Ipswich	39	19	10	10	59	43	16	67
7	Brentford	39	20	6	13	64	52	12	66
8	Wolves	39	18	11	10	56	45	11	65
9	Nottm Forest	39	15	12	12	62	54	8	57
10	Blackburn	39	14	12	13	51	50	1	54
11	Charlton	39	13	15	11	48	50	-2	54
12	Sheff Wed	39	13	14	12	36	40	-4	53
13	Leeds	39	14	10	15	43	47	-4	52
14	Cardiff	39	13	12	14	48	50	-2	51
15	Birmingham	38	11	14	13	43	55	-12	47
16	Brighton	39	10	15	14	43	46	-3	45
17	Bolton	39	12	9	18	46	57	-11	45
18	Huddersfield	39	11	11	17	48	67	-19	44
19	Reading	38	12	8	18	42	61	-19	44
20	Fulham	39	12	7	20	50	68	-18	43
21	Rotherham	39	9	13	17	40	60	-20	40
22	Wigan	39	8	11	20	35	52	-17	35
23	Millwall	39	7	12	20	33	64	-31	33
24	Blackpool	39	4	11	24	30	78	-48	23

Derby’s defeat at Wolves hurt the Rams' automatic promotion chances significantly while Wolves needed the win to keep pace with the aforementioned Ipswich and also Brentford – who had a dramatic late comeback of their own at home to Millwall to salvage a 2-2 draw.

Norwich tackled a potentially tricky match against Nottingham Forest with relative comfort.

And after victory over Middlesbrough at Dean Court, Bournemouth are back at the top of the Championship table.

Position	Team	Shots for total	Shots against total	Corsi/TSR	shots on target for total	shots on target against total	Shots on target share	Shooting % For	Save %	PDO
15	Birmingham	508	603	0.457	164	193	0.459	26.22	71.51	97.73
10	Blackburn	598	530	0.53	185	184	0.501	27.57	72.83	100.4
24	Blackpool	445	649	0.407	135	209	0.392	22.22	62.67	84.89
17	Bolton	482	605	0.443	166	202	0.451	27.71	71.78	99.49
1	Bournemouth	644	465	0.581	230	137	0.627	35.66	70.79	106.46
7	Brentford	585	543	0.519	216	185	0.539	29.63	71.89	101.52
16	Brighton	579	508	0.533	166	152	0.522	25.9	69.75	95.64
14	Cardiff	492	550	0.472	149	156	0.489	32.21	67.94	100.15
11	Charlton	413	613	0.403	144	183	0.44	33.33	72.68	106.01
5	Derby	516	486	0.515	181	159	0.532	38.12	72.96	111.08
20	Fulham	517	616	0.456	160	212	0.43	31.24	67.92	99.16
18	Huddersfield	579	554	0.511	206	187	0.524	23.29	64.18	87.47
6	Ipswich	584	518	0.53	200	146	0.578	29.51	70.55	100.05
13	Leeds	454	612	0.426	134	189	0.415	32.09	75.13	107.21
3	Middlesbrough	568	446	0.56	184	127	0.591	32.08	76.39	108.47
23	Millwall	504	519	0.493	135	185	0.422	24.45	65.42	89.86
4	Norwich	630	369	0.631	212	134	0.613	35.86	67.9	103.76
9	Nott'm Forest	567	531	0.516	177	166	0.516	35.02	67.48	102.5
19	Reading	491	490	0.501	156	177	0.469	26.93	65.52	92.45
21	Rotherham	531	534	0.499	167	174	0.49	23.94	65.51	89.45
12	Sheffield Weds	530	473	0.528	143	150	0.488	25.18	73.34	98.51
2	Watford	564	548	0.507	210	176	0.544	37.15	73.86	111.01
22	Wigan	482	463	0.51	131	154	0.46	26.71	66.23	92.94
8	Wolves	513	551	0.482	166	180	0.48	33.74	75	108.75

Middlesbrough, who were truly awful against a rampant Cherries team, should not be too disappointed – six points from the three games against Ipswich and away at Derby and Bournemouth within seven days is a very worthy return. I’ll leave you to squabble among yourselves about which combination of six points it would have been better to win.

The net result is we now have a bit of a gap separating the top four and then fourth to eighth.

Looking at the numbers following those games, probably the most noticeable point is that Derby’s PDO regression has really kicked in, to point that the Rams are now level with Watford. From an analytics point of view it is reassuring to see this finally happen – from a Derby fan’s perspective, it must be excruciating. (Check out the Top 8 PDO chart further down for the collapse in all its "glory".)

Another potentially worrying trend is Middlesbrough’s falling shot share (Corsi/TSR) and shots on target share over the last few weeks. I’m going to put this mostly down to Boro’s very tough schedule over those games (with the awful showing at Bournemouth having a particularly big impact – just three total shots and none on target while conceding 17 with seven on target), but if this dip continues it could be the difference between automatic promotion and the playoffs. It was noticeable that Karanka responded to that result almost immediately after the final whistle by taking Fulham defender Fernando Amorebieta on loan – yes Kalas was THAT bad.

Screaming up to meet Boro are Ipswich, who have shown significant improvement over the last 10 games in both shot share and shots on target share. In fact, this steady improvement really started around 10 games in to the season and it would be interesting to see how good they could have been if Mick McCarthy had found this structure earlier on.






Perhaps the biggest profile personnel move over the last two weeks was made by Ipswich’s opponents in one of two mouth-watering evening games on Friday.

Bournemouth’s move to take Cardiff striker Kenwyne Jones on loan for the rest of the season surprised many.

Never let it be said that Eddie Howe is complacent about the push for promotion.

(And equally, let it be noted that Vincent Tan’s push for austerity at Cardiff City now knows no bounds.)

Let’s assume Callum Wilson has fully recovered from his knock against Middlesbrough (I’ve heard nothing to suggest otherwise), the question that springs to mind is “why?”

Let’s first (thanks to Ted Knutson's wonderful radars - @mixednuts) have a look at Bournemouth’s three main forwards so far this year. (All figures taken from WhoScored?)

First up (and most definitely first choice) is Wilson, who’s played the most minutes by far (3,281) in 38 appearances, scoring 16 goals (just one penalty) and providing seven assists:

The second striker spot has been pretty evenly shared between Yann Kermorgant and Brett Pitman.

Kermorgant has slightly more time on the pitch (1,708 mins) appearances (31) and starts (20). In this time he’s accumulated 12 goals (five from the spot) and six assists.

Finally Pitman, who’s played 1,475 Championship minutes in 30 appearances with 17 starts and amassed 13 goals (three being penalties) and two assists.

Just looking at these graphics we can begin to see the type of players this trio are and what stage they are at in their careers.

Wilson is clearly earlier on in his career and plays a much more direct attacking role being the key man to get in position and take shots.

Pitman is at roughly the peak of his career (age 27) and we can see a more rounded and complete feel to his game. He's been a little unlucky that his key passes have not been finished off as goals, hence giving him a better assist rate too. However, it should also be noted that given his many substitute appearances his finishing stats probably get a bit of a boost from that.

Meanwhile, Kermorgant, the elder statesman of the three in his thirties is much more about bringing in other players in to the attack.

So where does Kenwyne Jones fit into this set up?

Well, Jones has played 2,195 minutes for the Bluebirds this season in 34 total appearances, scoring 11 goals and providing five assists.

Not bad numbers, but his radar is a bit – meh. It’s almost a mixture of all three and in some cases (pass completion%) is far inferior.

But the key measure which came to mind when looking at this deal does not appear on the standard forward’s radar – aerial duels won.

Here Jones eclipses all three combined – but yet is still producing the same number of headed shots per 90 mins as Kermorgant.

	Aerial duels won per 90	Headed shots per 90
Callum Wilson	0.5	0.5
Yann Kermorgant	5.5	1.3
Brett Pitman	2	0.4
Kenwyne Jones	8.2	1.3

Maybe Eddie Howe believes Jones can be more efficient at putting away those headed efforts than his current strikers?

Otherwise, the only reason I can think of for drafting Jones in is to be used as a battering ram in the last 10 minutes where the Cherries are desperately chasing late goals - very un-Eddie Howe tactics.

But perhaps I am underestimating both Howe and Jones. It will certainly be interesting to see how the situation evolves.

Radar Bonus

As a little added bonus I looked at two of Bournemouth’s key play makers also after the win over Middlesbrough to see what skills they brought to the team and where they could potentially develop further.

First I looked at Matt Ritchie.

The first thing that springs to mind (apart from will somebody PLEASE give Matt Ritchie a haircut) is that he could do with some shooting practice.

All the shots in the world but his conversion and scoring rates are pretty low. Perhaps this is the nature of where he takes his shots from; maybe he is just wildly inaccurate; or perhaps its a one season variation and he’ll start hitting the target more regularly next year.

That said, if either of those three conditions do improve consistently – then watch out as this guy could be a force to be reckoned with for the rest of his career.

Second up, Harry Arter – he who only scores 30 yard tap-ins.

The game against Middlesbrough was yet another display of long range shooting of the highest order. He doesn’t shoot much, and he doesn’t hit the target perhaps as often as he should, but that’s probably because he’s always aiming for the top corners. And he finds them regularly enough too.