I showed in the previous article how there is a wide disparity between players as the regards the quality of the shots they take. Also, we can look at shot accuracy and conversion rates.
Shot Accuracy
Shot accuracy is simply the % of all shots that are on target. If your shots are not on target, you won’t score. Unless you are Ntcham. And then it will likely take a massive deflection off someone and go in. But mostly not.
The green bars are total shots taken and the orange line is the % of shot on target.
No one achieved 50% accuracy. Our new main man Edouard tops the league with 47% accuracy. Followed by the players we need to learn to love, Dembele (46%) and Sinclair (45%). Only Bitton breaks 40% from very few shots.
Having criticised Armstrong for poor shot selection – his shots average less than 8% chance of going in – he does get them on target 39% of the time. His massive fall off of long shot success may partly be due to good goalkeeping.
The most prolific shooters (Ntcham 119 and Rogic 122) have poor shot accuracy. Rogic hits the target 30% of the time and Ntcham 26%.
Tierney also has poor shot accuracy at 26%. This is in sharp contrast to his chance creation where over 70% of the chances he creates are in the box. He treats shots like Izaguirre used to treat crosses – thrash them in from anywhere.
All Shot Conversion
Who cares as long as they go in? Right? That’s the spirit!
The below shows the % of all shots that resulted in goals – i.e. All Shot Conversion.
Our man Edouard again tops the league with a 22% conversion rate.
According to the Planet Football article Mauro Icardi of Inter Milan has the best shot conversion rate of the top 10 scorers in Europe this season at 28.7%. Edouard’s 22% would put him above Ronaldo (14.6%), Messi (17.3%) and Salah (22.2% – Edouard’s is actually 22.45%) by this article. He’d be 5th in that top 10 list.
According to this FourFourTwo article, that rate would put Edouard second in the English Premier League behind Salah.
So over 20% – not too shabby.
Disregarding Boyata as being a small sample anomaly, once again our shot efficient darlings Sinclair (16%) and Dembele (15%) are next. Griffiths lags behind the other strikers at 13%, perhaps influenced by the number of long ranger free kicks he takes (and rarely scores).
Forrest and McGregor are both keeping up with the main strikers by this measure.
Given the shot quality we saw it is no surprise that Ntcham (8%), Rogic (7%) and Armstrong (6%) are the bottom of those taking more than 20 shots (and Tierney as discussed above). Armstrong can be considered unlucky given his 39% shot accuracy to only covert 6% of all shots.
But generally, those taking on lower probability shots are also hitting the target less – makes sense, yes?
On Target Conversion
A final indicator of shot quality is the conversion rate having gotten the shot on target. Only those with over 10 shots on target are included.
Edouard leads the way once again with 48% of on target shots resulting in goals. That is high and equates to taking his shots from very near the 6-yard box using the xG model.
Neither Forrest nor McGregor have particularly outstanding average xG for their shots nor particularly high accuracy. However, when they get the ball between the posts it is going in 40%+ of the time.
Sinclair had the most shots on target with 51, but only 35% of them resulted in goals. With Dembele he had the best xG average per shot so perhaps he has been unlucky with fine goalkeeping. Similar story for Dembele with 48 shots. Actually, it is probably worse for them as I have not removed penalties. Their open play shot conversion would therefore be lower.
The poor shot decision makers once again make up the bottom four. But it is poor Armstrong who trails by this metric with only 15% of on target shots being converted. He managed 33 on target. He has had such a swing of fortune from 17 goals last season, 8 outside the box to this. No shots outside the box scored and only 5 goals.
Summary
If there was a way to get Edouard, Dembele and Sinclair into the same team Celtic would have a highly efficient forward line of players who make the best decisions on shot selection and execute well.
Regulars Armstrong, Ntcham, Rogic and Tierney need education on shot selection as they take on too many poor probability efforts, and don’t execute them above the expected outcome (well, Ntcham outscored his xG thanks to deflections).