Dear Mr Westley,
I admire your ‘can do’
approach and your commitment to ‘beautiful’ football.
Further to your recent letter to Peterborough
FC supporters in which you said that you “will be seeking to raise [the] minimum
standard to beyond 600 passes per game, leading to 25+ attempts at goal”, I thought
that my comments and table below would be helpful. I hope you don’t view these as yet more criticism from someone without a name or face (though, I do indeed have both).
There is no absolute
correlation between the number of passes and shots per game. For instance, Swindon Town FC – a team who
pass the ball a fair bit – are only 19th in League 1 in shots taken, averaging 9.9 per game. Conversely, Gilllingham
FC with a possession per game average of only 49% are 2nd in League 1 in shots taken per game at 14.1.
Furthermore, Peterborough FC would have
to adopt a ‘shoot on sight’ policy to get close to averaging 25+ attempts at
goal per game. As per the table below,
Walsall – currently the most fluent, passing football team in League 1 – have
the highest number of attempts at goal per game, averaging 14.6. Blackpool and Crewe have the lowest attempts
per game at 8.5.
Teams
|
Average number of
shots per game
|
Walsall
|
14.6
|
Gillingham
|
14.1
|
Coventry
|
13.8
|
Colchester
|
13.4
|
Peterborough
|
13.3
|
Scunthorpe
|
11.8
|
Burton
|
11.6
|
Wigan
|
11.5
|
Port Vale
|
11.1
|
Millwall
|
11.0
|
Fleetwood
|
10.8
|
Sheff Utd
|
10.8
|
Southend
|
10.6
|
Rochdale
|
10.3
|
Bury
|
10.1
|
Chesterfield
|
10.1
|
Shrewsbury
|
10.1
|
Doncaster
|
10.0
|
Swindon
|
9.9
|
Oldham
|
9.5
|
Bradford
|
9.3
|
Barnsley
|
8.8
|
Blackpool
|
8.5
|
Crewe
|
8.5
|
Regrettably, there is a significantly greater chance of
Wigan Athletic FC attaining 100 points this season than Peterborough averaging 25+
attempts at goal per game.
Yours (outside of football),
Guy
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