FanPost

Roma's Performance in Front of Goal: Expectations vs Reality

Marco Luzzani/Getty Images

With Roma's season having come to a close at a disappointing 6th place in the league, questions remain as to where Roma must improve this summer. Perhaps the biggest concern for many, at least before Eusebio Di Francesco's departure, was the poor defense. After all, Roma scored more goals than any club outside of the top 3 and conceded more goals than any club in the top 8. However, Roma's attack certainly has room for improvement as well, with the club being quite wasteful in front of goal at times. During this piece, I will analyze the statistics (namely expected goals) readily available on understat.com. Just as a disclaimer, expected goals are not a perfect statistic, so some of you may not like them. I just thought the data was interesting.

First, let’s take a look at how Roma performed in front of goal in various situations.

xG vs G by Situation

Roma actually did a good job creating opportunities from open play, with even more expected goals (xG) than Juventus. However, unlike Juventus, Roma unperformed it’s expected goal totals by around 5 goals. In other words, with average finishing, Roma could have scored 5 more goals this season. Just think what could be different right now with 5 more goals throughout the year. Roma also underperformed from corner kicks, which is really inexcusable given the height available with Dzeko, Fazio, Nzonzi, etc. Roma actually did well on other set pieces, but chances from open play are the main route to scoring and the team underperformed in front of goal in that category.

Understat also compares xG vs G data by formation. In the 4-3-3, Roma grossly underperformed with only 10 goals on 15.06 expected goals. In the 4-2-3-1, Roma scored a solid 48 goals on 47.17 expected goals. Maybe it’s just the slow start to the season when Roma utilized the 4-3-3. Or perhaps it was Roma’s reliance on and inability to capitalize on crosses, which will be addressed later.

The website provides plenty of other team and individual data. The last piece of team data that I’ll address is xG vs G data for different places on the field. xG vs G by Location

The only part of this chart worth discussing is Roma’s poor performance in the 6 yard box, underperforming the expected goals by 4.48 goals, a margin worse than all other Serie A teams besides Inter and Chievo. If Roma was less wasteful right in front of goal, we could be playing in the Champions League next season.

From an individual perspective, I have two charts: one showing expected vs actual goals by player, and one showing expected vs actual assists by player.

xG vs G by Player

The less said about Edin Dzeko the better. He should have scored around 15 goals according to these statistics, but he only scored 9. His differential of 6.17 less goals than expected goals was the worst in the Serie A. In the 2017-18 season, Edin scored 16 times on 17 expected goals, so he was much less clinical this past season. Though in less volume, Schick’s statistics are quite poor, only scoring about half as much as what was expected based on his chances. On the other end of the spectrum, players such as El Shaarawy, Kolarov, and Perotti were clinical.

The last thing I’ll address is expected assists.xA vs A by Player

There is very little to discuss here, but it’s interesting that Kolarov and Florenzi ended up with so few assists despite creating a lot of chances. I’d guess that this is from Dzeko and co. not making the most out of their crosses.

I hope this post was informative, it was my first fanpost. I highly recommend understat.com if you are interested in these types of stats.

In This FanPost

Teams
Players