Sligo unlucky but Bohs not lucky

The table is starting to take shape and most teams have played 5 games.  Predictably Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers are rising to the top, with Limerick and Bray settlling at the bottom. 

The story so far has been about Sligo and Bohs.

Sligo were quite highly rated at the beginning of the season but have just 2 points from a possible 15. Bohs on the other hand were 150/1 before a ball was kicked but are sitting pretty in 3rd place.

Sligo have had a tough start to the campaign having already faced the top 2, but Bohs also have. So why does it seem that these two teams have switched places?

Preseason Outrigh Betting (odds recorded from @paddypower 3/3/2015)

We can delve into the numbers a little deeper and it does seem that Sligo have had a fairly big slice of bad luck so far. Nobody has created more shots (63) or shots on target (41) than Sligo so far in the season. They have also been scoring goals - with only 4 teams netting more often. It really looks like they have just had rotten luck.

PDO is a metric that attempts to measure luck in some way. It's been applied to the Dutch Eredivisie and the English Premier League. It has a normal value in a narrow band around 1000. Much lower than this is considered bad luck.  Sligo so far this season have a PDO value of 737 - the soccer analysts would regard this as indicating bad luck so far this season for Sligo.

Bohs on the other hand are showing that they are creating alot of opportunities and are regularly putting the ball in the net. Their PDO value is high, but not alarmingly high. It seems that they are as good as they are lucky and are well deserving of their 3rd position. You can still back them at 66/1 which is what I will be doing as soon as I'm done this article.

Luck vs Skill: how the teams look after 5 rounds

The complete picture for all the teams is shown above. With 5 games gone the teams are all over the place. Luck tends to even out over the season and the "Lucky" and "Unlucky" quadrants empty out with all the teams more or less lining up in a diagonal from poor to good. Last seasons end of season chart is here.

Below is a brief table (sortable, by clicking the headings) giving the basic win-draw-loss-pts metrics along with some others that I find interesting.

Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts	Prob	Shot %	Save %	SoTR	TSR	PDO	Pyth
Dundalk	5	5	0	0	11	0	11	15	33%	31%	100%	78%	67%	1314	13.70
Shamrock Rovers	5	3	2	0	5	1	4	11	31%	19%	93%	64%	57%	1119	12.24
Bohemians	5	3	1	1	6	3	3	10	1%	30%	87%	47%	53%	1170	9.78
Cork City	4	2	2	0	8	1	7	8	18%	42%	83%	76%	66%	1254	10.30
Longford Town FC	5	2	1	2	6	6	0	7	1%	22%	73%	55%	51%	949	6.85
Derry City	5	2	1	2	6	5	1	7	1%	40%	81%	37%	41%	1208	7.67
Drogheda United	5	2	1	2	5	7	-2	7	0%	31%	76%	36%	42%	1071	5.35
St Patrick's Athletic	4	2	0	2	5	4	1	6	22%	42%	79%	39%	48%	1206	6.28
Galway United FC	5	1	0	4	3	8	-5	3	0%	30%	69%	28%	32%	992	2.95
Limerick	4	0	2	2	3	11	-8	2	0%	16%	59%	41%	40%	750	1.67
Sligo Rovers	5	0	2	3	5	10	-5	2	3%	12%	62%	61%	61%	737	3.92
Bray Wanderers	4	0	0	4	0	7	-7	0	0%	0%	65%	29%	44%	650	0.00

Prob: Probability of winning based on latest bookie odds.
Shot %: goals for/shots on target for
Save %: 1 - (goals against/shots on target against)
SoTR: Shot on Target Ratio (shots on target for / [shots on target against + shots on target for])
TSR: Total Shot Ratio (shots for / [shots against + shots for])
PDO: (Shot% + Save%) * 1000
Pyth: Pythagorean points expectation based on a function of goals for, goals against.