FoG

With one third of the season now complete for each team now is a good time to take stock. Every team has played everyone once - leaving the table looking like this: Team P W D L F A GD Pts Prob Shot % Save % SoTR TSR PDO Pyth HFA Dundalk 11 9 2 0 28 5 23 29 55% 34% 83% 73% 65% 1171 27.33 2.0 Shamrock Rovers 11 6 5 0 15 4 11 23 23% 23% 88% 67% 66% 1109 25.66 -0.4 Cork City 11 6 4 1 18 5 13 22 17% 35% 84% 63% 59% 1185 25.45 1.9 Bohemians 11 6 3 2 12 6 6 21 2% 27% 87% 48% 49% 1145 21.52 -1.0 St Patrick's Athletic 11 6 3 2 19 10 9 21 17% 27% 80% 59% 59% 1067 21.10 1.4 Longford Town FC 11 3 4 4 12 13 -1 13 0% 20% 80% 48% 47% 1003 14.27 0.2 Derry City 11 3 4 4 9 10 -1 13 0% 15% 79% 56% 53% 937 14.02 0.5 Galway United FC 11 3 0 8 12 21 -9 9 0% 26% 68% 42% 43% 937 9.74 0.3 Drogheda United 11 2 2 7 8 17 -9 8 0% 24% 76% 32% 37% 1000 8.14 0.0 Sligo Rovers 11 1 5 5 9 18 -9 8 0% 13% 68% 55% 56% 815 8.62 0.7 Bray Wanderers 11 2 1 8 8 25 -17 7 0% 31% 66% 26% 31% 970 5.48 0.8 ...

By comparing the difference between a team's average home goal difference and their average away goal difference we can see which teams gain the greatest advantage from playing at home. Most teams have played five home and five away this season. The results show that Cork and Galway have gained the biggest advantage from playing at home this season so far. Both of Galway's only wins came at home. Cork have been pretty solid at home until they were beaten by Dundalk on Friday. More interesting than that are the teams that have fared better on the road. It is expected that teams perform better at home - but what about Bohs and Shamrock Rovers. Shamrock Rovers home form is letting them down in a big way.  They have dropped points to Dundalk, Cork and Bohs at home - while winning all their away matches except Derry. You could argue that they had the tougher games at home - and this is true, for this season so far. But this is not a new trend. Shamrock Rovers home ...

Pythagorean Expectation for LoI Pythagorean expectation is a concept originally from baseball.  Bill James derived an equation that approximates the win percent based on runs allowed and runs made. win % = runs made  2 / (runs made  2  + runs allowed  2 ). It is a little more complex to apply to football, but some smart people have come up with different varieties of the equation that work very well for football to approximate points based on goals for and goals against. The one that I favour (for its relative simplicity) is copied below from here . Pts = Games Played * 2.74 (goals for 1.32 / [goals for 1.32  + goals against 1.32 ]) It can be applied to predict a teams points total for the end of a season. It can also be used to check how efficiently a team is converting their goals into points. The table so far for the League of Ireland is shown at the top. Most of the Pythagorean expectations are fairly accurate - although it do...

Another Friday passes in the League of Ireland and Dundalk, Cork and Shamrock Rovers all keep a clean sheet again.  All three teams are on only 1 goal conceded in 7 matches. If they can continue that rate then you could expect about 4 goals in their next 26. Is it possible that one of these teams can concede only 5 goals for an entire season? Last years best defense was Dundalk, conceding 24 goals. The chart below measures how well defenses have stymied the oppositions creativeness and for the times when the opposition did manage a break through, how well the last line handled the chance. Cork and Rovers (they share the same spot on the chart above) are the best last line with only 1 goal resulting from 43 shots created by their opposition. Dundalk edge it on defensive meanness allowing only an average of about 5 shots per match. Limerick are on the wrong end of the scale, allowing an average of 16 shots per match against, and not keeping a fair share of them out of the n...

All fixtures are summarised below.  The matches are rated by difficulty based on outright odds of their opponents, and whether the match is home or away.  Hover over the match for some more details. Included also is the total number of home games played, and the total number of home games against the big 4 (Pats, Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers, Cork). The airtricity league is somewhat unique in that each team doesn't play equal home and away games.  To make up 33 matches each team plays the others 3 times, in some cases twice at home and once away, and in other cases vice versa.  It is possible that a team can have an advantage over the season by playing more home games over all or more home games against the tougher teams.  For example Shamrock Rovers play Dundalk, Pats and Cork only once away each, but twice at home. First Half team home games home vs top 4 Series 1 Series 2 Series 3 Series 4 Series 5 Series 6 Series 7 Series 8 Series 9 ...