Defence comparison this season and last season; Here's what the stats say:

In comparison to equivalent fixtures last season.

No of games (so far): 15

Last entry: Espanyol(Home)

Next entry: Real Betis(Away)

Blue is better, red is worse.

The more games we play, the more significant the stats will be I'd imagine.

Does this match your perception from watching those games?

Osasuna is the most interesting one for me, defensively there is a huge gulf in disparity despite them having only 10 men last season from the 75th minute.


PS- When we play Atletico Madrid in the league I'll replace the SuperCopa stats with the league stats....

So the recent Osasuna game (with the defensive backline setup) was the only major difference regarding shots conceded.

I wonder if those clean sheets are only due to Valdes' better form then.

yahudi said:

So the recent Osasuna game (with the defensive backline setup) was the only major difference regarding shots conceded.

I wonder if those clean sheets are only due to Valdes' better form then.

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Yup, seems that way to me, at least that's what the stats is saying.
I reckon 10 games is still a little bit too few a sample size though. I'll keep adding with each passing game.

Good work!

One way or another it doesn't match my perception of our games, though. I still shit myself when we concede corners or free kicks, that is one of our great weaknesses. And still, although we are 25/27 in the league and 6/6 in CL, last two seasons I never once had the feeling like I had under Guardiola. It all felt so invincible, that really went away after Chelsea beat us in the semis of the 2011-2012 campaign.

I took some time and compared the shots conceded against better opposition:



Sociedad Home: 12/13 vs. 13/14

Even though this season's score was more justified than last year, La Real actually had more shots from inside the box than last year.


Valencia Away: 12/13 vs 13/14

This one is tricky. Last year Valencia had quite a few chances within the box, this year they have been rather restricted to distance shots but still managed to put more shots on target


Malaga Away: 12/13 vs 13/14

Other than the Buonanotte free kick, Malaga were quite toothless last season. This year they managed to get into better positions but didn't score.


Sevilla Home: 12/13 vs 13/14

Other than the occasional Dani fuckery and the set-pieces, Barcelona actually quite comfortably dealt with Sevilla this season. At least, more comfortably than the year before.



Now I know the sample size is even smaller than in the OP, so it's hard to draw any conclusions from this. But from what I see, it's not like the opponents are forced to shoot from worse positions compared to previous season.

Which brings me back to the question: do the outfield players really defend better than last year? Or is it just Valdes' better form that keeps the clean sheets?

P.S.: I'll also attach the video highlights from respective games sometime soon, so we can also judge the defensive play on these scenes

Catorce said:

Good work!

One way or another it doesn't match my perception of our games, though. I still shit myself when we concede corners or free kicks, that is one of our great weaknesses. And still, although we are 25/27 in the league and 6/6 in CL, last two seasons I never once had the feeling like I had under Guardiola. It all felt so invincible, that really went away after Chelsea beat us in the semis of the 2011-2012 campaign.

Click to expand...

Cheers!

Updated it now with the Milan game.

My impression is that in previous seasons in a lot of games the opposition would get a player clean through on goal and score. This season that has hardly happened at all. Most shots have had defenders applying some pressure.

Also last season wingers often had oceans of space and used to put many balls to the far post for a player that was pretty much unmarked. However this season it seems wingers are usually closed down and putting in crosses under pressure and there haven't been that many clear headed opportunities from open play.

There is a weakness from set plays, however Tata is changing the system so there is a good chance of an improvement there. In fact they looked pretty good against Milan on set plays(apart from Valdes repeating the mistake he made against Celtic).

Added the Madrid game.
Allowed 10 shots each in both games.
There is a huge difference in how we conceded those shots however.
In 12/13, 7 out of the 10 shots were taken from inside the penalty area.
In yesterdays game, only 3 out of the 10 shots were taken inside the penalty area.

big_man said:

Added the Madrid game.
Allowed 10 shots each in both games.
There is a huge difference in how we conceded those shots however.
In 12/13, 7 out of the 10 shots were taken from inside the penalty area.
In yesterdays game, only 3 out of the 10 shots were taken inside the penalty area.

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Big difference, rest is quite stable which seems to be normal to expect from a big team like Madrid. ut they are dangerous from outside the box as well, look at Benzema's shot. If just inches lower...

I would say that's primarily down to a combination of Tata choosing a deeper defense and Madrid no longer having the services of Ozil.

big_man said:

In comparison to equivalent fixtures last season.

No of games (so far): 13

Last entry: Madrid(Home)

Next entry: Celta Vigo(Away)

Blue is better, red is worse.

The more games we play, the more significant the stats will be I'd imagine.

Does this match your perception from watching those games?

Osasuna is the most interesting one for me, defensively there is a huge gulf in disparity despite them having only 10 men last season from the 75th minute.


PS- When we play Atletico Madrid in the league I'll replace the SuperCopa stats with the league stats....

Click to expand...

Now that is an impressive bit of work. Well done.

I would love to see this work at the end of the season deleting outliers; 4-6 most skewed games compared to last season, both in our favor and against. That way we can better see whether we have really improved. Because of the small sample size now, you can clearly see how one game can affect the statistics. (see Osasuna)

Nice work.

It's great to see that Martino bringing back the rapid pressing has restored solidity to the defense. The key difference however is I think Martino will rotate the squad more to ensure we don't get tired, like in Pep's 4th season.

Poor_Sunyol said:

Now that is an impressive bit of work. Well done.

Click to expand...

klc123 said:

Nice work.

It's great to see that Martino bringing back the rapid pressing has restored solidity to the defense. The key difference however is I think Martino will rotate the squad more to ensure we don't get tired, like in Pep's 4th season.

Click to expand...

Cheers lads!

Catorce said:

I would love to see this work at the end of the season deleting outliers; 4-6 most skewed games compared to last season, both in our favor and against. That way we can better see whether we have really improved. Because of the small sample size now, you can clearly see how one game can affect the statistics. (see Osasuna)

Click to expand...

Yup you are correct. Like I said in the OP, the significance will increase with the number of games.

Added the Celta Vigo game, will add the Espanyol game after the match tonight.

EDIT: While I was compiling this together, I passively looked at the attacking numbers (even though I didn't save them) and it seems to me that we are creating a lot more chances this season. I might make that in another thread actually.

The defense this season is much better than last season, we've played 17 games to reach 10 clean sheets, conceded 10 goals in those 17 games. Last season we played 29 games to reach 10 clean sheets and conceeded 29 goals in those 29 games.