Forgotten Football Stats: The Importance Of Shots Off Target As A Predictor For Victory

In a world in which everyone seems to be talking about possession, xG calculations, and combining goals and assists to create the new top metric of goal contributions, there is a lot to be said for stepping back. When it comes to forgotten football stats, they don’t come any more important than shots off target, but not in the way that many football fans will be thinking.

Are shots off target a sign that a team is playing poorly?

While missing the target is rightly seen as wasting a chance, it doesn’t automatically follow that wasting a chance means the overall performance is poor. Yes, if a forward consistently fails to hit the target, then they will rightly come in for criticism, but we also need to look at the contribution of the rest of the team. If they are consistently serving up chances and moving the ball into dangerous areas, this is a sign that things may be going better than purely shots on target and goals suggest.

Recasting wide shots against blocked shots to view creativity

When a shot is blocked, it shows that the defender has closed down the attacker, but when an attacker’s shot is wide, no such battle has taken place. While this could be due to the shot being highly speculative from a long way out, it could also mean that the defenders are beginning to tire under pressure, or that wide runners and incisive switches of the play are pulling them out of position. With this in mind, a cluster of wide shots could well indicate an increase in overall creative play, albeit one that needs to be accompanied by greater composure in terms of how the final ball is struck.

Combining shooting data with passes into the final third

If there is a sequence of decisive final-third passes that directly lead to shots off target, this is a sign that the attackers are not simply shooting from distance and hoping for the best. The whole team is making a concerted effort to move the ball into dangerous areas, and if they continue to do so, it may only be a matter of time before they start to seriously test the goalkeeper. The fact that defenders are unable to get out and block the shots indicates that they are struggling to keep pace with the speed at which the attackers are moving the ball into the final third.

Assessing data-driven strategies in different games

No strategy will predict the winner with certainty, but trialling a strategy in different types of games is what will help you to refine it and understand the many unexpected nuances. Sports betting sites, such as LV BET, then become testing grounds for such theories and models.

Of course, there are never any guarantees in the world of football betting, meaning that healthy, sustainable habits need to be at the core of every strategy. That said, by seeing shots off target as a potential indicator of last-third creativity, tiring legs on the part of the defenders, and mounting pressure when clustered during a game, you can gain additional insights.