Articles on Sport Performance Analysis

Interview with Matthew Egan, First Team Analyst at Bath Rugby

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 12:47:32 +0000

Matt Egan is a First Team Performance Analyst at Bath Rugby focusing on Attack and Backs. He previously worked for the England RFU and Leicester Tigers. Matt tells us about his experiences and what it is like to be an analyst at Bath Rugby.

Tell us about your background. What made you want to become a Performance Analyst?

I am from Northamptonshire, a small town called Corby. I went to Loughborough University and ended up doing a Sport Science degree there. When I was at Loughborough, the university had a mentorship programme at Leicester Tigers, so for my Performance Analysis module I would go work at Leicester Tigers with Simon Barbour, who was my first boss. He was unbelievable, one of the top in Performance Analysis in Rugby Union.

Interview with Alex Scanlon, Men's Performance Analyst at The FA

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 11:52:03 +0000

Alex Scanlon is a Men’s Performance Analyst at The Football Association, where he has been working with development groups since 2017. Alex joined The FA as part of the 2016 initiative to invest in winning England teams by significantly expanding the technical groups that support the various squads. Prior to that, he was a Performance Analyst for Everton’s first team before spending three and a half years working across most age groups in West Bromwich Albion’s academy. Alex tells us about his pathway to become a Performance Analyst for England.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Sports

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 18:59:20 +0000

Dr Patrick Lucey is the Chief Scientist at Stats Perform and has over 20 years of experience working in Artificial Intelligence (AI), in particular face recognition and audio visual speech recognition technology. He also worked at Disney Research (owners of ESPN) where he developed an automatic sports broadcasting system that tracked players in real-time by moving a robotic camera to capture their movements.

Patrick recently talked about the use of Artificial Intelligence in sports, what that means and how we can use AI to help coaches and analysts make better decisions in sport. Artificial Intelligence refers to technology that emulates human tasks, often using machine learning as the method to learn from data how to emulate these tasks. His talk emphasised on the importance of sports data, and provided an overview on the different types of sports data that exist today. Patrick explained what is meant by AI and why is AI needed in sport.

Interview with Tom Johnson, First Team Analyst at Crystal Palace FC

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 21:12:35 +0000

Tom Johnson is currently the First Team Performance Analyst at Crystal Palace FC. He joined the club 4 years ago as the Head of Academy Performance Analysis, having previously been a Senior Academy Analyst at Derby County FC, where he started his career as an intern. Apart from being an analyst, he is also an under 13s coach. Tom tells us all about his journey in Performance Analysis and what it is like to work in a Premier League club.

Contextual Analysis In Sport Using Tracking Networks

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 12:48:30 +0000

Javier Martin Buldu is an expert on the analysis of non-linear systems and the understanding of how complex systems organise themselves, adapt and evolve. He focuses on the application of network science and complex systems theory in the analysis of sports. Buldu’s work is based on the principle that teams are far more than the simple aggregation of their individual players. By collaborating with organisations such as the Centre of Biomedical Technology in Madrid, La Liga, ESADE Business School, IFISC research institute and the ARAID Foundation, he has been able to combine elements of graph theory, non-linear dynamics, statistical physics, big data and neuroscience to construct various networks using positional tracking data of a football match. These networks are then able to explain what happens on the pitch beyond conventional ways of assessing the performance of individual players to understand team behaviours.

Automating Data Collection And Match Analysis From Video Footage

Sat, 28 Nov 2020 17:35:51 +0000

Dr Manuel Stein has spent over 7 years researching and analysing player movement using detailed positional football data. His work has focused on the investigation of real-time skeleton extraction to perform match analysis of player movement with the aim of fostering the understanding of comparative and competitive behaviours in football. He has revolutionised the way match and tactical analysis is performed by teaching computers how to measure key playing aspects of the sport, such as team dominance or a player’s control of space derived directly from video footage. Stein has developed an automatic and dynamic model that takes into account the contextual factors that influence the movement and behaviour of players during a match. This novel player detection system automatically is able to display complex and advanced 5-D visualisations that are superimposed on original video footage.

How The NFL Developed Expected Rushing Yards With The Big Data Bowl

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 15:19:28 +0000

Michael Lopez, the Director of Data and Analytics at the NFL, recently discussed at the FC Barcelona Sports Tomorrow conference the way that his Football Operations team and the wider NFL analytics teams leverage a large community of NFL data enthusiasts to obtain a better understanding of the game of American Football. In his talk, Michael walked through the journey that the NFL took to develop expected rushing yards, a concept that began as an initial idea within their Football Operations group and ended up making its way up to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats Group and the media.

Communication With Coaches As A Performance Analyst

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 18:34:46 +0000

Performance Analysts are responsible for producing quantitative information that allows coaches to quickly identify areas requiring attention. This information is primarily delivered through the provision of objective statistical and visual feedback. It involves the selection of video clips that coaches can use to engage in detailed discussions with players, identifying performance areas that need improvement and making training decisions. Video feedback technology has become a major resource as more coaches now rely on video highlights as a guide to enhance training of their players. The introduction of technology in these informative and constructive interactions in recent years has made the role of the performance analysis field a critical part in coach-athlete communication.

Working in Performance Analysis: Roles, Skills and Responsibilities

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 15:08:20 +0000

Types Of Roles In Performance Analysis

Depending on the size and organisational structure of the sporting club or institution, the range of responsibilities and job title of a Performance Analyst may vary significantly. Most Performance Analysis roles, particularly in smaller teams or lower divisions, continue to encompass a generic list of responsibilities across the different areas that make up the discipline, from handling filming equipment to performing data analytics and managing databases. These roles, usually titled Performance Analyst, often provide the analyst with a great level of autonomy by relying on them to effectively manage all processes, equipment and communication related to the analysis of performance within team. In these roles, often supervised by senior peers or team leads, the Performance Analyst is responsible for successfully executing the existing filming, data collection and analysis delivery processes already in place at the club but also for helping to shape and improve the practices of the team in respect to the analysis of team and player performance.

Collecting Sports Data Using Web Scraping

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 11:07:53 +0000

What Is Web Scraping?

Web scraping is the process of automatically extracting data and collecting information from the web. It could be described as a way of replacing the time-consuming, often tedious exercise of manually copy-pasting website information into a document with a method that is quick, scalable and automated. Web scraping enables you to collect larger amounts of data from one or various websites faster.

The process of scraping a website for data often consists on writing a piece of code that runs automatic tasks on our behalf. This code can either be written by yourself or executed through a specialised web scraping program. For example, by simply writing a few basic lines of code, you can tell your computer to open a browser window, navigate to a certain web page, load the HTML code of the page, and create a CSV file with the information you want to retrieve, such as a data table.

Setting Up Performance Analysis Equipment On Matchday

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 09:42:29 +0000

The following guide explains the setup process of Performance Analysis equipment during match days. This setup is frequently used in a number of major sports, particularly in those sports where analysts and coaches sit close to each other. However, the level of venue infrastructure can significantly vary between sports, clubs and divisions. Therefore, the same setup is not always possible and analysts need to have contingency plans at hand to be able to achieve the objectives of obtaining match footage, generating statistics and sharing real-time insights with coaches.

Computer Vision In Sport

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 15:09:11 +0000

What Is Computer Vision?

Computer Vision (CV) is a subfield of artificial intelligence and machine learning that develops techniques to train computers to interpret and understand the contents inside images. This can also be applied to videos, as a video is simply a collection of consecutive images, or ‘frames’. Computer Vision aims to replicate parts of the complexities in human vision system and visual perception by applying deep learning models to accurately detect and classify objects from the dynamic and varying physical world.

What is Performance Analysis in Sport?

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 13:38:38 +0000

Since the early-2000s, the analysis of performance in sport has seen a dramatic transformation in both its methods (i.e. incorporating advanced statistical modelling and new analytical frameworks) and technologies (i.e. GPS tracking, time-lapsed notational analysis software and a large variety of tracking sensors and other tracking equipment). What started as shorthand notations with pen and paper has since evolved to advanced computerised systems and technologies that collect vast amounts of performance-related data.

The Increasing Presence Of Data Analytics In Golf

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 09:34:23 +0000

Dating back to the 15th century, golf is one of the most traditional sports in the world. Even in its modern form, it continues to maintain most of its original characteristics and etiquette from centuries ago. However, golf has not been immune to the technological revolution that has seen many individual and team sports adopt the latest data technologies to optimise performance and enhance entertainment value for fans.

In today’s golf, every single aspect of the game, from a player’s swing to their round strategy and even the equipment they use is being transformed through scientific advances, data analysis, machine learning and cloud technologies. Impressively, this highly traditional sport has rapidly embraced data analytics as a means to provide a deeper understanding and enjoyment of the game. As a sport with one of the tightest of margins amongst its elite players, where one single dropped shot can cost you a tournament, golfers have turned to technology to develop an intelligent and information rich training regime and strategy to improve their chances of winning.

Impact of Data Analysis And Technology in Rugby Union

Fri, 17 Jan 2020 10:38:51 +0000

In August 1995, the International Rugby Board declared Rugby Union a professional sport. As we approach the 25th anniversary of the professionalisation of Rugby Union, it is worth reflecting back on the evolution of the sports during the last two and a half decades. The sport has experienced incredible change, with multi-billion worldwide audiences, broadcasting agreements and lucrative contracts for players, coaches and clubs. This rise in popularity led to the rise of the standards to performance demanded at an elite level. Competitive margins became tighter as athlete development, the coaching processes and overall club management became more complex. Incentives of winning to attract sponsors and broadcasters became a major focus and so did the efforts of clubs to acquire an extra competitive edge over their opponents. This added complexity triggered the emergence of new backroom functions that dealt with areas from physiological, psychological or biomechanical aspects affecting players (i.e. Strength & Conditioning coaches or Team Psychologists) to those providing an objective evaluation of performance and addressing the need of a better understanding of the determinants of success in the game (i.e. Performance Analysts).

Nacsport: The Most Accessible Video Analysis Software

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 18:12:21 +0000

Founded in 2008 in The Canary Islands, Spain, Nacsport is another important player in the development of videoanalysis software for performance analysis across emerging regions. Similar to SportsCode or Dartfish, Nacsports allows analysts to tag any action and build a deep understanding of what’s happening for later review. The tool works similarly to its competitor, where analysts decide which events need to be analyzed in any specific game or training situation. These event can be specific actions, players, pitch areas, or any other points of interest. Buttons are created for each event, where the analyst clicks the corresponding buttons for each of event as they occur. Each click generates a tag marking the time when they happened. When the match analyses end, Nacsport software displays all the tracked events grouped into category rows and/or chronologically on a timeline.

History Of Performance Analysis: The Controversial Pioneer Charles Reep

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 16:49:17 +0000

Thorold Charles Reep was born in 1904 in the small town of Torpoint, Cornwall, on the south west of England. At the age of 24, he joined the English Royal Air Force to serve as an accountant, where he learned the necessary mathematical skills and attention to detail that he went on to employ throughout his career. During World War II, he was deployed in Germany, and would eventually be awarded the rank of Wing Commander.

SportsCode Scripting Guide

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 12:12:19 +0000

Coding windows and statistical windows in SportsCode can be substantially enhanced using scripting, from automating certain event tracking to displaying real-time statistics to creating movie highlights of players or types of plays. However, unlike most analytical software packages, SportsCode uses their own coding syntax, creating the need to learn and understand their software-specific way of writing any command. Some of these are similar to functions in Excel or Numbers, although their slight alterations make it crucial to ensure they are correctly written in order to work. This guide walks through some of the key commands that can make your coding experience in SportsCode a lot smoother.

A New Way Of Classifying Team Formations In Football

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 21:19:01 +0000

One of the most important tactical decisions made in football is deciding on the best team formation, determining what roles each player has and the playing style. Laurie Shaw and Mark Glickman from the Department of Statistics at Harvard University recently developed an innovative, data-driven way of identifying different tendencies seen by managers when giving tactical instructions to their players, specifically around team formations. They measured and classified 3,976 observations of different spatial configurations of players on the pitch for teams with and without the ball. They then analysed the changes of these formations throughout the course of a match.

Automated Tracking Of Body Positioning Using Match Footage

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 19:01:56 +0000

A team of imaging processing experts from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona have recently developed a technique that identifies a player’s body orientation on the field within a time series simply by using video feeds of a match of football. Adrià Arbués-Sangüesa, Gloria Haro, Coloma Ballester and Adrián Martín (2019) leveraged computer vision and deep learning techniques to develop three vector probabilities that, when combined, estimated the orientation of a player’s upper-torso using his shoulder and hips positioning, field view and ball position.

Application of Video Technology in Football Refereeing – VAR

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 11:38:17 +0000

A referee in a match of football has full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game, consequently being exposed to controversies when it comes to interpreting a given situation. This risk is evidenced when considering that the referee’s observation can be influenced by various factors:

Position on the field (i.e. being prone to a parallax errors; the deceptive change in the relative position of an object with a change in the position of the observer)
The frequent high ball speeds, particularly during shots on goal, that can reach up to 120km/h, thus make it is challenging for the human vision and other cognitive systems to estimate its position.

Supporting technologies to aid referees’ decision-making and reduce incorrect decisions have been emerging in recent years. Some of these include the use of microchip balls and signals to referee, microphones and earpieces, electronic sensors in goal posts, tracking systems for off-side play, goal-line technology and, most recently, video assistant referee. These type of technological officiating aids aim to enhance the overall quality of the refereeing in the game of football. By having an improved decision making by referees, the integrity of the game is protected and more qualitative content for football fans is produced. Nevertheless, arguments have emerged suggesting that the introduction of delays may have tainted the viewing experience, amongst other controversies.

StatsBomb: Advanced Football Analytics Through An Interactive Platform

Tue, 11 Jun 2019 10:18:47 +0000

STATSBOMB is a UK-based football analytics and data visualisation company introducing common data analytics practices seen in business and tech to the world of football analytics. Through their recently launched (February 2019) STATSBOMB IQ data visualisation platform they offer immediate accessibility to valuable football insights from all major leagues and players across the globe.

The company was founded in January 2017, after self-described data geek Ted Knutson - now CEO and co-founder of STATSBOMB - traded a decade in the sports betting industry to partner with Charlotte Randall - Chief Operating Officer - and “produce the best possible analytic toolset for football clubs to use in player recruitment, team analysis, and opposition scouting”. What started as a blog sharing ideas about applied statistics in football turned into a reputable business collecting vast amounts of football data and offering an interactive visualisation platform enabling them to establish a global customer based including major clubs, federations, media, broadcasters and gambling organisations. In their ambition to establish themselves as an industry leader, STATSBOMB has recently acquired Egypt-based sports data collection company ArqamFC, gathering over 5,000 data points per match. Ted Knutson claimed that this move will allow them to offer double the amount of data points than any other provider.

Scout7, a bespoke software for scouting

Wed, 04 Jul 2018 10:03:46 +0000

Scout7 is one of the platforms offered by Opta to help decision making in the global recruitment and development of players. It offers clubs performance data on over 520,000 players across the world and the ability to watch over 3 million minutes of video footage on their performances. The advantage of Scout7 over similar platforms is that it is usually integrated in a bespoke manner into the club’s systems, allowing it to be tailored differently for each club according to that club’s needs.

GPS technology in professional sports

Thu, 28 Jun 2018 13:02:30 +0000

Global Positioning System technology has been used in professional sport for some time, in both training sessions and during competition. Through the use of Electronic Performance and Tracking System (EPTS) devices, teams can track player’s movement on the pitch and collect vast amounts of data on their performance; such as their running speed, distance run, their position on the pitch, their heart rate and their body’s work rate.

These ‘wearable’ devices and the data they collect have multiple uses, one major of them being the prevention of injuries. By tracking a player’s sprints and distance covered the coaching staff can determine whether such player is fit for their next game or could benefit from resting. According to Taylor from iSportAnalysis (2017), studies have shown that when athletes train at a higher rate than the season’s average there tend to be more injury occurrences. An increase in training and game-play intensity without adequate recovery can results in an increase of injury rate. Coaches can now predict and prevent player injuries by monitoring these patterns from the GPS metrics obtained, and can make the right decisions by knowing whether their player is over training, whether they need a rest or whether they are in peak condition.

An overview of Dartfish, a powerful videoanalysis software

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 13:11:24 +0000

Founded in Switzerland in 1999, Dartfish is a videoanalysis solution that allows analysts to capture, analyse and share videos of training sessions and matches. The software offers tools to capture the footage directly into the platform, tag events real-time, and upload, organize and share the various videos produced. A video is displayed with the match footage on one of the screens with a panel of tags and codes next to it where an analyst is able to visualize instantly key actions identified and underline what the action reveals.

Opta Sports: the leading sports data provider

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 10:14:34 +0000

Launched in 1996, Opta Sports has been the major player in data collection and distribution in sports for over two decades, offering statistical information and player performance data from major sport leagues all over the world to media clients and clubs themselves. After transferring ownership several times over the years, in 2003 Opta was acquired by Perform Group, a sports media company based in the UK who also own other brands such as Goal.com and Sporting News Media in the US. Perform Group itself is owned by Ukrainian businessman Len Blavatnik through his privately held multinational industrial group called Access Industries.

Performance Indicators in Football

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 12:34:14 +0000

Micheal Hughes et al discussed in 2012 in their article “Moneyball and soccer - an analysis of the key performance indicators of elite male soccer players by position”, how team sports like football offer an ideal scope for analysis thanks to the numerous factors and combinations, from individual to teams, that can be used to identify performance influencers.

READ HUGHES M.D. ET AL’S FULL ARTICLE HERE

The article suggests that, in a sport like football, in order for a team to be successful, each player must effectively undertake a specific role and a set of functions based on the position the play in on the field. Through a study carried out with 12 experts and 51 sport science students, they aimed to identify which are the most common performance indicators that should be evaluated in a player’s performance based on their playing profile. They started by defining the following playing positions in football:

Notational analysis: a synonym of today's performance analysis

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 12:34:03 +0000

While motion analysis and biomechanics constitute important areas in performance analysis, one of the most popular and fundamental pieces of performance analysis in sport is the use of notational analysis. Notational analysis is the identification and analysis of critical patterns and events in a performance that lead to a successful outcome. Hughes (2004) defined notational analysis as “a procedure that could be used in any discipline that requires assessment and analysis of performance”. The information used for notational analysis is usually gathered by observing a team’s performance in a competitive environment. By notating numerous events that take place on the pitch, such as striker positioning, defenders’ tackle success rate or midfielders pass completion rate, an analyst can identify strengths and weaknesses and provide these results to coaches who then use them to adapt training sessions or share accurate feedback with players and the entire team.

An overview of Sportscode, a key video analysis platform for performance analysts

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 15:20:37 +0000

Sporstcode is one of the leading video analysis software in the performance analysis field today, used by thousands of analysts, coaches and athletes around the world. This popular platform goes as far back as 1999, when Australian coaching applications and professional services company Sportstec first launched the first version of the revolutionary video software. However, in 2015, the company was acquired by the American counterparts Hudl in an effort to strengthen the companies position in the industry by combining the elite-level sport market dominance of Sportstec with the broader reach within amateur and grassroots level of Hudl, as stated by former Sportstec Managing Director Philip Jackson (PR Newswire, 2015).

The Brentford FC story: running a football club through data

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 09:39:32 +0000

In 2012, professional gambler, betting businessman and lifelong fan Matthew Benham saved Brentford FC from bankruptcy by paying the £500,000 debt the club owed. Since then, he has invested over £90 million in improving the team’s training facilities, stadium and developing a youth academy that looks after every young player’s academic and sporting development needs.

But aside from investing money in the club like many other club owners do, what Benham also brought to Brentford was a revolutionary analytics culture to every aspect of the club. He removed the idea that results should drive decisions, but instead use the evaluation of key performance indicators to make any recruitment decisions. When looking for his next striker, the club would now look at the number and quality of chances that player creates and how the collective performance of the team, whether it is offensively or defensively, affects the performance indicators of such player. It is by consciously doing things differently that Benham attempted to take a small club like Brentford to be able to compete at the highest level against clubs with a lot larger budgets.

Performance Indicators in Rugby Union

Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:15:51 +0000

In 2012, Michael T Hughes, Michal M Hughes, Jason Williams, Nic James, Goran Vuckovic and Duncan Locke wrote an insightful academic journal discussing the performance indicators in rugby union during the 2011 World Cup. They gathered various materials from professional analysts working for coaches and player at the World Cup event, and verified the reliability and accuracy of their data against video footage from different matches.

READ FULL JOURNAL HERE

The effect of GDPR in sports performance analysis

Mon, 11 Jun 2018 18:55:42 +0000

On 25th May 2018, a new Global Data Protection Regulation launched in the EU, significantly improving the control European citizens have on their personal data collected by third parties. While GDPR covers many complex areas around the subject of data collection, storage and transfer of personal data by third parties, the key topics that are normally highlighted when discussing this new regulation are that an individual must now provide consent prior to a third party collecting data about themselves and that said individual has also the right to request the data collected to be deleted at any point in time, as well as to revoke any prior consent given to collect personal data.

How Wyscout has evolved football scouting

Fri, 08 Jun 2018 22:30:56 +0000

Wyscout initially launched in 2004 in Italy as a Football Match Analysis and Advertising provider, amongst other minor services the company offered. It was not until 2008 when they launched their first user interface to offer access to their footballer database containing basic stats such as weight and height of players. Since then, the platform has experience rapid growth and popularity in the world of football and particular in the scouting field.

The International Society of Performance Analysis in Sport

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 12:14:30 +0000

What is ISPAS?

The ISPAS was founded with the objective of improving global cooperation in the field of performance analysis. It was created as a platform for experts and practitioners to exchange their ideas, set global standards and collaborate in common research areas. It provides a shared forum to distribute scientific knowledge and disseminate information across the different types of individuals and groups in performance analysis, from academic researchers to club-level practitioners.

The role of a Performance Analyst in Sports

Mon, 28 May 2018 20:59:19 +0000

What is the role of a Performance Analyst in Sport?

Performance analysis is the process of assessing performance in a sport to develop an understanding of actions that can inform decision-making, optimize performance and support coaches and players in their journey towards optimal results. In many team sports this would consist on tactical assessment, movement analysis, video and statistical databasing and modeling and coach and player data presentations.

A few years ago, the role of a Performance Analyst simply consisted on recording a training session or game and creating video highlights to provide to managers and players for review. Video recording and editing constituted the large majority of an analyst’s role. Today, the role of Performance Analysts has evolved where analysts now require a lot more expertise in numerous tracking hardware and software that the advances in technology have brought to the industry, allowing for more sophisticated data collection, storage and increased coaching demands for data presentation. With the growing phenomenon of ‘big data’, the large amounts of data collected in the world of sport requires analytical experts to handle, disseminate and generate insights from this data.

Videoanalysis editing software: Coach Paint and KlipDraw

Mon, 28 May 2018 13:30:20 +0000

Video editing software plays a key part during review sessions with players and coaches after a match or training session where tactical analysis is discussed in an engaging visual manner. Tools like Coach Paint, or the emerging KlipDraw, are great assets for Performance Analyst when grabbing player and coaches’ attentions by visualizing formations, movements on the pitch, tactics and any in-game action that requires analysis.

Some of the key features these software offer are: player cut-out, spotlight, zoom, player tracking, zone tracking, distance measurement, trajectory marking and formation tools. They allow you to import your recorded videos, select the type of graphics and features to apply on them, trim the clips to ensure only highlights and relevant actions are included and export the final video as a standalone video file.

What are Expected Goals (xG)?

Tue, 22 May 2018 21:18:21 +0000

What are Expected Goals (xG)?

Expected Goals, or xG, are the number of goals a player or team should have scored when considering the number and type of chances they had in a match. It is a way of using statistics to provide an objective view to common commentaries such as: ”He shouldn’t miss that!” “He’s got to score those chances!” “He should have had a hat-trick!”

Goals in football are rare events, with just over 2.5 goals scored on average per game. Therefore, the historical number of goals does not provide a large enough sample to predict the outcome of a match. This means that shots on target and total number of shots are now being used as the next closest stats to predict number of goals. However, not all shots have the same likelihood of ending up in the back of the net.