Goals Win Games

You’ve read the heading, and thought, well that’s obvious but here is a review on the affect the number of goals scored/conceded and the importance of having a prolific goalscorer.

Firstly, how do goals scored equate to League position, as you’ll see if you can score on a regular basis then you’ll have more chance of being at the right end of the table. The grid below shows the Premier Division Teams listed in goals scored order with their League position and number of games in which they didn’t score.

The only two teams who finished in the top ten but aren’t in the top ten goalscorers are Margate and Bognor Regis Town, whilst on the other side of the coin, Cray Wanderers are the only side who finished in the bottom ten but were higher in the goals scored tally.

Moving onto each club’s leading goalscorer, the below grid shows each team, with the goals they scored, their leading goalscorer and the percentage of goals he scored, which shows how important it is to have someone who scores regularly, you’ll see David Smith comes in a commendable 4^th.

So, that is one end of the field covered, what about the other and goals conceded. The grid below shows the Premier Division teams listed in goals conceded order with their League position and the number of clean sheets they kept.

As with the goalscoring list, several clubs that finished in the top ten are outside of the same for goals conceded, these being Margate (again), Lewes and Kingstonian, whilst Carshalton Athletic, Corinthian-Casuals and Horsham are those that are in the top ten for least goals conceded but outside it in the actual League placings.

Finally, when were the goals scored? The chart below shows the split in fifteen-minute segments and what is immediately noticeable is how many more goals are scored in the last fifteen minutes of a game compared to the others, with the last fifteen minutes of the first half being the second highest.

The chart on the left shows the split of goals scored in the fifteen-minute segments, whilst that on the right is a pie chart showing those totals as percentages.