Now the fun part; from here I’ll be using some metrics which I’ve mimicked from more ‘pro’ analysts – firstly P90. P90 takes the total minutes played in a season, divided by 90 to create 90-minute chunks. NPG is non-penalty goals, so in our case two goals were taken off McGoldrick’s 14.

Then the metrics used to measure attacking contribution (generally) will be NPG per 90 (NPGp90) and Assists per 90 (Ap90) – these added together give a scoring contribution.

To give an idea of what is a good scoring contribution, check out this table from StatsBomb (potentially my favourite analytics site – very new, just under a year old and has some excellent analysis if you’re a statto like me) – this shows the top 70 scorers in Europe, and essentially gives you an idea for a comparison for our player and what the elite do. A rule of thumb, if you will.

Anyway; take these figures with a pinch of salt.

Firstly, I filtered out the players who had played less than 500 minutes – which got rid of the likes of Marriott, Graham, Ebanks-Blake etc. This essentially stops the results from looking skewed (it gave Jordan Graham’s Ap90 as 3.00 since he got an assist in his 30-odd minutes in a Town shirt.

So top of the list, no surprise, is David McGoldrick with a SCp90 of 0.539 – as his 12 NPG and four assists helped him on his way. This is no surprise for our top striker. The striker nicknamed Didzy quickly became a fan favourite, knowing where the goal was. Took the most shots out of any Town player this season, with 41 of 109 on target (37.6%)

He is followed by Murphy (0.4378) with his 13 goals and five assists this season. Murphy played in 45 of our 46 games this season, so perhaps if McGoldrick hadn’t been injured, Daryl would have topped the chart. We will never know.

Cresswell follows next, as his 13 assists and a goal pushing his goal scoring contribution to 0.3606. A good effort from the league’s best left back – would have liked to see more goals though. Some of his deliveries and shots from free-kicks at games I attended weren’t what I’m used to seeing.

Nouble and Anderson follow, which I found interesting. Nouble made 22 appearances off the bench this year, but a return of two goals and four assists made him fourth highest and above Anderson who managed one assist.

Anderson actually had an excellent return of goals, with five this season, including that beauty at Huddersfield. Incidentally, our number 11 was also the most accurate shooter; with 53.1% shots hitting the target – though, he only took 32 shots. As I tweeted him, shoot more Ando!

So that rounds off the top five in terms of scoring contribution. So what do the Ipswich stats tell us? I was very happy with Nouble’s contribution though he can definitely be a liability (averaged 1.4 turnovers a game, same as Taylor and Williams)

I’ll whizz through the top 10 for the league this season in terms of SCp90 (will tweet/blog more later) with a few notable others. This serves as comparison, I guess.

Matt Smith; 12NPG, 6A – SCp90; 0.787

Ross McCormack; 26NPG, 9A – SCp90; 0.763 (The man is a MACHINE, missed 12 mins of league football this year!)

David Dunn; 4NPG, 5A – SCp90; 0.74 (played sparingly, rolled back the years when it mattered it seems)

Andy Reid; 8NPG, 13A – SCp90; 0.717 (Assists. Goals.)

Patrick Bamford; 8NPG, 2A – SCp90; 0.712 (Livewire on loan from Chelsea)

Craig Conway; 5NPG, 14A – SCp90; 0.706 (Brilliant player)

Connor Wickham; 8NPG, 3A – SCp90; 0.689 (includes both his loans, though got one assist at Leeds – that’s it)

Rudy Gestede; 10NPG, 3A – SCp90; 0.683 (Excellent player – better than Jordan Rhodes according to this!)

Darius Henderson; 7NPG, 2A – SCp90; 0.654 (32-year-old leading the like at Forest)

Danny Ings; 19NPG, 6A – SCp90; 0.636 (Player of the year over McCormack? Never!)

Fun side note; Cardiff’s £3m man Lewis Grabban scored seven goals from the spot – so 15NPG and 4A (0.452 SCp90) - Special mention to André Moritz. The Brazilian in Bolton had an immense 845 minutes; 4NPG, 3A; SCp90 of 0.746 and a shot accuracy of 42.1% from attacking midfield. Bosh.

So what do the Ipswich stats tell us? I was very happy with Nouble’s contribution though he can definitely be a liability (averaged 1.4 turnovers a game, same as Taylor and Williams)

And what of our little Welsh wizard, I hear you cry? What about the short-term hero we crowned? Well, from the data I have, he got one goal and one assist – so his metric didn’t come out as planned.

However, he averaged 26.5 passes per game, with an accuracy of 78.2%. My favourite stat was that he was fouled on 3.8 times per game. Brilliant. The highest successful dribbles (0.8) and highest key passes (1.7, followed by Cresser and Ando - 1.6 and 1.4 per game respectively)

My issue with going through this was the midfield. Not enough goals, and not enough assists – bar Anderson and Cresswell. Hunt’s contribution was minimal, though he did put in a graft – the stats don’t reflect that.

And what of Skuse, the so-called disappearing man? 43.6 passes per game, only bettered by Cresswell, and the most accurate with 78.9%. “He can keep his two-yard passes”, I hear you scoff – but it shows that he is doing his job; receive and distribute.

Hyam also deserves a mention – 78.8% pass accuracy and was fouled on more than McGoldrick and Murphy. 36.8 passes per game shows that he also is doing his job. Hyam and Skuse also put more tackles per game than the back four. Protection.

From our midfield, assists and goals are a must. The protection is all well and good, but unless we have spark in our wingers (a left winger is a must, Anderson has impressed me) and some electricity up front, then chances won’t be created for our strikers to slip home.

For me, there’s not much to say about our defenders. Chambers grew into his role at right-back. Berra was awesome, excellent, incredible. Cresswell got on with his job and we all dream of a team of Tommy Smiths. Smith and Berra, over 10 clearances per game, 0.8 shots per game blocked by Smith and 9 man of the match awards for Berra. Oh, and no own goals.

A bit of transfer related stuff;

Daniel Ward; 7NPG, 6A – SCp90; 0.477

Chris O’Grady; 9NPG, 4A – SCp90; 0.346

Comments are always welcome, and I'll do my best to clarify some points. I know the data is somewhat sketchy, but it's the best I have right now! There’s a lot you can say with a lot of data, it’s just telling the right story. I hope this has been somewhat informative and not too long! Let me know if you have any questions, and feel free to follow by Twitter @Scribblr_42.

bluelodgeblue added 18:56 - May 24 Some interesting info but I need to go and lie down in a dark room!!!!!!!
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