The Killer Pass

I had a post all ready to go explaining further why we can get by without Jimmy Bullard in the lineup, but then he just has to turn around and put in a solid performance at Everton. Roy's comments leading up to the game lead us to believe that Jimmy would be on a shorter leash, but he's probably earned himself some slack.

Regardless, no sense wasting some good stats. Good teams tend to take lots of shots. Good passes set up these shots, more often than not. Who makes the passes that lead to scoring opportunities? Opta is nice enough to tell us how many assists each player could have had, provided the shooter put the ball in the net:

Player Assist Attempts Total Passes % of Passes Leading to Shots
Johnson 7 117 6.0%
Davies 17 343 5.0%
Dempsey 3 66 4.5%
Bullard 24 610 3.9%
Gera 14 355 3.9%
Zamora 11 288 3.8%
Seol 2 65 3.1%
Murphy 14 504 2.8%
Paintsil 5 441 1.1%
Konchesky 4 400 1.0%

We're already tracking goals created here, but with all the talk going on about creating chances, this gives us the base for calculating that. More in a bit.

On an unrelated note, I've updated the league tables with the latest marginal goals. Whoever says that there are no pushovers in the Premier League this season is right on. On their current pace, worst team in the league is 42 marginal goals better than Derby last season, and better than all of the bottom 6 of 06/07!

I'm amazed that Dempsey shows

I'm amazed that Dempsey shows up so well on these stats considering he never gets on the field.

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