Shelvey's Shocking Shot Placement
Jonjo Shelvey had a very impressive shooting accuracy of 56% this season, the joint 16th best in the Premier League (for players attempting twenty-five shots or more), and comfortably above the total divisional average of 33.2%.
Yet he only scored one goal (away at West Ham United), and even that was only given to him after the infamous Dubious Goals Panel decided that it was not an own goal as it was originally deemed. As WhoScored recently tweeted:
Jonjo Shelvey: Had a conversion rate of 2.9% this season - better than only 7 of the Premier League's 257 goalscorers in 2012/13
Shouldn't he have scored more with such a good level of shooting accuracy? He took 59% of his shots in the box, so it wasn't entirely a case of wasting his time with pot shots from distance. It turns out our old friend 'shot placement' helps to explain where he was going wrong.
The below chart shows where Shelvey placed his shots this season, and one thing stands out: he put far too many shots in the low centre of the goal, where just 15.7% of shots beat the 'keeper:
On average, 28.5% of shots on target go to the low centre section, yet Shelvey put a whopping 52.9% of his efforts there, so it's perhaps not surprising that he didn't bag more goals.
Sadly, the misses also proved rather costly; the England under-21 star only converted one of the eight clear cut chances that he was presented with, and five of his seven failed efforts came in matches that Liverpool failed to win.
Of course, as Jonjo only had fifteen shots on target, it's far too small a sample to confirm that he is a poor finisher. But with Reds' manager Brendan Rodgers targeting a further twenty goals from his squad next season, it's clear that Shelvey needs to find the corners of the goal more often in order to hopefully increase his goal return.
Related articles you might like:
Shot Placement: The Suárez Show – Liverpool beat Norwich City 3-0 at Carrow Road, and this explains why.
Shot Placement: Gerrard’s Impact Against Everton – The captain bagged a hat-trick against the Toffees, but what part did his shot placement play in that?
How Important Is Shot Placement? - Proving that Liverpool’s shooting has been poor this season, in an article for The Tomkins Times.
Stats sourced from EPLIndex. Please check out my other articles, and follow me on Twitter or via Facebook. Thanks.