A mixed effects model for identifying goal scoring
ability of footballers

McHale, IG; Szczepanski, L

Abstract

The paper presents a model that can be used to identify the goal scoring ability of footballers. By decomposing the scoring process into the generation of shots and the conversion of shots to goals, abilities can be estimated from two mixed effects models.We compare several versions of our model as a tool for predicting the number of goals that a player will score in the following season with that of a naive method whereby a player’s goals-per-minute ratio
is assumed to be constant from one season to the next. We find that our model outperforms the naive model and that this outperformance can be attributed, in some part, to the model’s disaggregating a player’s ability and chance that may have influenced his goal scoring statistic in the previous season.

Citation

ability of footballers. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, 177(2), 397-417. https://doi.org/10.1111/rssa.12015

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: May 22, 2013
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: Feb 21, 2014
• Journal: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A (Statistics in Society)
• Print ISSN: 0964-1998
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 177
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 397-417
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/rssa.12015
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/rssa.12015
• Related Public URLs: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-985X/