Time to continue my tour of Europe now as I work out which teams are the most efficient when it comes to shots vs goals, yesterday it was the turn of the Premier League and now we return to the sunnier climates of Spain as I take a look at where we stand in La Liga after the first 11 weeks of the season.

Once again thanks to whoscored.com for all the necessary data.

Here is the La Liga table after 11 weeks while also working out the amount of total shots taken (ignore the decimal place on total shots)

Now let’s take a look at how the ranking differs when we look at shot efficiency (ignore the decimal place on total shots)

So we have our two tables but it will look more interesting in graph form, so here we are

If you read last’s week piece you would have seen that Valencia were top of the charts and they are again this week but La Liga table toppers Barcelona have now switched places with Real Betis in third. However where Valencia’s shot efficiency has not moved at 4.8, Barcelona’s has actually edged out to 5.6 so this was indicate that Betis were particularly wasteful in front of goal last week.

Atletico Madrid have edged further back from 7.6 to 7.8 shots required but stay 7th in the rankings, while Real Madrid’s win over Las Palmas has seen them edged their ranking down from 10.0 to 9.9. That said Zinedine Zidane’s men are only the 10th most efficient team in the division.

The reason behind that is the fact that they have had a staggering 217 (rounded up) shots on goal this season, that is nearly 50 more than Barcelona who sit second in the rankings. So although Madrid may be creating much more they are not very efficient when it matters.

Then again you could argue that the fact that they are creating so much is something to be commended and perhaps this is something of a flaw, that said I can only go with what the calculations tell me and ultimately the table does not lie

Now let’s look at the next graph, which compares the team’s place in the La Liga table versus that of their efficiency ranking. Who would be over performing and who would be under performing, that we can answer below.

As before 0 means there is a straight match between the two metrics. This time the higher numbers mean an over performance and the lower numbers means and under performance.

So it is quite apparent that the most startling column on the graph shows that Real Madrid have the largest variance between their league position and their shot efficiency ranking. 3rd in La Liga but only 10th in efficiency, they share this unwanted distinction with Leganes who were also minus seven places last week.

Last week’s biggest losers Leganes were on minus 11 last week but that has shrunk due to a combination in factors a move down in the table but a move up in the shot rankings. So less of a variance but they have suffered on the pitch as a result.

Barcelona and Valencia are on minus one and plus one respectively as a result of them switching places on the efficiency chart while the big winners are Celta Vigo who are sitting seven places higher in the efficiency chart then they are in the La Liga standings.

They were joint top with Real Betis and Levante last week but these two sides have seen their positive variance just chipped away slightly after the events of last weekend. Also must mention Atletico Madrid who currently three places worse than their league standing.

Next week I will also add in a table of the difference week on week in terms of shot efficiency rankings, so we can have a clear grasp of the movers and shakers. The rest of the week I will compiling data from France, Germany and Italy, so make sure you keep an eye out for those.

I hope this was of interest to you and if you have any football data work available then please contact me at realfootballmanwordpress@gmail.com as I am always looking to undertake additional projects to the ones I already have. Thanks, Dan.