Firstly apologies for missing out Week 14 of the Ligue 1 season the gameweek must have unknowingly passed me by therefore we will have to skip a round of fixtures and move on to Week 15 which in itself is also behind – ultimately I’ll be caught up before Week 16 kicks into action but it now time to digest some French goal data. It won’t be a case of whether PSG are top of the charts but almost by how many.

So without further ado let’s now take a look at things are shaping across the channel, as always Once again thanks to whoscored.com for all the necessary data.

Here is the Ligue 1 table after 15 weeks while also working out the amount of total shots taken

And now let’s take a look at the teams will pan out in terms of shot efficiency (smallest to largest)

As always let’s digest that in a graph format instead

We can focus on the leading teams shortly but lets first take a look at Metz who need an eyewatering 33.3 shots per goal, not only that but they are the second lowest scoring team across the five major leagues with just Germany’s Cologne worse off at this moment with four goals to their name – that said Cologne have played two games less so would have a better goal average in comparison to Metz.

Metz need an additional than 13 shots in comparison to 19th ranked Caen who require 19.7 efforts before breaching the opposition’s net. You get the feeling it could be a very long season for Metz if this scoring ratio continues, they are bottom of the table, bottom of the goalscoring charts and bottom in terms of shot efficiency.

PSG are top of all three metrics and they require just 5.2 shots per goal, a slight increase from two weeks ago but where many of the big teams are creating many chances but perhaps lacking ruthlessness that cannot be said in regards to the Ligue 1 leaders.

Monaco may be fourth in the league but they have swapped places with Marseille who lie second in the table after 15 weeks of the season while Lyon are both third in terms of points and shot efficency, another name to look out for is Nice who are not having a nice time in front of goal (sorry) requiring 10.9 efforts before scoring.

Let’s have a look at what Ligue 1 would look like if based on just shots this season

PSG are not having it all their own way here though as it is once again Marseille who have created the most chances this season with 254 to that have of 245 from PSG. Lyon compete a hat-trick of third places while Monaco match their league standing by the fourth highest team in terms of chances created.

If PSG topped the shot creation charts then we would see the top four teams in Ligue 1 represented in the same order but what about Metz I hear you ask. Well they are not the lowest creating team in the division, far from it they are at the relative heady heights of 16th in this list.

The fact that they have five goals from 167 chances means it has been a very miserable season for them in front of goal, they need to work on getting that figure down as at present it is one of the worst shot efficiencies out of all the 98 teams that have been analysed.

Lets now look at how the league places compare to that of the shot efficiency rankings

The variance on this graph is nothing short of incredible with the biggest positive and negative swings in all of the five divisions. Let’s look at the negative end first, Caen maybe just be the 19th efficient team in the division but they are in a very respectable 6th place in the table.

It makes you wonder how Caen are that high in the table considering that they have only scored 10 goals this season (up until Week 15) an average of just 0.66 goals per game. Their league placing versus their efficiency ranking just goes against any logic that we have formed over the past few weeks.

While Montpeillier and Nantes also see massive swings in terms of their performance in front of goal versus their league placing, both outifts are 11 places worse off. Nantes are 5th vs 16th and have only scored 14 goals while Montpeillier are 7th vs 18th and have only scored 12 goals.

This must indicate that they have particularly tight defences in relation to their goals they have scored to be that high up the table and scoring so little in comparison. Which when you consider that they are three of the four teams to have conceded the least goals then this must be true. Montpeillier have conceded just eight goals while PSG have conceded 12.

Therefore can we say the opposite about the teams with such positive swings. Angers are 10 places better off than their league placing (19th vs 9th) and have one of the worst defensive records in the league, however they are the eighth highest goalscorers in Ligue 1 so they are definitely being let down by a leaky back line.

While Troyes are 5th most efficient team in Ligue 1 and only 13th in the division, however they have created the fewest chances in the division therefore proving once again it’s not necessarily how much you create but what exactly you do with it.

That concludes my Ligue 1 roundup for this article, I’ll be back soon with another raft of Premier League pieces and a review of the European data across the week. If you have any ideas for article concepts then please let me know in the comments below.

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.