A comparison of corner kicks between the top and bottom four teams during the 2014/2015 English Premier League season
Date
2016-04-24Type
Dissertation
Publisher
Cardiff Metropolitan University
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
A COMPARISON OF CORNER KICKS BETWEEN THE TOP AND BOTTOM FOUR TEAMS DURING THE 2014/2015 ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON
Description
Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate corner kick trends and success between two groups of teams (top four and bottom four) during the 2014/2015 English Premier League season. Methods: Optasport provided data identifying all the corners taken by all 20 teams during the 2014/2015 English Premier League season. 499 corners from the eight teams selected were deemed successful and used for analysis. t-tests and a Repeated Measures ANOVA were used in Excel and SPSS to analyse data. Results: Findings presented that the bottom four teams had more successful corners than the top four (33.5% vs. 27.3%) respectively. A swung type of corner produced the highest rate of success for both team groups. The top four teams executed significantly more short corners than the bottom four (p = 0.032). The bottom four teams were found to target the front post area (p = 0.050) and far post area (p = 0.004) significantly more than the top four. However, both team groups accumulated higher scores of success when targeting areas further away from goal, within the penalty area. Regarding analysis of match status and corner location, both the top and bottom four teams had a greater percentage of success when losing a match, however this success resulted from targeting different areas. An investigation of corner success and match time revealed that both team groups were more successful during the latter stages of a match. With the top four team’s highest success score (21.1%) occurring during the 46-60 minute period and the bottom four teams scoring highest (20.4%) during 61-75 minutes. Conclusion: Despite a lower number of attempts, the bottom teams fashioned more attempts on goal than their top four counter-parts. The information provided could be of great interest for football professionals interested in improving corner kick performance.