A lot has been made of Messi’s struggles in front of goal this season, so I decided to look at the data and see what has changed for the arguable GOAT. We wont be looking at any in events data to understand changes in Messi’s role and whilst statsbomb do provide this data through their open data programme up to 20/21 for Messi I currently do not have subscriptions to this data for the current PSG season. what we will be looking at however is stats provided by FBref/FotMob scraped through Jason Zivkovic’s WorldFootballR Package found here: https://jaseziv.github.io/worldfootballR/articles/extract-fbref-data.html#join-fbref-and-transfermarkt-data-1, understat using understatr found here: https://github.com/ewenme/understatr and Abhishek Mishra’s excellent GGShakeR found at https://github.com/abhiamishra/ggshakeR to see if their are any changes in the stats of Messi’s impact on field. To draw comparisons we will be looking stats comparing this season to Messi’s last 5 seasons at barca ( league seasons only.) This may end up as a series of analyses, depending on how this goes. All stats are at the time of writing (15/05/2022)

Messi vs. Past Messi

so how does Messi of today compare of Messi in the past few seasons? We will look at shooting passing and possesion stats for the last 5 league seasons.

Shooting

Given that this article was largely inspired the drop in Messi’s goal scoring form we will start by looking at shooting stats.

We can see that Messi is shooting less as a byproduct is getting less shots on target (less than half of his average over the previous 5 seasons) and generating less xG per 90 .However Messi is shooting on target at a lower percantage of his shots this season also. Many conclusions could be drawn from this at this point, one could make the argument he has simply regressed as many older players do, hopefully further analysis will help us uncover more.

xG

Next we will see if there are any changes in the xG of the shots Messi is taking, we could look at this simply throught the average xG per shot, however averages can often be skewed by outliers. Instead we will look at the distrubution of the xg of Messi’s shots through the years There is no arguing against that the Argentine has certainly underperformed xG this season however the underlying numbers give us some more insight.In all seasons Messi takes most of his shots between 0.05-0.07 xG however a stark difference is in previous seasons we see a much less step decline between in shots taken between 0.05 xG and 0.15 xG and in all previous seasons we see higher volumes of shots taken >0.15 xG so he is not only shooting less frequently but is generally taking lower xG shots.

When contrasting this with the xG of his goals we see that Messi,whilst underperforming xG overall, is not seeing the kind of opportunities he would in previous seasons.

ShotMaps

In our shot heatmaps, we see that Messi has a much higher density of shots just inside the 18 yard box outside of 2021/2020 however in 2020-21 whilst the highest density of shots is just outside the 18 yard box is still maintaining a high density of shots inside the 18 yard box. This season however Messi is taking far fewer shots inside the 18 yard box.

One can draw a few conclusions from this, Messi for whatever reason is not occupying positions/taking shots when in possession of the ball from his preferred shooting location or is simply not receiving the ball in these locations.

we can also compare where Messi’s shots resulting in a goal to his shot map for this season we also see here that Messi is not shooting from the locations which have most often resulted in a goal over the years.

The Playmaker

So we’ve covered the data Messi’s shooting woes, however there is much more to the GOATs game than just scoring goals, The argentina captain has been one of the worlds best playmakers for year now. How does present Messi compare to past Messi in his playmaking ability?

Passing

In almost all the key stats for passing Messi is performing -per 90- consistent with previous seasons, a key point from these stats is the increase in passes into the final third and progressive passes, this makes sense as Messi is often more involved earlier in the build up for psg than he had been in barcelona, generally resulting in him spending more time further from goal. Whilst these stats certainly are not the whole picture the more talented analysts on football twitter TM would be better positioned than myself to understand Messi’s role in PSG’s build up and how that shows up in the data.

Possession

Two stark drops in possession stats are progressive receptions and touches in Opp. penalty area, two stats that are often dependent on other players in the team to facilitate. Whilst there is a “universal” drop in most possession statistics the drop isn’t so significant for most of the stats.A great added insight to these playmaking statistics would be a touchmap for Messi through the years, However I do not currently subscribe to any tracking data, smh.

Whilst still an incredible playmaker, Messi has certainly not been scoring the level of goals we have come to expect, in our analysis so far we have seen that Messi though underperforming xG is taking less shots, and shooting more from positions he has historically not scored many goals from. In addition to this Messi is not recieving the ball high up the pitch as often and is not on the receiving end of as many progressive passes. Simultaneously Messi is being asked to be involved more in the build up phase of PSG’s play, increasing his progressive passes completed per 90, his passes into the final 3rd, touches in mid & defensive 3rds of the pitch indicating Messi is playing more further from the goal. Whilst it is undeniable Messi hasn’t been his best at converting opportunities when they do arise, it is also the case that in this PSG team these opportunities are fewer and further in between, not to mention the 123456 times Messi has hit the woodwork this season.

Messi and PSG

An argument could be made that this has nothing to do with systems or team mates that its simply a regression, Messi is out of his comfort zone and older and therefore struggling to make the same impact on the pitch. However, having endured almost every PSG game this season, it seems the issues run deeper than just one player being older. So by the numbers what do PSG look like and how does Messi fit into this? I will be using a few other teams as a point of reference, it can often be tough to understand the implications of the numbers without a benchmark. The teams I will be using to draw comparisons are Madrid, Liverpool, City and Bayern, Teams that we would consider PSG’s peers, at least in terms of talent.

In possession

PSG have often been an eyesore to watch this year for any football fan, the lack of identity on the pitch and the error prone build up has cost them so often. If not for the moments of magic from the front 3 watching this PSG team would be a turn off for even the most avid fan. So what is going wrong?

Ball Progression

A major problem in this PSG team is an inability to progress the ball from midfield (an inability to conduct linebreaking passes also but alas I do not have data to back this point up- p.s. open source all the data pls.) So what does ball progression look for this psg team?

Messi is off the charts when it comes to progressive actions per 90 with his carries and passes being among the best that these sides have to offer, noticeable here is that outside of veratti, PSG are heavily reliant on their forwards dropping deep and progressing the ball and the other midfielders with good progression (Leandro Parades & Ander Herrera) haven’t seen the field often this season. This is not the case in any of the other teams aside from Grealish/Vinicius carrying the ball we dont see many forwards so heavily involved with ball progression. The top ball progressers for the other teams are midfielders/defenders. Whilst you could say this is simply the system in which they operate, on the pitch it seems if Messi/Neymar/Di Maria don’t come and move the ball forward the ball struggles to find its way into the final third, whilst this is certainly part of Messi/Neymars game and part of what makes them special players, PSG having midfielders which are not impactful during the build up has often hurt this PSG side.

Here we can see that outside of the Neymar/Veratti/Messi PSG simply struggle to get the ball into the final third, this responsilibility is more evenly distrubted among the other premier sides in europe. An additional point to make here is that outside of Messi their main progressive and creative players have struggled to stay on the field with Neymar and Veratti having completed ~ 20 90s. With the other midfielders underperfoming and Veratti/Neymar both missing chunks of the season the onus has been on Messi to be the teams best midfielder this season more than their best attacker - a point backed by the fact that despite Messi touching the ball more than ever he’s also seeing fewer progressive receptions of the ball.

Comparing this to last seasons Barca

We can see that outside of veratti and herrera PSG midfielders and defenders this season are struggling to progress the ball as well barca last season (a pretty woeful barca at that). This is even more stark when looking at their abilities to get the ball into the final third

Shot creation

If outside of neymar Messi and veratti PSG are struggling to progress the ball, is it any different when it comes to chance/shot creation? PSG could be relying on their most technical players to get the ball into the final third and then creating chances once the opponent is on the back foot

When it comes to creating chances and goals PSG midfielders (including veratti this time) lack behind almost every other midfield in europes premier sides, once again the noticeable exception being ander herrera. An aside to this would be Danilo Perraira who often joins the back 2 in possession to form a back 3, one wouldn’t expect a player in this role to be creating many shooting opportunities.

This lack of penetrative passing from the midfield has meant that PSG are most threatening in transition, where mbappe has excelled however others including Messi don’t see as much success in these scenarios.

It is certainly not a bad thing to rely on two of the most creative players in world football to control the game and create chances for your team. However it seems, at least by the numbers, there is an over reliance on Messi and neymar to be the best midfielders, chance creators and goal scorers with the midfielders seemingly being passengers in build up. Having almost no threat behind your front three, neither from fullbacks or the midfielders cannot be a sustainable situation for PSG.

Messi Neymar Mbappe

Much has been made of Messi Neymar and Mbappe and their lack of success this season despite being the most exciting front three in world football. Though we have seen moments of brilliance and flashes of chemistry between the three we have seldom seen them “click” in the way we expected. Part of this is the injury issues in the squad, as they begun to click neymar had a lengthy injury, and took quite some time to regain form upon his return, Messi has also had some niggling injury issue with his knee early in the season and had a bout of covid mid season. Mbappe has had his fair share of distractions off the field the questions of will he stay will he go, the media rumors and the pressure from doha - despite this mbappe has performed well on the pitch. Before further analyis here are the G/A stats for this season for the three in ligue 1. Mbappe: 43 G/A in 32.6 90s MP Messi: 19 G/A in 22.9 90s and Neymar 18 G/A in 19.7 90s

So of the three who is seeing the best opportunities on the pitch?

Mbappe has by far seen the best opportunities in this PSG team, with Neymar shooting Less than the other two but seeing higher xG chances more frequently than Messi (Neymar is also the primary penalty taker when fit). There is no doubt that this is very much Mbappe’s team. Another point here is that of the three Mbappe also touches the in the opp penalty area far more than Messi or Neymar

Neymar Mbappe and even Di Maria are the primary recipients of progressive passes, indicating they are generally higher up the pitch in all phases than Messi.

A final point here would be to see who is creating their best opportunities to score? We will look at attempts over 0.1 xG and see who are creating these opportunities for the front three

Messi has not been on the receiving end of many decent opportunities this season at all at least in terms of xG and when they arise he relies almost exclusively on the others in the front three to provide. Both Neymar and Mbappe however can rely on other players in the team to create decent looks for them to score from, Mbappe being the main beneficiary of these chances. This is very much a team focused on & built for Mbappes success.

I will preface by saying there is no doubt Messi hasn’t performed in front of goal this season, underperforming xG, hitting the woodwork umpteen times and at times shoddy finishing have certainly played their role in Messi slump in goal scoring numbers. However, the underlying stats tell a deeper story. An off form midfield has seen Messi’s role in this side has often been more of a midfielder more than a striker or goal scorer, this is seen in the increase on his ball progression numbers, passes into the final third/opposing penalty area and touches in the middle third of the park. Messi is also not on the recieving end of the teams best opportunites, and it not receiving the ball as often in dangerous positions shown by the drop in his touches in the opp penalty area and touches in the attacking third, Mbappe and Neymar are still very much the focal points of the PSG attack. Additionally, Messi has seen a significant drop in xG per 90, whilst playing a role futher from the goal to help his team as a playmaker he is also not receiving the type of opportunities once accustomed to as the once focal point of barca. All of these factors would indicate that Messi’s slump is less due to the woes of being an aging “finished” player and more down to his role in this PSG team.

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p.s. pls ignore any typos, formatting mistakes etc.. After re reading for the 20th time making more corrections will be the death of me :)

I will continue to make updates and changes as I find issues.