I'm fairly happy with this as an overarching summary of midfielders' Offensive vs Defensive output. It seems a fairly decent amalgamation of a number of different key metrics, and shows a fairly comprehensive view of players. Top 5 leagues for now.
I have been looking into a very large range of metrics and sources, and these seem near enough the most representative to me based on my observations - that is, the closest I could find without having access to the full range of data and tools professionals have.
I opted for 'Offensive Action VAEP' because I didn't have access to an xThreat value which includes goals (and VAEP gives slightly more weight to goals than xThreat anyway, which makes some sense to me). Conversely, I had some unanswered questions on how defensive VAEP works, while xThreat Prevented felt more intuitive.
Definitions (some can TLDR skip this):
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'Offensive Action VAEP (Valuing Actions by Estimating Probabilities')' - "VAEP from offensive actions (passes, crosses, take-ons, shots, dribbles) - net impact on the team's probability of scoring from actions that progress or finish attacks. Trained with xG-based labels (socceraction framework).
Pretty self-explanatory, but here's a more detailed description:
"VAEP (Valuing Actions by Estimating Probabilities) is a framework for valuing player actions in soccer. It assigns a value to each on-the-ball action in event stream data based on its impact on the game outcome while accounting for the context in which the action happened. Intuitively, an action value reflects the action’s expected influence on the scoreline. That is, an action valued at +0.05 is expected to contribute 0.05 goals in favor of the team performing the action, whereas an action valued at -0.05 is expected to yield 0.05 goals for their opponent."
Explore it more here:
https://dtai.cs.kuleuven.be/sports/vaep/
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'xThreat Prevented (Padj)' measures threat eliminated by defensive actions (tackles, interceptions, clearances, recoveries, shot blocks). Uses an inverted xThreat grid. If possession is recovered, credits the threat removed plus transition value; if not, credits how far the opponent was pushed back. (Padj: adjustment for team possession).
To help give a bit more of an explanation for this: defensive actions in more dangerous situations, i.e. nearer one's goal, get more weight applied to them, so for instance a shot blocked from the 6-yard box is seen as more valuable than one from 25 yards out. On its own, a tackle on the half-way line is worth less than one on the edge of your own box, but if that tackle is in an advantageous situation for a counter-attack it gains additional points for transition value. I like this measure overall, as unlike say just PAdj tackles+interceptions, this seems to give a good weight to defending the penalty box; this seems valuable type of information for United given the loss of Casemiro who is excellent in these areas.
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For those struggling to find E. Anderson, he's at 0.26 on the X-Axis (left on Manzambi). For those struggling to find S. Tonali, he's at 0.2 on the X-Axis (just to the right of Stach).
