Ok, it’s time for another Allsvenskan update. With 5 rounds having been played since last time we should be able to see some changes.

Looking at the table we see how Djurgården, Örebro and Sundsvall all have dropped a few places while Östersund and Häcken are the big winners. As a result of Djurgården’s poor performance, Pelle Olsson has been sacked and replaced by Mark Dempsey.

As I noted last time, the league seems to have settled when it comes to shots. Indeed, no team has changed quadrant since the last update.

Looking at attacking effectiveness we see how Gefle have become more clinical in front of goal while Djurgården have become more ineffective, partly explaining their struggles.

Only Elfsborg have changed defensive quadrant since last time, dropping from ‘competent but busy’ to ‘pushovers’. Hammarby and Sundsvall have also dropped a bit while Malmö have improved their defence.

Malmö and Norrköping are still at the top of the xG-table, but the big surprise is Östersund’s rise to third place – mostly due to an improvement in their attacking output. Despite their recent struggles, Djurgården still sits in sixth place. Helsingborg have climbed up to 13th, leaving Gefle at the bottom.

Looking at Expected Points, we can see just how bad Djurgården have performed recently. They are ranked sixth by xPoints but sit at the bottom of the xPoints Performance table, about 9 points below expectation. In my simulations, they reached at least their current total of 18 points about 98% of the time – indicating a massive underperformance.

My game simulation model still consider Malmö heavy favourites for the title. I certainly agree but 93% is much too high considering they’re only 1 point ahead of Norrköping at the moment.

Djurgården managerial change, and Opta data

As a Djurgården supporter I’ve welcomed Pelle Olsson’s sacking, as DIF have been very poor under him this season. Shot dominance has decreased since last season, but more importantly, the actual goal difference and Expected Goals Difference have plummeted. The club’s situation look alarmingly similar to when Per-Mathias Høgmo came in to save us from relegation in 2013. Hopefully Høgmo’s former assistant coach can repeat that feat this autumn.

More news is that Opta data is now available for Allsvenskan. I probably won’t have time to dig too deep into it at the moment, but I’ve written a script for plotting passing networks, heavily influenced by 11tegen11 and David Sumpter.

Using these plots, we can compare Pelle Olsson’s last game using a 4-4-2 formation (Opta has it down as a weird 4-2-2-2 though) against Dempsey’s first game in charge where he used the same formation.

Sure, it’s only one game – but we can see some distinct differences here as Dempsey used a midfield diamond with Kevin Walker pushing up while Alexander Faltsetas dropped down deeper. Olsson has always favoured two holding central midfielders. Also, Dempsey has gone for a more straight forward approach to attacking, with more direct passes up towards the strikers, while Olsson used more crossing.