Melbourne Victory Women: 2021 vs 2022 – Data Analysis

This article provides a comprehensive comparison of Melbourne Victory Women’s attacking play in the A-League Women’s season 2021-22 and 2022-23. The use of metrics and graphs will help illustrate the differences between the two seasons.

Melbourne Victory finished 4th in the regular season on the ladder in both the seasons. I have outlined 9 different metrics to compare the attacking play of the team in both seasons-

1. Goals per 90
2. xG per 90
3. Shots per 90
4. Crosses per 90
5. Key Passes per 90
6. Passes to final third per 90
7. Touches in penalty area per 90
8. Forward passes per 90
9. Number of passes 90

In the 2021/22 season, the team scored 1.9 goals per 90 whereas in 2022/23, they scored 1.6 goals per 90. The 1.9 goals per 90 in 2021/22 were scored at an xG of 1.5 per 90, which shows that they outperformed their xG. However in 2022/23 the xG was 1.8 per 90 which is higher than the previous season but they underperformed their xG & could only score 1.6 goals per 90.

Better qualities of chances were created in front of the goal in 2022/23 The team recorded 8 draws out of their 18 matches. Those draws could have converted into wins given that if they performed better in front of the goal when presented with the chances.

Lets dive deeper into how the chances were created in season 2022/23

Melbourne Victory women is known to play a mix of possession & direct style of play. Most of the times they looked to penetrate the final third by –

1. Find wingers 1 v 1 in the outside channels to deliver crosses into the box
2. The attacking midfielder making a forward run from deep getting in between opposition defensive line
3. The striker holds up the play to combine with the “10s” or gets in behind to receive a through/long pass

If we look at the numbers now, we can see that there was a massive increase in the number of crosses in the 2022/23 season. It went from being 13.5 per 90 to 16.7 per 90 which resulted in the team attempting more shots on goal (from 12.1 per 90 to 12.8 per 90).

Melbourne Victory had 52.17% possession on an average in the 2021/22 season which went down to 50.6% in the last season but if we compare the numbers of passes per game, it actually increased from 421.7 per 90 to 427.3 per 90. It showed that the team looked to move the ball a lot more than just holding it.

One major principle in possession that I noticed of the team was that they liked to circulate play side to side & always tried to find the right moment to progress the ball further up the field. Therefore, you can see in the above graph that there was a slight increase in the number of forward passes – from 159.8 per 90 in 2021/22 to 161.4 per 90.in 2022/23.

The numbers definitely show that there was a much more positive intent in their attacking play in 2022/23. They were a team that looked to always play through the lines but again which can mean nothing because it also depends on how the opposition sets up against them.

In my opinion, while in possession, the presence of Kayla Morrison & Alex Chidiac made up the spine of the team because of their ability to break lines by driving forward & playing the passes through the lines. As a result, we saw an increase in the number of passes into final third which went up from 51.4 per 90 to 54.7 per 90.

The number of key passes per 90 increased from 2.4 per 90 in 2021/22 to 2.9 per 90 in 2022/23. This was due to the presence of Beattie Goad who averaged 1.38 key passes per 90 & Alana Murphy – 1.42 key passes per 90. The team heavily relied on their vision & an eye for a killer pass when Alex Chidiac left after playing just 13 matches to go back to Racing Louisville in the NWSL.

In 2022/23 the team looked to get more players into the box (averaging 3 to 5) whenever they entered the final 3rd & having Melina Ayres available for about 14 games this season saw the number of touches in penalty area go up from 13.3 per 90 in 2021/22 to 17.2 per 90 in 2022/23. Her timing of runs to arrive into the box & hold-up play to bring other teammates into play was exceptional & made her the focal point of the team. She finished as the 2nd top scorer in the league just 2 goals behind Hannah Keane of Western United. Imagine if she were there for the 6 matches she missed out?

Conclusion

It will be really exciting to see how the team does in the 2023/24 season after signing the likes of Kurea Okino, Emily Gielnik & McKenzie Weinert to add more firepower to the final third