Eight matches played in the Bundesliga is just about enough to justify cranking the shot data through my scatter graphics to compare how each club is doing. These are explained here if you haven’t seen them before and here are last season’s for reference.

Shot dominance

First of all, here is how the number of shots taken by each club compares with those they face in return. The average number of shots taken per match is on the horizontal and the average number faced is on the vertical, so bottom right (take plenty, allow few in return) is good while top left (take few, allow plenty) is bad:

Unsurprisingly we find Bayern in the bottom right “dominant” corner of the graphic, albeit there are three sides – Dortmund, Leverkusen and Stuttgart – who have bossed matches to a similar extent. The latter is interesting because Stuttgart are currently bottom of the division – the other two graphics will shed some light on how this has happened.

Newcomers Darmstadt have struggled to create chances so far, firing in fewer than eight per match on average and allowing almost twice as many in return.

Schalke and Augsburg matches have been pretty entertaining for the neutral, with plenty of shots at both ends of the pitch.

Attacking effectiveness

Now let’s look at attacking alone. The horizontal axis stays the same as in the graphic above, but now the vertical shows the average number of shots needed to score each league goal. Therefore bottom right is good (taking lots of shots and needing fewer efforts to convert) and top left is bad:

Here we can see one of Stuttgart‘s problems: despite taking almost as many shots as Bayern they have been pretty wasteful so far.

However there are three sides who have been even more profligate, chief amongst them Werder Bremen who have needed an average of over 16 attempts to find the net.

While we saw above that Darmstadt have struggled to get shots away, they have been clinical with the chances they have created: only the current top two have needed fewer attempts to score each goal on average.

Defensive effectiveness

Finally let’s look at the defensive situation – basically take the above chart and replace the word “taken” for “faced” on both axes. Now top left is good – facing fewer shots and able to soak up more per goal conceded – and bottom right is bad:

Again we see a problem for Stuttgart, who have only been able to withstand four shots on average for each goal they’ve conceded: less than half the average.

Dortmund have also struggled to keep shots out: despite allowing a similarly low number to Bayern they have conceded from one in every five efforts they face, which is almost three times lower than the leaders.

Interestingly Ingolstadt are at the top of both this graph and the last one: despite taking and allowing an average number of shots, both they and their opponents have found it very difficult to convert chances.