Has the Gap Grown?
...or do the full-time teams just start the league quicker? Or something else? We've compared this season's first five with last season's and analysed the results.
With some eyebrow raising scorelines to kick off the season conversation has swirled around ‘The Gap’. The perceived distance in skill between the top six sides, especially the top three, and the bottom six. It isn’t a new point of discussion, it was even one of the reasons given for the looming restructure, but has it actually gotten wider? Or, is something else going on? Or, is it a secret third thing that we won’t tell you until the conclusion? (Hint; it’s probably that one).
What are We Talking About?
Before we begin it’s useful to lay down some explanations of what we are actually talking about, especially as this will be a numbers heavy article. ‘The Gap’ is how far apart the teams at the top are from those at the bottom. It’s something that women’s football all over the globe has issues with as some teams invest in growth at a faster rate than others. To measure this we are looking at result, goals scored, and possession over the first five matchdays of this season and last. What we are hoping this will tell us is whether the direction of points has swung in the direction of the top six, and whether the underlying stats show ‘The Gap’ having grown with top sides being more dominant than before: or if there have been some scorelines that don’t really reflect the patterns of play.
For some international context, in the WSL last season we saw five teams concede more than 1.9 goals per game while the top three scored 2.8 per game on average. Barcelona and Real Madrid scored at a rate of 3.5 per game in Liga F with Sporting de Huelva relegated on just nine points over 30 games. The 2023 edition of Damallsvenskan, a league praised for its relative parity, saw Kalmar relegated on just 3 points with no wins all season. Four of the 14 sides scoring more than 2 goals per game. This season, Rosengård haven’t dropped a point with a goal difference of +70 after 17 games while Trelleborg are winless with a GD of -56. We could go on…
So, this isn’t a uniquely Scottish problem, but, it is a Scottish problem.
The Statistics
Opening day this season saw two teams put 11 goals past their opponents, in fact only one game saw a score with three or fewer goals between the teams (a clash between 6th and 5th last season, Partick Thistle 1-2 Hibernian). This created a bit of commotion right off the bat. Turn the clock back to this time last season, however, and the same discourse was very much flowing after Celtic’s 9-0 win over Montrose.
We’ve taken all the fixtures between a top six and bottom six side (as defined by last season’s final table) across the first five matchdays of the two seasons to compare how things have changed. For 2023/24 there were no top six vs bottom six games in matchday five so we have used matchday six instead to keep things neat.
Where did the Points Fall?
Comparing the number of points earned in games between the top six and bottom six only really tells us the results at the final whistle. But, it does give a really quick view of the lay of the land.
Last season the top six won 50 out of 54 available points in the first five matchdays of the season. This season the top six have won 52 out of 54 available points over the first five matchdays. Not a huge difference, with two draws reduced to one.
There is an alternate reality where Aberdeen weren’t denied a win over Partick Thistle by a last gasp Carla Boyce equaliser, Spartans finishing was en pointe against Thistle, and Motherwell had the extra bit of fitness for a huge comeback against Celtic. It’s all ifs and buts, but, it does show how small moments could have swung this from devastating growth of ‘The Gap’ to “everything is fine, it’s getting closer”. Worryingly, however, top six sides were already winning 92.6% of the points available. That is evidence that ‘The Gap’ that existed previous to this season was already cavernous.
Goals
Goals are where the headlines are made, and where the contrast between this season and last is so stark. A 118-6 scoreline this season between the top six and bottom six, a striker with four hattricks in five games, and four teams averaging more than 5 goals against per game is a recipe for conversation to flow surrounding how far apart the level of these teams are.
“We want ten!” chanters were only satisfied on three occasions all of last season, a record that has already been matched in the five gamedays so far. There’s also been 37 more goals scored in the fixtures this season compared to last, which is equal to an extra 2.05 per game on top of an already eye watering 4.5 goals per game.
The bottom six have seen their eight goals from last season (a mere 0.44 per game) drop to six, with four of last season’s top six having conceded two or fewer so far this season (including in games against each other).
When the bottom six have found the net against their top six opponents it has only been to take the lead on one occasion; Aberdeen going 1, and then 2-0, up in their 2-2 draw with Partick Thistle. On three occasions they have made it 2-1, although in two of those they went on to concede heavily afterward.
Possession
Of course, the result and goals scored doesn’t always tell the full story. Or at least losing managers often like to say so… What we are extracting from this is how even the gameplay was. Of course, shot difference or even xG difference would make this analysis more full but possession is nine tenths of the law (and it is the most easily accessible stat, especially as shots don’t tell us how good the chances were and xG isn’t widely available for SWPL games).
Last season the top six averaged 64.35% possession against bottom six sides over the first five games. Only once did a top six side have the ball less than their opposition when Partick Thistle beat Motherwell 1-0 on 48% possession. What is interesting, and backs up the theory that the full time teams start the season faster with the bottom six often building into it, is that the possession difference peaked in matchday two (70% : 30%) and then slowly decreased from there. By matchday six the possession split between top and bottom six was 58.5% : 41.5% (with the caveat that there were only two fixtures between the two in this week).
The possession from last season tells us that the majority of those games were still fairly heavily weighted towards the top six, even though the result and goals aren’t as drastically one sided as this season’s.
This season has seen a small jump with top six sides now averaging 68.35% possession, worryingly for the season as a whole this hasn’t gradually decreased as we would expect while the bottom six grow into the season. In fact, matchday three had the most even split at 58.75% : 41.25% with the two matchdays before that and the one after having a split that saw the top six sides average more than 70% of the ball. Whether that is a larger trend across the remainder of the season is TBC.
Like last season there has only been one fixture in which the bottom six side had more possession, again seeing the top six team victorious despite having less of the ball, a 48% : 52% split in Hearts 6-1 win over Motherwell.
So, Has ‘The Gap’ Grown?
Yes, kind of, well a little bit…
‘The Gap’ was already huge, it was an issue that led to the clubs moving to restructure the league for a fifth time in ten years. Perhaps it had been somewhat forgotten with post-split fixtures taking up more competitive footing leading to it being more of a shock when it returned.
There were some results in last season’s first five that if the games were repeated would likely fall on the side of the top six team (Hibernian’s 28 shots against Dundee United in a 0-0 draw standing out in that regard). The big change is the number of goals that are being put past teams in these occasions this season, and the increase in the one sided-ness especially as Hibernian and Hearts have taken another step forward.
That’s the headline maker, and it represents a massive problem for bottom six managers. With the possession split heavily weighted in favour of the top sides, and getting more uneven, questions need to be asked whether the bottom six are utilising their resources enough to get results in these games. Are they struggling to motivate their players to compete against full time teams? Is there a hoodoo that needs to be broken? Do their tactics need to be altered? We know it’s possible for teams that aren’t full time to challenge the status quo from Partick Thistle’s rise to top six status, yet so far no other team has managed this consistently.
Of course, there is context for the resource gap, Scottish football has so much less financial power than across the border in England, or overseas in Sweden. Clubs like Dundee United may be big clubs in the men’s game (especially historically as the men’s leagues have their own problems with parity) but often they are debating over spending hundreds of thousands of pounds as game-changing amounts of money. Amounts that in modern men’s football represent very small sums that elsewhere teams can afford to divert to growing the women’s game.
That leads us to the reason all this is important… the great overwhelming pressure on women’s football to be perfect to be afforded resource to grow. It’s not the world we want to live in, but, the reality is that women’s football in Scotland still needs to prove itself to many that it “deserves” coverage and attention. With these high scorelines has come a rise in comments on social media for clubs to defund their women’s team. A malaise spreading amongst fans of the equivalent men’s clubs that creates a barrier to them ever becoming fans of the women’s team. An image created that the league isn’t ‘serious’ enough to deserve support.
The upcoming restructure should help to alleviate this (if only by reducing the bottom six to a bottom four). But, there is more work to be done or the pattern is going to continue with resources stretched thin across many clubs.
Is There a Solution?
No, sort of, well maybe…
If we look over to the NWSL we can see an example of players working together through their union to further the growth of the game. Pushing for better contracts, working conditions, etc… for all teams. This is a culture that would be greatly beneficial for the SWPL to adopt. A collective power that ensures that bare minimum standards are met, and clubs refusing to meet these are left behind (although the US can keep the whole franchise, no relegation, malarkey).
Scottish football doesn’t really have the infrastructure to involve that kind of collective bargaining, for a start all the contracts belong to each club rather than the American scenario of being centralised. The PFA do currently do a lot of that work but don’t have the power to create real structural change. The SWPL do.
Through making smart choices with broadcasters allowing all teams to be showcased, more equal distribution of funds throughout the league, the creation of central funds to pay for base necessities such as ambulance cover, or even kits, the SWPL could act as more of a collective to bring growth. The stumbling block being it would require clubs to cooperate, helping their rivals improve to the point of potentially threatening their own league positions. But, is it not more satisfying to beat a team that puts up a fight? To create memories of not having everything your own way but coming out on top despite the challenge? Is that not what sport is about?
‘The Gap’ will always exist in competitive sport where some teams have more resources than others, it even exists in leagues like the NWSL where parity is at the foundation of its structure. Someone will always find an advantage over others, life isn’t fair. But, ‘The Gap’ in Scotland is currently very wide and getting wider. We need to work together to reduce that or we’ll be shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to future growth.