Seven rounds of matches played in Serie A 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:

It looks like Juventus have been the most dominant side so far this season, tucked down in the bottom right. They’ve taken the most shots in the division – almost 20 per match – and allowed fewer than anyone except Fiorentina.

While Carpi appear to be holding their own, the other two newly-promoted sides look to be struggling with the step up to Serie A. Bologna have taken the fewest shots by quite some distance while Frosinone have allowed comfortably the most.

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:

Starting at the top, it looks like both Frosinone and Genoa are struggling to convert their chances so far. Each has needed over 20 attempts to find the net on average, which is around double that of the typical Serie A team so far.

The next most profligate side in front of goal is Juventus, who have not been able to turn their dominance into a proportionate amount of goals so far. Napoli and Roma have been much more effective with only slightly fewer shots.

The division’s most clinical team so far has been Sampdoria who have required fewer than six attempts to score each goal on average, although only two sides have carved out fewer opportunities.

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:

At the top of the graphic we find Chievo‘s incredibly resilient defence, which has so far withstood almost 19 shots for each goal they’ve conceded. This is over three times as many as newly-promoted Carpi have been able to soak up for each time their back line has been breached.

Both Frosinone and Sampdoria have managed to repel an impressive proportion of the large numbers of shots that they’ve faced.