Average shot distance (m) across Europe's top 5 league the past 8 years
Pictured in this graph: what xG does to a motherfucker.
I thought this graph was super interesting as it is a near-perfect illustration of when data analytics and advanced statistics started to enter into football (2014-2016) and some of the effects it's had on the game.
The original article didn't have that plotted, but I don't see why it wouldn't follow this line fairly closely.
I'd be more interested to see a graph of the proportion of outside-of-the-box shots scored over the years. Has it gone up, because people are only taking good long distance shots now and fewer random potshots? Or had it gone down because good players mostly know to avoid them and bad players are bad at scoring them?