Good old xG

[Shabby Russian]

We've let in 13 goals in that period but have an xG against of under 7. Suggests opposition finishing has been far better than average and/or our goalkeeping has been bad.

Isn’t that blatantly obvious though? The opposition have been scoring decent goals, we have been missing similar if not easier and more chances and we all know our goalkeepers are struggling.

It is blatantly obvious and one way of expressing that data into a workable expression is to show it in a simple formula.  It’s called xG.

It’s clearly a good data tool as we all know we’ve been missing decent chances and chucking them in the other end.  This simply puts a number to that so you can compare to other teams and past/future performances.

You’re shouting at a cloud Dekka.

This is correct CA.

Xg is not a measure of who deserves to win a football match, it is a measure of who dealt better with the opportunities and threats that occur in football matches. And our xg stats show we are not particularly good at dealing with either. And in turn that is a reason why we get so many negative results in close football matches.

It is January and we have played only 3 games in which the difference between the two teams was was more than one goal. And yet we more often than not lose these close games, suggests to me that in the moments that matter in these matches we play inadequate  football, be it  missing chances or making defensive errors.

You can blame the coaching, the formation, whatever you want, but sometimes it comes down to not being good enough when it matters.

I recently looked up the xg stats for the season, if football was decided by xg we would be in the top 6, but it's not. It's decided by players  taking chances other players don't,  or defensive mistakes other players don't.