ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
Ok – all of Matchday 18 games have been played, so we can look at performance, where we are and where we might get to. I’m looking at actual results and fixtures, and also at statistical performance and forecasts. We dodged a bullet at Leicester – unfortunately self-inflicted – Ty missed a great chance and Coops made 2 big cock-ups. But 3 goals and 3 points in 3 successive games, what the hell! The great things from the last few games have been Jairo and Sydie’s combination, and Japh playing in the position where he is clearly king!
As usual, Graph 1 compares our progress against 3 benchmark sets of results. I've taken each of our 46 matches and created 3 sets of results to achieve 3 points totals, which should approximate to Automatic Promotion, Playoff Certainty and Playoff Possibility. My benchmarks take account of who our opponents are each week.
Graph 1:
Compared to my benchmarks, on 19 points we are now about 11 points behind my Playoff Possible line (and 10 points behind Bristol City currently in 6th place). End-of-season 6th place points, in particular, do vary significantly from year to year though. Our recent improvement has seen us at least closing ground on the target line. However, looking at the current league table below, so far we’ve not managed to do anything at all against top half teams. Saturday against Stoke will be a true sign of how much we have actually progressed.
League Table:
Graph 2 compares this season against some recent Championship seasons. These earlier season results are the results from the same game day – not the same opponents. The comparisons are fairly self-explanatory. My main observation from Graph 2 is that after 18 games Slav had 20 points and finally handed 23 points over to Hecky after 19 games. Hecky then went on to 75 points, 5th place and the playoffs!
Graph 2:
I’m also watching our general XG performance and, until recently, our general performance has certainly been better than our actual results. Our finishing and goalkeeping are where we have fallen down. If we had put in an average performance and scored and conceded the chances that we have created and allowed we would be 6th in the table, rather than 19th. The XTable below, produced from both teams’ XG’s in all fixtures makes interesting reading – Blades and Southampton are massively underachieving in the actual League Table, compared to the XTable from chances created and allowed, whereas Hull and Derby are much higher in the actual table than their overall performance for the XTable would suggest. This tends to even out over the season, as long as the results underperformance doesn’t get in your heads and affect confidence. Fingers crossed that we’ve now crossed that barrier.
FootballXG.com Matchday 18 XTable:
As I mentioned above, the footballxg.com Matchday 18 XGTable shows that we now lie 6th on XG performance (compared to 19th in the actual League Table). The stats suggest that on general performance, only Coventry, Millwall, and perhaps Stoke, can justify their Top 6 places in the actual League Table – so while we are aiming to climb, it would suggest also that others are likely to slip down.
Graph 3 shows our actual goals for and against compared to our XG goals for and against – and clearly our actual goals for and against have both been worse than would be expected from the chances that we have created and allowed. Graph 3 does show, however, that we have recently been achieving goals for and against that are as good or better than would be expected from the chances that we are creating. Although I am a big Michael Cooper fan, we have conceded 6 goals more than would be expected from the chances that we have allowed and Coops clearly needs help. He has personally conceded 6 more goals than an average keeper based on the shots that he has actually had to save – so his personal stats account for all of that 6 goal underperformance. However, the one time that he came off, for the second half at Coventry, Adam Davies conceded 3 in 45 minutes – so we have a big hole to fill next month; an experienced back-up and mentor for Coops.
Graph 3:
So, Stoke at Bramall Lane on Saturday – and form-wise a real test. Stats for both teams are very up and down, so it’s very hard to forecast. Both teams to score 1 or 2 goals, so 1-1 or 2-1 either way appears most likely, but if either team is behind towards full-time they could easily leave themselves open to a 3rd.
I’ll take a 1-1 draw on Saturday, and then another 3-0 v Norwich on Tuesday night !!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
As usual, Graph 1 compares our progress against 3 benchmark sets of results. I've taken each of our 46 matches and created 3 sets of results to achieve 3 points totals, which should approximate to Automatic Promotion, Playoff Certainty and Playoff Possibility. My benchmarks take account of who our opponents are each week.
Graph 1:
Compared to my benchmarks, on 19 points we are now about 11 points behind my Playoff Possible line (and 10 points behind Bristol City currently in 6th place). End-of-season 6th place points, in particular, do vary significantly from year to year though. Our recent improvement has seen us at least closing ground on the target line. However, looking at the current league table below, so far we’ve not managed to do anything at all against top half teams. Saturday against Stoke will be a true sign of how much we have actually progressed.
League Table:
Graph 2 compares this season against some recent Championship seasons. These earlier season results are the results from the same game day – not the same opponents. The comparisons are fairly self-explanatory. My main observation from Graph 2 is that after 18 games Slav had 20 points and finally handed 23 points over to Hecky after 19 games. Hecky then went on to 75 points, 5th place and the playoffs!
Graph 2:
I’m also watching our general XG performance and, until recently, our general performance has certainly been better than our actual results. Our finishing and goalkeeping are where we have fallen down. If we had put in an average performance and scored and conceded the chances that we have created and allowed we would be 6th in the table, rather than 19th. The XTable below, produced from both teams’ XG’s in all fixtures makes interesting reading – Blades and Southampton are massively underachieving in the actual League Table, compared to the XTable from chances created and allowed, whereas Hull and Derby are much higher in the actual table than their overall performance for the XTable would suggest. This tends to even out over the season, as long as the results underperformance doesn’t get in your heads and affect confidence. Fingers crossed that we’ve now crossed that barrier.
FootballXG.com Matchday 18 XTable:
As I mentioned above, the footballxg.com Matchday 18 XGTable shows that we now lie 6th on XG performance (compared to 19th in the actual League Table). The stats suggest that on general performance, only Coventry, Millwall, and perhaps Stoke, can justify their Top 6 places in the actual League Table – so while we are aiming to climb, it would suggest also that others are likely to slip down.
Graph 3 shows our actual goals for and against compared to our XG goals for and against – and clearly our actual goals for and against have both been worse than would be expected from the chances that we have created and allowed. Graph 3 does show, however, that we have recently been achieving goals for and against that are as good or better than would be expected from the chances that we are creating. Although I am a big Michael Cooper fan, we have conceded 6 goals more than would be expected from the chances that we have allowed and Coops clearly needs help. He has personally conceded 6 more goals than an average keeper based on the shots that he has actually had to save – so his personal stats account for all of that 6 goal underperformance. However, the one time that he came off, for the second half at Coventry, Adam Davies conceded 3 in 45 minutes – so we have a big hole to fill next month; an experienced back-up and mentor for Coops.
Graph 3:
So, Stoke at Bramall Lane on Saturday – and form-wise a real test. Stats for both teams are very up and down, so it’s very hard to forecast. Both teams to score 1 or 2 goals, so 1-1 or 2-1 either way appears most likely, but if either team is behind towards full-time they could easily leave themselves open to a 3rd.
I’ll take a 1-1 draw on Saturday, and then another 3-0 v Norwich on Tuesday night !!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
