ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
Just got all the up-to-date Championship XG data for the midweek results. This is my review of Blades XG performance and general Championship XG stats. The purpose of this is to assess how teams are performing relative to their XG data, as that gives a good indication of their strengths and weaknesses.
So, on Wednesday 12th February we beat Middlesbrough 3-1 at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 2.4 – Boro 1.3
So the stats again were a decent reflection of what we saw on the pitch. Boro were basically very poor up front when you think that 0.8 of their XG was from a penalty that shouldn’t have been given.
Graph 1 shows a comparison of the progress of our actual goals for and against with our XG expected goals for and against over our 32 games so far. XG says that over those 32 games we should have scored 43.2 and conceded 33.2 and we have actually scored 46 and conceded 23. So, we are still performing above our XG in scoring but much better than average against our XGA in defence for the chances that we are creating and allowing.
Our XG goal difference of 10 is less than half of our actual goal difference of 23. That difference is mostly due to conceding about 10 less goals than XGA, which has probably gained us about 10 extra points, without which we would be in 4th place in the actual League Table. Goal Cooper is directly responsible for saving more than half of the 10 extra goals that XGA says that we should have conceded. Putting us into context with other teams, we now have the 7th best XG total and the 4th best XGA total.
The fact that we have a good XGA, and we are still significantly outperforming even that is the major reason for our current league position. (Burnley are even more extreme - amazingly being 16th in XG and 2nd in XGA - not really surprising with now 18 of their 32 games producing 1 goal or less!)
Graph 1:
Chart 1 is the XTable - based on both team’s XG’s in matches played – alongside the actual League Table. Blades are 5th in the XTable and 2nd in the actual League table, so our actual results are better than our XG stats would imply. Although the XTable does not apply the 2-point deduction, if the deduction were applied, we would be 7th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 23 goals against an XGA of 33.2.
There are 6 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 5 different from the actual table. Watford are the biggest overperformers here – being 12th in the actual table but 20th in the XTable. Derby, on the other hand are 9 places below where their performance would expect (no need to tell us that!). Luton may be bottom in the actual table, but their stats put them 8 places above that - so another banana skin to beware!
Chart 1:
So, overall, the stats show that our actual results are better than our XG performance. Our actual results represent a likely automatics position and our XG data now suggest just outside a playoff position (when you include the deduction). As mentioned, we are 7th best in XG, but we are 4th best in XGA, behind Leeds, Burnley and Boro. Our average XGA of 1.04 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are outperforming that by delivering an actual average of 0.72 goals against per game. It is the outperformance of our XGA which leads to our outperforming our XG league position.
For those interested, I’ve put the full footballxg.com table at the bottom of the post. Our only non-green stat in the table is still our XG and, as mentioned above, that is even more extreme for Burnley. .
Our next game tomorrow is Luton at Kenilworth Road.
Luton have scored 18 goals in their 15 home games with an XG of 22.9 and conceded 17 with an XGA of 17.6. Blades have scored 22 in 16 away games with an XG of 19.2 and conceded 13 with an XGA of 17.9.
So the stats would probably suggest 2-1 Blades, with 1-1 being the next most likely result.
Let's make those Hatters mad!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table: -
So, on Wednesday 12th February we beat Middlesbrough 3-1 at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 2.4 – Boro 1.3
So the stats again were a decent reflection of what we saw on the pitch. Boro were basically very poor up front when you think that 0.8 of their XG was from a penalty that shouldn’t have been given.
Graph 1 shows a comparison of the progress of our actual goals for and against with our XG expected goals for and against over our 32 games so far. XG says that over those 32 games we should have scored 43.2 and conceded 33.2 and we have actually scored 46 and conceded 23. So, we are still performing above our XG in scoring but much better than average against our XGA in defence for the chances that we are creating and allowing.
Our XG goal difference of 10 is less than half of our actual goal difference of 23. That difference is mostly due to conceding about 10 less goals than XGA, which has probably gained us about 10 extra points, without which we would be in 4th place in the actual League Table. Goal Cooper is directly responsible for saving more than half of the 10 extra goals that XGA says that we should have conceded. Putting us into context with other teams, we now have the 7th best XG total and the 4th best XGA total.
The fact that we have a good XGA, and we are still significantly outperforming even that is the major reason for our current league position. (Burnley are even more extreme - amazingly being 16th in XG and 2nd in XGA - not really surprising with now 18 of their 32 games producing 1 goal or less!)
Graph 1:
Chart 1 is the XTable - based on both team’s XG’s in matches played – alongside the actual League Table. Blades are 5th in the XTable and 2nd in the actual League table, so our actual results are better than our XG stats would imply. Although the XTable does not apply the 2-point deduction, if the deduction were applied, we would be 7th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 23 goals against an XGA of 33.2.
There are 6 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 5 different from the actual table. Watford are the biggest overperformers here – being 12th in the actual table but 20th in the XTable. Derby, on the other hand are 9 places below where their performance would expect (no need to tell us that!). Luton may be bottom in the actual table, but their stats put them 8 places above that - so another banana skin to beware!
Chart 1:
So, overall, the stats show that our actual results are better than our XG performance. Our actual results represent a likely automatics position and our XG data now suggest just outside a playoff position (when you include the deduction). As mentioned, we are 7th best in XG, but we are 4th best in XGA, behind Leeds, Burnley and Boro. Our average XGA of 1.04 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are outperforming that by delivering an actual average of 0.72 goals against per game. It is the outperformance of our XGA which leads to our outperforming our XG league position.
For those interested, I’ve put the full footballxg.com table at the bottom of the post. Our only non-green stat in the table is still our XG and, as mentioned above, that is even more extreme for Burnley. .
Our next game tomorrow is Luton at Kenilworth Road.
Luton have scored 18 goals in their 15 home games with an XG of 22.9 and conceded 17 with an XGA of 17.6. Blades have scored 22 in 16 away games with an XG of 19.2 and conceded 13 with an XGA of 17.9.
So the stats would probably suggest 2-1 Blades, with 1-1 being the next most likely result.
Let's make those Hatters mad!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table: -
