ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
This is my review of Blades XG performance and general Championship XG stats. The purpose of this is simply to assess how teams are performing relative to their XG data.
On Sunday December 22nd we beat Cardiff 2-0 at Cardiff City Stadium.
The XG data for the game was Cardiff 0.3 – Blades 0.9
– clearly a game of few chances, and the 2-0 win was a tribute to Big Kieff’s quality.
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 22 games so far. XG says that over those 22 games we should have scored 29.1 and conceded 20.5 and we have actually scored 32 and conceded 11. So, we are performing above our XG in scoring and much better than average against our XGA in defence for the chances that we are creating and allowing.
Our XG goal difference of 8.6 is significantly less than our actual goal difference of 21. That difference is due to conceding over 9 less goals than XGA which has gained us at least 9 extra points, without which we would be in about 5th place in the League Table. Putting that into context with other teams, we have the 8th best XG total and the 4th best XGA total.
The fact that we have a good XGA, and yet we are significantly outperforming even that, is the major reason for our current league position.
Graph 1:
Chart 1 is the XTable - based on both team’s XG’s in matches played – alongside the actual League Table. Blades are 4th in the XTable and 1st in the actual League table, so our actual results are better than our XG stats would imply. This outperformance is actually even greater, because the XTable does not apply the 2-point deduction. If the deduction were applied we would be 5th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 11 goals against an XGA of 20.5.
It is interesting that, as the season progresses, the XTable becomes increasingly similar to the actual table – which it should do, as the statistical sample is getting larger. There are now only 5 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 4 different from the actual table. Blackburn are the biggest overperformers here – being 5th in the actual table but now 20th in the XTable. Coventry are the exact opposite, being 17th in the actual table but 3rd in the XTable. This reflects the fact that Blackburn have conceded 10.2 less goals than their XGA and Coventry have conceded 11 more goals than their XGA.
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 suggest a playoff position. As mentioned, we are 8th best in XG, but we are 4th best in XGA, behind only Leeds, Burnley and Millwall. Our average XGA of 0.93 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are significantly outperforming even that by delivering an actual average of 0.5 goals against per game. It is the outperformance of our XGA which leads to our outperforming our XG league position.
Our next game is against Burnley at Bramall Lane on Boxing Day. They have scored 13 goals in their 11 away games with an XG of 14.7 and conceded 5 with an XGA of 10.3. Blades have scored 16 in 10 home games with an XG of 15.3 and conceded 2 with an XGA of 7.7.
So the stats would probably suggest a 0-0 game, with 1-1 and 1-0 Blades win as the next 2 most likely results.
So let’s hope we can crack that Burnley defensive wall and maintain GoalCooper’s perfect home record.!
For those interested, I’ve put the full footballxg.xom table at the bottom of the post.
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table:-
On Sunday December 22nd we beat Cardiff 2-0 at Cardiff City Stadium.
The XG data for the game was Cardiff 0.3 – Blades 0.9
– clearly a game of few chances, and the 2-0 win was a tribute to Big Kieff’s quality.
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 22 games so far. XG says that over those 22 games we should have scored 29.1 and conceded 20.5 and we have actually scored 32 and conceded 11. So, we are performing above our XG in scoring and much better than average against our XGA in defence for the chances that we are creating and allowing.
Our XG goal difference of 8.6 is significantly less than our actual goal difference of 21. That difference is due to conceding over 9 less goals than XGA which has gained us at least 9 extra points, without which we would be in about 5th place in the League Table. Putting that into context with other teams, we have the 8th best XG total and the 4th best XGA total.
The fact that we have a good XGA, and yet we are significantly outperforming even that, is the major reason for our current league position.
Graph 1:
Chart 1 is the XTable - based on both team’s XG’s in matches played – alongside the actual League Table. Blades are 4th in the XTable and 1st in the actual League table, so our actual results are better than our XG stats would imply. This outperformance is actually even greater, because the XTable does not apply the 2-point deduction. If the deduction were applied we would be 5th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 11 goals against an XGA of 20.5.
It is interesting that, as the season progresses, the XTable becomes increasingly similar to the actual table – which it should do, as the statistical sample is getting larger. There are now only 5 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 4 different from the actual table. Blackburn are the biggest overperformers here – being 5th in the actual table but now 20th in the XTable. Coventry are the exact opposite, being 17th in the actual table but 3rd in the XTable. This reflects the fact that Blackburn have conceded 10.2 less goals than their XGA and Coventry have conceded 11 more goals than their XGA.
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 suggest a playoff position. As mentioned, we are 8th best in XG, but we are 4th best in XGA, behind only Leeds, Burnley and Millwall. Our average XGA of 0.93 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are significantly outperforming even that by delivering an actual average of 0.5 goals against per game. It is the outperformance of our XGA which leads to our outperforming our XG league position.
Our next game is against Burnley at Bramall Lane on Boxing Day. They have scored 13 goals in their 11 away games with an XG of 14.7 and conceded 5 with an XGA of 10.3. Blades have scored 16 in 10 home games with an XG of 15.3 and conceded 2 with an XGA of 7.7.
So the stats would probably suggest a 0-0 game, with 1-1 and 1-0 Blades win as the next 2 most likely results.
So let’s hope we can crack that Burnley defensive wall and maintain GoalCooper’s perfect home record.!
For those interested, I’ve put the full footballxg.xom table at the bottom of the post.
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table:-
