ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
Just got all the Championship XG data for the weekend and I won’t get any more before our game on Friday, so I’m including forecasts for both Swansea (tonight) and Hull (Friday). 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 Saturday 18th January we beat Norwich 2-0 at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 2.1 – Norwich 0.5, so it pretty much matched the actual score.
Our goals (both from Burrows) were from distance and a penalty. When, hopefully, BBD and Cannon are starting and Campbell gets game time our XG will rise, as they are all more trigger happy than we have been lately.
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 27 games so far. XG says that over those 27 games we should have scored 36 and conceded 26.1 and we have actually scored 38 and conceded 17. So, we are performing slightly 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 9.9 is significantly less than our actual goal difference of 21. That difference is mostly due to conceding 9 less goals than XGA, which has gained us at least 9 extra points, without which we would be in 4th place in the actual League Table. (Goal Cooper is directly responsible for saving 5 of the 9 extra goals that XGA says that we should have conceded). Putting that into context with other teams, we have the 9th best XG total and the 3rd best XGA total.
The fact that we have a good XGA, and we are significantly outperforming even that, is the major reason for our current league position. (Burnley are even more extreme, being 18th in XG and 2nd in XGA).
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. This outperformance is actually even greater, because the XTable does not apply the 2-point deduction. If the deduction were applied, we would be 6th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 17 goals against an XGA of 26.1.
The XTable is become increasingly similar to the actual table. There are now only 6 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 6 different from the actual table. Blackburn are the biggest overperformers here – being 5th in the actual table but 17th in the XTable. Luton are the exact opposite, being 23rd in the actual table but 11th in the XTable. This reflects the fact that Blackburn have conceded 11 less goals than their XGA and Luton have scored 9 goals less than their XG and conceded 7 more goals than their XGA. (Note that our dear neighbours are just below Blackburn in being undeserved of their current league position!)
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 only 9th best in XG, but we are 3rd best in XGA, behind only Leeds and Burnley. Our average XGA of 0.97 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are significantly outperforming that by delivering an actual average of 0.63 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 our XG and, as mentioned above, that is even more extreme for Burnley. Hopefully, our new strikers BBD, TC3 and the returning from injury TC2 will pull the trigger more often and increase our XG, as we frequently seem to try and fail to score the perfect goal.
Our next games are away at Swansea tonight and at home to Hull on Friday night. I won’t get any more XG stats before Friday, so I’ll make both XG-based forecasts here.
Swansea have scored 20 goals in their 13 home games with an XG of 22.8 and conceded 14 with an XGA of 13.4. Blades have scored 19 in 14 away games with an XG of 16.5 and conceded 12 with an XGA of 15.6.
So, the stats would probably suggest 1-1, with 2-1 Blades and then 2-1 Swansea as the next 2 most likely results.
Hull have scored 12 goals in their 13 away games with an XG of 14.8 and conceded 18 with an XGA of 22.4. Blades have scored 19 in 13 home games with an XG of 19.5 and conceded 5 with an XGA of 10.5.
So, the stats would probably suggest 2-1 Blades, with 1-0 Blades and then 1-1 as the next 2 most likely results.
Let’s go and take some Liberty tonight!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table: -
So, on Saturday 18th January we beat Norwich 2-0 at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 2.1 – Norwich 0.5, so it pretty much matched the actual score.
Our goals (both from Burrows) were from distance and a penalty. When, hopefully, BBD and Cannon are starting and Campbell gets game time our XG will rise, as they are all more trigger happy than we have been lately.
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 27 games so far. XG says that over those 27 games we should have scored 36 and conceded 26.1 and we have actually scored 38 and conceded 17. So, we are performing slightly 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 9.9 is significantly less than our actual goal difference of 21. That difference is mostly due to conceding 9 less goals than XGA, which has gained us at least 9 extra points, without which we would be in 4th place in the actual League Table. (Goal Cooper is directly responsible for saving 5 of the 9 extra goals that XGA says that we should have conceded). Putting that into context with other teams, we have the 9th best XG total and the 3rd best XGA total.
The fact that we have a good XGA, and we are significantly outperforming even that, is the major reason for our current league position. (Burnley are even more extreme, being 18th in XG and 2nd in XGA).
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. This outperformance is actually even greater, because the XTable does not apply the 2-point deduction. If the deduction were applied, we would be 6th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 17 goals against an XGA of 26.1.
The XTable is become increasingly similar to the actual table. There are now only 6 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 6 different from the actual table. Blackburn are the biggest overperformers here – being 5th in the actual table but 17th in the XTable. Luton are the exact opposite, being 23rd in the actual table but 11th in the XTable. This reflects the fact that Blackburn have conceded 11 less goals than their XGA and Luton have scored 9 goals less than their XG and conceded 7 more goals than their XGA. (Note that our dear neighbours are just below Blackburn in being undeserved of their current league position!)
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 only 9th best in XG, but we are 3rd best in XGA, behind only Leeds and Burnley. Our average XGA of 0.97 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are significantly outperforming that by delivering an actual average of 0.63 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 our XG and, as mentioned above, that is even more extreme for Burnley. Hopefully, our new strikers BBD, TC3 and the returning from injury TC2 will pull the trigger more often and increase our XG, as we frequently seem to try and fail to score the perfect goal.
Our next games are away at Swansea tonight and at home to Hull on Friday night. I won’t get any more XG stats before Friday, so I’ll make both XG-based forecasts here.
Swansea have scored 20 goals in their 13 home games with an XG of 22.8 and conceded 14 with an XGA of 13.4. Blades have scored 19 in 14 away games with an XG of 16.5 and conceded 12 with an XGA of 15.6.
So, the stats would probably suggest 1-1, with 2-1 Blades and then 2-1 Swansea as the next 2 most likely results.
Hull have scored 12 goals in their 13 away games with an XG of 14.8 and conceded 18 with an XGA of 22.4. Blades have scored 19 in 13 home games with an XG of 19.5 and conceded 5 with an XGA of 10.5.
So, the stats would probably suggest 2-1 Blades, with 1-0 Blades and then 1-1 as the next 2 most likely results.
Let’s go and take some Liberty tonight!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table: -
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