ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
Just got all the up-to-date Championship XG data. 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 Friday 24th January we lost to Hull 0-3 at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 1.1 – Hull 0.6
SO THE RESULT WAS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THE STATS
Hull scored a worldy and an og, so our defensive performance wasn’t that bad – it was just one of those days – unfortunately, going forwards we were pretty impotent.
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 29 games so far. XG says that over those 29 games we should have scored 39.1 and conceded 28 and we have actually scored 40 and conceded 21. So, we are performing slightly above our XG in scoring and better than average against our XGA in defence for the chances that we are creating and allowing.
Our XG goal difference of 11.1 is much less than our actual goal difference of 19. That difference is mostly due to conceding 7 less goals than XGA, which has gained us at least 7 extra points, without which we would be in 4th place in the actual League Table. (Goal Cooper is directly responsible for saving about 5 of the 7 extra goals that XGA says that we should have conceded). Putting that into context with other teams, we have the 6th best XG total and the 3rd best XGA total.
The fact that we have a good XGA, and we are still significantly outperforming even that (despite the Hull result!) is the major reason for our current league position. (Burnley are even more extreme, being 19th in XG and 2nd in XGA. After that borefest against Weeds that doesn’t surprise me at all!).
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 still be 5th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 21 goals against an XGA of 28.
There are now 7 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 6 different from the actual table. Blackburn are the biggest overperformers here – being 7th 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 10.5 less goals than their XGA and Luton have scored 9 goals less than their XG. (Our noisy 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 6th 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 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 away at Derby.
Derby have scored 19 goals in their 14 home games with an XG of 21.4 and conceded 14 with an XGA of 16.5. Blades have scored 21 in 15 away games with an XG of 18.5 and conceded 13 with an XGA of 16.9.
Derby’s stats are better than their league position would suggest – so the stats would probably suggest 1-1, with 2-1 either way being equally the next most likely results.
After the Hull result we could do with ramming home a victory tomorrow to kick off the rest of the season with our new recruits!
Full Footballxg.com Table: -
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
So, on Friday 24th January we lost to Hull 0-3 at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 1.1 – Hull 0.6
SO THE RESULT WAS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THE STATS
Hull scored a worldy and an og, so our defensive performance wasn’t that bad – it was just one of those days – unfortunately, going forwards we were pretty impotent.
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 29 games so far. XG says that over those 29 games we should have scored 39.1 and conceded 28 and we have actually scored 40 and conceded 21. So, we are performing slightly above our XG in scoring and better than average against our XGA in defence for the chances that we are creating and allowing.
Our XG goal difference of 11.1 is much less than our actual goal difference of 19. That difference is mostly due to conceding 7 less goals than XGA, which has gained us at least 7 extra points, without which we would be in 4th place in the actual League Table. (Goal Cooper is directly responsible for saving about 5 of the 7 extra goals that XGA says that we should have conceded). Putting that into context with other teams, we have the 6th best XG total and the 3rd best XGA total.
The fact that we have a good XGA, and we are still significantly outperforming even that (despite the Hull result!) is the major reason for our current league position. (Burnley are even more extreme, being 19th in XG and 2nd in XGA. After that borefest against Weeds that doesn’t surprise me at all!).
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 still be 5th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 21 goals against an XGA of 28.
There are now 7 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 6 different from the actual table. Blackburn are the biggest overperformers here – being 7th 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 10.5 less goals than their XGA and Luton have scored 9 goals less than their XG. (Our noisy 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 6th 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 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 away at Derby.
Derby have scored 19 goals in their 14 home games with an XG of 21.4 and conceded 14 with an XGA of 16.5. Blades have scored 21 in 15 away games with an XG of 18.5 and conceded 13 with an XGA of 16.9.
Derby’s stats are better than their league position would suggest – so the stats would probably suggest 1-1, with 2-1 either way being equally the next most likely results.
After the Hull result we could do with ramming home a victory tomorrow to kick off the rest of the season with our new recruits!
Full Footballxg.com Table: -
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
