ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
Just got all the up-to-date Championship XG data for the weekend 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 Saturday 8th February we beat Portsmouth 2-1 at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 1 – Pompey 2.9
So the stats back up what we saw with the naked eye – a realistic result would have been more like 3-1 to Pompey!
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 31 games so far. XG says that over those 31 games we should have scored 40.8 and conceded 31.9 and we have actually scored 43 and conceded 22. So, we are still performing slightly 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 8.9 is less than half of our actual goal difference of 21. 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 about 5 of the 10 extra goals that XGA says that we should have conceded. The top 2 keepers are Stoke’s Johansson with 11 prevented and Burnley’s Trafford with 9). Putting us into context with other teams, we now have the 10th best XG total and the 5th 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 18th in XG and 2nd in XGA - not surprising really with 17 of their 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 22 goals against an XGA of 31.9.
There are now only 5 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 5 different from the actual table. Watford are the biggest overperformers here – being 10th in the actual table but 18th in the XTable. Luton, Derby and Coventry are all 8 places below where their performance would expect.
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 10th best in XG, but we are 5th best in XGA. Our average XGA of 1.03 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are outperforming that by delivering an actual average of 0.71 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 Boro at Bramall Lane..
Boro have scored 25 goals in their 14 away games with an XG of 21.3 and conceded 21 with an XGA of 14.5. Blades have scored 21 in 15 home games with an XG of 21.3 and conceded 9 with an XGA of 14.
Boro seem to score and concede freely away from home, so the stats would probably suggest 2-2, with 2-1 Blades being the next most likely result.
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table: -
So, on Saturday 8th February we beat Portsmouth 2-1 at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 1 – Pompey 2.9
So the stats back up what we saw with the naked eye – a realistic result would have been more like 3-1 to Pompey!
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 31 games so far. XG says that over those 31 games we should have scored 40.8 and conceded 31.9 and we have actually scored 43 and conceded 22. So, we are still performing slightly 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 8.9 is less than half of our actual goal difference of 21. 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 about 5 of the 10 extra goals that XGA says that we should have conceded. The top 2 keepers are Stoke’s Johansson with 11 prevented and Burnley’s Trafford with 9). Putting us into context with other teams, we now have the 10th best XG total and the 5th 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 18th in XG and 2nd in XGA - not surprising really with 17 of their 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 22 goals against an XGA of 31.9.
There are now only 5 teams whose places in the XTable are more than 5 different from the actual table. Watford are the biggest overperformers here – being 10th in the actual table but 18th in the XTable. Luton, Derby and Coventry are all 8 places below where their performance would expect.
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 10th best in XG, but we are 5th best in XGA. Our average XGA of 1.03 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are outperforming that by delivering an actual average of 0.71 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 Boro at Bramall Lane..
Boro have scored 25 goals in their 14 away games with an XG of 21.3 and conceded 21 with an XGA of 14.5. Blades have scored 21 in 15 home games with an XG of 21.3 and conceded 9 with an XGA of 14.
Boro seem to score and concede freely away from home, so the stats would probably suggest 2-2, with 2-1 Blades being the next most likely result.
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table: -
