ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
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.
On Sunday December 29th we drew 1-1 with West Brom at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 1.6 West Brom 0.8.
– a game we could have won in which we scored a quality goal and the West Brom goal came after a lucky rebound to Grant on the edge of the box.
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 24 games so far. XG says that over those 24 games we should have scored 31.2 and conceded 22.4 and we have actually scored 33 and conceded 14. 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 8.8 is significantly less than our actual goal difference of 19. That difference is due to conceding over 8 less goals than XGA which has gained us at least 8 extra points, without which we would be in about 4th place in the League Table. Putting that into context with other teams, we have the 10th 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.
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 7th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 14 goals against an XGA of 22.4.
Now that we are over half way through the season the XTable has become very 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 5 different from the actual table. Blackburn are the biggest overperformers here – being 5th in the actual table but 18th in the XTable. Coventry are the exact opposite, being 15th in the actual table but 3rd in the XTable. This reflects the fact that Blackburn have conceded 9.7 less goals than their XGA and Coventry have conceded 10.2 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 only 10th best in XG, but we are 3rd best in XGA, behind only Leeds and Burnley. Our average XGA of 0.93 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are significantly outperforming that by delivering an actual average of 0.58 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 Sunderland at The Stadium of Light. They have scored 19 goals in their 11 home games with an XG of 15 and conceded 7 with an XGA of 9.2. Blades have scored 16 in 12 away games with an XG of 13.8 and conceded 9 with an XGA of 12.8.
So the stats would probably suggest a 1-1 draw , with 2-1 Sunderland and 2-1 Blades as the next 2 most likely results.
For those interested, I’ve put the full footballxg.com table at the bottom of the post.
One thing to notice from the full XTable is that Leeds have both the highest XG stat and the lowest XGA stat. They have also actually scored the highest number of goals (44) but they have conceded only 1.6 less than their XGA, compared to 8.4 less than XGA by Blades and 9.3 by Burnley. This difference is driven by the goalkeeping stats. Burnley’s Trafford’s stats show that he has prevented 6.1 goals that would have been scored on average. Our GoalCooper has prevented 5.2 but Leeds’ Meslier has prevented minus 1. In other words if Leeds had Trafford or Cooperman between the sticks they could have conceded 6 or 7 less goals and have 6 to 9 more points. Trafford is 3rd in the stats and Cooper is 4th while Meslier is 14th – Johansson (Stoke) and Pears (Blackburn) are the top 2. Apart from this the Leeds stats are great, so it will be interesting to see whether Leeds are looking for another keeper in this window.
Sunderland’s Patterson is a bang-average 10th in goals prevented – but let’s hope he puts in a well below average performance tomorrow!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table:-
On Sunday December 29th we drew 1-1 with West Brom at Bramall Lane.
The XG data for the game was Blades 1.6 West Brom 0.8.
– a game we could have won in which we scored a quality goal and the West Brom goal came after a lucky rebound to Grant on the edge of the box.
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 24 games so far. XG says that over those 24 games we should have scored 31.2 and conceded 22.4 and we have actually scored 33 and conceded 14. 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 8.8 is significantly less than our actual goal difference of 19. That difference is due to conceding over 8 less goals than XGA which has gained us at least 8 extra points, without which we would be in about 4th place in the League Table. Putting that into context with other teams, we have the 10th 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.
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 7th in the XTable. As discussed above, our outperformance is driven by having only conceded 14 goals against an XGA of 22.4.
Now that we are over half way through the season the XTable has become very 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 5 different from the actual table. Blackburn are the biggest overperformers here – being 5th in the actual table but 18th in the XTable. Coventry are the exact opposite, being 15th in the actual table but 3rd in the XTable. This reflects the fact that Blackburn have conceded 9.7 less goals than their XGA and Coventry have conceded 10.2 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 only 10th best in XG, but we are 3rd best in XGA, behind only Leeds and Burnley. Our average XGA of 0.93 goals per game is a fairly good figure, but we are significantly outperforming that by delivering an actual average of 0.58 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 Sunderland at The Stadium of Light. They have scored 19 goals in their 11 home games with an XG of 15 and conceded 7 with an XGA of 9.2. Blades have scored 16 in 12 away games with an XG of 13.8 and conceded 9 with an XGA of 12.8.
So the stats would probably suggest a 1-1 draw , with 2-1 Sunderland and 2-1 Blades as the next 2 most likely results.
For those interested, I’ve put the full footballxg.com table at the bottom of the post.
One thing to notice from the full XTable is that Leeds have both the highest XG stat and the lowest XGA stat. They have also actually scored the highest number of goals (44) but they have conceded only 1.6 less than their XGA, compared to 8.4 less than XGA by Blades and 9.3 by Burnley. This difference is driven by the goalkeeping stats. Burnley’s Trafford’s stats show that he has prevented 6.1 goals that would have been scored on average. Our GoalCooper has prevented 5.2 but Leeds’ Meslier has prevented minus 1. In other words if Leeds had Trafford or Cooperman between the sticks they could have conceded 6 or 7 less goals and have 6 to 9 more points. Trafford is 3rd in the stats and Cooper is 4th while Meslier is 14th – Johansson (Stoke) and Pears (Blackburn) are the top 2. Apart from this the Leeds stats are great, so it will be interesting to see whether Leeds are looking for another keeper in this window.
Sunderland’s Patterson is a bang-average 10th in goals prevented – but let’s hope he puts in a well below average performance tomorrow!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
Full Footballxg.com Table:-
