Metrics of change
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
We're also improving as a team as the season has progressed so hopefully we have used luck to outperform our poor underlying patch early in the season when Ronaldo was hindering the way EtH wants to play and now we can kick on for the rest of our season at our new level.
That’s madness. I wonder how many titles we’d have won under Fergie if we needed the sort of points total required to win the PL over the last decade?
It also goes against the idea that the PL as a whole has got much stronger over that decade.
I think a clear improvement we need to make is with our set pieces. We're consistently abysmal from corners and frees. Such an easy win to get someone in like Gianni Vio at Spurs who can help us out in this regard. The other thing where we can improve in the future is having our full backs overlap and underlap more to create space for our wide forwards. I actually think they've been instructed not to do this as the team gets used to defending transitions better. Suspect it will change as the season progresses or we have a more secure midfield (Eriksen is still fairly poor at defending transitions).
Look at our xG over the last few weeks (or go retro and watch the actual games) and you’d have to expect our GD will soon improve. Easier fixtures and we’ve got rid of the (Portugese) monkey on our back that was stifling our attacking football.
Could really do with Bruno finding his scoring boots again soon…
Could really do with Bruno finding his scoring boots again soon…
There was genuinely a decent run at the start with Rangnick, said it loads of times but it imploded once motivation was lost. We improved when he took over, then started really picking up in performances, and then got the big hit of the Greenwood situation which was a set back and we started struggling with converting chances. And then once the Atletico Madrid CL loss happened, that's when we fell off a cliff. All motivation went away and it was just wasting time until the season ended. Apparently nobody cared about pride to see out the season.
Always love these rolling charts xG diff charts and was waiting for someone to put it together for us. They show trends better than anything.
Another good one. Rolling 38 game chart. A perfect chart to explain the value of xG and how it tends to be consistent based on your level, while showing actual goal difference has way more variance. United under Ole hovered between 0.4 to 0.6 xG differential, which is consistently basically 4th best in the league. Top 4 fighters. Our actual goal differential varied greatly, but would normalize to the xG over time. And then the clear decline with Ronaldo coming in. Ten Hag's data now is just under half a season of his stuff and then 2nd half of last season, so obviously that's going to take time to bring up there. Will be helpful to keep track of this over time.
Just to contrast with the above, this is City's across a period where they were effectively the best team in the league (10 game average vs 5). Just slightly less chaotic.
Looking better for sure. Today helped a bit as well.
Agree. By the way, todays game showed the gulf in quality between the Varane Martinez partnership vs the Maguire Lindelof. Gave away some really good chances that Varane Martinez wouldn’t have conceded.
Has this guy plotted other teams or just us? Would be good to see how other teams performed on the same metrics.
He's a United fan so his analysis mainly focuses on United. He also has a podcast (Devil in the details) which looks at United from a tactical/analytical perspective.
Just read that we have a 100% record in PL games this season when we have taken the lead (11 games). If ETH can get more goals out of this side while remaining defensively solid then it bodes well going forward.
Hard to say because you play up/down to the strength of the opposition you're facing.
Yeah hopefully Varane & Martinez are mega stingy when we play City in 10 days time
Here's a quick one based on understat's data, split into just 3 blocks of 6 games each (obviously for the last block, some teams haven't played a full 6 but it's per game).
Basically shows that United started off poorly, gradual improvement despite being battered by City, and then similar to the top group in the recent batch of games.
And then for the mid table 6:
And for bottom 7:
Can see that West Ham have been a bit unlucky to be down there, Leeds have only the past chunk of games started to look like relegation fodder.
It's not a rolling xG per game (much more tedious to do quickly...) but it's splitting the season into groups based on the xGdifferential per game.
Brentford have only scored 3 more goals than us having played one more game. You can't go drawing conclusions like this from a one off game.
Brentford also have the one thing we sorely lack which is a quality, recognised striker. He alone accounts for 12 of their PL goals. Bring one in and we're cooking.
Their main “pattern of play” that created goals against Liverpool was pumping corners into the six yard box.
I did some digging on various stats websites to see if we were excelling at anything in particular. It’s kind of weird. We’re not very good at anything. By every metric you can think of there are usually at least 6 or 7 teams (often a lot more) with better stats than us.
We're still in the early stages of our development, to be fair, these stats might be more revealing sometime like late March/early April.
It's because we had genuinely very bad games that hurt our metrics... Makes sense to look at gradual improvement with us with Ten Hag. We started really badly, then we had a really bad run of fixtures where we basically just played everyone roughly evenly, and then have stepped it up and started dominating teams and looking like a top team. Basically since/including the Newcastle game we are as good as anyone (past 9 games - 1 point fewer than Newcastle, same as Arsenal, the most xPts over that period, 2nd in xG, 3rd in xGA (very similar between City/Arsenal/Newcastle/United). Or even include the Everton game before that, it's basically since the City game.
During this run, we've played Newcastle, Spurs, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham, Villa, Forest, Wolves, Bournemouth. Pretty good spread of top/mid/bottom teams.
The start of the season started off with calamity, then the big (and very good) games vs Liverpool and Arsenal (but not hammerings in xG, but just about deserved wins), which had Leicester and Southampton splitting them (which weren't by any means good performances, but getting over the mental hump to get some wins, but these 2 were both pretty much level on xG). Then City hammered us. And since then the past 10 games we've been pretty dominant. So in the season, obviously the first 2 were just a different mental scenario, but the next batch as well was grinding through games as we're adapting to the system and growing some belief with the 1 set back, and then a title challenging caliber run since.
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Ten Hag made us very functional but we're still far from being a great team, and we aren't just missing a striker.
Good point, that makes the original point even worse. I don't see any evidence we should be looking to Brentford for inspiration.
Came across a statistic this morning showing how we’ve given away the second fewest “big chances” in the league this season. In contrast Liverpool had conceded the second most. ETH has really improved our team defence. We just don’t look nearly as vulnerable defending as we have done in recent years.
Eh we are improving every week, it's not a great team but it's turning into a very good one that's for sure! Saying we are just functional is doing us a disservice IMO. We are playing at a solid CL quarter final level team now I'd say (top 8 in Europe). We are constantly improving though, and personnel wise I'd say a striker would make a huge difference, and then getting a press resistant CM who can carry the ball along with play make from deep that'll give us one step further yet.
Those are two crucial positions, we still need Antony to settle and start showing something more than just offering balance on the right. De Gea will remain a problem if we want to improve our style and dominate the games more. That's for me 4 positions where we need either an upgrade or an improvement from within the squad.
I agree, but it's step by step and each would give a step up. On the wing, we have the options, but yes it's just internal improvement and players adapting to the league/club/pressure. Signings wise we'll definitely need 3 to "complete" the team, but even just with 2 we can have a very good team, with De Gea at least being OK in goal. We can be successful with De Gea in goal and the CM and ST improved, but I don't think we can truly be successful without those 2 signings.
Both can happen; the average PL can become stronger relatively to non-pl teams, while the strongest team can become more dominant. With SAF, you and I can recall games where we used Gibson in CM, a past it Owen up front and the french wizard Obertan in the wings. I dont think I have ever seen City lining up with so random, average - almost Championship level players. I think the case is more that City and Liverpool have almost 2 strong XIs or a freak seasons with no injuries (and when the injuries came to liverpool they kinda collapsed). I do believe though that the narrative that the PL is "far stronger than before" a bit hyperbolic. The peak for me was 2006-2009. The top 4 then, was almost also in the top 8 of the world.
Not a team metric but a significant change for an individual.
Although, turnovers and “pressure regains” still horrible. So still no evidence of the team changing its style to become an effective high pressing team. Which is interesting.
And mad how few fouls he’s winning. What’s going on there?
Well no, it doesn't. It's completely possible for both to be true - it would just be that the top team have improved even more than the rest of the league.
Not sure if it entirely explains it but it's noticeable that he's avoided going to ground (using his strength to hold off the defender instead) on a few occasions this season. Instead of trying to win a free kick/penalty, he has gone on and scored.
The title of this thread sounds like a Jake Humphrey podcast.
There's been games we press really well and some games, certain players are late after the pressing is triggered and it's bypassed easily.
I imagine it'll be more visible in progression next season.
That counter press one is really interesting. Bumped the thread to share stats from here, which include that one.
What is counter-press, exactly? How does it differ from common or garden pressing? And how does it compare with life before ETH? This could be the most exciting metric of change in the thread so far!
Does that mean we really aren't in equal 3rd place in the league and have 35 points? ;-)
He either gets passed them or he runs into them and loses the ball.
Rarely does a defender get back at him if he actually gets passed.
I do think his defensive work rate has signifcantly improved by eye, but he's not the best/smartest presser that's for sure.
I'm not sure how you mean this, but in general: if a team is doing better than a statistical overview would suggest, you have to wonder if those stats are missing something or if the team is going through a lucky spell and can be expected to start dropping off any time now.