Ole Gunnar Solskjaer | W15 D2 L4

[Phil Osophy]

At the end of the season:

Ed: Congratulations Ole you finished 3rd and won Fa Cup
Ole: Thank you, so when do I start as permanent manager??
Ed: Permanent manager?? Are you crazy have you see the xG stats you were outperformed by Fulham and Crystal Palace!! You are not getting the job

 

[UncleBob]

Without doubt. Game context, who takes the shot everything is ignored.

Depends what you're looking at.

 

[The Man Himself]

xG is a load of toss. It's a dumb, dumb stat and I like stats.

Exactly. I am also big fan of stats and like their use in sports but xG is a pile of shit. How the feck can anybody who watched yesterday's match would agree that Palace had better xG?

 

[RedSky]

Exactly. I am also big fan of stats and like their use in sports but xG is a pile of shit. How the feck can anybody who watched yesterday's match would agree that Palace had better xG?

Exactly, it's fecking bizarre. The only genuine chance Palace had was that free header directly after our opener. Can't actually think (beside their goal) of a real decent chance and I mean a chance that should have resulted in either a very good save by De Gea or an actual goal. Meanwhile we scored 3 goals. We even had double the shots on target ffs!

 

[bucky]

That stat is partly why I can't stand other footballing communities like "r/soccer". It's treated like the holy grail of football stats, but like most stats it lacks any context. We had 5 very good goal scoring opportunities yesterday yet our xG is only 0.86? Absolute nonsense.

On this site we had 1.51, which seems closer to the game.

 

[Snafu17]

XG can be an alright companion piece of stats, but if you want a clear picture you need to, you know, actually watch the cocking match.

It favours high pressing teams massively and any potential counterattacks that don't end up in shots are considered non existent. The whole thing kind of ignores the fact that it's easier to score if there's no one in front of you.

 

[UncleBob]

XG can be an alright companion piece of stats, but if you want a clear picture you need to, you know, actually watch the cocking match.

It favours high pressing teams massively if nothing else.

How?

 

[Ban]

Liverpool had more possession on Sunday and might even had bigger fekin xG but anyone who watched the match could have told you they weren't even remotely dangerous.

 

[RedSky]

So according to xG:

Wards goal = 0.58
McCather shot = 0.51
Lukakus 2nd goal = 0.50
Lukaku shot = 0.29
Schlupp header = 0.28
Pogba header = 0.13
Paul Pogba shot = 0.09
Youngs goal = 0.09
Lukakus 1st goal = 0.08
Pogba Freekick = 0.08
Milivojevic Freekick = 0.05

Everything else below that.

*shrugs*

 

[bucky]

Liverpool had more possession on Sunday and might even had bigger fekin xG but anyone who watched the match could have told you they weren't even remotely dangerous.

0.48 for us, 0.38 for them. Seems right.

 

[Rish Sawhney]

So can someone tell me why Ward's goal has an xG of 0.58 but Lukaku's missed chance had 0.29? Does the fact that they scored come into it? Cos Lukaku's chance seemed way easier than Ward's to me.

Regarding why high pressing teams would have a higher xG, its because they're gonna win the ball higher up and usually the opposition only has a couple of defenders behind the ball. But those opportunities also come in a flash and are easy to miss since everything happens in a split second. While in a chance from deeper - for example Lukaku's first goal against CP - he's surrounded by defenders. So even if he has a lot more time to set himself and use the defenders to put it out of reach of the GK its considered a harder chance in xG terms.

This is why xG is not a good indicator of how many goals a team should have scored at all. Its a better indicator of what side created more clear cut chances. And in that regard it is no more useful a stat than possession or shots on target.

 

[Snafu17]

How?

You're going to have a higher number of shots in more valuable positions if most of the game plays out in the opponents half.

 

[The Man Himself]

Exactly, it's fecking bizarre. The only genuine chance Palace had was that free header directly after our opener. Can't actually think (beside their goal) of a real decent chance and I mean a chance that should have resulted in either a very good save by De Gea or an actual goal. Meanwhile we scored 3 goals. We even had double the shots on target ffs!

Yeah, for that Schlupp chance, we too had two missed chances by Lukaku and Pogba. Only other chance of them I remember is half chance of Townsend early on. It was too difficult a angle for him to keep on target anyway and he most likely won't have beaten De Gea at near post even if he somehow got on target. xG of 0.05 at max imo

Edit: Just saw your detailed xG post. I was generous giving 0.05 to Townsend

 

[glazed]

You write as if we now play with the same tactics Ferguson used (and as if he himself didn’t use and upgrade our tactics several times during his reign). Surely that’s not what you mean?

You make good points. It's more a question for me (at the most simplistic level) of counter-attack versus high press as an either/or, which you may find too reductionist. But more it's a question of how good Ole will be at coming up with a fresh style as needed, and spotting the players to carry it out.

 

[UncleBob]

You're going to have a higher number of shots in more valuable positions if most of the game plays out in the opponents half.

Just by high pressing ? No, not really.

 

[Rish Sawhney]

You make good points. It's more a question for me (at the most simplistic level) of counter-attack versus high press as an either/or, which you may find too reductionist. But more it's a question of how good Ole will be at coming up with a fresh style as needed, and spotting the players to carry it out.

But we don't play a counter attacking style under Ole. There's a difference between "having a good counter attack" and "playing a counter attacking style". We play a very energetic high press style not dissimilar to Klopp with the first line of press closing the passing lanes and the rest covering their man from behind. At least to start the games. And then when we get the lead we ease off and pick teams off on the counter.

I think thats a rather more sophisticated way of playing than playing the same way for the whole 90 minutes.

 

[Snafu17]

Just by high pressing ? No, not really.

You generally will, if you're successful at it.

 

[shaky]

So can someone tell me why Ward's goal has an xG of 0.58 but Lukaku's missed chance had 0.29? Does the fact that they scored come into it? Cos Lukaku's chance seemed way easier than Ward's to me.

Regarding why high pressing teams would have a higher xG, its because they're gonna win the ball higher up and usually the opposition only has a couple of defenders behind the ball. But those opportunities also come in a flash and are easy to miss since everything happens in a split second. While in a chance from deeper - for example Lukaku's first goal against CP - he's surrounded by defenders. So even if he has a lot more time to set himself and use the defenders to put in out of reach of the GK its considered a harder chance in xG terms.

This is why xG is not a good indicator of how many goals a team should have scored at all. Its a better indicator of what side created more clear cut chances. And in that regard it is no more useful a stat than possession or shots of target.

xG is absolutely meaningless when it comes to analysing a single chance. The stats they use to calculate xG don't take every factor into account, just a few of the major ones. Two shots with the same "0.5 xG" will have their own individual circumstances that determine the actual difficulty of the chance. One could be a 20% chance, one an 80% chance. The xG is just an average of 1000s of roughly similar looking chances.

 

[Raw]

A perfect example of how stats can be conjured to any argument if you look hard enough.

Anyone with a pair of functioning eyes could see how we dealt with Palace and the injuries we had in a controlled and professional manner, as well as the overall performance during the game where we didn't look under much threat, if at all, from Palace's attackers.

I was at the game, and there was not a single point of the match where I was nervous. The result was never in doubt, and yet according to xG, we were shaded by Palace's superior performance?

Even if this was the case, a stat like that is totally devoid of the context of 5/6 of our first choice attack and midfield being unavailable.

What a twat

Yeah Ole should turn down his dream job because of some shite stats on the internet.

 

[bucky]

Not really sure, how people get so defensive when it comes to this. Yes, we have been better, but it's worth pointing out that we conceded a fair amount of chances against certain teams. The interpretation of that 11tegen11 guy is just stupid and I still don't understand how they come up with a different xG figure than understat.com. My interpretation would be, having seen the games, that for one, we simply have the better players, hence the better finishing (which Ole said he would be working on with the players). Two, teams like Leicester, Fulham and Crystal Palace are where they are in the league for a reason and that their players simply aren't as good as ours in terms of finishing and three, that we have the best goalkeeper in the league, so even if we give away good goalscoring opportunities, we can rely on de Gea, while other teams simply don't have that good of a goalkeeper.

According to understat, we had a better xG against Cardiff, Huddersfield, Bournemouth, Newcastle, Brighton, Burnley and Liverpool, which all seem right to me. While we were marginally worse against Leicester, Fulham and Crystal Palace, which again doesn't seem to be completely wrong. The only game where we were worse by quite a bit was against Tottenham, which again fits with what happened in the game.

 

[iHicksy]

What that account fails to take into account is that not everyone is a freaking coward like whoever wrote that. Imagine turning down the chance to manage United and realise a life's dream because you'd rather safeguard some meaningless record to keep your "reputation" in tact. If anything, that's Mourinho-esque.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

At the risk of sounding like a boomer here, XG is pseudo-intellectual hipster bullshit; one of the worst things about the modern game.

 

[glazed]

But we don't play a counter attacking style under Ole. There's a difference between "having a good counter attack" and "playing a counter attacking style". We play a very energetic high press style not dissimilar to Klopp with the first line of press closing the passing lanes and the rest covering their man from behind. At least to start the games. And then when we get the lead we ease off and pick teams off on the counter.

Well I said it was crude. I don't think we can call it a high press though. Not with De Gea playing on his line.

 

[Eric7C]

What a twat

Yeah Ole should turn down his dream job because of some shite stats on the internet.

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

These were the words my statistics prof. quoted to begin his semester. Not many statisticians know the limits of their own stupidity.

 

[Rish Sawhney]

Well I said it was crude. I don't think we can call it a high press though. Not with De Gea playing on his line.

Again you're assuming a high press means our defenders should be pressing their forwards at the half way line so the GK has to sweep up balls over the top. But we don't play a high pressing game through the whole game and everywhere on the pitch like say Spurs. We press when their defenders are trying to play out from the back but once that is bypassed we drop deeper and look to counter. This to me is a much more sophisticated way of going about it than having to rely on your keeper to sweep up behind your defense all the time.

BTW I'm sure De Gea will start (and has started to some extent already) coming out to sweep more and more if the opposition gets behind very early. He used to do this very well under Van Gaal, but Mourinho didn't ask him to do that.

 

[roonster09]

So according to xG:

Wards goal = 0.58
McCather shot = 0.51
Lukakus 2nd goal = 0.50
Lukaku shot = 0.29
Schlupp header = 0.28
Pogba header = 0.13
Paul Pogba shot = 0.09
Youngs goal = 0.09
Lukakus 1st goal = 0.08
Pogba Freekick = 0.08
Milivojevic Freekick = 0.05

Everything else below that.

*shrugs*

How is Lukaku's shot only 0.29 when it was 5 yards from goal and he only had GK to beat? As expected these are just useless without watching game.

 

[pokiri]

What a twat

Yeah Ole should turn down his dream job because of some shite stats on the internet.

Even Stats also show that we are very good under Ole.

Since Ole took over xG, xGA, xP
1 Manchester City 26.27, 8.25, 25.14
2 Liverpool 22.87, 8.05, 24.01
3 Manchester United 22.43, 13.34, 20.67
4 Burnley 18.68, 13.05, 19.30
5 Tottenham 17.22, 11.75, 18.53
6 Arsenal 19.92, 15.40, 18.30

 

[Makalu]

I would be so interested in seeing the xG for Fergies time and I have a feeling it would not be that great a lot of the time. The reasons we won so many titles for twenty years wasn't because we dominated games and converted loads of easy chances with high xG. We won titles because we always seemed to find a way to win, even when we weren't playing particularly well, say when we had an injury crisis and were playing a midfield of O'Shea and Park, or with a Ronaldo pot shot from 30 yards.

 

[Hughie77]

There is a big big swing in results, performance, running stats, sprinting stats etc etc. Why? Because the management team, including Phelan, Carrick, McKenna. And OGS, have put square pegs in square holes, tactics are now being used in games by them all, yesterday against Palace, was a tough game even with full squad, but to get result with 9 injuries was excellent.

Playing Dalot in front of Young shows how much this team of coaches looks at every single game. Also knowing the players capability. It's a head ache good one for board on what to do ..

 

[RedSky]

How is Lukaku's shot only 0.29 when it was 5 yards from goal and he only had GK to beat? As expected these are just useless without watching game.

I have no idea. I'd love to know how they construct these values.



The chance at 1:48 is the one Roonster is referring too and that was apparently only worth 0.29? But the Townsend shot at 2:09 is worth 0.51.. *scratches chin*

Lukaku has the entire goal to aim at and is completely unmarked. While Townsend has a pretty tight angle and also unmarked.

Seems like you can be completely unmarked in the box with the entire goal to aim at but if you're not in the 6 yard box it won't give you a high score. They give way too much important to distance to goal without thinking about angle of shot and amount of goal they can aim at.

 

[bucky]

How is Lukaku's shot only 0.29 when it was 5 yards from goal and he only had GK to beat? As expected these are just useless without watching game.

Because xG is an average that doesn't take into account, who is taking the shot. There's a difference between Benteke having a 0.29 chance on the xG model and Ronaldo in that same situation. But since the model takes into account both players and a lot of other players, you'll end up with an average for that particular chance that is lower than what it would be, if Ronaldo would be taking all the shots in that situation.

I have no idea. I'd love to know how they construct these values.



The chance at 1:48 is the one Roonster is referring too and that was apparently only worth 0.29? But the Townsend shot at 2:09 is worth 0.51.. *scratches chin*

Lukaku has the entire goal to aim at and is completely unmarked. While Townsend has a pretty tight angle and also unmarked.

I am not sure, if what I am about to say is true, but I think it's because it actually isn't that easy of a chance for the average professional. It's a volley from a corner, which on average quite a lot of players seem to miss, while Townsend is a lot closer to goal and he's set up by a simple pass. On average more goals are scored from that position. Whether the players are relatively unmarked is also not relevant to the model.

 

[Paxi]

A perfect example of how stats can be conjured to any argument if you look hard enough.

Anyone with a pair of functioning eyes could see how we dealt with Palace and the injuries we had in a controlled and professional manner, as well as the overall performance during the game where we didn't look under much threat, if at all, from Palace's attackers.

I was at the game, and there was not a single point of the match where I was nervous. The result was never in doubt, and yet according to xG, we were shaded by Palace's superior performance?

Even if this was the case, a stat like that is totally devoid of the context of 5/6 of our first choice attack and midfield being unavailable.

The statistics that matter

 

[RedSky]

I am not sure, if what I am about to say is true, but I think it's because it actually isn't that easy of a chance for the average professional. It's a volley from a corner, which on average quite a lot of players seem to miss, while Townsend is a lot closer to goal and he's set up by a simple pass. On average more goals are scored from that position. Whether the players are relatively unmarked is also not relevant to the model.

Maybe, but surely Lukaku isn't that much further out than Townsend? He's practically volleyed the ball on the 6 yard line in the center of the box. While Townsend is on the left perhaps 2 yards closer to the byline but at a much tighter angle. Given how tight the angle is and how little Townsend has to aim at i'd have said that's actually a pretty tricky shot compared to Lukakus unmarked volley. If marking isn't taken into consideration then the whole stat is pretty much useless as player pressure is an important part of shot difficulty.

 

[bucky]

Maybe, but surely Lukaku isn't that much further out than Townsend? He's practically volleyed the ball on the 6 yard line in the center of the box. While Townsend is on the left perhaps 2 yards closer to the byline but at a much tighter angle. Given how tight the angle is and how little Townsend has to aim at i'd have said that's actually a pretty tricky shot compared to Lukakus unmarked volley. If marking isn't taken into consideration then the whole stat is pretty much useless as player pressure is an important part of shot difficulty.

Why does it make it useless though? Edit: It makes it flawed and perhaps I shouldn't have said that marking isn't relevant, since the overall average probably takes it into account. I have seen you using key passes in various posts. Key passes aren't useless either, but someone could easily make a point that key passes don't take into account where the shot is taken or the quality of the shot, yet key passes are still a good indication how creative a player is and that usually the most creative players have also the most key passes. How would you quantify whether a player is marked or not? My guess would be, since Lukaku's chance comes from a corner and he takes a volley, that usually in that situation the players taking that shot are tightly marked and hence miss quite a bit. And this is were the average actually helps. Because the people dismissing the 0.29 figure, somehow also conveniently ignore that Lukaku missed the chance as well, since that happens all the time, even to much better strikers than Lukaku (I also think 0.29 seems too low, just trying to explain why it might be that low).

 

[glazed]

Again you're assuming a high press means our defenders should be pressing their forwards at the half way line so the GK has to sweep up balls over the top.

Well yes. That's kind of what it means, isn't it? Broadly speaking. Certainly not what we do.

 

[RedSky]

Why does it make it useless though? Edit: It makes it flawed and perhaps I shouldn't have said that marking isn't relevant, since the average probably takes it into account. I have seen you using key passes in various posts. Key passes aren't useless either, but someone could easily make a point that key passes don't take into account where the shot is taken or the quality of the shot, yet key passes are still a good indication how creative a player is and that usually the most creative players have also the most key passes. How would you quantify whether a player is marked or not? My guess would be, since Lukaku's chance comes from a corner and he takes a volley, that usually in that situation the players taking that shot are tightly marked and hence miss quite a bit. And this is were the average actually helps. Because the people dismissing the 0.29 figure, somehow also conveniently ignore that Lukaku missed the chance as well, since that happens all the time, even to much better strikers than Lukaku (I also think 0.29 seems too low, just trying to explain why it might be that low).

Useless maybe the wrong word. It makes it extremely misleading might be a better word. Key Passes doesn't pretend to rank which ones are better than others, it's just a variable, like assists and goals.

With xG however they rank each shot using a system that imo seems flawed. From my perspective, the Schlupp header was probably the best chance of the entire game. Header from a decent cross, middle of goal with entire goal to aim at. No man marked, completely open in the box. He didn't even have to stretch for it, you can see by his landing that he barely jumped. Yet that chance is deemed much lower than the Townsend chance which is a very difficult finish. The fact that its ranked actually higher than all of our goals tells you it's not very accurate imo. I also noticed that the Townsend chance is listed as being much closer to the middle of the goal than it actually was.

I think if you told a striker that you could have a shot 8 yards out from a corner on the volley completely unmarked they'd prefer it to the Townsend chance. De Geas positioning on the Townsend chance is part of the reason why it's so difficult. It's why "expected goal" is misleading, if they named it shot difficulty then i'd have less issues I guess.

 

[Rish Sawhney]

Well yes. That's kind of what it means, isn't it? Broadly speaking. Certainly not what we do.

No it doesn’t. The second part of my post which you decided to ignore says as such. You can chose to press and drop off depending on different phases of play or based on where you are on the pitch and the game situation.

For example, we usually press very high for the first 20 minutes or so and leave our defenders 1 v 1. I can’t remember a situation where De Gea has had to come out and sweep but I think that’s just a coincidence and will come if we keep playing this way.

 

[Alemar]

It’s easy to comprehend why we outperform this shitty xG every time.

De Gea is much better than “average goalkeeper”, and our finishing under Ole is also much better than average finishing of thousands of Townsends who they use for calculation purposes. So we score more than xG and concede less than xGA.

What is more, our defence may sometimes even allow some shots from difficult positions to be made knowing they have de Gea

 

[el3mel]

 

[bucky]

The statistics that matter

Since Ole has taken over, we have the 3rd highest xG. When it comes to xG against, we are fifth. (League only)

Goals xG Goals against xG against
City 27 26.27 10 8.25
Lpool 27 22.87 8 8.05
United 26 22.43 7 13.34
Spurs 24 17.22 13 11.75
Arse 23 19.92 15 15.40
Chel 12 13.52 15 11.68

Chelsea have a game less here. It's fairly easy to interpret. City create the best xG overall and only slightly overperform. Whereas us, Liverpool, most of all Spurs and Arsenal clearly overperform according to the model. Since Ole has taken over, we have league-wide the best margin in terms of goals conceded and xG against, which is a very good indication that we have the best goalkeeper in the league and aren't lucky. It also indicates that City, Liverpool and Tottenham over the course of the season defend better than we do, which just means we can still improve in that regard.

For comparison the 17 games under Mourinho this season:

Goals xG Goals against xG against
City 48 44.98 10 13.00
Lpool 37 35.23 7 13.61
Spurs 31 29.72 16 21.46
Chel 35 31.23 14 16.44
Arse 37 27.03 23 22.08
United 29 28.22 29 26.53

What you can see, since Ole has taken over is, that we have improved in terms of finishing and that de Gea might have improved as well, since we were conceding more goals than we were expected to according to the model. Chelsea have gone from overperforming to slightly underperforming. Lloris and Alisson did concede fewer goals than they were expected to, but during that recent period Tottenham have actually conceded more than than they were expected to and Liverpool are about what the model suggests. Which could mean that both Lloris and Alisson started the season better.

For what it's worth, last season, the best teams/goalkeepers in terms of margin between goals conceded and xG against around Europe were: United/de Gea (+15.54, meaning 28 goals against and 43.54 xG against), Atletico/Oblak (+13.48), Burnley/Pope/Heaton (+13.16), Barcelona/ter Stegen (+12.62), Espanyol/Pau Lopez/Diego Lopez (+11.37), Roma/Alisson (+10.46)

Overperforming in terms of finishing compared to xG isn't an issue over the course of a season, but most of the time it suggest that isn't sustainable over several seasons. Under Conte, when Chelsea won the league, they were expected to score 61.80, but actually scored 85 goals, meaning they significantly overperformed and it wasn't sustainable, which is exactly what happened. We don't need to worry about us overperforming currently, but we need to improve in terms of creating more chances and conceding less next season, if we want to mount a title challenge, which is all the model suggests at this moment of time. What that 11tegen11 suggests is that Ole can't improve in that regard, which is a bit silly, especially if Ole gets properly backed during the summer.