United and xG (now that Ole is gone will things change?)

[cyberman]

I think it’s more the type of goals Rashford scores. How often is he presented with simple tap-ins? Such a high proportion of his goals are goals that other strikers wouldn’t put away it ends up compensating for the occasional glaring miss.

Exactly. I’m not sure what the XG is of breaking down the left and slotting it past the keeper from an angle but I know it isn’t optimum .
Here’s another stat that makes me question XG

If we were that bad then a striker who rarely leaves the box shouldn’t have this to his name?

 

[Massive Spanner]

Fair point. I think that’s been an issue for far longer than he’s been here, though and the squad is demonstrably better than it’s been for years. But yeah, perhaps not the morning to make that point.

I do get what you're saying, he's a good man manager, no doubt, and he's getting a lot out of the players he does actually trust. There's a harmony in the team there hasn't been in ages and we never look like a side that just gives up under him, as evidenced by our excellent away record and points coming from behind. But the problem, as you say, is that we've already seen what his style is and it's not great. We're a pretty shite team to watch, overall.

 

[Withnail]

I didn't do that.

As for United, City and Liverpool I acknowledged that it's a small sample but pretty much the same as recent seasons which is why I thought it worth talking about.

Well that's what it read like to me as we're out of the race, Chelsea have similar xg to us and Liverpool, City are favourites.

If that's not what you meant then fair enough. I'll leave you to it.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Cornered because he's asked about tactical philosophy? Surely he's not that fragile.

Cornered because he’s under huge pressure and “what is your tactical philosophy” is a question that pissed him off because it implies he has none.

 

[EtH]

Agreed with Zidane and Conte potentially carrying risks but the bolded is OTT - Ten Haag has reached the latter stages of the CL with Ajax and won two league/cup doubles. Far more impressive resume than Ole's even now - prior to Ole joining United it's completely incomparable.

As an oppo, Ten Haag is up there with the managers I'd like you least to get.

Perhaps that was a bit harsh on him. I will admit he is the only seemingly available manager who would interest me right now. But still going from Ajax to United would be quite the step up.

 

[Bilbo]

If I understand Xg correctly the 'score' you get for this is almost directly proportional to the position that the shot is taken from. It simply accumulates these positions over 90 minutes and gives you a total. If this is the case then I think United have suffered because of our tendency to shoot early rather than take that final pass. For me that comes down to (a) having strikers rather than creators in our wide forward positions, because they have a different instinct and are looking to shoot, and (b) lacking a consistent starting striker.

I'd be interested to see (but can't be arsed to research) whether our Xg average was better last season when Cavani started. I suspect it would be. I'd also like to see how it looks over the course of this season having Ronaldo in the team. We can already see that the team are looking more for that final pass with him as a focal point and I suspect this will also positively impact our Xg.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Exactly. I’m not sure what the XG is of breaking down the left and slotting it past the keeper from an angle but I know it isn’t optimum .
Here’s another stat that makes me question XG

If we were that bad then a striker who rarely leaves the box shouldn’t have this to his name?

That has to be fake news. Absolutely no chance that 16 PL teams have <4 xG at this point in the season.

 

[roonster09]

That has to be fake news. Absolutely no chance that 16 PL teams have <4 xG at this point in the season.

Since Ronaldo joined ManUtd. So it's for 2 match days.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Since Ronaldo joined ManUtd. So it's for 2 match days.

Ah. Ok. D’oh! So an absolutely tiny sample. Tells us nothing useful at all.

 

[sullydnl]

Yes, agreed. I was saying something similar to @sullydnl yesterday. Kieran McKenna had our underage teams playing fantastic football. Full of the sort of “patterns of play” people imply is completely absent from our first team. Is it somehow harder to get his message across to seasoned pros than it is to 18 year olds?

That makes no sense. There’s obviously a huge focus on that sort of stuff at a first team level. The problem is we lack the elite capability of Klopp/Pep when it comes to consistently reproducing training ground automations in top flight competitive matches. It’s the holy grail of football and no great disgrace that Ole et al are second best to those two (as well as, arguably, Tuchel). It does mean we’re incredibly unlikely to win the league so long as the managers all stay the same. Which is a bummer.

Yep, the idea that we don't have any patterns of play or structures whatsoever is nonsense. It's not like McKenna and Solskjaer have just been introduced to football or Michael Carrick was clueless to the concept of patterns of play even as Barcelona were tikki-takka-ing us to death in CL finals. They know how football works.

It's more akin to our set-piece situation from last year. We were obviously being heavily coached in how to defend set-pieces, that just didn't automatically mean we were going to be good at them or couldn't benefit from the addition of a specialised set-piece coach.

 

[::sonny::]

Ole, Pirlo, Gattuso and many others have failed as a manager, probably for lack of experience and got the job without a professional cv in the role.

Worked only 2 times in history (Guardiola and Zidane, stop)

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Well that's what it read like to me as we're out of the race, Chelsea have similar xg to us and Liverpool, City are favourites.

If that's not what you meant then fair enough. I'll leave you to it.

I said we can win the league but it's unlikely because we rely on individual brilliance rather than a more cohesive team structure to win games. City, Liverpool and Chelsea have both brilliant individuals and a cohesive team structure so they're more likely to do better than us. This is expressed in the xG data.

Cornered because he’s under huge pressure and “what is your tactical philosophy” is a question that pissed him off because it implies he has none.

Or he was genuinely espousing his philosophy which is roughly playing in the same way as he did when he was a player, more about individualism than cohesive team structure, contrary to the likes of Pep, Tuchel etc. Of course we work on more modern stuff in training but looking at the team playing out from the back and pressing it doesn't look like we are that good at it, which comes down to coaching. I'd argue that the tetchiness in his answer is because he knows that he's going against the norm with his approach.

 

[Rash Decision]

Yep, the idea that we don't have any patterns of play or structures whatsoever is nonsense. It's not like McKenna and Solskjaer have just been introduced to football or Michael Carrick was clueless to the concept of patterns of play even as Barcelona were tikki-takka-ing us to death in CL finals. They know how football works.

It's more akin to our set-piece situation from last year. We were obviously being heavily coached in how to defend set-pieces, that just didn't automatically mean we were going to be good at them or couldn't benefit from the addition of a specialised set-piece coach.

I think there’s also a question of how much focus there is on such patterns. I get the impression that Ole prefers to leave a lot of freedom for improvisation as compared to some others. To borrow the words of Mourinho (I think), he is not a coach who tells his players to “pass from A to B”.

 

[Godfather]

I genuinely think we know all there is to know about Ole and the football we’ll play, unless something massively changes. To my mind it’s now about whether we can somehow put together a squad that’s better than what the others have and have that be sufficient. So far, the squad building side of things definitely seems a strength of Ole’s.

Is this realistically going to happen though with the oil money in play?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Yep, the idea that we don't have any patterns of play or structures whatsoever is nonsense. It's not like McKenna and Solskjaer have just been introduced to football or Michael Carrick was clueless to the concept of patterns of play even as Barcelona were tikki-takka-ing us to death in CL finals. They know how football works.

It's more akin to our set-piece situation from last year. We were obviously being heavily coached in how to defend set-pieces, that just didn't automatically mean we were going to be good at them or couldn't benefit from the addition of a specialised set-piece coach.

Yeah, exactly. And credit where it’s due to Ole for identifying set-pieces as an issue and getting someone on board to fix it. With impressive results so far. Unfortunately, it must be a lot harder to “fix” things at the sharp end of the pitch.

 

[largelyworried]

Yep, the idea that we don't have any patterns of play or structures whatsoever is nonsense. It's not like McKenna and Solskjaer have just been introduced to football or Michael Carrick was clueless to the concept of patterns of play even as Barcelona were tikki-takka-ing us to death in CL finals. They know how football works.

It's more akin to our set-piece situation from last year. We were obviously being heavily coached in how to defend set-pieces, that just didn't automatically mean we were going to be good at them or couldn't benefit from the addition of a specialised set-piece coach.

Indeed. A huge part of coaching is the skill of getting across your intentions. If you drew a formation and some lines on a piece of paper and just handed it to the team, they wouldn't suddenly know how to execute it. Its about how you transmit the message, how you drill it into them. Its the way you communicate on the training ground or in one to ones. Its about how much you focus on it, with how much intensity and how highly you prioritise it over other things in training.

Practical upshot is, the mere act of coaching doesn't make it all happen automatically. It isnt binary, that somehow you're either coached or you're not. Some coaches do it better than others because of the methods they use. Doesnt mean Ole & co are oblivious to the need or the process. But it can mean they're not as good at others at making it happen.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I said we can win the league but it's unlikely because we rely on individual brilliance rather than a more cohesive team structure to win games. City, Liverpool and Chelsea have both brilliant individuals and a cohesive team structure so they're more likely to do better than us. This is expressed in the xG data.

Not for Chelsea though. But they’ve been very impressive despite this. Which shows the fallibility of relying too heavily on xG.

 

[Revan]

Yeah, exactly. And credit where it’s due to Ole for identifying set-pieces as an issue and getting someone on board to fix it. With impressive results so far. Unfortunately, it must be a lot harder to “fix” things at the sharp end of the pitch.

To be fair, the collective wisdom of Caf identified set pieces as problem too. It was as hard as checking the table for the teams who conceded most from them.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

To be fair, the collective wisdom of Caf identified set pieces as problem too. It was as hard as checking the table for the teams who conceded most from them.

The key point being he identified it as an issue which required a new addition to the coaching team.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Not for Chelsea though. But they’ve been very impressive despite this. Which shows the fallibility of relying too heavily on xG.

For the first 5 games but last season under Tuchel they did a lot better than us in that regard and won the Champions League. Whilst I can't be certain I'd be more inclined to bet on Chelsea improving their xG performance than us as the season goes on.

 

[anant]

Statsbomb is the base for fbref right? I don't usually follow understat. But they have nice xG over timeline graph.

The data show we're overperforming, that's all. With this sample size it could be down to luck, but we also have some great attackers. Chelsea seem to be in similar situation. My guess both United and Chelsea will drop this ratio soon but will still be overperforming obviously. Ronaldo and Lukaku will make sure on that. I'm more worried about defending.

Yup, it's the base of fbref. Statsbomb usually tweets stuff about their xG metrics and they are pretty comprehensive.

Similarly, as far as overperforming is concerned, one of the reasons why we're overperforming the xGA metric is because of the penalty save. 0.76 value in overperformance of 1.24. And on the attacking side, the Leeds game (were we overperformed significantly) is having too much weightage right now to make any sense so far around anything

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Analyzing xg over a few games is laugh out loud bad. Don't do that

 

[bosnian_red]

Exactly. I’m not sure what the XG is of breaking down the left and slotting it past the keeper from an angle but I know it isn’t optimum .
Here’s another stat that makes me question XG

If we were that bad then a striker who rarely leaves the box shouldn’t have this to his name?

World class forwards find a way to get on the end of chances is all that says and it's always held true. Accumulating high xG is more about the striker you have than the supply given to him.

Our xG difference per game is considerably worse than the other 3, though it is a tiny sample size and heavily influenced by us getting hammered by Wolves in play. Chelsea's is influenced by playing 50-60 minutes with 10 men at Anfield. It's just too small a sample size so far, but the trend isn't a positive one for United as we keep giving away big chances this season. It doesn't take some in depth reading of the stat to realize that we've been quite fortunate to have 4 wins and 1 draw from the opening 5 games. Though that's balanced by losing to Young Boys and West Ham in the cups.

 

[bosnian_red]

Not for Chelsea though. But they’ve been very impressive despite this. Which shows the fallibility of relying too heavily on xG.

Small sample size influenced too much by playing an hour with 10 men at Anfield, similar to ours being overly influenced by a horrible game against Wolves. Liverpool and City haven't had those games where they got battered.

 

[Ibi Dreams]

Does xG take into account the actual quality of the players involved? It's a pretty nebulous thing to quantify, but obviously there would be a significant difference between identical chances for, say, Ronaldo and Fred

 

[stefan92]

Ole, Pirlo, Gattuso and many others have failed as a manager, probably for lack of experience and got the job without a professional cv in the role.

Worked only 2 times in history (Guardiola and Zidane, stop)

I don't get your point here. Guardiola and Zidane coached the second teams of their clubs before being promoted, so they had experience. And there are loads of former players who went on to be succesful in their first management role. Klopp for example was promoted from player to coach over night and was a success at Mainz.

Ole on the other hand has experience so you can't say he does not have that on his CV.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Does xG take into account the actual quality of the players involved? It's a pretty nebulous thing to quantify, but obviously there would be a significant difference between identical chances for, say, Ronaldo and Fred

It is literally just the position of the shot.

 

[Rash Decision]

World class forwards find a way to get on the end of chances is all that says and it's always held true. Accumulating high xG is more about the striker you have than the supply given to him.

It’s also an indicator of how often you manage to get the ball into those positions where the world class forward can potentially turn it into a goal, isn’t it? You can have world class Kane up front, but your xG isn’t going to be high if you’re not getting the ball to him in dangerous positions.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

It is literally just the position of the shot.

It's not. Statsbomb, which is where fbref get their data from, takes into account multiple factors including defensive pressure and the quality of the shot, see their website below

https://statsbomb.com/data/

@Ibi Dreams it measures against the average performance, in this case the average performance in the Premier League. You can look at how individuals perform against that average.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

It's not. Statsbomb, which is where fbref get their data from, takes into account multiple factors including defensive pressure and the quality of the shot, see their website below

https://statsbomb.com/data/

@Ibi Dreams it measures against the average performance. You can look at how individuals perform against that average.

The quality of the shot, really? That seems idiotic given xg is there to measure the quality of the chance.

The original and proven concept is the position of the shot. I've seen a few twists on it. Left foot right foot head probably adds something, defensive pressure sounds promising too. The quality of the shot sounds like it might take away from what the concept is useful for

 

[Classical Mechanic]

The quality of the shot, really? That seems idiotic given xg is there to measure the quality of the chance.

The original and proven concept is the position of the shot. I've seen a few twists on it. Left foot right foot head probably adds something, defensive pressure sounds promising too. The quality of the shot sounds like it might take away from what the concept is useful for

The quality of the shot or PsXG is of more importance when assessing goalkeepers as it puts a value of on the power and placement of the shot regardless of the position it was taken from.

 

[b82REZ]

I'm talking about the rush to over analyse everything after 5 league games and a couple of bad cup results.

I'm also not going to write off Chelsea after such a small sample size as you seem happy to do. I'll start paying attention to the table after 9/10 games.

It's not 5 games though is it. He's been here a number of years and a lot of persistent problems still seem evident.

I'm not advocating his sacking by any means but, there seems to be a contigent of posters who shoot down any debate about his shortcomings, and often use the same excuse as you, "we're only X games in."

What if this yoyo form continues though to Xmas? Will we get he's only had 19 games, judge him at the end of the season? We're not at Moyes/Jose stage yet, where the damage is irreversible, but there have been negative patterns throughout his time here that he doesn't seem aware of, or incapable of correcting.

 

[Withnail]

It's not 5 games though is it. He's been here a number of years and a lot of persistent problems still seem evident.

I'm not advocating his sacking by any means but, there seems to be a contigent of posters who shoot down any debate about his shortcomings, and often use the same excuse as you, "we're only X games in."

What if this yoyo form continues though to Xmas? Will we get he's only had 19 games, judge him at the end of the season? We're not at Moyes/Jose stage yet, where the damage is irreversible, but there have been negative patterns throughout his time here that he doesn't seem aware of, or incapable of correcting.

Well if you compare xg for and against for the first 5 games last year compared to this year it's night and day but that would be silly as the sample size is tiny.

I'm not seeking to shoot down any debate about the manager at all. I just think it's a bit early to draw too many conclusions about the season just yet. New players are still bedding in, some injured ones aren't back and everyone's still building match fitness so I'll start paying attention to these things somewhere around 10 games in but by all means work away.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Well if you compare xg for and against for the first 5 games last year compared to this year it's night and day but that would be silly as the sample size is tiny.

I'm not seeking to shoot down any debate about the manager at all. I just think it's a bit early to draw too many conclusions about the season just yet. New players are still bedding in, some injured ones aren't back and everyone's still building match fitness so I'll start paying attention to these things somewhere around 10 games in but by all means work away.

It would be silly. Especially considering that four out of our five fixtures this season have been against teams currently in 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th place (the other was against the team in 8th, who beat us last night)

I do agree with your general point that analysing xG makes no sense with small sample sizes but that’s no more silly than all the bullishness about “we’re top of the league! why are you whining?” which is pervasive on here right now.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

The quality of the shot or PsXG is of more importance when assessing goalkeepers as it puts a value of on the power and placement of the shot regardless of the position it was taken from.

Very true. They should leave it out of normal xg if they want it to mean something

 

[Crashoutcassius]

It would be silly. Especially considering that four out of our five fixtures this season have been against teams currently in 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th place (the other was against the team in 8th, who beat us last night)

I do agree with your general point that analysing xG makes no sense with small sample sizes but that’s no more silly than all the bullishness about “we’re top of the league! why are you whining?” which is pervasive on here right now.

I think the top of the league thing is valid in one sense. The forum is full of people who are absolutely dying for United to lose so they can be proven right. Before we beat west ham they were saying ole has to go if we draw. We won and went joint top. It is a reasonable response to people that say he has to go

 

[tomaldinho1]

The quality of the shot, really? That seems idiotic given xg is there to measure the quality of the chance.

The original and proven concept is the position of the shot. I've seen a few twists on it. Left foot right foot head probably adds something, defensive pressure sounds promising too. The quality of the shot sounds like it might take away from what the concept is useful for

This is what makes most sense to me - there are too many variables for it to become accurate until we have far more advances within technology (even things like humidity, what boots the player is wearing, size of foot, the speed of the assist, the spin of the ball, the % of ball inflation etc. there’s really no end) but if you pinpoint where every shot comes from you will have a pretty accurate overall high level stat after a couple of seasons+ of data.

On xG in general it’s a good indicator for me of teams coached well offensively (if they consistently get into good positions and therefore have a high xG that is logical) and I think most on this forum could probably guess which teams tend to be at the top end (Pool, City, Chelsea, Leeds were 1-4 last season) and generally Pool/City are out in front.

That said there’s no correct way to play football so our more pragmatic approach is by no means ‘bad’ as long as it’s picking up enough points.

 

[Revan]

I think the top of the league thing is valid in one sense. The forum is full of people who are absolutely dying for United to lose so they can be proven right. Before we beat west ham they were saying ole has to go if we draw. We won and went joint top. It is a reasonable response to people that say he has to go

That is and has never been true. It is just frustrated people who have had enough of 8 years of shit on a stick football, no trophies, despite spending more than any other team bar Barcelona and perhaps City. With Ole being here for more than 2 and a half years, having a higher net spent than any manager in the world during that time, and still playing shit on a stick football and going nowhere near big trophies.

 

[Tarrou]

World class forwards find a way to get on the end of chances is all that says and it's always held true. Accumulating high xG is more about the striker you have than the supply given to him.

Our xG difference per game is considerably worse than the other 3, though it is a tiny sample size and heavily influenced by us getting hammered by Wolves in play. Chelsea's is influenced by playing 50-60 minutes with 10 men at Anfield. It's just too small a sample size so far, but the trend isn't a positive one for United as we keep giving away big chances this season. It doesn't take some in depth reading of the stat to realize that we've been quite fortunate to have 4 wins and 1 draw from the opening 5 games. Though that's balanced by losing to Young Boys and West Ham in the cups.

supply of chances will be the bigger factor, surely

 

[Revan]

supply of chances will be the bigger factor, surely

Both. A top-quality striker like Ronaldo will ensure a high xG because his movement makes other players find him very easily. In contrast, someone like Martial makes life harder for the team, because he is static so finding him in a good position to shoot becomes very hard.