Bobcat
Full Member
An interesting question in a sea of regurgitated cliches from both sides of the spectrum. And, all things considered, this is the big question, isn't it? Twice this season Solskjaer found himself with his back to the wall after a series of horrible results and most people believed that a battering from Liverpool or the back to back games against Spurs and City would put the final nail in the coffin for him and twice he was able to devise miraculous escapes. On the other hand, he has never managed to capitalize on these big wins and build the winning streaks that could help the team push for better things on the PL table. As a result, we have amassed 35 points from 25 games which according to the PL averages over the last decade puts us in 8th place (right where we are) but 12 points away from the CL positions.
Some stats first. I know many people hate them but until we find a better way to measure performances, i guess they'll have to do. Here's a couple that i find a bit interesting: I took the liberty of classifying our games into three categories under the prism of xGoals. Firstly, we have the games in which we can claim that we were better than our opponents. Since what constitutes "being better than your opponent" is subjective (we've seen it on this forum), i tried to quantify it by setting a 0.40 xG difference as the bar for a "deserved win". An xG of 0.40 is what a very good chance, a more than decent tete-a-tete with the keeper, is worth. If by the end of the 90 minutes you have created at least one more clear-cut chance than your opponent, let's presume that you deserved to win the game. Similarly, there are the games in which our opponents had a better xGoals percentage by 0.40 or more and these are the games we "deserved to lose". Finally, there are games where neither we or our opponents were "clearly better". These are the games with a difference in xGoals was less than 0.40 either way. I think it's fair enough.
Games with >0.40 xG in our favour: 15, W:8, D:4, L:3
Games with >0.40 xG in our opponents' favour: 5, W:1, D:1, L:3
Games with a <0.40 xG for either team: 5, W:0, D:2, L:3
Interestingly enough, our season opener and Mourinho's return to OT were the only occasions on which we managed to outperform a top-six opponent and therefore, one can argue that it's not only down to a particular game style that suits us. Another interesting fact is that 6/15 games where we were the better team are our first six games. So, one can point towards the absence of Pogba in terms of creativity and towards the importance of having both Martial and Rashford on the pitch. But is that all there is to it?
When it comes to xG90 ( expected goals per 90 minutes), we look far more threatening when we're already a goal or more than a goal up (1.90 and 2.61 respectively). We find the most difficulties to get a goal when the score is level (1.37). In comparison, all the sides in the top-four have very good stats when the game is level. In this sense, it should not come as a surprise that in 11/15 of our "better" games we were in the lead 1/3 into the game. Our only win when we were "worse" than our opponent came at the Etihad when we also had an early lead to protect. Furthermore, it explains that it's not just bad luck that we haven't managed to win any of our five games that were "in the balance". It also tells us it's a simple fact that, whenever the opposition is forced to attack and leave spaces behind its defence, we indeed find it easier to create chances. It's not just against the big sides, seemingly it's a trend since the first week of the season.
Let us dig a bit deeper, shall we? Are the chances we create good enough to win us games or is our xG accumulator a product of many mediocre/poor chances being added up more often than not? Here's another interesting stat:
Team--------Shots in the penalty area---Shots in the six-yard box---xG/Sh (from open play)/goals from open play.
United---------------167------------------------------25--------------------0.10/26
City------------------287------------------------------52--------------------0.14/54
Liverpool------------251------------------------------31--------------------0.15/44
Chelsea-------------242------------------------------27--------------------0.12/31
Spurs----------------157------------------------------22--------------------0.12/33
Leicester------------192------------------------------30--------------------0.13/43
Arsenal--------------167------------------------------25--------------------0.12/21
The stats suggest that it's the latter. We are on par with Arsenal and slightly better than Spurs who both are going through, admittedly, horrendous seasons and are still trying to find their footing after changing managers. We don't know how well Mourinho and Arteta will perform in the future but it's again a fact that both these clubs acted on seeing such bad stats. An important aspect is the expected goals per shot statistic. Now, xG doesn't take into consideration who's taking the shot but it focuses on the angle, the proximity and the position of the defenders. xG/Sh 0.10 is quite damning. It tells us that we often score goals by the quality of a first team that is deemed as garbage by most people who believe that Solskjaer is doing a fine job.
Long story short: We miss our injured players and we should have got Bruno at the beginning of the season. But there are very few things which suggest that United have a clear plan on the pitch or that we have developed patterns of attacking play that will help us win more often than draw or lose. And in 2/3 games in which Solskjaer managed to survive while being in the ropes, it was his Benitez-like quality to shut up shop and defend valiantly that neutralized the opponent's strengths that did the job more than anything else.
That's a quality post mate. Cheers