You don't think a striker is a priority? Do we need other positions? Sure. Left wingback and a midfielder, yeah. For me though, striker is the most urgent position to fill. We need a world class striker. We need attackers that score goals. It's kind of important.
xG And Analytics Under Amorim
- Thread starter bosnian_red
- Start date
I think just top quality attackers is the more general need. Whether that’s two inside forwards, a striker and a 10, or whatever. Upgrading the firepower is our #1 priority. LWB probably fits into that too because they are essentially touch line wingers in this system more so than defenders.
For me we look better. That's enough for now. Would rather that then fluking wins w terrible performances in a new system.
This is standard 3-4-3 stuff - you just sort of horseshoe it around the box. Im not a huge fan of it but from what I gatherered with Amroim it works slightly differently because of the dual 10s being narrow allowing you overloads centrally - and because its meant to be built around speed and directness. As long as we dont get Conte-ball at Chelsea or Tottenham when they were doing that dour umbrella/horseshoe thing and never getting into the box we'll be ok.xG - United 2.93 - 0.83 Bodo Glimt (Opta model)
Posession = 72.4% - 27.6%
Passing network
Obviously that 'umbrella' of the back 3/5 is going to have a lot of the ball in this shape and will be a recurring theme throughout, often passing the ball between themselves. We were able to be a lot higher up the pitch tonight compared to vs. Ipswich in terms of where these passes were being made. They didn't press as much as Ipswich did/we pinned them back a lot more/a bit of both.
Mazraoui again on the ball more than anyone else and we absolutely dominated posession.
"Fields gained" needs explanation on the progression stats, it's a bit convoluted. If you're 50 yards from your opponents goal and pass it 20 yards forward you get 0.4 of a field gained because 20 is 40% of 50. If you were 30 yards from goal and passed it 10 yards forward it's 0.33 of a field gained because 10 is 33.33% of 30. Any forward pass to someone standing on the goal line would be 1 if he's not offside. Add all the passes up at the end and that's the total. A more complicated "progressive pass" stat basically. Think it also subracts for backwards passes. Same formula used on progression via carry and progression received.
Anyway, Maz the highest there with his 9.33 on the passing side of things.
We've generally had good XG since the start of the season.
Huge huge issue. If one of our no. 10s is not scoring his chances....not sure what can be done. His finishing has dropped off dramatically.
I'm genuinely confused about where you're going with this now. You literally agreed that our players create chances but lack a clinical edge up top. I then suggested that, to improve this, we need players who are clinical in the final third—players who can consistently deliver in key moments. Now you're labeling that as "Moments FC."
To clarify, when I say "clinical," I’m not just referring to finishing. I’m talking about players who make the right decisions under pressure—whether that’s finishing, creating, or choosing the best option to maximise the team's chances. It’s not about relying on isolated moments but about improving the quality and consistency of our play in critical areas.
I have no idea why you find the mention of Moments FC so confusing. Here’s what you said at the start of this discussion.
You literally used the word “moment”. Twice!
If you’re moving the goalposts to want players who are more clinical and consistent then great, I’m fully on board with that. To me this involves having less of an emphasis on players who are ‘yong and lernin’ and more players at their peak, when strikers are at their most efficient and consistent in front of goal and who will make better decisions than the current bunch. If/when Rashford goes I think we have to replace him with someone the same/similar age. If we don’t we’re going to continue to flatter to deceive in the final third.
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Simply mentioning the importance of key moments doesn’t mean we'd become "Moments FC." If that were the case, would Liverpool be labeled as such? Look at players like Salah and Diaz—they don’t solely rely on individual moments, but they have the ability to turn a game on its head in an instant. That doesn’t diminish their consistency or overall quality—it highlights their decisive edge.
My point is that we lack that type of player who can produce something extraordinary out of nowhere. As said before, other than Rashford during his purple patch a couple of seasons ago, we don't have anyone with that kind of clinical, game-changing ability in the final third. And this isn’t about relying on individual brilliance to carry us, but rather adding that dimension to a team that already creates chances (as you said) but struggles to convert them consistently.
To summarise, if we had the two players I mentioned earlier, I firmly believe our goal output would significantly improve because they have the ability to create or finish something out of nothing. Historically, we've always had that kind of attacking talent—players who made teams fear us even when we weren’t at our best. It’s not about "Moments FC"; it’s about restoring that cutting edge up top. If you still want to label it that way, then so be it, but I think it’s a necessary ingredient for any team that wants to challenge at the highest level.
Yes, just for xG. So if a team had conceded an average of 1 xG in all their away games other than playing us and we got 1.50 when playing them at home it would show as a +0.50 on something like that.
The next obvious one if I was to do it would be how much xG we conceded, or put them together for xG difference.
Could do possession, shot count, touches in opponents box, field tilt all in the same way. Any stat that is counted really but maybe that's all for another time.
Which players do you think looked better yesterday? I can't think of one.
Is there anything worse than the "traditionalists" who think this new xG lark is pseudo-science and that their subjective eye test is "all you need to know" in terms of how the game went?
Imagine being that guy who tells all the professional clubs with their extensive data and analysis departments that their efforts are sadly in vain, because, and I quote, "It's all rubbish".
Cracks me up. Same people who probably thought that the shift away from 4-4-2 was tantamount to a heresy of Martin Luther proportions back in the day. Same people who rend their garments and weeped in lamentations when teams started "recklessly passing it out from back" instead of "Gerrin' it up t'big man".
Here's to the dinosaurs.
Imagine being that guy who tells all the professional clubs with their extensive data and analysis departments that their efforts are sadly in vain, because, and I quote, "It's all rubbish".
Cracks me up. Same people who probably thought that the shift away from 4-4-2 was tantamount to a heresy of Martin Luther proportions back in the day. Same people who rend their garments and weeped in lamentations when teams started "recklessly passing it out from back" instead of "Gerrin' it up t'big man".
Here's to the dinosaurs.
So far so good. But those players are also working in a functional structure that helps them flourish. Other teams are able to isolate opponents into 1v1, which is something, not one player has to do the right thing and make one good decision but multiple players have to do the right thing. I am pretty sure that is what the other poster is alluding to.
We lack those players but we also have to make sure, that we drag as much of the "vage things" out of the dark and into the limelight. What is game-changing ability - it is being able to pull some insane piece of technique out of the blue or/and combine with sheer force/athleticism. The technical level of most of our players is pretty average, the less said about athleticism the better. Adding one player won't change that issue. The focus should therefor be on adding the right pieces for the right places of the machine. If someone turns out to have such an X-factor or game-changing ability, even better but Liverpool is still a great side, even if you take Diaz and Salah out. Maybe not enough for the highest echelon anymore but still very good. Thats something that we have to reach first.
Makes sense. But the task at hand should be to improve our ability to generate high-value chances on a regular basis which most likely gets rid of most of our issues. "Creating something out of nothing" is nice to have, but this is kind of what Ole did, he banked on one of his talents to come up with something. And nothing wrong with it when you have great players at your disposal but other teams make do with players that aren't as good as the players we consider fit for Manchester United. So the first thing should be to get as functional as they are without needed individual brilliance first and then adding it on top to actually maximize the output.
Thanks for putting it together, really interesting. Where did you get the numbers from though? I mean, I know some are available online for such analysis, did you manage to find some csv-exports?!This is the kind of thing I was waffling on about a couple of posts up.
Not sure I can be arsed myself now. It's Christmas, should be having fun and I've managed to bore myself to death now.
Bollocks to titles and labelling up the axis.
It's our xG created in these fixtures relative to what other teams have done against them in their corresponding fixtures.
Villa away was rubbish, right? We created nothing. Not far from what everyone else has done at Villa Park so far this season. Villa don't cough up chances there.
Beat Leicester 3-0 at Old Trafford. Teams usually create much more xG against them when they get to play them at home.
The last 3 games all trending up. We accumulated more xG v Forest and Bournemouth at home than clubs typically have so far when they play them at home, and more at the Etihad than teams usually do there so far as well. Guess that's good in it's own little way!
Might have made it non-penalty xG and knocked it down by 0.79 v City and Chelsea but that's a step too far, would have to knock off all penalties conceded by all teams whether they were playing us or not as part of the data collecting.
Could in theory whack that out for all kinds of stats. Different colours for the 3 different managers we've had, no other reason. Erik the Red, Ruud in his Dutch Orange, Ruben paying tribute to Sporting.
What I always wanted to do, was looking into the individual xG events that ended up in the xG amount of any given game. I am really interested, if thats something, you can find anything in. For example what is the avg xG that Team A creates over a 10 game period, not just xG divided by shots, but the actual xG. Racking up those xG numbers isn't difficult, you can shoot from anywhere, as long as it is on target, you'll get something even if it is only 0.04 per shot. Any chance you looked into something like that?
Understat's stats are pretty interesting on this.
Whilst we are talking about xG, a whopping 21% of our xGA comes from corners!
understat - Man United 2024/25
Whilst we are talking about xG, a whopping 21% of our xGA comes from corners!
understat - Man United 2024/25
There’s an element here where we’re poor at finishing but a bigger one of how infantile xG still is. It’s useful to look for broad trends but we need many more seasons of data for any accuracy.
Exactly. This is why although I was pissed off at the result initially, the outlook is still optimistic under this manager.
The addition of an LWB will balance us out. As will replacing Rashy with a true LAM.
The other thing is mindset. The players looked nervous and that affected every action they took. Even Amorim mentioned this.They need to lose the ego and play in the moment.
I think looking at a single game vs Bournemouth, if you put together possession stats (75-25?), shots (20-10?), ExG (2.50-1.20?) with attempts on goal (5-5) and goals (0-3), it’s enough to back up my eye test that said on the whole, we played better and created more general good play, but they still won because of defensive errors and much worse finishing from us.
If you look for a trend post Amorim, I think post Ipswich we have had more than double the ExG than every single opponent bar Arsenal away. That is enough of a trend to say it probably is significant and a sign that our general play has improved, but we are still vulnerable because we have less effective attackers than the opponents. The defensive errors I think are more a result of the new structures and rotation.
Yeah, this. xG only ever makes sense when you combine it with the eye test. Under ETH we had that season where everyone was saying we were getting results that our xG didn’t deserve. I was in denial at the time but there was always a sense that we never dominated games and there was constantly fine margins between winning and losing. Which wasn’t sustainable in the long term. Sure enough those xG warning signs proved well founded.
Under Amorin the eye test can see a team that is generally controlling games and playing some brief spells of really classy attacking football but we’re being undone by poor finishing (nothing new) and poor defensive errors (also not new but maybe more frequent?) There’s definitely reasons to feel encouraged without looking at xG but that just endorses those feelings.
Obviously this is all based on a very small sample size. But that applies equally to the more obvious and negative stats like goals scored/conceded (and results!) So if we ignore the xG because of the sample size then we also need to not get too hung up on that other stuff for the same reason.
Thanks for putting it together, really interesting. Where did you get the numbers from though? I mean, I know some are available online for such analysis, did you manage to find some csv-exports?!
What I always wanted to do, was looking into the individual xG events that ended up in the xG amount of any given game. I am really interested, if thats something, you can find anything in. For example what is the avg xG that Team A creates over a 10 game period, not just xG divided by shots, but the actual xG. Racking up those xG numbers isn't difficult, you can shoot from anywhere, as long as it is on target, you'll get something even if it is only 0.04 per shot. Any chance you looked into something like that?
Manually from fbref, wouldn't even know how to export stuff. Aspiring nerd but without skills.
Column E = Typed out team abbreviations in fixture list order + H or A for venue
F = copy/paste our xG for the relevant games from fbref all from one column of data on their website, the one thing I didn't have to type
G = typed in that teams total H or A xG conceded depending where they played us
H = column G minus column F for total xG conceded in games not against us at relevant venue
I = opponents total games played at venue minus 1, manually typed in
J = column H divided column I to get their average xG conceded in games not against us
K = column F minus column K to find the difference
Chart produced from columns E and K
F = copy/paste our xG for the relevant games from fbref all from one column of data on their website, the one thing I didn't have to type
G = typed in that teams total H or A xG conceded depending where they played us
H = column G minus column F for total xG conceded in games not against us at relevant venue
I = opponents total games played at venue minus 1, manually typed in
J = column H divided column I to get their average xG conceded in games not against us
K = column F minus column K to find the difference
Chart produced from columns E and K
Not 100% sure I'm grasping what you're asking about. Is it this sort of thing?
That's all from fbref. If you navigate to the match log section for a team then click on the date you get data from that match. Scroll all the way down to the bottom you can see that sort of thing for any game.
Some sites present the same sort of thing graphically. theanalyst.com (Opta) has xG maps for every fixture, so does fotmob which uses Opta too. Understat has them using their own xGmodel.
If it's something else you're after ask again, just explain it to me like I'm 5 and I'll see if I can help.
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I think some watch highlights and comment based on that
I think this season in general there’s been more to hope for re xG and we’ve underperformed pretty amazingly against it (I’m not sure if we still are but early on we were underperforming it by miles more than anyone else in the league).
I bet Southampton's xG looks good in some games. If you're shite at finishing and a comedy show at the back it doesn't matter how many chances you create. Mentality needs to improve significantly as ruthlessness is the name of the game in the Prem.
On the contrary, xG suggests that Southampton will need a miracle to stay up. It also shows that we, alongside CP, Brentford, Brighton and WHU are the epitome of mediocrity.
Yeah we are the far and away worst team in the league defending set pieces. It’s a serious issue
The xG they accumulated in some individual games? I suppose they've had the odd game like that, but they're still among the worst overall in producing xG. Loads of games where they haven't ceated enough chances to produce even 1 xG, and very few when it's been 1.5 or over. That defence means they're conceding a load of it whenever they do have a game when they actually make some chances.
That's the list of how much xG they made each game.
1.8 - vs 10 man Newcastle for nearly the whole game, still lost
0.1
1.5 (2.8 against v Brentord, lost 3-1)
1.1
2.4 (1.6 against v Ipswich, maybe they could have won it but only a draw)
0.6
0.6
2.1 (3.1 against v Leicester, lost 3-2)
0.2
0.7
0.6
1.3
1.0
1.6 (5.2 against v Chelsea, lost 5-1)
0.3
0.8
0.3
Agree in regards to Sot’on. Haven’t checked out Palace, Brentford and Brighton this season, but our ExG for vs against after Amorim came in has to be among the better teams in the league, surely.