xG and finishing under ETH

ifightdragons said:
You can't really coach finishing to such a big degree. That's something you're either born with or you adapt to on your own.

You can certainly give helpful tips as a coach. But in the end a player has to unlock those abilities himself in the end.
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I disagree with this. As a player, training does impact in game performances and finishing. In one off matches, absolutely, it can be random. But this has been a trend that has been building.

Bruno is a great finisher. That mentality is there and always will be. I do think the manager and training sessions can improve / optimize finishing.
 
Samid said:
Has our finishing ever been worse? Thought we'd improve in this department with Ruud, not get worse.
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If it were that simple, every club would be hiring former top-level strikers to coach their attacking players
 
It’s really simple for me at least, when you look across the ages of the front lines at the top clubs. We’re clearly trying to develop our own attackers now versus buy them but the cost seems obvious, we miss easy chances game on game.
 
LInkash said:
We only won by 1 goal on xg so not like we massively underperformed vs xg
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That's because we didn't take our chances through the first half and then towards the second half Palace came into the game and had two big changes, one of which Onana made the double save. The game should have been put to bed a long time ago.

Not sure what ETH needs to do to solve this problem, but honestly all our forwards are wasteful. Rashford, Garnacho, Zirkzee (so far), Hoijland. You put 50% of an Erling Haaland type finisher in this line up, and we suddenly win many more games. Not sure if any of our current forwards has developed the clinical level yet. I don't want to say the name of that one finisher who came from the academy but we need someone of his clinical level (and not him for obvious reasons).

Good strikers paper over lots of cracks in a side, and in the current United team, the lack of good strikers is doing the opposite. Making it look like we have far more cracks than we do (at least on the evidence of the games this season). Even in the Liverpool game, we take one of our early chances (before the Case mistake) and it's a different game. Ultimately - we got badly punished for schoolboy errors.
 
Was the finishing actually bad yesterday?

Garnacho did everything right with his first chance, just a good save. Unlucky with his chance that hit the bar. Wasn't easy that and thought he did really well there.

Bruno's folow up wasn’t easy either, again did well to control it how he did.

De Ligt did everything right with his header.

We have been poor when it comes to creating and taking chances but yesterday was just a freak game. Just bad luck and good goalkeeping.
 
Marwood said:
Was the finishing actually bad yesterday?

Garnacho did everything right with his first chance, just a good save. Unlucky with his chance that hit the bar. Wasn't easy that and thought he did really well there.

Bruno's folow up wasn’t easy either, again did well to control it how he did.

De Ligt did everything right with his header.

We have been poor when it comes to creating and taking chances but yesterday was just a freak game. Just bad luck and good goalkeeping.
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Disagree with the first Garnacho chance and the Bruno one.

Garnacho had all the space to go for the short corner, it was wide open. Even I, by all means not a worldclass striker, saw that from miles away and during halftimes the analysts highlighted that.

And what was Bruno trying to do with that Rebound? Was he trying to go for beauty, just like his later chance when he went with the outside footer, when it is still 0-0? He had so much space and time on the rebound, a football player on that level would have destroyed Palace with that Chance.
 
DSG said:
I disagree with this. As a player, training does impact in game performances and finishing. In one off matches, absolutely, it can be random. But this has been a trend that has been building.

Bruno is a great finisher. That mentality is there and always will be. I do think the manager and training sessions can improve / optimize finishing.
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Okay great, so who in our current forward line do you think can score 20+ PL goals with another manager in charge? The only one who has done it (once in his 8 seasons as a forward player) is Rashford, and we are all pinning our hopes on him rediscovering that goal scoring form.

We just have to accept that we will miss a lot of chances this season, till Hojland and/or Zirkzee develop and become better finishers. (Both are still young). And similarly Amad and Garnacho will also increase their chance conversion rate. The most disappointing however has been Bruno. He seems to have lost all his ability to remain calm in front of goal since he became captain. I think ETH should make Martinez the captain, and let Bruno focus on being the goal scoring talisman.
 
Marwood said:
Was the finishing actually bad yesterday?

Garnacho did everything right with his first chance, just a good save. Unlucky with his chance that hit the bar. Wasn't easy that and thought he did really well there.

Bruno's folow up wasn’t easy either, again did well to control it how he did.

De Ligt did everything right with his header.

We have been poor when it comes to creating and taking chances but yesterday was just a freak game. Just bad luck and good goalkeeping.
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I agree with this, if you look at all those chances we really should be in front after first 45mins, and yet it's not like the finishing was that bad in any particular instance. Although I do think Bruno should've done better.

We've just scored 7 goals in a game out xG has not been above 4. It was just us being clinical. So in the whole season we might be actually alright in terms of goals vs xG, it's just over half of goals we've scored so far this season was in one game.

Couple of weird takes in this thread if people think Hojlund finishing is a problem. So far that seems like the only really good aspect of his game.
Another interesting take is RVN being there to coach finishing. People play way too much fifa if they think that's how the training sessions work.
 
According to Opta:

  • De Ligt's header (13th minute) with xG 0.404 was the biggest chance of the game.
  • Garnacho's shot (27th min) had an xG 0.301which is always registered as a "big chance" (1/3 times it goes in) in the books.
  • Bruno's follow-up shot has xG 0.182 which is high enough, especially for a player who's supposed to be a difference maker and has failed to score with his last 17 attempts.
  • Martinez's early chance (14th min) was xG 0.205. It's also a good chance.
  • For example, Sarr's follow-up attempt that forced Onana to make an impressive save was measured at xG 0.224 (close to Bruno's or Martinez's, lower than Garanacho's).
  • Eze's open shot in the 72nd minute was CP's biggest chance in the game (xG 0.348).
  • Garancho's shot that was saved by Henderson has an xG 0.138. It was always going there and Henderson reacted well. In comparison, Eze's late chance in the first half had a slightly higher xG (0.156).
With two chances >0.30 (the threshold for a big chance) and two around 0.20, we should be scoring once. For comparison, Liverpool have converted all four of their chances in the PL, thus far, that were >xG 0.40. Arsenal have 1/2 (both against Brighton), but, more often than not, they need much less to get over the line.

On the other hand, CP could have scored, too. Despite the clean sheets, more than 1 xGA against relegation candidates for two games in a row is an indication that there are still many things that have to be improved.
 
I think the team, for two years, has never had as much control and chance creation. They are not used to it. Yes they can practice in training, but making the right decisions under pressure is different. With practice, more of those chances will go in.

I would be more worried if we didn’t create as much big chances.

We will go down the list once we play Spurs and Aston Villa - we were just playing really poor teams. The need to score this big chances will be greater in the upcoming games.
 
TheRedDevil'sAdvocate said:
According to Opta:

  • De Ligt's header (13th minute) with xG 0.404 was the biggest chance of the game.
  • Garnacho's shot (27th min) had an xG 0.301which is always registered as a "big chance" (1/3 times it goes in) in the books.
  • Bruno's follow-up shot has xG 0.182 which is high enough, especially for a player who's supposed to be a difference maker and has failed to score with his last 17 attempts.
  • Martinez's early chance (14th min) was xG 0.205. It's also a good chance.
  • For example, Sarr's follow-up attempt that forced Onana to make an impressive save was measured at xG 0.224 (close to Bruno's or Martinez's, lower than Garanacho's).
  • Eze's open shot in the 72nd minute was CP's biggest chance in the game (xG 0.348).
  • Garancho's shot that was saved by Henderson has an xG 0.138. It was always going there and Henderson reacted well. In comparison, Eze's late chance in the first half had a slightly higher xG (0.156).
With two chances >0.30 (the threshold for a big chance) and two around 0.20, we should be scoring once. For comparison, Liverpool have converted all four of their chances in the PL, thus far, that were >xG 0.40. Arsenal have 1/2 (both against Brighton), but, more often than not, they need much less to get over the line.

On the other hand, CP could have scored, too. Despite the clean sheets, more than 1 xGA against relegation candidates for two games in a row is an indication that there are still many things that have to be improved.
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I hope you are not calling CP a relegation candidate
 
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