Casemiro's header was 0.04 xG
xG and finishing under ETH
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
Feck xG.
how did we ever cope before it was invented 3 years ago?
how did we ever cope before it was invented 3 years ago?
8 of those 31 0-0 draws came in LvG's 2 seasons. Thought it was even more tbh.
A load of bollocks. Watch the game and judge it yourself.
impressed you can judge xG by yourself
It’s pointless. A way for people who don’t understand football to judge who the better team might have been.
your post would be equally logical if you said corner stats were pointless
both are just data
If we extrapolated results from the fixtures we’ve played so far over any previous season we’d also look pretty bad.
I don’t get why people are looking to draw negative conclusions about how we’ll do over a whole season based on a subset of the hardest fixtures we’ll play in a row all season. A subset of games throughout which our best option as striker was basically permanently injured.
Read my post again. Judge the game with your eyes not stupid stats.
I do judge the game for myself. Chelsea had a higher xG but I thought United were the better side.
but I still find the xG stats interesting to see, what's the issue?
Chelsea's higher xG must be purely because of their penalty, no?
We’ve played eight really good sides of European calibre so far this season: Brighton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Real Sociedad, Man City, Newcastle, Spurs and Chelsea. We’ve gone W3 D2 L3 against them, scoring 12 and conceding 12. That’s below par, considering we have played six of those matches at home and only two away, and we probably aspire to finishing top four rather than fifth to seventh.
We have got two big games against such sides next week in West Ham and Real Sociedad, so let’s see whether we manage to win those. Both are crucial for different reasons.
It will be interesting to see how we do against the rest of the bottom half sides, especially relegation fodder, as we have been so poor against them for a number of seasons. Hoping for a good Xmas and New Year football wise.
Yeah definitely
because Ronaldo is finished
I wasn't predicting what our goals tally will be for the season, just simply pointing out that we need to increase the amount of chances we create. There's a lot of people painting the narrative that we should be scoring bucketloads more goals when the stats don't bare it out. It's a fair point we should improve in attack as the season goes on and ETH's coaching takes effect, and the fixture list gets kinder. But we have had our share of "easier" games in Leicester, Southampton, Everton, Brighton, Brentford, Newcastle whereby we've not created as many chances as we'd like.
Andd... thats why its a shit stat.
Yeah we've been having a lot of shots lately but we've not been the best in creating clear cut chances. Still threatening but it's overstated that we create a tonne of chances on a day like today where Chelsea had a higher xG (due to their penalty) and on MOTD, our MOTD wasn't even equal or above 1.
Agreed. We remember the chances that are being missed, because we aren’t creating enough in the first place. We are scoring as many of them as you would expect roughly though.
I posted elsewhere that it feels like the manager is swimming uphill, as he’s trying to implement his style of play, but basically has none of his attack minded players in great form and having a peak season. It would be nice to just see it click for one or two of them.
It speaks only the truth
because penalties aren't good chance?
I’d argue it is quite insightful to have a stat that perfectly illustrates how United dominated the first third at Stamford Bridge, but did very little with that period of dominance. For all our huffing and puffing today, we created the equivalent amount of goalscoring chance as one penalty. It is tough to win matches from that.
That context is important though.
I think some areas they can improve in order to raise the scoring:
1. More shots on the frame. Way too many wild shots, particularly the ones in good real estate. If we had a strong CF who dominates in the box this wouldn't matter so much. But for now it does. Cutting back on the strikes into the 15th row or ten feet left of the goal would be helpful.
2. Reduce touches in traffic. This is something they have clearly been working on but they still have room to improve. If you have a shot just take it. Way too often they take the touch and the defense gets back. It is particularly glaring in transition when attacking.
3. More attacking on the right side. 99% of touches to the right seem to end up cycled back left. More of these need to be played deeper with more of an attacking mindset. Dalot is not the greatest partner in duo offensively but he is willing and surprising and improving. So way I see it at least Antony needs to spend a weekend working some combinations with Dalot and those two need to attack more. At the very least doing this will result in more crossers from the right as well. Which is another way for Antony to work that right foot.
4. Sancho as false 10. Sancho possesses well. He is strong in the group during possession. He is also calm in traffic. I think he may be quite good as a 10. He would be around the middle more and more traffic which would bring out his value.
1. More shots on the frame. Way too many wild shots, particularly the ones in good real estate. If we had a strong CF who dominates in the box this wouldn't matter so much. But for now it does. Cutting back on the strikes into the 15th row or ten feet left of the goal would be helpful.
2. Reduce touches in traffic. This is something they have clearly been working on but they still have room to improve. If you have a shot just take it. Way too often they take the touch and the defense gets back. It is particularly glaring in transition when attacking.
3. More attacking on the right side. 99% of touches to the right seem to end up cycled back left. More of these need to be played deeper with more of an attacking mindset. Dalot is not the greatest partner in duo offensively but he is willing and surprising and improving. So way I see it at least Antony needs to spend a weekend working some combinations with Dalot and those two need to attack more. At the very least doing this will result in more crossers from the right as well. Which is another way for Antony to work that right foot.
4. Sancho as false 10. Sancho possesses well. He is strong in the group during possession. He is also calm in traffic. I think he may be quite good as a 10. He would be around the middle more and more traffic which would bring out his value.
We don’t shoot enough and don’t hit the target enough when we do shoot. I’d be hugely surprised if we are practicing shooting to any decent degree in training. Looks like we’ve been working a lot on passing and off the ball - shooting hardly at all. Can’t do it all at once I suppose.
Including Sociedad games. Give it a rest, man. Your agenda here is so transparent. I’ll leave you to it.I mean, I don’t think he’s wrong. We are looking something like a football team again which is good to see but I’m not getting excited beyond that. Some good results, some bad and like he says if we can start putting away the teams in the bottom half it would be a huge improvement. I still feel like every game is 50/50 as to whether it’s a win/dropped pts.
It's clear we are poor at creating chances, just as bad at taking them.
You don’t think Sociedad are a good side? They are 3rd in La Liga. Why wouldn’t I include them?
I really don’t know what you think my agenda is, other than pointing out that we probably haven’t rebounded as much as some think we have. Our attack just isn’t functioning as it needs to be for us to achieve our goals this season.
It is a good chance but it's kinda ridiculous in a way that a team full of divers could spike their xG really high regardless if they score from those or not. I feel like xG should be separated into two, one counting penalty and the other not. That will tell a more complete picture overall. Because penalty relies on external factors more such as refs and usage of VAR.
Yeah context is very important but people usually just post xG and draw a conclusion on which team should've won it.
The standards for United are low. People are hurt after last season and so being in a game/not getting battered by a good side is fine for most at present.
You'd never have included Brighton, Newcastle and Sociedad in that list if we won those games. Don't put your back out cherry picking.
Our record against the actual quality sides you've listed is W3 D1 L1. Not to mention that two of the three games you've tried to sneak in there were displays of absolute thievery by the officials.
Would be a big part of it.
I didn’t think including Brighton and Newcastle was gonna prove controversial. Both are above us on xPts this season (3rd and 4th vs our 8th) and are modelled as top 30 sides in the world on 538 (19th and 22nd, Sociedad are 26th, whilst we are 15th). We will likely be competing with them for the Europa League spots this season, along with West Ham, now that Leicester and Wolves have dropped away from previous seasons.You'd never have included Brighton, Newcastle and Sociedad in that list if we won those games. Don't put your back out cherry picking.
Our record against the actual quality sides you've listed is W3 D1 L1. Not to mention that two of the three games you've tried to sneak in there were displays of absolute thievery by the officials.
We've had comfortably the toughest fixture list of any of the big six, and have played all five of them already with none of the others having played more than three. We have a run of very winnable games from now until mid January, and two postponed fixtures against bottom half sides to throw in there as well.
If we keep anything like our recent form up over that run of games, we'll be in a very strong position. Unless we fall off a cliff, we're challenging Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool for the top 4 spots, not the teams you're talking about for the Europa.
| Position | Team | Played | Points | Avg. position of opponent | Opponents from big 6 | Opponents from top 10 |
| 1 | Arsenal | 10 | 27 | 11,2 | 3 | 5 |
| 2 | Man City | 11 | 26 | 12,18 | 2 | 4 |
| 3 | Tottenham | 11 | 23 | 11,27 | 3 | 5 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 11 | 21 | 12,82 | 2 | 3 |
| 5 | Man Utd | 11 | 20 | 7,91 | 5 | 8 |
| 6 | Newcastle | 11 | 18 | 10,36 | 3 | 6 |
| 7 | Liverpool | 11 | 16 | 9,09 | 3 | 6 |
*table stolen from @PaulScholes99 in his 'context to the table' thread.
You can't really extrapolate it though, because we've pretty much exclusively played against the top half of the league. It's trending in the right way IMO based on performances, was a slow start for sure but between the opposition and improvement over time, I'm not too worried. We of course still need to improve in attack I agree, but the stats are very deceiving IMO. We'll probably go on a run now where our numbers improve.
Agreed. We have had a tough schedule to start the season. Whether we now capitalise on the easier run of games remains to be seen. I have trauma still from every season where someone has created the “We should win our next 8 league games thread” and we go W3 D2 L3 on that run. We haven’t consistently cleaned up against the fodder for a long time.
Completely agree. Expect a similar spread of results against the bottom 8 as the top 8.
Yeah, I think that beating the weaker sides consistently presents its own challenge, and it's one we've not been very good at for a while now, but I have a lot more faith in Ten Hag finding a way to do that than any of our other recent managers. None of Mourinho, Ole or Rangnick know how to get results doing anything other than playing on the counter, and LVG shat himself and played belt-and-braces football for most of the rest of his time here after that 5-3 Leicester game.
If there's one thing you probably learn from managing Ajax in the Eredivisie, it's finding a way to beat shite most weeks - and he seems to have the stomach to play the game in a slightly more careful way after his version of LVG's Leicester game at Brentford without going full 'keep the ball at all costs and take no risks with it' like LVG did.
Not seen it so far. Expect a lot of dropped points against lower opposition.
Omonia at home was promising. We created throughout the match and the manager didn’t resort to throwing every forward on. All of the bottom half PL teams are quite a bit better than them though.
That stat already exists, it's called non penalty expected goals
It sounds like you expect xG to be some sort of fair or accurate reflection of the performances? That isn't what it's measuring though. It's measuring shots and their expected chance of success. That's it.