xG under Ralf

Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah, tonight’s game is a great example of how xG in isolation tells you very little. They had some great chances in the first half but we had much more possession and were in control for most of it.
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I doubt Rangnick is happy with the amount of chances we gave up regardless of the possession we had, even if the second half was much better. I think even in isolation it's telling exactly what happened in the game. They had more chances, didn't take them, hence why they are an average team, we took ours, from fewer chances, hence why we are the better team and deserved to win.

Stobzilla said:
I get that, I don't understand how you quantify Rashford and Elanga's chances as less than 50% each though, Surely Greenwood's was 1.00 ?
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According to fotmob Elanga's was 0.66, Greenwood's was 0.55 and Rashford's was 0.06. Rashford's seems too low. Fotmob has our overall figure at 2.07.
 
King Azaz the Unabridged said:
The XG at half-time was 1.5 - 0.2 (Understat). Which is pretty much exactly how it looked to me - we had all the ball and did nothing with it, while they did enough to have scored at least once.

The opposite of us being in control, if anything.
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Agreed. All of our possession in the first half was deep in midfield. We had zero shots on target. Their keeper had nothing to do. The shots we did have were all from long range. You can have all the possession in the world, but if you do nothing with it, it doesn't matter. I have seen the stat look strange at times, but it's pretty fair for this match.
 
I bet Rangmick will come out and say we gave up too many counters, as in we didnt control the game good enough.

Look as well at the first five minutes after we got the first. Terrible control of the game. Luckily we killed the game off by scoring.

Overall and i was defending the team at half time it is different to ole and mourinho in that we are trying to control the game in the oppositions half. We just arent quite at it 100 percent.
 
bucky said:
I doubt Rangnick is happy with the amount of chances we gave up regardless of the possession we had, even if the second half was much better. I think even in isolation it's telling exactly what happened in the game. They had more chances, didn't take them, hence why they are an average team, we took ours, from fewer chances, hence why we are the better team and deserved to win.



According to fotmob Elanga's was 0.66, Greenwood's was 0.55 and Rashford's was 0.06. Rashford's seems too low. Fotmob has our overall figure at 2.07.
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This is a disgrace.

Anything that I can confidently and unironically say "I would have scored that" about should be a 1 by default.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yet we had 68% of the ball. Which is very close to the definition of being in control.
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Can't be bothered arguing in circles about this, but we allowed them to create chances that would result in roughly 1.5 goals on average despite having only 32% of the ball. I don't see how that's us being in control of the game - the ball, maybe, but that's useless.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah, tonight’s game is a great example of how xG in isolation tells you very little. They had some great chances in the first half but we had much more possession and were in control for most of it.
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Somewhat odd definition of control, given we were quite lucky not to be down by at least one goal after that first half of ours.
 
King Azaz the Unabridged said:
The XG at half-time was 1.5 - 0.2 (Understat). Which is pretty much exactly how it looked to me - we had all the ball and did nothing with it, while they did enough to have scored at least once. The opposite of us being in control, if anything.

For what it's worth, Understat has the overall score as 2.08-2.06 to them, which I find plausible on face value - but their actual goal has an XG value of 0.12, which is a bit confuzzling. It should be wayyy higher, surely.
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It has 0.75 on FotMob, which I think uses Opta. They have Brentford 2.53 vs 2.07 United, which feels about right.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yet we had 68% of the ball. Which is very close to the definition of being in control.
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Not while we’re allowing such quality chances. We were much better in the second half, mind. But it is still a concern.
 
Stobzilla said:
Yeah down the Dog&Duck on a Sunday morning after 10 Jagerbombs the night before.
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These misses by Jota had an xG of something like 0.60-0.75 each. Precisely because players sometimes do exactly what Jota did in these cases and feck up. "Must score" chances don't always get scored.

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Stobzilla said:
I get that, I don't understand how you quantify Rashford and Elanga's chances as less than 50% each though, Surely Greenwood's was 1.00 ?
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Probably not a surprise that Rashford's goal has a low xG.
Elanga's high xG ignores how difficult it was to get in that position
 
UncleBob said:
Somewhat odd definition of control, given we were quite lucky not to be down by at least one goal after that first half of ours.
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Jesus. This isn’t a difficult concept. Imagine a hypothetical match where one team dominates possession, pinning the other team back deep into their half for 90 minutes but a packed defence prevent any clear-cut chances.

Then three catastrophic individual errors gift the dominated team golden chances to score on the break. One team dominates. The other team “wins the xG”

Now obviously I’m using an extreme hypothetical scenario but surely you get my point?!
 
bucky said:
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1.98 for us is way too low. Elanga, Mason, Rashford and Bruno (the one he tried to chip) all of them were clear goal scoring chances. How the hell did we end up on 1.98 ?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Jesus. This isn’t a difficult concept. Imagine a hypothetical match where one team dominates possession, pinning the other team back deep into their half for 90 minutes but a packed defence prevent any clear-cut chances.

Then three catastrophic individual errors gift the dominated team golden chances to score. One team dominates. The other team “wins the xG”

Now obviously I’m using an extreme hypothetical scenario but surely you get my point?!
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I know what you mean. I commented first half elsewhere that it feels like United have been in good control for most of the match, but for two 5 minute periods Brentford have ripped United apart and should have scored in both instances.

Ultimately though, a team isn’t really in control, in the sense of controlling their destiny to tip their odds in their favour to win the match, if they do what United did today. We had a lot of sterile possession first half, whereas Brentford had the passages of really valuable play.

City wouldn’t be the side they are in they did what they normally do for 90 minutes, then dossed about for two 5-minutes periods each match. That undermines all the hard work. It takes only seconds to score.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Jesus. This isn’t a difficult concept. Imagine a hypothetical match where one team dominates possession, pinning the other team back deep into their half for 90 minutes but a packed defence prevent any clear-cut chances.

Then three catastrophic individual errors gift the dominated team golden chances to score on the break. One team dominates. The other team “wins the xG”

Now obviously I’m using an extreme hypothetical scenario but surely you get my point?!
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Sounds like Mourinho's wet dream. In all seriousness, using your example, I'd say the 'dominated' defended better while the other team didn't. Seems that the 'dominated' team deserved to win then, considering the team dominating possession made those errors. Just depends on your definition on who deserves to win a game of football based on how you view it. I remember Sarri saying about a Chelsea game they deserved to win, because they had more possession despite the fact that they had fewer chances and ultimately lost that game.
 
TMDaines said:
I know what you mean. I commented first half elsewhere that it feels like United have been in good control for most of the match, but for two 5 minute periods Brentford have ripped United apart and should have scored in both instances.

Ultimately though, a team isn’t really in control, in the sense of controlling their destiny to tip their odds in their favour to win the match, if they do what United did today. We had a lot of sterile possession first half, whereas Brentford had the passages of really valuable play.

City wouldn’t be the side they are in they did what they normally do for 90 minutes, then dossed about for two 5-minutes periods each match. That undermines all the hard work. It takes only seconds to score.
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Yeah, agree completely. Our first half performance was definitely flawed. It wasn’t the same as the hypothetical scenario I described. But it was nowhere near as hapless as you’d think if you were basing your opinion on the xG alone.

Implying that xG is all you need to know to work out who was the better team isn’t much smarter than thinking all you need to know is the final score.
 
Stobzilla said:
1.98 from an un challenged header from 7 yards out a tap into an open net and a clear one on one with the goalkeeper ?

What even is this stat ?
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I'm pretty sure xG doesn't account for an open goal being an open goal - it just looks at the average chance of a goal being scored from that spot on the pitch

xG is only showing us that information, and nothing else.. it's not supposed to tell us who deserved to win or anything like that
 
MvG said:
Controlling matches. What’s that ?
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The only time I've ever heard Rangnick scream on the side of the pitch was tonight: "control!" at 3-0 I think rather than 3-1 :lol:
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Jesus. This isn’t a difficult concept. Imagine a hypothetical match where one team dominates possession, pinning the other team back deep into their half for 90 minutes but a packed defence prevent any clear-cut chances.

Then three catastrophic individual errors gift the dominated team golden chances to score on the break. One team dominates. The other team “wins the xG”

Now obviously I’m using an extreme hypothetical scenario but surely you get my point?!
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I'm sorry, I wasn't aware we were debating purely hypothetical scenarios rather than the actual performance. Yes, from a purely hypothetical point of view you are of course correct
 
UncleBob said:
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware we were debating purely hypothetical scenarios rather than the actual performance. Yes, from a purely hypothetical point of view you are of course correct
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I’m using a hypothetical scenario to help you understand a point I’m making about the actual performance. Don’t think I can make myself any clearer.
 
Ali Dia said:
It absolutely is. It’s not about control. It’s about our forwards making good chances for each other, which they don’t. The midfield came to the rescue again tonight with the assists
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The elephan7 in the room is the striker who is supposed to be linking all of our forward play together but that’s a discussion for another thread.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah, agree completely. Our first half performance was definitely flawed. It wasn’t the same as the hypothetical scenario I described. But it was nowhere near as hapless as you’d think if you were basing your opinion on the xG alone.

Implying that xG is all you need to know to work out who was the better team isn’t much smarter than thinking all you need to know is the final score.
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Did anyone say this?

There are a lot of people saying xG is a better indicator of who was the better team (or to be specific, "in control") than possession. Genuinely confused that you're arguing against this.
 
King Azaz the Unabridged said:
Did anyone say this?

There are a lot of people saying xG is a better indicator of who was the better team (or to be specific, "in control") than possession. Genuinely confused that you're arguing against this.
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I’m arguing that neither metric should be used in isolation. And even better than relying on metrics is an informed opinion from someone who watched the fecking game!
 
SER19 said:
First time venturing near xG. What an overrated metric
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xG is sort of like Horoscopes for football. Quite a few people put a lot of stock into it but most realize it's just made up nonsense.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The elephan7 in the room is the striker who is supposed to be linking all of our forward play together but that’s a discussion for another thread.
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People need scapegoats as to why our most expensive forward line ever look like total strangers and don’t work enough for each other. Blame the coach. Blame the midfield and a supposed lack of controlled short passing from deep. Blame the midfields lack of creativity up until the point they are the only ones creating anything….

The teams main problem is and always has been that we can’t press and we don’t work hard enough. All of our pressing and work rate comes from the midfield. Ronaldo was never going to be the answer to that problem unless his arrival turned Greenwood and Rashford into completely different players which it hasn’t. I can see Ronaldo is still probably the best player of the 3 but he’s never the answer if you’re looking for more work rate and pressing. Elanga is more in line with what this team needs. James last season but the fans just didn’t want to hear it.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’m arguing that neither metric should be used in isolation. And even better than relying on metrics is an informed opinion from someone who watched the fecking game!
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And the reason the vast majority of people quoting your post disagreed with it is surely because we all watched the game and concluded United absolutely got away with one by making it to half-time without conceding. Which is exactly what one metric says (and the other doesn't)

Just strikes me as a very strange example to try and use the first half of today's game to argue xG isn't useful in isolation. Someone who didn't watch the game would read 1.5 vs 0.2 at half-time and think "huh. Looks like Brentford had by far the better chances to score in that half". Which they did.
 
Ali Dia said:
People need scapegoats as to why our most expensive forward line ever look like total strangers and don’t work enough for each other. Blame the coach. Blame the midfield and a supposed lack of controlled short passing from deep. Blame the midfields lack of creativity up until the point they are the only ones creating anything….

The teams main problem is and always has been that we can’t press and we don’t work hard enough. All of our pressing and work rate comes from the midfield. Ronaldo was never going to be the answer to that problem unless his arrival turned Greenwood and Rashford into completely different players which it hasn’t. I can see Ronaldo is still probably the best player of the 3 but he’s never the answer if you’re looking for more work rate and pressing. Elanga is more in line with what this team needs. James last season but the fans just didn’t want to hear it.
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I still think that the midfield needs better quality, but I do agree in regards to the forwards not working hard enough. James wasn't good enough on a technical level. Working hard is good and necessary to be successful, but you need to have the quality as well. If you put 10 James' in our team, we're nowhere near good enough to win the title. We need players that are good enough on a technical level, while also being willing to run and press.
 
CloneMC16 said:
I still think that the midfield needs better quality, but I do agree in regards to the forwards not working hard enough. James wasn't good enough on a technical level. Working hard is good and necessary to be successful, but you need to have the quality as well. If you put 10 James' in our team, we're nowhere near good enough to win the title. We need players that are good enough on a technical level, while also being willing to run and press.
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We have technical players. Ronadlo Greenwood Shaw Matic Donny etc the problem is they regularly play the game at a walking pace. I really feel the game has changed. The very best teams (and teams getting the most value in the market) will have one or two lethal but hard working attackers and a cast of hard runners and pressers behind.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’m using a hypothetical scenario to help you understand a point I’m making about the actual performance. Don’t think I can make myself any clearer.
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Could we perhaps be a bit more realistic then. In terms of the actual performance, we had around 57% possession compared to Brentfords 43%, which is pretty much what they average overall, we only had 549 passes to their 420, 723 touches compared to their 594, we also had to clear the ball more often, they had more shots (11 inside our box compared to our 5, 8 on target). Their average player position is surprisingly high up the pitch and the ball was more often on our half than theirs...They created plenty of problems for us in the first half by winning the ball high up the pitch and close to our goal, and also obviously every time we had a corner. If anything, for me, Brentford seemed to be in complete control of the first half and they were quite unlucky not to go in with a deserved lead at half time, and they highlighted just how shit we are these days.

But maybe I'm far too negative and completely wrong
 
Ali Dia said:
We have technical players. Ronadlo Greenwood Shaw Matic Donny etc the problem is they regularly play the game at a walking pace. I really feel the game has changed. The very best teams (and teams getting the most value in the market) will have one or two lethal but hard working attackers and a cast of hard runners and pressers behind.
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I agree with you. I do think we're behind the best teams on a technical level, but our players aren't bad in the slightest. They're just not the types to run all game or they're too old to do it at this point. Our younger players have to do more running. They don't have an excuse. We're never getting that from Ronaldo. I'm not sure how we can really work around him not doing much.
 
Using xG to judge one off games or even a small sample is moronic.

None of Brentfords chances were saves that i was surprised De Gea made. They made it easy for him to do so.

So Brentford get a high xG because on average players in those positions against an average keeper do better. That doesn't tell you much about the game other than Brentfords quality and our keepers quality skew the reality.

On the other hand our xG is lower than the average stats but guess what we have better than average players who will finish low xG chancss.

If Brentford were better at scoring goals and we were worse they may have won, wow who knew eh!
 
Ali Dia said:
We have technical players. Ronadlo Greenwood Shaw Matic Donny etc the problem is they regularly play the game at a walking pace. I really feel the game has changed. The very best teams (and teams getting the most value in the market) will have one or two lethal but hard working attackers and a cast of hard runners and pressers behind.
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We don’t have technical players in the middle of the park. That is our biggest problem by a distance.
 
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