xG under Ralf

TMDaines said:
So a 0-0 was fair after all? :lol:

We were the slightly better side, yes, and today was definitely more about the result than the performance against a tough rival.
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I found this game more encouraging than any other game during Rangnick's reign so far.

sullydnl said:
Key take away today is the defensive improvement. Been a while since De Gea had that little to do. Hopefully it's the start of a pattern rather than a one-off.
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Agreed.
 
bucky said:
I found this game more encouraging than any other game during Rangnick's reign so far
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Maybe. We certainly had more control.

With all that stale possession though, it just highlights how few players we have in the squad who have good attacking movement (Rashford in behind, Lingard more in midfield) and how few players we have with an eye for and an ability to make a pass (Bruno, Pogba and Lindelöf). West Ham aren’t anything special defensively. We were so poor in attacking transition.

We really missed Lindelöf today with all that possession and Pogba will be really important for us to salvage something from the season.
 
West Ham also played into United's defensive performance as they typically put 10 men behind the ball. Both teams had sloppy possession at times, but West Ham couldn't move up the flanks as much due to the work by Elanga and Greenwood.

West Ham are a very solid team defensively, but once they picked up some free kicks and the game got stretched, it was more open and United did better winning 2nd and 3rd balls.
 
TMDaines said:
So a 0-0 was fair after all? :lol:

We were the slightly better side, yes, and today was definitely more about the result than the performance against a tough rival.
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I just think saying 0-0 was a fair result implies an evenly matched game. Nothing between the two teams. Which would be a misleading way to describe what happened.

Put it another way. Do you think the 1-0 win flattered us? I don’t.
 
TMDaines said:
Maybe. We certainly had more control.

With all that stale possession though, it just highlights how few players we have in the squad who have good attacking movement (Rashford in behind, Lingard more in midfield) and how few players we have with an eye for and an ability to make a pass (Bruno, Pogba and Lindelöf). West Ham aren’t anything special defensively. We were so poor in attacking transition.

We really missed Lindelöf today with all that possession and Pogba will be really important for us to salvage something from the season.
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Considering how many chances we have given up to average teams over the course of the season, it was still important that we finally had the control Rangnick has been talking about from day one. Once Sancho finds his footing and has his confidence back, with Bruno returning to form, I feel like we should be alright. Stale possession is what you get with McFred, but that will hopefully be a thing of the past next season. We are also missing Shaw's passing from the left, as well as Pogba's from deeper.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I just think saying 0-0 was a fair result implies an evenly matched game. Nothing between the two teams. Which would be a misleading way to describe what happened.

Put it another way. Do you think the 1-0 win flattered us? I don’t.
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No, 0-0 was fair until that massive chance when 1-0 more adequately reflects the game.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Do you realise how stupid that sounds? Analysing a game by goals/chances alone. You might as well base your opinions by “watching” the game on ceefax.
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Not sure, what you want me to say, Pogue? I was in the stands and with minutes to go I was lamenting the thought that this was going to be the 6th time I had seen United fail to score at Old Trafford this season, and it didn’t feel unfortunate. 0-0 was a pretty fair result until the final minute. We were largely toothless and didn’t look like working their keeper… until we suddenly did.
 
TMDaines said:
Not sure, what you want me to say, Pogue? I was in the stands and with minutes to go I was lamenting the thought that this was going to be the 6th time I had seen United fail to score at Old Trafford this season, and it didn’t feel unfortunate. 0-0 was a pretty fair result until the final minute. We were largely toothless and didn’t look like working their keeper… until we suddenly did.
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As someone who is usually a big fan of xG I don’t understand why you’re ignoring it tonight. The Fred shot, the Ronaldo and Varane headers, the fluffed left foot efforts from Martial and Bruno. West Ham literally created nothing.

I shared your frustration to an extent but I was also really enjoying the way we strangled the life out of West Ham. Which has been a rare sight these last few years and is completely dismissed by the “0-0 a fair result” narrative.

Anyhoo. You were at the game. I often get a wildly distorted impression of events from inside the stadium, where just one punter sitting nearby on a negative one can make me think we played much worse than we did. Be interested to hear your opinion after watching on telly (even if only highlights)
 
Pogue Mahone said:
As someone who is usually a big fan of xG I don’t understand why you’re ignoring it tonight. The Fred shot, the Ronaldo and Varane headers, the fluffed left foot efforts from Martial and Bruno. West Ham literally created nothing.
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Nobody's ignoring it. Based on the graphic sullydnl posted, our XG from all of those chances you're talking about adds up to about 0.6 - none of them were high-quality.

And then we went and created a top quality, nearly unmissable chance with the last kick of the game. Before that, i.e. for the first 92 minutes, neither side created much. Therefore 0-0 was a fair reflection of the game until then.

We won, and we looked much more defensively solid than we have for a while, which is very encouraging. Still work to do in the final third.
 
TwoSheds said:
If we're relying on Fred's finishing to win the game we're doing it wrong. He hit the target which is something I think only he and Rashford could say!
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Plus remember the way the Fred chance started, he stumbled in a defender an the ball luckily went back to him. Not wanting to take something away from Fred, but that wasn't a chance we worked for really well.

TMDaines said:
Maybe. We certainly had more control.

With all that stale possession though, it just highlights how few players we have in the squad who have good attacking movement (Rashford in behind, Lingard more in midfield) and how few players we have with an eye for and an ability to make a pass (Bruno, Pogba and Lindelöf). West Ham aren’t anything special defensively. We were so poor in attacking transition.

We really missed Lindelöf today with all that possession and Pogba will be really important for us to salvage something from the season.
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Question will be what is the price. I am totally with you on Lindelof, he might have helped today. Even though he might also have struggled against Antonie and a fairly physical Westham Side. With Pogba, who do you get rid of to have him in the team?

Pogue Mahone said:
I just think saying 0-0 was a fair result implies an evenly matched game. Nothing between the two teams. Which would be a misleading way to describe what happened.

Put it another way. Do you think the 1-0 win flattered us? I don’t.
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We had 3 or 4 shots on goal, the goal we scored came just after almost conceding after a Westham corner. We broke fast, we broke well, but this match to me was a draw. Two good teams mostly neutralizing each other. One being a bit more lucky in the end. Nothing wrong with being lucky of course.

Pogue Mahone said:
As someone who is usually a big fan of xG I don’t understand why you’re ignoring it tonight. The Fred shot, the Ronaldo and Varane headers, the fluffed left foot efforts from Martial and Bruno. West Ham literally created nothing.

I shared your frustration to an extent but I was also really enjoying the way we strangled the life out of West Ham. Which has been a rare sight these last few years and is completely dismissed by the “0-0 a fair result” narrative.

Anyhoo. You were at the game. I often get a wildly distorted impression of events from inside the stadium, where just one punter sitting nearby on a negative one can make me think we played much worse than we did. Be interested to hear your opinion after watching on telly (even if only highlights)
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The Fred shot came after the ball bouncing back to him, the Ronaldo header was after a typical "hoping for it" pass from Bruno, the Varane header was a set piece. We had some chances, but it isn't like we played particularly well to get them. Nothing wrong with that, Westham is a good team, but I find it potentially dangerous to take anything more from this game than being happy with a solid defensive performance and being well in control for almost an hour (after that we resorted too much to long ball stuff for my liking).
 
Should’ve scored about 17 today
 
Today has been very good, everyone has been good I think. Just very unlucky / poor finishing.
 
Everything aside from the finishing has been good today. Game should have been over by half-time.
 
Finishing is now the obvious problem although the build up to the goal i need to see again (where were our fullbacks?)
 
VP89 said:
There were 3 or 4 good chances today
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Penalty, Rashford x2, Ronaldo 1 vs 1 keeper, Ronaldo in the box from Rashford, Bruno from the top of my head. Did you post this that early that these chances hadnt come about?
 
AjaxCunian said:
Penalty, Rashford x2, Ronaldo 1 vs 1 keeper, Ronaldo in the box from Rashford, Bruno from the top of my head. Did you post this that early that these chances hadnt come about?
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In fairness I can only remember one Rashford chance from sancho’s cross, and I don’t remember one for Ronaldo from Rashford. It’s been a weird game that’s slowly descended into a complete mess.
 
Dan_F said:
In fairness I can only remember one Rashford chance from sancho’s cross, and I don’t remember one for Ronaldo from Rashford. It’s been a weird game that’s slowly descended into a complete mess.
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The one after the Pogba pass. Rashford was 1 vs 1 with the keeper, Ronaldo angry he didnt pass (there was no clear pass tbh).

Rashford laid it off to Ronaldo in the box and it hit the side netting.
 
Our finishing is absolutely awful! Create a lot and miss a lot! Now that we’ve sorted out our defence it’s the strikers that are letting us down. Under ole it was the defence that let the strikers down! Can’t win
 
At least we won the xG Cup.

Gave me flashbacks to Portsmouth that game.
 
Yagami said:
Is that the most clear cut chances in a game we've had since 2009 or just most misses from clear cut opportunities?
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The way it reads it's the former, but it has to be the latter. Our xG against Leeds last season (4.28) and Southampton (4.85) was higher than tonight (4.2). So I'm not sure how they're measuring clear cut chances. I can't remember so many missed chances in a game in years though, so I'm inclined to think that's what it's stating.
 
We had other games this season where we generated fairly high xG but largely from a spate of low quality shots from distance, which suggests inefficiency in terms of creating chances. If your possesion keeps ending in low-quality chances then that's a problem, even if that happens enough times that you'd hope to score some of them anyway.

In this case though we were actually getting excellent chances inside the box as well.
 
Might be an unprecedented draw (that feels like a loss) in the xG era for United. I cannot remember anything similar, especially when you consider the very dubious nature of Boro’s big chance and goal.

 
Disappointing second half, but we should have won again. No xG of course for the disallowed goals.


 
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