I’m not too crazy about xG stats normally, like attempts on goal and possesion it is sometimes interesting if you already know the context of the game, or sometimes when you see a very surprising result in a large sample. But in the end it’s goals that count, doesn’t matter if you get them by being effective or by producing a lot of half-situations.
However it is more interesting in the context of a build up over time. This season, the points total to me will probably be less important to me than seeing if our general play is developping in a positive way. Then these stats are more interesting, and xG and xPts more so.
My general impression from watching the games, is that we’ve played not fantastically but fairly well in each game. Chelsea result lied a bit and Palace result lied a bit, and we could have gotten more from the two other games too with a bit of margines. I’d say we played slightly better than in many of the games of our golden run last season, and much better than in the run up.
XG seems to confirm this. Under Mou in the second place season, our ratio of xG for to xG against was about 3 to 2. In his half of last season it was almost 1 to 1. Which fits with my impression. Under Ole last season, in the golden phase it was first 3 to 1 in the first games, trailing off to about 3 to 2, while in the run up it was a little bit better than 1 to 1.
Now it is about 2 to 1, more or less the same as Liverpool, only City are better, and the rest of the big six are well behind. All this is without pens.
Albeit being a small sample, to me, in context, this confirms the impression from watching the games, that our general play looks to have improved and is slightly better than both Mourinho’s best season and most of Solskjær’s good run last season. And this is with the removal of several of the more experienced players (Herrera, Matic, Lukaku, Sanchez), have the youngest starting squad in the PL, and are bedding in a new back four.
It seems an indication that we can forget the disastrous end to last season for now, and that we may well be in the process of a slow but largely consistent improval.
Thoughts?