they can't both be the bigger factor
United and xG (now that Ole is gone will things change?)
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
Touche. I mean they are both important factors.
This. Don't think there's a single United supporter out there that enjoys seeing us lose just to be "proven right". Whatever that means anyway.
I agree we shouldn't draw conclusions about this season until we're at least a third of the way in. However there has been a consistent pattern that we start slowly under him.
We've got through a couple of games by the skin of our teeth, and looked uninspired. A trend that goes back two seasons.
I agree we generally hit our stride a dozen games in, but that is unacceptable if we aspire to ever win the league, which we should be doing this season with the money we've spent.
Do you honestly think his style of football is sustainable at the top level?
Nobody ever won the league with xG. Ergo it's a load of horse shit.
Why do we need these metal tanks when we have the best cavalry in the world?
If the metal tanks are imaginary, then yeah.
Caveman opinion. There is a reason why xG is considered important virtually everywhere. By far the best statistic we have (although far from perfect).
And weather forecasts don't rain on anyone either. People who pay attention to them are still less likely to find themselves wet though.
Nice
Always get a couple of people in discussions like this that are seemingly annoyed by stats and a little too eager to point out just how little they matter
xG is just data
I'm not sure what people think is going on when they say they don't believe in it
I'm not sure what people think is going on when they say they don't believe in it
The best statistic we have is the goals for and against columns to be fair
No, we don't. We had the same argument in 2019, where people who pay attention to this were saying that it will soon go very wrong. We then got eliminated out of UCL, and ended the season by winning 5 points in the last 7 matches, well outside of the UCL zone. Some people were wondering what went wrong, when the picture was very clear that it was always going to end that way.
It’s how you analyse it though. Taking the numbers as if they’ve done the work for you and have presented it on a plate is as disingenuous as pretending it doesn’t matter.
https://www.twenty3.sport/xg-what-is-it-explained/
xG is the best indicator to predict results though. You can tell which teams are on the lucky/unlucky side and what to expect in next games. Just looking at goals will not tell you that.
We went out to defensive errors, not XG. We scored 2 goals away from home in a game we could draw to qualify and lost. We scored a goal away in Turkey where we defended like schoolboys on the halfway line. We scored at home to PSG, controlled the game then conceded from a set piece. We scored in all of those games, it was the defensive end that let us down.
Second top scorers last season, top scorers so far. We score our way out of problems. Our attacking play carries us from defensive blunders to get wins.
XG was never a problem and it hasn’t caught up to us. It’s defending set pieces and covering the back post that has been our glaring issue
Agree with that. The likes of Michael Cox and Rafa Honigstein present xG as a definitive statement of the game, when it's just a tool for understanding what you've watched. To me, that seems one of the issues with it. It's being sold (by some) as having cracked the code of football.
I was talking about the interim season of Ole (mentioned 18/19). People were convinced that we are being magnificent, when it was clear that we were just super-lucky. And then the inevitable regression to the mean happened.
The same thing is going to happen this season, unless we significantly improve. We had a very good start in the league (although a very easy schedule playing against 4 teams that are in the bottom 5 places, and one in eighth place), but the xG has not been showing it (i.e., we have been lucky). In truth, just watching the games would result with the same opinion, but it is extra worrying when xG confirms that.
The only constant in Ole's reign is that we have difficulties creating high-quality chances, and xG perfectly confirms that.
Weather is more predictable than people.
It's a rough indicator at best and driven by an obsession to quantify. It's "importance" is football hipsterism and something for media outlets to talk about.
Yeah, that's stats in general really. Stats being readily available to almost anyone is both a good thing and a terrible thing. Because, inevitably, most people aren't really going to dive into the minutiae of the stats but instead use it in a way that backs up their own agenda and personal biases. As we've seen on this forum from time to time, whether it's to defend Ole or attack him.
Obviously, stats are useful when used correctly and can be a good indicator of things to come. At the risk of sounding like some sort of luddite, I often find the eye test to be a pretty good indicator of what to expect in long run, and how a team is actually playing. Much in the same way I don't need the weather forecast to tell me it's pissing down when I can just look out the window.
Of course, it is an indicator. A far better indicator than the number of shots, or the number of shots in goal, for example.
And again.
There's a nice, pleasant balance between "xG is gospel" and "xG is a load of horse shit for football hipsters". Try harder to strike it, please.
Not as good as watching the game though, is it? Hint: No it isn't.
xG is actually a very good indicator as to how sustainable your form is. As evident by the opening post from 2019, we were massively outperforming our xG, which is a good way to see wether you’re actually a top team or just enjoying a “purple patch / rub of the green” and as we saw we ended up finishing that season horribly.
I disagree when people say xG is useless, it’s a very very good indicator as to where you are & what you can achieve over a 50+ game season.
If we are going to win the league this season we are going to need de Gea, Fernandes & Ronaldo to have unbelievable seasons, because our xG from both scoring & conceded is significantly worse than our title rivals.
I disagree when people say xG is useless, it’s a very very good indicator as to where you are & what you can achieve over a 50+ game season.
If we are going to win the league this season we are going to need de Gea, Fernandes & Ronaldo to have unbelievable seasons, because our xG from both scoring & conceded is significantly worse than our title rivals.
Probably not. But it would complement watching the game very well, and add more knowledge than just watching the game.
These types of stats might actually be very useful. A striker who consistently outperforms their xG is clinical, even if the eyes do not show that. In the US sports, stats have been used for decades now, starting from baseball when some guy made a team of misfits competitive, even though he didn't even bother watching them play before signing them. In football, it has been mostly in the last 10 years, but top managers like Pep take it seriously.
Martial used to outperform his xG every season to be fair. He’s anything but clinical.
Is there a link to Pep discussing XG?
Man City recently hired a few data analysts, including Laurie Shaw whose CV consists of a PhD in computational astrophysics and writing AI software for hedge funds. He is in charge of their data analysis team.
I think it is very likely that he is taken seriously from Pep Guardiola, otherwise why would City pay millions for their data analysis team.
As others have mentioned, it's heralded as the dawn of a new football age and used as gospel by those who watch highlights on YouTube rather than a 90 minute game of football. You could coin any number of similar algorithms which would look "about right" most of the time. There's an obsession with predictability and quantification in football.
Or maybe he is good at scoring from half chances.
Maybe. He used to love the Mr Whippy 99 finesse from the edge of the box didn’t he? Aka “The Lingard”
He used to be. Back when he was good.
Indeed. That's the rub with Martial and one of the reasons for his inconsistency. When on form he scores a lot of lower probability goals, curling shots from the edge of the box are one of his trademarks. Understanding this through xG helps you to understand the player more. The problem with Martial is that he's never developed the other side of a striker's game through scoring tap-ins and headers etc.
It is not gospel, but it is getting better. Ultimately, I think it will describe the quality of teams better than just watching matches, similarly to how I expect that ultimately autonomous driving is gonna be safer than humans driving cars. In both cases, it is not there yet.
It still is incredibly useful and clubs are making investments in these areas. It could identify interesting things before you get hit by them.
Here’s a link discussing Brentford’s owner establishing a successful gambling company on it and then using it to get Brentford promoted to the PL.
Depends who is watching the game. The majority of idiots on this place? It is way better than them watching it, yes.
Not Pep here's Tuchel talking about it a little:
And here's Klopp referencing it:
I'm sure Ole gets presented with that same basic data as them too, so he's not going to be unaware of how we've lagged in that regard. Actually improving things is the hard part.