State of play after GW10:
United and xG (now that Ole is gone will things change?)
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's emphatic 4-1 win over Chelsea at Old Trafford and celebrate Manchester United being back in the Champions League. They also discuss United Women, takeover latest and transfer rumours before previewing the FA Cup Final vs. Manchester City.
Have to be careful with xG nowadays as there is no single accepted measure
FBRef https://fbref.com/en/matches/16b0abb7/Atalanta-Manchester-United-November-2-2021-Champions-League
Atlanta 1.1 Vs 1.3 Man Utd
Which obviously paints a very different picture
Bottom half for xPts now. Very near the bottom for xA.
Shite results, shite to watch, shite on the metrics.
Shite results, shite to watch, shite on the metrics.
Find it mentionworthy even if it doesn't really align with the name of the thread but today Understat had Chelsea for their game against Burnley with an xG over 3.0 but still only scoring 1 goal. 1st world problems.
Those were the sort of games we had in Mourinho's first season. I miss them.
What I’d give to have those problems now.
Chelsea have been operating on fine margins attacking wise so far and winning, yesterday they created loads and drew. That's football I suppose.
I found the xG for our last title win in 2013 in the link below. We were the third best side that season going by xG. We significantly outperformed xG, largely thanks to RVP whilst City significantly underperformed against their xG. I always thought that was a season of players being bang in form rather than us being dominant.
https://www.infogol.net/en/blog/ana...13-sir-alex-ferguson-s-lucky-send-off-2332020
Writing was on the wall for a long long while, can’t really blame us for being blinded by romanticism of a former player in charge, but at this point it’s just scandalous
Cool, thanks for the link, that's definitely interesting.
I think, the information for 2013 really fit my memories. Even back then we were saying that aren't playing the best kind of football but were extremely ruthless up front. That is one of the reasons I guess, I wasn't really singing with the horde that Moyes had been given a title winning squad. I mean, factually he had but there was more to. Seeing it in numbers only shows that xG is definitely a viable way to measure things.
And even if people say that xG is nonsense, I think, it is becoming more and more difficult to hold such a stance. Obviously it is about averages and titles aren't given for "expected stuff". But to get more insights in performances (especially comparing between multiple teams) it is pure gold. Looking really forward to what the future might bring in terms of more stats.
You seem very well informed, do you know a place where the distances players run in a match are tracked and published?
I don't unfortunately. The Premier League website used to do it and you can look at historical running stats using the tool below but they've stopped doing it! If you want to look at historical stats then select players for the comparison and then look on the 'matches' section. It will give a total distance run for the season. You'll have to work out the per game and per 90 yourself. It looks like they stopped doing after the 18/19 season.
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/player-comparison
Last edited:
As an Arsenal fan I remember being sick to my stomach that season. Ferdinand and Vidic were rocks at the back and RVP was clinical up front. The rest of your team didn’t seem all that stellar to me. RVP said he left to win big trophies so that was vindicated. But I remember thinking that the quality of his play that season probably would have won the title at a number clubs - ours included.
Post GW11:
As you'd expect, not pretty.
As you'd expect, not pretty.
Liverpool and City playing a different game offensively at the moment.... Apart from that, it seems, the pack is fairly close together. Mentionworthy that Brighton and Leeds seem to be a bit off this year. Would be interesting to know, if opponents adapted to their style or if it is down to form of their players. Trendwise, it looks as if the battle for 3rd and 4th place will be a pretty tight one.Post GW11:
As you'd expect, not pretty.
It also suggests that Chelsea might need to improve their performances to keep pace with Liverpool and City over the long run. A lot might depend on whether they can quickly get Lukaku integrated and firing once he's back from injury.
City's defensive numbers are also very impressive.
Liverpool overperformed their xPTS by 20+ in the season they won the league so there can be a great deal of variance between actuals and expected. Some years a team just has that next level efficiency to get the routine wins and grind out wins in close games when not really playing well, and I get the feeling Chelsea have that. Title will be between Chelsea and City I expect.
Bit of self flagellation, but how much worse has this gone after today's showing? @sullydnl
Fbref hasn't updated yet. Can't be good though.
Understat has the Match as 2.73 v 1.67. Which isn't too bad compared to comparable games. The xGA though is alarming. our chances came from Donnys goal (0.67) and two shots from Ronaldo and Rashford (0.3 each).
In terms of total xG Liverpool seems to play a different sport with around 31 for the season, below them are Chelsea and City with 24. We are leading the pack behind with 20. xGA is brutal - we are 16th currently.
The league leader in Spain, Real Madrid is at 21 after 12 games, Bayern Munich is at 38 (
), Inter Milan and PSG are both on 27. In France there are 5 teams with >25 xG.
Ole has left the building - thread title changed
xG wanker
One of us, he's one of us
Haha. It's a pity this topic stopped getting as much attention in the last couple of months, after we went from meh xG to appalling actual GA.
I miss the "anti-hipster" brigade!
Post GW12, with Solskjaer now sacked.
Will be interested to see how things change both under the interim and permanent manager.
Aside from us, Arsenal are a curious case. I suspect if you looked closer you'd see their xG stats take an absolute hammering in certain key games against big sides but be relatively balanced throughout the rest. Which is probably better than being generally a bit shit week in week out.
Will be interested to see how things change both under the interim and permanent manager.
Aside from us, Arsenal are a curious case. I suspect if you looked closer you'd see their xG stats take an absolute hammering in certain key games against big sides but be relatively balanced throughout the rest. Which is probably better than being generally a bit shit week in week out.
Villarreal apparently had a lot of chances and De Gea made some world class saves but they didn't even have two thirds of an XG.
A shot having a low xG doesn't mean it won't trouble the keeper, it just means that on average shots in that situation are less likely to result in a goal.
They didn't have any big chances. 2 half chances that De gea saved was about all they had.
Didn't even get 1 whole xg 
https://www.infogol.net/en/matches/...e/man-utd-vs-crystal-palace-2021-12-05/932825
https://www.infogol.net/en/matches/...e/man-utd-vs-crystal-palace-2021-12-05/932825
#rangyoutDidn't even get 1 whole xg
https://www.infogol.net/en/matches/...e/man-utd-vs-crystal-palace-2021-12-05/932825
I'm not surprised the xg was low. We won the ball high in the first 30 mins but still didn't do a lot with it. And the 2nd half was poor. Big room for improvement.
It was quite clear watching the game we hardly created clear cut chances but were also let down by real poor decision making as well , hopefully things would improve going forward but I think Rangnick would also need to vary his approach a bit you simply can't rely upon forcing opposition into mistakes as your only strategy .Didn't even get 1 whole xg
https://www.infogol.net/en/matches/...e/man-utd-vs-crystal-palace-2021-12-05/932825
Aside from the heavy caveats that come from looking at xG in any one game, there's also this from the same data provider:
Given Rangnick's comments after the game ("The way we defended, we had control of the whole game, the clean sheet was the most important part. These are the things we must improve. We need to keep clean sheets.") one suspects that's where we'll continue to see the more immediate improvement.
Given Rangnick's comments after the game ("The way we defended, we had control of the whole game, the clean sheet was the most important part. These are the things we must improve. We need to keep clean sheets.") one suspects that's where we'll continue to see the more immediate improvement.
Rangnick mentioned post match that he thinks the 10s should create more chances, but was already happy with their work against the ball. Guess this will be a key point to work on now.
That's exactly what he did when took from Hasenhuttl whose defensive record with Leipzig was awful the previous season.
The team's decision-making today in the final 3rd was very lacking and has been for a while which affects our xG.
I think we actually controlled the game very well defensively barring Palace's one Chance I can't even remember they even being in many threatening positions but certainly need to get better offensively, just out of curiosity how well Rangnick teams plays against the low block set up where opposition doesn't engage at all .
xG is good but you have to think of what it measures, which is just chances from shots. If a player goes one and one with the keeper, takes too long, and defender nicks it away just in time. The xG is 0 but one might say it was a great chance to score.
And still - as this flaw applies to every team/match, the metric is still enabling us to compare teams performances. One game isn't much, I thought, we have been relatively dominant in the first 30minutes and showed some urgency which I didn't see in a first half for 3 years. That is a good sign. Will be interesting to see, if Rangnicks effect will be measurable in xg. Today I think the most important thing was the clean sheet. Which is definitely a good thing. Especially against an in-form CP side.
Yeah our chances vs palace weren’t really good to be fair. Most of them came from Dalot and Telles long crosses attempted for Ronaldo‘s headers or from our long shots distances. To create good xG, you want something like what Liverpool or city did by making low crosses for players to score tap in or any passes in the box right at the feet. The times when we played those type of crosses or passes vs palace were when we didn’t shoot like Rashford decided to dribble pass 3 players instead of shooting and Ronaldo miss-kicked it. The RB Leipzig 18/19 goals what I watched on YouTube seems to be goals from tap in and set pieces. 1 day training session is obviously not enough to coach players how to create those type of quality chances. We should see some improvement next game.Didn't even get 1 whole xg
https://www.infogol.net/en/matches/...e/man-utd-vs-crystal-palace-2021-12-05/932825
xG is what?