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This xG nonsense


As already said i really dont know why people get worked up by it. If you dont like it just ignore it. Its a useful metric for measuring performance though. Many pro gamblers have made a fortune off the back of using it, so much so it's now heavily used by the bookies themselves when pricing up markets.
 
Antidotes said:
It's got big flaws, doesn't legilsate for the state the game is in for example. You'd expect Leeds to have had more yesterday for example when they're chasing to get back into a game and got their tails up a bit after scoring.
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Yes, it's a context-free statistic. Everton won 1-0 at Man Utd earlier this season with an XG of 0.16 to Man Utd's 2.2. But that doesn't take into account that had 10 men for almost literally the entire match, and we're hanging onto a lead.

XG generally over the last couple of years, had a correspondence accuracy of between 57-60% of a results. Different styles of play also impact how many shots a team is likely to have, and the perceived 'quality' of chances. If teams score a lot of goals from outside the box, those shots come a low XG. So you could have someone who is a world class player and long shot specialist scoring from 20 yards, and that goal will have a lower XG than a ball falling to Jeff Whitley on the penalty spot, that he scuffs out for a throw in.

So you can Aston Villa smash 4-0 v Bournemouth and having an XG of 1.3 - which happened.
 
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xG has myriad issues in the way people interpret it. At the end of the day it can only really tell you who had the most shots and maybe give a clue as to how good the chance was; but even that is very subjective.

I find us to be quite picky with our shot selection so ours will be naturally low; xG doesn't count shots not taken. Teams like us, Villa and Everton also seem to restrict the opposition to a load of long range awkward shots, which bump up xG numbers for the opposition and make us look 'lucky' when in reality we're making the opposition miss most of their chances.

xG can be used as part of a toolset to deduce a teams style of play, but the way pundits go on you'd think it was a 1:1 metric for who should have won.
 
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xG and how it’s talked about has completely gone out of hand the past couple of seasons. Like possession was the “be all and end all” for years. Pundits bang on about xG and use it as a crutch, it’s just lazy analysis dressed up as insight and rarely tells the full story of a match.

Probabilities don’t win footie games, outcomes do. As long as we score more than the other team, I couldn’t give a monkeys chuff about our xG or possession.

I feel a lot better going home with 3 points instead of 0 and saying “well, we had more possession and xG”…
 
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XG is a very useful metric imo but some of the application is wrong.

Say we scored early and the XG for the chance we scored was 0.5. Then as we know RLB likes do, say we sat back and conceded 4 or 5 chances with a total XG of 1, the stats at the end would say 0.5 v 1.0. That doesn’t necessarily mean we should have lost, and also doesn’t reflect that the pattern of the game changed as we sat in a low block after scoring.

If this was replicated over 10 games yet we won a few of them, it just seems a nonsense to say XG says we should have lost them all and we’re in a false position.
 
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This video recently put out is titled the problem with xG but as the creator says in the video, it's actually talking about the problem in how people misuse the xG stat, as mentioned a couple of times in this thread.
 
I've never known people get so upset about xG as on here, and generally by people that have no idea what it is.

And as an indicator it's starting to play out, our form is slowly dropping off. On form our form has slowly dropped from 7th, to 9th, to 10th, to 12th.

We have a good keeper and have largely taken our chances well compared to the opposition. Do people not agree with this?
 
Its an excellent indicator of which teams create better chances which suggests they are better at attacking other teams.

We're clearly a defensively set up team and whilst that is a better starting point for building the team around it also means every game is tight af
 
Boring team that touches the ball lots of times in the opposition's half = 4 expected goals.


Solid team, that counters with pace = 0.1 expected goals
(Wins 1-0)



Load of rubbish

Motd only had us as having 2 clear chances yesterday, despite Brobby having 2 clear chances just to himself within 2 minutes.
 
I cant understand how Brobbey fluffs a 1-on-1 most strikers would put away.

Brobbey should take the net out with a header he caught flush from 9 yards.

And adingra had a good chance he duly curled into the far corner.

And that equates to only 0.6xG or sommet :lol:
 
Ilios said:
Yes, it's a context-free statistic. Everton won 1-0 at Man Utd earlier this season with an XG of 0.16 to Man Utd's 2.2. But that doesn't take into account that had 10 men for almost literally the entire match, and we're hanging onto a lead.

XG generally over the last couple of years, had a correspondence accuracy of between 57-60% of a results. Different styles of play also impact how many shots a team is likely to have, and the perceived 'quality' of chances. If teams score a lot of goals from outside the box, those shots come a low XG. So you could have someone who is a world class player and long shot specialist scoring from 20 yards, and that goal will have a lower XG than a ball falling to Jeff Whitley on the penalty spot, that he scuffs out for a throw in.

So you can Aston Villa smash 4-0 v Bournemouth and having an XG of 1.3 - which happened.
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We were never that prolific last season either and had a successful one in the end. Think we had 1 or 2 games where we won by 1 or more goals, already matched that in a better division in 18 games.
 
I think anyone who watches us play agrees that we don't create many good chances. But then we ate hard to score against as well so it evens out.
 
Mackem DJ said:
I cant understand how Brobbey fluffs a 1-on-1 most strikers would put away.

Brobbey should take the net out with a header he caught flush from 9 yards.

And adingra had a good chance he duly curled into the far corner.

And that equates to only 0.6xG or sommet :lol:
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I dont think brobbeys header was that easy, he had to go for power due to the angle and the fact keeper is pretty much there to save it unless it beat him for pace. But would have to watch the replay again
 
Antidotes said:
It's got big flaws, doesn't legilsate for the state the game is in for example. You'd expect Leeds to have had more yesterday for example when they're chasing to get back into a game and got their tails up a bit after scoring.
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Its not used for assessing who was the better team though
Mackem DJ said:
I cant understand how Brobbey fluffs a 1-on-1 most strikers would put away.

Brobbey should take the net out with a header he caught flush from 9 yards.

And adingra had a good chance he duly curled into the far corner.

And that equates to only 0.6xG or sommet :lol:
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Both of Brobbey's chances were 10% chance shots..therefore tough to convert. Certainly tougher than Adingras.
 
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