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What Premier League Expected Goals stats tell us after Wolves 1 Newcastle 1

4 years ago
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Expected Goals is widely agreed to be the best way of measuring how well Premier League clubs play in any particular game.

To get a better look at how sides are doing, the Expected Goals (xG) metric allows you to get a better picture of just how teams are performing.

Expected goals (xG) is a statistic used to work out how many goals should be scored in a match.

With every single shot awarded an xG value based on the difficulty of the attempt, with factors including distance from goal, type of shot and number of defenders present affecting the value.

The higher the xG of a particular shot, the more likely a goal should be scored from that shot.

The xG value of every shot in a game is then used to calculate the expected goals in a particular match.

So rather than just the usual basic statistics of how many shots each team has, Expected Goals factors in where shots were taken from and how good a chance was and whether defenders in the way etc.

These are the weekend’s Premier League Expected Goals stats (actual final scoreline in brackets) by Understat:

Friday 10 January 2020

Sheffield United 2.14 v 0.86 West Ham (1-0)

Saturday 11 January 2020

Crystal Palace 0.31 v 1.02 Arsenal (1-1)

Wolves 2.06 v 0.18 Newcastle United (1-1)

Chelsea 2.89 v 0.44 Burnley (3-0)

Everton 1.53 v 1.54 Brighton (1-0)

Leicester 0.75 v 2.20 Southampton (1-2)

Manchester United 3.13 v 0.28 Norwich (4-0)

Tottenham 1.10 v 1.78 Liverpool (0-1)

Sunday 12 January 2020

Bournemouth 0.32 v 2.30 Watford (0-3)

Aston Villa 1.11 v 3.39 Manchester City (1-6)

As you can see, in almost every case the results tend to match up with the Expected Goals stats.

The team that works the best chances most often in a match, gives itself the best chance of winning.

So Sheffield United, Chelsea, Southampton, Man Utd, Liverpool, Watford and Man City were very much deserving on their wins on balance of play/chances.

The teams that were maybe a little unlucky – Arsenal only getting a draw at Palace despite 1.02 v 0.31 superiority on expected goals,whilst Everton did well to win 1-0 against Brighton in a game that was very evenly matched (1.53 v 1.54).

As for Newcastle United, it is their result that sticks out a mile, yet again.

Newcastle had the very lowest expected goals rating (0.18) of all 20 Premier League sides and the fact that Almiron’s goal was Newcastle’s only shot on target, sums that up.

Whilst Wolves had an expected goals rating of 2.06 and they saw Martin Dubravka save three efforts on goal from inside the six yard box, including a couple of stunning saves.

Steve Bruce’s luck is back!

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