The 'real' Premier League table decided by xG

[davieG]

https://www.sportbible.com/football/premier-league-table-xg-goals-882032-20230530?source=facebookstatic&fbclid=IwAR28T1LkSQHBXZ4iIP7qvuW_nRSCoXvXZj70w5Rdiiz-Ajsb-22Ft3gZuXE

 

The 'real' Premier League table decided by xG makes some big changes to finishing positions
Ryan Sidle

Published 15:46, 30 May 2023 BST
| Last updated 15:46, 30 May 2023 BST

The 'real' Premier League table decided by xG makes some big changes to finishing positions
 

Every team gets what they deserve at the end of a Premier League season right? Well not according to the expected points league table.

Whilst there might be the small detail of a few cup finals to go, teams in England's top tier ended their league campaigns on Sunday afternoon.

The big headline was of course Abdoulaye Doucoure keeping Everton in the league and avoiding their first relegation since 1952 and sending Leeds United and Leicester City down instead.

Unfortunately fans were denied much more drama with Manchester City having already secured their title and Manchester United earning the final top four spot before the weekend.

Some thoughts have already turned to what will have happened by this time next year, especially with Luton Town getting the final spot in the league with their play-off final win.

Others meanwhile are still dissecting what's happened since last August and deciding who deserves to win all sorts of awards, including us here at SPORTbible.

It's been a few weeks since an Arsenal fan suggested an alternative way for the league to be decided and now someone else has come up with a way, kind of.

The 'expected points' table shows how the league would have finished if every team lived up to their xG in each game, whether that's goals scored or conceded.

City still run away with the league and would actually have blown Arsenal away whilst Brighton would have qualified for the Champions League.

Some fans have been known to mock xG as stupid way to further understand how much a team had dominated a single game.

However whilst it definitely still has its flaws it's a far better metric to gather how good a team is in front of goal and at defending over a full season.

If a team are getting in good positions but not scoring then they'd have a high xG but not actually be getting any reward in the actual table.

The fact Brighton would be in a better position if they converted their xG suggests that their historic problems with scoring remain even with improvement.

The biggest losers in the whole situation are relegated Leicester, Leeds and Southampton who would all have stayed up if the season went the way it 'should' have, which is a first.

[foxinsocks]

This suggest that we don't take our chances

[foxes_rule1978]

Just now, foxinsocks said:

This suggest that we don't take our chances

We just conceded goal after goal, it was the teams effort to get back and do the basics right that costs us 

[nnfox]

We conceded too many soft goals.

 

Who knew?

[beepee1984]

But isn't this significantly skewed in favour of team that go behind early (which we did a lot)

As the team chasing the games is more likely to create chances

For example I think we were the only side to beat Man City this season on xG - does that mean we dominated the game or they went 3-0 up so quickly they just managed the game out

[The Doctor]

2 minutes ago, foxinsocks said:

This suggest that we don't take our chances

no it doesn't, xPts is calculated from xG and xGA. we outperformed our xG last season by a modest margin (+2.01), but only Tottenham and Southampton underperformed on xGA by more than our 8.21 extra goals conceded. basically the story is we'd have been comfortably midtable with even an average keeper 

[Captain...]

So having a shit goal keeper means we concede more goals we shouldn't? Who knew?

 

Also xG is bollocks.

[SheppyFox]

So you’re saying we might stay up?

[Fightforever]

Danny Ward relegated us.

[Unabomber]

That’s the real quiz 

[foxes_rule1978]

Just now, Fightforever said:

Danny Ward relegated us.

He definitely played a part in terms of being poor, but it was Rodgers that continuously played him despite being the worst number 1 I have ever seen in the PL 

[foxinsocks]

3 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

no it doesn't, xPts is calculated from xG and xGA. we outperformed our xG last season by a modest margin (+2.01), but only Tottenham and Southampton underperformed on xGA by more than our 8.21 extra goals conceded. basically the story is we'd have been comfortably midtable with even an average keeper 

does it mean we let in too many easy goals?

[The Doctor]

Just now, foxinsocks said:

does it mean we let in too many easy goals?

it means that our goalkeeper was slightly less effective than just putting up a "No entry" traffic sign each match 

[davieG]

1 minute ago, foxinsocks said:

does it mean we let in too many easy goals?

It just means we are where we are. 

[foxinsocks]

1 minute ago, The Doctor said:

it means that our goalkeeper was slightly less effective than just putting up a "No entry" traffic sign each match 

I thought we should just put a fat bloke between the sticks... and that would be better than ward.

Edited 31 May 2023 by foxinsocks

[Mark_w]

Oh excellent we're staying up, who wants to deliver Arsenal their 2015/16 title?

[FoxTimmy2]

2 hours ago, Fightforever said:

Danny Ward relegated us.

 

[HitchinFox]

13 hours ago, beepee1984 said:

But isn't this significantly skewed in favour of team that go behind early (which we did a lot)

As the team chasing the games is more likely to create chances

For example I think we were the only side to beat Man City this season on xG - does that mean we dominated the game or they went 3-0 up so quickly they just managed the game out

This is one of the examples of why xG should only ever be used as a rough guide. In my humble opinion. 

There is, rightfully, a lot of data-crunching now in modern elite football. Plenty of things that can be studied, learnt from and applied in training to correct and improve players, tactics etc. But not sure xG is one of them. 

 

Also, adding to the point made by @beepee1984 there are other issues with it.

After all, xG is, at its heart, designed as a metric that's intended to measure the probability of a shot resulting in a goal – it takes into account the place it was taken from, where the pass came, which body part (head or leg) etc. It is pretty clever, no doubt. 

But - and here's the massive but. What it doesn't take into account, at all, is whether that shot was taken by someone like Erling Haaland, Mo Salah or a donkey called Tripod. It purely looks at the quality of the chance. Not the quality of the player (which, to be fair, could be subjective and ruin the data). 

So to see a high xG and then to say that Team X "should've won the game" or "finished higher in the table" is silly, if the shots were taken by, say, Patson Daka. 

In essence, xG only ever tells us what we already know by watching a game – whether a team is converting its chances. Those who passionately believe in xG's mythical powers often say that it is, and I quote: "highlighting teams who are over or under-performing their expected numbers and whose results may soon begin to change."

Well, yes and no. A team might keep producing chances but results are unlikely to change or improve, if the same, not-very-good players are still taking the shots? However, if a star striker has been out injured and his understudy has been faffing chances, then yes – once the main man comes back, results are likely to improve and the actual goals are more likely to match xG?

But we already probably knew that without the data that xG gives us?

I'm prepared to be convinced that xG is the best thing since slide bread and open to changing my mind. But as it stands, I do think it's use is limited and definitely not as powerful an analytic tool as some make out. It's also a source of some very lazy journalism, which is a particular pet-hate of mine. 

Edited 1 June 2023 by HitchinFox
Fixing grammar

[Sampson]

13 hours ago, foxinsocks said:

This suggest that we don't take our chances

Be interesting to see the xG for GF vs GA, my instinct is it’s the other way round and we conceded too many soft goals to poor quality chances 

Edited 1 June 2023 by Sampson

[Death by Football]

Such utter codswhallop!

The fact that in almost every game the xG is different to the actual goals scored shows that xG is usually wrong.  Therefore it's a really useless metric that distracts from ineffective performances.  I could have a massive xG in a game because I keep going through one on one with the keeper but my goals scored will be nil because I'm fairly sh!t at football.

[Number 6]

13 minutes ago, HitchinFox said:

This is one of the examples of why xG should only ever be used as a rough guide. In my humble opinion. 

There is, rightfully, a lot of data-crunching now in modern elite football. Plenty of things that can be studied, learnt from and applied in training to correct and improve players, tactics etc. But not sure xG is one of them. 

 

Also, adding to the point made by @beepee1984 there are other issues with it.

After all, xG is, at its heart, designed as a metric that's intended to measure the probability of a shot resulting in a goal – it takes into account the place it was taken from, where the pass came, which body part (head or leg) etc. It is pretty clever, no doubt. 

But - and here's the massive but. What it doesn't take into account, at all, is whether that shot was taken by someone like Erling Haaland, Mo Salah or a donkey called Tripod. It purely looks at the quality of the chance. Not the quality of the player (which, to be fair, could be subjective and ruin the data). 

So to see a high xG and then to say that Team X "should've won the game" or "finished higher in the table" is silly, if the shots were taken by, say, Patson Daka. 

In essence, xG only ever tells us what we already know by watching a game – whether a team is converting its chances. Those who passionately believe in xG's mythical powers often say that it is, and I quote: "highlighting teams who are over or under-performing their expected numbers and whose results may soon begin to change."

Well, yes and no. A team might keep producing chances but results are unlikely to change or improve, if the same, not-very-good players are still taking the shots? However, if a star striker has been out injured and his understudy has been faffing chances, then yes – once the main man comes back, results are likely to improve and the actual goals are more likely to match xG?

But we already probably knew that without the data that xG gives us?

I'm prepared to be convinced that xG is the best thing since slide bread and open to changing my mind. But as it stands, I do think it's use is limited and definitely not as powerful an analytic tool as some make out. It's also a source of some very lazy journalism, which is a particular pet-hate of mine. 

You say it's use is limited, but Brentford probably aren't a PL side without it.

[ParkerPen]

did we just turn into spurs fans or something ? 

[Number 6]

9 minutes ago, Death by Football said:

Such utter codswhallop!

The fact that in almost every game the xG is different to the actual goals scored shows that xG is usually wrong.  Therefore it's a really useless metric that distracts from ineffective performances.  I could have a massive xG in a game because I keep going through one on one with the keeper but my goals scored will be nil because I'm fairly sh!t at football.

xG predicts up to 100ths of a goal, of course it is rarely exactly right. I imagine it correlates pretty well with which team won for most matches though. Used correctly it's very powerful and informative.

[Death by Football]

1 minute ago, Number 6 said:

xG predicts up to 100ths of a goal, of course it is rarely exactly right. I imagine it correlates pretty well with which team won for most matches though. Used correctly it's very powerful and informative.

So does actual goals scored.

[HitchinFox]

6 minutes ago, Number 6 said:

You say it's use is limited, but Brentford probably aren't a PL side without it.

Yep, Brentford are brilliant at using data to drive everything. And they use xG in the right way – to discover individuals who can finish and to identify players with "hidden value". And yes, I'm sure xG has played a part in their success. Equally though, their entire "Moneyball" approach is much more than just xG. They do a lot of other data-based research and analysis outside of it. 

My point is that – and again, just my opinion – xG has become overused these days, and is often applied in ways that don't really work. Especially when it comes to predicting team performances as a collective over a long period of time. For example, speculating about where teams should have "really finished" in a 38-game league based on xG. That's not really what xG is for. 

I'm all for data – in fact, a bit of a geek when it comes to it. Just feel that xG has become this thing that is used for everything. 

Maybe that's more it, actually. I just see it being everywhere. It is useful, 100%. But over-used and often in the wrong context.