The 25/26 Stat Topic - “Statistically Terrible, Visually Even Worse”

[shen]

7 minutes ago, slymunn said:

That's a great explanation of xG. My only issue is that it cannot account for the level of player who's having the chance. Daka and Soumare's xG is the same as Vardy/Haaland/Ronaldo for the same chance.

But honestly, its no different to the other 'discussions' about amount of shots/corners/possession stats when you don't take the chances either way, just a more modern one to throw into the mix.

 

Indeed, xG is just a more defined term than 'half-chance', 'guilt-edged chance', 'pop at goal' and all those descriptive terms. It's really just attempting to narrow down and describe in more detail what our eyes see.

 

But there will never be an accurate representation because there are too many factors in play.

You could argue that an xG in the PL isn't the same as an xG in the Championship or lower down the leagues, or even across the continent. Pitches, balls, player quality, weather, etc will be different, so it will always be an approximation at best - but it's still a far more useful and reliable metric than Shots/on Target which was all we had before.

[Dan]

2 hours ago, slymunn said:

That's a great explanation of xG. My only issue is that it cannot account for the level of player who's having the chance. Daka and Soumare's xG is the same as Vardy/Haaland/Ronaldo for the same chance.

But honestly, its no different to the other 'discussions' about amount of shots/corners/possession stats when you don't take the chances either way, just a more modern one to throw into the mix.

 

To me though that's where it is kind of useful - taking the average I would just simply use these numbers to conclude that X player is above or below average a finisher. Haaland will always score exceptionally on this as he's the best finisher on the planet.

[slymunn]

22 minutes ago, Dan said:

To me though that's where it is kind of useful - taking the average I would just simply use these numbers to conclude that X player is above or below average a finisher. Haaland will always score exceptionally on this as he's the best finisher on the planet.

I'd rather it was looked at like that too. Then get the other side of the coin with a 'They are over performing and cannot sustain this, they are just getting away with it for now' which was talked about on the opening post.

[Stadt]

There isn't as much variance in finishing ability long term as you'd expect. Even the very best finishers only overperform xG by about 10% or 20% max.

 

Haaland has 79 non-pen PL goals from 72 non-penalty xG - the quality of chance is much more important than quality of finishing.

[Dan]

2 hours ago, slymunn said:

I'd rather it was looked at like that too. Then get the other side of the coin with a 'They are over performing and cannot sustain this, they are just getting away with it for now' which was talked about on the opening post.

To me it's just another set of data to inform an opinion on but I find plenty misinterpret. You are correct in that X player will be better at finishing than Y player but that's practically what it measures.

 

Southampton are an interesting case this season. They've been bad but they've underperformed their attacking numbers by an extraordinary amount - I'm unsure it can continue. I really don't know how I'd be reacting if we were having their season because everything about them tells you they'll pick wins up soon, but they're in such a losing mindset as a club it's unreal.

 

 

2 hours ago, Stadt said:

There isn't as much variance in finishing ability long term as you'd expect. Even the very best finishers only overperform xG by about 10% or 20% max.

 

Haaland has 79 non-pen PL goals from 72 non-penalty xG - the quality of chance is much more important than quality of finishing.

I wonder if this has lowered the level of finishers in general because the emphasis is far more on players getting chances rather than finishing them. This does seem to have created some extreme examples like Darwin Nunez.

Edited 31 October 2025 by Dan

[Trav Le Bleu]

On 29/10/2025 at 13:02, kingfox said:

Yep, I started to delve into Opta’s stats after the 1-1 draw against WBA, that’s when certain aspects of our performances began to annoy me. 
 

In all fairness, some of our pressing statistics have improved in recent games, we rank better for PPDA and high turnovers. 
 

Some posters don’t like xG and that’s fair enough, but from the eye test alone, our chance creation has evidently been poor, and it shows up in our statistics. For Fatawu to be leading our xG statistic(Just about squeezes onto Opta’s first page btw) with two defenders in Vestergaard and Ricardo sitting 2nd and 3rd is shambolic. 
 

Our xG and xGC statistics have barely improved for about 5-6 games now. 
 

The eye test shows Cifuentes badly needs to improve us both in attack and defence, and the statistics clearly show it too. 

I think the thing about xG etc is that it's very subjective. Goal chances and their grade of difficulty are entirely viewpoint based. Take ons... what exactly counts? Does half-heartedly sticking a foot out count as a tackle? Number of saves, but the GK was standing there anyway... or the sun was in their eyes... or they were fouled, but the ref didn't give it...

 

Very few of these X stats are clear cut and I think you can read too much into them. Sure, they lend a hand to interpreting the game, but I feel there's too many supporters view them like some holy canon that should not be questioned on pain of death.

 

Amen.

Edited 31 October 2025 by Trav Le Bleu