That’s true for City and Liverpool’s stats too so far.
They really mostly reflect that it’s early in the season and too early to take much other than if we keep putting up numbers like then we can expect to get better results
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Manager Ange Postecoglou
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They really mostly reflect that it’s early in the season and too early to take much other than if we keep putting up numbers like then we can expect to get better results
I think the stats purely show we've played 3 relegation candidates and two teams who play a very specific style in big games and were happy to hand us all momentum, which leads to us looking good on a spreadsheet, but coming away from both big games with 0 points.
But sure, if we maintain those numbers across an entire season we will (probably) do better. It's not nailed on (I remember Potter and Poch's Chelsea being much better in terms of underlying stuff) but .. probably.
Brentford aren’t relegation fodder and Newcastle at home didn’t choose to give us anything, we took it. They never chose to get repeatedly turned over outside their penalty area, we just let them off the hook and lost concentration.
Woolwich we were toothless and didn’t use our domination of the ball well enough but still turned them over in very dangerous positions.
The underlying numbers for pressing and various other metrics reflect all of the above really. As they do that we converted those high turnovers vs Brentford
Brentford were 16th last season. They finished behind a points deducted Everton. Alright they had some injuries and their start has been OK but smart money is on being bottom half again.
Newcastle were definitely especially crap at playing out (which you know ... livramento, burn, krafth, kelly, pope .. no shit) but at no point pre-game were they planning on having the ball. They wanted to kick it long up to Isak/Gordon and play on transitions. They out xGed us doing this, despite not being able to play out due to a championship level back 5.
We are very very good at pressing/turning the ball over. By far the most effective thing Ange has done coaching wise. But being a brilliant pressing team is just one metric and it definitely won't inevitably lead to wins across a season by default.
Fuck me some of you are so soft. Rattled by a couple of out of context sentences put out by an aggregator. If you haven’t learnt by now, you never will.
We blow more SOLID scoring chances than anyone
Yes but those forwards haven't been taking their chances.
As Pep says : "Its my job to get you to the final third. Its your job to finish it."
Genuine question - would you sack Ange and replace him?
The forwards do not finish the chances they get.
Prior to the third goal, I initially did not know who the man to Son's left was, but I was hoping that it was Maddison, because I knew if it was anyone else, they would not finish the move. That's how poor the forwards have been at taking chances. Too many coach killers ATM.
No. I’ve been pretty clear that he should get the season barring some disaster.
I’m just not quite on the ‘underlying metrics are amazing and we are bound to get what we deserve’ train because I think the metrics at this point don’t represent much at all when exposed to context.
We are very good at certain things. Ange is great at making a team intense, our press is fantastic.
Depends who you're replacing him with.
If it's De Zerbi or Nagelsmann, absolutely. If it's 6 months of Ryan Mason, I'll stick with mate-ball thanks.
At the very least though I expect Lange to be making a list and lining up all his contacts. Brighton getting Hurzeler shows there are candidates out there outside the "big names" that are viable. It's not just "Tuchel or Potter" as some here seem to think. Nor is it our job as fans to know them all.
Our first goal was literally Maddison failing to finish a chance and one of our other forwards finishing it for him.
Out xG’d in one game means even less than our expected stats over 5.
I don’t think anyone is saying good pressing data will inevitably lead to wins (you can’t measure a press in one metric either but we will ignore that).
What people are fairly saying is that our expected stats have been better than a 10th placed team and on balance so have our other metrics. So if those numbers continue over longer periods, the odds of our results being better than a 10th placed team go up considerably.
That is how predictive/expected stats metrics work.
There might be mitigating circumstances as there always is with our transfers and i'm sure he didnt get exactly what he wanted but he has signed off on Solanke, Johnson, Odobert, Werner, Maddison and the Kulusevski permanent deal. We also bought in Solomon. Roughly £200m on that lot. The only 2 forwards or attacking midfielders not purchased under his watch are Son and Richarlison.
I get what you saying and mostly it is true and agreeable.
Only that parts are bit too simplistic. It is not fully how predictive/expected stats metrics work.
Prime example of it is Son. He has outperformed his expected xG for better part of decade now. Based on your logic, expected stats metrics have been indicating that his goal numbers will decrease. While in real world it means that he has been and most likely continues to score more than would be expected from these situations on average.
Now this is an interpretation regarding playing style, and I do not have any scientific/statistical proof of that. But I have a theory that the xG is overestimating probability of finishing chances on position attacks and underestimates the probability in counter-attack situations. It seems that it is based on more on the position, distance, angle etc of where the shot is taken, but less so of how the whole defensive structure of opposition team is positioned. It has to be a snapshot of a moment, but for example it is very hard to quantify the impact on defenders sprinting back to kill off the chance. But if all defenders are way behind you - you have more time to find a solution, if they are closer, you have to rush it more. As a result, I believe that Pep-style of play the xG is overestimated (so xG is higher than actual goals) and for Conte-style football xG is underestimated (so xG is lower than actual goals scored).
Very much this. Brentford was better and really good tor 30 mins in the first half. The formation had been tweaked and it gave our better players more room. But by and large we have been ok at beating the bottom half sides at home under Ange, apart from Wolves. Our form against top half sides and away from home against all but the bottom feeders has been shocking. Man U and Brighton away next up. I'd love them to prove to us that have some doubts wrong and come away from those 2 with 4 pts (i'd take 3 pts tbh) and show this supposed improvement has some staying power.
Son is an outlier in the data set for xG.
Outliers don’t take anything away from the predictive nature of a data metric. I don’t mean to be rude here but either you know that, or you might be better reading about data analysis from a better source than me on TFC.
The xG data is massively flawed to the point of making it little more than an educated guess at best.
I can see why some find it useful but there are simply far too many variables to take it seriously.
My issue with xG is that I don’t know the input for the metric so I can’t really say what it’s good for and not good for. Especially in small sample sizes.
But it’s a predictive metric so it will have been built/tested etc enough to be accepted by the entire football analytics community. The issue is how it’s used, not the metric itself.
If xG says that it gives 0.5 xG for a chance that’s because over a large enough sample size 50/100 times that chance results in a goal. That’s all it says and that’s all it can be used for. It gives you questions not answers.
I don’t know if it takes into account left or right footed chance for a right footed player, I don’t know if it takes into account form of the player shooting, I don’t know if it takes into account the quality of the GK…, there is countless other bits of missing context that people fail to consider when using it as a single game answer for why a game was won or lost.
And to be clear, it’s only ever used for single games in data editorial in the media. No serious analyst for a team should be quoting it as an answer for why a game was good/bad for a team.