xG Stats
AN ARTICLE BY SUPERSUB
Geek’s Corner. All stats used here, are from understat.com
The initial idea was, to attach a few xG stats to the end of Jock’s match reports, purely for the geeks amongst us, but seein as Jock’s not able to do a report this week, here’s some xG stats anyway, with a bit of a ramble at the end. Hopefully it’ll help to keep us goin & avoid Disqus breaking down, before we get into the build up to the Newcastle game.
So, Liverpool vs Bournemouth. I said last week, that it’s not often a team will have a goal tally that exceeds their xG in any significant way, but this is definitely one of the times that this has happened. With an overall xG of 4.86 yesterday, we not only exceeded our xG, but almost doubled it. And this, despite some glaring misses (more of which later).
Five of our goals (Trent, Harvey, VVD, Fabio & Diaz (his 2nd) had a combined xG of only 0.38. One that might come as a surprise, is Virgil’s header, which was given an xG of 0.05 (5%), despite the fact that it was nailed on for a goal, from the second his head connected with it. He still had to get to the ball first though & 5% seems reasonable enough, when considering that in the past 10 Premier League seasons, only 3.4%of corners have resulted in a goal. Out of our other 4 goals, the own goal doesn’t get an xG rating, Diaz’s 1st was a 37% chance, & Bobby’s were 60% & 74% chances.
Palace’s ‘clearest’ chance, came from Keiffer Moore, with a header in the 1st half, that was given an 8% chance by xG.
One of the main talking points tho, was that we scored 9 goals & none of them were from Mo who, according to xG, had 2 of the 3 clearest chances that didn’t result in a goal (Bobby missed a 60% chance). His 2nd half attempt from just outside the 6 yard box, was given as a 59% chance & his 1st half ‘on the line’ miss, was given as a whopping 97% chance. That in itself, was a collector’s item. I’ve mentioned xA before (expected assists) and for that 97% miss, Harvey Elliot will still be credited with an xA of 0.97, as it’s not his fault that Mo (somehow) missed that one.
One thing that really stands out tho, as far as our chances from our 19 attempts on goal yesterday, is the comparison to our 24 attempts against Palace recently. Just looking at the xG map comparison (circles are attempts, stars are goals & the larger the shape, the higher the xG rating). (Ignore the yellow numbers, they apply to the opposition)
This shows that even tho we had more attempts on goal vs Palace, we created many more ‘clearer’ chances vs Bournemouth, & that seems to back up some previous discussions, where concern has been expressed about a lack of creativity, rather than ‘easy’ chances being missed (mainly).
So that’s enough geeky stuff for now, what about the match itself….?
Well, in all fairness, Alan Cronin has already written the match report, earlier on today, when he said, “Liverpool were frigging awesome, job done.”
Not much more to add to that really, except that there’ll be tougher tests ahead, but it was probably the perfect time for us to play Bournemouth & yesterday’s result will have probably given us just the boost that we needed.
M(c)OTM….? Everyone apart from Alisson, who had bugger all to to really, but I do wanna give a quick mention to 3 of our players.
Mo Salah; Didn’t score, but was involved in several of the goals & never stopped hustling & bustling. He kept the Palace defence very busy & was involved throughout. His ‘shifting positions’ with Trent at times, with Mo going out wide & Trent coming infield, provided us with variations to the 433 last season & it worked well here too. I expect to see more of that this season & when you include Diaz, Nunez & Jota, then most (if not all) defences are gonna have a terrible time against us, when everything starts to click.
Bobby Firmino; Bobby was everywhere yesterday. He seemed to play further ‘up top’ than he usually does & he made a really positive impact on the game. 2 goals, 1 glaring miss & 3 assists & many other contributions. Bobby Dazzler indeed & he’d be my motm if pushed for a choice.
Harvey Elliott; It’s easy to get over excited about young players coming through, but how can we not be excited about this young lad…? For me, he’s been our best player so far this season & it’s crazy to think how much more will come from this lad. A cracking goal yesterday (3% chance) & he just looks like he’s settled in already, like he’s been here for years. What a young player this lad is & he’s coming across more & more, as a really decent lad. He had me in tears with that clip where he was talkin about his Nan & you could see what that goal meant to him & you could also see how supported he is by the players around him. Harvey Elliott, he looks the real deal.
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