Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after Newcastle United 2 Manchester United 0

ScoreLive April 4, 2023 0

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 latest round of results with the Premier League Expected Goals stats (actual final scoreline in brackets) by Understat:

Saturday 1 April

Man City 3.01 v Liverpool 0.32 (4-1)

Arsenal 3.30 v Leeds 0.50 (4-1)

Bournemouth 3.14 v Fulham 0.60 (2-1)

Brighton 3.82 v Brentford 1.28 (3-3)

Crystal Palace 1.93 v Leicester 0.20 (2-1)

Nottingham Forest 1.11 v Wolves 0.38 (1-1)

Chelsea 2.38 v Aston Villa 0.77 (0-2)

Sunday 2 April

West Ham 1.40 v Southampton 0.32 (1-0)

Newcastle United 3.33 v Man U 0.33 (2-0)

Monday 3 April

Everton 0.82 v Tottenham 1.39 (1-1)

As you can see, in the NUFC match, Newcastle United (3.33) had a 10 (TEN!!!) times bigger expected goals rating than Man U (0.33) and simply reflects what we all saw.

Newcastle completely dominant with far more and better chances than the home side, who were lucky to only lose by one goal (in the previous match, Newcastle had a five times bigger expected goals rating than Forest (2.50 v 0.53)

Indeed, Joe Willock alone, must have had a very seriously higher expected goals rating than the entire Man U team. The midfielder scoring from around a yard out unmarked, after ASM’s superb header back across, whilst Willock also had two real sitters in the first half, failing to convert from only around six yards out with de Gea already down on the ground, then blazing over from ten yards out when unmarked and set up by ASM.

The 3.00 disparity in Expected Goals between Newcastle United and Man U, is the biggest of all the weekend’s fixtures.

The next two highest disparities were in 2.80 difference in the Arsenal match and they hammered Leeds 4-1, then a difference of 2.69 in the Man City match and they had the same scoreline against Liverpool.

At Brighton they had a 2.54 higher Expected Goals than Brentford, so it sounds like the away side got away with one there. Great finishing by them when scoring three goals from relatively limited chances, with Brighton guilty of not scoring more from a far higher number and quality of opportunities.

Stats from BBC Sport:

Newcastle United 2 Manchester United 0 – Sunday 2 April 4.30pm

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Willock 65, Wilson 88

Man U:

(Half-time stats in brackets)

Possession was Man U 54% (48%) Newcastle 46% (52%)

Total shots were Man U 6 (2) Newcastle 22 (11)

Shots on target were Man U 1 (0) Newcastle 6 (3)

Corners were Man U 4 (1) Newcastle 7 (3)

Referee: Stuart Attwell