Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after Newcastle 3 Aston Villa 0

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The Mag

·23 de febrero de 2024

Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after Newcastle 3 Aston Villa 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.

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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 Premier League matches from Boxing Day, with the Expected Goals stats (plus the actual final scoreline in brackets) via Understat:

Man City 2.52 v Everton 0.65 (1-1)

Bournemouth 1.20 v Palace 0.50 (0-0)

Chelsea 1.56 v Fulham 1.78 (1-2)

Newcastle 2.83 v Villa 0.23 (3-0)

Forest 1.30 v Spurs 1.06 (1-0)

Southampton 2.20 v West Ham 1.90 (0-1)

Wolves 0.83 v Man U 0.36 (2-0)

Liverpool 1.90 v Leicester 0.22 (3-1)

As you can see, some very interesting matches, both in terms of their eventual outcomes and the Expected Goals stats.

The massive stand out is that Newcastle United had easily the highest Expected Goals stat (2.83) of all 16 Premier League teams playing on Thursday.

Whilst only Leicester (0.22) very marginally were allowed more goal threat than Villa (0.23), in terms of clear chances.

The other underlying stats (see below) at St James’ Park very much back up just how dominant Newcastle were over Villa.

Eight times as many efforts on target (8 v 1), more than five times as many shots (22 v 4) and more than five times as many touches of the ball in the opposition penalty area (49 v 9).

Newcastle 3 Aston Villa 0 – Thursday 26 December 3pm

(Stats via BBC Sport)

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Gordon 2, Isak 59, Joelinton 90+1

Villa:

Duran red card 32

(In brackets the half-time stats)

Possession was Newcastle 63% (62%) Villa 37% (38%)

Total shots were Newcastle 22 (9) Villa 4 (3)

Shots on target were Newcastle 8 (4) Villa 1 (1)

Corners were Newcastle 9 (3) Villa 6 (2)