Expected Goals stats tell the very real story following Nottingham Forest 1 Newcastle 3

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The Mag

·11 November 2024

Expected Goals stats tell the very real story following Nottingham Forest 1 Newcastle 3

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 Sunday, with the Expected Goals stats (plus the actual final scoreline in brackets) via Understat:

Nottingham 1.18 Newcastle United 1.87 (1-3)

Man U 1.24 Leicester 0.42 (3-0)

Tottenham 1.75 Ipswich 2.18 (1-2)

Chelsea 1.24 Arsenal 1.96 (1-1)

As you can see, four matches on Sunday.

In three of the matches, the team with the superior Expected Goals stat winning their games. Including, as you can see, the Ipswich victory at Spurs was no fluke, they were the better and more dangerous team.

Whilst Arsenal also had the higher Expected Goals stat but couldn’t finish their better chances.

That had been the case consistently for Newcastle United, until these three wins in a row. A failure to take some very good chances they were creating every match, seeing results not going United’s way, not getting the points they deserved against the likes of Everton and Brighton.

As the Expected Goals stats suggest (Forest 1.18 Newcastle 1.87), United absolutely deserved to win on Sunday. Indeed, as the other stats support, the winning margin could/should have been even wider, if Eddie Howe’s side had converted that superiority around the pitch into goals.

Forest defended in numbers though and did it pretty well for much of the match, Newcastle in and around the home side’s box time after time but a mixture of that decent defending by Forest, bad luck, a shocking referee, good saves by Sels, fine margins and at times poor finishing and decision making by NUFC, somehow meant no goals for United in the opening 53 minutes.

When the goals did come, they were three excellent finishes and not easy ones, hence the Expected Goals stat for Newcastle not as high as you may have suspected. Clinical finishing and hopefully a clear sign that Newcastle United are rediscovering their scoring ability, to top off these very good performances.

Nottingham Forest 1 Newcastle 3 – Sunday 10 November 2pm

(Stats via BBC Sport)

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Isak 54, Joelinton 72, Barnes 83

Forest:

Murillo 21

(Half-time stats in brackets)

Possession was Newcastle 56% (60%) Forest 44% (40%)

Total shots were Newcastle 17 (7) Forest 9 (3)

Shots on target were Newcastle 6 (2) Forest 3 (1)

Corners were Newcastle 5 (4) Forest 4 (2)