Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after West Ham 0 Newcastle 1

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The Mag

·11 marzo 2025

Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after West Ham 0 Newcastle 1

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.

The final Premier League match of the weekend, with the Expected Goals stats (plus the actual final scoreline in brackets) via Understat:

West Ham 0.82 Newcastle 1.63 (0-1)

Nobody is pretending that this match was a great spectacle, especially for neutrals.

However, nobody can pretend that Newcastle didn’t deserve the win.

After the opening few minutes when NUFC looked shaky, they settled down and took control of the match.

Newcastle United weren’t brilliant but they were comfortably the better side against a very negative West Ham. With so little space in the last third as West Ham had so many players playing so deep, it was difficult to create a lot of clear chances.

Eventually though the patience and perseverance paid off and Newcastle got their reward.

The Expected Goals stats show Newcastle with a stat (1.63) twice as big as West Ham’s (0.82).

It wasn’t a three or four goal winning scoreline type of match BUT for sure, Newcastle United still deserved to win.

West Ham 0 Newcastle 1 – Monday 10 March 8pm

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Bruno 63

West Ham:

Possession was Newcastle 49% West Ham 51%

Total shots were Newcastle 9 West Ham 9

Shots on target were Newcastle 3 West Ham 2

Corners were Newcastle 4 West Ham 3