Statistical Domination

[hogesar 9,671]

17 hours ago, aBee said:

It’s possibly also why they haven’t won the CL. They haven’t an extra gear because they’re almost constantly in top. Much like that time when Michael Schumacher did most of Monaco stuck in fifth- incredibly skilled driving to complete the race and not get passed but no excitement watching him do it. 

Fair point.

[ZLF 274]

So 14 shots with a total xg of 0.62,  split pretty equally between each half  The biggest spike chance was early on when Hanleys header was blocked.   It was the best chance of the game with a goal one in every 8 such headers - 0.12xg ish.  That was followed almost immediately by Ramseys off target effort - hence the 0.17 of total chances.  Not one other effort where a striker should score in more than 1 effort in 10.   

That leaves a total of 12 efforts with under 0.5 xg - or chances on average where we are only expected once every 25 shots - including the sitter that Teemu missed.

Add in the only effort on targets was Sargents strike from outside the box,  that we only had 1 effort inside the 6 yard box (hanley), 4 others inside the box (3 teemu, 1 sinani,  all off target) and 8 other efforts between 18 & 25 yards out.

 

It only supports what we are watching - that we are creating f*ck all, sh!te chances for two good strikers - that is due to the style of play and system & despite having possession of 60 of the 90 mins.   That is down to the manager.

  

[hogesar 9,671]

So, continuing the somewhat downward trend, here is the graph from Sheffield Utd away.

Note that our xG includes one pen which carries (I think) 0.76 xg score. So let's take that out, making our xG 0.45 for the night.

First thing to note is, anyone criticising Pukki for the penalty miss should probably think twice because he's scored 2 goals he had no right to score. They were far from clear chances.

Secondly, none of our players created a clear chance for anyone. The xA list is Sheff Utd players only. 

The point, or perhaps problem, is this xG is now marrying up with what people are seeing on the pitch.

This differs from the start of the season where people were bemoaning the team and the manager after the Wigan game at home. At that point it was clear we weren't getting points we perhaps deserved to get.

This time, we were lucky to get a point.

 

[Midlands Yellow 3,984]

9 minutes ago, hogesar said:

So, continuing the somewhat downward trend, here is the graph from Sheffield Utd away.

Note that our xG includes one pen which carries (I think) 0.76 xg score. So let's take that out, making our xG 0.45 for the night.

First thing to note is, anyone criticising Pukki for the penalty miss should probably think twice because he's scored 2 goals he had no right to score. They were far from clear chances.

Secondly, none of our players created a clear chance for anyone. The xA list is Sheff Utd players only. 

The point, or perhaps problem, is this xG is now marrying up with what people are seeing on the pitch.

This differs from the start of the season where people were bemoaning the team and the manager after the Wigan game at home. At that point it was clear we weren't getting points we perhaps deserved to get.

This time, we were lucky to get a point.

 

It’s riveting stuff Hoggy, any more graphs available? 

[GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary 1,749]

Wigan (h)...is a very different game to Sheff Utd, Watford , Burnley (a)

Thats why XG cannot be made out to find 'trends'

No 2 opposition are the same, no 2 games are the same

A ball that falls in the box cannot be considered the same degree of scoring chance whether it falls to Haaland in that particular area of the box to if it falls to the striker of Hartlepool

Equally the standard of defence or keeper you face

[hogesar 9,671]

8 minutes ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Wigan (h)...is a very different game to Sheff Utd, Watford , Burnley (a)

Thats why XG cannot be made out to find 'trends'

No 2 opposition are the same, no 2 games are the same

A ball that falls in the box cannot be considered the same degree of scoring chance whether it falls to Haaland in that particular area of the box to if it falls to the striker of Hartlepool

Equally the standard of defence or keeper you face

But it's not a very different game to Luton (h).

Wigan (h) told us that playing similarly we should get results in the following games where the same posters were predicting defeats. That was the point. It did that.

[repman 635]

33 minutes ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Wigan (h)...is a very different game to Sheff Utd, Watford , Burnley (a)

Thats why XG cannot be made out to find 'trends'

No 2 opposition are the same, no 2 games are the same

A ball that falls in the box cannot be considered the same degree of scoring chance whether it falls to Haaland in that particular area of the box to if it falls to the striker of Hartlepool

Equally the standard of defence or keeper you face

Shot conversion across all football is something like 10-15%. Any players who regularly exceed that are performing above average, that's not a reason to throw out the averages, if anything it confirms what people see.

The reason Haaland will have a higher shot conversion rate than others in football isn't necessarily down to some innate finishing ability. Instead, the fact that he plays for City means that not only does he get plenty of chances often, but the quality of his chances are greater than average too.

[repman 635]

I thought I'd bring back the 5 game rolling average xG/xGA chart. Should be unsurprising to most that its looking worse by the week and after the Sheff U game our 5 game xG differential was in the negative for the first time this season. I also added the trendlines in green and red which don't paint the best picture either.

[hogesar 9,671]

Thanks @repman, I don't have the graphs for the Burnley game yet, at least not from the same source and I don't want to confuse by looking at others so this is useful, but of course disappointing.

 

[king canary 7,606]

22 hours ago, hogesar said:

So, continuing the somewhat downward trend, here is the graph from Sheffield Utd away.

Note that our xG includes one pen which carries (I think) 0.76 xg score. So let's take that out, making our xG 0.45 for the night.

First thing to note is, anyone criticising Pukki for the penalty miss should probably think twice because he's scored 2 goals he had no right to score. They were far from clear chances.

Secondly, none of our players created a clear chance for anyone. The xA list is Sheff Utd players only. 

The point, or perhaps problem, is this xG is now marrying up with what people are seeing on the pitch.

This differs from the start of the season where people were bemoaning the team and the manager after the Wigan game at home. At that point it was clear we weren't getting points we perhaps deserved to get.

This time, we were lucky to get a point.

 

That graph just sums up the issues- we had a penalty which will likely be worth 0.7 or more and still Sheffield doubled our xG.

[king canary 7,606]

31 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Thanks @repman, I don't have the graphs for the Burnley game yet, at least not from the same source and I don't want to confuse by looking at others so this is useful, but of course disappointing.

 

It wouldn't shock me if our xG for Burnley is quite high- the Cantwell chance would likely score quite highly based on where it was taken, and the Pukki one similarly. 

[Robert N. LiM 4,344]

45 minutes ago, repman said:

I thought I'd bring back the 5 game rolling average xG/xGA chart. Should be unsurprising to most that its looking worse by the week and after the Sheff U game our 5 game xG differential was in the negative for the first time this season. I also added the trendlines in green and red which don't paint the best picture either.

This graph might as well be titled 'Lack of progress under Dean Smith'.

[Robert N. LiM 4,344]

23 hours ago, hogesar said:

 

Without looking, I'd wager this a fairly similar chart to Farke's last game against Brentford. Two early goals from not especially good chances, then the rest of the game hanging on. Of course, we did hang on that day, but there wasn't much in the performance to indicate better times ahead. 

I didn't see the Sheff Utd game, but those stats paint a grim picture. Funny to think that had Pukki scored his penalty and Rodriguez missed his, we'd have got four points from our last two games, while the stats suggest we were a bit fortunate to even get one.

[king canary 7,606]

11 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

Without looking, I'd wager this a fairly similar chart to Farke's last game against Brentford. Two early goals from not especially good chances, then the rest of the game hanging on. Of course, we did hang on that day, but there wasn't much in the performance to indicate better times ahead. 

I didn't see the Sheff Utd game, but those stats paint a grim picture. Funny to think that had Pukki scored his penalty and Rodriguez missed his, we'd have got four points from our last two games, while the stats suggest we were a bit fortunate to even get one.

You'd be correct

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by king canary

[hogesar 9,671]

20 minutes ago, king canary said:

It wouldn't shock me if our xG for Burnley is quite high- the Cantwell chance would likely score quite highly based on where it was taken, and the Pukki one similarly. 

So, it's not from the same source but one claim is:

Burnley: 1.94 xG

Norwich: 0.71 xG

Cantwell's wont get too high a rating as technically the defender is between him and the goal, covering most of the available space.

[Robert N. LiM 4,344]

13 minutes ago, king canary said:

You'd be correct

Cheers. Even the same colour scheme!

[king canary 7,606]

7 minutes ago, hogesar said:

So, it's not from the same source but one claim is:

Burnley: 1.94 xG

Norwich: 0.71 xG

Cantwell's wont get too high a rating as technically the defender is between him and the goal, covering most of the available space.

I'd suggest it likely is pretty high based on those numbers- we had 5 shots, one of which came from about 30 yards. 

[repman 635]

44 minutes ago, king canary said:

It wouldn't shock me if our xG for Burnley is quite high- the Cantwell chance would likely score quite highly based on where it was taken, and the Pukki one similarly. 

https://fbref.com/en/matches/97297f01/Burnley-Norwich-City-October-25-2022-Championship

At the bottom of this page is where I've got the data for all our games so far.

It has Todd's chance split into 2 as he had 2 'shots'.

First one is 0.23 and the second 0.25, Pukki's chance at the end was rated 0.38 so that made up pretty much all of our xG in the game.

[nutty nigel 7,534]

Is Burnley's pen included in their xg?

[repman 635]

4 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Is Burnley's pen included in their xg?

Yes it will be.

[nutty nigel 7,534]

1 minute ago, repman said:

Yes it will be.

Thanks, so that chance must rate quite high. .9? and presumably .9 for our xg against.

Problem is they didn't earn that chance. It was made by Big Grant's hand ball.

[repman 635]

Just now, nutty nigel said:

Thanks, so that chance must rate quite high. .9? and presumably .9 for our xg against.

Problem is they didn't earn that chance. It was made by Big Grant's hand ball.

Pens are around 0.75 to 0.8 I think so it'll account for about half. 

I think it's definitely true that Burnley weren't that great, they made very few clear cut chances for all their dominance. However, the fact we couldn't ever get a foothold in the game, when the talent levels of the 2 sides aren't that far apart, shows why we need a change imo.

[Robert N. LiM 4,344]

3 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Thanks, so that chance must rate quite high. .9? and presumably .9 for our xg against.

 

pens are something like 0.75. You can actually see it on the graph of the Sheff Utd, our xG going from just below 0.5 to 1.21

[nutty nigel 7,534]

Just now, repman said:

Pens are around 0.75 to 0.8 I think so it'll account for about half. 

I think it's definitely true that Burnley weren't that great, they made very few clear cut chances for all their dominance. However, the fact we couldn't ever get a foothold in the game, when the talent levels of the 2 sides aren't that far apart, shows why we need a change imo.

I wasn't thinking about us needing a change tbh. There's enough threads bogged down with that.

I'm just wondering how much xg is determined by situations that haven't been determined by the attacking team.

[Robert N. LiM 4,344]

10 minutes ago, repman said:

I think it's definitely true that Burnley weren't that great, they made very few clear cut chances for all their dominance.

And, to be fair, we defended our box really well. Had that been a Premier League performance away at a top-half team, we'd have been very happy with it. The fact that it's against a team we ought to be direct rivals with is the serious cause for concern, as the rest of your post suggests.

Edit: just looked at your stats, @repman, and very interested to see just how low-value all of Burnley's chances were except the penalty. Nothing above 0.1xG, and only one save for Angus to make, with an xG of 0.04. In amongst all the gloom, perhaps that is a reason to be cheerful. Burnley have been scoring for fun, have they not? To limit them to so little does at least suggest one aspect of our game is working (and I wonder how much it has to do with Hayden...)

Edited October 27, 2022 by Robert N. LiM

[Robert N. LiM 4,344]

Just now, nutty nigel said:

I'm just wondering how much xg is determined by situations that haven't been determined by the attacking team.

Obviously the penalty was, to a great extent, Hanley's error in terms of him raising his hand. But it was also the result of Burnley getting in another decent position, the wide player getting the other side of McCallum and creating a decent crossing opportunity. So I think it's a little unfair to say it wasn't 'determined' by the attacking team.

But most of the xG charts I've seen do explicitly include penalty details in their summary, as Hoggy's Sheff Utd chart does, so you can see when the overall xG includes the 'gift' of a pen.

[nutty nigel 7,534]

52 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

Obviously the penalty was, to a great extent, Hanley's error in terms of him raising his hand. But it was also the result of Burnley getting in another decent position, the wide player getting the other side of McCallum and creating a decent crossing opportunity. So I think it's a little unfair to say it wasn't 'determined' by the attacking team.

But most of the xG charts I've seen do explicitly include penalty details in their summary, as Hoggy's Sheff Utd chart does, so you can see when the overall xG includes the 'gift' of a pen.

Yes I keep trying to get my head around this xg and it seems even more complicated than I first thought.

I remember seeing the various stats at Colney in 2008. Back then they were looking at individual players checking pass percentages in various situations. It's a lot to take in in order for it to be useful. 

People get angry about stats, iPads, soccerbotts, pink dressing rooms etc but we've come a long way from the days of a manager and a bloke with a bucket and sponge.

[Robert N. LiM 4,344]

10 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Yes I keep trying to get my head around this xg and it seems even more complicated than I first thought.

 

I think it's extremely complex. The more sophisticated versions take into account possession, territory and the 'danger level' of attacking moves that don't end in shots, as well as measuring the quality of individual chances created. So you need a specialist who understands both stats and football to interpret them.

I think that's why lots of people are suspicious of it as a metric. Very few people have a clear understanding of statistics (I certainly don't claim to) because quite often stats are counter-intuitive. And so people end up thinking that they're being used as an alternative to watching the game, or that they're claiming an objectivity that they just don't have. This isn't helped by some xG proponents talking as though they have this objectivity (I've probably been guilty of this myself). And then there are some people who didn't much like sums at school, hate the thought of being stupid and just lash out at the idea of talking about football using numbers.

Personally I think xG is a really interesting resource to prompt discussion of this silly game that we're all obsessed with. And there's a lot of examples of that kind of informed discussion on this thread. 

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Robert N. LiM

[nutty nigel 7,534]

5 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

I think it's extremely complex. The more sophisticated versions take into account possession, territory and the 'danger level' of attacking moves that don't end in shots, as well as measuring the quality of individual chances created. So you need a specialist who understands both stats and football to interpret them.

I think that's why lots of people are suspicious of it as a metric. Very few people have a clear understanding of statistics (I certainly don't claim to) because quite often stats are counter-intuitive. And so people end up thinking that they're being used as an alternative to watching the game, or that they're claiming an objectivity that they just don't have. (This isn't helped by some xG proponents talking as though they have this objectivity (I've probably been guilty of this myself). And then there are some people who didn't much like sums at school, hate the thought of being stupid and just lash out at the idea of talking about football using numbers.

Personally I think xG is a really interesting resource to prompt discussion of this silly game that we're all obsessed with. And there's a lot of examples of that kind of informed discussion on this thread. 

 

 

 

I would imagine there's a big team at Colney looking at stats and breaking them down to areas where they're useful. Xg won't be as simple as the crude figures we look at. It seems to me our right side is targeted a lot. It could be the right side of our defence is weakest at stopping crosses or it could be that the left side is weakest at dealing with those same crosses. Only the stats guys could know.

Edited October 27, 2022 by nutty nigel

[littleyellowbirdie 2,549]

On 19/10/2022 at 13:26, ZLF said:

So 14 shots with a total xg of 0.62,  split pretty equally between each half  The biggest spike chance was early on when Hanleys header was blocked.   It was the best chance of the game with a goal one in every 8 such headers - 0.12xg ish.  That was followed almost immediately by Ramseys off target effort - hence the 0.17 of total chances.  Not one other effort where a striker should score in more than 1 effort in 10.   

That leaves a total of 12 efforts with under 0.5 xg - or chances on average where we are only expected once every 25 shots - including the sitter that Teemu missed.

Add in the only effort on targets was Sargents strike from outside the box,  that we only had 1 effort inside the 6 yard box (hanley), 4 others inside the box (3 teemu, 1 sinani,  all off target) and 8 other efforts between 18 & 25 yards out.

 

It only supports what we are watching - that we are creating f*ck all, sh!te chances for two good strikers - that is due to the style of play and system & despite having possession of 60 of the 90 mins.   That is down to the manager.

  

If there's one upside to the downturn in our XG it's that it has restored the credibility of statistical modelling in football almost overnight.