Statistical Domination

[littleyellowbirdie 2,550]

1 minute ago, Robert N. LiM said:

For the reasons I explained in the two posts above.

They don't relate to my own point though.

[canarybubbles 1,915]

12 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Chance is what XG is about: The chance of scoring from any given position. XG is literally an assessment of what you'd expect to happen based on what shots were made and where according to the probabilities of scoring from those positions as collected statistically over thousands of shots.

If your XG is higher than what you actually scored, it's pretty much unfortunate by definition. By the same token, if your XG is lower than what you actually scored, then you were lucky.

Robert Lim has answered this point convincingly below. What you are effectively arguing is that if a team has a penalty - and therefore a high chance of scoring/XG - it is unlucky when the player hoofs it over the bar. It's nonsense.

XG has value, but the fact that West Brom are apparently top of the XG league even this late into the season when they stand 33 points behind Burnley having scored 28 fewer goals shows its limitations as a measure. Have Burnley been 'lucky' this season? I don't think so.

[Newtopia 517]

To me those statistic give you indicators of performance with out just focusing on results and leading indicators of potential.  Under Farke we initially dominated the ball, and he played around with formation to create better chances and the rest is history.  

If you never have the ball, and lose every game it is time to shred the current play book.

[hogesar 9,676]

38 minutes ago, canarybubbles said:

Robert Lim has answered this point convincingly below. What you are effectively arguing is that if a team has a penalty - and therefore a high chance of scoring/XG - it is unlucky when the player hoofs it over the bar. It's nonsense.

XG has value, but the fact that West Brom are apparently top of the XG league even this late into the season when they stand 33 points behind Burnley having scored 28 fewer goals shows its limitations as a measure. Have Burnley been 'lucky' this season? I don't think so.

No, Burnley haven't been lucky, they have been exceptionally clinical. 

Now, there is an argument that you can look at their xG over the course of this season and perhaps conclude that they will struggle big time next season.

You could have done the same when we went up with Brentford a couple seasons ago. We won the title at a canter but Brentfords xG for and against were better than ours overall. You could see how that materialised the following season.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,550]

1 hour ago, canarybubbles said:

Robert Lim has answered this point convincingly below. What you are effectively arguing is that if a team has a penalty - and therefore a high chance of scoring/XG - it is unlucky when the player hoofs it over the bar. It's nonsense.

XG has value, but the fact that West Brom are apparently top of the XG league even this late into the season when they stand 33 points behind Burnley having scored 28 fewer goals shows its limitations as a measure. Have Burnley been 'lucky' this season? I don't think so.

Example: Pukki used to be an excellent and reliable scorer for us. If it's 'nonsense' to dismiss him personally repeatedly fluffing chances against Rotherham he regularly buried over seasons with Farke as 'bad luck' instead of his personal deterioration as a player, why did you personally indulge in repeated campaigns to sack Dean Smith for bad results that were more disappointing than the xG suggested in favour of your ridiculous 'eye test' cr*p? Why are you personally not calling out the half wits laying the Rotherham result at Zoe Webber's door on another thread?

Edited April 12, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[TIL 1010 4,748]

3 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

 Why are you personally not calling out the half wits laying the Rotherham result at Zoe Webber's door on another thread?

Hey ?

[littleyellowbirdie 2,550]

2 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Hey ?

I'm referring to the board room notes thread where she has been the target of several derogatory comments for no good reason in the wake of the Rotherham result.

Edited April 12, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[Capt. Pants 4,234]

I would have thought xG is more about expectation than chance and is a reasonable indicator of the progressiveness of your general play. If you just wanted to create a chance of scoring then just lump the ball in the box and wait for a lucky break.

Sure there will be an element of luck but generally xG is a good indicator of your finishing. Unfortunately ours was really poor against Rotherham.

[TIL 1010 4,748]

42 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I'm referring to the board room notes thread where she has been the target of several derogatory comments for no good reason in the wake of the Rotherham result.

You could have just said essex then i would have known who you were talking about.

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

1 hour ago, TIL 1010 said:

You could have just said essex then i would have known who you were talking about.

Birdyo and Ethics are cut from the same cloth but with different agendas.  Birdyo blames the fans...despite not being there, Ethics blames the Webbers for everything ....despite not being privvy to what actually goes on. 

 

[canarybubbles 1,915]

4 hours ago, hogesar said:

No, Burnley haven't been lucky, they have been exceptionally clinical. 

Now, there is an argument that you can look at their xG over the course of this season and perhaps conclude that they will struggle big time next season.

You could have done the same when we went up with Brentford a couple seasons ago. We won the title at a canter but Brentfords xG for and against were better than ours overall. You could see how that materialised the following season.

I'm not convinced by this argument. It seems like cherry-picking the cut-off date (in this case, the following season). Isn't one season enough now, with the data from 46 games? If West Brom do fantastically well next season, are you going to claim that xG predicted it all along? Why not the season after as well?

[king canary 7,607]

1 hour ago, canarybubbles said:

I'm not convinced by this argument. It seems like cherry-picking the cut-off date (in this case, the following season). Isn't one season enough now, with the data from 46 games? If West Brom do fantastically well next season, are you going to claim that xG predicted it all along? Why not the season after as well?

I think one season is a sensible cut off point. Lots can change over a summer (managers, players, tactics, change of division) but I can see Hoegsars general point that Brentford's stats suggested they weren't reliant on burying a significant number of low % chances. 

[Nuff Said 5,142]

1 hour ago, canarybubbles said:

I'm not convinced by this argument. It seems like cherry-picking the cut-off date (in this case, the following season). Isn't one season enough now, with the data from 46 games? If West Brom do fantastically well next season, are you going to claim that xG predicted it all along? Why not the season after as well?

Unless a team conducts a wholesale refresh of the squad (which is unlikely, although Forest did do this) and/or replaces their coaching team, isn’t it reasonable to expect that there will be similarities in the way they play from one season to the next? 

[repman 635]

5 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Example: Pukki used to be an excellent and reliable scorer for us. If it's 'nonsense' to dismiss him personally repeatedly fluffing chances against Rotherham he regularly buried over seasons with Farke as 'bad luck' instead of his personal deterioration as a player, why did you personally indulge in repeated campaigns to sack Dean Smith for bad results that were more disappointing than the xG suggested in favour of your ridiculous 'eye test' cr*p? Why are you personally not calling out the half wits laying the Rotherham result at Zoe Webber's door on another thread?

Pukki's goals and xG for Norwich

18/19: 29 goals - 24.2 xG
19/20: 11 goals - 11.2 xG
20/21: 26 goals - 26.4 xG
21/22: 11 goals - 11.4 xG
22/23: 10 goals - 11.5 xG

Bar his first year he's pretty much always scored at the same rate as his xG. The big difference this year is that he is getting less chances than he has in his previous 2 championship seasons. Had Dean Smith been able to coach the team to consistently create chances for Pukki then he would probably score 20+ goals again. Even in the games under Smith where our xG was good but we lost it's important first to take into account game state, being behind will inflate the losing side's xG performance. The other consistent factor under Smith was that our xG would consist of lots of low quality chances, which can make a single game xG score look good while masking the fact that the team isn't creating many good chances. In 2018/19, 9 of Pukki's goals had an xG value of 0.4 or greater, this season he has had just 3 shots of that value. 

[Robert N. LiM 4,357]

8 minutes ago, repman said:

Pukki's goals and xG for Norwich

18/19: 29 goals - 24.2 xG
19/20: 11 goals - 11.2 xG
20/21: 26 goals - 26.4 xG
21/22: 11 goals - 11.4 xG
22/23: 10 goals - 11.5 xG

That's an amazing stat and a real corrective for those of us who think he's in decline. Where do you get your xG stats from?

[repman 635]

2 hours ago, canarybubbles said:

I'm not convinced by this argument. It seems like cherry-picking the cut-off date (in this case, the following season). Isn't one season enough now, with the data from 46 games? If West Brom do fantastically well next season, are you going to claim that xG predicted it all along? Why not the season after as well?

I think the point about comparing us and Brentford going into last season is more that their greater xG numbers suggested they may perform better against stronger competition, definitely in a defensive sense.

I think West Brom will possibly be better next year but their xG has certainly been inflated by the fact they haven't been leading in so many games. This was certainly true earlier in the season I'm not sure now but I'd imagine its similar. Their keeper was the worst performer in the league in terms of xG to goals conceded, that meant they were playing many games having given the opposition a 1-0 headstart. That's always going to lead to them creating more chances and the opposition creating less.

People look season by season because that's what matters in sport, if you can look at your xG and say oh well we were a bit unlucky maybe that's going to give you more hope for next year, which is what every fan wants. xG is not a perfect predictor, it has an r of about 0.7 I believe which is better than anything else such as shots or possession. 

[Midlands Yellow 3,986]

I’m glad this is still going, it’s a riveting read. 

[repman 635]

4 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

That's an amazing stat and a real corrective for those of us who think he's in decline. Where do you get your xG stats from?

fbref.com

That being said I do think that Pukki isn't the player he was a few years ago, certainly not as drastic as some make it seem but definitely a little bit. Also xG of course only measures the shots he takes, it's possible as he's aged he has lost the ability to get shots off, or maybe he can't generate the space to create better shots according to xG (something both Idah and Sargent struggle with too imo). Even if these things have happened it's hard to believe he's gone from a striker who can put up 25 xG a year in the championship to half that since last summer (his PL numbers also remained steady).

 

[shefcanary 2,409]

8 minutes ago, repman said:

Also xG of course only measures the shots he takes, it's possible as he's aged he has lost the ability to get shots off, or maybe he can't generate the space to create better shots according to xG (something both Idah and Sargent struggle with too imo). 

Plus other teams may now set up to stop Pukki getting those chances - is he slower or do teams put their fastest defender on him?

[It's Character Forming 1,161]

17 hours ago, Robert N. LiM said:

 As I said to Hoggy:

I think sometimes the difference between xG and the actual goals scored can denote luck (most obviously, as @repman says, with own goals) but also if, say, you come up against an opposition goalkeeper having an unusual stormer or an opposition player who scores a Nunez-type worldie that's a once-a-season at best moment. But even that is to do with skill - and most of the time, a team underperforming its xG in a given game means that its strikers didn't take their chances, while a team who's overperformed its xG has its goalscorers to thank for a moment or two of excellence. I think that's mostly a question of skill, or composure, rather than luck.

I think xG is at its most useful in trying to analyse an overall box-to-box performance, rather than basing everything on the score. But I don't think 'luck' is a helpful concept when talking about it.

Yes at Blackburn I just couldn't see them getting a goal past Gunn, he just played a blinder and they never looked like they were actually going to score, despite their xG stat.

[It's Character Forming 1,161]

3 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

Plus other teams may now set up to stop Pukki getting those chances - is he slower or do teams put their fastest defender on him?

I've been close to the pitch for a couple of games recently so have been able to see him up close when we were attacking the end I was behind, and IMO he still has that quickness of reaction, and he's getting into position, but at the moment he's not putting the chances away, which is a combination of loss of form and his game time being disrupted.  He may well hit form this season, if he was staying I'd say it is just a question of time but sadly not to be.

[TIL 1010 4,748]

39 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

I’m glad this is still going, it’s a riveting read. 

It sure beats watching paint dry but only just.

[hogesar 9,676]

3 hours ago, canarybubbles said:

I'm not convinced by this argument. It seems like cherry-picking the cut-off date (in this case, the following season). Isn't one season enough now, with the data from 46 games? If West Brom do fantastically well next season, are you going to claim that xG predicted it all along? Why not the season after as well?

 

2 hours ago, king canary said:

I think one season is a sensible cut off point. Lots can change over a summer (managers, players, tactics, change of division) but I can see Hoegsars general point that Brentford's stats suggested they weren't reliant on burying a significant number of low % chances. 

Let's remember, because sometimes people put words in my mouth (neither of you) - xG is not the be all and end all. It's just an indicator. 

All I'm saying is the xG for and against indicated that Brentford might perform better than us in the Prem. Don't get me wrong, we had accumulated many more points than them and there were intangibles / factors that made me believe we'd out-perform Brentford. Naturally, I was wrong 😄

I haven't looked into West Brom in enough detail to be able to judge the million other impacting factors but on xG alone it appears they concede to very low probability chances (poor defending / goalkeeping?) and don't score from a relatively high xG ( @repman makes a very good counter argument to that).

It's also worth looking into the xG graphs of a West Brom - for example, are they creating 10 really low probability chances resulting in a 1.2xg? Or do they create 2 really good chances that produce a 0.9 xG? We can then look and see if it's a problem with under-par strikers or the chances being frequent but poor (shots taken too early?)

[littleyellowbirdie 2,550]

7 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

It sure beats watching paint dry but only just.

On the other hand, there's only one thread on this, in contrast to the myriad 'sack the manager/Webber (either one)/the board' threads, which I regard as substantially less interesting than watching paint dry. 🙂

[hogesar 9,676]

1 hour ago, repman said:

Pukki's goals and xG for Norwich

18/19: 29 goals - 24.2 xG
19/20: 11 goals - 11.2 xG
20/21: 26 goals - 26.4 xG
21/22: 11 goals - 11.4 xG
22/23: 10 goals - 11.5 xG

Bar his first year he's pretty much always scored at the same rate as his xG. The big difference this year is that he is getting less chances than he has in his previous 2 championship seasons. Had Dean Smith been able to coach the team to consistently create chances for Pukki then he would probably score 20+ goals again. Even in the games under Smith where our xG was good but we lost it's important first to take into account game state, being behind will inflate the losing side's xG performance. The other consistent factor under Smith was that our xG would consist of lots of low quality chances, which can make a single game xG score look good while masking the fact that the team isn't creating many good chances. In 2018/19, 9 of Pukki's goals had an xG value of 0.4 or greater, this season he has had just 3 shots of that value. 

Interesting (but not that surprising!).

For context, no player in world football has regularly exceeded their xG - apart from one.

Lionel Messi.

The argument that there are significantly better finishers within the top 0.1% of players is generally not really true, but they can be worse at getting themselves into the best position for a shot, onto their favourite foot, into space, etc etc.

[hogesar 9,676]

52 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

I’m glad this is still going, it’s a riveting read. 

 

12 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

It sure beats watching paint dry but only just.

You both popped along though, didn't you 😉

 

[TIL 1010 4,748]

10 minutes ago, hogesar said:

 

You both popped along though, didn't you 😉

 

Only on the off chance that since August there was something remotely interesting to read at long last.

[hogesar 9,676]

2 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Only on the off chance that since August there was something remotely interesting to read at long last.

Don't leave me in suspense! Did you find something remotely interesting? Are you an xG convert now?

[repman 635]

50 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

Plus other teams may now set up to stop Pukki getting those chances - is he slower or do teams put their fastest defender on him?

There's probably an element of that involved but the best chances will be ones he takes first time. You can certainly point to personnel behind him but there's definitely a coaching element too. A good example in 18/19 would be the goal at Blackburn away, if you watch that you'd be hard pressed to name a chance we've created this year like that one. I don't think it has anything to do with any lack of pace or similar either.

[Barham Blitz 653]

58 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

Plus other teams may now set up to stop Pukki getting those chances - is he slower or do teams put their fastest defender on him?

Or are we just not seeing his runs early enough and getting the ball to him as accurately and quickly (or even at all !) as used to be the case ?