United and xG (now that Ole is gone will things change?)

It's amusing to see how some people get so upset over a statistical model.
 
JustAGuest said:
I think you are the one being ignorant here.
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I'm not. I just sick of people bumping this thread after every shit performance we have and treating us winning on xG like it's some moral victory.

This ain't RAWK. We aren't good enough, just move on.

Top teams will always outperform their xG, and lousier teams will underperform. That's really all that can be reliably interpreted from it, trying to draw a conclusion from each match based on it is just bullshit.
 
Holocene said:
It's amusing to see how some people get so upset over a statistical model.
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Right, and then when you look at it in detail it shows the same thing that people are complaining about...

Our non penalty xG is now the 14th highest in the league (using understat by the way), with Arsenal likely to pass us after their game. It will not have escaped anyone that we are struggling with chance creation. This is our biggest issue.
 
JustAGuest said:
Right, and then when you look at it in detail it shows the same thing that people are complaining about...

Our non penalty xG is now the 14th highest in the league (using understat by the way), with Arsenal likely to pass us after their game. It will not have escaped anyone that we are struggling with chance creation. This is our biggest issue.
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We’re fecking shite. Don’t need stats to know that.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
We’re fecking shite. Don’t need stats to know that.
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The thing is we’re not that shit relatively speaking, that’s why it is so frustrating. We’re just underperforming. Third in the league is up for grabs, but everyone aside from the top two is so inconsistent. Our results have been average because individuals keep letting us down, and the manager isn’t really helping.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
We’re fecking shite. Don’t need stats to know that.
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We're actually good defensively though, which is a nice change. Going forward the hope is that we improve sufficiently with Pogba, Martial and Rashford all there. No depth is the problem though.
 
TMDaines said:
just thing is we’re not that shit relatively speaking, that’s why it is so frustrating. We’re just underperforming. Third in the league is up for grabs, but everyone aside from the top two is so inconsistent. Our results have been average because individuals keep letting us down, and the manager isn’t really helping.
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I’m afraid I have to disagree. My conclusion on what I’ve seen so far this season is that we’re absolutely cack.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’m afraid I have to disagree. My conclusion on what I’ve seen so far this season is that we’re absolutely cack.
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We’re giving virtually nothing away in game after game. I’ve seen us having a truck driven through us under Mourinho at times and Ole at the end of last year. We’re comfortably better than from that, but we’re still tumescent.
 
TMDaines said:
We’re giving virtually nothing away in game after game. I’ve seen us having a truck driven through us under Mourinho at times and Ole at the end of last year. We’re comfortably better than from that, but we’re still tumescent.
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That's more to do with the fact that every team knows they don't have to do anything and just stay in their own half and they'll get at least a draw because we can't score goals.
 
elmo said:
So good defensively that we've leaked goals in nearly every game this year.
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Nah, we've been good defensively. All you can do is just restrict chances as best you can but teams will always have half chances here and there, and score the odd screamer. Today we had nothing in midfield and attack yet west Ham created 1 half chance, scored and then scored a free kick from 30 yards out. That's not a chance, that's just good shot that happens.
 
elmo said:
That's more to do with the fact that every team knows they don't have to do anything and just stay in their own half and they'll get at least a draw because we can't score goals.
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So the problem is our attack isnt it? Especially with our only creative players injured.
 
elmo said:
So good defensively that we've leaked goals in nearly every game this year.
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Yeah, because a defensive performance should be weighted solely on whether you conceded a goal or not? You have to realise that football is a sport where the result doesn't necessarily reflect the performance.
 
Sky1981 said:
Top teams have shir xg because they actually score.

The name alone is a sign of impotency. Expectef goals that didnt happen
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That's not true, top teams create more xG than average ones and also outperform that figure.
 
6 or even 10 games is a very small sample to discuss xG meaningfully. We look mostly average. Today's xG is misleading since our chances came after we were already a goal down. The chasing team is expected to attack more and create chances. Same with Chelsea game when we hugely benefited from scoring first despite being the worse team in the first half. You need a big sample of games to neutralise circumstances like that which influence the xG.

I'm seeing an average team that looks solid in defence at the expense of the attack. We are bottom half regarding big chances created.
 
Sky1981 said:
Top teams have shir xg because they actually score.

The name alone is a sign of impotency. Expectef goals that didnt happen
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No it's just "expected goals". Nothing to do with them actually going in or not. It's literally just evaluating chances created and conceded.
 
We are the team in the league who is under performing their expected points the most. Only Watford are even close to us in this regard.

1. United - 5.41
2. Watford - 5.34
3. Wolves - 3.45

Unsurprising to anyone who watches us but it's nice to see the data support the eye test.

p.s. Mata's open goal miss had a higher xG than every chance West Ham had us against combined.
 
settembrini said:
We are the team in the league who is under performing their expected points the most. Only Watford are even close to us in this regard.

1. United - 5.41
2. Watford - 5.34
3. Wolves - 3.45

Unsurprising to anyone who watches us but it's nice to see the data support the eye test.

p.s. Mata's open goal miss had a higher xG than every chance West Ham had us against combined.
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Data do not support what I see and I would rather trust my eyes than a sample of 6 games to tell me how we play. We don't play well in attack, that much is obvious. I don't think Mata's chance was that easy to score from. Ball was moving very fast in the air and it wasn't easy to connect with it in the right way. Maguire's chance was as good as it gets though.

People should also take into account that Wolves and Soton away are relatively easy fixtures given the current state of those teams. WHam is trickier but it's not like playing any top 6 team at their ground. In contrast, Spurs have already played City, Arsenal and Leicester away.
 
I dont even know what all these stats mean. What happened to watching football with the naked eye.

We dont create chances.
The few chances we do create we fail to convert
Midfield is crap and often over run
Players dont press and look knackered

The only stats I am interested in is the league table. P6 W2 D2 L2. We are in 8th place. That looks about right to me. We are a mid table side on the performances of what I have seen. We have scored 8 goals compared to City 24 and Liverpool respectively 17.
Bournemouth and Norwich have scored more than us.
 
This is a problem with xG, if Ruud had missed a few like that yesterday, and he did, you can bank on him coming good. xG doesn't factor in how shite Mata is these days and how unlikely Rashford and Lingard are to start scoring again.

Martial coming back upfront will help a lot and if Greenwood can work his way in over the season we might have a chance to convert these.
 
Treble said:
Data do not support what I see and I would rather trust my eyes than a sample of 6 games to tell me how we play. We don't play well in attack, that much is obvious. I don't think Mata's chance was that easy to score from. Ball was moving very fast in the air and it wasn't easy to connect with it in the right way. Maguire's chance was as good as it gets though.

People should also take into account that Wolves and Soton away are relatively easy fixtures given the current state of those teams. WHam is trickier but it's not like playing any top 6 team at their ground. In contrast, Spurs have already played City, Arsenal and Leicester away.
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Our problems in attack are more to do with finishing than anything else. Our target is top 4 this season and are currently the 4th best team at creating chances (miles behind City, a bit behind Liverpool and Chelsea). You will of course disagree with the stats if you don't consider Mata's miss to have been an easy chance though. By those standards basically no team creates good chances.

I agree that we have had easy fixtures. I'm not trying to make out that everything is rosy at United because that's obviously far from the case. I just think the issue is more nuanced than the current 'we are a complete shambles in every way' attitude that I see a lot at the moment.
 
settembrini said:
We are the team in the league who is under performing their expected points the most. Only Watford are even close to us in this regard.

1. United - 5.41
2. Watford - 5.34
3. Wolves - 3.45

Unsurprising to anyone who watches us but it's nice to see the data support the eye test.

p.s. Mata's open goal miss had a higher xG than every chance West Ham had us against combined.
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Rashford clean break early on which he screwed up. Maguire shot from 5 yards out that was saved. For a team that doesn't create that much, these missed opportunities are killing us.
 
settembrini said:
Our problems in attack are more to do with finishing than anything else. Our target is top 4 this season and are currently the 4th best team at creating chances (miles behind City, a bit behind Liverpool and Chelsea). You will of course disagree with the stats if you don't consider Mata's miss to have been an easy chance though. By those standards basically no team creates good chances.

I agree that we have had easy fixtures. I'm not trying to make out that everything is rosy at United because that's obviously far from the case.
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Fair enough. I don't have the impression that we create many chances. How are we "a bit behind" Liverpool and Chelsea I don't really understand. Chelsea created 5-6 chances against the supposedly best defence in the league yesterday.
 
Bilbo said:
Rashford clean break early on which he screwed up. Maguire shot from 5 yards out that was saved. For a team that doesn't create that much, these missed opportunities are killing us.
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Three chances in 90 minutes against West Ham, two of which while they were ahead and holding on to a lead? Well count me fecking in and aboard the Ole choo-choo train! In order to try to turn the game from a loss to a win we created one counter-attacking opportunity and one chance from a corner.

It's a bad sign when you create three goalscoring opportunities in a game, because that absolutely requires you to be clinical, which we're not, to not risk dropping points every single game regardless of whether you concede a goal or not.

fecking hell, with those expectations you might as well start popping the relegation champagne open already.
 
Bilbo said:
Rashford clean break early on which he screwed up. Maguire shot from 5 yards out that was saved. For a team that doesn't create that much, these missed opportunities are killing us.
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That's us in a nutshell. But you are not a good team when you create that few chances and everything depends on you taking those.
 
Pretty sure we would have won handily on the xG, so let’s rejoice. feck me what is up with our finishing? It’s affecting the whole squad the inability to convert.
 
LInkash said:
Regression to the mean will happen right?
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Not necessarily. All of our forwards aren't exactly proven to be prolific, consistent goalscorers. Bad or average teams regularly underperform the xG they create. That's one of the points of xG. Whether you have more possession or not, that doesn't make you a better team, it's same with creating more xG than your opponent, but not actually finishing your chances.
 
LInkash said:
Regression to the mean will happen right?
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Almost always happens eventually in the long run.... Though if I would've had a guess at the start of the season, it would've been that we'd underperform our xG. We have a lot of young players. Not being clinical is entirely normal for young players.
 
Today was one of those days, one of those ludicrous days where you can’t score and the opponent inevitably will.

These boys have got to try and capture that ability to make the difference in the key moments though. We’ve out xG’d our opponents in the last two games and have drawn one and lost one. Liverpool have been out xG’d by their opponents in the last two games this season and won both. We can’t keep failing to pick results up when our performances supposedly suggest that we deserve more, because to the eye it looks like our performances aren’t that great and maybe xG is flattering us, and we’ll be unlikely to be net positive going forward.
 
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