Welcome back reader(s), its been a while since I wrote something. Parenting and my day job have kept me busy this past month. Only good thing was that there was an international break in between and my fantasy football team did not fall off the rails.
So I am going to do something different this time. I am going to put up some data which has been gleaned by others. This way I can share with you where I get most data from and also its an acknowledgement of the effort of these analysts who make their work public for all of us to enjoy and read. After that lets see what we can take from it.
Expected Goals(xG)
Lets begin with the darling of the analytics community, the expected goals models.
This is from the excellent @11tegen11 . It plots the xG difference between the team and opponent and then the mean is displayed.
This table is from the well known Michael Caley of @DoublePivotPodcast fame. His twitter handle is @MC_of_A .
You have picked out that the tables do not match and that is for a reason. These calculations are proprietary and are done by each individual so they may not match.
Manchester City
Whats eating Pep and City? Fatigue? Adjustment? Found out? The explanations are varied and we may not know exactly what is causing it. Without a doubt though there is a slowdown. They had an xG of 1.9 against Man Utd in GW4, 3.6 against Bournemouth in GW 5 and 2 (+ 1 pen) in GW 6. After that its been downhill! 1.1 against Southampton although they conceded to a defensive error by Stones and 0.8 against Barca after Bravo got sent off.
I wrote till the above point before GW 10 and then parenting got in the way! GW 10 is over now so thats a decent place to take stock of whats happening.
I think Man City are worthy of a separate blog post as I delve into the data. The slump seems to have been corrected by a 4-0 thrashing of WBA at the Hawthorns where we usually expect more resistance from a Pulis side. City sit comfortably on top of the table by @11tegen11. The table shows the difference in expected goals which means their defence is also not bad. They sit joint top with Burnley and Palace for errors leading to a chance with 4. The mistake by Stones leading to a Redmond goal is still fresh in the memory.
Some teething problems are likely as its only 10 matches under a new manager. The initial wining streak had us all reaching for the Pep-is-the-best betting slips but it looks like they have a solid process, great individual talent and another bucket load of money in Jan to buy . I would be happy to drop the bet on them.
Manchester United
Moving to the Red half of Manchester we are fresh off an exciting , end to end 0-0 draw against Burnley. Who am I kidding? Exciting and United in the same sentence? Full disclosure here, I hate Mourinho. Who does not? I wanted to pull up some data that he has spent more money than other managers to win the league and turns out I was not wrong but late. A google search revealed a dozen articles highlighting the same thing!
He has spent north of 850 million pounds since 2004. More than any other manager. That is of course not a criticism. He has the faith of the owners to invest that amount of money and the ability to attract the top players even without UCL. Judging Pogba on his price tag is harsh as he is not a goal scorer. He is NEVER going to be worth that amount of money in a traditional sense. The market is what it is. If Bolasie ( 27 year old Congo international who has won no trophies) is worth £25 million, then Pogba (23 year old homegrown player with 4 Serie A titles and 4 Cup trophies ) could be worth 4 times that amount. Also we have to account for the fact that Man Utd are the largest English club and they have to pay a premium every time simply because teams know they can afford it.
Their expected goals looks like a top 4 side and on any other day 11 SoT, 19 corners and 37 shots would have produced something. Burnley were surely lucky.
****A correction****
In a previous post which I wont plug here I had written that Sturridge had 34 Adjusted Goals in 2013-14. That was calculated wrong and should read 24. I put my hands up and say that was a rookie error. The good thing is it falls more in line with the expected data but the bad thing is the mistake happened in the first place. Apologies to anyone who lost an argument using that stat!
Chelsea
In preparation for a podcast that never happened we had decided to look at Chelsea and found out that their underlying stats were not bad at all. That was after the Arsenal drubbing . Now after 10 matches they sit 4th in the table just 1 point off the top.
At this stage last season they had 11 points. Caley had them as the highest xG and they are projecting like a top 3 team. Hazard has already crossed his goal tally from last season. Costa and Matic who had a bad season last year are also looking back to their best now. Conte looks like he has finally settled on his favoured formation and is even making Luiz look like a decent defender. What is up with Fabregas though? Any thoughts?
Chelsea were joint top with the Saints for least big chances conceded with 7. The two sides met this weekend and Chelsea packed them off with goals from Costa and Hazard. Mourinho saying Conte humiliated him is a bit much considering he called Wenger a voyeur once.
Chelsea are second for least open play goal attempts conceded. The first is….
Liverpool!
We have been enthralled by this Klopp team of intricate passing and free running. Doubts have existed about their defence though. Lovren’s mistake against McArthur doing nothing to dispel them. Here is their shots conceded from open play. Yellow dots are goals ,Blue are saves and green are blocked shots.
They have conceded a lot of goals from right in front of goal. The tacticians can figure out what that means. We previously thought it was a GK issue but Karius does not look a great upgrade in that regard. Let us compare with teams who have keepers regarded as one of the best and are competition for top 4. Here is Lloris of Spurs
Cech of Arsen
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xG models love their attack and they look on course for a top 4 finish but unless they sort out defensive issues a title seems unlikely
Final Arsenal Word
Their attack and improvement have been covered extensively so I wont go into it. Wenger has spent on a forward and the defensive midfielder that everyone wanted. Lucas Perez and Xhaka have come both have seen very less game time. The squad is largely the same as last year with the wonderful exception of Mustafi ( Best defender buy this year in PL?). Is this Wenger proving his detractors wrong that Arsenal had a title winning squad last year or does that make you think if-only-he-had-bought-earlier?
You can find me on twitter @FplDraft.
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