weasel wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:10 pm
The reason why Barry White had his own people was to acertain the important bits from stats like xg. It is all about interpreting the raw data and making sense out of it rather than just accepting it at face value. A good example would be someone like Andy Cole. He missed loads of good chances so I bet his xg was poor yet he was great at getting into the right positions and as such would have more shots than other strikers. So he may miss far more than a clinical striker but he'd be getting more chances than the clinical striker so you need to do the maths as to which striker would score more.
It's about interpretation as you say but the thing it will boil down to often is things managers can't influence.
Generally player quality.
Wolves for example anyone who watched them will know last season Jose Sa played out of his skin, saved them numerous times.
So xG table had them 16th but they finished 10th, they should have conceded nearly 20 more goals.
They were slightly below there xG for but because of Sa they conceded so many less it didnt make a difference.
So this season what happens? Sa isn't hitting the heights of last season and there still below there xG for and they are closer to where there performances had them last season.
Forest and Palace have been exceeding there xG all season but what's starting to happen? They are reverting to where they should be.
Our fans couldn't understand why Marsch got aslong as he did, this will be why, because xG and the like will have told the club we were underachieving.
So they will have been hoping the players could rise to the task.
The problem with that in our sort of level (lower end team) is you don't generally have the quality to make those performance tools tell.
So you don't ever meet the xG position or rather recover to it, it rarely happens.
The end bit of xG is very reliant on individuals and that is the issue teams like us have.
The point in Andy Cole is valid but I'd imagine similar to top strikers now at leading teams he would have exceeded or matched his xG .
Kane, Messi, Mbappe, Haaland, all those top players exceed there xG despite a high volume of chances because they are top players.
Whereas someone like Ivan Toney, despite what seems like a decent season he is actually underachieving.
It isn't the be all and end all as I said but to dismiss it as meaningless is very wrong.