Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after Newcastle 2 Tottenham 1

3 weeks ago 13

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Expected Goals is widely agreed to be the best way of measuring how well Premier League clubs play in any particular game.

To get a better look at how sides are doing, the Expected Goals (xG) metric allows you to get a better picture of just how teams are performing.

Expected goals (xG) is a statistic used to work out how many goals should be scored in a match.

With every single shot awarded an xG value based on the difficulty of the attempt, with factors including distance from goal, type of shot and number of defenders present affecting the value.

The higher the xG of a particular shot, the more likely a goal should be scored from that shot.

The xG value of every shot in a game is then used to calculate the expected goals in a particular match.

So rather than just the usual basic statistics of how many shots each team has, Expected Goals factors in where shots were taken from and how good a chance was and whether defenders in the way etc.

These are the Premier League matches from Sunday, with the Expected Goals stats (plus the actual final scoreline in brackets) via Understat:

Newcastle United 1.59 v Southampton 1.63 (2-1)

Chelsea 2.98 v Crystal Palace 0.45 (1-1)

Man U 1.50 v Liverpool 2.10 (0-3)

As you can see, an interesting set of results on Sunday, including when the focus is put on the expected goals stats.

Starting with the Man U match, I had a look at the other usual stats and they and Liverpool had only three efforts on target each, whilst Liverpool had a small advantage (11 v 8) in terms of total shots. However, the Expected Goals stats of Man U 1.50 and Liverpool 2.10 show that the scousers had the better quality chances AND took them!

The Stamford Bridge match shows Chelsea with an advantage of overall shots 13 v 9 against Palace, then 7 v 3 when it came to efforts on target. However, the Expected Goals stats point to Chelsea (2.98) having a massive advantage over Palace (0.45) in terms of both quality and number of chances they had. Palace got away with one here, thanks to a brilliant curling Eze goal from outside the box.

Which brings us to St James’ Park.

Yes, Tottenham had loads more shots (20 v 9) and twice the number of efforts on target (6 v 3).

However, the Expected Goals stats show the very real story of the match.

Newcastle United (1.59) and Tottenham (1.63) almost identical.

Tottenham dominated the stats of possession, shots, corners and so on, however, the reality is that Newcastle United were so good and disciplined and working so hard when out of possession, they restricted the visitors to very few clear chances. The vast majority of the Tottenham shots were from distance and/or blocked by NUFC players.

In contrast, Newcastle United opened Tottenham up for some very clear chances admittedly not loads, but enough. The winner summing things up when a superb Joelinton put Murphy in behind the Spurs defence and with Isak alert and quick enough, the striker and winger surged up the pitch and when Murphy got into the box, he was able to put it on a plate for Isak as the defenders could do nothing about it as they were chasing lost causes, whilst the keeper was also left helpless.

I think it is worth looking back to April and that 4-0 thrashing NUFC handed out.

You may find it a ‘little’ surprising to discover that dominating play with 73% possession were… Tottenham!

Basically the exact same tactics as Sunday, let Tottenham have the ball in non-dangerous positions and destroy them on the break. Newcastle United were on fire in that 4-0 game in the execution of the plan and ended up dominating the other more important stats, NUFC with 18 v 11 advantage on shots compared to Tottenham, 5 v 2 shots on target in Newcastle’s favour, a massive 16 v 3 on corners.

For me, Newcastle United started really well yesterday but after that lengthy break for the fourth official to replace the injured linesman, Newcastle only in small patches got back to those levels. Basically, I would say the defending on Sunday was pretty much on a par with that 4-0 match but unable to punish the very obvious Tottenham weaknesses and high line defending, to anything like the same extent.

Though worth pointing out that the winning goal was exactly that, a Tottenham very high defending line on the halfway line pretty much, undone by a moment of Joelinton brilliance, with Murphy and Isak doing the rest.

Newcastle 2 Tottenham 1 – Sunday 1 September 1.30pm

(Stats via BBC Sport)

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Barnes 37, Isak 78

Spurs:

Burn OG 56

Possession was Newcastle 34% Spurs 66%

Total shots were Newcastle 9 Spurs 20

Shots on target were Newcastle 3 Spurs 6

Corners were Newcastle 7 Spurs 12

Touches in the box Newcastle 14 Spurs 49