this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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It's kind of weird but Tottenham literally always overperform xG basically since it became a stat. Part of it was Kane, but Son is actually statistically a better finisher.
It's an interesting counter for people who say that xG tells you who 'should' win a game, because this is more than a trend it's almost an inevitability. In theory it's no different to a team that has great creativity and crap finishing, but one will show up as a great team on xG and one won't.
It's still probably the best, simple metric for assessing a team's quality at a glance. At the end of the day it shows you how well a team creates goal scoring opportunities and how it prevents goal conceding opportunities, everything else is down to shot stopping and finishing (in theory).
I think it'd be mostly fair to say it shows who 'plays the best football', less whether a team is actually effective at playing football.
It’s not just down to shot stopping and shooting. It’s also about the quality of the assists and the position of the defence.
I still agree it is the best simple metric to predict how teams will perform over a season. VfB Stuttgart in the Bundesliga for example will probably finish really high. I would bet top 6.
Absolutely, though aren't assist quality and defensive positioning both factors that influence xG and xGA? That's kind of my thinking when saying why it's a good metric.