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Xg's ??????
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BrilliantRodneyCharltonTrotta said:From ChatGpt:
XG is a modern phenomenon aimed at reducing the soul, spirit and passion of one of the most beautiful art forms in human history into a sterile, statistical borefest. It is often used to justify that whilst losing 3 nil for third week in a row your donkey striker got into enough good positions in the 75th minute to demonstrate that you really won on paper.
Whilst it's origin is unknown the leading school of thought dictates that it was likely invented by Crystal Palace fans to pass the time between making banners and stave off the frustration of life long virginity.
Proponents of xg also tend to vehemently argue the virtues of VAR, traffic wardens and are credited with creating needless terminology like 'inverted false tricefta vanguard' to describe a right footed left back.3 -
It is consistent it’s just not a tool for predicting results which is why it isn’t good for your betting purposes. Single game xG is largely pointless too as you can see that with your eyes most of the time. Where it’s helpful is assessing a players finishing, to see that Tanto scored as many goals as his xG predicted is a good thing, to see TC scored double the goals is good and surprising and to see that Godden over performed his xG is not a surprise but suggests his finishing is above L1 level which is useful for planning going forwardBedsaddick said:
It never is consistent. Thats why it’s massively flawed . I’ll use my own knowledge for betting purposes rather than AI or a computer telling me that each team has a 0.41 XG and the score ends up being 2-2 .SuedeAdidas said:It doesn’t interest me - but can see how it could be useful.To be really useful the ‘Expected’ number has to be consistent in order to be measured against.1 -
I think xG has been used and explained poorly by TV companies which has caused so much dislike for something that is useful when used as intended1
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But there's value in being able to see the xG for a thousand players in fifty countries, before working out which dozen or so to go and scout.blackpool72 said:
You don't need xG to work out who is the better player.Callumcafc said:
If Clive Mendonca and Simon Church played in the same era and in one season both scored 10 goals but Clive did it from 5 xG while Church did it from 15 xG, would it not be helpful to have something quantitative to prove that Mendonca was the better finisher?golfaddick said:
More the case that it doesn't take into account the quality of the player with the chance.se9addick said:
The fact that it doesn’t take into account the quality of the goalkeeper is a major flaw in my eyes. Surely it’s much more “expected” that I’ll score the same chance against Yohann Thuram than I would against peak Buffon?Bedsaddick said:
It’s not confusing. It’s just boring and for the most part wrong .Uboat said:It’s quite a simple idea about how many goals should have been scored given the quality of the chances created. It can be applied to teams or individuals. Luddites and dinosaurs (pretend to) find it confusing.
Same XG whether it was Sir Clive or Simon Church.
Imo that is where it falls down.
Just use your eyes and watch them play.2 -
What, like seeing 1 player (Mendonca) hit the back of the net more than the other.Callumcafc said:
If Clive Mendonca and Simon Church played in the same era and in one season both scored 10 goals but Clive did it from 5 xG while Church did it from 15 xG, would it not be helpful to have something quantitative to prove that Mendonca was the better finisher?golfaddick said:
More the case that it doesn't take into account the quality of the player with the chance.se9addick said:
The fact that it doesn’t take into account the quality of the goalkeeper is a major flaw in my eyes. Surely it’s much more “expected” that I’ll score the same chance against Yohann Thuram than I would against peak Buffon?Bedsaddick said:
It’s not confusing. It’s just boring and for the most part wrong .Uboat said:It’s quite a simple idea about how many goals should have been scored given the quality of the chances created. It can be applied to teams or individuals. Luddites and dinosaurs (pretend to) find it confusing.
Same XG whether it was Sir Clive or Simon Church.
Imo that is where it falls down.1 -
Right - and you have enough time to do that for each of the dozens of potential targets that may crop up, or across however many hundreds of footballers might score 10+ goals a season around the world?blackpool72 said:
You don't need xG to work out who is the better player.Callumcafc said:
If Clive Mendonca and Simon Church played in the same era and in one season both scored 10 goals but Clive did it from 5 xG while Church did it from 15 xG, would it not be helpful to have something quantitative to prove that Mendonca was the better finisher?golfaddick said:
More the case that it doesn't take into account the quality of the player with the chance.se9addick said:
The fact that it doesn’t take into account the quality of the goalkeeper is a major flaw in my eyes. Surely it’s much more “expected” that I’ll score the same chance against Yohann Thuram than I would against peak Buffon?Bedsaddick said:
It’s not confusing. It’s just boring and for the most part wrong .Uboat said:It’s quite a simple idea about how many goals should have been scored given the quality of the chances created. It can be applied to teams or individuals. Luddites and dinosaurs (pretend to) find it confusing.
Same XG whether it was Sir Clive or Simon Church.
Imo that is where it falls down.
Just use your eyes and watch them play.
Again, it is a useful aid in helping determine the better player. Not the be all and end all.4 -
There's a tendency with xG to point out that is isn't perfect and as a result making the jump to it being worthless. Perfection is the enemy of good and all that. I don't have Macauley Bonne's xG for 19/20 but he scored 11 Championship goals. Nobody who watched him for Charlton seemed to think he was much good though, and we would all agree I think that he had a bit of a mad season where he scored far more than he really should have and I'd bet his xG would be fairly reflective of the fact he was playing above himself. He scored a lot of goals where he just smashed the ball in hope and it went in, a few where he beat the keeper to the ball and was quite fortunate - I remember a lob against maybe Bristol City that honestly could have gone anywhere - and I'm sure for his goal against Leeds it bounced in off the back of his head when the keeper made a save and the defender dragged him to the ground at the perfect time. xG can tell you if a player is having a one-off season where everything is just coming off for them and they'll revert to type; I bet QPR wish they'd looked a bit more closely at the types of goals Bonne scored before parting with that amount of money for him.
xG is like any stat; used in a vacuum it's not going to tell you how good a player is but used in conjunction with others it's very useful for getting a sense of a player or a team. In the same way we'll want our transfer team to assess a player's skills, try and match them to what we need and then have a look at their character to make sure they fit in. Score 15 goals but refuse to run? Jones won't want him. Score 15 goals but the player has never done that before and the xG for the goals overall was 0.02? Probably a freak season he'll struggle to replicate. If you don't like it you can ignore it but the requirement some people seem to have to act like it can't also be useful is odd.2 -
thanks Chizz0
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You’re thinking like a fan which is completely fair but I defer to the points made by other posters already.blackpool72 said:
You don't need xG to work out who is the better player.Callumcafc said:
If Clive Mendonca and Simon Church played in the same era and in one season both scored 10 goals but Clive did it from 5 xG while Church did it from 15 xG, would it not be helpful to have something quantitative to prove that Mendonca was the better finisher?golfaddick said:
More the case that it doesn't take into account the quality of the player with the chance.se9addick said:
The fact that it doesn’t take into account the quality of the goalkeeper is a major flaw in my eyes. Surely it’s much more “expected” that I’ll score the same chance against Yohann Thuram than I would against peak Buffon?Bedsaddick said:
It’s not confusing. It’s just boring and for the most part wrong .Uboat said:It’s quite a simple idea about how many goals should have been scored given the quality of the chances created. It can be applied to teams or individuals. Luddites and dinosaurs (pretend to) find it confusing.
Same XG whether it was Sir Clive or Simon Church.
Imo that is where it falls down.
Just use your eyes and watch them play.
My post compared the two players given - obviously Mendonca passed the eye test moreso than Church did. But then you realise every player has these metrics and it helps run the rule over hundreds and thousands of players at a glance.
Why do players get plucked from South America by the likes of Brighton in their teens and early 20s whereas before they might have had to wait until a Copa America or World Cup to get noticed?
Because of advanced statistics like xG widening their scouting pool.1 -
It clearly has its place as all clubs highly value it in their recruitment. Brentford and Brighton were early to really take up data driven recruitment like this and it’s paid off for them big time.Obviously not to everyone’s taste but it can definitely be a useful gauge of how a player/team is performing.0
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I can see it has some value but I keep imagining Tommy D sitting in front of his spread sheets and coming up with a name.
Sometimes just doing some old fashioned scouting works as well.0 -
You have to do both, buying players purely on stats is a mugs gameblackpool72 said:I can see it has some value but I keep imagining Tommy D sitting in front of his spread sheets and coming up with a name.
Sometimes just doing some old fashioned scouting works as well.4 -
I think Driesen is a good example there because he's exactly the kind of thicko who would scout based on spreadsheets and data and nothing else. I bet Polish Pete had some great data backing up that he was going to be a better striker than Yann but it didn't account for the fact he was a teenager made out of spiderwebs and whispers with no EFL experience and Yann was the actual Terminator who the other players saw as a talisman. All scouting should be combining data, real eyes on the player and testimonies on their character coupled with actual conversations with them.blackpool72 said:I can see it has some value but I keep imagining Tommy D sitting in front of his spread sheets and coming up with a name.
Sometimes just doing some old fashioned scouting works as well.2 -
two of the most successful clubs of the last decade Brentford and Brighton have been driven from the fundamental basis of using statistical analysis like XG at the heart of everything they do and decisions they make.Anyone who thinks this data is irrelevant useless or pointless should speak to anyone involved in the rapid ascent of both of those clubs.If Thomas Driesen had been using proper analysis/ data rather than youtube and champ man he would probably have been less farcical.
that said it’s got is flaws when used just informally eg reading through the paper Average man on the street cos it doesn’t really explain for different tactical approaches, having a shite finisher Vs a 1 chance 1 goal man
I think it’s still insightful giving a gauge of balance of play in a game, ie was it a 1-0 win smash and grab or a dominant performance… more so than the predecessor for that purpose which was probably shots on goal and/ or possession which can be even more misleading0 -
Good to see this thread developing exactly as expected. The Expected Nonsense data was bang on.2
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This for me is the nub of the problem with it. There is no universally agreed formula, because it doesn't represent anything concrete in the real world. Big business has realised that it has masses of raw data and has sought a way to monetize it. Xg is the way that that is done. Try getting any of those companies to tell you precisely what their particular xg formula is and you'll be palmed off with slick words and graphics, but you'll never get the methodology.Callumcafc said:FWIW I think it would be a good inclusion in the statbank @lancashire lad although different stats providers have different xG formulas so I would recommend choosing one and sticking with them for the entire season instead of mixing and matching.
I appreciate you looking at how to make Stat Bank better, Lancs, but I honestly don't think xg is the answer. It may have some uses, but those uses are limited and transient. The day that the corporate stat houses get together and publish an agreed formula for xg is the day I'll reconsider.0 -
Did you use stats to come up with prediction?Uboat said:Good to see this thread developing exactly as expected. The Expected Nonsense data was bang on.0 -
Possession stats vary across different mediums too though…Stig said:
This for me is the nub of the problem with it. There is no universally agreed formula, because it doesn't represent anything concrete in the real world. Big business has realised that it has masses of raw data and has sought a way to monetize it. Xg is the way that that is done. Try getting any of those companies to tell you precisely what their particular xg formula is and you'll be palmed off with slick words and graphics, but you'll never get the methodology.Callumcafc said:FWIW I think it would be a good inclusion in the statbank @lancashire lad although different stats providers have different xG formulas so I would recommend choosing one and sticking with them for the entire season instead of mixing and matching.
I appreciate you looking at how to make Stat Bank better, Lancs, but I honestly don't think xg is the answer. It may have some uses, but those uses are limited and transient. The day that the corporate stat houses get together and publish an agreed formula for xg is the day I'll reconsider.
I would like a stat bank XG as long as it’s the consistent source game in game out the methodology doesn’t matter
but I think it would have been quite insightful last season to see our progress on XG vs actual G0 -
I don't need an algorithm to tell me Clive Mendonca was god and Simon Church was a fucking donkey 🙄Callumcafc said:
If Clive Mendonca and Simon Church played in the same era and in one season both scored 10 goals but Clive did it from 5 xG while Church did it from 15 xG, would it not be helpful to have something quantitative to prove that Mendonca was the better finisher?golfaddick said:
More the case that it doesn't take into account the quality of the player with the chance.se9addick said:
The fact that it doesn’t take into account the quality of the goalkeeper is a major flaw in my eyes. Surely it’s much more “expected” that I’ll score the same chance against Yohann Thuram than I would against peak Buffon?Bedsaddick said:
It’s not confusing. It’s just boring and for the most part wrong .Uboat said:It’s quite a simple idea about how many goals should have been scored given the quality of the chances created. It can be applied to teams or individuals. Luddites and dinosaurs (pretend to) find it confusing.
Same XG whether it was Sir Clive or Simon Church.
Imo that is where it falls down.4 -
Your post misses the wider point that’s already been discussed in later posts. FWIW I also agree that using data on it’s own is typically the wrong approach and gives rise to the likes of Driesen and Polish Pete.Leroy Ambrose said:
I don't need an algorithm to tell me Clive Mendonca was god and Simon Church was a fucking donkey 🙄Callumcafc said:
If Clive Mendonca and Simon Church played in the same era and in one season both scored 10 goals but Clive did it from 5 xG while Church did it from 15 xG, would it not be helpful to have something quantitative to prove that Mendonca was the better finisher?golfaddick said:
More the case that it doesn't take into account the quality of the player with the chance.se9addick said:
The fact that it doesn’t take into account the quality of the goalkeeper is a major flaw in my eyes. Surely it’s much more “expected” that I’ll score the same chance against Yohann Thuram than I would against peak Buffon?Bedsaddick said:
It’s not confusing. It’s just boring and for the most part wrong .Uboat said:It’s quite a simple idea about how many goals should have been scored given the quality of the chances created. It can be applied to teams or individuals. Luddites and dinosaurs (pretend to) find it confusing.
Same XG whether it was Sir Clive or Simon Church.
Imo that is where it falls down.
I used two reference points because it was what was given in the post I replied to. But in the real world people aren’t using it just to compare two players at a time.
People can keep calling it nonsense and others can keep using it (when used properly) to actually run the sport.0
