World Cup: Matches

[bobzy]

5 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

xG: 2.59 vs 1.32

Losing that was harsh

A penalty is about 0.8 xG I imagine, so 1.6 of England's 2.59 amount was penalties.  From open play, it's less than 1 xG in that game.

 

Which is why xG is a pretty useless stat.

 

 

Edit:  Checked and penalties are apparently 0.76 xG, so England achieved just over 1 xG.  Hooray!

Edited December 11, 2022 by bobzy

[Kiwivillan]

Just now, bobzy said:

A penalty is about 0.8 xG I imagine, so 1.6 of England's 2.59 amount was penalties.  From open play, it's less than 1 xG in that game.

 

Which is why xG is a pretty useless stat.

I agree to a point about xG. Goal mouth scramble that 99 times out of 100 results in goal probably registered as 0 xG

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, bobzy said:

A penalty is about 0.8 xG I imagine, so 1.6 of England's 2.59 amount was penalties.  From open play, it's less than 1 xG in that game.

 

Which is why xG is a pretty useless stat.

A penalty is 0.7

So England’s xG from open play was about 1.2. 
 

But penalties still count. So I’m not sure what good excluding them does unless you’re specifically analysing a performance from open play. Which is fine, but it doesn’t tell you the story of a game.
 

xG is genuinely the most useful stat going. 

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, Kiwivillan said:

I agree to a point about xG. Goal mouth scramble that 99 times out of 100 results in goal probably registered as 0 xG

If such a situation existed it would be recorded as 0.99 xG. That’s literally how it is calculated

[Genie]

Kane got some serious height on that penalty 

I have to say, even if he’d scored I can’t really see England going on to win. France were a cut above us and would have found another goal.

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

Kane got some serious height on that penalty 

I have to say, even if he’d scored I can’t really see England going on to win. France were a cut above us and would have found another goal.

I really don’t agree. England were the better team. Not by much, but I think we were. 
 

France’s second goal especially was against the run of play. They didn’t deserve to be winning at that point. 
 

We might still have won. But France certainly Weren’t a cut above, imo

[bobzy]

5 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

A penalty is 0.7

So England’s xG from open play was about 1.2. 
 

But penalties still count. So I’m not sure what good excluding them does unless you’re specifically analysing a performance from open play. Which is fine, but it doesn’t tell you the story of a game.
 

xG is genuinely the most useful stat going. 

A team can be largely anonymous but win 2 penalties and look like they "should have won".  Similarly, a team can be in complete control and score 3 worldies but look like "the worse side".

xG is useful as an indicator of how the game is going - which is basically open play.  Excluding penalties doesn't do any good, but you need to give context around xG rather than "2.59 vs 1.32 - OMG harsh loss".

Edited December 11, 2022 by bobzy

[leemond2008]

Had a family piss up last night, only just remembered that England played, the only thing I can recall is that Kane missed a penatly.

Do we all hate Southgate still or did we bow out gracefully? 

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, bobzy said:

A team can be largely anonymous but win 2 penalties and look like they "should have won".  Similarly, a team can be in complete control and score 3 worldies but look like "the worse side".

xG is useful as an indicator of how the game is going - which is basically open play.  Excluding penalties doesn't do any good, but you need to give context around xG rather than "2.59 vs 1.32 - OMG harsh loss".

But england weren’t anonymous. So there is context. If they’d done nothing except 2 penalties then the xG would be 1.4

If a team is in complete control then they’re not going to only create 3 worldies. They’d be creating loss of other chances and their xG would reflect that. If a team controls a game but doesn’t create any chances then that’s not a particularly good performance is it? And their xG would reflect that despite the 3-0 score line. In that case it would be doing exactly what it’s meant to do. Telling you that that team was either extremely Lucky or extremely clinical

[Genie]

France took the lead early and managed the game. They didn’t need to push forward creating lots of chances. They sat back to a degree as they held the lead.

After the England equaliser they retook the lead after creating several good chances. 

It was a fairly close game but England played like the underdog and France the favourite.

xG doesn’t cover this kind of game management.

[bobzy]

7 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

But england weren’t anonymous. So there is context. If they’d done nothing except 2 penalties then the xG would be 1.4

If a team is in complete control then they’re not going to only create 3 worldies. They’d be creating loss of other chances and their xG would reflect that. If a team controls a game but doesn’t create any chances then that’s not a particularly good performance is it? And their xG would reflect that despite the 3-0 score line. In that case it would be doing exactly what it’s meant to do. Telling you that that team was either extremely Lucky or extremely clinical

I didn't say England were - it was just an example of the flaws of xG.  If a team scored 3 amazing goals and then just took their foot off attacking and completely controlled the game, why wouldn't they have a "poor" xG and "not a good performance"?

There will be examples of it going both ways in this World Cup, I'm sure.  I bet Argentina 1 - 2 Saudi Arabia on xG looks like Argentina should've won comfortably, but they weren't that great and they only scored a penalty.  No-one would really argue that Saudi Arabia didn't deserve to win.

Edited December 11, 2022 by bobzy

[sne]

Think I read that Germany had the highest Xg out of all teams in the group stages?

Edited December 11, 2022 by sne

[stewiek2]

12 hours ago, It's Your Round said:

I put money Argentina to win it before it started. I’m sticking with that, even though I know it will result in Emi going missing in Argentina for a month after

It'll be Flintoff post ashes 2005 scale of epic scenes from Emi

Edited December 11, 2022 by stewiek2

[Stevo985]

5 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I didn't say England were - it was just an example of the flaws of xG.  If a team scored 3 amazing goals and then just took their foot off attacking and completely controlled the game, why wouldn't they have a "poor" xG and "not a good performance"?

I’d still argue that a team that scored 3 worldy goals and created nothing else still isn’t a great performance. But if they controlled the game so much that they limited the opposition to less xG then the stats would reflect that. 
 

If the opposition got a higher xG despite losing 3-0 then they’d be unlucky 

8 minutes ago, bobzy said:

 

There will be examples of it going both ways in this World Cup, I'm sure.  I bet Argentina 1 - 2 Saudi Arabia on xG looks like Argentina should've won comfortably, but they weren't that great and they only scored a penalty.  No-one would really argue that Saudi Arabia didn't deserve to win.

Deserve is a strange word to use. Saudi Arabia got hammered on xG. 2.27 v 0.14

But that perfectly reflects the game. Argentina had way more chances and on another day would have won. Saudi Arabia scored their goals out of nothing. 
 

That doesn’t mean they didn’t deserve it. They defended brilliantly and were extremely clinical to capitalise on Argentina’s wastefulness. 
 

That’s how football works. 
 

What xG tells you is that in an average hypothetical game, Argentina would have won comfortably. That’s it. It’s not meant to predict the score. 

[Kiwivillan]

21 minutes ago, Genie said:

France took the lead early and managed the game. They didn’t need to push forward creating lots of chances. They sat back to a degree as they held the lead.

After the England equaliser they retook the lead after creating several good chances. 

It was a fairly close game but England played like the underdog and France the favourite.

xG doesn’t cover this kind of game management.

Accurate assessment though England dominated 2nd half at 1-1 I thought bar one breakaway that France fluffed. Giroud chance that Pickford saved before goal was against run of play. France were really playing rest of game on the break. Mbappe was ineffective most of the game doing step overs in the corner but not really threatening. Thought he was pretty well contained

[bobzy]

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

What xG tells you is that in an average hypothetical game, Argentina would have won comfortably. That’s it. It’s not meant to predict the score. 

I guess this is the main thing - using xG as “that’s a harsh loss” ignores all game context. xG ignores all game context.

An underdog scoring first then sitting back and defending valiantly. I didn’t watch Morocco vs Portugal, but I imagine this was that sort of game.

It doesn’t take into account players (of course, it can’t) so Arjen Robben’s trademark cut in from the right and bend it far corner may work 20% of the time for him, but only 3% of the time for the footballing populace.

England vs France felt like a very even game with England probably seeing more of the ball and being the better side without really doing much with it. xG says England were a whole expected goal “better” than France and you’ve used that to say “harsh loss”. It didn’t feel like a game that England should have won.

[Mr_Dogg]

34 minutes ago, Genie said:

Kane got some serious height on that penalty 

I have to say, even if he’d scored I can’t really see England going on to win. France were a cut above us and would have found another goal.

No, no they weren't at all. England were unlucky.

[Lichfield Dean]

2 hours ago, delboy54 said:

Only saw the highlights.

All I have to say about VARs, dodgy penalties, dodgy officials and Kane having form in diving, is that all those who support the so called top 6 saying about England being robbed.....try looking at the dodgy decisions a team from the top 6 get when playing any other club outside the so called top 6.

I think there is corruption throughout the premier league and international football and I don't just mean FIFA and the governing bodies...

Didn't look to me anywhere near the level of the refereeing bias in the PL. The Saka free kick that wasn't given was a minor thing really, the ref couldn't have known that 45 seconds later after several phases of play (including a foul by Rice on Mbappe that that Mbappe chose not to go to ground on) that France would score.

And the penalty shout? Not sure it was a penalty. Ok, maybe should have been a foul, but that's all.

I'm pretty sure there were instances of fouls against France not being given.

If that had been Villa against Utd I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten the Mount penalty, the ref would have just claimed it was "strong defending" or some other such nonsense.

Overall, were we unlucky? Perhaps a bit. But I don't think the referee was the main reason we lost. We just weren't clinical enough when it really mattered and we weren't strong enough defensively.

[Stevo985]

2 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I guess this is the main thing - using xG as “that’s a harsh loss” ignores all game context. xG ignores all game context.

I agree. But I watched the game. We all did. So we have context. 
 

3 minutes ago, bobzy said:

It doesn’t take into account players (of course, it can’t) so Arjen Robben’s trademark cut in from the right and bend it far corner may work 20% of the time for him, but only 3% of the time for the footballing populace.

 

If it took this into account then it would completely ruin the entire point of the stat. Again, it’s not meant to predict the result. 
 

4 minutes ago, bobzy said:

 

England vs France felt like a very even game with England probably seeing more of the ball and being the better side without really doing much with it. xG says England were a whole expected goal “better” than France and you’ve used that to say “harsh loss”. It didn’t feel like a game that England should have won.

Again, I watched the game. I have the context. I’m not JUST using xG. I’m using it alongside watching all 103 odd minutes of the game.

It was an even game that I felt England were the better team in and were unlucky to lose. xG reflects that. Which is all I’ve said. 

[bobzy]

22 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I agree. But I watched the game. We all did. So we have context.

Again, I watched the game. I have the context. I’m not JUST using xG. I’m using it alongside watching all 103 odd minutes of the game.

It was an even game that I felt England were the better team in and were unlucky to lose. xG reflects that. Which is all I’ve said. 

But you’ve ignored the context!

1.52 of England’s xG - “reflecting they were the better side” - comes from rash French decision making rather than anything England did. An over hit ball from Bellingham didn’t show England doing anything - but adds 0.76 xG.

I guess we’ll just disagree as to how useful it is