How Premier League clubs really started the season - according to xG

♪ I've been waiting for you ♪

The Premier League season is in full swing and the numbers of Expected Goals (xG) a metric that estimates the real quality of chances created already help to separate who's sustaining or resulting for the quality of the game from who is fleeing the standard. For Brazilian fans accompanying the most watched championship of the country, understanding this difference is a good way to know if your team's performance is sustainable or you can suffer correction along the rounds.

What is xG and why does it matter

O xG attributes to each goal a probability of scoring, calculated from factors such as distance, angle and type of play. When everything is summed up, the number of goals that one team "should" have scored is marked by the quality of the chances it creates.

ASuperdesempenho: quem está colhendo além do que planta (which means "what's wrong with you")

The teams that appear above the xG are usually divided into two profiles: those who have elite finishers capable of converting difficult chances with regularity, and those who live a moment of efficiency outside the padrão, as opposing defenses fail or rival goalkeepers make less defense than expected.

The positive side of overperformance is obvious: points in the table. Historically, teams that rely heavily on above-average conversion tend to feel a decline when efficiency normalizes and this leads to performance shortfalls at the end of the season.

Performance below expectations: who suffers com or waste

At the other extreme, there are teams creating quality opportunities without turning them into goals in the same proportion.

For a torcida destes clubes, he read it but optimistic: if the volume of chances is maintained, a tendência estatística e de melhora nossos resultados. The counterexample exists, claro: times that finalizam mal de forma crónica podem continuar desperdiçando, and aí o problema vira estrutural, não estatístico.

How does this affect who accompanies a competition?

But it helps the supporters to calibrate expectations: an undefeated team with a negative record deserves more caution than its position in the table suggests; a club in the middle of the table is crying out for too much value, but paying attention to what the raw numbers indicate.

Where are we ?

The season is still in its early stages, so that extremes of xG are treated with reservations small samples exaggerate both super performances and underperformance.