Newcastle’s impressive attacking display against Fulham found them in amongst some esteemed company this weekend.
In a graphic posted to Twitter by Infogol, Newcastle placed second in Europe’s top five leagues for XG (Expected Goals) with 3.62 in the game at Craven Cottage.
📊⚽️ Most Expected Goals (xG) created in Europe's top five leagues this weekend:
1️⃣🇩🇪 RB Leipzig – 4.09
2️⃣🏴 Newcastle – 3.62
3️⃣🇩🇪 Werder Bremen – 3.37
4️⃣🇮🇹 Sassuolo – 3.13
5️⃣🏴 Man City – 3.06
6️⃣🇪🇸 Getafe – 3.02
7️⃣🇪🇸 Real Madrid – 2.90
8️⃣🇩🇪 Dortmund – 2.87
9️⃣🇮🇹 Lazio – 2.73 pic.twitter.com/dxpuubhQJg— Sporting Life Football (@SportingLifeFC) October 3, 2022
Bettered only by RB Leipzig who put four goals past VfL Bochum without reply, Newcastle managed to score above their expected return showing that the Magpies didn’t sit back once their opponents went down to 10 men.
The only other English team amongst the top 9 was Manchester City with an XG of 3.06 – although I’m sure Haaland made up of 3.00 of that on his own, the mutant.
As a metric XG is favoured among YouTube statisticians and the like, but those in the game don’t tend to pay it much mind, especially as there are a few models for calculating the stat, as evidenced by another outlet running a stat suggesting that Newcastle’s XG on Saturday was actually 4.10
— G. Pirlo (@GingerPirlo_) October 3, 2022
However, what can be taken away from this, whichever metric you look at, is that Newcastle were much more of an attacking threat on Saturday than they have been in recent games. While our expected goals have always been quite high, our actual goal scoring record has not. This has been down to several factors – injuries to our main striker and creative midfielders, those brought in to replace them lacking the confidence to put in a killer ball or take a shot.
What's Your Thoughts On xG As A Metric?
Very useful actually
Load of rubbish
Hopefully that will be a thing of the past now, with Wilson back leading the line and Allan Saint-Maximin looking likely to return against Brentford, we could build on this impressive attacking display and prove to the doubters that it wasn’t a case of us looking good against 10-men, we were just good.
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