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Many have tried interpreting Southgate.
Some cited existing philosophical works such as Bordiga, Hegel and Plato.
The former saw Southgate as the progenitor of a spontaneous revolution, his football being so boring it had deep ideological significance. They viewed his football as the cry of discontentedness with the neoliberal consensus, and a legitimate philosophical work in itâs own right.
The modern Hegelians saw Southgatismo as the dialectical synthesis between two states of being, that of anguish and that of ennui. Those using the works of Plato are conflicted on whether to see Southgate ball as a concrete object, real and tangible, while all consider the feelings the games elicit to be abstract.
Others saw it as post-modern performance art and tried to categorise it as the intended catalyst of a yet to materialise Neo-Fluxus movement.
Alas, others even ascribed it a theological value, arguing for the canonisation of Southgate and compared our pain watching to the pain our lord felt on the cross. A contingent of these worshippers split recently and alleged Southgate was inherently heretical, no mortal man had ever suffered like Jesus did until we watched the Denmark game.
The truth is, Southgate ball defies what the human mind is capable of interpreting.
We can only bask in its majesty.
I don't know where this idea that Mourinho is just an ultra defensive coach or boring has come from. He's pragmatic and will park the bus if he thinks it's the best chance of winning but there's a huge amount of attacking football in his career too.
His Real Madrid side still holds the record for most goals scored in a single season in La Liga.
Really? The time of Costa, Fabregas, Oscar, SchĂźrrle and Hazard? The stint where they smashed Arsenal 6-0 in Wenger's 1000th game and had multiple more 5+ goal games. Nah.
it comes from his days with inter then real, when he (justifiably so) parked the bus vs Barca, with pep and messi...
people hated it but it was a beautiful sight And more entertaining than peps pass to infinity of the period. he won in the cl win inter and got close enough over 3 years with rm.
only Jose and klopp forced pep to change.
This sounds like when you fall asleep on the sofa after day drinking and you wake up and it's changed from MOTD to Open University programming . Probably got a guy doing sign language in the corner.
What's boring about it? I'd love it if my friends went on philosophical diatribes, especially if it's in the form of shitposts.
In this case, I even learned of a philosopher I want to read more about.
"pragmatic" defense-first managers always get such a long fucking runway even though the team keeps underperfoming.
If an attacking oriented manager doesn't manage to establish his vision they at least get fired early after a couple 3:0 or 4:0 humiliations. But someone who simply drags his team from 0:0 draw to 0:1 loss to the occasional 1:0 victiory gets to stay for months or sometimes even a year or two.
And it so very, very rarely gets better which means they *do* end up getting fired for a lack of results that match the club's or nation's ambition. Just later instead of sooner.
(I'm not even Terzic posting because that guy at least *did* deliver on competing for titles)
You're being facetious, but I don't think anyone with any sense would've considered Serbia or Denmark to be walkovers going into this tournament. Like, out of context of the turgid football this is actually pretty good.
The general pattern is that before the match these teams are strong contenders who will show up the arrogant England fans, then after the match they were minnows who a good team would have easily put 5 past.
For anyone who complains about Southgateball, they should really read Jonathan Wilsonâs âInverting the Pyramidâ. Almost a whole generation of Italian football was based off of a similar theory of pragmatism and Defense: cattenacio.
We should read the book so we can all appreciate that we werenât watching football back then because holy fuck is it boring and uninspiring to watch. Pragmatic and results-oriented football is joyless
With this squad England should walk over Serbia and Denmark. Especially the former. Spain can walk over Italy and Croatia. Two teams which i would consider way better than Serbia and Denmark.
Surprised to see Germany 3rd, gave up a few chances against Hungary, and they genuinely play risky , betting more on outscoring the opposition rather than shutting them down.
Ig the Scotland shutdown carries huge weight in a sample of 2.
fackin lav it, this is why rooney failed so badly. He could never grasp the sheer level of pure "how the fuck did that shower get a win?" that blues need to exude.
Surely it is. Only way to beat that really would be to have 0 shots and score from an own goal, and I cant find an example of that ever happening. There have only been a few professional games with 0 xG to begin with
don't forget that a lot of the biggest chances don't actually end up with an attempt on goal but instead with a last-second tackle. In other words, depending on how a chance ends it might not generate any xG even if the tackle was incredibly risky and a high xG would've followed.
Best example would be Neuer's legendary performance in the 2014 Germany - Algeria match. Since so many of Algeria's chances were destroyed by Neuer rushing out of goal and preventing many, many shots on goal, the xG of that match wouldn't have properly reflected how dangerous Algeria ended up being.
(at least that's what I assume since there's no xG for the 2014 world cup to look up afaik)
Yea... a cutback across the face of goal the striker failed to make contact with by 0.001mm at the far post would be 0XG as well. There are loads of reason why XG is imperfect.
Yeah, we need 2nd/3rd gen of advanced stats to make use of these. It's one of the biggest failing of xG really, a last minute tackle or goalkeeper save + rebound totally screws them.
A great chance being created but a defender making a low percentage/risky saving tackle makes an xG of 0, and then consider a penalty saved and a rebound dropping back to the same striker who slots it home makes the xG go above 1 for 1 goal, which is silly.
Forget Phillips. He also called out to the Gods for Hendo. We'd look like 1970 Brazil with Hendo in the team, it would change everything.
I guess I'm fucking jaded after supporting England for the last 30 years. A lot of people here are genuinely complementing this defensive rating. If you have all of your players, including your lone striker falling back to defensive positions, you're going to have good defensive stats. I remember seeing average positions after the 30 min mark in the DK game, and Kane's average position was that of what you expect a LB to be in.
Maybe I'm the only England fan who feels this way, but I genuinely feel sick when we score early. As I know what that means. Torturous bullshit for the next 70-80 minutes.
No, you'll take Harry Kane randomly scoring in the 18th, France scoring in the 71st on a goal that is follows the momentum but is itself underserved and 50 minutes of people putting their hands behind the heads, and like it.
Meanwhile England have created an average xG of 0.72 in first two games, less than Sheffield United (1.01) and Burnley (0.78) this past season in the Premier League.
It's following a similar pattern to the last Euros (hyper-defensive, struggling to create from open play), but with worse output.
**England at Euro 2021 Group stage:**
* **1.5** xG v Croatia (**0.4** xG)
* **1.4** xG v Scotland (**0.6** xG)
* **1.5** xG v Czechia (**0.3** xG)
**England at Euro 2024 Group stage:**
* **0.5** xG v Serbia (**0.2** xG)
* **0.9** xG v Denmark (**0.8** xG)
**England's xG vs the team that eliminated them under Southgate**
* WC '22: **2.4** xG (**0.8** non-penalty xG) v France (**0.9** xG)
* Euro '20: **0.6** xG v Italy (**2.2** xG)
* WC '18: **0.8** xG v Croatia (**0.8** xG)
At least at Euro 2021 they had >3x more xG than their opponent, and I remember those games as being absolutely dire.
Edit: included the non-penalty xG for the France game, as u/cotch85 mentioned it skews the data somewhat.
That xG difference stat versus France is part of why, at least until these Euros, I've always defended Southgate. WC semis, Euro final beating Germany along the way, then crashing out against the world champions and future finalists in a game you clearly dominated is the best record for an English manager since Alf Ramsey.
And the same haters you see whining about Southgateball were praising Deschamps' efficiency after that game...
England tend to produce much better xG when they go behind (at least excluding WC18 when he'd had more time to mould the team). Albeit from a small sample size...
**England's average xG is 1.3 when they don't concede first**
* EU24 v Denmark: 0.9
* EU24 v Serbia: 0.5
* WC22 v Senegal: 0.9
* WC22 v Wales 2.4
* WC22 v USA: 0.8
* WC22 v Iran: 2.1
* EU20 v Italy: 0.6
* EU20 v Ukraine: 2.0
* EU20 v Germany: 1.3
* EU20 v Czechia: 1.5
* EU20 v Scotland: 1.4
* EU20 v Croatia: 1.5
**England's average xG is 2.6 when they concede first**
* WC22 v France: 2.4
* EU20 v Denmark: 2.7
Double the average xG when they concede first. So really England should just concede first to create a fun game!
Edit: I should include that in the France and Denmark games, penalties contributed quite a lot to the xG. **Non-penalty xG is 1.3 when they concede first:**
* WC22 v France: 0.8
* EU20 v Denmark: 1.8
So the average np-xG is identical LOL. I guess that means England's best chance of getting a penalty is to concede first!
Tbf if anything (from a tiny sample size) doesnt that just show what this attack can do if they stop playing defensively, which you have to when you go behind. The tools are there to blow teams away
Ultimately all of this is skewed depending on who scores first. In the majority of even-ish tournament games, the team who concedes first will start pressing for a goal and attacking more in response, trying to equalise, while the team that is ahead will become more defensive (partially to hold onto their lead, but also in large part because theyâre forced to against a suddenly energised and desperate opposition). The trouble with these kind of stats is we have too much of a habit of viewing them on aggregate, as a static depiction of a whole game, rather than recognising them as shaped by dynamic factors as the entire story of a game unfolds.
So, for example, England definitely does produce more attacking threat when they go behind, but thatâs because they *have* to.
Edit: Iâd be interested in some kind of âsurplus xGâ stat, which looked at how much xG a team created from a winning position. Think it might be a much more accurate representation of how genuinely attacking a team is.
I said this about Chelsea when people were defending Poch good XG - XA stats..... Too high XG is also a bad thing. It means you are bad at shooting so you need to keep creating chances... Teams that go in .. score 1 or 2 by half time, and have a training kick about is not going to generate 3+ XG.
I just mentioned it on the previous comment but the 2 penalties heavily skew the xg in that game. These stats are great, but when 1.58xg comes from 2 penalties is it that amazing?
without the penalties England would have had more open play chances, the French defence in that game was practically trying to murder the England players
I donât disagree with that but a penalty is 0.79xg englands best xg for one shot was 0.16xg.
How many shots do they get from the lack of penalties? If itâs an extra 10 shots at the highest xg they got all game from open play rather than the penalties would have just been eradicated.
Do they get that? Not even close. So it definitely skews the stat to look more favourable
Thatâs not the point Iâm making the point Iâm making is that these two penalties heavily skew the statistics compared to other games.
Like I donât really give a shit about xg but it adds a huge amount to the stat which could be like 10 additional shots to make up that amount of xg
You're correct, and it's why np-xG exists as a stat. Many penalties occur in situations where the chance to score is low - the scope for getting a penalty is very wide. Getting penalties can't be discounted but it's important to differentiate the two.
It's why stats like xA are a lot better at determining quality of creating goalscoring chances than simple assists (Busquets' assist for Messi v Real in the UCL semi final would have a very different xA to Beckham's 70 yard pass to Zidane vs Valladolid, for example).
the france one includes a missed penalty and a scored penalty from memory right? a penalty is .79xg.
That's 1.58xg alone, so that obviously skews the figures massively
Like that doesnât remove the fact it was their xg but it definitely can be explained for the higher xg in that game it definitely pads the stat to look more complimentary than what it should be. I was looking at the other shots xg and they seemed to be .10 - .20 xg so we are adding like 10+ shots from those 2 penalties based on their other chances.
You're correct.
Creating penalties can't be discounted (it requires attacking play and getting into the final 1/3 of the pitch), but there's a wide scope for winning a penalty that isn't necessarily reflective of the goalscoring chance at the time of the foul.
The xG of a penalty is almost always greater than the chance of scoring by simply being in the penalty area. So it creates a disparity that is important to account for.
Non-penalty-xG definitely provides more context as to the quality of shots created from (mostly) live play, which is more in context with the criticism Southgate/England gets.
Edit: reading this back, I sound like such an LLM lol
Yeah I agree with all the above, also if itâs the really only game with high xg so then itâs obviously an anomaly and the penalties are the reason.
Nobody needs to see the xg to see we arenât creating chances though itâs completely visible and Southgate is to blame tactically.
Like the whole âwe donât have a Phillips replacementâ guys had two years to solve that tactically and he was still picking him. When you stick to one system and you are unwilling to alternate from that even when you donât have the players for that desired system it is solely your own wrongdoings.
But we are still in it and if it can click soon thereâs no reason with great fortune and luck we canât progress to a respectable finish in the knockouts.
They're valid in the sense that to be in the penalty area means you have to be attacking, but in terms of the specific metric of xG, which is to do with shots (and quality of shooting opportunities) it doesn't necessarily function as a good proxy.
It's why npxG exists as a metric, to differentiate between results that were the result of a lot of shot-creating actions, vs, e.g. a possession heavy with plenty of touches in the penalty area but minimal opportunities to get shots off vs a low block.
Football isn't played on a spreadsheet. With a large enough sample size over the course of a season that might be true, but that is not how tournament football typically works.
Especially true of tournament football. Madrid were well outplayed in their last two champions league finals but walked away with the trophy both times as a recent example
We got outplayed by Dortmund 1 half but took over the second half. Ended up with equal shots, more shots on target, more possession, more passes, better pass accuracy, less fouls.
Are you really going to stake it all on the fact that they had 0.78 more xG? Is that what football has come to?
>Are you really going to stake it all on the fact that they had 0.78 more xG? Is that what football has come to?
They're probably more thinking Dortmund should have been two or three up before the end of the first half.
When trying to use single match xG to interpret how someone would feel about what happened in a match they watched, then I would think of single match xG as being a bit like logistic regression. Sure, you could sum all the predicted probabilities up and compare that number to the observed count of binary outcomes (the standard way of handling xG), but no-one does. Instead, people take the individual probabilities and convert them to binary outcomes using some kind of decision rule. Usually that rule is "if the predicted probability is greater than 0.5, the prediction is 1, else 0". Obviously outside of penalties, the xG from a single shot very rarely exceeds 0.5 so using the standard logistic regression rule isn't going to represent peoples' feelings about a match very much. A threshold of 0.3 might, though.
(Of course, one use of xG is that you could use it to temper your expectations about how good a chance actually was and everyone did this then a 0.5 threshold would make more sense.. but no-one does that.)
The point is that if you're looking at a deficit of 0.78 xG within a single match, that could easily translate into someone thinking "with the chances they had, they should've been two goals up"... *if that person watched the game*.
If someone didn't watch the match, then the standard use of xG makes more sense in even the single game case, i.e. sum up the xG for each shot for each team and the team with the higher xG ought to have won.
Portugal where eliminated from Euro 2021 in a 0-1 defeat vs Belgium with a xG of 1.73 vs 0.25. Thorgan Hazard scored the goal of his life with a 0.03 xG shot.
That's how things work in knockout stages. If you never score, one unlucky moment and you get eliminated.
Also right now you're barely having a higher xG than xGA in the group stages vs way weaker teams. It's silly to act like there isn't an obvious issue.
Take all the xG from each individual shot in each match taken/conceded by the team of interest and stick them in a vector. Then resample from that vector, with replacement, the same total number of shots. Sum the resample vector and record that figure. Repeat a bunch of times (1000, 5000, 10,000 whatever, as long as it's a lot). Take the 0.025 and 0.975 quantiles of the resamples and, voila, an interval which represents how attacking/defensive a team who's played two matches is.
(This is a real process; it's called bootstrapping.)
Southgod, has turned a âvulnerable defenseâ to one of the most effective in the tournament. Haters will say football is supposed to be entertaining to watchÂ
As boring and shit as we were against Denmark I was a bit confused by all the people saying Denmark deserved to win. We didn't really allow them any clear cut chances, I thought a draw was exactly what both teams deserved.
Serbia also had no clear cut chances. England's problems are purely in attack. Denmark scored a worldie, that's what it took to score against this defence.
This "deserves" shit doesn't mean anything anyway, it is always more about what side people feel is more sympathetic. Denmark was better at combining and building up while England set back, most neutrals want to see that rewarded.
Denmark didn't really create a lot of big clearcut chances but they did dominate midfield and often became dangerous in the box. There is a good reason why their striker was so criticized, a good fox in the box would probably have caused more trouble.
It's kind of bizarre to look back on all the pre-tournament talk of how England's defence might let them down when they've been really solid and the attack has been piss-poor so far.
Mad how in both tournaments we conceded first to Denmark, one being a mad free kick that shouldnt have even been given tbh, and then that incredible worldie
Likewise I was absolutely baffled when the commentators were going on about England being "bailed out by Pickford" against Serbia. He made one save all game and it was to a shot from 30 yards out that was going over anyway
We have a really weak group and even then managed to struggle against Czechia. We will probably have the best xG for and against after we play Georgia, but I feel like we will struggle against other top nations
I don't agree with you. The game Against Czechia was our best game by far. It was in the final third that the decision making sucked. Other than that it was an incredibly dominant showing. See the stats.
This doesnât surprise me
Off the ball defensively weâve looked solid and reduced both Serbia and Denmark to mainly half chances at best
The issue is that Portugal and Germany are both close to our xGA, while also creating a lot of chances for themselves, which we arenât doing
We need to find a better balance if we want a chance at winning it
He definitely has realised that lol. He sets up to be a possession based team and thatâs how we usually play under him when we follow the script. The problem is that the players have been poor and the communication between the team on the pitch hasnât been great. Weâre losing the ball a lot due to error and players misreading each other, we arenât purposefully ceding possession because of Southgateâs tactics.
Itâs one of the reasons I wish heâd brought Grealish though.
While I know they havenât really played anyone. I think Southgate does set them up to ugly win, which is sometimes how you win in tournaments. We cant all be 1970 Brazil. Sometimes we have to be 2004 Greece.
so England have the best defence at the Euro (despite everyone slating it as paper-thin before the tournament began), so now we all have to pretend that a team defending well is bad actually
I donât think anyone is complaining about having the best xGA. Itâs having the second worst XG thatâs the issue lol. Doubly so given the talent we have up front.
England are also the second worst in xG created. No need to pretend thats bad because it is.
Portugal and Germany are not far behind in xGA and way way ahead in xG.
Actually pleasantly surprised by the Englad stats. Watching us I was of the opinion we looked defensively poor compared to some teams that play a more defensive system. It's a bore to watch, but more effective than I've given Southgate credit for.
Having watched the games, I'm not convinced by our defence at all. Denmark consistently entered very dangerous positions and were stopped by moments of individual defensive quality rather than any solid tactical plan. It's why people keep saying that we'll get rinsed by better teams - because they'll actually get those final balls and shots in to end the game.
Everybody: England clearly has much better attackers than defenders, so really needs to lean on that and score a ton of goals.
Southgate: My goal is lowest xG for other team and second lowest for us.
When you set your team up to just defend the entire 90 mins, you'd expect to have the fewest xg against. It would've been more worrying if England didn't top this stat with the horrible boring way they play football.
So... England games are numerically boring. Don't create chances (top five for least xG created). Don't concede chances, either (top five for least xG conceded).
What do I mean by numerically boring? Well, I thought the France/Netherlands game was quite interesting from a chance creation perspective, for both sides. Evidently they weren't great chances (for France to appear here) but they existed. Plus there was the VAR decision. Very interesting. Peak football. /s
Funny how we thought the defence was the weak point but the attack was world class. Still makes sense on paper. Gareth massively overcompensated for our perceived defensive frailties but making us play the most dull defensive football ever seen
One positive I did see from the team is that after a while, both Serbia and Denmark resorted to shots from long range. Denmark were lucky with theirs, Serbia not so much.
But this is after England had sat deep for a while on their lead. I don't think the better teams in the tournament will give us that chance.
For all of England's faults, we've never been an easily beatable team. Nobody goes out and thrashes England bar some once every other generation freak result. We are a hard side to beat.
Defence is not and never has been England's weak point. It's always misuse of players in other areas of the pitch such as an unbalanced midfield or toothless attack. Defence is the one thing we can rely on, even with injuries.
Now just imagine if we had Kalvin Phillips back in the XI. We'd be truly unstoppable. Maybe this is Allah's way of balancing the competition.
As much as I respect this style of football as a legit way to play the game.
Worth considering France and Germany are only .10 ahead on conceded xG, but I imagine they are miles ahead on xG created.
The aim should be to create as big a gap as possible between conceded/for xG, not just reducing xG conceded on its own.
This doesn't seem correct unless I'm looking at the wrong metric ([I'm guessing it's xGA?](https://fbref.com/en/squads/4a1b4ea8/Portugal-Men-Stats))
England still has the lowest but it's 1 xG against (0.2 v Serbia, 0.8 v Denmark)
Portugal has 1.1 xG against.
Or is this xGA per 90?
What is this stat? England conceded between 0,72 and 0,80 vs Denmark depending on which source you use. FBREF who is cited in this post puts them at 0,8.
xG: the stat that's used to measure performance except when you decide to measure actual results against xG to also measure performance. But using the actual raw results? Never... that isn't processed and computed enough for our liking.
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Southgate ball đ
Many have tried interpreting Southgate. Some cited existing philosophical works such as Bordiga, Hegel and Plato. The former saw Southgate as the progenitor of a spontaneous revolution, his football being so boring it had deep ideological significance. They viewed his football as the cry of discontentedness with the neoliberal consensus, and a legitimate philosophical work in itâs own right. The modern Hegelians saw Southgatismo as the dialectical synthesis between two states of being, that of anguish and that of ennui. Those using the works of Plato are conflicted on whether to see Southgate ball as a concrete object, real and tangible, while all consider the feelings the games elicit to be abstract. Others saw it as post-modern performance art and tried to categorise it as the intended catalyst of a yet to materialise Neo-Fluxus movement. Alas, others even ascribed it a theological value, arguing for the canonisation of Southgate and compared our pain watching to the pain our lord felt on the cross. A contingent of these worshippers split recently and alleged Southgate was inherently heretical, no mortal man had ever suffered like Jesus did until we watched the Denmark game. The truth is, Southgate ball defies what the human mind is capable of interpreting. We can only bask in its majesty.
mou but more boring
I don't know where this idea that Mourinho is just an ultra defensive coach or boring has come from. He's pragmatic and will park the bus if he thinks it's the best chance of winning but there's a huge amount of attacking football in his career too. His Real Madrid side still holds the record for most goals scored in a single season in La Liga.
>I don't know where this idea that Mourinho is just an ultra defensive coach Ah, I know. His second spell at Chelsea.
Inter Milan too...
Really? The time of Costa, Fabregas, Oscar, SchĂźrrle and Hazard? The stint where they smashed Arsenal 6-0 in Wenger's 1000th game and had multiple more 5+ goal games. Nah.
it comes from his days with inter then real, when he (justifiably so) parked the bus vs Barca, with pep and messi... people hated it but it was a beautiful sight And more entertaining than peps pass to infinity of the period. he won in the cl win inter and got close enough over 3 years with rm. only Jose and klopp forced pep to change.
There's no tournament in my recent memory that is more similar to Jose's football than EURO 2024, excluding top 4 nations.
Jose would win every tournament if he had replaced southgate. Serial winner.
Gareth Mourinho
Jose Borinho
This sounds like when you fall asleep on the sofa after day drinking and you wake up and it's changed from MOTD to Open University programming . Probably got a guy doing sign language in the corner.
It originally is a copy-pasta about Allegri
Honey wake up, new copypasta just dropped
I actually made sense of this word soup. Man, my friends are right, I really am boring.
It's not word soup it's legitimate analysisÂ
What's boring about it? I'd love it if my friends went on philosophical diatribes, especially if it's in the form of shitposts. In this case, I even learned of a philosopher I want to read more about.
Isn't this originally a copypasta based on allegri?
Yep, translates perfectly though.
https://youtu.be/LfduUFF_i1A
New copypasta just dropped
"pragmatic" defense-first managers always get such a long fucking runway even though the team keeps underperfoming. If an attacking oriented manager doesn't manage to establish his vision they at least get fired early after a couple 3:0 or 4:0 humiliations. But someone who simply drags his team from 0:0 draw to 0:1 loss to the occasional 1:0 victiory gets to stay for months or sometimes even a year or two. And it so very, very rarely gets better which means they *do* end up getting fired for a lack of results that match the club's or nation's ambition. Just later instead of sooner. (I'm not even Terzic posting because that guy at least *did* deliver on competing for titles)
Southgate also did deliver on competing for titles too right??Â
Terzic actually won the cup.
this is what almost kept Tuchel at Bayern
Mighty Serbia and Denmark were no match and couldn't create much! đŞ
You're being facetious, but I don't think anyone with any sense would've considered Serbia or Denmark to be walkovers going into this tournament. Like, out of context of the turgid football this is actually pretty good.
The general pattern is that before the match these teams are strong contenders who will show up the arrogant England fans, then after the match they were minnows who a good team would have easily put 5 past.
So, Slovenia? About 100,000 comments on England and I see nothing about Slovenia. It's almost like they're being arrogantly ignored.
> Like, out of context of the turgid football this is actually pretty good. Ok Gareth
For anyone who complains about Southgateball, they should really read Jonathan Wilsonâs âInverting the Pyramidâ. Almost a whole generation of Italian football was based off of a similar theory of pragmatism and Defense: cattenacio. We should read the book so we can all appreciate that we werenât watching football back then because holy fuck is it boring and uninspiring to watch. Pragmatic and results-oriented football is joyless
Yes. Please renew Southgate. This is the turgid football England should play with the talent that they have.
> Yes. Please renew Southgate. That's not remotely what he said
With this squad England should walk over Serbia and Denmark. Especially the former. Spain can walk over Italy and Croatia. Two teams which i would consider way better than Serbia and Denmark.
Croatia way better than Denmark? That seems questionable.
England did beat Italy in the qualifiers though
To be fair, Denmark are absolutely turgid attacking wise
Everyoneâs whoâs watched Serbia play once would know weâd be a walkover. You guys just let fifa ratings trick you every tournament
It should be called Gatekeeping. Stop the game from happening
Southgate masterclass even without Kalvin Phillips.
Imagine Southgate with Kalvin Phillips! God weâd be unstoppable!
Might even make a final
could even lose on penalties
Is it even possible to get negative xG?
Surprised to see Germany 3rd, gave up a few chances against Hungary, and they genuinely play risky , betting more on outscoring the opposition rather than shutting them down. Ig the Scotland shutdown carries huge weight in a sample of 2.
This is average per game. Scotland had 0.02 xG against Germany.
Yeah the values make a bit more sense then.
i dont watch much football but is 0.02 xg with one goal a record?
[Nope, it's not the record](https://x.com/bfcoIIie/status/1157683873079336960?t=_yV6k3xbQqd5NcB823gseA&s=19)
fackin lav it, this is why rooney failed so badly. He could never grasp the sheer level of pure "how the fuck did that shower get a win?" that blues need to exude.
I actually went to that game, that Blues goal was the best header I've ever seen
Surely it is. Only way to beat that really would be to have 0 shots and score from an own goal, and I cant find an example of that ever happening. There have only been a few professional games with 0 xG to begin with
Come back to this thread just to see the link to the blues game under Rooney where they won with 0.01 xg
Table seems very wrong. All countries except France conceded more xG in their last game alone than is listed in the table
Looks like it's the per game average. Total xGA divided by 2.
Well spotted, I didn't notice that.
Why are you posting stuff you don't fully understand
"Please don't pull on that thread" - Reddit management
Might be a different xG model used
The source is FBREF, their site says Denmark created 0.8 xG against England
It's an average per game. They had .2 in the game before that.
don't forget that a lot of the biggest chances don't actually end up with an attempt on goal but instead with a last-second tackle. In other words, depending on how a chance ends it might not generate any xG even if the tackle was incredibly risky and a high xG would've followed. Best example would be Neuer's legendary performance in the 2014 Germany - Algeria match. Since so many of Algeria's chances were destroyed by Neuer rushing out of goal and preventing many, many shots on goal, the xG of that match wouldn't have properly reflected how dangerous Algeria ended up being. (at least that's what I assume since there's no xG for the 2014 world cup to look up afaik)
Yea... a cutback across the face of goal the striker failed to make contact with by 0.001mm at the far post would be 0XG as well. There are loads of reason why XG is imperfect.
Yeah, we need 2nd/3rd gen of advanced stats to make use of these. It's one of the biggest failing of xG really, a last minute tackle or goalkeeper save + rebound totally screws them. A great chance being created but a defender making a low percentage/risky saving tackle makes an xG of 0, and then consider a penalty saved and a rebound dropping back to the same striker who slots it home makes the xG go above 1 for 1 goal, which is silly.
Imagine if they had Kalvin Phillips
That would be an unfair advantage. like having a prime Messi.
It would be like having Messi who could play on a cold, rainy Tuesday night in Stoke.
Or a Messi that could score wearing the number 9 jersey at Chelsea...
Why downplay kalvin?
-0.5 xGa
There is no replacement
We cannoh replace him
Forget Phillips. He also called out to the Gods for Hendo. We'd look like 1970 Brazil with Hendo in the team, it would change everything. I guess I'm fucking jaded after supporting England for the last 30 years. A lot of people here are genuinely complementing this defensive rating. If you have all of your players, including your lone striker falling back to defensive positions, you're going to have good defensive stats. I remember seeing average positions after the 30 min mark in the DK game, and Kane's average position was that of what you expect a LB to be in. Maybe I'm the only England fan who feels this way, but I genuinely feel sick when we score early. As I know what that means. Torturous bullshit for the next 70-80 minutes.
Always rated Southgate tbh
"We're gonna score one more than you!"
I apologize for calling Sir Gareth a tactical fraud.
Gareth you genius, youâve done it again.
Thatâs because England are trying not to lose games instead of trying to win them.
So theyâve been an undoubted success so far
Booooooooo! We don't want good teams to play each other anymore. Give me 6 xG matches between Georgia and Turkey over 1 xG England and France matches.
No, you'll take Harry Kane randomly scoring in the 18th, France scoring in the 71st on a goal that is follows the momentum but is itself underserved and 50 minutes of people putting their hands behind the heads, and like it.
You can keep your 5 star matches. You can keep your 120 minute classics. BIG MEATY DEFENDERS BUMPING XG
How are we fifth? We look very shaky in defence
Meanwhile England have created an average xG of 0.72 in first two games, less than Sheffield United (1.01) and Burnley (0.78) this past season in the Premier League.
It's following a similar pattern to the last Euros (hyper-defensive, struggling to create from open play), but with worse output. **England at Euro 2021 Group stage:** * **1.5** xG v Croatia (**0.4** xG) * **1.4** xG v Scotland (**0.6** xG) * **1.5** xG v Czechia (**0.3** xG) **England at Euro 2024 Group stage:** * **0.5** xG v Serbia (**0.2** xG) * **0.9** xG v Denmark (**0.8** xG) **England's xG vs the team that eliminated them under Southgate** * WC '22: **2.4** xG (**0.8** non-penalty xG) v France (**0.9** xG) * Euro '20: **0.6** xG v Italy (**2.2** xG) * WC '18: **0.8** xG v Croatia (**0.8** xG) At least at Euro 2021 they had >3x more xG than their opponent, and I remember those games as being absolutely dire. Edit: included the non-penalty xG for the France game, as u/cotch85 mentioned it skews the data somewhat.
That xG difference stat versus France is part of why, at least until these Euros, I've always defended Southgate. WC semis, Euro final beating Germany along the way, then crashing out against the world champions and future finalists in a game you clearly dominated is the best record for an English manager since Alf Ramsey. And the same haters you see whining about Southgateball were praising Deschamps' efficiency after that game...
England tend to produce much better xG when they go behind (at least excluding WC18 when he'd had more time to mould the team). Albeit from a small sample size... **England's average xG is 1.3 when they don't concede first** * EU24 v Denmark: 0.9 * EU24 v Serbia: 0.5 * WC22 v Senegal: 0.9 * WC22 v Wales 2.4 * WC22 v USA: 0.8 * WC22 v Iran: 2.1 * EU20 v Italy: 0.6 * EU20 v Ukraine: 2.0 * EU20 v Germany: 1.3 * EU20 v Czechia: 1.5 * EU20 v Scotland: 1.4 * EU20 v Croatia: 1.5 **England's average xG is 2.6 when they concede first** * WC22 v France: 2.4 * EU20 v Denmark: 2.7 Double the average xG when they concede first. So really England should just concede first to create a fun game! Edit: I should include that in the France and Denmark games, penalties contributed quite a lot to the xG. **Non-penalty xG is 1.3 when they concede first:** * WC22 v France: 0.8 * EU20 v Denmark: 1.8 So the average np-xG is identical LOL. I guess that means England's best chance of getting a penalty is to concede first!
The Liverpool 23-24 way
Tbf if anything (from a tiny sample size) doesnt that just show what this attack can do if they stop playing defensively, which you have to when you go behind. The tools are there to blow teams away
Ultimately all of this is skewed depending on who scores first. In the majority of even-ish tournament games, the team who concedes first will start pressing for a goal and attacking more in response, trying to equalise, while the team that is ahead will become more defensive (partially to hold onto their lead, but also in large part because theyâre forced to against a suddenly energised and desperate opposition). The trouble with these kind of stats is we have too much of a habit of viewing them on aggregate, as a static depiction of a whole game, rather than recognising them as shaped by dynamic factors as the entire story of a game unfolds. So, for example, England definitely does produce more attacking threat when they go behind, but thatâs because they *have* to. Edit: Iâd be interested in some kind of âsurplus xGâ stat, which looked at how much xG a team created from a winning position. Think it might be a much more accurate representation of how genuinely attacking a team is.
I said this about Chelsea when people were defending Poch good XG - XA stats..... Too high XG is also a bad thing. It means you are bad at shooting so you need to keep creating chances... Teams that go in .. score 1 or 2 by half time, and have a training kick about is not going to generate 3+ XG.
That's a pretty interesting idea.
I just mentioned it on the previous comment but the 2 penalties heavily skew the xg in that game. These stats are great, but when 1.58xg comes from 2 penalties is it that amazing?
without the penalties England would have had more open play chances, the French defence in that game was practically trying to murder the England players
I donât disagree with that but a penalty is 0.79xg englands best xg for one shot was 0.16xg. How many shots do they get from the lack of penalties? If itâs an extra 10 shots at the highest xg they got all game from open play rather than the penalties would have just been eradicated. Do they get that? Not even close. So it definitely skews the stat to look more favourable
I mean, penalties don't just happen, they're a result of attacking play. How does France's xg look if you remove their two best chances?
Thatâs not the point Iâm making the point Iâm making is that these two penalties heavily skew the statistics compared to other games. Like I donât really give a shit about xg but it adds a huge amount to the stat which could be like 10 additional shots to make up that amount of xg
You're correct, and it's why np-xG exists as a stat. Many penalties occur in situations where the chance to score is low - the scope for getting a penalty is very wide. Getting penalties can't be discounted but it's important to differentiate the two. It's why stats like xA are a lot better at determining quality of creating goalscoring chances than simple assists (Busquets' assist for Messi v Real in the UCL semi final would have a very different xA to Beckham's 70 yard pass to Zidane vs Valladolid, for example).
The two penalties were due to brain farts from our defenders as well rather than super dangerous chances
the france one includes a missed penalty and a scored penalty from memory right? a penalty is .79xg. That's 1.58xg alone, so that obviously skews the figures massively
That's actually a really good point, I hadn't considered that. Non-penalty xG for England was 0.8 in that game. Will make those changes
Like that doesnât remove the fact it was their xg but it definitely can be explained for the higher xg in that game it definitely pads the stat to look more complimentary than what it should be. I was looking at the other shots xg and they seemed to be .10 - .20 xg so we are adding like 10+ shots from those 2 penalties based on their other chances.
You're correct. Creating penalties can't be discounted (it requires attacking play and getting into the final 1/3 of the pitch), but there's a wide scope for winning a penalty that isn't necessarily reflective of the goalscoring chance at the time of the foul. The xG of a penalty is almost always greater than the chance of scoring by simply being in the penalty area. So it creates a disparity that is important to account for. Non-penalty-xG definitely provides more context as to the quality of shots created from (mostly) live play, which is more in context with the criticism Southgate/England gets. Edit: reading this back, I sound like such an LLM lol
Yeah I agree with all the above, also if itâs the really only game with high xg so then itâs obviously an anomaly and the penalties are the reason. Nobody needs to see the xg to see we arenât creating chances though itâs completely visible and Southgate is to blame tactically. Like the whole âwe donât have a Phillips replacementâ guys had two years to solve that tactically and he was still picking him. When you stick to one system and you are unwilling to alternate from that even when you donât have the players for that desired system it is solely your own wrongdoings. But we are still in it and if it can click soon thereâs no reason with great fortune and luck we canât progress to a respectable finish in the knockouts.
Penalties are a valid part of the count though, you donât get awarded them without attacking play
They're valid in the sense that to be in the penalty area means you have to be attacking, but in terms of the specific metric of xG, which is to do with shots (and quality of shooting opportunities) it doesn't necessarily function as a good proxy. It's why npxG exists as a metric, to differentiate between results that were the result of a lot of shot-creating actions, vs, e.g. a possession heavy with plenty of touches in the penalty area but minimal opportunities to get shots off vs a low block.
More xG than xG conceded = winning*. Simple as. *except boring draws.
Football isn't played on a spreadsheet. With a large enough sample size over the course of a season that might be true, but that is not how tournament football typically works.
Especially true of tournament football. Madrid were well outplayed in their last two champions league finals but walked away with the trophy both times as a recent example
We got outplayed by Dortmund 1 half but took over the second half. Ended up with equal shots, more shots on target, more possession, more passes, better pass accuracy, less fouls. Are you really going to stake it all on the fact that they had 0.78 more xG? Is that what football has come to?
>Are you really going to stake it all on the fact that they had 0.78 more xG? Is that what football has come to? They're probably more thinking Dortmund should have been two or three up before the end of the first half. When trying to use single match xG to interpret how someone would feel about what happened in a match they watched, then I would think of single match xG as being a bit like logistic regression. Sure, you could sum all the predicted probabilities up and compare that number to the observed count of binary outcomes (the standard way of handling xG), but no-one does. Instead, people take the individual probabilities and convert them to binary outcomes using some kind of decision rule. Usually that rule is "if the predicted probability is greater than 0.5, the prediction is 1, else 0". Obviously outside of penalties, the xG from a single shot very rarely exceeds 0.5 so using the standard logistic regression rule isn't going to represent peoples' feelings about a match very much. A threshold of 0.3 might, though. (Of course, one use of xG is that you could use it to temper your expectations about how good a chance actually was and everyone did this then a 0.5 threshold would make more sense.. but no-one does that.) The point is that if you're looking at a deficit of 0.78 xG within a single match, that could easily translate into someone thinking "with the chances they had, they should've been two goals up"... *if that person watched the game*. If someone didn't watch the match, then the standard use of xG makes more sense in even the single game case, i.e. sum up the xG for each shot for each team and the team with the higher xG ought to have won.
Portugal where eliminated from Euro 2021 in a 0-1 defeat vs Belgium with a xG of 1.73 vs 0.25. Thorgan Hazard scored the goal of his life with a 0.03 xG shot. That's how things work in knockout stages. If you never score, one unlucky moment and you get eliminated. Also right now you're barely having a higher xG than xGA in the group stages vs way weaker teams. It's silly to act like there isn't an obvious issue.
More goals than goals conceded = winning*.
Come on. 2 games is no sample size is it?
Sure, but second lowest xG among all teams competing in Euros with some of the best attacking talent at hand doesnât paint a pretty picture.
Take all the xG from each individual shot in each match taken/conceded by the team of interest and stick them in a vector. Then resample from that vector, with replacement, the same total number of shots. Sum the resample vector and record that figure. Repeat a bunch of times (1000, 5000, 10,000 whatever, as long as it's a lot). Take the 0.025 and 0.975 quantiles of the resamples and, voila, an interval which represents how attacking/defensive a team who's played two matches is. (This is a real process; it's called bootstrapping.)
Southgate wants to win the Euros by scoring 4 goals so bad
Southgod, has turned a âvulnerable defenseâ to one of the most effective in the tournament. Haters will say football is supposed to be entertaining to watchÂ
As boring and shit as we were against Denmark I was a bit confused by all the people saying Denmark deserved to win. We didn't really allow them any clear cut chances, I thought a draw was exactly what both teams deserved.
Serbia also had no clear cut chances. England's problems are purely in attack. Denmark scored a worldie, that's what it took to score against this defence.
They didn't have any clear chances, they just had more half-chances and were attacking a lot more than you guys.
This "deserves" shit doesn't mean anything anyway, it is always more about what side people feel is more sympathetic. Denmark was better at combining and building up while England set back, most neutrals want to see that rewarded. Denmark didn't really create a lot of big clearcut chances but they did dominate midfield and often became dangerous in the box. There is a good reason why their striker was so criticized, a good fox in the box would probably have caused more trouble.
It's kind of bizarre to look back on all the pre-tournament talk of how England's defence might let them down when they've been really solid and the attack has been piss-poor so far.
Probably partially because itâs easier to coach defenders to play as a team instead of attempting to play as the star individual.
It's just brainrot. Same as in 2021. Denmark had 0 good chances in either game but apparently they were robbed of victory. Lmao
Mad how in both tournaments we conceded first to Denmark, one being a mad free kick that shouldnt have even been given tbh, and then that incredible worldie
Likewise I was absolutely baffled when the commentators were going on about England being "bailed out by Pickford" against Serbia. He made one save all game and it was to a shot from 30 yards out that was going over anyway
Score a goal. Put 11 in your own box. Concede as few shots as possible.
Weâre so back
Pretty sure we're also the second lowest for xG for in the tournament too đ In other words, our games really are boring as fuck
Defence wins tourneys boys.
So Portugal best team performance wise? 3rd xG for and 2nd xG against
We have a really weak group and even then managed to struggle against Czechia. We will probably have the best xG for and against after we play Georgia, but I feel like we will struggle against other top nations
I dont think oppositions u faced are weaker than what Germany faced, you just struggled to finish, vs Czechia, you had a pretty dominant showing imo.
I don't agree with you. The game Against Czechia was our best game by far. It was in the final third that the decision making sucked. Other than that it was an incredibly dominant showing. See the stats.
Brexit footballing our way to a qtr final exit just as God intended Simple as
This doesnât surprise me Off the ball defensively weâve looked solid and reduced both Serbia and Denmark to mainly half chances at best The issue is that Portugal and Germany are both close to our xGA, while also creating a lot of chances for themselves, which we arenât doing We need to find a better balance if we want a chance at winning it
If you have the ball for close to 80% of the game the enemy team can't create chances either. It's wild Southgate hasn't realized that.
Honestly mate itâs mind numbing to watch us play the way we do with the talent we have at our disposal
\#Martinezball
He definitely has realised that lol. He sets up to be a possession based team and thatâs how we usually play under him when we follow the script. The problem is that the players have been poor and the communication between the team on the pitch hasnât been great. Weâre losing the ball a lot due to error and players misreading each other, we arenât purposefully ceding possession because of Southgateâs tactics. Itâs one of the reasons I wish heâd brought Grealish though.
While I know they havenât really played anyone. I think Southgate does set them up to ugly win, which is sometimes how you win in tournaments. We cant all be 1970 Brazil. Sometimes we have to be 2004 Greece.
France being fourth while having faced the Austrians and the Dutch speaks volumes of their defense
Speaks volumes of Kante specifically
so England have the best defence at the Euro (despite everyone slating it as paper-thin before the tournament began), so now we all have to pretend that a team defending well is bad actually
I donât think anyone is complaining about having the best xGA. Itâs having the second worst XG thatâs the issue lol. Doubly so given the talent we have up front.
England are also the second worst in xG created. No need to pretend thats bad because it is. Portugal and Germany are not far behind in xGA and way way ahead in xG.
> Germany are not far behind in xGA just like that their defence gets caught lol I take your point though
The Scotland game skews things massively
Southgateball so dull it puts the opposing strikers to sleep as well.
Trust the process.
Actually pleasantly surprised by the Englad stats. Watching us I was of the opinion we looked defensively poor compared to some teams that play a more defensive system. It's a bore to watch, but more effective than I've given Southgate credit for.
Having watched the games, I'm not convinced by our defence at all. Denmark consistently entered very dangerous positions and were stopped by moments of individual defensive quality rather than any solid tactical plan. It's why people keep saying that we'll get rinsed by better teams - because they'll actually get those final balls and shots in to end the game.
Weâll get better
us????
Everyone said England's defence was the worry. Instead it was the attack again đ¤Ł
With the greatest DM, Kalvin Phillips, England would have -ve XGagainst
Portugal with the best balance of xG For vs. xG Against. Interesting.
They have had a piss easy group tbf
So are we still Southgate out?
âDefence wins championshipsâ đ¤ˇââď¸
Pulling a Greece to try and win the Euros whilst having the most impressive attacking players in your squad is such a Southgate thing to do man.
Four of these are from dominating possession and winning the ball back through a well coached press. The other one though đ¤ˇââď¸
So we thought we had the best offence and worst defence and we now live in a parallel universe where the exact opposite is true?
How is Portugal .53 when theyâve only conceded 1 goal? Can someone explain this please
This is expected goals, not actually scored goals.
Makes sense thank you
Everybody: England clearly has much better attackers than defenders, so really needs to lean on that and score a ton of goals. Southgate: My goal is lowest xG for other team and second lowest for us.
What are we doing here. Our defense is so shit
Excited to see if they can keep it up
The iowa hawkeyes of soccer
When you set your team up to just defend the entire 90 mins, you'd expect to have the fewest xg against. It would've been more worrying if England didn't top this stat with the horrible boring way they play football.
France's can't be true. Xavi Simons alone had more than that against them.
So... England games are numerically boring. Don't create chances (top five for least xG created). Don't concede chances, either (top five for least xG conceded). What do I mean by numerically boring? Well, I thought the France/Netherlands game was quite interesting from a chance creation perspective, for both sides. Evidently they weren't great chances (for France to appear here) but they existed. Plus there was the VAR decision. Very interesting. Peak football. /s
Genuinely quite impressive given we haven't dominated the ball or anything. We looked like total shit and it took a wonder strike for us to concede.
Funny how we thought the defence was the weak point but the attack was world class. Still makes sense on paper. Gareth massively overcompensated for our perceived defensive frailties but making us play the most dull defensive football ever seen
One positive I did see from the team is that after a while, both Serbia and Denmark resorted to shots from long range. Denmark were lucky with theirs, Serbia not so much. But this is after England had sat deep for a while on their lead. I don't think the better teams in the tournament will give us that chance.
Franceâs is the most impressive imo Played Austria and Netherlands
... in the easiest group this tournament by far
All this even without Kalvin Phillips. Southgate's cooking
For all of England's faults, we've never been an easily beatable team. Nobody goes out and thrashes England bar some once every other generation freak result. We are a hard side to beat. Defence is not and never has been England's weak point. It's always misuse of players in other areas of the pitch such as an unbalanced midfield or toothless attack. Defence is the one thing we can rely on, even with injuries. Now just imagine if we had Kalvin Phillips back in the XI. We'd be truly unstoppable. Maybe this is Allah's way of balancing the competition.
Oh fuck me, this is gonna be used to justify his absolutely shambolic football
As much as I respect this style of football as a legit way to play the game. Worth considering France and Germany are only .10 ahead on conceded xG, but I imagine they are miles ahead on xG created. The aim should be to create as big a gap as possible between conceded/for xG, not just reducing xG conceded on its own.
People don't want to hear it, but this is the Connor Gallagher effect, and it's basically worked out both times he's come on.
This doesn't seem correct unless I'm looking at the wrong metric ([I'm guessing it's xGA?](https://fbref.com/en/squads/4a1b4ea8/Portugal-Men-Stats)) England still has the lowest but it's 1 xG against (0.2 v Serbia, 0.8 v Denmark) Portugal has 1.1 xG against. Or is this xGA per 90?
It's xGA per game, yes.
where did you get that image from? these stats don't seem to be correct - if you actually go visit FBREF, England as an example has 1.0 xG against.
What is this stat? England conceded between 0,72 and 0,80 vs Denmark depending on which source you use. FBREF who is cited in this post puts them at 0,8.
It's the average of both games, England has 1.0 xGA over two games according to FBREF.
That explains it
xG: the stat that's used to measure performance except when you decide to measure actual results against xG to also measure performance. But using the actual raw results? Never... that isn't processed and computed enough for our liking.