As Jeff Stelling fumed about Arsene Wenger citing expected goals post-match (what does he even know, anyway?), his Soccer Saturday cronies laughed in the background. 'Yeah, you tell 'em Jeff!'
It is not the first outdated rant that a member of the Soccer Saturday team has made, as poor Marco Silva will tell you.
It is no surprise that these 'Football Men', as they often referred as within the game, are as usual off the mark with a new approach within football. I would guess that it threatens their own positions, as they begin to look more and more outdated.
It is also not surprising that he had absolutely no idea what expected goals really is, as many who dismiss it as pointless do.
A rant like Stelling's about expected goals is a dangerous one however within football because it will have been lapped up but unsuspecting fans, players and coaches who also have no idea what expected goals, or 'xG' as it can be known, even is. As a result, they will themselves be dismissive as it's a load of nonsense according to good old, lovable Jeff.
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| Jeff rants about xG, Marco Silva and how football was better in his day |
But if you dig a little deeper the whole concept of expected goals is very interesting and above all, useful. How many times have you been discussing a game you've just watched, particularly as a fan of one of the teams, bemoaning the missed chances that have impacted the outcome of the game?
Expected goals actually helps us work out if that is true or not. It is a metric that quantifies the likelihood of an effort on goal actually being scored through an algorithm.
Why should fans care? Well, they don't have to, and they probably don't, but when someone is bemoaning a team's fortunes such 'on another day that shot goes in' or 'we were unlucky' you can actually go a long way to proving it to be true or not.
xG has come to prominence somewhat more as it has started to appear on MOTD (after the corner statistic flashes for each game, how sad am I?) since the start of the 2017-18 season. For anoraks like me, it's really cool that something like this is being embraced in the mainstream media. It is something I think will quickly become the norm amongst football fans in the coming years.
For coaching, scouting and analysis, it is just one of many developments in football analytics. Any team who outwardly promotes their use of analytics is labelled as using 'moneyball', which I think again shows that there is a long way to overcoming the dismissive nature of football towards stats!
A metric like expected goals can be huge for departments across a club. Coaches can assess where they might need to work with a striker, in terms of their finishing or the positions they pick up. Analysts can identify exactly that for them. Scouts can back up subjective attitudes towards a player with objective data like this. If a player truly does pick up good positions but just isn't scoring them yet 'xG' will help identify this, making the recruitment process a whole lot more efficient.
I am by no means an expert on this area, far from it (!) but I do recognise it's significance and how it could aid my own coaching in football if I wish to pursue it at a higher level one day.
As analytics becomes more sophisticated it is slowly being dripped into youth development in the professional game - which can only be a good thing. The more objective we can become to supplement that alongside the more subjective information and ideas we have about players the more informed decisions can be made about young players and their future. Too often, decisions on young players are made on a whim because of a personal opinion from one coach, which may not be representative of that club as a whole.
In terms of grassroots football, it may not have as much significance due to the nature of the game at that level with various constraints that would not really allow for it, not least of all; time. But just by educating players, or coaches, they can start to think a little more objectively about things rather than relying on their own confirmation bias.
The dismissal of expected goals as a metric by the more old-school thinkers is a strange one, but as I said above not surprising. Statistics, especially the interesting ones, possibly threaten this type of individual's 'traditions' and 'values' and maybe they worry will be rendered useless as modern football develops. Those who embrace it however, will find the benefits. What is to lose anyway?
Though the 'Football Men' may not like it, expected goals is here to stay and is slowly becoming the norm. Furthermore, there will be many more useful statistics to come that will be far more meaningful than the original 'possession' that brought stats into play in football. Analytics is developing in football into something very meaningful, so think before you dismiss it without even understanding it!
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To learn more about expected goals and analytics in football, here are some interesting articles!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40699431 - BBC article
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/nov/22/jeff-stelling-expected-goals-stats-xg-soccer-am - Guardian article
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcXH_4rwr4 - FourFourTwo documentary
https://experimental361.com/ - Very good website that breaks it down
https://statsbomb.com/2013/08/goal-expectation-and-efficiency/ - Goal expectation and efficiency
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