Manchester United isn t that bad? Their goals are supposed to be the first in the Premier League

Sports Weekly All Media Report

Premier League season 6 rounds, Manchester United has arrived at the bottom of the standings similar to last season, and Amorin's dismissal is heard one after another. However, a data analysis from the competitive network recently showed that Manchester United may not be as bad as the points, and what Amorin said, "the results of the game do not reflect the team's performance" may not be completely unreasonable. At least, Manchester United is actually the first in the Premier League in terms of "expected goals" (xG)!

The problem with Manchester United is that the actual goals are much lower than expected, which means that the team has a poor grasp of opportunities, and it is the worst in the Premier League: the expected goals are 12.3, but the actual goals are only 7. The difference of -5.3 means that the average score is nearly 1 less than the "reasonable number of goals" in each game. Crystal Palace, the second highest deficit is -3.4, and other teams are within -1.6.

In contrast to Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur is a model for actual goals higher than expected. The team's xG is only 6.9, and the quality of creating opportunities is not outstanding. It only ranks 11th in the Premier League, but the actual goals are as high as 11, with a difference of +4.1. Liverpool is second only to Tottenham, with xG of 9.1 and actually scoring 15 goals. Some world-wide goals have to some extent concealed the problems existing in the defending champion's offense this season.

Back to Manchester United. Last season, one of the big problems of Amorin's team was that he could not create opportunities. The 27 rounds of Premier League led by the team averaged only 1.3 xG per game, which was 0.3 less than the first 11 rounds coached by Tenhamhe and Fanny. The offensive quality did not advance but retreated. In the first six rounds of this season, the Red Devils averaged 2.1 xG per game, and the two new players Mbermo and Cunya obviously helped to activate the offense. Of course, another factor is that Manchester United "dare to shoot more", averaging 15.3 goals per game, of which 34% come from outside the penalty area.

In fact, the joining of Mbermo and Cunha originally made people look forward to Manchester United improving their opportunities and grasping efficiency, because they are both in the top three players who scored more goals than expected last season. Mbermo scored 20 goals with 12.3 xG, while Cunha scored 15 goals with 8.7 xG. But in the first 6 rounds of this season, the two had a total of 2.8 xG, and only 1 in total. B's shot and conceded two penalty kicks, which also exacerbated Manchester United's deficit. At the same time, Manchester United's luck was also very bad, with a total of 4 hits on the door frame, and no one competed.

Manchester United is unlucky enough, while Liverpool is lucky enough. They won the final victory again and again. It was not until recently that they had lost two consecutive times in each line that they began to "pay debts" for overdraft good luck. Slott's team also "dare to shoot", second only to Manchester United by 15.2 shots per game, with 36% of long shots accounting for the highest proportion in the semi-finals, thus giving birth to Sobosloy's super free kick and Heravenberg's world wave. It is worth worrying that Liverpool's excellent chances are only 33%, the same as Manchester United. The number one scorer Salah has only 9 shots since the start of the season, which is not a good phenomenon. His shooting opportunity seems to have been scored too much by Hakepo (15 shots) and Sobosloi (13 shots), but more shots do not mean more shots. On the contrary, Chiesa, as a super substitute, scored 2 goals with two shots.

Similar to Liverpool, Manchester City did not create enough opportunities. The 11.4 xG is the second lowest in the same period since the 2018-19 season, but their average xG per shot reached 0.15, the highest in the same period in 8 years, that is, there are not enough opportunities, but the average quality is acceptable. This is not unrelated to the change in Manchester City's style of play. Their offense has become more concise and clear, and they have scored 5 goals through "direct attack" so far. The definition of "direct offense" is: the sports war offense is launched by the one side at halftime, and at least 50% of the ball's trajectory is directed towards the opponent's goal, which emphasizes rapid advancement and directness rather than slow ball control organization. It is not difficult to imagine that fast attacks can often create good opportunities in the space, rather than being forced to get up in the crowd.

Among the traditional giants, London's red and blue are now all set-piece masters. Chelsea scored 11 goals in 6 rounds, of which 6 were from set pieces. The Blues' mobile warfare xG is only 5.8, ranking 7th. The excellent opportunities created by mobile warfare are only 7 times, and they seized 4 times. The significant improvement of the

Maresca team is the improvement of the quality of the shooting. The team's "shot-to-expected goals" (xGOT) reached 14.1, the highest in the Premier League. "Expected goals" and "shot expected goals" are completely different concepts: the former measures the quality of opportunity, that is, the probability of an opportunity of this quality; the latter measures the quality of the shot, that is, the probability of an attempt to enter. In a shooting location far away from the goal and with a small angle, it is entirely possible that the shooting force and tricky angle will give birth to a higher chance of breaking the net.

As for set pieces, Arsenal, the team has scored 8 set pieces in 6 rounds of the season, and this unique skill is still strong. Last season, the Gunners' sports war offense was criticized, with an average of only 1.1 in sports war xG per game, and only 1 game higher than this in the first 6 rounds of this season - but in the last round, the game was a huge advantage in Newcastle United, which made people reason to believe that Arteta's team is finding ways to improve sports war offense.