We did an article on the xG table back in December, highlighting the teams who were outperforming their stats, and those that might face problems.
It’s fair to say it went down well. Leeds and Sunderland were the big winners – they should have been top two if matches were decided by xG and not goals. Well, if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a bike, and neither is in the real top two. Sunderland, who were ninth at the time, have climbed to seventh, but Leeds were third when we collated our xG data, and they’re now second – are they going up?
If the xG table is anything to go by, then they’re certainly destined for the Premier League once again. Before we look at the table, it’s pertinent to familiarise ourselves with exactly what it is we’re looking at.
Using data from Football xG, every game played in the Championship has been reimagined this season. Instead of wins being allocated to goals, we’ve got the league table as it would be if every bit of xG led to a goal. It’s hypothetical, of course, but every result has now been allocated win, loss or draw based on xG data, not on goals. We’ve used that to create an alternative table, and it might give us an indication of who could climb the table or tumble down it later in the season.
These stats are accurate up to Tuesday 13th and do not take into account the midweek fixtures. Do be aware that different outlets do have slightly different xG outcomes – Fotmob, for instance, has an xG published straight after a game but is often less accurate than Wyscout, which are published up to 24 hours later.
As you can see, the big winners here are Leeds, but the top two match the current top two. That suggests that we don’t have a ‘fluke’ team destined for automatic promotion, with four of the current top five occupying the spots the xG data suggests they should be occupying.
The big winners on the xG table or Middlesbrough. Michael Carrick’s side are now 13th in the table, but if they took the chances they created, they’d be sixth and on the cusp of the promotion hunt. On the flip side, Norwich City, currently seventh after this midweek win, are massively outperforming their xG and would rightly be stuck in the middle of the pack.
Perhaps the biggest overachievers are Preston North End. Their win in midweek lifted them to ninth, but the xG table has them just a single point outside the bottom three. There’s little surprise – they’re second from bottom in terms of shots per 90 minutes, with just 7.78.
At the bottom of the table, struggling Sheffield Wednesday are paying the price for their wastefulness. They should be as high as 17th in the table if only they could make their efforts count. Having Lee Gregory not included on the squad list won’t help, of course.
Finally, a word on Rotherham United. The Millers are having a miserable season, and it isn’t about to get better. They are bottom in the real table, bottom in the xG table, and destined for League One. Again.
