How the Premier League table would look based on xG | OneFootball

You might have noticed there’s been a lot of talk about expected goals (xG) of late.

xG has been around for a number of years but seems to have become more prevalent in the Premier League this season, with even BBC’s Match of the Day now using it as part of their post-match analysis.

If you’re not already familiar with the concept, xG is essentially an analytical model used to determine the quality of goalscoring chances based on factors such as whereabouts on the pitch a shot was taken from, which part of the body was used to take it and that sort of thing.

When you take all that into account, the end result is the amount of goals which should theoretically have been scored during that particular match.

However, the recent proliferation of xG in English football has provoked a degree of suspicion from some of the more old school supporters and pundits, such as Sky Sports Soccer Saturday’s Jeff Stelling, who had this to say last weekend…

Whatever you think of xG as a metric, the Premier League table would look remarkably different after 12 games if all those expected goals had actually ended up in the net…

1 – Manchester City (No change) Goals scored: 40 Goals against: 7 Points: 34 xG: 34.14 xGA: 6.84 xPTS: 30.86

2 – Liverpool (Up three places) Goals scored: 24 Goals against: 17 Points: 22 xG: 26.30 xGA: 14.89 xPTS: 24.28

3 – Manchester United (Down one place) Goals scored: 27 Goals against: 6 Points: 26 xG: 24.52 xGA: 12.53 xPTS: 22.70

4 – Arsenal (Up two places) Goals scored: 22 Goals against: 16 Points: 22 xG: 23.15 xGA: 14.33 xPTS: 22.77

5 – Tottenham (Down one place) Goals scored: 20 Goals against: 9 Points: 23 xG: 19.28 xGA: 9.50 xPTS: 23.58

6 – Watford (Up two places) Goals scored: 19 Goals against: 21 Points: 18 xG: 16.94 xGA: 20.08 xPTS: 14.86

7 – Leicester (Up five places) Goals scored: 16 Goals against: 18 Points: 13 xG: 15.92 xGA: 15.56 xPTS: 18.25

8 – Crystal Palace (Up 12 places) Goals scored: 6 Goals against: 24 Points: 5 xG: 15.63 xGA: 20.60 xPTS: 16.30

9 – Chelsea (Down six places) Goals scored: 23 Goals against: 10 Points: 25 xG: 15.44 xGA: 11.25 xPTS: 19.74

10 – Southampton (Up four places) Goals scored: 9 Goals against: 14 Points: 13 xG: 14.50 xGA: 15.87 xPTS: 15.57

11 – Everton (Up five places) Goals scored: 12 Goals against: 24 Points: 12 xG: 14.09 xGA: 19.35 xPTS: 13.91

12 – Newcastle (Down one place) Goals scored: 11 Goals against: 14 Points: 14 xG: 13.31 xGA: 14.83 xPTS: 14.89

13 – Stoke (Up two places) Goals scored: 15 Goals against: 24 Points: 13 xG: 12.88 xGA: 19.48 xPTS: 13.01

14 – West Ham (Up four places) Goals scored: 11 Goals against: 25 Points: 9 xG: 11.64 xGA: 20.69 xPTS: 11.20

15 – Swansea (Up four places) Goals scored: 7 Goals against: 15 Points: 8 xG: 10.33 xGA: 18.06 xPTS: 11.92

16 – West Brom (Up one place) Goals scored: 9 Goals against: 18 Points: 10 xG: 10.12 xGA: 15.18 xPTS: 12.73

17 – Brighton (Down eight places) Goals scored: 13 Goals against: 13 Points: 16 xG: 9.46 xGA: 15.54 xPTS: 12.37

18 – Bournemouth (Down five places) Goals scored: 11 Goals against: 14 Points: 13 xG: 9.44 xGA: 18.37 xPTS: 10.56

19 – Huddersfield (Down nine places) Goals scored: 8 Goals against: 17 Points: 15 xG: 8.56 xGA: 15.15 xPTS: 11.45

20 – Burnley (Down 13 places) Goals scored: 12 Goals against: 9 Points: 22 xG: 8.08 xGA: 15.64 xPTS: 11.97

Of course, it’s only the ones that end up in the onion bag which ultimately matter, but if we were Liverpool or Crystal Palace fans, we’d be feeling pretty hard done by right now.

Burnley, Huddersfield and Brighton, on the other hand, are lucky, lucky boys.