With the help of expected goals, we take a look at how the weekend’s matches should have finished
Another week of Premier League football has been and gone, and Liverpool remain the only team with a 100 per cent record.
The Reds made light work of Southampton to continue their perfect start to the season, with Chelsea dropping points at West Ham to fall behind Jurgen Klopp’s side in the title race.
Elsewhere, there were wins for Arsenal and Manchester City, while Wolves and Fulham came from behind to nick points off Manchester United and Watford respectively.
It was, as always, a thrilling weekend of top flight action, but were the results backed up by the performances?
‘Expected goals’ is a statistic used to work out how many goals should be scored in a match, with every shot taken given an ‘expected goal’ value based on the difficulty of the attempt.
Based on a number of factors including distance from goal, type of shot and number of defenders, the ‘expected goal’ value reveals the likelihood a specific shot will end in a goal; the higher the value, the more likely a goal should be scored from that shot.
The ‘expected goal’ value of every shot in a game is used to calculate the ‘expected goals’ of a match. Click here to find out more about the calculations used to work out xG.
Should a team end with a higher xG than actual goals scored, it is probable they were wasteful in front of goal due to poor finishing or an in-form opposition goalkeeper. If the real goals scored is higher than the xG, the team may have been lucky to score so many in that match, or come up against a poor defence.
So, how did every team perform compared to their xG in the sixth round of Premier League matches? Find out below thanks to shot-based expected goals statistics from FiveThirtyEight.com…
Fulham vs Watford
Real score: 1-1
xG score: 1.5-1.6
Liverpool vs Southampton
Real score: 3-0
xG score: 1.7-0.4
Manchester United vs Wolves
Real score: 1-1
xG score: 0.6-1.2
Burnley vs Bournemouth
Real score: 4-0
xG score: 2.3-1.1
Crystal Palace vs Newcastle
Real score: 0-0
xG score: 1.0-0.3
Leicester vs Huddersfield
Real score: 3-1
xG score: 1.8-0.7
Cardiff vs Manchester City
Real score: 0-5
xG score: 0.1-3.3
Brighton vs Tottenham
Real score: 1-2
xG score: 0.8-2.1
West Ham vs Chelsea
Real score: 0-0
xG score: 0.8-1.7
Arsenal vs Everton
Real score: 2-0
xG score: 0.9-1.0