Some very basic analysis of how Smith has improved us.

I was bored yesterday so I had a quick look at the XG and goals stats to see how much Smith had improved us. I should preface this by saying that I loved Daniel and also the sample sizes are obviously different. Also, arguably Farke had some tougher games, so this needs to be done again in a couple of months to be more robust. XG is also a slightly spurious concept, but I think it does tell us something. So will all those caveats ….

This season Farke’s average XGFor was 0.81 and XGAgainst was 1.97. Thus far Smith has 1.11 XG For and 1.15 Against, so he has improved both chance creation and stopping the opposition create chances.

Farke’s average Goals For was 0.45 and Against was 2.36. Again, Smith has improved us on both sides, with Goals For now 0.75 and Against 1.25.

One interesting thing is that the gap between XGfor and Goals For is almost identical 0.35 and 0.36 respectively. This is the underperformance in terms of taking chances, and suggests that Smith has not yet improved this (which we can probably see with our eyes). This may suggest there is an underlying problem with the quality of our players. On the flip side, Smith has narrowed the gap between XGAgainst and Goals against to .10, whereas Farke’s teams were conceding .39 more goals than the XG suggested (e.g. soft touch).

Finally, Smith has already matched Farke’s total of games where we out XG the opponent (2 each). But neither managed to win any of those games.

So, in summary:

Defending better
Creating (a few) more chances
Scoring (a few) more
Letting less in
But still not improved our chance taking.

But we knew all that anyway with our eyes, and I’m sure the last point is the main topic for SAS.

Posted By: Knitted Jesus on December 10th 2021 at 08:07:12

Message Thread

Some very basic analysis of how Smith has improved us. (NCFC) - Knitted Jesus, Dec 10, 08:07:12
- Disraeli (n/m) (NCFC) - MonkeyPuzzle, Dec 10, 17:42:17
- Does any of the xg data reflect the strength of oppo? (n/m) (NCFC) - Henclrikus, Dec 10, 09:25:48
  - Nope so that is part of the weakness of the analysis (n/m) (NCFC) - Knitted Jesus, Dec 10, 12:23:20
    - my analysis, entirely xg-free (NCFC) - Henclrikus, Dec 10, 12:54:35
      - Hard to disagree with any of that (n/m) (NCFC) - Knitted Jesus, Dec 10, 13:45:53
- Hmmm xG is my domain pal (n/m) (NCFC) - SCC 28, Dec 10, 09:04:07
  - Do some work then pal (n/m) (NCFC) - Knitted Jesus, Dec 10, 12:25:33
  - ^^^ VMT. Stay in your lane Jesus. (n/m) (NCFC) - Ken Dodds Dads Dog, Dec 10, 09:24:55
  - Ha ha. XG stat-off! (NCFC) - APB, Dec 10, 09:15:37
- Hey Knitted - you're an IRL stats bod aren't you? (NCFC) - Cardiff Canary, Dec 10, 08:39:43
  - I am neither a stats person nor an XG expert (NCFC) - Knitted Jesus, Dec 10, 12:25:06
    - Ahhh nifty - I remembered that there was someone on here who is a day job statistician (NCFC) - Cardiff Canary, Dec 10, 13:19:12
  - Analyse the analysis? This is fucking meta. (n/m) (NCFC) - APB, Dec 10, 09:22:32
- Thanks KJ, good read (NCFC) - Under soil heating, Dec 10, 08:17:21
  - Possibly it’s down to just a change in the routine. (NCFC) - APB, Dec 10, 08:20:44
    - There's no doubt we are looking better under Smith. However, I suspect the stats might be (NCFC) - Legacy Fan, Dec 10, 09:26:50
      - That may be true to a degree (NCFC) - Knitted Jesus, Dec 10, 12:55:22

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