I sort of agree. They look far more robust at the back now Brent has full backs that actually bother defending. That being said, I still think Arsenal will be too much for them.

No way we come away with a point, will be lucky to hold it to four.

My prediction:

Liverpool 0 - 7 Arsenal (Henry: '14, '15, '48. Arshavin: '85, '86, '87, '88)

Any plop fans (or anyone for that matter) want Plop top 4?

Looking to lay $3k on it, escrow will be required.

At what odds are you thinking?

In GRATE news for EPL watching, no longer working weekends. Although I'm sure my wife will want to spend those days "as a family" and "we need to do things with the baby".. quiet please, i'm going to start drinking at 9am.

Is working weekends standard? Seems a little ott.

I figure half the people here will love it, half will hate it but this is a fascinating chart imo.

yanks have to work themselves close to death so that they can afford to not die if they develop a serious medical complaint

If it were somehow weighted according to importance, Higuaín would be miles off that list.

This a good opportunity for me to ask. Can someone explain the basics of xG? What is it. What is it good for. Etc.

Tx in advance

Either last weekend or two weekends ago I posted every stat that goes into the calculation. I'll try to find it again, but it's basically a stat that takes into account where a shot is taken, how it is taken (cross vs pull back, where the pass is coming from, header vs strong foot) and a bunch of other stuff (counter vs non) and weighs that vs other similar situations and gives a number on how likely that shot would result in a goal.

So, a shot that is from a counter taken from 6' out might be worth .6 "expected goals" or w/e.

That chart above is players they have at least 600 shots worth of data of over the last number of years and who scores more goals than expected given the shots they take. Obviously in such a model some players (the good ones) will out perform it, while the worse ones underperform.

Edit: The data for the two charts is for between 09-14.

I'm very curious where Giroud falls under here. He is very, very bad at scoring "big chances" but pretty good at scoring tougher ones.

mc of A just posted the bottom 20....It's pretty sick that City can still score 100 goals with 2 of their starters being some of the biggest underperformers in xG.

<3

not really
he attempts a high percentage of low equity shots though which is why his shots/goal ratio has always been fairly high and people misinterpreted it as lack of finishing ability

Would like to see the Torres at Chelsea stats.

He is selfish player?

Wait, are you talking about Giroud or Cristiano's fk's/random long range shots? :-)

Damn, oafk beat me to it

nobody said that he is taking low equity attempts instead of much higher equity passes

easy example:
corner, rebound and you stand 35 yards away from goal with multiple bodies in the way.
taking low equity shot very often the correct thing to do there anyway because turn-over would result in massive counter-attacking opportunity for opponent.

giroud usually takes low equity attempts when isolated up top alone and the equity difference between just recycling possession probably marginal at best a lot of the times

Cashy, my point was mainly that of all good strikers in top leagues, no one misses "big chances" or chances with a high xG, more than Giroud. I was curious how much him scoring goals with less likelihood like his opener last weekend made up for it.

My guess would be it's pretty bad.
Playing for a good team should usually net a striker good chances more often than not.
Would probably be a better choice for a worse team.

not sure if you're serious or not but weighing by importance is probably the worst you can do with any stat.

sauce (my googling didn't work, but my internet is a pos today, so I didn't have much patience)?

Suarez?

exactly the opposite

I listed it in the second reply, it's from @MC_of_A.

Remember, Suarez was REALLY bad at finishing his first season at Pool. He also took a lot of shots from like 40 yards out and while they went in vs Norwich, they usually didn't.

As cashy said, Giroud wouldn't be as good in a team that gives him no service and gives him no support.

Explain sir