I know plenty will see this as irrelevance but on stats we are hugely outperforming where we should be this season. When looking into football statistically the buzz term now is 'xpg' (expected goals.) Calculated through high powered models/robots it suggests how many goals we should of actually scored based on many number of things (where chances were scored/missed, % chance of them chances being converted historically, possesion, shots on/off target etc).

Off memory this data suggests we should of only had half the amount of goals now (actually 15th in the exg league) and also far less points.

Many of you will say stats are pointless etc, and to an extent I agree. But this model/statistic is used by most if not all bookmakers to correctly price football matches. Its not the whole truth but its interesting that according to these numbers we aren't actually performing very well. I will try and find the exact data and post later.

 

 

bearing in mind our most creative player has only started 1 league game, it's no surprise we haven't created as many clear cut chances as you would expect. 

I still feel we are short of quality going forward though, especially when Willian has been poor. 

We were so good against Atlético, but the performances against the top teams this calender year have generally been poor. 

We rarely take the game to the big teams, and usually play on the counter, which can be successful, but I think we should be more aggressive. 

It's going to be tough going if morata is out for 8 weeks. I guess we will have more if an idea as to how good our transfer dealings were at the end of the season, but for me, I think we will ultimately come up short this season. 

early days, but just a gut feeling.