XG isn't a stat that gets you points mate. You could create 100 chances a game and have 80% possession but if you don't score enough goals to win games because your defence is as good as a kite with a hole in it, you're ****ed.
I guess it depends what you class as 'playing well' doesn't it.
Conceding every single game this season bar one isn't us playing well.
xG Pts is often very well correlated to points though, especially over longer timeframes, 1,2,3,4 and 5th are all in the top 7 of net xG points. Us and West Brom are the other two teams in the xG Pts top 7, we're second and them 3rd. Luton are sat in 18th and they should be up there too, they were 6th last year. It's fine margins sometimes between games, but some of these games have not been close at all xG wise.
We have the largest variance of expected position, and current position, 15 places, West Brom are 13 places, Luton 13, going off last year, none of those 3 should be expected to be where they are. The average is 6 places, largely made up of 3/4 of teams being very close to where they should be, and some anomalies.
The highest variance of position in the prem is 10 places, West Ham, a couple 7 places, and the rest are largely within 3/4 places.
The point is we should be outscoring even what we're letting in. That's not the fault of the defence, it's poor shot conversion (we're second bottom on Shots on target %). Teams playing **** don't create anything, we're just not finishing what we should, and not getting on the end of crosses enough (we've put in the 3rd most crosses (behind West Brom and Luton, funnily enough), and conceded the 4th least crosses (one of those better than us has only played 6 games), the other two are West Brom and Norwich.
We've conceded the 3rd least shots (only WBA and Sheff Utd better)
Our save % of shots against us is 4th bottom
I wonder how the WBA fans feel, they look to be having a similar season to us, and we know they're a good side and with good players. They've not been beat by more than one goal either, and they've had 6 draws. Fine margins to having much more points than the table shows.
The xGA, has us around mid-way, for what we should expect to concede, for the chances we've given away, yet we've conceded the most. I don't think our keepers have been that bad at shot-stopping overall (but I think they've had hard shots to deal with), if we had let in some absolute howlers then yeah, maybe blame some of it on the keepers, but it's not been the case. Maybe the last game Roberts could have had one or two of those, but not much blame for previous games of either keeper, and everyone seems to rate both keepers better than anything we've had recently.
Yes, we would like that xGA to be lower, but we've had some shocking decisions against us too and been unlucky with a couple of chances (goals), basically some of the best chances shouldn't have even been chances.
There were some major errors against Cardiff mind, but that doesn't cover the other 8 games. We still have to allow for mistakes though, every team which has ever played in this league has made plenty at the back.
The table is reliant on points, and points are reliant on what you score and what you don't, and what the oppo score and what they don't, and they're reliant on what chances and crosses you put in, and what chances and crosses you give away. The foundations are good, but it's just not translating through to the end.