atypical_boro
Well-known member
Ok, I understand what you mean.Must admit I'm a bit of a stats geek and whilst the methodology is up for debate, xA could be a very useful stat.
As mentioned above it's effectively normalising the "assist" statistic, which could be impacted by poor finishing. A player might create 100 clear cut chances but a striker only finishes one of them.
I might be mistaken but if I were the coaching staff I'd be looking to develop passages of play which result in the player with the highest xA (presumably McGree) playing with the player with the highest xG.
So let's look at some other stats of the same ilk.
Forss has xA of 0.9 and has 4 assists. So what does it tell us about him on the flip side? He's rubbish at creating chances but has just been really lucky? Many say attacking footballers should be all about 'end product' (ie what has been delivered) not hypotheticals. Forss also has 7 goals but his xGOT (goals on target) is only 4.0 and his xG is 5.1. What does this all tell us about Forss?
Crooks xA is 1.8, but has 5. Another one whose crap but just gets really lucky scoring and creating goals? Should we get shot of him for someone who has a higher xG+xA per 90 and doesn't rely on luck?
I'd rather just judge players on what they've actually done. I don't know exactly how Brentford went about their 'moneyball' model but I'd really be interested to know if xA, xG, xGOT, xA per 90 or xG per 90 played any significant part in it.