As City approach the halfway mark in the Championship season, it’s been levelled at them from some quarters that they’re fortunate to be top of the league. I took a look at the stats behind the Canaries’ first 22 games, looking for some tangible proof either way.
The first statistic that most refer to when establishing the level to which a team can count themselves lucky is expected goals (or xG, the average goals a team should score based on analysis of the chances they’ve created).
Norwich are second in the ‘xG for’ table, and could even have expected to score more. They’ve created enough chances to have scored 30.8 goals according to footballxg.com, scoring 29 times thus far.
An encouraging sign as far as the sustainability of this strike rate is that the goals have been widely distributed within the squad. Top scorer Teemu Pukki has 11, while Emi Buendia has six, Mario Vrancic has three and Messrs Stiepermann, Idah, Placheta, Martin, Cantwell, Sorensen, McLean, Hugill and Aarons have one apiece.
The ability of various players to get themselves on the scoresheet may be vital in achieving promotion, especially if Pukki dries up as he did last term. The likes of Idah, Hugill and Cantwell will feel confident in their ability to add to add to their own tallies, while the likes of Kieran Dowell and Onel Hernandez will be keen to get going having suffered long-term injuries.
Expected goals against tells a different story. The chances City have conceded has them 15th in the ‘xG against’ table, with a total of 26.8. As it happens only 20 goals have been conceded, suggesting either wasteful opposition or outstanding goalkeeping.
The presence of Tim Krul in the squad suggests the latter, which is worrying given both his and Michael McGovern’s respective muscle strains and the expectance for Daniel Barden to fill in, at least for a short time.
It would be ignoring the trends of this season not to expect him to step up, however, as so many have this season. 28 players have taken to the pitch for City, from Max Aarons with 1980 minutes to Reece McAlear’s solitary one against Coventry.
One statistic that City fans will be familiar with by now is possession. Daniel Farke’s side have enjoyed an average of 57.9% per game so far, making 578 passes. They’ve produced an average of 15.2 shots per game from this, which translates to a shot from every 38 passes.
That may be less than you’d think. Swansea City, second in the Championship table at the time of writing, take around 42 passes to produce a shooting opportunity while Brentford, largely accepted as one of the most progressive and entertaining sides in the league, match the Canaries’ 38.
These stats may be familiar, providing a nostalgic similarity to 2018/19’s title-winning campaign, but one major difference between this season and that, is where City are picking up their points.
Known for winning against the sides they were expected to beat last time round, this season they’ve struggled against the likes of QPR and Coventry while picking up impressive victories against the teams in and around them.
Farke’s title winning side had an average points per game of 1.45 against the top ten, significantly less than the 1.89 produced by the current squad in their nine matches against the top sides so far. Highlights from these matches include the dismantling of a strong Bristol City side, a hard-fought win over Swansea and a defeat of in-form Reading in the midst of an injury crisis.
After a rough start to the season they looked like they’d found their rhythm but disappointing results have brought other sides back into the mix. City now face a crucial period in their season, and one in which standards must not slip.
The Canaries’ promotion charge may be slightly different to that of 2019, but the statistics are starting to show that they can be just as dominant as they were, whether pundits and opposition fans want to accept it or not.
As the German soldier in Roman and Martin’s Laugh In would say “very interesting” (for those of a certain age), but the only statistic that matters is Played 22, Points 44, and that’s better than everyone else in the division. The number of times we’ve had better stats than the opposition, but one small slip costs us the game, such as the Derby game, demonstrate that the numbers may be a guide, but after every game there’s only one that interests me. Did City win? Possession and passes may be great, but did we score more than the other lot?
I can never get to grips with “Xg”, it’s what ever gets across that line under the crossbar that counts. Just ask Osayi-Samuel!
I think *that soldier* was called Schultz.
Then there was Judy Carne as in *sock it to me* or something like that.
The old man let me stay up to watch it with him if he was in a good mood – there was enough slapstick in it for me to enjoy it although we both preferred Sgt Bilko wherein I didn’t get all the jokes and dad had to explain some of them to me – I love to look at the YouTube offerings when I get the chance.
As for stats I love an article based on data when somebody like Samuel or Dave B writes it but I’m far too simple minded to analyse that sort of stuff myself.
3 points today – we need ’em.
Schultz was a Sergeant in Hogans Heroes. Arte Johnson’s German soldiers in Laugh In was called Wolfgang
Oh Scheisse – I remember Hogan’s Heroes too but obviously not that well.
Mea culpa.
Thanks for mentioning Hogan’s Heroes, Stalag 13 and all that malarkey, loved that show back in the day.
May be Farke’s Heroes will be the 2021 version!
Statistics are all very well but sometimes you need to look a little further to get the real picture. We rode our luck during the spell when we had large numbers out injured and in my view over achieved what could have been expected. Since then we have slightly under achieved in my view. Blackburn and Reading were good games and results but Watford and QPR showed our Achilles heel – lack of a cutting edge when faced with a packed defense. Farke worries me in that he seems too resistant to trying a different approach with substitutions to change the game in our favour Do we deserve to be top – yes of course we do we have the points to show that. Can we sustain it – I fear not unless we improve our strike rate. Time will tell.
Breaking down a packed defence isn’t just a problem for us, Cyprus. Liverpool struggled against the Baggies the other day, and Manchester City do too on occasion.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I see in many games that the “Xg” number is vastly different to the actuality. If a goal was scored every time one was “expected” the game would become boring, and we’d get rugby scores every game.
Hi Jim
xG is actually a number of decimals added, rather than one every time a goal is ‘expected’. For example the likelihood of a penalty being scored is 75%, so if a team has a penalty 0.75 xG is generated, if they had two that’s 1.5 etc.
It’s certainly not perfect but is a good measure of both chance creation and conversion.
The comments above are right in that at the end of the season the only thing that counts is have we gained enough points to get automatic promotion or at a push a play-off place.
SW missed a trick by not signing Tony from Peterborough I just don’t think Hugill plays the was city wants him to but he was the cheaper option.
Now we need a quality backup keeper as sadly McGovern is out for the foreseeable future but we gave muddled by with a terrible injury list that just doesn’t want to go away.
Points on the board matters stats can make good or bad reading but win or draw adds points stats don’t, people will say some clubs have games in hand but those games need to be won.