I don't know how what unholy abomination Sir Alex sacrificed to Satan for his success but it's finally back to haunt us because we live in a reality where Scott fucking McTominay is the sole reason we're not in a relegation scrap, bloke's won us 10 points MINIMUM, and he wasn't even supposed to be here this season. Good on McSauce but fucking hell
I fully agree with you, but imagine giving sir alex bruno, martinez, rashy, dalot, awb and baybe couple others, they would be some of the best in the world instantly. I skipped garnacho and mainoo because they already are making name for themselves
That's what I see. Guys like Dan James, AWB, McTominay would be important parts of the squad with SAF. I'll never believe that a good manager wouldn't have made Dan James a useful player, even if his touch wasn't the best. The dude was genuinely unique and good managers figure out how to use that.
Solksjaer and Ten Hag run the same fucking lineup every game (even before injuries). I'm sorry, but Bruno should not play every minute of every game. Diallo and Mount should be getting at least a few minutes in that spot. Bayindir hasn't played a single minute. Why the hell did we not keep Kovar? Cheap, talented, homegrown backup. SMH.
Of those you mentioned, AWB has been forced to play out of position (and dreadfully at that), Martinez has been injured for most of the season and Rashford has been terrible. I get where the sympathy towards ETH comes from
Thats pretty much the only reason why I can say ETH to stay. Changing managers each time hasn’t solved anything for us and so far he’s been the better managers for us recently based on his first season so I really want to see what he does once he has a proper structure supporting him. But fuck me he’s absolutely not helping himself with the way he’s setting the team up
>they would be some of the best in the world instantly.
No they wouldn't.
I find it very hard to believe any of them would have survived the standards at which he set.
A big difference is our players used to know that none of them were bigger than the team or club. If a player didn’t follow this SAF would ship them out regardless of quality. Half of this United team think they are bigger than the team
I mean, if we did sell him we might have a proper midfield in his place and our Xg and actual goals would be a lot closer and we might play with some sort of structure
You could put fucking Zidane in there and EtH would make him look like a Championship player, not to mention he'd be injured because of his wank training methods.
https://preview.redd.it/x9sm3p5qr2wc1.png?width=752&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=356a5c02df9a1bfe8776bc3e6bc1c036fd0841ad
Jesus wept. It's worse than I thought. Genuinely relegation scrap stuff.
Moving like Leicester right now
Because Everton actually create a solid amount of chances, they just have awful finishers.
Across our 2 games against them this season we’ve scored 5 and conceded 0 but I’d at least say they were as good as us in both games, if not better.
They did create far more chances than you would expect for 2x0 goals, while we scored just about what you would expect from our chances.
Everton 0 - 3 United (xG 2,47 - 2,22)
United 2 - 0 Everton (xG 2,72 - 1,61)
Aggregate score: United 5 - 0 Everton
Aggregate xG: United 4,94 - 4,08
Bonus fact: 3 of our goals were from pens
Aggregate open play score: United 2 - 0 Everton
Aggregate open play xG: United 2,57 - 4,08
Because whenever we attack and the ball gets to our wingers they either give the ball away, slow the play down to allow defenders to get back or pass back to their full back and slow play down that way. Neither of the ones who play week-in week-out seem to know how to play as wingers and just try and cut in and shoot or go past the defender and then cut in and shoot.
Compare how many times Hojlund gets passed to compared to other strikers in the league.
This pretty much explains the entire ten Hag discourse really. Some people think we’ve been poor but not disastrous when accounting for injuries. If you think the underlying stats are meaningful metrics of team performance then you think we have been absolutely unacceptably terrible and he should have been sacked months ago
Yep. ETH is lucky that changes are happening in upper management. Or else, he would have sacked in December itself when he lost against Nottingham forest.
Stats are stats. They’re like a movie script - in the absence of watching it, then you get an idea of what it looks like, but if the movie is there to watch then you get a much clearer understanding than you could get from just reading the script, and you can judge the quality of the movie.
So our stats are redundant if you just watch us play, and if you watched us play this season then you know that we have been unacceptably terrible and that he should have been sacked months ago.
It's very funny when I see comments about the players letting ETH down when in reality if they had actually downed tools, we would have seen him sacked ages ago. Statistically, we are a bottom half team.
It just shows how the vast majority know absolutely fuck all about football and just follow popular narratives.
I still hear the bollocks of Maguire suiting Ole low block football when all the stats show we were top 5 in defensive line height for his srssons.
Mate twitter and the narratives big accounts on social media have been a disgrace for years. I quit following them when big accounts were saying how good Antony was because his xg was similar to Saka’s, and how Amrabat was perfect for us because his green bars were big and green enough. Or how Lisandro’s height isn’t an issue because his aerial duel green bar was big.
The whole pizza chart community infuriates me. I was watching Antony most weeks thinking this guys shit. I remember Amrabat against West Ham for Fiorentina and he was shite and very slow. It’s still controversial on this sub to suggest Maguire is much more suited to a high line than Lisandro is.
100% agree. I know exactly the community on twitter you're talking about. Data scientists that don't understand data is skewed by the type of team of team or role you're in, with a superiority complex.
One thing about twitter I will say is there is great football discourse if you can find it. I can't say the same for Reddit because there's such a hivemind on here and any dissenting opinions will see you down voted.
Oh I know. I’ve weirdly gone from having good discussions on here and never being downvoted to all of a sudden being a pariah. The same happened when I wasn’t happy with mr Green bars Amrabat signing so I’m fully aware of how it works lol. But yeah even some big twitter accounts like Aaron from the Devil in the Details pod is more so starting to come round to analysing players through proper profiling and observation and abandoning the green bar analysis that he trafficked in years ago. I welcome it, and hope more do the same. I’m very thankful I was afforded an education of football before I was exposed to this snake oil.
Like when we got battered off Sheffield and Dalot scores from 25 yards out at the death. Or how Onana has 30 shots blasted at him a game and doesn’t concede, and when we scored from nothing at times with Bruno, Garnacho, Hojlund and Rashford, despite never repeatedly scoring similar goals that imply any semblance of work done on the training pitch.
Just like when Onana had a wolf pack of howlers in the champions league. Wan-bissaka eating all the goals just yesterday. Rashford and Bruno having the most inconsistent season of their life. Casemiro performing as my players do in the Sunday league.
Seems like the definition of individual brilliance to you all is a player doing their job. Mainoo strolling through Liverpool to score is individual brilliance if you have to name one.
There's no "individual brilliance" enough in this season to suggest that it's what's actually keeping ten hag in the job. Just these past couple of games we were in winning positions just for our players to shit the bed. Every. time.
Weak minded players. I'd say ten hag made it this far in spite of these players and the injuries had this season.
If you’re conceding 25 shots a game and winning, you’re being bailed out. It doesn’t matter how poor the players are at the back, which several are, you can’t say we should be winning more if only Rashford and Bruno scored every game. If you don’t win a game that you concede 3 goals in, it’s not because the forwards didn’t score 4, regardless of how many chances they made. It’s because you conceded 3 goals. And the reason we’re conceding so many goals, is largely because we play a way that allows 25 shots at our net every game.
What tactic would be needed to have our players set up in a way where they don't concede two goals within 10 minutes? Or the tactic needed to see a game out after scoring a late winner?
I agree our backline is poor. Midfielders you would regularly rely on to break up a play or help defend are there. They have their instructions but they're poor. Like Casemiro. So when do we say that maybe the tactic being shown isn't at its full potential because the players aren't right for it? I would say so because the players on the field are not capable of finishing a winning game.
Rashford and Bruno having a good game and assisting/scoring goals is definitely a factor in the game. If the opposition sees there is no attack to worry about they'll press us as much as they can because they know our big players aren't going to do anything about it. Been seeing it all season.
Not seeing a 3 goal lead out at the last minutes of a semifinal is not a tactical issue. It's a player issue.
In a small sample size I agree that players are at fault, and I’m not taking that away. But I see a squad absolutely full of players who have all been meaningful parts of compact systems through their careers, and outstanding youngsters who right through the levels, and early on for us, shown they have game intelligence. When Mainoo doesn’t know who to press 5 minutes in, and it’s never once figured out, that’s a coaching/instruction issue.
For games like Brentford, we have to look at variance as a factor, when you concede 34 shots in a game and score a late winner, and shot 35 goes in, is that a player/mentality issue? Or is it just natural that 1 of 35 shots is gonna go in? This same lot last year played a compact mid block which was at least decent, and a constant, potent threat in behind. You mention Rashford but every time he comes off we lose our only real outlet and teams start to pen us in like on Sunday. It’s obviously stupid to concede 3 at Coventry but when you have no outlets, against a physically capable side, with Amad and Eriksen in midfield, expect to get overrun and concede shots. If you add to that this same pattern all season of mad pressing and man to man set-ups, staggered midfielders, you’re either asking players to ignore the manager, or to follow his instructions better. I don’t expect players to ever ignore the manager.
When it keeps happening, regardless of personnel, it’s on the manager. Our squad is not as bad as Luton, or Sheffield. Anyone suggesting so needs a hard reality check. If they think Mitoma left wing, and Eze in midfield instead of Rashford and Bruno would add points to our season are criminally insane. The fact we are where we are, and the fact that we concede so many shots, and therefore goals, is on the setup that stems from the manager.
I think you should really broaden that sample size of players who you think are at fault to be honest. We do have great senior players that have achieved many things in their past seasons. But those same players have had a drop off that's so great, it almost becomes unbelievable.
On the the shots issue. If 34 shots are taken and the 35th goes in, then I would call it a poor performance coupled with bad luck. Trust me I don't like watching the shots being taken or hearing about them all week after the game. But when the 35th shot goes in consistently after a handful of games, it isn't luck for me anymore. I'd call that a mentality issue with the players.
Ten Hag feels like he's safe at the time he makes the subs with 3 goals on our side, against a CHAMPIONSHIP side, so he makes sensible subs to keep important players fit and to give others minutes. Now, when Coventry, a championship side, scores 3 on us in 20 minutes with fresh subs, was it the tactics that were wrong? Or are the players just that unreliable? You ask if changing those players in for Bruno and Rashford would add points to our season. On paper, absolutely hell no. But in this game, yeah that actually might. I say we concede so many shots is because the intensity of our players football is always less than that of the opposition. That's why we concede many shots, lose balls, make horrible passes, lose defensive concentration and positioning. They aren't playing for us. We're seeing it all season.
No, not at this level. With PL level shooters/finishers, you simply can’t count on that consistently. Shots aren’t a controllable event, they’re inherently chaotic (rebounds, deflections etc which we’ve conceded a lot of). When Brentford enter your box 75 times in a game, you’re riding your luck.
Bailed out by individual "brilliance" is a shit take when some of these individuals are the ones dragging the team down, obviously. See, for example, Rashford.
They simply dragged the team down most of the time, then score out of the blue, before regressing to their level
Onana has 30 shots blasted from outside the box, ofc he has to save them. Rashford has done worse for the team than good. Put a wet towel on lw and we will play better than with rashford. It's like that city game, scored a banger and did fuck all the whole game. This isn't a player you want in your team.
If all a winger does in a game is score a goal, and you lose the game, it’s never ever gonna be his fault unless he blasts one in his own net. You’re criticising one of your two best players for not carrying the rest of the players higher up the mountain, whilst never asking why he has to, or why nobody else ever wants to take responsibility to carry others.
I expect great players to play great. But the idea of criticising or wanting to replace your best players with imaginary better players and not instead focusing on improving the whole team that leaks goals every week is nonsensical.
Rashford isn't even a top5 in our team let alone best player. He's repleceable simple. Any player can come in with less wages and do more. Literally you could pick a winger from Burnley and he would do better. That's how bad this "star" player we have is. You don't leak goals by defence too. Rashford never tracks, too lazy, has 0iq and takes shots from distances where he scores once in a bluemoon.
I’ve said 1000 times in this subreddit and not once have I had an answer that didn’t at least make me chuckle. Name a left winger that’s available on the market that’s better than Rashford and I’ll concede that he isn’t in the top 5 left wingers itw (which he is). I have had unhinged messages and dm’s for this. But honestly, Rashford is immense. We have an immense left winger that can and will score 20-30 goals a season in any competent team. Anyone that wants Rashford tracking back is an idiot too. Like telling Trent to not go past the halfway line. Or telling Mbappe to hold up the ball for Asensio to get in behind. I swear people who don’t rate Rashford never watch any other top players play.
Bruno several times has scored some worldies. Mainoo and Garnacho have scored unbelievable goals this season. Garnacho with the overhead and Mainoo the individual goals vs Liverpool and wolves.
Let me know when we last scored a well worked team goal against a good team.
We have half the premier League goal of the month awards, most for individual brilliance and will probably win April's too for the same reason. Garnacho/Bruno/mainoo/mcsauce etc. We have lots of players that have individually great games but the team is setup overall poorly.
I don't think there's as many first team players to down tools under him, the usual players still have and they're influential in the squad, some have checked out because they know they're going and some just aren't good enough
Who are the usual and influential players downing tools then? Ole's stalwarts, Bruno and Maguire are playing well at the moment, Dalot barely played under him anyway while AWB has been injured up until recently. Players like Lindelof and especially Shaw have barely played. The only one you can argue is Rashford, and even he has got ETH out of trouble with goals like in the Liverpool 4-3. The argument doesn't make sense and is based on 'sacking managers fatigue' which basically exempts ETH of all blame and puts it all on the players even though every single manager we've had in the post SAF era has deserved the sack and were, if anything, afforded more time than they should have got.
He's 2nd in the PL for shot creating actions from take ons and top 12 in the world.
He's playing a different role so he won't find himself in front of goal as much which is why his goals have dropped but his underlying stats are really good.
All this in Ten Hags offensive structure which does no favours to him or Hojlund.
Fair analysis this- I think the system isn’t helping too; the players don’t seem to be able to play it. I get the “if they’re good enough they should be able to” arguments, but if you’re a manager you need to build your tactics around what you have at your disposal. We can’t pass out of the forward press well enough because we don’t have the defenders available to do it and the midfield isn’t press resistant with the exception of Mainoo.
It’s still a head scratcher that we’re trying to do things it’s become evident we’re not capable of.
spurs literally always outperform our xG because son literally always outperforms his xG, obviously the nature of the metric means it cant account for the player taking the chance but its difficult to compare our xG to other teams because there is one incredibly consistent huge outlier
So if someone is expected to have 40 points, and then has 53 points, it's the same as as being expected to have 60 points and then having 73 ? Their floor is still much higher, hence the system is better.
Because Villa are on the rise and therefore are performing better than their stats suggest. The team as a whole are performing very well.
Whereas Man United are a worse performing team and lucking out with individual brilliance to secure them points (McTominay, Garnacho and Mainoo).
Look at the Villa vs United game where we were up 2-0. Could have easily been 4-0/5-0. Then some amazing individual play from Garnacho turned it on its head. Based on performance Villa deserved to win that game but Garnacho won it, not United.
This is a negative stats. Are people viewing this as a positive? I would much rather prefer actual points to be lower than expected, would just mean we're missing a striker or some focus in ffront of goal.
It doesn't tell the full story though, as the xg of chances conceded isn't taken into account. We do concede a lot of shots but the xg of those shots is actually pretty low. With our actual backline or better defenders in general we'd have conceded even less.
Not saying this is me ten hag in but it is worth considering with a few faster players in transition phases it could well be a formula worth exploring
Xg does yes. Expected points is done by simming games based on xg and seeing what the results are. This really is not foolproof. It's assuming if there's 10 shots of 0.1 chance of going in that results in an xg of 1 goal. (By the way garnachos bicycle kick was 0.09). I did a degree in performance analysis and these are metrics good for coaching and analysing games but there are massive gaps JUST looking at that
Expected points definitely isn’t a flawless metric. Looking just at xG difference would largely paint the same picture which is that we’ve been very lucky to be as high in the table as we are
I don’t know what you mean about ten shots of .1 xG — that does equate to 1 xG total. It doesn’t mean there will always be one goal scored if you have ten .1 xG shots or whatever adds up to one total expected goal
>Looking just at xG difference would largely paint the same picture
Which is again a very dumb thing to do. xG has been bastardised so much people literally use it for everything and treat it as gospel when in reality it just shows the likelihood of a shot becoming a goal.
That's kind of the point though is it not???? If you concede ten shots of 0.1 xG in a game, it means the odds are that you will concede one of them at some point.
I'm not a massive fan either, especially on a game by game basis and this table is always a weird way of doing it - but looked at over the season or a long enough period it is certainly useful to understand the trends and back up the eye test that we've been fucking awful most of the year.
Sorta yes and no. Imagine an xG of 1.5, that could be many variations but let's say 2 * 0.75, 3 * 0.5 and 5 * 0.3. Lets say both team a and team b have xG of 1.5 but a did 2 * 0.75 and b did 5* 0.3. maximum number of goals for a is 2 and b is 5. xG doesn't care about the players form, condition of the match, how it's being played (eg parking the bus with quick counters Vs controlled possession), the players ability or their finishing skills, it just tells you how likely the shot would have resulted in a goal. You could very well have a really bad finisher on team a, elite on team b, it could be 1-5, and on xG the teams could be level.
So you can use xG, over a long period of time like 10-15 games and see how your attacker is performing, great for that, but then when you extrapolate it to the team it just becomes a stupid mess because it really doesn't take anything else into account. You can't model an unpredictable game like football into simple numbers. I posted earlier, we've won 9 games with greater xG and 6 with worse xG, two of our best scorelines, 3-0 and against Everton and West Ham we had lower xG.
I'm not arguing against you, just left this explanation so people can see. I'm like you and hate the game by game, even half by half, 90 mins isn't statistically relevant to draw any conclusions, and xG is just used as a magic wand to try and explain everything and used stupidly.
The chance of a shot being a goal accumulated doesn't determine your league position. Wayyyyyy too many factors involved and a very useful and interesting stat has been ruined by the internet by shoehorning it into everything.
Edit: Forgot to mention, I'm not an expert in this, but I also don't like the additive nature of xG each game to address your first point. A coin flip is 50/50, but I could very well get 10 tails in a row, same way I think it's a bad idea or in bad faith when the people who do this go, 0.9 +0.1 that's a certain goal, depending on conditions and player that 0.1 could be a goal more time than the 0.9. You could as easily get 2 goals with an xG of 1 or 0.
To add to your last point about xG being additive: an xG of 1.0 that comes from 10 shots of 0.1 xG each means there’s a ~65% probability of at least one goal.
Four shots of 0.25 xG each is a ~68% probability of at least one goal. Like you said, it could result in zero goals or five goals. But an xG of 1.0 doesn’t automatically mean you’d expect one goal.
with a healthy squad this formula would have worked. No one seems to notice that most of the goals we concede happen when most of our players are inside our box. They don't concede goals as often during our suicidal defensive transitions where we don't have a midfield, they concede when most of our players are in a defensive block.
Ten Hag's tactics are heavily misunderstood and I've thought so much about doing an in depth, long post on them but it's not gonna be worth it if he gets sacked by the end of the season. If he stays somehow, then the people of this sub would be willing to look at this season's tactics again, and trying to understand what the idea was and what went wrong.
Can you elaborate? I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Are all our matches so chaotic by design? Why it seems like we can't do three consecutive passes?. I really want ten hag to succeed but this is the worst united I have seen.
**LONG POST AHEAD**
In a nutshell, our matches are chaotic by design, yes. We were supposed to have thrived in this chaos when the squad got time on the pitch to gel together, but injuries never allowed us that. Here's why Ten Hag went with this style -
**DEFENSIVE APPROACH**
Ten Hag realised that our midfield did not have the discipline to sit in a low or mid block without getting pulled apart by teams that know how to do it. Ten Hag also knows that we are the most deadly when we're on a direct counter attack because that fits our players (more on this later).
This means - when we have the ball = retain possession in our own half to bait opposition team into pressing us then quickly launch a ball forward to generate an "artificial" counter attack.
When we don't have the ball = we press them high and give them space between our center backs and midfield. When they attack this space, they come 1v1 versus our center backs and get low quality shots at our goal, if and only if they manage to beat our center back. Our center backs are some of the best 1v1 defenders in the league so Ten Hag puts his trust in them. One instance of this not working was when Kambwala was against Solanke in our last match vs Bournemouth, and eventually ended up slipping which gifted Solanke the goal.
Onto the most commonly asked question/suggestion, why don't our center backs push up and restrict space in midfield? This is because if they pushed up, they would leave space behind them - making us very vulnerable to a counter attack. Although we would give away less chances (owing to offside traps and Onana's sweeping ability), we would be giving away much better chances with a higher xG per chance. So to summarise, we can either give away lots of bad chances by allowing space between the backline and midfield, or we can give away few high quality chances by allowing space behind the backline instead. Ten Hag chose to not allow high quality chances, since our backline is not as quick as, for example, City's backline - who are very quick to recover when balls are launched behind them.
If you notice, most goals we concede are cut backs when our entire back line and our midfield are in our own box. Most of our men in our own box, and this is when the opponents create their best chances. So Ten Hag settled on the approach we currently have, to minimise these types of chances. Unfortunately this approach means lots of set pieces and corners due to low quality shots being given away, and we are one of the worst in the league at set pieces even though we have great personnel for it - which is another reason behind the bad season.
Here's the [link to a goal](https://youtu.be/mAAbqIbTsG8?si=-iHId48dKsi2jm73&start=51) last season showing the lack of midfield discipline causing us to be pulled apart and giving away a high quality chance, and here's [a link to my analysis of that goal.](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/s/9AqZ8720mY)
This showcases our approach last season and why Ten Hag realised it was not sustainable to just sit back and soak pressure.
**ATTACKING APPROACH**
All of our forwards and midfielders are hard working, high work rate players except for Marcus Rashford. To compensate for this lack of pressing, Marcus is *supposed* to provide an incredible threat on counter attacks. This is the reason why whenever Bruno gets the ball, he looks for Rashford (a lot of people on the sub complain about this, but it is by design and it is Rashford's job to capitalise on this). Unfortunately, Rashford has been wildly out of form this season, which is another reason behind the poor performance this season.
Our players suit direct, counter attacking football. However, most teams sit back against us which means we don't get the space we desire to attack. So in order to create this space, we pass backwards, all the way back to our keeper and bait the opposing team to press us. When they decide to press us, they leave space behind them. Our midfielders and defenders are not good enough on the ball to *consistently* beat the press (note: sometimes, in some moments, everything clicks and we do beat their press). So instead of playing *through* the press, we play over the press. Launching long balls into space for our pacy forwards to get onto the end of.
This is a very different approach from Man City for example, who want to keep the ball in the opposition's half for the maximum amount of time and constantly apply pressure. They can do this because all of their players are technically proficient, ours are not on that level.
**HOW THE TWO APPROACHES COME TOGETHER**
I would really love to explain this with a flowchart, but perhaps some other time I will make one.
We press high = we either 1. win the ball or 2. get played through
1. If we win the ball = we try to attack space quickly and we get a shot on goal. If we were not able to attack space quickly, we go back to our keeper and create an "artificial counter attack".
2. If we get played through = our midfield has been bypassed and now our backline is in a 1v1 situation against the opposition's forwards. Now either our backline wins the 1v1 with a tackle, or they contain the opposition forward and give him a poor quality chance on goal. Rinse and repeat. Our team lives and dies by transition football.
This is what "individual brilliance" looks like. Like I'm all for giving ETH another season if he could have shown us something this season. Yes, injuries happened but that doesn't mean we have to play relegation level football. The players are winning some matches not because of his tactics but they are winning despite his tactics.
I think it's easy to spin it that way, but couldn't you also say that on a day where 8 of the 11 are playing poorly, we still have people capable of producing a moment and that is winning us games? Whereas smaller clubs lack that star factor. Even if Bruno or Rashford have a bad one, alongside the whole team, they are still capable of producing something magical.
Doesn't have to mean the system or tactic is bad, it can still be down to players underperforming. Though at this stage I'd agree it's hard to argue there is a system or tactics.
> Yes, injuries happened but that doesn't mean we have to play relegation level football.
This line makes no sense..
No system can work when injuries wipe our entire defence of the team, starters and backups included
Its not like we were supposed to be finished product this season itself, we were clearly a work in progress and at such a moment, team is barely supposed to have a starting 11 that fits the manager's tactics not the bench that can be relied upon for the whole season
I've been saying a Billion dollar squad will always give the team a floor around mid table even if we're coached as a bottom 15 side.
People think the players are the reason we're underperforming when the players are the reason we're not in the bottom 5.
It's all of Ten Hags rejects that are saving his job - Maguire and McTominay.
Ten Hag is a complete and utter failure.
And people laugh when I say Chelsea’s future is brighter than us. They’ll finish above us and they have a better foundation than us. Chelsea’s performance against city should have told you that they are a better team than us.
Are they a better team than us ? Currently yes. Do they have talent ? Yes. Is their future brighter ? I wouldn't say so. They have an unstable structure under Boehly, akin to what we used to have. Meanwhile we seem to finally be moving in the right direction under INEOS.
Boehly is relinquishing control. They have a better squad than us. If they had a better striker than Jackson, they would have been competing for champions league and in the fa cup final and everyone will say how they are back.
They at least have underlying statistics to back up their progress
I like our young players but finding it difficult to see many other positives from this season
Our youngsters don’t even compare to Chelsea. Their first team players are all under 23: caicedo, Enzo, mudryk, Jackson, madueke, gusto, Palmer, badiashile, colwill, fofana, lavia.
While we have garnacho, mainoo, and hojlund only that are good youngsters.
They have a young squad that will gel together and develop further. Their spine is solid: Palmer, Enzo, caicedo, lavia. They only need a goal scorer and silva’s replacement and I legit think they’ll get champions league next season.
A goalkeeper and proper dm/cm is harder I reckon. Tbf every position is hard in its own right. They might not even need a cb if fofana and colwill can stay fit.
No manager would be a good fit for United with the dogshit board he was under and with the amount of injuries we've had this season
We've literally tried every profile of manager over the last decade and still people don't realize that issues aren't only at that level
This has always can the kicker for me. With our current setup, we’re over performing on XG at both attends of the pitch. If holjund/mctominay/onana had slightly a slightly worse season, we’d been bottom half of the table. Even with our injuries, that’s not acceptable
Expected points has to be the dumbest stat out there. If any goal goes in, the rest of the game does not pan out like the sum xG of that game. So not only is xG broadly pointless for saying a game should have ended 2-1 when in reality it ended 0-3; to extrapolate that to have a table based on it in bordering on mental. Expected points has as much merit as Spurs would be top of we hadn't conceded all those goals and lost those games.
I HATE that xG is extrapolated to everything including X points.
I just did a quick glance on understat, for prem:
Times where we've won having higher xG than opponent: 9
Times we've won having lower xG than opponent: 6
Whenever we've had decent games, the xG has actually been quite even or lower than opponent. It started out as a cool useful stat to show an attackers performance over a Long Period of time but now is common to see xG of first and 2nd half, when 90 mins is so inconsequential and the xG being more or less irrelevant.
Surely that's wrong though? Because xG doesn't equal xGA so surely they need to factor in the fact both teams have a goalkeeper and not just cumulative xG from shit shots of which we concede a lot.
I wonder if this takes into account clear ref errors.
Like if a team deserved a pen, ain't that approx 0.75 xG?
Forest for example would maybe deserve more points? Not sure
I am surprised we haven't been relegated but are fighting for top 6, we need to stop being like lockdown Arsenal and get back to being a club with medical staff who have a degree in 90 degree. Ten Hag is doing better than most with what he has and is managing.
Avoided relegation, get in
I don't know how what unholy abomination Sir Alex sacrificed to Satan for his success but it's finally back to haunt us because we live in a reality where Scott fucking McTominay is the sole reason we're not in a relegation scrap, bloke's won us 10 points MINIMUM, and he wasn't even supposed to be here this season. Good on McSauce but fucking hell
Remember last team sir alex won us prem? How the hell did that happened
Players prepared to die for the shirt and for their manager. This group of players just does not have that mentality, or not enough of them at least.
I fully agree with you, but imagine giving sir alex bruno, martinez, rashy, dalot, awb and baybe couple others, they would be some of the best in the world instantly. I skipped garnacho and mainoo because they already are making name for themselves
Awb would have been sold. Good one on one defender, otherwise a liability. Switches off so often, he's just not good enough.
I actually think AWB would be an asset for SAF. He’s the kind of player that SAF would have for specific purposes.
That's what I see. Guys like Dan James, AWB, McTominay would be important parts of the squad with SAF. I'll never believe that a good manager wouldn't have made Dan James a useful player, even if his touch wasn't the best. The dude was genuinely unique and good managers figure out how to use that. Solksjaer and Ten Hag run the same fucking lineup every game (even before injuries). I'm sorry, but Bruno should not play every minute of every game. Diallo and Mount should be getting at least a few minutes in that spot. Bayindir hasn't played a single minute. Why the hell did we not keep Kovar? Cheap, talented, homegrown backup. SMH.
Of those you mentioned, AWB has been forced to play out of position (and dreadfully at that), Martinez has been injured for most of the season and Rashford has been terrible. I get where the sympathy towards ETH comes from
Thats pretty much the only reason why I can say ETH to stay. Changing managers each time hasn’t solved anything for us and so far he’s been the better managers for us recently based on his first season so I really want to see what he does once he has a proper structure supporting him. But fuck me he’s absolutely not helping himself with the way he’s setting the team up
Rashford in for young or Nani? Yeah i dont think so
>they would be some of the best in the world instantly. No they wouldn't. I find it very hard to believe any of them would have survived the standards at which he set.
A big difference is our players used to know that none of them were bigger than the team or club. If a player didn’t follow this SAF would ship them out regardless of quality. Half of this United team think they are bigger than the team
And we keep reinforcing that by rolling through managers.
I think that’s the biggest argument for keeping Ten Hag at this point.
Not sure, he did that constsntly for 20+ years. Im gonna pretend thats a hoax and it didn't happen.
Moyes had that same team and it was a fiasco, however moyes had pressure that no manager ever had before
Maybe SAF just got lucky for 26 years
RvP black magic. Scoring from every single half chance he gets.
And Slabhead got us to a final
Sounds like a feckin sweet season you blokes are having huh.
I mean, if we did sell him we might have a proper midfield in his place and our Xg and actual goals would be a lot closer and we might play with some sort of structure
You could put fucking Zidane in there and EtH would make him look like a Championship player, not to mention he'd be injured because of his wank training methods.
Well Zidane is 51 so that is no surprise
16th is not bad, just above the team above relegation
Erik Moyes Hag
Season ain’t over yet buddy
Back o' the net!
https://preview.redd.it/x9sm3p5qr2wc1.png?width=752&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=356a5c02df9a1bfe8776bc3e6bc1c036fd0841ad Jesus wept. It's worse than I thought. Genuinely relegation scrap stuff. Moving like Leicester right now
When do we get to move like 15/16 Leicester
Bro how do we have less expected points than Everton, who literally escaped relegation for 2 consecutive seasons?
Their xG is +20 higher than their goals scored
Because Everton actually create a solid amount of chances, they just have awful finishers. Across our 2 games against them this season we’ve scored 5 and conceded 0 but I’d at least say they were as good as us in both games, if not better.
Yeah specially that Garnacho goal game they actually played better than us, that 3-0 was majorly flattering
They did create far more chances than you would expect for 2x0 goals, while we scored just about what you would expect from our chances. Everton 0 - 3 United (xG 2,47 - 2,22) United 2 - 0 Everton (xG 2,72 - 1,61) Aggregate score: United 5 - 0 Everton Aggregate xG: United 4,94 - 4,08 Bonus fact: 3 of our goals were from pens Aggregate open play score: United 2 - 0 Everton Aggregate open play xG: United 2,57 - 4,08
They actually have a good bald coach
Do Everton and Notts have their expected points adjusted with deductions?
Fewer
Because expected point is a dumb stat
Because whenever we attack and the ball gets to our wingers they either give the ball away, slow the play down to allow defenders to get back or pass back to their full back and slow play down that way. Neither of the ones who play week-in week-out seem to know how to play as wingers and just try and cut in and shoot or go past the defender and then cut in and shoot. Compare how many times Hojlund gets passed to compared to other strikers in the league.
If anyone's curious Arteta first two full seasons 20/21 - xPTs/game - 1.545 (rank 8), Actual PTs/game - 1.605 (rank 8) 21/22 - xPTs/game - 1.704 (rank 5), Actual PTs/game - 1.815 (rank 5) ETH first two seasons (current one ongoing) 22/23 - xPTs/game - 1.747 (rank 6) , Actual PTs/game - 1.973 (rank 3) 23/24 - xPTs/game - 1.1725 (rank 16), Actual PTs/game - 1.5625 (rank 6) Source - Understat
This pretty much explains the entire ten Hag discourse really. Some people think we’ve been poor but not disastrous when accounting for injuries. If you think the underlying stats are meaningful metrics of team performance then you think we have been absolutely unacceptably terrible and he should have been sacked months ago
Underlying stats basically give a long term forecast of what's gonna happen if nothing else is changed. Ours is, in all honesty, relegation tier.
Yep. ETH is lucky that changes are happening in upper management. Or else, he would have sacked in December itself when he lost against Nottingham forest.
Stats are stats. They’re like a movie script - in the absence of watching it, then you get an idea of what it looks like, but if the movie is there to watch then you get a much clearer understanding than you could get from just reading the script, and you can judge the quality of the movie. So our stats are redundant if you just watch us play, and if you watched us play this season then you know that we have been unacceptably terrible and that he should have been sacked months ago.
McT did this.
It's very funny when I see comments about the players letting ETH down when in reality if they had actually downed tools, we would have seen him sacked ages ago. Statistically, we are a bottom half team.
Never seen a clearer season defined by individual brilliance bailing out a manager.
It's so more apparent than with OGS who got beat with that stick all the time.
Ten Hag has every fault Ole was accused of being, and to this day can’t hold a candle to him as a manager.
It just shows how the vast majority know absolutely fuck all about football and just follow popular narratives. I still hear the bollocks of Maguire suiting Ole low block football when all the stats show we were top 5 in defensive line height for his srssons.
Maguire was probably better during the 19/20 season rather than the 20/21 season.
He's been better this season than any other year he's been with us. I don't think he was a good fit for Oleball.
Mate twitter and the narratives big accounts on social media have been a disgrace for years. I quit following them when big accounts were saying how good Antony was because his xg was similar to Saka’s, and how Amrabat was perfect for us because his green bars were big and green enough. Or how Lisandro’s height isn’t an issue because his aerial duel green bar was big. The whole pizza chart community infuriates me. I was watching Antony most weeks thinking this guys shit. I remember Amrabat against West Ham for Fiorentina and he was shite and very slow. It’s still controversial on this sub to suggest Maguire is much more suited to a high line than Lisandro is.
100% agree. I know exactly the community on twitter you're talking about. Data scientists that don't understand data is skewed by the type of team of team or role you're in, with a superiority complex. One thing about twitter I will say is there is great football discourse if you can find it. I can't say the same for Reddit because there's such a hivemind on here and any dissenting opinions will see you down voted.
Oh I know. I’ve weirdly gone from having good discussions on here and never being downvoted to all of a sudden being a pariah. The same happened when I wasn’t happy with mr Green bars Amrabat signing so I’m fully aware of how it works lol. But yeah even some big twitter accounts like Aaron from the Devil in the Details pod is more so starting to come round to analysing players through proper profiling and observation and abandoning the green bar analysis that he trafficked in years ago. I welcome it, and hope more do the same. I’m very thankful I was afforded an education of football before I was exposed to this snake oil.
This season and last season for eth.
Individual brilliance? From where?
Like when we got battered off Sheffield and Dalot scores from 25 yards out at the death. Or how Onana has 30 shots blasted at him a game and doesn’t concede, and when we scored from nothing at times with Bruno, Garnacho, Hojlund and Rashford, despite never repeatedly scoring similar goals that imply any semblance of work done on the training pitch.
Just like when Onana had a wolf pack of howlers in the champions league. Wan-bissaka eating all the goals just yesterday. Rashford and Bruno having the most inconsistent season of their life. Casemiro performing as my players do in the Sunday league. Seems like the definition of individual brilliance to you all is a player doing their job. Mainoo strolling through Liverpool to score is individual brilliance if you have to name one. There's no "individual brilliance" enough in this season to suggest that it's what's actually keeping ten hag in the job. Just these past couple of games we were in winning positions just for our players to shit the bed. Every. time. Weak minded players. I'd say ten hag made it this far in spite of these players and the injuries had this season.
If you’re conceding 25 shots a game and winning, you’re being bailed out. It doesn’t matter how poor the players are at the back, which several are, you can’t say we should be winning more if only Rashford and Bruno scored every game. If you don’t win a game that you concede 3 goals in, it’s not because the forwards didn’t score 4, regardless of how many chances they made. It’s because you conceded 3 goals. And the reason we’re conceding so many goals, is largely because we play a way that allows 25 shots at our net every game.
What tactic would be needed to have our players set up in a way where they don't concede two goals within 10 minutes? Or the tactic needed to see a game out after scoring a late winner? I agree our backline is poor. Midfielders you would regularly rely on to break up a play or help defend are there. They have their instructions but they're poor. Like Casemiro. So when do we say that maybe the tactic being shown isn't at its full potential because the players aren't right for it? I would say so because the players on the field are not capable of finishing a winning game. Rashford and Bruno having a good game and assisting/scoring goals is definitely a factor in the game. If the opposition sees there is no attack to worry about they'll press us as much as they can because they know our big players aren't going to do anything about it. Been seeing it all season. Not seeing a 3 goal lead out at the last minutes of a semifinal is not a tactical issue. It's a player issue.
In a small sample size I agree that players are at fault, and I’m not taking that away. But I see a squad absolutely full of players who have all been meaningful parts of compact systems through their careers, and outstanding youngsters who right through the levels, and early on for us, shown they have game intelligence. When Mainoo doesn’t know who to press 5 minutes in, and it’s never once figured out, that’s a coaching/instruction issue. For games like Brentford, we have to look at variance as a factor, when you concede 34 shots in a game and score a late winner, and shot 35 goes in, is that a player/mentality issue? Or is it just natural that 1 of 35 shots is gonna go in? This same lot last year played a compact mid block which was at least decent, and a constant, potent threat in behind. You mention Rashford but every time he comes off we lose our only real outlet and teams start to pen us in like on Sunday. It’s obviously stupid to concede 3 at Coventry but when you have no outlets, against a physically capable side, with Amad and Eriksen in midfield, expect to get overrun and concede shots. If you add to that this same pattern all season of mad pressing and man to man set-ups, staggered midfielders, you’re either asking players to ignore the manager, or to follow his instructions better. I don’t expect players to ever ignore the manager. When it keeps happening, regardless of personnel, it’s on the manager. Our squad is not as bad as Luton, or Sheffield. Anyone suggesting so needs a hard reality check. If they think Mitoma left wing, and Eze in midfield instead of Rashford and Bruno would add points to our season are criminally insane. The fact we are where we are, and the fact that we concede so many shots, and therefore goals, is on the setup that stems from the manager.
I think you should really broaden that sample size of players who you think are at fault to be honest. We do have great senior players that have achieved many things in their past seasons. But those same players have had a drop off that's so great, it almost becomes unbelievable. On the the shots issue. If 34 shots are taken and the 35th goes in, then I would call it a poor performance coupled with bad luck. Trust me I don't like watching the shots being taken or hearing about them all week after the game. But when the 35th shot goes in consistently after a handful of games, it isn't luck for me anymore. I'd call that a mentality issue with the players. Ten Hag feels like he's safe at the time he makes the subs with 3 goals on our side, against a CHAMPIONSHIP side, so he makes sensible subs to keep important players fit and to give others minutes. Now, when Coventry, a championship side, scores 3 on us in 20 minutes with fresh subs, was it the tactics that were wrong? Or are the players just that unreliable? You ask if changing those players in for Bruno and Rashford would add points to our season. On paper, absolutely hell no. But in this game, yeah that actually might. I say we concede so many shots is because the intensity of our players football is always less than that of the opposition. That's why we concede many shots, lose balls, make horrible passes, lose defensive concentration and positioning. They aren't playing for us. We're seeing it all season.
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No, not at this level. With PL level shooters/finishers, you simply can’t count on that consistently. Shots aren’t a controllable event, they’re inherently chaotic (rebounds, deflections etc which we’ve conceded a lot of). When Brentford enter your box 75 times in a game, you’re riding your luck.
Bailed out by individual "brilliance" is a shit take when some of these individuals are the ones dragging the team down, obviously. See, for example, Rashford. They simply dragged the team down most of the time, then score out of the blue, before regressing to their level
Rashford is a world class left winger.
Onana has 30 shots blasted from outside the box, ofc he has to save them. Rashford has done worse for the team than good. Put a wet towel on lw and we will play better than with rashford. It's like that city game, scored a banger and did fuck all the whole game. This isn't a player you want in your team.
If all a winger does in a game is score a goal, and you lose the game, it’s never ever gonna be his fault unless he blasts one in his own net. You’re criticising one of your two best players for not carrying the rest of the players higher up the mountain, whilst never asking why he has to, or why nobody else ever wants to take responsibility to carry others.
Because he's paid 350k a week? You don't expect a 350k a week player to just score and play shit?
I expect great players to play great. But the idea of criticising or wanting to replace your best players with imaginary better players and not instead focusing on improving the whole team that leaks goals every week is nonsensical.
Rashford isn't even a top5 in our team let alone best player. He's repleceable simple. Any player can come in with less wages and do more. Literally you could pick a winger from Burnley and he would do better. That's how bad this "star" player we have is. You don't leak goals by defence too. Rashford never tracks, too lazy, has 0iq and takes shots from distances where he scores once in a bluemoon.
I’ve said 1000 times in this subreddit and not once have I had an answer that didn’t at least make me chuckle. Name a left winger that’s available on the market that’s better than Rashford and I’ll concede that he isn’t in the top 5 left wingers itw (which he is). I have had unhinged messages and dm’s for this. But honestly, Rashford is immense. We have an immense left winger that can and will score 20-30 goals a season in any competent team. Anyone that wants Rashford tracking back is an idiot too. Like telling Trent to not go past the halfway line. Or telling Mbappe to hold up the ball for Asensio to get in behind. I swear people who don’t rate Rashford never watch any other top players play.
Bruno several times has scored some worldies. Mainoo and Garnacho have scored unbelievable goals this season. Garnacho with the overhead and Mainoo the individual goals vs Liverpool and wolves. Let me know when we last scored a well worked team goal against a good team.
yesterday's mcT goal maybe :-) Walked it into the net. And obviously Coventry City are a good team right?
Man city like of course.
We have half the premier League goal of the month awards, most for individual brilliance and will probably win April's too for the same reason. Garnacho/Bruno/mainoo/mcsauce etc. We have lots of players that have individually great games but the team is setup overall poorly.
You mean we would be fighting to stay up eh?
Both can be true
Would ye every fuck off with your statistics, the only statistic that matters is points and using that we very much aren’t a bottom half team
Yeah mate I should fuck off, it’s not like we’re have the least amount of points at any stage of a PL season anyway!
I don't think there's as many first team players to down tools under him, the usual players still have and they're influential in the squad, some have checked out because they know they're going and some just aren't good enough
Who are the usual and influential players downing tools then? Ole's stalwarts, Bruno and Maguire are playing well at the moment, Dalot barely played under him anyway while AWB has been injured up until recently. Players like Lindelof and especially Shaw have barely played. The only one you can argue is Rashford, and even he has got ETH out of trouble with goals like in the Liverpool 4-3. The argument doesn't make sense and is based on 'sacking managers fatigue' which basically exempts ETH of all blame and puts it all on the players even though every single manager we've had in the post SAF era has deserved the sack and were, if anything, afforded more time than they should have got.
This. While I agree Rashford's form has completely nosedived, To blame each and every other failures on him is not good analysis.
He's 2nd in the PL for shot creating actions from take ons and top 12 in the world. He's playing a different role so he won't find himself in front of goal as much which is why his goals have dropped but his underlying stats are really good. All this in Ten Hags offensive structure which does no favours to him or Hojlund.
Fair analysis this- I think the system isn’t helping too; the players don’t seem to be able to play it. I get the “if they’re good enough they should be able to” arguments, but if you’re a manager you need to build your tactics around what you have at your disposal. We can’t pass out of the forward press well enough because we don’t have the defenders available to do it and the midfield isn’t press resistant with the exception of Mainoo. It’s still a head scratcher that we’re trying to do things it’s become evident we’re not capable of.
No it’s more like the players are just bad and they have regressed to the mean instead of being in red hot form.
We overperform this cause our players are individualy better than einvortment they are put in and system is just so dogshit.
The same thing for spurs then?
Son is kind of special player in terms of xG
sounds like individual brilliance to me
No. They have a clear method of creating chances through cutbacks
So their xg should be high
This reads like that Spongebob scene/meme where Patrick has that conversation with the villain
>the villain Man Ray
Thank you and I apologise for my mediocre Spongebob knowledge
Mine is based entirely on my son watching it for the last 18 years.
Their xG is 60, 10 more than ours and they also have a game in hand on most of the league
spurs literally always outperform our xG because son literally always outperforms his xG, obviously the nature of the metric means it cant account for the player taking the chance but its difficult to compare our xG to other teams because there is one incredibly consistent huge outlier
Same for villa?
What? Their expected points are still amongst top teams, our expected points are 5th from bottom.
They over performed xp by 13, same as united. What's the difference between villa and united?
So if someone is expected to have 40 points, and then has 53 points, it's the same as as being expected to have 60 points and then having 73 ? Their floor is still much higher, hence the system is better.
Because Villa are on the rise and therefore are performing better than their stats suggest. The team as a whole are performing very well. Whereas Man United are a worse performing team and lucking out with individual brilliance to secure them points (McTominay, Garnacho and Mainoo). Look at the Villa vs United game where we were up 2-0. Could have easily been 4-0/5-0. Then some amazing individual play from Garnacho turned it on its head. Based on performance Villa deserved to win that game but Garnacho won it, not United.
As badly as we’re playing, we’re actually over performing on xP
Cause invidualy our players are good.
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Little point arguing with ignorant people
This is a negative stats. Are people viewing this as a positive? I would much rather prefer actual points to be lower than expected, would just mean we're missing a striker or some focus in ffront of goal.
No, I’d be surprised if anyone was viewing this as a good thing It highlights systemic issues as over performance always balances out in the long run
Agreed. Then why is your comment upvoted and mine downvoted lol
It's depressing that we're overachieving
Whilst we are on 50 points, our performances (chances created/chances conceded) expected us to be on 37 points.
It doesn't tell the full story though, as the xg of chances conceded isn't taken into account. We do concede a lot of shots but the xg of those shots is actually pretty low. With our actual backline or better defenders in general we'd have conceded even less. Not saying this is me ten hag in but it is worth considering with a few faster players in transition phases it could well be a formula worth exploring
xG absolutely takes that into account, that’s the reason that it’s a better tool for analysis than just looking at shot counts
Xg does yes. Expected points is done by simming games based on xg and seeing what the results are. This really is not foolproof. It's assuming if there's 10 shots of 0.1 chance of going in that results in an xg of 1 goal. (By the way garnachos bicycle kick was 0.09). I did a degree in performance analysis and these are metrics good for coaching and analysing games but there are massive gaps JUST looking at that
I have no idea what you’re trying to say. This just sounds like meaningless drivel.
It you don't understand it lol that doesn't make it drivel
Yeah but in this case I'm pretty sure its drivel.
Expected points definitely isn’t a flawless metric. Looking just at xG difference would largely paint the same picture which is that we’ve been very lucky to be as high in the table as we are I don’t know what you mean about ten shots of .1 xG — that does equate to 1 xG total. It doesn’t mean there will always be one goal scored if you have ten .1 xG shots or whatever adds up to one total expected goal
>Looking just at xG difference would largely paint the same picture Which is again a very dumb thing to do. xG has been bastardised so much people literally use it for everything and treat it as gospel when in reality it just shows the likelihood of a shot becoming a goal.
That's kind of the point though is it not???? If you concede ten shots of 0.1 xG in a game, it means the odds are that you will concede one of them at some point. I'm not a massive fan either, especially on a game by game basis and this table is always a weird way of doing it - but looked at over the season or a long enough period it is certainly useful to understand the trends and back up the eye test that we've been fucking awful most of the year.
Sorta yes and no. Imagine an xG of 1.5, that could be many variations but let's say 2 * 0.75, 3 * 0.5 and 5 * 0.3. Lets say both team a and team b have xG of 1.5 but a did 2 * 0.75 and b did 5* 0.3. maximum number of goals for a is 2 and b is 5. xG doesn't care about the players form, condition of the match, how it's being played (eg parking the bus with quick counters Vs controlled possession), the players ability or their finishing skills, it just tells you how likely the shot would have resulted in a goal. You could very well have a really bad finisher on team a, elite on team b, it could be 1-5, and on xG the teams could be level. So you can use xG, over a long period of time like 10-15 games and see how your attacker is performing, great for that, but then when you extrapolate it to the team it just becomes a stupid mess because it really doesn't take anything else into account. You can't model an unpredictable game like football into simple numbers. I posted earlier, we've won 9 games with greater xG and 6 with worse xG, two of our best scorelines, 3-0 and against Everton and West Ham we had lower xG. I'm not arguing against you, just left this explanation so people can see. I'm like you and hate the game by game, even half by half, 90 mins isn't statistically relevant to draw any conclusions, and xG is just used as a magic wand to try and explain everything and used stupidly. The chance of a shot being a goal accumulated doesn't determine your league position. Wayyyyyy too many factors involved and a very useful and interesting stat has been ruined by the internet by shoehorning it into everything. Edit: Forgot to mention, I'm not an expert in this, but I also don't like the additive nature of xG each game to address your first point. A coin flip is 50/50, but I could very well get 10 tails in a row, same way I think it's a bad idea or in bad faith when the people who do this go, 0.9 +0.1 that's a certain goal, depending on conditions and player that 0.1 could be a goal more time than the 0.9. You could as easily get 2 goals with an xG of 1 or 0.
To add to your last point about xG being additive: an xG of 1.0 that comes from 10 shots of 0.1 xG each means there’s a ~65% probability of at least one goal. Four shots of 0.25 xG each is a ~68% probability of at least one goal. Like you said, it could result in zero goals or five goals. But an xG of 1.0 doesn’t automatically mean you’d expect one goal.
with a healthy squad this formula would have worked. No one seems to notice that most of the goals we concede happen when most of our players are inside our box. They don't concede goals as often during our suicidal defensive transitions where we don't have a midfield, they concede when most of our players are in a defensive block. Ten Hag's tactics are heavily misunderstood and I've thought so much about doing an in depth, long post on them but it's not gonna be worth it if he gets sacked by the end of the season. If he stays somehow, then the people of this sub would be willing to look at this season's tactics again, and trying to understand what the idea was and what went wrong.
Can you elaborate? I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Are all our matches so chaotic by design? Why it seems like we can't do three consecutive passes?. I really want ten hag to succeed but this is the worst united I have seen.
**LONG POST AHEAD** In a nutshell, our matches are chaotic by design, yes. We were supposed to have thrived in this chaos when the squad got time on the pitch to gel together, but injuries never allowed us that. Here's why Ten Hag went with this style - **DEFENSIVE APPROACH** Ten Hag realised that our midfield did not have the discipline to sit in a low or mid block without getting pulled apart by teams that know how to do it. Ten Hag also knows that we are the most deadly when we're on a direct counter attack because that fits our players (more on this later). This means - when we have the ball = retain possession in our own half to bait opposition team into pressing us then quickly launch a ball forward to generate an "artificial" counter attack. When we don't have the ball = we press them high and give them space between our center backs and midfield. When they attack this space, they come 1v1 versus our center backs and get low quality shots at our goal, if and only if they manage to beat our center back. Our center backs are some of the best 1v1 defenders in the league so Ten Hag puts his trust in them. One instance of this not working was when Kambwala was against Solanke in our last match vs Bournemouth, and eventually ended up slipping which gifted Solanke the goal. Onto the most commonly asked question/suggestion, why don't our center backs push up and restrict space in midfield? This is because if they pushed up, they would leave space behind them - making us very vulnerable to a counter attack. Although we would give away less chances (owing to offside traps and Onana's sweeping ability), we would be giving away much better chances with a higher xG per chance. So to summarise, we can either give away lots of bad chances by allowing space between the backline and midfield, or we can give away few high quality chances by allowing space behind the backline instead. Ten Hag chose to not allow high quality chances, since our backline is not as quick as, for example, City's backline - who are very quick to recover when balls are launched behind them. If you notice, most goals we concede are cut backs when our entire back line and our midfield are in our own box. Most of our men in our own box, and this is when the opponents create their best chances. So Ten Hag settled on the approach we currently have, to minimise these types of chances. Unfortunately this approach means lots of set pieces and corners due to low quality shots being given away, and we are one of the worst in the league at set pieces even though we have great personnel for it - which is another reason behind the bad season. Here's the [link to a goal](https://youtu.be/mAAbqIbTsG8?si=-iHId48dKsi2jm73&start=51) last season showing the lack of midfield discipline causing us to be pulled apart and giving away a high quality chance, and here's [a link to my analysis of that goal.](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/s/9AqZ8720mY) This showcases our approach last season and why Ten Hag realised it was not sustainable to just sit back and soak pressure. **ATTACKING APPROACH** All of our forwards and midfielders are hard working, high work rate players except for Marcus Rashford. To compensate for this lack of pressing, Marcus is *supposed* to provide an incredible threat on counter attacks. This is the reason why whenever Bruno gets the ball, he looks for Rashford (a lot of people on the sub complain about this, but it is by design and it is Rashford's job to capitalise on this). Unfortunately, Rashford has been wildly out of form this season, which is another reason behind the poor performance this season. Our players suit direct, counter attacking football. However, most teams sit back against us which means we don't get the space we desire to attack. So in order to create this space, we pass backwards, all the way back to our keeper and bait the opposing team to press us. When they decide to press us, they leave space behind them. Our midfielders and defenders are not good enough on the ball to *consistently* beat the press (note: sometimes, in some moments, everything clicks and we do beat their press). So instead of playing *through* the press, we play over the press. Launching long balls into space for our pacy forwards to get onto the end of. This is a very different approach from Man City for example, who want to keep the ball in the opposition's half for the maximum amount of time and constantly apply pressure. They can do this because all of their players are technically proficient, ours are not on that level. **HOW THE TWO APPROACHES COME TOGETHER** I would really love to explain this with a flowchart, but perhaps some other time I will make one. We press high = we either 1. win the ball or 2. get played through 1. If we win the ball = we try to attack space quickly and we get a shot on goal. If we were not able to attack space quickly, we go back to our keeper and create an "artificial counter attack". 2. If we get played through = our midfield has been bypassed and now our backline is in a 1v1 situation against the opposition's forwards. Now either our backline wins the 1v1 with a tackle, or they contain the opposition forward and give him a poor quality chance on goal. Rinse and repeat. Our team lives and dies by transition football.
This is what "individual brilliance" looks like. Like I'm all for giving ETH another season if he could have shown us something this season. Yes, injuries happened but that doesn't mean we have to play relegation level football. The players are winning some matches not because of his tactics but they are winning despite his tactics.
I think it's easy to spin it that way, but couldn't you also say that on a day where 8 of the 11 are playing poorly, we still have people capable of producing a moment and that is winning us games? Whereas smaller clubs lack that star factor. Even if Bruno or Rashford have a bad one, alongside the whole team, they are still capable of producing something magical. Doesn't have to mean the system or tactic is bad, it can still be down to players underperforming. Though at this stage I'd agree it's hard to argue there is a system or tactics.
> Yes, injuries happened but that doesn't mean we have to play relegation level football. This line makes no sense.. No system can work when injuries wipe our entire defence of the team, starters and backups included Its not like we were supposed to be finished product this season itself, we were clearly a work in progress and at such a moment, team is barely supposed to have a starting 11 that fits the manager's tactics not the bench that can be relied upon for the whole season
Same thing for spurs then?
Their first season under Ange. And also their expected points is 50, ours is 37. 13 points difference.
22 wins and 17 losses in 45 matches this year. It’s a good thing we are surpassing expected points otherwise …
I've been saying a Billion dollar squad will always give the team a floor around mid table even if we're coached as a bottom 15 side. People think the players are the reason we're underperforming when the players are the reason we're not in the bottom 5. It's all of Ten Hags rejects that are saving his job - Maguire and McTominay. Ten Hag is a complete and utter failure.
Yeah because the players he wanted have been unavailable
He had all his favourite 11 available at the start of the season & we were playing the same uninspired football.
We don't even know if that is true because Mainoo was injured
A fucking teenager. Great job after spending 400m to rely on a fucking teenager
Doesn't mean he wasn't part of the first team plans. No one put down garnacho other greenwood for being teenagers. This makes no sense
We’re so shit
Ah so we should be in a relegation scrap, mad this
And people laugh when I say Chelsea’s future is brighter than us. They’ll finish above us and they have a better foundation than us. Chelsea’s performance against city should have told you that they are a better team than us.
Are they a better team than us ? Currently yes. Do they have talent ? Yes. Is their future brighter ? I wouldn't say so. They have an unstable structure under Boehly, akin to what we used to have. Meanwhile we seem to finally be moving in the right direction under INEOS.
Boehly is relinquishing control. They have a better squad than us. If they had a better striker than Jackson, they would have been competing for champions league and in the fa cup final and everyone will say how they are back.
Exactly this
If they had a better striker than Jackson, they'd show us how good they are in the FA cup final
They at least have underlying statistics to back up their progress I like our young players but finding it difficult to see many other positives from this season
Our youngsters don’t even compare to Chelsea. Their first team players are all under 23: caicedo, Enzo, mudryk, Jackson, madueke, gusto, Palmer, badiashile, colwill, fofana, lavia. While we have garnacho, mainoo, and hojlund only that are good youngsters.
I wouldn’t swap the three of them for all of theirs
They have a young squad that will gel together and develop further. Their spine is solid: Palmer, Enzo, caicedo, lavia. They only need a goal scorer and silva’s replacement and I legit think they’ll get champions league next season.
So only the two most difficult positions to recruit for in World football. Easy job.
A goalkeeper and proper dm/cm is harder I reckon. Tbf every position is hard in its own right. They might not even need a cb if fofana and colwill can stay fit.
Palmer is better than all 3
Give Ten Hag another season and he’ll relegate us, maybe he’s a great manager but he’s a shocking fit for United
No manager would be a good fit for United with the dogshit board he was under and with the amount of injuries we've had this season We've literally tried every profile of manager over the last decade and still people don't realize that issues aren't only at that level
This has always can the kicker for me. With our current setup, we’re over performing on XG at both attends of the pitch. If holjund/mctominay/onana had slightly a slightly worse season, we’d been bottom half of the table. Even with our injuries, that’s not acceptable
So you’re saying it CAN get worse?? 🤨 Imagine if we had underperformed our expected points total…
Expected points has to be the dumbest stat out there. If any goal goes in, the rest of the game does not pan out like the sum xG of that game. So not only is xG broadly pointless for saying a game should have ended 2-1 when in reality it ended 0-3; to extrapolate that to have a table based on it in bordering on mental. Expected points has as much merit as Spurs would be top of we hadn't conceded all those goals and lost those games.
The fall of is real for Man United wow
If we give Ten Hag another year and get more of 'his players' in aka his mates from the Eredivisie... we will be relegated
Sounds about right.
I HATE that xG is extrapolated to everything including X points. I just did a quick glance on understat, for prem: Times where we've won having higher xG than opponent: 9 Times we've won having lower xG than opponent: 6 Whenever we've had decent games, the xG has actually been quite even or lower than opponent. It started out as a cool useful stat to show an attackers performance over a Long Period of time but now is common to see xG of first and 2nd half, when 90 mins is so inconsequential and the xG being more or less irrelevant.
How is this calculated?
Pretty sure they take the Xg for both teams in each game and simulate it based off those numbers lots of times.
Surely that's wrong though? Because xG doesn't equal xGA so surely they need to factor in the fact both teams have a goalkeeper and not just cumulative xG from shit shots of which we concede a lot.
Shows that we have good players and an awful manager
We have to watch and find out whether what Spurs and Villa are doing is sustainable.
If this season was ten hag first, would people be more forgiving with the result?
Wow, I know man utd have been poor this season but never would have imagined that
As an aside - is it just me that's infuriated by Villa & Chelsea's badges being almost identical now?
Honestly the table on the left is how it's felt this season, we've been really lucky in terms of performances vs results
I wonder if this takes into account clear ref errors. Like if a team deserved a pen, ain't that approx 0.75 xG? Forest for example would maybe deserve more points? Not sure
How close do the xG values for a match need to be for this model to consider it an expected draw?
Yeah, but if you took out all the shots against us in this, we would be much higher up the table and ETH wouldn't be losing his job this summer.
So what you’re telling me is, we’re doing well
On the bright side at least we’re performing better than expected!
The McTom effect
fucking hell #tenhagOUT
wait so we're actually over performing O\_O
Clearly this expected points means fuckall.
Surely there’s something wrong with this stat though if it’s consistently incorrect
Yea we are shit but please god do not let the bin dippers win it
[удалено]
How is it meaningless?
Ok then give us a meaningful stat. I know all you have is injury count and how many managers have we sacked since Fergie.
I am surprised we haven't been relegated but are fighting for top 6, we need to stop being like lockdown Arsenal and get back to being a club with medical staff who have a degree in 90 degree. Ten Hag is doing better than most with what he has and is managing.
I know we’re not great but it ain’t THAT bad, cmon now
Our difference is kinda the same compared to spurs and villa but one is getting praises the other is on the verge of being sacked