A regular criticism of Huddersfield Town under David Wagner is that we don’t score enough goals. Getting promoted with a negative goal difference last season shows how we’ve managed to turn the goals we score into results. We’ve also managed to stay clear of the relegation zone for most of this season so far despite having the second worst goal difference in the Premier League.
In this article I’m going to take a look at some stats that might explain why Town score so few goals using the xG (expected goals) stats from the understat website. Is it the players? The tactics? Bad luck? Read on to find out.
I’d like to apologise up front to anyone that’s not into football stats. I understand the arguments against getting lost in the numbers and how you can’t easily break a fluid game like football down into a series of numbers. But xG is an interesting statistical tool that looks at how many goals a team should have scored based on the chances they had during a match.
If you’d like to know more about xG in general, this article on the BBC website gives a good introduction.
Actual goals scored vs xG – how do Town compare?
Huddersfield Town have scored 26 goals so far this season, and the xG model predicts they should have actually scored 28 goals. So it seems that the chances we’ve created so far this season should have yielded more goals for Town but only a couple.
Town are third from bottom of the table based on xG, with only Swansea and Burnley expected to score less goals. The fact that Burnley are second from bottom on xG despite sitting 7th in the actual league table just shows how much they’ve achieved this season without creating a lot of chances.
Too many shots missed and blocked
Town have taken 315 shots this season, of which:
- 74 were saved by the keeper
- 119 were missed
- 96 were blocked
- 23 were goals (I guess this stat doesn’t include own goals)
- 3 hit the post (I’d have expected this to be higher but this is what the stats report)
These stats say to me that some of the problem with Town’s lack of goals is down to the timing and technique the players are using to take shots. Around two thirds of our total shots were blocked or missed the target and that’s too high.
Who should be Town’s top scorer based on xG?
The undershot website also has stats on xG for individual Huddersfield Town players and it reveals that Tom Ince should be Town’s top scorer based on expected goals. He’s got a 5.62 xG rating for the season so far based on the shots he’s taken. Steve Mounié our actual top scorer has an xG of 5.39, meaning his seven Premier League goals have come from fewer opportunities than Ince has found himself in.
You can look at this stat two ways. On the one hand, Ince should clearly have scored more goals for Town this season (any Town fan would tell you that, without needing stats), but it’s also worth pointing out that he’s getting into scoring positions and creating chances.
Ince also has the most average shots per 90 minutes on the pitch (2.48), so it’s taking a whopping 65 shots for him to register just one goal.
The 0-0 draw against Swansea highlights Town’s problem with xG
Swansea had a man sent off early on in the recent nil nil draw with Town. The game was incredibly one sided, with Town registering 28 shots and Swansea not having a single shot all game. Those stats alone suggest that Town should have won by a large magin. However, xG suggests otherwise.
Understat give the game an xG rating of 1.39-0 to Town, meaning the most likely outcome was a 1-0 victory. So Town didn’t convert their chances well enough on the day, but the stats suggest we’d have only scored around one and a half goals from those 28 shots we took.
When you look at the individual shots we took in that match it become clearer why we didn’t score. Too many shots were taken too far out, from too tight an angle, or too easily blocked. This is consistent with many of Town’s performances this season.
Why Town fans shouldn’t worry too much about xG
I find these stats interesting but it’s not worth getting too concerned by these numbers. Town aren’t a high-scoring team under David Wagner and have still managed to achieve incredible things.
While it would be nice to see Town bang in goal after goal, it’s incredible that Town have achieved so much this season and last, despite scoring relatively few goals.
My e.mail to Mel Booth confirms these findings I.e. we don’t create enough chances. I bet Harry Kane gets half a dozen chances every game whereas our strikers are lucky to get one or two. We need a good winger who can provide good crosses.