This Week in Stats: Chelsea look strong in top four battle

The battle below City continued over Christmas. Chelsea had two near identical games, United are wobbling and Liverpool had their usual mixed bag.

Chelsea’s two matches either side of Christmas illustrated perfectly how near identical stats can easily result in different outcomes. The champions drew 0-0 at Everton, before beating Brighton 2-0 at Stamford Bridge.

In both matches they had 25 shots, which were worth a total of 2.3 expected goals. They also dominated the opposition defensive thirds to near identical extents; Chelsea’s tallies of completed final third passes differed by just two.

The main difference, as it so often is, was the finishing. At Goodison Park, Chelsea missed both of their clear-cut chances. When Tiemoué Bakayoko and Victor Moses did likewise in the first half against Brighton, Antonio Conte must’ve feared another stalemate.

Fortunately for the Blues, Alvaro Morata scored their fifth and final clear-cut chance of these two matches shortly after half time. The goal continued the remarkable relationship which has blossomed between Cesar Azpilicueta and the former Real Madrid forward.

Chelsea’s Spanish connection have joined some highly impressive names in the rankings of top assist-scorer link-ups. The goal at Brighton was similar to so many of their goals this season: Azpilicueta crossed from deep on the right, and Morata found space to head the ball home.

The Blues’ number nine has now bagged six headed goals in the Premier League. That’s more than over half the other teams in the division. If Chelsea can keep their Spanish pair linking up, they could easily make the difference in further tight games this season.

Is this the start of a United wobble?

Manchester United’s Christmas was book-ended by a pair of 2-2 draws. Both of them featured an injury-time equaliser. In the first, Leicester scored with the penultimate kick of the game. It was then United’s turn to come from behind, in this case at home to Burnley.

The underlying stats suggest the draw at Leicester was a fair result. The Burnley match appears to be one which United should have won, but the flaws in expected goals were brought to the fore in spades.

For starters, the Clarets were ahead in the third minute of the match, before going 2-0 up later in the half. The goals came from Burnley’s only efforts on target. So, were United unlucky?

Both of the Clarets’ goals were good, and it would be wrong to blame David de Gea for conceding them. The issue is the good old law of averages. The Spaniard made a record-equaling 14 saves in United’s recent win at Arsenal. It was simply inevitable United would have a match like this before long. Nobody can out run regression forever.

And of course scoring early played beautifully into Burnley’s. Sean Dyche’s team block the most shots across Europe’s big five leagues, at an average of 5.4 per match. The Clarets got in the way of a remarkable 11 shots at Old Trafford.

That was almost half of United’s total of 24 goal attempts. Expected goals can’t take account of the game state, especially when it plays to the leading team’s strengths.

Could this be the start of a downturn for United? Prior to Burnley, they had been getting better results than their underlying performances had merited. They have relatively kind fixtures for the next month, but a couple of dodgy results wouldn’t be too surprising.

Next: Premier League midseason report card: Liverpool

Do Liverpool need a defensive savior?

Shortly after United conceded two goals at Old Trafford on Tuesday afternoon, Liverpool kept a clean sheet as they beat Swansea 5-0. The two performances combined to give the Reds the best home goals conceded record in the Premier League.

On one hand, this shouldn’t be a surprise. At the halfway point of 2017-18, Liverpool had allowed the second fewest shots per game in the English top flight across the last nine seasons. But it seems very unusual when you consider their record on the road.

Never was this more apparent than in their 3-3 draw with Arsenal last Friday. Liverpool were in complete control of the match. Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané each missed a clear-cut chance shortly before the interval, but it didn’t appear to matter when the former put the Reds 2-0 up early in the second half.

What followed was all too familiar to Liverpool fans, even if this was an extreme version. Arsenal scored three goals in five minutes to turn the match on its head. The visitors rescued a point thanks to Roberto Firmino, but it was still a massive missed opportunity.

Yet a look at the underlying stats suggests Liverpool defended well. Arsenal’s expected goal tally of 1.4 was their lowest at the Emirates stadium this season, and Jurgen Klopp’s team were the first visiting side to post a higher xG figure than the Gunners.

The issues in Liverpool’s defending were individual mistakes as so often has been the case. Klopp will hope the acquisition of Virgil van Dijk, which was announced on Wednesday, will arrest a lot of those problems in the future.

The majority of the Reds’ underlying defensive numbers are already very impressive. For £75 million, van Dijk had better sort out the rest.