Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after Manchester City 4 Newcastle 0

In partnership with

The Mag

·16. Februar 2025

Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after Manchester City 4 Newcastle 0

Expected Goals is widely agreed to be the best way of measuring how well Premier League clubs play in any particular game.

To get a better look at how sides are doing, the Expected Goals (xG) metric allows you to get a better picture of just how teams are performing.

OneFootball Videos

Expected goals (xG) is a statistic used to work out how many goals should be scored in a match.

With every single shot awarded an xG value based on the difficulty of the attempt, with factors including distance from goal, type of shot and number of defenders present affecting the value.

The higher the xG of a particular shot, the more likely a goal should be scored from that shot.

The xG value of every shot in a game is then used to calculate the expected goals in a particular match.

So rather than just the usual basic statistics of how many shots each team has, Expected Goals factors in where shots were taken from and how good a chance was and whether defenders in the way etc.

These are the Premier League matches from Friday and Saturday, with the Expected Goals stats (plus the actual final scoreline in brackets) via Understat:

Brighton 2.07 v Chelsea 0.65 (3-0)

Leicester 0.23 v Arsenal 1.75 (0-2)

Villa 2.90 v Ipswich 0.33 (1-1)

Fulham 2.21 v Forest 0.33 (2-1)

Man City 2.12 v Newcastle 0.16 (4-0)

Southampton 0.97 v Bournemouth 2.09 (1-3)

West Ham 0.67 v Brentford 1.96 (0-1)

Palace 2.31 v Everton 1.02 (1-2)

As you can see, some very interesting matches, both in terms of their eventual outcomes and the Expected Goals stats.

Six of the eight games seeing victories for the teams with far higher Expected Goals stats than their opponents.

The odd exception proving the rule, with Everton (1.02 Expected Goals) clearly fluking their 2-1 away win over Palace (2.31). Whilst even more so with Ipswich (0.33) very very lucky that Villa (2.90) were so wasteful with so many good chances, that game somehow ending 1-1 at Villa Park.

As for the Newcastle United match in detail.

Quite obviously Manchester City deserved to win, nobody can deny that.

However, it was a bit of a strange game, Man City with an Expected Goals stats of 2.12 compared to Newcastle’s feeble 0.16. This backs up massively two things for me, you can’t say United deserved to score when only really that Isak chance that wasn’t easy. Based on how many chances and shots Man City had though, I think it was more of a 2-0 than 4-0 game.

The wider stats (see below) show that Man City had 11 shots to Newcastle’s 3, with 7 v 1 when it comes to efforts on target. Apart from the clinical finishing on the four goals, the other three efforts on target were weak and straight at Dubravka. I don’t remember the NUFC keeper making a difficult save.

Watching the game unfold on Saturday, to me it was more a case of a soft goal gifted on 19 minutes and then another two swiftly following/gifted in the next 14 minutes, but apart from that, not a great deal of real goal threat otherwise.

It was 7 v 4 in Man City’s favour on corners and 24 v 10 when it came to player touches in the opposition penalty area, neither things really pointing to a four goal winning margin.

It was certainly a game where Newcastle United never really got going and deserved to lose.

However, apart from that quarter of an hour when the game was won and lost, not all that much for either keeper to do.

Manchester City 4 Newcastle 0 – Saturday 15 February 2025 3pm

Newcastle United:

Man City:

Marmoush 19, 24, 33 McAtee 84

Possession was Newcastle 39% Man City 61%

Total shots were Newcastle 3 Man City 11

Shots on target were Newcastle 1 Man City 7

Corners were Newcastle 4 Man City 7

Touches in the box Newcastle 10 Man City 24

Newcastle team v Man City: