Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after Newcastle 2 Liverpool 3

In partnership with

The Mag

·26. August 2025

Expected Goals stats tell the very real story after Newcastle 2 Liverpool 3

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.

Following Monday night’s match, here are the Expected Goals stats after Newcastle 2 Liverpool 3 via Understat:

Newcastle United 1.96 v Liverpool 0.65

Newcastle United with an Expected Goals stat a shade over three times what Liverpool had.

Newcastle simply didn’t take advantage of their dominance and as well as the massive Expected Goals stat advantage, despite playing for an hour with 10 v 11, Newcastle United by far the better of all the other underlying key stats as well.

Newcastle had 10 v 5 advantage when it came to shots, a 7 v 1 dominance on corners, whilst as for touches by players in the opposition penalty area, it was 27 v 15 in Newcastle’s favour.

Possession 59% v 41%, shots 16 v 3, corners 6 v 3, touches in the opposition box 33 v 14.

Liverpool had the dominance of possession stats with 62% compared to Newcastle’s 38%, however, I think the vast majority of that came in the hour after Gordon’s sending off, when the visitors played it endlessly about in their own half but not in any dangerous area. Indeed, after making it 2-0 on 46 minutes, Liverpool didn’t have another serious threat to Newcastle’s goal until the winning goal 54 minutes later, deep in the lengthy added time.

We are obviously all gutted with the result and especially how it came about BUT that doesn’t detract from the fact that this was a quite brilliant performance overall from Eddie Howe’s players.

Newcastle 2 Liverpool 3 – Monday 25 August 2025 8pm

Newcastle United:

Gordon red card 45+3, Bruno 57, Osula 88

Liverpool

Gravenberch 35, Ekitike 46, Nugumoha 90+10

Possession was Newcastle 38% Liverpool 62%

Total shots were Newcastle 10 Liverpool 5

Shots on target were Newcastle 3 Liverpool 4

Corners were Newcastle 7 Liverpool 1

Touches in the box Newcastle 27 Liverpool 15

Newcastle team v Liverpool:

Pope, Trippier (Hall 76), Schar (Thiaw 81), Burn, Livramento, Joelinton (Ramsey 76), Tonali (Miley 66), Bruno, Barnes (Osula 76), Gordon, Elanga