League Two - expected goals table

Would recommend the book 'The expected goals philosophy' for anyone interested.

Explains how teams use xg to assess performance.

There's a good chapter on how Brentford have used this method when recruiting players. Made them more than a few quid!

Quoted from diehardmariner

Reminds me a bit of when Slade was here first time and his approach was that he wanted his defenders to drive angled balls long with the midfielders pressing high.  The idea was that the angled ball was difficult for the defenders to handle, they would either let it go which allowed someone like Reddy to get on the end of.  If the defender did manage to get a head to it, they struggled to direct their header anywhere which allowed someone like Paul Bolland to pick it up.  

What we've lacked this season is any sort of approach.  Pretty difficult when your squad is lacking any redeeming qualities I guess.

Regards statistics and data.  As a purist I like to believe that football is played on the pitch, but the value in data is invaluable and would recommend anyone sceptical to look at the work of Dave Brailsford with the British Cycling Team and his 1 Factor.  If you can make 1% improvements across multiple areas it all adds up to give significant results.

I feel for Hurst as he's picked up a product that has made absolutely no efforts at making any gains in the last 20 years.  Whilst Fenty might be on his way out, his legacy of stagnation will be like trying to get rid of a bad smell.

Otherwise known as the Monkhouse Gambit.

The stats approach does have its uses but thats more about pre planning an approach based on the stats that are more likely to be succesful. The KEY to that is you have to have the tools to implement the system, not just considering the stats/system to guarantee success because it works for Barcelona and they win everything.
Todays stats/systems can also be tomorrows chip paper.
The earliest example i can remember was Charles Reep , who championed the direct approach , used very succesfully by Graham Taylor, Dave Bassett, John Beck .....teams get wise, deploy counter measures, it becomes ineffective.
Look at the evolution of the Premier League , started with some ageing oversees skilful players running rings around our old style combative midfielders/ defenders, there was the phase of pure power and athleticism in the midfield , counter attack sides ,  we have had the dimunitive No.10's , Pep and his Tiki Taka, the German high pressing and currently there is the playing out from the back.
Someone somewhere must be showing the evidence that playing from the back is more likely to result in retaining possesion, which gives you a better chance of scoring.....but the thousands of stats wont show that trying this with Luke Waterfall and James Mckeown will more than likely result in a goal against.