Great finishing or great positioning?
Yesterday I posted a twitter poll. It was one of those "never going to happen" polls with an unrealistic question, but it gave some interesting outcomes.
I added another caveat to make it even more life-like.
Clearly, a lot of answerers will have built in their own interpretations around the length of time on the pitch, and the playing position, of each option.
What I was really trying to tease out was whether people think outperforming xG is better than generating lots of xG but performing well below it.
When Statsbomb posted the xG of Che Adams a few days ago it showed he was on 20 goals from 10xG which seemed a massive overperformance and probably unsustainable.
But would I probably still scout him over a player on 20 goals from 20xG? Probably as I'd like to see if a truly elite finisher had been found.
The most popular answer was to scout the player on 7 goals from 14 xG. This was a bit surprising to me. I expect most have taken on board the fact it is better to shoot from good places a lot than it is to not get the chances.
Scouting could show us whether the high levels of xG were due to being a terrible finisher in a great team, missing chance after chance, or an elite player capable of creating a high volume of good quality chances for themselves.
Which leaves us with the question; is it is better to be an elite finisher of chances created by others or an elite creator of good chances for yourself, but not particularly skilled at finishing them?
To which the answer is as always, it depends, I'd need more data.
I added another caveat to make it even more life-like.
Clearly, a lot of answerers will have built in their own interpretations around the length of time on the pitch, and the playing position, of each option.
What I was really trying to tease out was whether people think outperforming xG is better than generating lots of xG but performing well below it.
When Statsbomb posted the xG of Che Adams a few days ago it showed he was on 20 goals from 10xG which seemed a massive overperformance and probably unsustainable.
But would I probably still scout him over a player on 20 goals from 20xG? Probably as I'd like to see if a truly elite finisher had been found.
The most popular answer was to scout the player on 7 goals from 14 xG. This was a bit surprising to me. I expect most have taken on board the fact it is better to shoot from good places a lot than it is to not get the chances.
Scouting could show us whether the high levels of xG were due to being a terrible finisher in a great team, missing chance after chance, or an elite player capable of creating a high volume of good quality chances for themselves.
Which leaves us with the question; is it is better to be an elite finisher of chances created by others or an elite creator of good chances for yourself, but not particularly skilled at finishing them?
To which the answer is as always, it depends, I'd need more data.
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