Can Xg Statistics Help With Your Betting?
If you watch any football these days you have no doubt heard reference to “Xg”. Xg stands for “Expected Goals”. Using data modelling they are able to determine what each team should have scored rather than what the actual score was.
It could be that a game finishes 0-0 but really each team have had a high number of chances in the game . This could be shots on target or hitting the woodwork.
In contrast perhaps a game has finished 3-3, but several goals were penalties or deflections, and there were no other shots on target.
The explanations i’m giving are really very simplistic and there is no absolute formula on what Xg is, rather it is calculated by football statisticians using their own unique algorithms to power the data.
E.g. if I look at a recent game at the time of this article, Arsenal v Manchester United. A game I personally watched so can vouch for (I think :). The game featured few chances and Arsenal won 2-0, with both goals coming from set piece corners. The corners, which Arsenal are incredible at, are well drilled and very difficult to defend against. footystats gives Arsenal an Xg of 1.49 and Man Utd an Xg of .82. Shots on target is 7 for arsenal to 2 for Man Utd. OptaAnalyst gives Arsenal an Xg of 2.16 and Man Utd an Xg of .22.
We can see a discrepancy between the stats site, but each clearly favour the team who scored and played the best, and also had the most shots on target. From watching the game, I would say the truth is somewhere is the middle. It depends how you read the shots. Arsenal scoring two corners is unusual in one game, 1.5 feels a truer reflection than 2.16 or the actual 2 goals. On the otherhand Man Utd only really had one half chance at long range that was off target. So an Xg of .82 feels generous.
Why does any of this matter? Understanding such statistics or researching them, can give you an informed opinion on what you are placing your bets on. If you only take the score at face value you are missing the nuances of the game, and could make a mistake in your betting opinions. Xg goes someway to help with, but of course it is still imperfect as we have shown with two websites giving a different opinion.
No statistic can of course guarantee a betting outcome, so always bet cautiously and responsibly with what you can afford. But if you do wish to rely on statistics for football betting it could be worth looking deeply into previous games to make an educated judgement on what you think the outcome of a match might be.
Prior to this game the bookies had Over 2.5 goals odds on at 1.59 average, with Under 2.5 at 2.4, which goes to show what is expected to happen doesn’t always occur. This is what makes betting interesting, but also something to do with caution, as there are no guarantees.
If you do wish to research football statistics footystats is a good option, or have a search on google for others.
If you want reputable bookmakers with free bets to chose from we would recommend as your first point of call to visit our uk free bets page