WELCOME TO A FANTASY WORLD WHERE SPURS WIN TROPHIES

WATCHING Match Of The

Day on Saturday you will see, as always, the expected goals tally for each match. it appears as xG in the bottom right corner of the screen. Club analysts have been working with xG for close to a decade now, but it has only recently entered the public consciousness. What is xG? it is a way of counting chances based on historical analysis, when other teams and players have had efforts from similar locations in similar match scenarios. Roughly 79 per cent of penalties are scored, so a penalty has a rating of 0.79 xG, whether it goes in or not. For that’s the point. What happened does not matter; it’s what should have happened that counts. So vincent Kompany (right) shouldn’t have scored from outside the area for Manchester City against Leicester last season, meaning his goal has an xG rating of 0.025. equally, Sergio Aguero’s missed penalty against Tottenham in the Champions League should have been scored, so achieves the high rating for penalty conversion of 0.79. You can see why those of us who might be termed old school tend to regard xG cynically. We may, however, have reached peak xG following the last round of Champions League matches. Because it’s good news for Tottenham. it turned out they beat Bayern Munich after all. The result in the real world may have been 7-2 to Munich, and one of the most embarrassing scorelines in Spurs history, but in the fantasy world of xG it was Tottenham 1.45 Bayern 1.34. What a triumph for Mauricio Pochettino and the boys. With this turnaround in fortunes they should book an expected bus, for the expected parade, showing off all the expected trophies they will win. indeed, with success built on such firm and logical foundations, what could possibly go wrong?