Leicester City have had the perfect start to the 2023/24 EFL Championship Season so far. They have won all four games and sit first on the table. While this is a perfect start to Enzo Maresca’s tenure, there is significant room for improvement upon looking at the data from the four league games.
Expected Goals (xG) is a relatively new statistical metric introduced in recent years which measures the quality of a goal scoring chance and the likelihood that the chance will be converted into a goal. xG is commonly shown as a decimal number. A shot with an xG of 0.17 signifies that the probability of a goal being scored from that specific shot is 17%. To further simplify, if 100 shots were taken from that exact position, only 17 of them would be expected to lead to goals. For example, a cutback in front of an open goal will have a much higher xG than a shot from a tight angle from 30 yards out.
Now looking at Leicester’s xG stats, the numbers are quite bleak. Leicester as a team, have accumulated an xG of 4.9 in the four games they’ve played so far. That’s the 8th lowest amongst the 24 Championship clubs. To add to that, they have created just 6 big chances(and missed 5), only14th highest in the Championship.
Non-Penalty Expected Goals per shot (np-xGps) is the average xG of all shots (excluding Penalties) taken by players of the club. This can be written as = (Total xG from all shots excluding penalties) / (Total number of shots excluding penalties). This helps in giving us an idea about the average quality of shots being taken by players. A higher np-xGps refers to a team creating better chances to score on average.
Leicester have the joint worst np-xGps in the entire league with 0.07. The league average is 0.95. A slim argument to be made in favor of Leicester is that they have taken the 5th highest number of shots in the league so far with 67. Given that Leicester are one of the better teams in the league and have the second highest average possession of the ball in the league, they are bound to try their luck from afar sometimes, and take half chances rather than playing it safe.
However, that argument also fails after further scrutinizing the data. The teams who have taken the more shots than Leicester all have higher np-xGps. The 8 teams who have taken more than 60 shots have an average np-xGps of 0.087.
Leicester have the 9th highest average distance of shots from goal in the league with the average shot taken by a player 18.1 yards from goal. To start with, shots this far from goal tend to have lower xG as they are harder to score and coupled with the fact that Leicester don’t have any particularly good long distance shooters, they are simply wasting opportunities.
Further scrutinizing the seven goals scored so far by Leicester players, all goals had low xG which usually signify that they were either very good shots by the player or that they had an element of luck (like a goalkeeping mistake). If we take xGOT into consideration, we can further see that four of them were good finishes (xGOT >= 0.40) while the others can be considered a bit lucky for the goalscorer.
Expected Goals on Target (xGOT) takes the xG of a particular shot and also accounts for the final ball position in the goal. For example, a shot in the top corner has higher chances of being a goal then a shot straight to the keeper. xGOT is also displayed as a decimal with a high xGOT signifying a good shot.
This ability to score late in the game, with different players popping up with decisive goals is something to be applauded. Leicester lacked this mentality under Rodgers but this season they have shown that desire to fight until the very end. It’s been a while but finally the Foxes’ motto “Foxes never quit” seems to be holding true.
However, it’s also important to keep in mind that these kinds of goals are not sustainable. While the players who have scored these goals are all very talented, none of them are known for their finishing ability. Leicester are not going to get lucky all the time, or have their players bail them out with screamers so they have to find a more sustainable way of winning games which involves creating better chances and converting them.