Mauricio Pochettino mentioned quite obliquely in his press conference yesterday that the “data” said his Chelsea team “should” be fourth, but what data was he referring to? The points have him 11th, the goal difference 8th.
We think we’ve cracked it. By expected goal difference (so the quality of goal scoring chances we created versus the number we gave away, we’re 5th in the table. But adjust that to per 90, to account for the fact that we’ve played the fewest games in the league, and you’ve got us 4th, with a positive 0.34 net expected goals per game. It’s pretty feeble compared to the positive 1 goal or more by the 3 teams above us, but it’s something. It says we’re a similar team to Aston Villa in those terms.
So perhaps we will see us return to the mean and shoot up the table in the weeks to come? We’ve got some weaker opposition and plenty of home games. Maybe we can win enough games so that our manager can stop referring to some mystery data, and start referring to the actual table.
