This Tales of the Expected article examines expected goals (xG) data from the last six matches.
We will assess each team from both an offensive and defensive perspective.
We’ll also examine the leading players for expected goal involvement (xGI), to get a more accurate understanding of who is actively contributing in the final third.
TEAM
OPTA EXPECTED GOALS (xG) – LAST SIX GAMES
Chelsea‘s attack has faltered of late, as they failed to score in Game Weeks 30 and 31, but in our six-game sample period, they still created plenty of chances.
However, their finishing was poor, with just eight goals from 12.11 xG.
| Match week | They will oppose | Goals scored | xG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | Leeds (h) | 2 | 3.13 |
| 27 | Burnley (h) | 1 | 1.99 |
| 28 | Armory (a) | 1 | 1.07 |
| 29 | Aston Villa (a) | 4 | 3.60 |
| 30 | Newcastle (h) | 0 | 1.39 |
| 31 | Everton (a) | 0 | 0.93 |
Joao Pedro (£7.8m), who has not scored in three of his last four games, had just two touches in the box against Everton last time out, marking his lowest tally in a Premier League game under Liam Rosenior. The new Chelsea boss has said he wants to use this break as a “reset”, with home meetings against Port Vale (FA Cup) and Manchester City (Matchweek 32) to come.
Fulham boosted their European hopes with a 3-1 win over Burnley on Saturday. In that match, they took 22 shots and produced 3.15 xG.
Armory suffered a 2-0 EFL Cup final defeat to Manchester City a day later, having produced just 0.89 xG at Wembley. Recently, there have also been some below-par offensive performances in the Premier League, namely Brighton and Hove Albion and Brentford, when they produced xG below 1.0 on each occasion.
Leeds Unitedmeanwhile, have scored just three goals in their last six games, fewer than any other team, and have not scored a single goal in their last four games. In that time, they should be able to score four more goals from their chances. Notably, Daniel Farke’s side ranked middle of the pack in terms of shots during this dry period, but only eight of their 74 attempts resulted in ‘big chances’, so the quality was often low.
| Match week | They will oppose | Goals scored | xG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | Chelsea | 2 | 1.44 |
| 27 | Aston Villa (a) | 1 | 1.35 |
| 28 | Man City (k) | 0 | 1.49 |
| 29 | Sunderland (h) | 0 | 1.15 |
| 30 | Palace C (a) | 0 | 1.12 |
| 31 | Brentford (right) | 0 | 0.52 |
Tottenham HotspurThe team’s form has been very poor of late, and they sorely lack quality in the final third of the field, having collected just 7.01 xG in their last six games.
Aston VillaThe attack has also been disappointing, but with John McGinn (£5.3m) and Youri Tielemans (£5.9m) back fit, they looked much sharper against West Ham United on Sunday. Previously, no team had scored fewer goals since the turn of the year.
OPTA EXPECTED GOAL PROGRESS (xGC) – LAST SIX GAMES
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
