Coventry City’s results have been somewhat of a disappointment in their first six league games of the new season, sparking a little bit of concern amongst fans who went into the campaign with expectations through the roof.
The Sky Blues added seven new players in the summer, five of whom operate at the top end of the pitch and including the exciting Jack Rudoni, Ephron Mason-Clark, Brandon Thomas-Asante and Norman Bassette. Unfortunately, injury means supporters are yet to see Australian winger Raphael but, the above four, when added to the existing forward line of Haji Wright, Ellis Simms and Tatsuhiro Sakamoto – who scored an impressive 45 goals between them last season – make up a potent mix of fire power potential.
No wonder then, City are fifth in the current league of expected goals (xG) in the Championship with a score of 9.2, just below fourth placed Millwall (10.4), third placed West Brom (10.5), second placed Leeds (10.8) and first placed Middlesbrough (10.9). Only two of those teams, incidentally (West Brom and Leeds), are currently in the top six of the division, while Boro are slap bang in mid-table and Millwall and Coventry in 18th and 19th place, respectively.
Many fans scoff at the mere mention of xG, which is calculated by adding up the expected goals of all the shots in a match, while measuring the quality of a chance by calculating the likelihood it will be scored from a particular position on the pitch.
And despite a great deal of cynicism amongst supporters as to its relevance or usefulness, sports analysts routinely collate and make use of such stats as part of the intense and almost microscopic modern day pre-match preparation that clubs go into.
But as most supporters will agree, it’s the goals ‘for’ column that counts, in terms of how many times the ball hits the back of the net.
Looking a little deeper into the stats behind the xG calculations, however, there are grounds for plenty of optimism, depending on whether you’re of a ‘glass half full’ or ‘glass half empty’ persuasion, of course.
In City’s six league games to date, they have had 93 attempts on the opposition goal, 29 of which have been on target, 40 off target (which includes hitting the woodwork) while 24 have been blocked. They have had 155 touches in their opponents’ box and enjoyed a whopping 52 corners. That last stat is quite telling in itself, particularly when considering the Sky Blues have only scored once from a flag kick so far this season, when Ellis Simms headed in against Watford from a Jack Rudoni delivery.
But overall, the amount of chances being created has to be a reason to stay upbeat and confident that things will click into place at the front end of the pitch, sooner or later. It is, perhaps, apposite to point out at this juncture that a manager can fairly be judged on how many chances his team creates because that’s down to his team selection and tactics. If they miss an unacceptable percentage of those chances, that’s down to the players.
Looking at the last three games, City had 20 attempts (seven on target) against Swansea and 17 (five on target) against Watford where, by common consent, they should have been three or four goals up by half-time. Throw in the 15 attempts (five on target) against Tottenham in the cup – no mean feat against a Premier League side – and it really isn’t all doom and gloom just yet.
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