Sometimes the fun part of analytics writing is answering entire articles framed around a rhetorical question.
In this case, Daniel Taylor is quite reasonably asking aloud why Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is still manager of Manchester United when he has posted worse results than sacked managers such as David Moyes, Unai Emery and Mauricio Pochettino:
[Solskjaer] was sure, he told us, that everything would change for the better soon. So sure, indeed, that he even went as far as saying their latest performance, in a shuffling 2-2 draw with Aston Villa, had convinced him they were capable of reeling off a sequence of five or six wins on the bounce.
That was a strange one because Solskjaer had already confessed they did not deserve to win but, nice guy that he is, he did not seem too put out when someone on the front row pointed out he had managed only six Premier League wins, in total, since taking over as United’s full-time manager eight months ago.
“I think there is loads of evidence that these boys are closer to winning games than losing games,” he shot back.
Of course, we’re meant to read this last line as a mediocre manager flailing about, making excuses. But I read this and my eyebrows immediately perked up. As to why, for those who don’t sub to the full version of this newsletter (for shame!), on Friday I had this to say about OLG and United:
Interestingly enough, the last man with the target on his back not to have been sacked is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. That’s because Manchester United are currently four goals below their xGF total and two above their xGA according to Understat, with FBRef only slightly less generous to the club. So OGS is actually unlucky, and there don’t seem to be any clear signs that ownership is ready to cut him loose any time soon.
If Man United—a club that is definitely not on my radar as one that keeps tabs on things like Expected Goals tables (though the more informed of you can correct me here)—is holding off on sacking Solskjaer because they know he’s unlucky, well, then I think the working thesis of the new manager bounce as means regression may be at an end, at least in the Premier League.
Again, I have no clue whatsoever whether or not United is keeping tabs on underlying performance metrics, but I do wonder if this might be part of what OGS means when he talks about ‘loads of evidence.’ And while xG is, for the most part, an abstract concept when considered in toto, you do get a sense of how it has played out on a few occasions in United’s case. Jack Grealish’s highlight reel opener on Sunday was just one one of those things, a routine strike from a brilliant midfielder that curved in beautifully. Though Villa were ascendant on the attack, there was little about that goal that revealed, at least to my eyes, a gaping tactical deficiency on the part of Man United.
Now, football is rarely a clean-cut, black and white kind of thing, so OGS being unlucky relative to xG performance doesn’t mean United are good. At best, had their results been more in line with their performances up to this point in the season, the club would likely be no higher than fourth place. Still, as I’ve bleated on about for months now, most of the team’s post-SAF problems really come down to you-know-who:
But I want to use this instance not to trash people like Taylor (why would he know or care or trust an xG table?), but to more fully explore the potential power of teams knowing both that xG exists and that it is more predictive of longer-term performance than table points after 14 games.
Player morale
We already more or less have evidence that score effects in football are real—whether or not teams have the lead affects shot volume and quality in the closing stages of a football match. And they are undoubtedly real in other sports. This reality is important because it reveals how a player’s awareness of the scoreline can affect how they play.
Therefore, it would not be a stretch to hypothesize that a team that is unlucky—scoring fewer goals than their xG totals, and conceding more goals than their xGA totals—would also feel somewhat demoralized and that this feeling will eventually have an effect, and not necessarily a positive one, on their performances. Maybe a team gets skittish and starts shooting too often from too far away. Maybe they try more rakish passes and lose possession more often.
If, however, a team was aware their results were just not yet in alignment with their xG results, they might take a more zen-like, Kawhi Leonard attitude toward things, trust their ability and their game plan, and try to make good things happen.
Managerial decisions
Similarly, a manager suffering poor results despite generally positive underlying performance metrics will, in theory, be less inclined to tinker with tactics or switch otherwise productive players. Sure, like a frustrated coin-flipper, they may try to flex their thumb in just such a way as to produce tails instead of heads, but a manager aware of xG will be far less likely to panic.
They may also, like OGS, be willing and able to fend off every week a frothing press corps of people wondering why they’re still in charge, the very same people who also love, in separate op-eds. to talk about how the game’s gone mad and managers aren’t given enough time these days.
In both players’ and the manager’s case, the point is that knowing xG makes it far more likely a club suffering bad luck is more likely to get back on track sooner than later.
Smarter front-office decisions
It’s not enough for a manager to feel confident looking at xG tables to know they are the victims of poor luck, however; if the front-office decision-makers don’t buy it, the manager will likely start tinkering for the sake of tinkering, to look like they’re doing something, ANYTHING to right the ship.
Executives understanding and trusting underlying performance metrics not only prevents them from creating further instability by sacking an otherwise passable manager; it also gives them a far better guide on actually strengthening the team. To me, fourth place by xG standards is alone simply not good enough at United, and if Woodward didn’t insist on thinking he was Txiki Begiristain, the team would already be much further along on realistically planning a long-term transfer strategy to get back into the Champions League and in title contention at home.
Manager valuations
Of course, it’s also possible (even likely!) that I’m wrong and neither Man United nor OGS know or believe in xG, and that the only reason Woodward hasn’t pulled the trigger is because United haven’t fallen below some position on the table the team have calculated will cost it x amount of revenues that exceed what they’d have to pay to sack him and hire a new guy.
But if another team has carefully studied the xG tables, they’ll be smart enough to swoop in and pick up a pretty decent manager in OGS—even a very good one if one considers how poorly the club have done in transfer market relative to their revenues—for a song. There’s even a precedent for this in the way Liverpool hired Jurgen Klopp after Dortmund’s famously unlucky season when others might have balked after the German club flirted briefly with relegation (hey Mladen, if you’re reading this, you might want to consider throwing in for OGS should Man United sack him and Arsenal pushes to lure Brendan Rodgers away. Though your fans might not like you very much at first).
All this is to argue that knowledge of xG is even more important than the metric itself! So much damage in the sport comes from teams turning poor luck into a self-fulfilling prophecy; I would predict that these unlucky streaks in the table will shorten over time as more teams discover its advantages. And there are signs now that even tired, dusty old United might be part of that group.