Defying xG, numbers and expectations: Villa almost at the Premier League summit

In football, two worlds often collide: the mathematicians who swear by data, and the aesthetes who trust the eye test. Nowhere is this more evident than in the debate over the much-discussed xG, or expected goals metric - a statistical measure that calculates the likelihood of a shot resulting in a goal.

For the analytically minded, xG is a near-absolute indicator of a team's performance. The theory is simple: quality, not quantity, of chances matters. Shots from the penalty spot carry more weight than speculative efforts from the halfway line. Over a full season, results should eventually align with the numbers. Luck, in this view, is fleeting and unreliable.

But Aston Villa are proving that football refuses to be neatly quantified. After 16 Premier League matches, Unai Emery's side sit third in the table, just three points behind leaders Arsenal. According to xG, however, Villa shouldn't even be near the top. Take their 3-2 victory over West Ham on Sunday: xG suggested Villa were the underdogs, registering 1.04 expected goals to West Ham’s 0.62. Yet on the pitch, they came out on top - a familiar story this season.

Villa have scored 25 goals, while their cumulative xG sits at just 17.06. When factoring in expected goals against (xGA), the numbers place them around 11th. In contrast, Arsenal and Manchester City, true to the stats, dominate the top of the table. Clearly, xG is not flawed - it just cannot account for moments of brilliance and clinical finishing.

Sunday's London win saw Morgan Rogers net a stunning long-range strike, his tenth of the season from outside the box. No other Premier League team has scored more than seven such goals, and yet Villa continue to defy expectations. Their repeated success has left algorithms seemingly baffled: the numbers insist one thing, but results tell another.

So how far can Villa's statistical anomaly stretch? As long as Emery's men keep delivering on the pitch, the numbers will have to keep recalculating. Football, it seems, remains as much art as science.

PREMIER LEAGUE - ROUND 16

Saturday

Chelsea - Everton 2-0 (2-0)

/Palmer 21, Gusto 45/

Liverpool - Brighton 2-0 (1-0)

/Ekitike 1, 60/

Burnley - Fulham 2-3 (1-2)

/Ugochukwu 21, Sonne 86 - Smith Rowe 9, Bassey 31, Wilson 58/

Arsenal - Wolverhampton 2-1 (0-0)

/Johnstone 70 (og), Mosquera 90+4 (og) - Arokodare 90/

Sunday

Crystal Palace - Manchester City 0-3 (0-1)

/Haaland 41, 88 pen, Foden 69/

Nottingam Forest - Tottenham 3-0 (1-0)

/Hudson-Odoi 28, 50, Sangare 79/

Sunderland - Newcastle 1-0 (0-0)

/Woltemade 46 (og)/

West Ham - Aston Villa 2-3 (2-1)

/Fernandes 1, Bowen 24 - Mavropanos 9 (og), Rogers 50, 79/

Brentford - Leeds United 1-1 (0-0)

/Henderson 71 - Calwert-Lewin 82/

Monday

23.00: (1.83) Man.Utd. (4.00) Bournemouth (4.05)

*** odds are subject to change ***