Sunderland have started exceptionally well this season, but their xG leaves a lot to be desired
Six points from three matches; there is not a Sunderland fan on this planet who wouldn’t have bitten your hand of for that tally heading into the first international break of the new Premier League campaign.
The Black Cats - untested at this level for the better part of a decade, and still in the process of bedding in their smorgasbord of fresh faces - could quite easily have hit that first hurdle against West Ham, stumbled unbecomingly, and faceplanted immediately into a relegation battle. Instead, they are sitting pretty in sixth - albeit with sterner challenges to come.
They have been good value for their stellar start too. Against the Hammers, they came out with an air of self-assuredness that few could have foreseen, and promptly put Graham Potter’s lacklustre visitors to the sword three times over when the opportunities presented themselves. Last time out, against Brentford, they left it late, but ultimately snatched all three points after a largely steadfast display in which they dictated a majority of possession and recorded nearly twice as many shots on goal.
Even against Burnley, when they struggled to find their rhythm and were undone by an admirably clinical home side, things could have been very different had either Eliezer Mayenda or Chemsdine Talbi succeeded in burying a pair of gilded openings.
But for all of their promise, and all of their early momentum, Sunderland are beginning to cultivate a slightly worrying trend that, if not addressed in short order, could come back to haunt them sooner rather than later.
According to stats database FBRef, the Black Cats have accumulated a total xG of just 3.0 this season - the fifth-lowest tally in the Premier League at the time of writing. Take Enzo Le Fée’s penalty against Brentford out of the equation and that figure falls to 2.21 - the third-lowest non-penalty XG in the entire top flight.
Now, obviously, there are caveats to this. For one, xG has its sceptics, and justifiably so. It is an inexact measurement, and one that, in a lot of respects, counts for very little; you can have all the xG in the world, but if you lose 1-0, you lose 1-0. The points column does not care for fastidious number-crunching.
Secondly, given that Sunderland have already netted five goals from an xG of just three, there is a reading of the stats that is hugely complimentary of the Black Cats’ finishing. They are, in effect, scoring goals they probably shouldn’t, and nobody is ever going to turn their nose up at that.
But the fact remains that despite their prowess in vital moments, and despite their relatively lofty perch in the table, Regis Le Bris’ men are probably not creating as much as they would like. Clear cut chances have been hard to come by over the course of those first three top flight outings, and that will presumably be a point of mild concern.
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Make no mistake, this is not panic stations or any kind of po-faced condemnation of what has been a wonderful reintroduction to life in the Premier League, but in each of their opening encounters this term, Sunderland have failed to create more than 1.0 xG from open play.
If they can keep getting away with it and scoring improbable goals like they did against West Ham or grinding out results by any means necessary like they did against Brentford, then great, no dramas. But if their lack of overt creativity eventually catches up with them, as it well might, then things could get tricky.
For now, everything is perfectly okay - and long may it stay that way. But you suspect that on some level, Le Bris and his staff would feel a lot better if Sunderland could find a way of inflating that pesky xG.
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