How have Premier League teams really started the season?
Both Manchester United and Chelsea have one of the top five attacks in the league but, worryingly, they are also in the bottom five defensively.
While Liverpool’s back-to-back defeats after five straight wins gave a more accurate picture of how they played, Tottenham needed to be very efficient to make up for their lack of dominance in games.
Aston Villa’s early-season struggles are no longer about finishing – they’ve now scored six non-penalty goals with an xG of 6.0 – it’s simply because they weren’t playing well.
Promoted teams Leeds and Sunderland have settled into the top flight quite well, while Burnley have struggled to make the leap so far with both their worst attack and their worst defence.
Looking at the attacks of the teams in the next graph, United, Arsenal and Liverpool were by far the teams with the most shots, with an average of 15 shots per match.
But the reason City and Crystal Palace have the best attacks overall is because they create much better chances, with an average of 0.14 xG per shot.
What this means is that historically Premier League teams have converted 14% of shots created by City and Palace, compared to 10% of shots created by United, Arsenal and Liverpool.
