It is widely believed that Expected Goals is the best way to measure how well Premier League clubs are playing in a given match.
To better see how teams are doing, the Expected Goals (xG) metric can give you a better idea of how teams are performing.
Expected goals (xG) is a statistic used to calculate how many goals should be scored in a match.
Each individual shot is assigned an xG value based on the difficulty of the attempt, with factors such as distance to goal, type of shot and number of defenders present influencing the value.
The higher the xG of a given shot, the greater the chance that a goal will be scored with that shot.
The xG value of each shot in a match is then used to calculate the expected goals in a given match.
So instead of just the usual basic stats of how many shots each team has, Expected Goals takes into account where the shot was taken from, how good the chance was and if there were any defenders in the way, etc.
This was five Premier League games on Sunday, with expected goals stats (plus actual final score in brackets) via Undercarriage:
Aston Villa 1.88 v Bournemouth 2.01 (4-0)
Palace 0.84 against Brighton 0.64 (0-0)
Brentford 2.74 Newcastle United 0.43 (3-1)
Forest 2.49 vs Leeds 0.42 (3-1)
Man City 1.60 vs Liverpool 1.03 (3-0)
As you can see, some interesting matches, both in terms of the final outcome and the expected goals stats.
In the match between Palace and Brighton it was clearly a match that was very low in terms of clear scoring chances and expected goals statistics (0.84 vs 0.64) reflected in the goalless final score.
The match against Aston Villa is an odd one, very similar and decent expected goals stats (1.88 vs 2.01), but clearly a match where Villa were clinical as they scored four goals. While the opposite happened at Bournemouth, who failed to capitalize on a relatively large number of good chances.
Man City are the better team and deserve to win (expected goals stats 1.60 vs 1.03), but Pep’s side are clinical with their finishing to score a whopping three goals, while Liverpool’s finishing matches their overall performance.
Forest bounced back from an early goal at Leeds and their dominance in expected goals (2.49 to 0.42), which went a long way to justifying the eventual dominant 3-1 home win.
That leaves the match in Newcastle.
Brentford (2.74) had the very highest expected goals statistic of the ten teams that played on Sunday, while Newcastle was only slightly higher (0.43) than Leeds (0.42) who had the very lowest of the ten.
The 2.31 difference in expected goals between Brentford and Newcastle was also by far the largest.
All this suggests that the Bees absolutely deserve the win.
In addition to the expected goals metrics, we have the evidence from our own eyes AND the other relevant key metrics that help paint the full picture.
Brentford with three times as many shots (15 v 5), the home side with seven shots on target compared to just the Barnes goal for Newcastle, three times as many corners (6 v 2), while Brentford had more than twice as many touches in the opponent’s penalty area (35 v 16) compared to United.
Brentford 3 Newcastle 1 – Sunday 9 November 2025 2pm
Match statistics
Goals:
Newcastle United:
Barnes 27, red card 73
Brentford:
Damage 56, Thiago 78 pen, 90+5
Possess was Newcastle 51% Brentford 49%
Total shots were Newcastle 5 Brentford 15
Shots on target were Newcastle 1 Brentford 7
Corners were Newcastle 2 Brentford 6
Touches in the opposition box Newcastle 16 Brentford 35
Newcastle team vs Brentford:
Pope (Ramsdale 77), Trippier, Thiaw, Botman, Burn, Bruno (Miley 96), Joelinton (Ramsey 24), Tonali (Willock 77), Murphy (Elanga 77), Woltemade, Barnes (Hal 77)
subtitles:
Ramsdale, Schar, Lascelles, Krafth
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