While Leeds United are sitting pretty in the Championship’s promotion places during the Christmas festivities, the season’s halfway point saw a Whites stat account on Twitter reflect on their performances compared to this point last season.
At the same stage last year, Leeds were top of the pile in the Championship and held a six-point lead over the play-off places after 23 games.
Of course, it didn’t quite work out – though Marcelo Bielsa’s side have picked themselves up to achieve an eight-point advantage ahead of the play-off zone despite not winning either of their previous two games.
Leeds United stats hub @LUFCDATA compared the two campaigns – with one stat regarding Expected Goals (xG) ringing alarm bells amongst the fans.
It shows a rise of over 10 goals compared to 2018/19, despite Leeds scoring three fewer than at this point last season.
That has left some fans at a loss to explain the differentials between goals expected, goals scored and points gained, as you can see from the replies below:
safe to say we’re better this year but that xG is ridiculous
— Armo☀️🌙 (@Jordan_Armo) December 24, 2019
We are head and shoulders above last season, yet less points 🤷🏻♂️
— Leeds That ⚪️ – lufc podcast (@leedsthat) December 24, 2019
How is it possible to improve on every stat yet the goals scored has dropped. Need a lethal hardworking striker in January 🙈
— david greenwood (@dgreenwood87) December 24, 2019
Interesting. Suggests we’re even more profligate but getting away with it due to a much improved defensive quality
— Si_Turismo (@Si_Marishka) December 24, 2019
Gut feel says that’s the case too. We seem to have become a bit more clinical/less profligate last few games but still work to do here
— James Clark (@clarkjames70) December 24, 2019
So what we see here is we need somebody to finish our chances
— ReeceJ (@TheChurchWorker) December 24, 2019
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Leeds fans, will your lack of goals this year come back to haunt you at the end of the season? Let us know what you think below!
