Talking Numbers: Digging Deeper Into Manchester United’s Draw At Stamford Bridge

It was far from a vintage Manchester United performance, but some improvements were on display at Stamford Bridge, as the Red Devils were slight unlucky not to keep all three points and return to Manchester with a win. However, Ross Barkley’s late goal was a bit more deserved when the whole match is taken into consideration.

We talked yesterday about Anthony Martial’s great performance and plenty of other things. This time, let’s concentrate on Man United’s performance from a numbers’ perspective. What are they saying about this game and what can we conclude?

Manchester United And Low xG

We have talked about this quite often. Over a long period of time, expected goals is a good tool to see how is someone doing in front of opposition’s goal and Man United have not been brilliant. Their xG this season has been around 13.50, which United have overscored with 15 goals so far. So a slight overperformance brought mere 15 goals in nine matches? That is not great.

And United continued similarly against Chelsea. They did have good spells and they attacked much more and much better than usual, but in the end it brought a total of seven shots, none of which were high quality shots. Martial’s two shots that ended up as goals were pretty good, but United are still not creating big chances. Their xG of 0.75 this Saturday points to somewhere around 0.10 xG per shot and United must strive for a better ratio.

Neutralising Eden Hazard

Well this was so obvious just by watching the game. It was another afternoon of frustration for Eden Hazard. Not in terms of this season, though, as he has been spectacular for couple of months. It was more in the sense of Hazard being unable to turn up when not everything is great for his team, which we have seen many times over the previous seasons.

Against United, Hazard had four shots. Two of them were easily blocked, one was a miss from distance with a tight angle and one of them as saved by De Gea, but it was again from a tough angle and shot with his left foot.

Hazard attempted seven dribbles in this match, at least three more than any other player on the pitch. However, he completed just two of them, both far away from United’s goal. Mourinho really prepared well his players.

All Is Better When Lukaku’s Involved

This was not a great performance from Lukaku like we have seen from him before, but it was strikingly a game of two halves. In the first half, the Belgian was basically non-existent. He was never near the ball and stats back that up. Lukaku had just 10 touches in the opening 50 minutes of the match, only one of which was inside Chelsea’s box.

Remaining 40 minutes of the match had seen Lukaku touch the ball 25 times, four of which were inside the box and two or three more just around it. He was obviously more involved in everything that was happening, which also happened because Man United attacked much more.

That could be a good indicator what should Manchester United do instead of concentrating on old-school defending that has not really worked this season.

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