It wasn’t that long ago that Expected Goals (xG) was the footballing equivalent of Lord Voldemort; few dared mention the phrase out loud. Some people what xG would do to the game, others feared how they’d be viewed for using it. Now, though, we see xG popping up on Sky Sports and BBC’s Match of…
We’re a third of the way through the 2020/21 LaLiga season and it’s safe to say very few people would’ve envisaged Real Sociedad vying for top spot at this stage. La Real finished sixth courtesy of goal difference last term but were closer to ninth than they were to fourth in terms of their points…
At Twenty3, we built our Toolbox to help our customers get good work and make the most out of data. Whether that’s reference pages for statistics, beautiful graphics, or powerful insight tools, there’s a spanner or Allen key in the Toolbox for you. The latest addition to the kit sees the introduction of our very…
To say the 2020/21 Premier League campaign has been a strange one would be a bit of an understatement. We’re a third of the way through the season and the top four is made up of Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Leicester City and Southampton. Manchester City find themselves in ninth position while neighbours United are in…
How a player performs during certain game states is arguably one of the most important factors in ensuring victory, yet it’s regularly overlooked. Teams and individuals are judged and analysed on their output over the entirety of a game as a whole when it’d perhaps be far more beneficial to break it down into three…
Somehow, all old football fashion that looked terrible when I was a child is now popular. The old bruised banana Arsenal kit? Paid homage to with last season’s away kit. Kits with clashing splashes of neon-esque colour? All the rage. Patterns that look like the upholstery of public transport seats and tablecloths? Back. Fashion, I’m…
When Romelu Lukaku left Manchester United to join Inter, parts of the English media appeared to write the then 26-year-old off as past his best. His second and final season at Old Trafford yielded just 12 Premier League goals and it was evident from the off that Ole Gunnar Solskjær didn’t think there was a…
Up until this season, Patrick Bamford’s Premier League career had yielded just one goal. That solitary strike arrived during the 2016/17 campaign when he was a Middlesbrough player. He’d drawn blanks for Crystal Palace, Norwich City and Burnley prior to that despite plundering goals at Championship level. Fast forward four years, however, and only four…
RB Leipzig get a lot of praise for their innovative approach, both on and off the field. Manager Julian Nagelsmann is often lauded for his forward-thinking systems and it’s why he’s regularly tipped as a potential successor to arguably the two best tactical thinkers in the game today: Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp. They’re often…
Hitting the target and making the goalkeeper work is no longer good enough at the very top level. More often than not, chances are at a premium in the must-win clashes and failing to make the most of an opportunity is viewed as a waste. What’s more, these must-win matches are becoming increasingly more common.…