The League Two Stat Pack #1

A new feature looking at the data around League Two, how United stack up, and some detail on our next opponent

The 25/26 League Two season is well and truly underway now. Nearly everyone has played four games, and in the spirit of being in full swing it’s time for our first League Two Stat Pack article.

In these fortnightly (roughly) articles we’ll be sharing some data about the league as a whole – sort of a “state of the league” type of piece, checking out our competition across the division to see what the numbers say about how everyone is performing, including drilling down on certain standout players and expanding on United’s data too in comparison. Don’t worry, the very popular Get Your Stats Right pieces aren’t going anywhere, where we’ll look specifically at United’s numbers every month as usual.

Plus, in these pieces we’ll preview an upcoming opponent or two with some key information looking at how our data and theirs stack up against each other, so you can get a clue about what the numbers say we should expect before the game.

If there’s anything extra you’d like to see included in these, we’d love your feedback. Just drop a comment below and we can look to include it in future editions.

League Two Round-Up

Expected Points

The table below ranks each team by their expected points (for more info on the calculation, please see this article), but we also have expected goals for & against (xG & xGA) here to see how a team is faring in attack and defence.

Goals for and against & xG and xGA exclude penalties and own goals. Expected points include penalties.

With 7 points from 7.34 expected points, United are performing just as expected. We’re also performing as expected in front of goal so far, scoring 6 goals from 5.56 xG. However, we’ve conceded about 1 goal more than expected, although after 4 games that’s not too bad. Excuse the link to a tweet, but our issue isn’t so much in conceding more than expected so much as it is the way we’re conceding. I’ve been detailing my thoughts on this in a running quote thread.

In short: 5 of the 6 goals we’ve conceded so far have occurred after 5-6 of our players get drawn into the ball, clumping together unnecessarily and leaving opponents wide open to score or assist. If Harris doesn’t address this soon in training, we will be in for a very frustrating season defensively.

But enough about us (for now). Elsewhere on the table, our next opponents Bristol Rovers are the biggest under-performers so far. They have earned almost 6 points fewer than expected, largely because they simply cannot finish their chances. They have no problems creating chances, so let’s hope the floodgates don’t open for them on Saturday!

Table-toppers Crewe Alexandra are the biggest over-performers so far, largely because of their ability to force shots off target as well as Tom Booth’s solid shot-stopping in the opening few weeks.

Player Expected Goals – Top 20

Below is a table showing the top 20 players by non-penalty xG.

Fleetwood’s Will Davies ranks on top with 2.72 xG, and he’s finished his chances so far with 3 goals. Josh March is just below him but only opened up his account for the season on Tuesday. Kaikai breaks into the top 20 having 1.41 xG and 1 goal so far.

It’s too early in the season to really judge if a player is over or under-performing, so right now we can use this to see who the league’s main shooting threats have been this season, and we’ll keep an eye on it in future weeks as trends start to appear.

Cambridge United Players xG

Now let’s take a look at our players.