Stat, Viz, Quiz 125: Aston Villa Are Breaking All Expectations

The Premier League title race was blown wide open, there were late goals all over the place, and as if there wasn’t enough excitement on the pitch, Mohamed Salah decided to drop a grenade on Liverpool’s already chaotic season with his post-match comments about being blamed for their poor form. Things certainly weren’t dull.

Aston Villa secured a dramatic win over Arsenal, and in this week’s SVQ, we’ll see just how unlikely their surge up the table in recent weeks has been using Opta’s expected points model.

There was also a historic moment in Manchester City’s 3-0 win over Sunderland, and not one that a certain Black Cat will be too happy about.

As corners have been talked about almost to the point of tedium this season, we thought it was about time we talked about them again courtesy of this week’s Ask Opta question (it is interesting, though, honest) and we have another quiz to be tackled.

Before we get started, if you have a golf enthusiast in your life, you might find the below of interest in the run-up to Christmas…

If you know golf, you know the ball matters.

TP5 and TP5x are the balls top players switch to when they want tour-level speed, control, and feel. And this holiday season, TaylorMade has dropped the price to just $44.99.

It’s the perfect gift for the golfer who’s always chasing more consistency or the friend who keeps “borrowing” your balls on the course. Stock up now, for less, and make every round feel a lot more dialed in

Shop TP5/TP5x Now

There are all sorts of records in football. Most goals, most assists, quickest title wins, largest attendance, sweatiest manager… we’re not sure who holds that last one, but they exist somewhere.

There is also a rather obscure one that appeared over the weekend: Players who have been sent off in each of England’s top four divisions.

Another player was etched into that immortal list on Saturday, Sunderland’s Luke O’Nien, whose name is of course German for ‘Luke, Oh No” (slightly misspelled, admittedly).

O’Nien had only been on the pitch at the Etihad Stadium for seven minutes when he scythed down Manchester City’s Matheus Nunes and was subsequently given his marching orders, putting a final dampener on a disappointing 3-0 loss for Regis Le Bris’ men.

He became the sixth player to be sent off in each of the top four leagues since 2004-05, joining Ian Evatt, Grant Holt, Claude Davis, Stephen Quinn and Liam Cooper in being dismissed in matches in League Two, League One, the Championship and the Premier League during his career.

O’Nien was sent off for Wycombe Wanderers against Carlisle United in February 2018 in League Two, then received two red cards for Sunderland in League One, first against Peterborough United in August 2019, then against Portsmouth in October 2020. He was also dismissed against Swansea City in the Championship in January 2023, before Saturday’s sending off at Man City in the top flight completed the set.

Of course, O’Nien will always be loved by Sunderland fans for playing a huge part in their rise from the third tier back to the Premier League over the years, though we’re sure this is an accolade the 31-year-old would rather have avoided.

What a moment it was on Saturday. Villa Park erupted after, what seemed like several minutes of the ball bouncing around the Arsenal penalty area, Emiliano Buendía slammed in a stoppage-time winner for Aston Villa.

Their 2-1 victory over the Premier League leaders took them to within three points of the top, with Villa ending the weekend in third place and very much in the title picture after Matchday 15.

With the goal coming after 94 minutes and three seconds, Buendía scored the second-latest winning goal Arsenal have conceded on record (from 2006-07) in a Premier League game, after Neal Maupay scored against them for Brighton in June 2020 (94:26).

Keep an eye out on the Opta Analyst site, Villa fans, as we’ll have an article on Buendía’s impressive form later this week.

Astonishingly, Unai Emery’s men sit third in the table, despite the fact that Opta’s expected points model suggests they should be as low as 16th.

The model simulates the number of goals scored in each match using the expected goals (xG) value of every shot. It then simulates the outcome (win/draw/loss) 10,000 times per match. Each team’s expected points are calculated based on how often they win, draw, or lose across those simulations.

It’s not an exact science, as expected goals data doesn’t include factors such as game state and dangerous periods of possession that don’t lead to shots, but it’s still a decent barometer for how teams perform over the course of a campaign.

Villa have outperformed their expected points by a whopping 13.3, comfortably the most in the Premier League this season. Apart from Sunderland (+8.1), no other team has outperformed theirs by more than 4.2 points.

Villa have won nine of their last 10 Premier League games (L1), the first time they’ve had as many as nine wins in a 10-game spell in the top flight since December 1919. That shows this is not just a lucky run, they are a team of substance.

We recently wrote about how Villa were outperforming their xG by scoring a lot of long-range goals, which largely explains their expected points difference, but in their last two games against Brighton and Arsenal, all six of their goals came from inside the box, while they won the xG battle in both.

They travel to West Ham next week, before a trio of games against Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal to close out the year.

How far they can go remains to be seen, but it’s currently a good time to be a Villa fan.

We don’t know where the year has gone, either. But what we do know are the answers to the five tricky football data questions below (well, we did write them). Answers at the bottom.

1. Leandro Trossard’s goal for Arsenal at Aston Villa was his 50th in the Premier League, becoming the fifth Belgian player to reach the milestone. Who are the other four?

2. Which team have made the most changes to their starting XI between games in the Premier League this season in total?

3. In their 3-0 loss at Everton, Nottingham Forest conceded a goal inside the opening two minutes of a Premier League match for only the sixth time, and for the first time since who netted against them for Manchester United after two minutes in February 1999?

4. Since the start of last season, who are the only two teams to have conceded 2+ goals in more away games in the Premier League than Liverpool (15), who have done so in eight of their last 10 games on the road in the competition? Clue: One of them is no longer in the top flight.

5. Since Oliver Glasner's first game in charge of the club in March 2024, only three teams have won more Premier League points away from home than Crystal Palace (52). Who?

Our question this week comes from Graham H, who asks: “How many goals have been scored direct from corners in the Premier League this season? It feels like a lot.”

Do you have a stat-based question you’d like Opta to answer in a future edition of SVQ? Email us at [email protected] or message us on X @OptaAnalyst with #AskOpta and we’ll pick the best one.

Answer:

There was another at the weekend as Bruno Guimarães found the net directly from a corner in Newcastle United’s 2-1 home win over Burnley. The Brazilian’s goal was the 20th scored directly from a corner in Premier League history, and the first ever by a Newcastle player.

As for this season, it was only the second we have seen after Marcus Tavernier’s goal for Bournemouth against Nottingham Forest in October.

It does feel like a relatively new phenomenon, though, and they have indeed become a little more common in recent years.

Of the 20 direct corner goals in Premier League history, eight of them have come in the current decade, and four in the last two years. That includes last season when Matheus Cunha scored one against Manchester United for Wolves, a goal that was so good it earned him a move to Old Trafford last summer (there was perhaps a little more to United’s scouting, to be fair).

There weren’t any between David Thompson scoring one for Coventry City against Newcastle in January 2001 and Charlie Adam doing so for Blackpool against West Ham in February 2011. Then it was December 2015 before we saw another, from Junior Stanislas for Bournemouth against Man Utd.

Since then, including that Stanislas strike, there have been 12 goals direct from corners in the last 10 years in the Premier League.

As if corners weren’t scary enough for defenders these days.

Our Opta data hubs have detailed team and player stats, predictions, expected league tables and much more. Click/tap below to start your own data investigations.

Here's some of the latest data-driven offerings you can find on our website:

1. Leandro Trossard’s goal for Arsenal at Aston Villa was his 50th in the Premier League, becoming the fifth Belgian player to reach the milestone. Who are the other four?

Romelu Lukaku (121), Christian Benteke (86), Eden Hazard (85) and Kevin De Bruyne (72)

2. Which team have made the most changes to their starting XI between games in the Premier League this season in total?

Chelsea (46) – Against Bournemouth they made six changes to their starting XI from their previous Premier League match, their most between games this season

3. In their 3-0 loss at Everton, Nottingham Forest conceded a goal inside the opening two minutes of a Premier League match for only the sixth time, and for the first time since who netted against them for Manchester United after two minutes in February 1999?

Dwight Yorke

4. Since the start of last season, who are the only two teams to have conceded 2+ goals in more away games in the Premier League than Liverpool (15), who have done so in eight of their last 10 games on the road in the competition? Clue: One of them is no longer in the top flight.

Bournemouth (16) and Leicester City (16)

5. Since Oliver Glasner's first game in charge of the club in March 2024, only three teams have won more Premier League points away from home than Crystal Palace (52). Who?

Arsenal (65), Liverpool (57) and Manchester City (55)

Enjoying Stat, Viz, Quiz? Think it needs improvement? Send us your feedback to [email protected]. And don’t forget to add us to your trusted senders list to make sure SVQ doesn’t get directed to your junk folder.

Share us with your friends:

Until next time,
Opta Analyst