Premier League MD11: Lucky winners and unlucky losers

The final international break of 2024 is here, and we can safely say the Premier League is starting to take shape.

Opta’s supercomputer now has Liverpool, who are five points clear at the top following their win over Aston Villa on Saturday, as the favourites to go on and win the title.

Manchester City lost a fourth straight game in all competitions as they went down 2-1 at Brighton, while Chelsea and Arsenal are third and fourth respectively after sharing the points.

When assessing the underlying metrics, it looks like Sunday’s draw at Stamford Bridge was a fair result, but that was not the case across the board this weekend.

Here, we pick out the lucky winners and unlucky losers from matchday 11.

Lucky winners: Manchester United

Manchester United are now under new management, with Ruben Amorim officially starting as head coach on Monday. But interim boss Ruud van Nistelrooy ensured he went out with a high as the Red Devils beat Leicester City 3-0 on Sunday.

However, it is fair to say United were rather fortunate to net three times at Old Trafford, with the data suggesting they did not even create chances worthy of one goal, never mind three.

United’s expected goals (xG) was 0.69, the third-lowest total in the league this weekend and behind Leicester’s 0.77.

Bruno Fernandes scored one and set up another on his 250th appearance for the club, either side of Victor Kristiansen’s own goal, but from 13 shots, United, who had only 17 touches in Leicester’s box, really did not create much in the way of quality opportunities.

100 – Bruno Fernandes has been directly involved in 100 goals in 170 appearances for Manchester United in the Premier League, reaching this milestone with just one more appearance than Cristiano Ronaldo (169) had upon doing so. Century. pic.twitter.com/iJX1o3HVSW

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 10, 2024

Indeed, their attacking quality instead told, with Fernandes and Alejandro Garnacho finishing well. At the other end, Leicester failed to make their moments count, despite hitting the target with five of their six shots.

Spare a thought for Erik ten Hag, given when he was in charge, United’s attack was underperforming. Now Amorim just needs to pick up where Van Nistelrooy left off…

Unlucky losers: Manchester City

Man City are suddenly the crisis club, having lost four straight games for the first time since August 2006. Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, has lost four games in a row in all competitions for the very first time in his managerial career.

Erling Haaland also lost a Premier League match in which he scored a goal for the very first time, having put City ahead before Joao Pedro and Matt O’Riley clinched the points for Brighton.

Brighton finished with 2.29 xG, so they did deserve to score at least twice. However, City can still consider themselves unfortunate, given their 2.22 xG was the third-highest of any team across the weekend.

Their post-shot expected goals on target (xGoT) also rose to 2.98, showing that Brighton goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen was on fine form.

City also created five big chances, missing four of them, and hit the woodwork once. That being said, they conceded eight big chances, with Brighton letting them off for six of those, so it was not a good day at the office for Guardiola.

Unlucky losers: Bournemouth

If Man City were unfortunate, then the team to have created the highest xG (2.61) this past weekend – Bournemouth – can consider themselves hard done by.

Andoni Iraola claimed his team were worthy of the three points against Brentford, despite the Cherries losing 3-2, and the underlying metrics suggest the Spaniard was fair in his assessment.

Only Tottenham (35 in their loss against Ipswich Town) had more touches in the opponent’s box than Bournemouth’s 34 at the Gtech Community Stadium, but Iraola’s side were made to pay for some dismal finishing.

Their xGoT dropped to 1.68, while Brentford’s rose from 1.48 xG to 1.84 xGoT – essentially, the level of finishing from Brentford’s players increased the likelihood they would score, while Bournemouth’s finishing was below what would have been anticipated based on the quality of chances they had. That is further backed up by the fact the Cherries only got three of their 15 attempts on target.