I wouldn’t write Coventry off because of their league position last season. We were 5th in league one but there were all sorts of mitigating circumstances and we ended it “better than 5th”. Coventry are similar. Towards the end of last season they were one of the best teams in the championship. Their improvements have been subtle, but as have ours. Again, not saying they’re world beaters, nor likely to be promoted, I just think they have a good chance of it. And a very good manager.
Personally I’m yet to be THAT convinced, I think it states the obvious most of the time - the teams with the highest xG are normally at the top end of the table unless they have a massive deficit in their xGA. There is the occasional oddity, i’d say someone like Oxford probably always have a high xG in L1 because of how they control games and have loads of shots but they’ve been underwhelming every season we were down there. Coventry xG when they won L1 was awful, but it was really high last season. Sunderland probably have a really high xG and win loads of corners which bumps it up, but we all know that when we get a corner it means nout because we never score from them I think it goes out of the window when you actually watch the football rather than just stat peddle, and some teams also just tend to suit playing certain teams. Last season Coventry beat Fulham twice convincingly but lost twice to both QPR and Luton. Neither of those are better than Fulham (highest xG in champ) but the way they play is obviously an issue for Coventry. Leicester and Newcastle both had awful xG pts last season but scored a lot of counter/set piece goals and finished a lot higher than they would have it it was decided by the Expected Goals system.
They weren’t better at the end of the season, they got more points in the first half of the season than the second. They only won 2 of their last 10. I’m not saying they can’t by the way, just saying I don’t see where their fans arrogance is coming from! Robins is definitely a good manager though and they’ve got progressively better every season that he’s been in charge.
Apparently Burnley going back in from O’Hare from Coventry so he might be left out of Sunday’s game if he hasn’t already gone by then!
They've just pocketed 20m from Everton for Dwight McNeil so hopefully they go in for o'hare and it disrupts Coventry a bit.
