Two goals in six matchdays, and one of them is this one

Valencia arrived in Vitoria with two goals scored in five matches and the worst attacking output in the Liga. They left with three points, a clean sheet and the second goal of their season.

Alavés took fifteen shots, stayed on zero, and in five days lost two matches while creating more than their opponent each time. After six matchdays they still have 10 points, which is more or less what they deserve: the account, there, adds up. What does not add up is the way.

The verdict, before the numbers

The expected goals for the evening say 1.31 for Alavés and 0.84 for Valencia. Expected points 1.75 against 0.96.

It is not a domination, it is a clear advantage: the home side took 15 shots to 10 and were the only one of the two to have two genuinely dangerous chances. They lost 1-0.

The number: 2

Two is the number of goals Valencia have scored in six matchdays of league football. One of them is the one from Monday night.

To understand how little that is: the team has produced 4.17 expected goals in six matches, that is less than 0.70 per game, and has entered the box 17 times in total. They have conceded 55. The ratio between what they concede and what they build is more than three to one, and there is nothing like it in the rest of the Liga.

With those numbers Valencia have 4 points. Expected points say 5.00, so in this case the model is not even saying they have been unlucky: it is saying that a team creating so little can expect those points. The difference is that 3 of those 4 points all arrived together, on Monday night, in a match where they barely shot on target.

The goal is a right-footed shot from inside the box a quarter of an hour from the end, 0.406: the most dangerous attempt of the whole match, for both sides. It is also the only time Valencia found a clean ball in the opposition box.

Where Alavés lost the match

Not in the build-up, but in the two moments when they had a good ball.

The first is a header shortly before half time, 0.390, the most dangerous of the home side's chances: four times out of ten it ends up in the net. The second comes right after the restart, a header from a set piece worth 0.288. The other thirteen attempts are worth, all together, a little more than half a goal.

There is a detail that makes the picture less favourable than it seems. Alavés took fifteen shots but entered the box only five times, fewer than Valencia. That means the volume came almost entirely from outside or from wide positions: lots of shots, little danger per shot. It is the signature of a team that circles the opposition block without finding the corridor.

Valencia, for their part, defended with a low, compact line and hardly ever pressed: in Vitoria their 10.6 PPDA tells the story of a team that waits, while Alavés at 13.0 waited even more. Two teams that do not go and take the game to each other produce a match like this: ninety minutes without rhythm, decided by a single episode.

Five days, two defeats, and no obvious fault

Last Friday Alavés had lost 2-1 in Santander, and there too they had created more than their opponent: 2.27 expected goals against 1.38, with Racing able to turn into two goals something worth far less.

Two matches, almost 3.6 expected goals produced, one goal scored, zero points. You think of a team in crisis, and yet after six matchdays Alavés have 11 goals scored, 10.60 expected, 6 conceded from 6.14 allowed. Those are the numbers of an honest team, one that scores what it creates and concedes what it defends. The problem is that in five days they met two clinical opponents back to back.

We already wrote about this at the start of September, when Alavés had won in Pamplona with a single box entry. Back then the account was in their favour. Now it has swung back, and indeed the season balance between real points and expected points is just 1.38 against them. In six matchdays they have had everything and the opposite of everything, and in the end they are almost level.

The honest point

First, the opposite reading, and in this case it is a strong one. Valencia won because they defended well: seven box entries conceded in ninety minutes is very few for a team that concedes nine per game over the season. Anyone saying this is the first time the team has defended as a team, and that this matters more than expected goals, is right to point it out.

Second, the limit of the model. Fifteen shots for 1.31 expected goals says Alavés shot from distance, but it does not say how good the executions were. A scuffed right-footed effort and a clean one from twenty metres count the same.

Third, what we think. A team that scores 2 goals in six matchdays cannot live on nights like this, and the feeling is that Valencia's table position still has to get worse before it gets better: when you concede 55 box entries and make 17, a clean sheet is a result that rarely repeats itself. Alavés, by contrast, have nothing to fix, except their aim.

T.L.

Do you want to see how much each team really deserves its table position? The Meritometro compares real points and expected points. For those who want models and not headlines, there is the Nerd Zone.