Genoa-Como 1-4: «the scoreline lies». Fàbregas said it himself, and the numbers agree

The verdict, before the numbers

Como won 4-1 at Marassi, they are top of the table for one night, and they deserved to win. There is no argument about that: more shots, more chances, more box entries, and only one side was ever running the game.

Then there is the way it finished 4-1, and that is where the argument starts. Cesc Fàbregas opened it himself after the final whistle, saying the scoreline lies. That is not politeness. It is exactly what the numbers say.

Four goals from seventy-two hundredths

Here is the number that explains the evening better than any player rating.

Como scored four goals. The four shots that went in were worth, added together, 0.72 expected goals. Less than one. Four goals from less than one goal.

They are worth taking one at a time, because the difference between them matters.

Baturina, the equaliser. Worth 0.03 expected goals. Three hundredths. Out of a hundred shots from that spot, the model says three go in. It is the strike from distance that turns a match, and it is the kind of goal you cannot plan or repeat on demand.

Diao, the go-ahead goal. Worth 0.07. Seven hundredths.

Nico Paz, the third. Worth 0.31. This one is a real chance, and indeed it is the goal that takes Como onto another planet. With it Paz becomes the club's highest-scoring foreign player in history, and the pattern is that of a man who almost never wastes a proper opening.

Diao, the fourth. Worth 0.31. Another real chance, another goal.

Two goals from good chances and two goals from nothing. All four in the same afternoon.

For scale: since the season began, across the big five leagues, only two sides have scored four goals starting from even less. One is Inter against Monza. The other is Stuttgart, who did it yesterday against Cologne from 0.51 expected goals.

Which is why, when the manager who has just won 4-1 says the scoreline lies, he is not being modest: he is reading his own match better than anyone who only looked at the board.

But Como really are good, and that is a different number

Careful here, because this is the easiest place to get it wrong, and the most common way to misuse this data is to conclude "so Como got lucky".

No. Como are good.

The proof is not in this match, it is in the three of them lined up.

At Udine they produced more than Udinese and drew. At the Maradona they produced as much as Napoli and won. At Marassi they produced more than twice as much as Genoa and won. Three away trips, three times creating at least as much as the opposition, seven points.

The totals: seven goals scored from 5.49 expected, three conceded from 4.07. Seven points from 5.05 expected points. There is a two-point gap, and that is ordinary business, not the fluke of the century. Como are winning because they play well and because their forwards are finishing above the average.

The difference between the two statements is exactly this: yesterday's 4-1 will not happen again, Como will.

And now the part nobody wants to read: Genoa

The piece could end here, and it would be a piece about Como. But the most serious thing seen at the Ferraris has nothing to do with the winners.

Genoa have played three matches. They have no points and one goal. Everybody knows that much.

What few people know is how much they have produced: across those three matches together, chances worth 2.16 expected goals. In three matches. There are teams that produce that much in one.

And at the other end, in those same three matches, they have conceded forty box entries. Forty. It is the highest figure in Serie A and nobody is close.

An attack that creates nothing and a defence that lets anyone in are not a results problem, they are an identity problem. And the numbers here are not letting Genoa off: this is not the unlucky side that deserved more. This is a side earning precisely its zero points.

Afterwards, De Rossi did not try to tell it any other way: he spoke of the opposition's glaring superiority and called Como the most impressive team he has faced since taking the Genoa job. He is right too. But Como's quality explains why Genoa lost yesterday, not why Genoa have not hit the target for three weeks.

The honest bit

Three things, and the third is the one that really matters.

The 4-1 will not come back. Four goals from 0.72 expected are the exception, not the method. Anyone expecting this Como every Sunday will be disappointed, and Fàbregas said so first.

Como will still be up there. Because the win did not come from nowhere: it came from twenty shots to eleven, ten box entries to five, three big chances to one. Take away the exceptional finishing and you are still left with a side that wins that match, perhaps 2-1.

Genoa are in worse shape than the table says, and the table already says nothing. Because a team that loses with good numbers fixes itself within weeks. A team that creates two expected goals in three matches has to change something, and it is not luck.

And now we keep score

As always, we put the date on it and we come back.

If Como are genuinely good, over the coming weeks they will keep producing more than their opponents even when they are not scoring four. If instead it was a night of grace, we will see it in the shot count falling along with the goals.

And for Genoa there is only one thermometer, and it is not the result: how many expected goals they produce. As long as that number stays below one per match, the points will not come even with luck.

Check for yourself. In the Meritometro you will find the verdict on every match of this round based on chances rather than results, and in the Nerd Zone you can compare Genoa and Como on every statistic, shot by shot.